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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
|
MONTH: June 2007
Books
World Society for the Protection of Animals Members Manual
Looseleaf binder & CD formats
- 348 pages. Annual membership fee: $80.00.
http://www.wspa-usa.org/pages/1948_becoming_a_u_s_member_society.cfm
As "Go forth and multiply!"
is the first commandment of survival for institutions and causes, as well
as species, some of the first publications of the earliest British and
American humane societies were essays encouraging sympathizers in distant
places to organize in a similar manner.
The 348-page WSPA Members Manual is probably
the most ambitious such effort yet. It draws liberally from many other
humane how-to publications, not always with acknowledgement. Each chapter
ends with an extensive list of further information sources.
The first portion of the WSPA Members
Manual makes a laudable yet perversely backward effort to inform animal
advocates about the history and philosophical antecedents of the cause.
Unfortunately, especially since the WSPA
Members Manual is meant to inspire and encourage humane work in developing
nations, the list of "Historical Milestones in the Animal Protection
Movement" begins in 1781, and includes mostly British developments.
One paragraph acknowledges the mid-19th century formation of the first
U.S. humane societies. Passing mentions are made of Germany, Switzerland,
and the European Union. Of the rest of the world, there is just a note
that "Colonial influences led to setting up many SPCA-like organizations
in Asia, South America, and Africa."
This omits that the first humane societies
in Britain were hugely influenced and partially modeled after the pro-animal
teachings and temple animal sanctuaries that some of the founders had
encountered while doing military service in India.
The ANIMAL PEOPLE Chronology of Humane
Progress by contrast starts in 1300 B.C. and includes notice of developments
in many different parts of the world.
The WSPA Members Manual discussion of
"Ethical and Philosophical Views" and a "Summary of Philosophical
Beliefs" focus on European philosophers, with passing notice of some
contemporary Americans. Only after that does the manual acknowledge the
pro-animal teachings within major religions, giving Hinduism two paragraphs
and Buddhism just one--with about the same number of words as a paragraph
on Greek Orthodoxy.
After this intensively ethnocentric opening, the WSPA Members Manual presents a series of glossaries of terms used in humane work, explaining key concepts, such as the importance of reducing the carrying capacity of urban habitat in trying to control populations of street dogs and feral cats.
Most of this material is quite useful,
and some of it does a fair job of presenting conflicting perspectives
on problematic issues.
But more oddness is ahead.
For example, there is considerable discussion
of how to choose a mission, after starting an organization. This is completely
inverse to how humane societies form. ANIMAL PEOPLE has assisted in the
formation of countless humane organizations, in all parts of the world.
Almost always, they start with the perception of a job needing to be done,
and grow from there into recognizing that an organization must be created
to do it. If a humane society has to choose a mission, it is usually because
the society is already performing multiple missions, and realizes that
it cannot do them all well. The choice is deciding what to give up--and
often involves creating a new organization to take over the role that
has to be jettisoned.
The WSPA Members Manual also talks at
length about forming committees to do this and that, and about many other
aspects of management which simply do not occur in start-up organizations.
Some of this material may be relevant to humane societies that have already
grown to significant size, but most of it is quite out-of-touch with the
realities of small organizations, in which very little can be delegated
to anyone other than the founders.
The World Society for the Protection of
Animals, as the WSPA Members Manual explains, "was created in 1981
through the merger of the World Federation for the Protection of Animals,
founded in 1953, and the International Society for the Protection of Animals,
founded in 1959."
Both WFPA and ISPA were formed specifically
to encourage humane societies to go forth and multiply, after their numbers
had been woefully depleted throughout Europe and the Pacific Rim by fascist
repression and World War II.
After initial great success in western
Europe, where humane institutions were mostly rebuilt on battered but
structurally sound foundations, the WSPA parent societies and later WSPA
itself refocused on Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Missionaries
Typically they worked with institutions
begun by religious missionaries, for example Alice Manning, whose estate
indirectly enabled the Massachusetts SPCA to found ISPA as a subsidiary.
Not surprisingly, WFPA, ISPA, and eventually WSPA followed the missionary
model. For decades they sent experts abroad to try to start humane societies
organized in emulation of British and American societies, just as missionaries
go forth to found churches.
The typical outcome was that the new humane
societies would last only as long as outside funding did, and then implode,
having utterly failed to develop local support. The political and economic
instability of many developing nations further sabotaged colonization
efforts--and so did a penchant for trying to work with corrupt or ineffective
governments, seeking quick-fix "victories" that could be touted
to western donors, instead of building a broad base of local support.
The 1990s changed the paradigm.
First, the institutions ancestral to WSPA
had been most successful working in the technologically developed but
war-blighted nations of western Europe. The fall of Communism in eastern
Europe opened up a similar opportunity for WSPA and other outreach organizations,
helping to rebuild and restart organizations which sometimes had existed
at least in name since the 19th century.
Usually, though, the eastern European
societies were starting from scratch, with no resources or institutional
experience, even if they had old charters. Third World conditions prevailed,
from animal care to economic management--and often still prevail, despite
increasing animal advocacy.
Killing impounded dogs and cats by any
cheap means, in order to sell their fur, is no longer as openly done as
in the Communist era, but is still often reported.
Corruption in eastern European humane
work is no longer as flagrant as when the alleged human trafficker Wolfgang
Ullrich raised and stole as much as $45 million in funds donated to help
animals, mostly in Romania, before a German court sent him to prison.
Yet humane societies are still struggling with the Ullrich-era legacy.
Hangovers from it include bitterly disenchanted western donors; rival
organizations flamboyantly accusing each other of corruption; restrictions
on the export of dogs for adoption from some nations, imposed because
some dogs were allegedly covertly sold to laboratories; and prohibitions
on using veterinary drugs which might also be used in "date rape,"
and are still extensively used in human trafficking.
The WSPA Members Manual does not discuss
what to do about working under such shadows. But it exists partly because
some members have found ways.
Just a few years ago a case could be made
that the most successful outcome of humane outreach to post-Communist
eastern Europe was the growth of some of the institutions begun to do
it. Among them were the Humane Society International division of the Humane
Society of the U.S., which moved out into the rest of the world after
initial outreach to Russia and Romania; the Austrian multi-national animal
charity Vier Pfoten; and the International Companion Animal Welfare Conference.
But, scattered throughout eastern Europe,
upstart groups often begun by student activists five to 10 years ago have
matured with their leadership, developed constituencies, and--usually
beginning with little or no physical infrastructure --have become world
leaders in developing Internet-based campaigns. An alphabetical roster
would run from Animal Rights Croatia to VITA, of Moscow, and would include
at least one group in almost every former Iron Curtain nation.
While WSPA and other multi-national animal
charities focused on eastern Europe, Internet-savvy young people also
started an unprecedented proliferation of humane organizations around
the economically booming Pacific Rim, with remarkably little outside help.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare had pursued the missionary approach
to building humane societies in several Pacific Rim nations during the
1980s, but retrenched just before the boom began.
Founded by former IFAW representative
Jill Robinson, the comparatively tiny Animals Asia Foundation has been
the most influential multinational humane society involved in the emergence
of indigenous Asian animal advocacy, but as an exemplar, showing others
how to do things, rather than trying to direct the action.
Finally, the Indian animal advocacy movement
has emerged into global influence, even though there is not, as yet, even
one genuinely national animal charity in India. The closest approach is
People for Animals, a constellation of loosely linked locally autonomous
animal charities begun by Maneka Gandhi in 1984. Through the Asia for
Animals conference series, begun in 2001, the Asian Animal Protection
Network online news and discussion group, begun in 1996, and increasing
involvement in international programs, Indian animal advocacy leaders
have discovered that they have a wealth of ideas and experience to share
that often translate into models more applicable to other developing nations
than the teachings of the western missionaries.
The organizational task ahead for WSPA,
as "the world's largest international federation of animal protection
organizations, with over 650 societies in more than 140 counties,"
as the introduction touts, is to make the transition from being a missionary
institution to becoming a genuinely globally representative body.
This includes learning from the membership
outside Britain and the U.S.--and acknowledging that the humane movement
did not begin with the British Empire, much as British donors and organizations
have done to further it.
--Merritt Clifton
Your Cat: A Revolutionary Approach to Feline Health and Happiness
by Elizabeth M. Hodgkins, DVM,
Esq.
Thomas Dunne Books
(c/o St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Ave., New York,
N.Y. 10010), 2007. 320 pages, hardcover. $27.95.
How gullible we all are. How easily we accept the blandishments of the big pet food producers that their dry and unnatural pellets are a "balanced and complete" food for our companion animals. Common sense should tell us that this cannot be so. The main component of these mass-produced convenience foods often consists of cereals such as corn, for which a carnivore's digestive system is not designed.
One will not see a wild cat chewing on
a corn cob.
Of course it is so convenient to open
a packet of kibbles and pour them out into a bowl. No cooking, no mess,
no cleaning up and the dry pellets can stay out all day. This reviewer
learned by chance how important it is for a companion animal to receive
adequate natural food. Her Rottweiler bitch, fed mainly on processed dog
food, was on the point of being put down by the vet at the age of two
years for severe and painful hip dysplacia, when the dog discovered where
the chickens on the farm were laying their eggs. She began to consume
eggs daily. In no time her skeletal development completed itself, the
hip dysplacia disappeared, and she lived to a ripe old age.
As Hodgkins explains in her book, "Dogs
are omnivores who eat meat when it is available. Cats, big and small,
are obligatory carnivores. The omnivore does not eat meat as a mandatory
requirement for life; vegetable food sources can make up a very large
part of their diet. For the cat, however, meat, and the nutrients found
only in meat, are essential for survival."
Common sense is better when backed up
by a scientist with loads of research and experience. Enter Elizabeth
Hodgkins, a veterinarian of some 28 years experience, who breeds and rears
award-winning Ocicats. Hodgkins write Your Cat to dispel some popular
industry-promoted misconceptions. One of these is that a cat has different
nutritional needs in each of three stages of life.
Summzarizes Hodges, "The theory goes
that kittens need a certain type of nutrient profile (the combination
of protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamins, and minerals in a diet); adult
cats need a different nutrient profile; and older, 'senior' cats need
another, different nutrient profile in order to achieve and maintain optimum
health."
Hodgkins maintains that this is just a
marketing gimmick. Cats are carnivores whatever their age, and will get
all their nutrition from a natural meat diet. Indeed, the feeding of processed
foods, which contain unnatural ingredients for a carnivore, such as cereals
and sugars, is a recipe for obesity, and then cancer, heart disease, arthritis
and diabetes.
Considering the many food products on
the market today, the advertising environment, and the different nutritional
values of various processed foods, this book will help the guardian to
choose healthier products. Hodgkins explains how to decipher the labels
on pet food products. She is to be commended for pointing out the serious
flaws in the commercial diets that are commonly fed to domestic cats.
Her book covers the care and feeding of cats at all stages of their lives,
from raising a healthy kitten to the golden years of the senior cat. She
deals with all aspects of cat care, including diseases, vaccinations,
sterilization, parasites, and toilet training. She writes with clarity
and passion, making her book both interesting and easy to understand.
--Beverley Pervan
<www.cannedlion.co.za>
South Africa
Editor's note:
Of note is that the "natural meat
diet" for a cat consists chiefly of mice, eaten whole, including
the undigested grain in their gastrointestinal tracts. Cats such as African
lions, who hunt larger prey, often eat the stomachs and intestines of
their victims first, apparently aware that they need their veggies, even
if second-hand. However, they ignore undigested, i.e. "uncooked"
rumen.
The idea behind adding grain glutens to
manufactured pet food is to try to simulate the grain component of a cat
or dog's "natural meat diet." The conventional test of grain
gluten protein content measures nitrogen emissions. Grain glutens imported
from China were recently found to have been adulterated by the addition
of a nitrogen-emitting coal extract called melamine, to make them appear
to contain more protein than they did.
However, laboratory tests have never found
melamine by itself to be as toxic as it apparently was when incorporated
into pet food. Current theory is that the process of simulating pre-digestion
somehow enhanced the toxicity of melamine, and/or a melamine byproduct
called cyanuric acid, which also was found in pet food samples.
Defending Animal Rights
by Tom Regan
University of Illinois Press (1325 S. Oak St.
Champaign, IL 61820), 2006.
200 pages, paperback. $20.00.
Most of this collection of nine essays
on matters pertaining to animal rights originated as lectures, originally
published in 2001.
Though best known as a philosopher, Regan
ventures beyond moral philosophy. For example, chapter eight, entiled
"Ivory Towers Should Not a Prison Make," relates the hostility
and disparagement that Regan has encountered from some of his academic
colleagues.
In chapter six, "Patterns of Resistance,"
Regan delves into historical parallels between today's animal rights movement
and previous social reform movements, such as those for the abolition
of slavery and the recognition of basic rights for women and homosexuals.
Regan describes how many scientists and churches have historically offered
defenses, acceptable at the time, for the worst forms of social inequality,
and compares the rhetoric used against other social reform movements with
the epithets thrown at animal advocates today.
In chapter seven, "Understanding
Animal Rights Violence," Regan compares the arguments of the great
divide in the anti-slavery movement between reformers and abolitionists,
with the divide he perceives between advocating for animal welfare and
advocating for animal rights.
Regan's practical suggestion for bridging
the divide, echoing the late Henry Spira, is for activists to pursue incremental
abolition’ targeting specific abuses that are recognized as affronts
to both animal welfare and animal rights.
The aim is to create a shared agenda that
will attract the endorsements of most people who are concerned about the
issues. Advancing a shared agenda, Regan believes, could defuse the idea
that animal protection can only be achieved by acting violently, outside
the democratic system. Regan concludes "as things stand at present,
the wonder of it is not that there is animal rights violence, but that
there is not more of it."
--Chris Mercer
<www.cannedlion.co.za>
Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm
by Jon Katz
Villard (c/o Random House, 1745 Broadway,
New York, NY 10019), 2007.
288 pages, paperback. $23.95.
Those who have read Jon Katz's previous
books and followed his journey to Bedlam Farm will welcome this sequel.
As usual Katz writes with passion. Heart-warming
stories of the interaction among him, the dogs, and all the other animals
of Bedlam Farm offer lessons to urban dwellers who live remote from nature
and a natural way of life.
Apart from the familiar border collies,
who feature in Katz's earlier books, Dog Days introduces two recent bovine
arrivals, Elvis the steer and Luna the cow.
As Jon and Bedlam Farm have developed,
so has debilitating pain in his lower back. Annie, his so-called Farm
Goddess, has joined him to help with the chores. Annie, with her feminine
capacity to identify with animals, understands the different personalities
of each and every animal on the farm and thereby gains their love and
trust.
Jon sees personality in his dogs, but
prefers to see sheep as livestock.
An appealing aspect of Katz's writing
is his honesty about his own shortcomings, especially in training the
border collies. For example, Katz describes a frustrating training session
with Izzy, a border collie who spent the first three years of his life
in a small enclosure, before Katz rescued him and brought him to the farm:
Annie was walking past, toting water for the donkeys.
"You see that?" I asked, impatiently.
"What's wrong with him?"
Annie has unusual genes: Guile and anger
appear missing from her psyche. She doesn't know how to be anything but
honest, and her advocacy for animals can quickly turn ferocious. "What's
wrong with you?" was her response. I was surprised.
"What do you mean?"
"You're edgy and angry. You're yelling
at him. He's picking up on your anger and it's freaking him out."
This was so obviously true that it was
embarrassing to have to hear about it from someone else.
Added to the dramas that play out every
day with the animals, there are the people in Jon's life: Paula, his wife,
who lives between two worlds, working in New York City but residing on
the farm; Annie, who will teach Jon a thing or two about animals; Anthony,
whose help with rebuilding the barns and house is essential; and all the
people who form the rural community.
This is a delightful book. I look forward
to the next book about Bedlam Farm, to follow up the stories of Rose the
wonder dog and Izzy, the new canine partner in Jon's life.
--Beverley Pervan
Where The Blind Horse Sings
by Kathy Stevens
Skyhorse Publishing (555 Eighth Ave., Suite 903,
New York, NY 10018), 2007.208 pages, hardcover. $22.95.
What, if anything, do most of us know
about the personalities of the animals raised for slaughter?
Pigs, cows, sheep, and chickens are not
colorless, characterless creatures, emphasizes Catskill Animal Sanctuary
founder Kathy Stevens. Rambo, for example, is a sheep whose intelligence
and communication skills are an inspiration to all who work with him.
Writes Stevens of one incident involving Rambo, "I received my graduate degree from Tufts University in 1989. In the three years of the program, I read over a hundred books by noted public policy experts, politicians, historians, sociologists, teachers and philosophers. The influence of a few of them--John Dewey, Noam Chomsky, Jonathan Kozol--on my thinking about education was profound.
But somehow the lesson I'd just received
from a sheep far surpassed in its impact anything I'd read, discussed,
or debated at one of the country's top universities."
Darwin and Petri are ducks who had never
seen water. Over the course of several months, they ventured ever closer,
until one day Darwin entered the water, only to splash out and make a
mad dash back to safety, screaming all the way.
"I did it! I did it! I'M A DUCK!"
interpretated Stevens of the vocalization.
The title story concerns Buddy, a blind
horse who arrived in such a mental state that he was terrified to move
at all. After only four weeks of love and encouragement from Stevens,
Buddy had built up sufficient trust to allow her to ride him, and would
gallop through an open field. --Beverley Pervan