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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: January/February 2007

International adoption pioneer in trouble in California

 

SAN MARCOS, Calif.--Mina Sharpe, 25, who founded the Taiwan Abandoned Animal Rescue Foundation in Taipei at age 12, may be charged with violating probation, after San Marcos animal control officer Tunis VanBerkum on December 9, 2006 found her keeping 16 dogs and two rabbits in allegedly filthy conditions in a 700-square-foot home.

The animals were surrendered to the Escondido Humane Society.

Earlier in 2006 Sharpe was convicted of keeping 18 dogs in unsanitary conditions at her former home in Carlsbad, and was ordered to find other homes for all but two of them.

The Taiwan Abandoned Animal Rescue Foundation was among the first organizations to arrange international adoptions through the Internet, and among the first to send animals to the U.S. by finding travelers who were willing to transport animals as part of their baggage.

While PETA, the World Society for the Protection of Animals, and the Humane Society of the U.S. urged Taiwanese pounds to kill animals with sodium pentobarbital instead of leaving them to die of starvation and neglect, as was common because of the Buddhist prohibition on killing, Sharpe argued in a March 2000 guest column for ANIMAL PEOPLE that international humane organizations working in Taiwan should instead build on the no-kill ethic. Sharpe asked the global humane community to help establish high volume, low-cost pet sterilization in Taiwan, and to promote shelter adoptions.

Sharpe also had a catalytic effect on humane work in Thailand, where her rescue of an injured dog in 1998 won extensive media attention and helped to stimulate public discussion about how Thai neglect of strays was falling short of the Buddhist cultural ethic.

Sharpe and her family relocated from Taiwan to Carlsbad in June 2000, bringing along 30 dogs for U.S. adoption, at cost of $10,000. The dogs were placed with the aid of U.S. organizations including the Arlington Humane Society, near Seattle, and Pets Alive, of Westchester, New York.

Sharpe continued to import dogs from Taiwan for U.S. placement, but never registered TAARF as a U.S. nonprofit organization, and gradually fell out of contact with her allies and supporters. Pets Alive founder Sara Whalen told ANIMAL PEOPLE that her understanding was that Sharpe had retired from rescue several years before her arrest.

Sharpe remained in occasional contact with ANIMAL PEOPLE until April 2005, when she was sent yet another of many personal reminders about the necessity of obtaining nonprofit status and not taking in more animals than she could place.