ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: May 2007

Letters to the Editor

Cats & rabbits

I read with interest the March 2007 ANIMAL PEOPLE article "When the cat is away," about the feral rabbit population increasing tenfold on Macquarie Island since the island feral cats were exterminated in June 2000.

As a neuter/return volunteer, I have fought extremely hard to change attitudes towards feral cats in a similar situation locally, involving Robben Island, where former South African president Nelson Mandela spent most of the 27 years that he was imprisoned for opposing apartheid. The situation is dire.

--Rita Brock
Cat Assistance Team
P.O. Box 48157
Kommetjie
South Africa
082-806-3144
<rijo@icon.co.za>

Editor's note:

John Kieser, who shot more than 100 cats, reducing the Robben Island cat population to just two in February 2007, has been reassigned to shooting the resident rabbits, who have lived on the island for more than 300 years. Without the cats, the 3,000 rabbits have no predator. Cape Town news media report that Kieser is also likely to be asked to shoot 120 fallow deer who live on the island.

Vets in Pakistan

Vets Care Organization, in Pakistan, is engaged in animal welfare of animals and uplift of the veterinary profession through arranging seminars, field days, and free veterinary treatment camps.
These camps provide free clinical help and medicines to the poor farmers, and enhance the professional skills of the participating veterinary students.

Vets Care Organization organized our most recent free treatment camp in the Ratu Chak village, Shakar Garh district, Narowal, on March 18. The objective was to highlight the importance of de-worming farm animals. More than 30 members of the Vets Care Club at the University of Veterinary & Animal Sciences in Lahore attended.

The participants worked in three teams to de-worm and treat buffaloes, cattle, sheep, goats, dogs and donkeys.

--Waseem Shaukat
Media Coordinator
Vets Care Organization
Assistant Editor
Veterinary News & Views
Room # D-31
Iqbal Hall
University of Veterinary
& Animal Sciences
Lahore 54000, Pakistan.
Phone: 92-334-972-0758
<drwaseemshaukat@yahoo.com>

Rat poison kills wildlife (can kill feral cats, too)

In response to lawsuits filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and others last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is finally proposing to take small cardboard boxes that contain candy-like colored pellets of rat poison off of our supermarket shelves, to reduce the 20,000 annual reported incidents of small children eating the pellets. If the EPA proposal takes effect, rat poison will have to be sold in block form, in tamper-resistant bait boxes.

Not addressed is the incidence of wildlife dying from eating rodents who have been poisoned with the newest line of rodent poisons, called "single feed" poisons, or "second generation rodenticides."

Eagles, peregrine falcons, endangered kit foxes, and other animals are dying because it takes several days for each poisoned rodent to die. During these several days, rodents can and do eat enough of the poison to kill their natural predators.

The EPA has opened a 60-day comment period that expires on May 18, 2007.

We are asking the EPA to limit "single-feed" rodent poison use to indoors only. This will limit wildlife exposure to only those rodents who are poisoned indoors but die outdoors.

Ideally these five-times-more lethal rodent poisons should be banned, but this step will save non-target wild lives.

As long as these poisons are placed near every dumpster across our country, our environment will continue to be littered with the bodies of rodents so toxic that they kill the animals who eat them, and we will continue to lose endangered species for the sake of killing a few mice and rats.

--Jamie Ray
San Francisco
Rescued Orphan
Mammal Program
(hotline)
415-350-WILD
<jamie_ray@comcast.net>
<www.sfromp.org>

Richard Schwartz

A testament to Animal People's influence is that Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D., writes compelling letters for publication. Richard H. Schwartz is the inspiring and erudite author of Judaism & Vegetarianism and Judaism & Global Survival. The latter incisively accentuates solutions to major issues including human rights, social justice, ecology, climate change, hunger, world peace, and the global imperative of vegetarianism. Judaism & Global Survival is a must read for people who care about the earth. Make certain to read the 2002 Revised Edition.

--Brien Comerford
Glenview, Illinois
<Bjjcomerford@aol.com>

Statistical resource

I just wanted to tell you what a wonderful resource Animal People has been for a project I'm working on about the scope of euthanasia in shelters. The statistical work and data presentation done through Animal People is first rate. It is really one of the only continuous, reliable sources of information for estimating numbers of stray, feral, and free-roaming cats, and understanding the challenges and dangers they face.

Thank you so much for the work you folks have done over the years, especially taking on this important and much-needed quantitative role!

--Holly Anderson
Cornell College of
Veterinary Medicine
Class of 2010
Ithaca, N.Y.
<ha76@cornell.edu>

Correction
Eileen Weintraub was credited on page 16 of the April 2007 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE for taking a photograph of Compassion Unlimited Plus Action wildlife rehabilitator Saleem Hameed. Weintraub tells us that the photo was actually taken by Savitha Nagabhushan.

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