ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.

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The Watchdog monitors fundraising, spending, and political activity in the name of animal and habitat protection—both pro and con. His empty bowl stands for all the bowls left empty when some take more than they need.

January/February 2008

AVAR merges with Humane Society of the U.S; API merges with Born Free USA

SACRAMENTO--The city of Sacramento, California, within just two days in mid-January 2008 lost two of the three national animal advocacy organizations that have long been based there. Their offices are still in Sacramento, but now as branches of organizations based in Washington D.C.

The Animal Protection Institute, founded in 1968 by former Humane Society of the U.S. California office director Belton Mouras, merged with Born Free USA, the U.S. arm of the British-based Born Free Foundation. Mouras later founded United Animal Nations, also based in Sacramento.

The Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, begun in 1981 by Nedim Buyuchimici, DVM -- who now directs the API Primate Sanctuary near San Antonio, Texas-- merged with the Humane Society of the U.S.

The AVAR/HSUS alliance prompted visible anxiety from the American Veterinary Medical Association about the allied organizations' intent of "starting their own veterinary association as an alternative to the AVMA."

AVAR will become an HSUS subsidiary called the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association.

Said HSUS president Wayne Pacelle, "Veterinarians bring a special credibility and authority on animal issues. For 27 years, AVAR has been an important and principled veterinary voice in animal advocacy. Now we will amplify that voice and expand our veterinary-related programs dramatically."

Added AVAR president Paula Kislak, "AVAR has worked with a sizable core group of dedicated veterinary advocates, but our ability to reach veterinarians throughout the nation was hampered by our limited resources. As HSUS invests more in veterinary advocacy, I anticipate that we will be able to organize many more thousands of veterinarians in the broader cause of animal protection."

Noted the merger announcement, "There are approximately 80,000 veterinarians in the U.S., and 11,000 of them are already supporters of HSUS. Since 2002, HSUS has operated Rural Area Veterinary Services, delivering free services to animals and people in remote communities often underserved by veterinarians. In 2007, RAVS delivered more than 30,000 treatments to animals. More than 700 veterinary students a year participate in RAVS. HSUS also has major collaborative programs with the veterinary schools at Louisiana State University and Mississippi State University.

"AVAR has 3,500 affiliated veterinarians," the announcement continued. "Both AVAR and HSUS have long expressed frustration with the industry-biased positions taken by the AVMA," which "is on the opposite side of animal protection advocates or neutral on slaughtering horses for human consumption, continued use of random-source dogs and cats in research, cruelty to ducks and geese in producing foie gras, and the confinement of veal calves, breeding pigs, and egg-laying hens in tiny crates and cages.

"The Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association," the announcement pledged, "will be a voice for the vast majority of veterinarians not in the employ of industries that do harm to animals."

HSUS acquired RAVS and the Ark Trust by merger in 2002, merged with the Fund for Animals in 2005, and merged with the Doris Day Animal League in 2006.

The merger of the API with Born Free USA creates an organization called Born Free USA United with Animal Protection Institute, which is to focus on opposition to keeping exotic pets, opposition to animal use in entertainment, controlling wildlife trafficking, and abolishing trapping and the use of fur in fashion," according to a joint statement.

"In addition," the announcement stated, "we will maintain and enhance our long-standing commitment to the residents of our Texas-based primate sanctuary."

Born Free/API is headed by Will Travers, the son of actors Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, who made the film Born Free in 1966. Travers in 1984 co-founded the Born Free Foundation, was a founding member of the Captive Wild Animals Protection Coalition, heads Born Free USA, and since 1996 has been president of the Species Survival Network, a coalition that promotes enforcement of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The Born Free Foundation sponsors the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Program, headed by Born Free employee Claudio Sillero.

With World Wildlife Fund backing, the EWCP in 1999 began sterilizing and vaccinating pets and working dogs near Bale Mountains National Park in Ethiopia. Helping were park employees Efrem Legese and Hana Kifle, who formed the Homeless Animals Protection Society of Ethiopia in 2001 with ANIMAL PEOPLE backing.

In July 2003 the EWCP quit the sterilization and vaccination project, and--after HAPS locked an EWCP request for government permission to shoot homeless dogs-- claimed that there were no homeless dogs in the region. The EWCP claimed to have vaccinated
from 2,000 to 2,500 dogs per year, but the EWCP annual reports stated that only 1,475 dogs had been vaccinated in five years.

Kifle in August 2003 photographed and reported to her superiors an Ethiopian wolf with an apparent bite wound, who acted rabid. The EWCP and Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Organization in mid-October 2003 belatedly acknowledged the rabies outbreak, introduced oral vaccination of the wolves, and again recommended shooting homeless dogs.

Exposing the shootings in ANIMAL PEOPLE, Legese and Kifle were in early 2004 fired from their park jobs on pretexts later rejected by the courts in both Addis Ababa and the Bale region.

Legese and Kifle were reinstated, but were transferred to remote regions and resigned to keep HAPS alive.

ANIMAL PEOPLE since 2005 has paid Kifle and Legese wages equal to their former park salaries.

--Merritt Clifton

Shelter intake of pit bulls may be leveling off

The numbers of pit bull terriers and Rottweilers in U.S. animal shelters may have leveled off since 2004, after a decade of explosive increase, but are not falling, according to single day shelter dog inventories collected by ANIMAL PEOPLE during the second and third weeks of January 2008.

ANIMAL PEOPLE compared the data to single-day dog inventories collected in June 2004 from 23 U.S. animal control and open admission shelters, then housing 3,023 dogs.

Of the dogs in 2004, 23% were pit bulls or close mixes of pit bull; 3% were Rottweilers or their close mixes; and 17% were other purebreds. Counting pit bulls and Rottweilers but not their mixes, plus purebreds, about 33% of the shelter dog population appeared to have been purpose-bred, as opposed to products of accidental breeding. The pit bull and pit mix percentage had increased fivefold since ANIMAL PEOPLE did a breed-specific survey of shelter dogs in 1993.

Fifty-nine agencies operating 62 shelters provided dog inventories in January 2008, including 39 that do animal control or house dogs for animal control, 10 open-admission humane societies that do not do animal control, and 10 no-kill shelters, which mostly receive animals from other agencies rather than directly from the public.

Together, they held 5,236 dogs, including 2,982 at the animal control facilities, 1,291 at the non-animal control open admission shelters, and 963 at the no-kill shelters.

23% of the dogs held by animal control agencies were either pit bulls or pit mixes, the same as in 2004, compared to 17% for the open admission humane societies, and 16% for the no-kill shelters, who were not surveyed in 2004.

Overall, pit bulls and their close mixes made up 20% of the January 2008 shelter population -- about four times their proportion of the U.S. pet dog population, as indicated by ANIMAL PEOPLE surveys of classified advertisements of dogs listed for sale or adoption.

Animal control shelters appeared to house more pit bulls primarily because animal control agencies are the first responders to "dangerous dog" and bite calls, and do not have the option of refusing to accept a dog.

Rottweilers and Rottweiler mixes formed 3% of the January 2008 sample, including 4% of the animal control dogs, 2% of the non-animal control open-admission shelter dogs, and 3% of the no-kill shelter dogs.

Purebreds made up 15% of the animal control shelter dogs in January 2008, 19% of the open-admission shelter dogs, and 13% of the no-kill shelter dogs.

Overall, 28% of the dogs in the January 2008 sample appeared to have been purpose-bred.

The January 2008 response from animal control agencies was well enough geographically distributed to illustrate several distinctive regional trends.

Listed below are the eight major geographic regions of the U.S. plus Canada, their rates of shelter dog killing per 1,000 human residents, the percentage of pit bulls and close mixes among their dog inventories, the percentage of purebreds, and the percentage of purpose-bred dogs.

The regions killing the fewest dogs per 1,000 humans house up to three times as many pit bulls and pit mixes proportionate to their dog intake, but they are not actually receiving more pit bulls and pit mixes--just receiving fewer total dogs.

Animal control shelters in the Gulf Coast region, including Alabama, Missisippi, Louisiana, and Texas, appear to be receiving an abnormally low proportion of purpose-bred dogs, but more mixed-breed puppies than anywhere else.

Animal control shelters in the Western region, including Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, appear to be receiving relatively few mixed-breed puppies, but larger numbers of purebreds.

ANIMAL PEOPLE collected enough Canadian data to include Canada as a "region" sampled in the January 2008 shelter dog count, but has never received enough data to estimate the Canadian national rate of shelter killing. City-to-city comparisons, however, indicate that Canadian shelter killing rates are usually close to those of the nearest U.S. cities.

API wildlife director Camilla Fox returns to school to help coyotes

PRESCOTT, Arizona--Camilla Fox, the 10-year director of wildlife programs for the Animal Protection Institute, is now pursuing a master's degree at Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona as recipient of the first Christine Stevens Wildlife Award, presented by the Animal Welfare Institute.

AWI founder Stevens headed the AWI from 1951 until her death in 2002. The $10,000 award "aims to advance research in the often-overlooked area of non-lethal wildlife management," explains the AWI web site.

Fox at API waged prominent campaigns on behalf of many species, but coyotes were of special concern to her. Her father Michael W. Fox is a prominent researcher of canine history, a longtime syndicated veterinary columnist, and a former vice president of the Humane Society of the U.S., "who did field research studying the behavior of wild canids, so I always had them around me while I was growing up," Fox recalls.

Beginning in humane work by "raising money for the local animal shelter and doing foster care for abandoned cats," Fox finally found a chance to do something specific for coyotes in 2000.

This eventually changed her approach to activism and led to her return to school.

"I led an effort in my home county, Marin, California, to stop the federal government from using the poison Compound 1080 to kill coyotes and other predators," Fox recounts. "This led to a battle against a taxpayer-subsidized program to kill native carnivores throughout Marin County. We were ultimately successful in banning Compound 1080 and other predator killing methods in Marin and indeed statewide through a public ballot initiative, but this alienated a large portion of the ranching community to the point where I realized the backlash might nullify our gains.

For the first time," Fox remembers, "I sat down face to face with ranchers and our county agricultural commissioner, and worked out a plan that ultimately supports ranchers and helps them protect their livestock from predation, while ensuring that native predators remain on the land."

Fox estimates that about 75% of the 10,000 sheep in Marin County are now protected by the use of guard dogs, llamas (who chase coyotes and other predatory animals out of their territory), and electric fencing. The county shares the cost.

After five years the predation rate has dropped to 2.2%. This includes predation by other species, such as pumas and eagles, who kill some lambs. The county reimburses up to 5% losses, yet the program still costs less than the eradication program did.

Fox's master's thesis is tentatively entitled An Analysis of the Marin County Strategic Plan for Livestock and Wildlife Protection.

Says Fox, "I hope to demonstrate that this program meets the needs of both the ranching and conservation communities, and can be used as a model for other communities to emulate."

--Mary K. Croft