<asherbiny@infinity.com.eg>,

<www.animalfriends.info>

Giant Beanstalk

Rock musician Xie Zheng is launching a ten-concert tour of China to raise awareness about animal rights issues. His first concert will be in Beijing on March 8, 2008, at the 13 Club in Wudaokou.

His band, Giant Beanstalk, is amazing, as are the other bands who will be playing that night, each of which is comprised of at least a few vegetarians.

--Sharon Warner Methvin, PhD.
Graduate School
Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences
Beijing, China
Phone: 135-524-55173
<smethvin@gmail.com>
<http://web.clark.edu/smethvin>

Reporting deaths of note

Am I missing something here or what? I read every edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE cover to cover, including the obituaries. I appreciate the information about the passing of special animals and animal people, who have contributed to the welfare, rights, education and protection of the voiceless species who share our planet.

My question is why was Samuel Leonard, a longtime animal researcher and supporter of animal research, included in this section of people who really care about animals? His discovery of the effects of estrogen on birth control was the basis for the billion dollar pregnant mare's urine industry. This industry impregnates thousands of horses every year, who are confined to their stalls for seven months of their 11-month pregnancies, and are given limited amounts of water to increase the concentration of their urine. The foals are often sold to slaughter, if not used to replace older PMU-producing mares, who typically last only five or six years.

Leonard's demise is certainly no loss to animals and those who care about them.

--Judy Youngman
Larkspur, California

Editor's Note

The ANIMAL PEOPLE obituary section reports deaths of note to the humane community. The deaths of alleged arch-villains are often of at least as much news interest as the deaths of saints, while weighing souls goes beyond the usual role of news media.

Samuel Leonard was an especially ambiguous figure. On the one hand his work created the PMU industry. On the other, he discovered the first method of achieving non-surgical contraception to control populations of dogs, cats, and wildlife. His work more than 70 years ago was the precursor to advances achieved since 1959 by Wolfgang Joechle, in particular, and other leading hormonal contraceptive researchers.

As hormonal contraceptives have proved to have serious limitations in animal population control, the momentum in contraceptive research and development has shifted in recent years to immunocontraceptives and chemosterilants. The Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs tracks and encourages progress, c/o 14245 N.W. Belle Court, Portland, OR 97229;<joyce@-acc-d.org>; <www.acc-d.org>.

ANIMAL PEOPLE first brought the PMU industry to the attention of our readers on page 1 of our April 1993 edition, reporting on the findings of Tom Hughes of the Canadian Farm Animal Concerns Trust. This was about six months before any U.S. animal advocacy organization re-addressed PMU, decades after the industry was initially exposed, only to be forgotten after the center of production shifted west from Quebec, Ontario, and upstate New York to Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Dakotas.

Luminaries

In 2007 we lost two giants--J.R. Hyland and Hans Reusch. Hyland dedicated her book God's Covenant With Animals to Reusch. As consulting editor of Humane Religion, I had the joy of working closely with Hyland. Far more than a brilliant scholar, she was a true spiritual luminary. The words of Hyland and Reusch continue to pierce the darkness.

--Chris Chapin

Hollywood, Florida

Mileage deduction for charity work

Many Animal People readers are now doing their taxes, so this might be a good time to start a campaign to convince legislators to increase the tax deduction for miles driven in support of charitable work. If every reader were to contact his or her U.S. Senator and Representative, something good might happen.

The 2007 rate is 14 cents per mile, while the mileage rates allowed for medical reasons or moving are 19 cents per mile, and the business rate is 50.5 cents per mile. I think the 2008 rates have been set at 14, 20, and 58 cents per mile. Important to note is that only charity mileage is set by statute, which is why no increase has been made in many years.

Considering the value and necessity of charity work, as well as the positive economic impact of charity work on government costs, an increase in tax-deductible mileage rates for charity are long overdue.

--Bill Rossiter

Cetacean Society Intl.

P.O. Box 953

Georgetown, CT 06829

Phone: 203-770-8615 Fax: 860-561-0187

<rossiter@csiwhalesalive.org>

http://csiwhalesalive.org/index.html

Adding fur farm ban to Irish humane law update

We are hoping that a new Irish animal welfare bill will be enacted into law in late 2008 or early 2009, updating legislation adopted in 1911. We are also hoping to abolish fur farming in Ireland.

Our effort began in 2003, when Compassion in World Farming Ireland and Respect for Animals released video footage of an undercover investigation of the five remaining Irish fur farms, one of which raises both foxes and mink. The Irish SPCA also backed their campaign. In 2005 a CIWF bill to ban fur farming in Ireland was defeated in Parliament, 67 votes to 50. Since then CIWF Ireland and Respect for Animals have been doing fantastic work, lobbying and getting people to write to the agriculture minister in support of such a ban.

Last year the Irish Green Party became a part of the government. They have stated their complete opposition to fur farming in Ireland. Currently they are working with the Animal Rights Action Network and CIWF Ireland to try to have the fur farming ban included in the upcoming animal welfare bill. This is the same strategy successfully pursued in Croatia, where fur farming will become illegal in 2010.

We launched our campaign with an early February protest outside the Department of Agriculture in Dublin, at which up to 60 ARAN members held placards and a 5-meter banner sponsored by PETA Europe, reading "Ban Fur Farming in Ireland Now!" The protest generated tons of coverage across the country that day on radio stations, and there was also great coverage the next day in newspapers.

We need ANIMAL PEOPLE readers to write on behalf of their organizations to urge Irish minister for agriculture Mary Coughlan to ban fur farming in Ireland without delay. Her present position, stated in October 2007, is that "Any market opportunities resulting from a ban here would be immediately exploited by producers elsewhere. Thus, a unilateral ban here would not make any contribution to overall animal welfare."

Her address is: Minister Mary Coughlan, Office of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Food, Agriculture House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Her fax is +353-1-6072843. E-mails should be sent c/o< Martina.Kearney@agriculture.gov.ie>, or <Minister@agriculture.gov.ie>.

--John Carmody

Campaigns Coordinator

Animal Rights Action Network

120 Vale Avenue Carew Park,

Limerick Ireland

Phone: 353-087-6275579

<arancampaigns@eircom.net>

<www.ARAN.ie>

Editor's note:

Campaigns directed at closing laboratories in nations with strong laboratory animal welfare laws have had the net effect of causing companies to outsource their product testing and animal-based research to economically disadvantaged nations where laboratories are barely regulated at all. The outcome is more animal use rather than less, in worse conditions. However, fur farming is not a closely regulated industry anywhere, fur production everywhere is driven by global retail sales volume, and stopping fur production in any one nation is correspondingly less likely to lead to either a disproportionate increase elsewhere, or a net increase in animal suffering. The outcome is likely to be to concentrate world fur production in a relatively few nations where it is politically and economically well-defended; but even in fortified isolation, fur farming could not survive a decisive and lasting consumer turn away from fur.

A promise made to Peruvian animals

ANIMAL PEOPLE in your July/August 2005 edition published a letter that I sent you after returning from Peru in 2005, along with an editor's note summarizing a plan for advancing humane work in Peru that you prepared in 1999.

I still have haunting memories of the extremely poor conditions for animals at Macchu Picchu and in the surrounding areas. There are no words to accurately describe the gratitude of a starving dog being fed. I promised the dogs of Macchu Picchu that I would get assistance for them after returning to the U.S. I must know if any progress has been made since our 2005 correspondence.

The plan you described sounded very workable to me. If nothing has been done, I would like to humbly ask for a dedicated group to respond to the cries of the dogs and other animals in Peru.

--Yvonne Dufrene Luling,

Louisiana

Editor's note:

The ANIMAL PEOPLE plan called for operating a mobile clinic that would traverse the road from Cuzco to Macchu Picchu, funded by
kiosks at the Cuzco airport and railway station. This has not yet been done, nine years after we shared the plan and a draft budget with the global humane community.

However, the growing Peruvian humane community began outreach into the Andes in a noteworthy way following the earthquake of August 15, 2007. Three missions from Unidos por los Animales of Lima treated more than 3,000 animals. The Peruvian Association for
the Protection of Animals, Amazon CARES, Huaw Huaw, Amigos de los Animales, Grupo Caridad, and the Asociacion Defensora de la Fauna y Flora horse and donkey care project at Huancavelica also responded.

Their efforts were assisted by the Best Friends Animal Society, the Canadian Animal Assistance Team, and the World Society for the Protection of Animals. Best Friends funded an eight-week veterinary mission to the earthquake zone that could become a model for further
efforts in Peru.
.