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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, JAN-FEB 2010:

EDITORIAL FEATURE: 

21st Century began with 10 years of hard-won gains

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Most ANIMAL PEOPLE readers are probably buried lately in a blizzard of appeals reviewing the deeds of animal charities during the past year and decade. Recipients will be cheered by recaps of "victories," no matter how transient. Some may notice, though, that "defeats" are seldom mentioned.
Comprehensive assessments of progress tend to be fewer--and can be discouraging, in view of frequent contradictory indicators. But the animal cause does not advance primarily through obvious "victories," or fail through the unmentioned defeats, which most often result when legislation is proposed before sufficient groundwork is done to pass it, or when resources are inadequate to achieve an ambitious goal.
Fundraisers and campaigners like to evoke imagery suggesting that at some point a cause will "triumph," perhaps after someone blows the right horn to bring all obstacles tumbling down. This is a tried-and-true appeal format, but reality is that if any "war" metaphor is appropriate to advancing the cause of animals, it is that of trench warfare.
We are pushing for change against deeply entrenched industries and cultural traditions, who try to choke every challenge with drifting clouds of poison gas-like propaganda. Quick advances tend to come at immense cost. Abrupt gains are often just as abruptly lost, after opposition mobilizes. For every new activist charging ahead, a veteran reels back in shellshock, having seen entirely too many horrors while experiencing too little progress.
Authentic victories are won by inches, by a process that no "war" metaphor accurately describes. Authentic victories come not through "fighting," but through persuasion, when sufficient numbers of people who are not directly involved in the cause, and usually not directly involved in resisting it, either, decide to make changes in their lives and their voting patterns. They may decide to have a pet sterilized, stop chaining a dog outside, or--most important--to eat less meat. Or none. They may just quit hunting, or wearing fur, without even thinking much about why.
The choice to make a beneficial change does not come because the people are confronted by rhetorical bayonet charges. Shock tactics may get attention, but to be effective must be followed, immediately, by a positive message that people will internalize and accept, despite having been put on the defensive. Most often the choice of change is made because someone the person making the change knows or admires has already made the same choice, setting a heartening example. A comprehensive review of overall progress in the animal cause, accordingly, is a review of depth of influence.
Where enduring gains have been made, strings of political victories may follow, because public opinion and behavior have already advanced. Legislation, in those instances, codifies what the majority have come to believe. Recent victories of this sort include the reforms of farming practices approved by ballot initiative in California in November 2008, and the simultaneous abolition of greyhound racing in Massachusetts, also by ballot initiative.
Opinion polls indicate that the 2009 European Union ban on imports of seal pelts and byproducts was also such a victory, with broad-based public support throughout most of Europe, but Canada has appealed the ban to the World Trade Organization, contending that the EU had no right under international law to enact it. Should the appeal succeed, the ban would be overturned, and the real test of European opposition to the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt would revert to consumer choice.
Consumer choice can be a misleading indicator, because many of the most abusive industries survive through the participation and patronage of very small minorities: just 4% of Americans hunt, for example. Such industries may have hugely disproportionate political influence, through alliance with other industries, the involvement of well-placed lawmakers, and as a legacy of past popularity. The overwhelming majority of the public may not support the abusive activity, but until they are politically mobilized in opposition to it, as they were in the example of greyhound racing in Massachusetts, the activity will continue through the addiction of the devotees.
The decline of greyhound racing in the U.S. offers some of the most encouraging comparative data from the beginning and end of the past decade: of 50 greyhound tracks operating in 2000, just 23 remain. Declining attendance and an aging clientele point toward the probable demise of the entire U.S. greyhound industry before the end of the new decade.
Greyhound racing may become the first of many forms of animal use in popular entertainment to collapse and disappear. Horse racing and animal use in circuses appear to be following the same trajectory to oblivion, worldwide. Wildlife SOS is cautiously optimistic that the last dancing bear act is off the road in India, and that the last dancing bear has joined hundreds of others at the Wildlife SOS sanctuaries. Rodeo, though still a big business in the U.S., is economically struggling and contracting. Spanish-style bullfighting has just been abolished in Catalonia, which a decade ago still had three of the five most prestigious bull rings in the world. Bullfighting and rodeo promoters continue to try to develop new venues and audiences in China, and elsewhere beyond their traditional bases of support, but with little evidence, so far, of success.
The decline of sport hunting is less obvious, but not less profound. The number of active hunters in the U.S. fell from 13 million in 2000 to about 12.5 million today, not nearly as steep a drop as the attrition of about eight million hunters over the two preceding decades. But most of the casual and occasional hunters dropped out earlier. Now we are down to the most dedicated hunters, most of whom are middle-aged or older, in the age brackets at which hunting participation plummets due to mortality and infirmity. Even very aggressive and well-funded recruitment efforts are not attracting new hunters as rapidly as old hunters die or quit.
Now U.S. sport fishing participation is also down, for the first time over an entire decade in the 70-odd years since the numbers of participants have been tracked--and the 15% drop is proportionately about three times larger than the drop in hunting participation.
The numbers of both hunters and fishers may be expected to continue to fall. With the decline will come a loss of hunter and fisher influence over wildlife policy, especially after opponents of consumptive wildlife use become as politically mobilized as hunters and fishers long have been.

Meat consumption

Hunting and fishing are rationalized by many participants as food-gathering, even though the meat thus obtained costs many times more than meat bought at a supermarket. In truth, hunting and fishing for personal and family consumption account for less than 1% of total U.S. meat production, and make even less of a contribution globally. Despite the importance of hunting and fishing to some small and relatively isolated communities, mostly in climate zones at the extremes of human habitability, hunting and fishing persist almost entirely as blood sports.
Global meat production and consumption, unfortunately, have increased even faster than hunting and fishing have declined: from 36 kilograms per person per year in 2000 to 42 in 2009, a rise of 14%. Global meat slaughter has increased 25%, from 42 billion animals killed in 2000 to 56 billion in 2009. Chicken slaughter alone has risen from 13.5 billion to 17 billion, despite the impact on farmers and consumers of the H5N1 avian flu and several other major poultry disease outbreaks.
Yet some encouraging trends lurk among the numbers. Most significantly, U.S. per capita meat consumption has not increased, even as the post-World War II "Baby Boom" generation passed through the age bracket where meat consumption peaked among previous generations. Moreover, per capita meat consumption continues to drop among younger people. Some surveys indicate that up to 18% of U.S. university students are vegetarians or "meat avoiders," who eat little meat without actually declaring themselves to be vegetarian. Even if this number is three times too high, the percentage of vegetarians among Americans between 18 and 25 appears to be about triple the percentage of vegetarians among their elders
Similar tendencies are evident in Europe. Meat consumption is actually rising almost entirely in the developing world, especially India and China, among people who have historically been unable to afford to eat as much meat as they wanted, and are now indulging themselves. Dietary disorders once rare in India and China, including obsesity and diabetes, are correspondingly becoming recognized as national problems.
Per capita meat consumption in India is still less than 10% of U.S consumption, and in China is about 40% of U.S. consumption. How long the trend toward increased meat consumption will continue in India, China, and the rest of the developing world is an open question, but the environmental costs of the increase, both globally and locally, are much more apparent today than when U.S. meat consumption spiked upward toward the present rate several decades ago.
The most likely forecast, based strictly on present trends and demographics, is that U.S. and European meat consumption will drop during the next decade, while consumption in the developing world will peak and level out. Global animal slaughter will probably rise to 70 billion before falling--unless climatic, economic, and cultural factors intervene. Rising concern for animal welfare worldwide may change the trends in meat consumption sooner, especially in India and China, where women are enjoying unprecedented political and economic emancipation, and are driving unparalleled growth in pro-animal activity.

Vivisection

There is as yet little antivivisection activism in India, though there has long been some, and is almost none in China. Historically little animal-based biomedical research was done in either nation, and even if much had been done in China, most Chinese people had little way to know about it and no opportunity to protest. This has hugely changed in all respects during the past decade. The rise of strong Indian and Chinese antivivisection movements may follow, but will most likely grow out of pro-animal activism initially organized around other issues. By contrast, public demonstrations of vivisection were among the flashpoints for the rise of organized pro-animal political activity in the western world, more than 200 years ago--along with animal fighting and misuse of working animals.
In the west, laboratory use of animals and animal advocacy have grown approximately parallel to each other ever since. There has never been a time in the history of the U.S. and European biomedical research industries when antivivisectionists were not monitoring their activity and trying to rally opposition to the practices most cruel to animals. Therefore laboratory animal care is relatively strictly regulated in the U.S. and Europe, if not what is done to animals in actual experiments, and U.S. and European researchers have long at least rhetorically accepted the premise that animal use should be reduced, refined, and replaced as much as possible.
The markets for advanced biomedical procedures and pharmaceutical products have rapidly expanded in the newly affluent nations of Asia. Many of these nations already trained scientists who went on to staff laboratories around the world. Now governments interested in keeping their best-educated scientific talent at home are pouring billions of dollars into building their own biotech industries--and are luring western companies to relocate research and developent from the west to Asia.
This has coincided with increasingly violent antivivisection protests in the U.S. and Europe, including arsons, bombings, home invasions, and threats of worse.
The number of nations involved in advanced biomedical research has approximately tripled since 2000. Many of them--like China--have no requirements for public disclosure of information about animal use, little public awareness of animal use in laboratories, young animal advocacy sectors, and restricted though expanding freedom of speech and assembly.
Estimating trends in laboratory animal use, always difficult, has accordingly become more problematic than ever. Working from a variety of sources, including a five-year-old estimate by the British Union Against Vivisection and other numbers wherever available, ANIMAL PEOPLE projects that global use of animals in labs has probably risen from the BUAV figure of about 115 million circa 2000 to nearly 200 million in 2009, with more than half of the total use now occurring in Asia.
British use of animals in labs increased from 2.8 million to 3.7 million during the same years. U.S. lab animal use probably followed the same trend, but since the U.S. does not require laboratories to report use of rats, mice, and birds, there is little way to know for sure. What we do know is that the available data shows several different trends.
U.S. lab use of species other than rats, mice, and birds actually fell from 1,286,412 in 2000 to 1,027,450 in 2007, the latest year for which data has been published. Farm animal use dropped from 159,711 to 109,961. Cat use remained virtually identical, going from 22,755 to 22,687. Dog use increased slightly, from 69,5126 to 72,037. But--though use of chimpanzees in experiments all but stopped--lab use of nonhuman primates jumped from 57,518 to 69,990, reportedly driven by monkey use in bioterrorism research.
The good news, if there is any involving laboratory animals, is that the number of scientific procedures reported in journals has increased at about six times the rate of estimated animal use. Thus the numbers of animals used per experiment are continuing a long downward trend, with progress especially evident in product safety testing.

Dogs & Cats

While laboratory animal use occurs mostly out of sight of the public, dogs and cats live in or near most human homes worldwide, and are so ubiquitous that few people go a day without seeing one or the other. Even feral cats, furtive as they often are, have became widely enough recognized to be mentioned by late-night TV comedians with the expectation that their audiences will know what they are talking about.
The only relatively invisible aspect of the lives and deaths of dogs and cats is what becomes of the 5% or thereabouts who are deemed problematic, or just too numerous, and are delivered to animal shelters in the U.S. and most other developed nations, or are simply poisoned on the streets in much of the developing world.
ANIMAL PEOPLE extensively reviews U.S. animal shelter data every summer, in our July/August edition. Those numbers are less encouraging than we thought they might be by now, a decade ago. Total U.S. shelter killing of dogs and cats has dipped from 4.5 million to 4.2. million, according to our 2009 findings, but the numbers have wobbled up and down within a narrow range throughout the decade. The only clear indication of progress is that because the U.S. human population has markedly increased, the numbers killed per 1,000 Americans have fallen from 16.6 to 13.5.
Feral cats, typically defined by shelter staff as cats who cannot be handled, ten years ago accounted for 35% of the U.S. shelter death toll. Pit bull terriers accounted for 15%--30% of the dogs. Feral cats are today 43% of the U.S. shelter death toll; pit bulls are 23%, including 58% of the dogs in 2009.
The problem once defined as "pet overpopulation" now has two distinctively different major components.
Feral cats reproduce almost totally beyond any direct human influence. Many feral cats are the offspring of free-roaming or abandoned pet cats, but the pet cat matriarch may have been several cat generations ago. The pet cat sterilization rate has increased from about 70% twenty years ago, nationwide, to 83% today. The pet cat reproduction rate is now well below replacement, with pet cat population replacement and growth occurring in large part through adoptions of feral kittens. This has helped to stabilize feral cat numbers. So has neuter/return, wherever it is conscientiously done.
Nonetheless, further reduction of the feral cat population--and death toll--will require finding more effective ways of sterilizing about three million feral mothers who presently have little or no human contact. A breakthrough may come through the development of affordable and easily deployable non-surgical contraception. Unfortunately, the most promising methods that were in the research and development process a decade ago have not worked in cats. Found Animal Foundation founder Gary K. Michelson, M.D. in October 2008 offered incentives of $75 million to help encourage the discovery and introduction of effective methods of non-surgical dog and cat contraception. This has stimulated scientific effort. What may come of it remains to be seen.
In contrast to feral cats, pit bull terriers are almost entirely purpose-bred. Like the purebred dogs who make up about 15% of shelter intake, according to ANIMAL PEOPLE shelter surveys done in 2008, the overwhelming majority of pit bulls are bred by someone who hopes to profit from selling them. Most pit bulls, like most purebreds who come to shelters, are bought by someone, and flunk out of at least one home before being surrendered or impounded.
Altogether, purpose-bred dogs now make up about 40% of the shelter dog population. Accidental litters are still born, and dogs of unidentifiably mixed ancestry still come to shelters, but they are now a minority in much of the U.S., and may soon become a minority elsewhere. Significantly reducing shelter dog intake will accordingly require significantly reducing intentional breeding.
Strengthened legislation against "puppy mills" has increased impoundments from abusive and negligent breeders more than fourfold, from just over 2,000 in 1999 to nearly 10,000 in 2009. More than 25,000 dogs have been seized from puppy mills just since 2007. This may cut into the volume of badly reared purebreds coming to shelters in the next several years. Pit bulls, however, appear to be coming mainly from backyard breeders, who are far more numerous than puppy millers, and are more difficult to identify.
The only big U.S. cities to have reduced pit bull intakes and shelter killing over the past decade are a few that have either banned pit bulls entirely, like Denver and Miami, or require that they must be sterilized, like San Francisco.
The humane and animal control communities have mostly responded to the pit bull influx by escalating efforts to adopt out pit bulls, after behavioral screening and sometimes after remedial training. In consequence, about 16% of the dogs who were adopted out in 2009 were pit bulls, compared to about 5% of the dogs who were bought from breeders through classified ads. If pit bulls were still killed at the rate they were 10 years ago, the annual toll of a million pit bulls killed in shelters per year would have increased to about 1.3 million.
But whether behavioral screening adequately protects the public from adoptions of dangerous dogs is a question that the courts, adopters, and public opinion are beginning to reconsider. In the first decade that ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton logged dog attack fatalities and disfigurements, only two shelter dogs made the list. Both were wolf hybrids. None made the list in the next decade. In the past decade, however, 24 U.S. shelter dogs have killed or maimed someone, 16 of them in the past three years and eight in 2009 alone. The deaths and injuries by shelter dogs were inflicted by 14 pit bulls, two chows, two German shepherds, two Labrador retrievers, a Presa Canario, a Doberman, a Great Dane, and a hound. Nine of the victims were children.
These are not huge numbers, but just 27 deaths in 10 years from exploding gasoline tanks destroyed the reputation and sales of the Ford Pinto, once among the most popular cars ever made, promoted and defended by a public relations machine much larger than the animal sheltering community.
Progress in reducing dog attacks in general has gone rapidly backward. Fourteen Americans and Canadians were killed by dogs in 2000; a record 33 in 2007; and 30 in 2009. Pit bulls killed seven of the victims in 2000; a record 22 in 2009. Pit bulls disfigured 40 Americans and Canadians in 2000; 78 in 2009. But Rottweiler attacks have declined, from three deaths and 24 disfigurements in 2000 to four deaths and nine disfigurements in 2009. Rottweiler shelter intake also appears to be coming down, peaking circa 2005.
Dogfighting arrests dropped from 297 in 2000 to 87 in 2009. Fighting dog seizures slipped from 896 to 750.
As there seems to be no indication that dogfighting is actually reduced, and efforts to expose and prosecute dogfighting have intensified since the high-profile arrest of football star Michael Vick in April 2007, the explanation might be that dogfighters are becoming much more sophisticated about evading arrest. The same might be said of cockfighting. 1,508 alleged cockfighters were arrested in 2000; just 656 in 2009.
Yet gamecock seizures barely changed: 7,995 in 2000, 7,917 in 2009.

Abuse & neglect

Strengthened laws and greater public interest in prosecuting animal cruelty and neglect cases have markedly increased the numbers of arrests and convictions resulting from most offenses against animals.
At the rarest extreme, more people have been brought to justice for dragging animals behind cars in each of the past four years, an average of 18 per year, than in the entire decade of the 1990s. More people (22) have been brought to justice for bestiality in 2009 than in the entire decade of the 1980s. At the most common end, animal hoarding convictions, exclusive of puppy mill cases, have nearly doubled in 10 years. But convictions of recognized animal rescuers for neglect are also up 175%, as was discussed more extensively in the November/December 2009 ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial.
Horse neglect and abandonment cases have not increased during the past decade, somewhat surprisingly in view of the amount of media notice focused on alleged horse dumping since the last U.S. horse slaughterhouses closed in 2007. In truth, more horses were impounded due to neglect or abandonment in 1996 (2375) than in any year since, and the numbers since 2007 have remained below 2,000.
But horse slaughter in North America is not reduced. In the year 2000, U.S. slaughterhouses killed 50,449 horses; Canadian slaughterhouses killed 62,000. The Mexican horse slaughter industry was just starting. In 2008, when no horses were slaughtered in the U.S., 77,063 were killed in Canada; 56,731 were killed in Mexico.
Among the pretexts often cited for resuming horse slaughter in the U.S. is the expense of holding increasing numbers of wild horses impounded from leased grazing land by the Bureau of Land Management. An estimated 39,500 wild horses roamed public land in the U.S. west in 2000, while 9,807 horses had been impounded and offered for adoption. Currently, according to the BLM, there are 37,000 wild horses still on the range, and 32,000 in captivity. As obviously unviable as this situation is, the BLM is continuing to capture wild horses at an allegedly unprecedented rate.

Fur & whaling

U.S. retail fur sales, as of 2007, the most recently reported year, came to $1.3 billion, exactly the same as in 2001. This, in inflation-adjusted dollars, meant the fur industry really had not recovered from the crash of 1988-1991, when retail sales bottomed out at $950 million. After two consecutive winters of apparent steep losses, the U.S. retail fur trade may be close to another contraction phase.
But these numbers do not include the use of cheap fur trim on garments, mostly imported from China as byproducts of killing rabbits, dogs, and cats for human consumption. Though importing dog and cat fur into the U.S. and Europe is illegal, detecting it in small amounts is sufficiently difficult to make enforcing the laws difficult.
The rapid rise of animal advocacy within China may significantly reduce consumption of dogs and cats. Meanwhile, encouraging consumer rejection of fur trim remains essential to keeping the fur trade from attracting new customers.
Innumerable issues might appear at a glance to have gone backward abroad, with a second look showing reason for optimism. For example, the self-set Japanese and Norwegian whaling quotas have increased from 560 and 549 in 2000, respectively, to 985 and 885 at present--but neither nation appears to have killed the full quota in either 2008 or 2009.
As a second case in point, the destruction of Zimbabwean wildlife and the Zimbabwean humane sector that began with the land invasions of 2000 has continued. Yet Zimbabwean animal advocates and organizations still exist, and from recent communications, seem optimistic about soon being able to rebuild and resume their work.
History may show that the growth of animal advocacy in the developing world during the first decade of the 21st century was a turning point toward a changed relationship with animals throughout human culture, away from the attitudes which have prevailed since the beginning of agricultural animal husbandry. Among the milestones were that India, Turkey, and Costa Rica adopted national dog sterilization programs; the indigenous Kenyan organizations Youth for Conservation and the Africa Network for Animal Welfare repeatedly rebuffed the well-funded efforts of Safari Club International and others to restart sport hunting, halted in 1977; and the number of active animal advocacy organizations outside the U.S. and Europe appears to have increased at least tenfold.
Among the animal advocacy organizations enjoying the greatest economic growth during the past 10 years, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals more than doubled donation receipts, from $14.5 million to $31.2 milion; the Humane Society of the U.S. also more than doubled donations, from $36.6 million to $87.2 million; PetSmart Charities nearly tripled receipts and disbursements to other animal charities, from $3.5 million to $10 million; the Best Friends Animal Society sextupled donation receipts, from $6.2 million to $37.5 million; and the World Society for the Protection of Animals increased donation receipts sevenfold, from $5.9 million to $44.6 million.
Four of these five organizations, with PetSmart Charities the exception, markedly escalated investment in overseas programs during the decade. PetSmart Charities is not structured to work outside the U.S., but--via ANIMAL PEOPLE and Best Friends--was a significant contributor to relief efforts after the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
Barely existing at the beginning of the 21st century, the Animals Asia Foundation is now raising $4 million per year in support of humane work in China, South Korea, and Vietnam. The number of active U.S. affiliates of humane societies in the developing world, as of 2000, could have been counted on one front paw of a six-toed cat. There are now many dozens.
ANIMAL PEOPLE helped to inspire the explosive growth of humane work abroad, by sending free subscriptions to every humane organization; by reporting about overseas issues, beginning before most of the U.S.-based big organizations were much involved abroad; by helping to organize and fund the Asia for Animals and Middle East Network for Animal Welfare conferences; by relaying funds from U.S. donors to foreign animal charities; and by walking many of the foreign animal charities through the steps required to incorporate U.S. affiliates to raise funds for them.
We receive some complaints from readers and donors about allegedly devoting too much page space to international issues, but far more often we hear from readers who are relieved and excited that at last there are open channels enabling them to become directly involved in helping animals in some of the neediest parts of the world.
The stasis of World War I trench warfare ended after help arrived from abroad. Much as we dislike war metaphors, a fast-growing global alliance of animal advocates is enabling the animal cause to challenge entrenched forms of exploitation along a broader front than ever before. Not long ago international networking could be done only by big businesses and governments. Now animal advocates are networking quite routinely across all national and cultural boundaries. Animal use and abuse remain as bloody as ever, but new hope and energy have become as ubiquitous as e-mail.

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

High hopes for Chinese draft animal welfare legislation

Beijing--How close to passage is the draft Chinese animal welfare bill, completion of which was announced with a burst of publicity in July 2009?
"The draft law will be submitted to the National People's Congress by the end of the year," reported China Central Television on July 7, 2009.
At year's end, however, the draft bill had not yet been introduced as a formal legislative proposal. Neither were there clear indications that it would be. But there were continuing hints from Beijing media that the Chinese government is encouraging activities that help to build public opinion in favor of animal welfare.
"The Chinese draft legislation was done by a committee of academics. It is not a government draft. It was funded by IFAW and the RSPCA," cautioned ACTAsia for Animals program director Deepashree Balaram. The committee of academics included 18 faculty members from leading Chinese universities, one Australian university faculty member who is of Chinese ancestry, IFAW Asia director Grace Ge Gabriel, and Royal SPCA senior manager of international programs Paul Littlefair, who produced the English translation
Though the draft legislation might be considered more a discussion paper than a bill likely to be introduced in present form, it has been publicized by Chinese state media, in terms suggesting that the Beijing government is using it as at least a serious test of public opinion.
"The draft must go through the State Council and receive three readings from the National Party Congress Standing Committee before being adopted as law," CCTV explained in July, adding, "A recent survey carried out by the Internet portal Sina.com shows 89% of more than 63,000 people surveyed support the legislation."
Legislative proposals seldom are presented to the public in China until they are already close to passage, and are typically introduced with efforts made to build at least the appearance of consensus.
In that light, it is of note that protests on behalf of animals have for several years received mostly favorable coverage from state media. There is little evident police effort to repress animal advocacy, and animal advocates appear to have freedom to organize.
Repeated activist rescues of hundreds of cats from delivery to live markets are given extensive coverage and are portrayed with sympathy, despite involving acts of civil disbedience. Dog purges in rural population centers in response to rabies outbreaks, though ordered by public officials, are by contrast often depicted as barbaric and backward.
The draft bill was first released for expert comment in August 2009, was later released for public comment, and was distributed in English translation to obtain international perspectives in late November 2009.
"China currently has the Wildlife Protection Law, the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law, the Livestock Husbandry Law, the Pig Slaughter Regulations, the Laboratory Animal Management Regulations and other specific laws and regulations addressing animal protection and management," summarizes the draft bill preface, refuting the common western allegation that China has no animal welfare laws at all.
Instead, explains the preface, "We lack a comprehensive basic animal protection law, and the animal law that exists lacks systematic organization and is incomplete. Secondly," the preface acknowledges, the existing legislation has "failed to embody the Chinese people's moral tradition of compassion toward living things."
The draft bill preface admits the difficulty, under existing Chinese law, of punishing "acts such as abandonment or cruelty, which jeopardize public order, to the detriment of social harmony and stability."
In addition, the draft bill preface notes that existing legislation "does not fully reflect the requirements of international animal welfare standards as they apply to trade, making it difficult for China to overcome the animal welfare trade barrier established by developed western countries."
There are in truth few "animal welfare trade barriers" codified in international law, but U.S. and European Union legislation against imports of dog and cat fur garments was adopted in response to products that are manufactured mainly in China.
The draft bill preface notes the rapidly increasing cost of animal control in China, coinciding with rapid growth of pet-keeping.
Far broader in scope than the U.S. Animal Welfare Act and any one item of European Union legislation, the Chinese draft bill covers all of the Animal Welfare Act topics, adds basic animal care and control provisions similar to those enacted in the U.S. at the community level, and also covers livestock care, which in the U.S. is almost entirely unregulated in 31 of the 50 states.
U.S. federal law pertaining to livestock only covers interstate transport and disease transmission. State law typically exempts standard agricultural practices, and often punishes only abuse of livestock owned by someone else. The Chinese draft law includes no such exemptions.
"The costs for animal protection appear quite modest and will bring the country significant savings. Also, legislating to protect farm animals will help guarantee food safety," says the Chinese draft bill preface.
Early clauses of the Chinese draft animal welfare bill address several topics that have received relatively little legislative attention in the U.S., especially at the federal level.

Disaster relief

Article 19, subtitled Emergency Management of Animals in Major Disasters, recommends that "Each level of People's Government and animal shelters and rescue organizations should set out contingency plans" for major disasters, which should include "appropriate arrangements for animal collection, rescue, and epidemic prevention."
Language of similar intent was added to the mandate of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 68 years after then-Humane Society of Missouri chief executive Eric Hansen recommended in 1937 that such provisions should be added to the Flood Control Act of 1934. FEMA itself was not created until 1979.
China appears to have been awakened to the need to incude animals in disaster planning by the Sichuan earthquake of May 12, 2008, which killed more than 12 million livestock. The Animals Asia Foundation directed staff at the China Bear Rescue Centre in Chengdu to help injured and displaced humans. Within 10 days, however, the Animals Asia Foundation, the Chongqing Small Animal Protection Association, and the staff of a shelter called the Home of Love were reassigned to animal rescue and rabies control.
Humane education
Article 20 of the draft Chinese animal welfare bill proactively recommends that "The State Council and People's Governments at local levels should engage in animal protection campaigning and education, should popularize animal protection knowledge, and should foster and raise citizens' moral standards toward animal protection and awareness of the law. The state encourages the development of animal protection scientific research and activities for the public good," Article 20 continues, "and local People's Governments shall present awards to work units, individuals, and organizations who show outstanding achievements in these areas."
The draft Chinese animal welfare bill includes additional mandates for providing public education about wildlife, farm animals, companion animals, and zoonotic disease control. Additional language encourages nonprofit organizations to participate in improving public knowledge about animal welfare.
Mandates for humane education were incorporated into the laws of about 20 U.S. states in the late 19th and early 20th century, but were mostly dismantled, abandoned, or ignored by mid-century. Efforts to revive humane education in U.S. schools during the past several decades have encountered intense opposition from animal use industries.

Animal control

Article 29 of the draft Chinese bill stipulates that, "Collecting, storing or transporting animal specimens or pathogenic micro-organisms or carrying out research, education, testing, diagnosis or other activities on pathogenic micro-organisms, should be carried out in a manner which causes the minimum of suffering or which avoids causing unnecessary suffering to animals."
This provision has no close parallel in U.S., British, or European Union legislation governing use of laboratory animals, which cover animal care only outside of the parameters of experimental procedure.
Adds Article 30, "If, in order to control infectious and contagious diseases, it is necessary to transport, isolate, etc. animals, this should be carried out in a humane manner, and animals should be prevented from being caused unnecessary suffering."
But Article 30 appears to pertain primarily to control of diseases such as rabies, Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome, and H5N1 avian influenza, not to laboratory procedures. "In cases where for epidemic prevention purposes there is a genuine need to kill animals on a large scale," Article 30 continues, "the county or municipal level People's Government shall consult the opinions of animal epidemic prevention experts before making the decision, and shall make a public announcement on the decision. An animal who has been immunized and for whom the owner or person supervising or managing the animal can provide a certificate of immunization, may not be killed."
Chinese cities have historically not had animal control departments. Instead, low-level public employees have been drafted to kill dogs, poultry, or other animals whenever the numbers of the animals at large became perceived as a health and safety problem. The result has often been inept and unnecessarily violent animal capture and killing.
Article 30 requires that, "In cases where for epidemic prevention purposes there is a genuine need to kill animals, humane catching and humane destruction should be performed by police, People's Armed Police, or other public officials who have undergone training by a licensed veterinarian or by an animal husbandry and veterinary administrative department. All killing," says Article 30, "should be carried out in a manner which causes the minimum of physical and mental harm to animals. Beating, cutting, drowning, poisoning, non-instantaneous electrocution and other brutal methods may not be used."

Cosmetic surgery

Article 39 provides that, "The alteration of the appearance of an animal, procedures for other non-veterinary purposes, surgery such as tail docking, ear docking, alterations to the vocal cords [devocalization], declawing, defanging [detoothing] etc, which cause suffering to the animal, are prohibited, except for particular purposes such as to protect an animal's physical health, to protect a special animal or to prevent reproduction etc."
Legislation or veterinary regulations prohibiting some of these operations exists in Britain, Italy, and several Australian states. In the U.S., the state of Ohio has prohibited devocalizing dogs since 2000, but declawing cats is prohibited only in eight California cities. Comprehensive laws banning all of these procedures may not exist in any nation. Bills that would ban any of them have been vehemently opposed by veterinary societies wherever they have been introduced. The California Veterinary Medical Association in 2009 won passage of a law which prevents cities from introducing new bans on veterinary procedures after January 1, 2010, if the procedures are not already banned statewide.

Zoo animals

Among the first Chinese animal issues to attract extensive U.S. and European media notice was the practice of feeding live prey to large carnivores, including lions and tigers. Chinese zoos operating as educational institutions were enjoined from practicing live feeding in 2000, but zoos operating as purported conservation institutions were regulated by a different branch of government, and were allowed to continue live feeding on the pretext that this was preparing endangered species for eventual return to the wild.
Article 45 of the Chinese draft animal welfare bill states that "during opening times the feeding of live prey [to carnivores] is prohibited." Article 45 is also one of seven different clauses in the Chinese draft animal welfare bill that forbid using animals to fight, either for human entertainment or for betting on the outcome.
At least four major Chinese zoos have been exposed since 2006 for selling wine allegedly medicinally seasoned with tiger bone, among other products made from body parts of zoo animals. Several other Chinese zoos raise wildlife, including crocodiles, for commercial purposes. Article 48 of the draft animal welfare bill bans these activities. However, an exemption to Article 48 adds that, "Wild animals under special state protection who have been domesticated or tamed, or their limbs or organs, may not be used [in manufacturing items for sale]Šwithout a permit." Lack of a clear definition of "domesticated or tamed" could become problematic.
Article 43 states that "Those wild animals and their subsequent generations who have been domesticated or trained by humans also enjoy the legal status of wild animals." But Article 48 could be construed as meaning that the parts of species trained to perform, including tigers and elephants, could be used to manufacture items for sale, if a zoo obtained a permit to do so. Proposed permit requirements are not included in the draft bill.
Article 48 concludes that, "The state, through development of new technology to produce alternative products, will gradually eliminate the use of wild animals in the manufacture of traditional Chinese medicine, clothing, cosmetics, jewelry, shampoo, fur pelts and food, medicinal or other items. Detailed methods shall be determined by the departments responsible under the Ministry of Health in accordance with their authority."

Laying hens

China during the first decade of the 21st century accounted for nearly half of global egg production, despite the harm done to the Chinese poultry industry by the H5N1 avian flu and other disease outbreaks. Altogether, Chinese egg production doubled in only 10 years--and Chinese citizens now eat an average of more than 300 eggs per year, trailing only Japan in per capita consumption. Despite the magnitude of the Chinese egg production boom, however, about two-thirds of the Chinese egg supply are believed to come from small semi-traditional producers.
Article 53 of the draft Chinese animal welfare law appears to legislate on behalf of both laying hens and the semi-traditional producers, who have struggled in competition with the introduction of factory farms, but account for much more rural employment.
Stipulates Article 57, "The state encourages those work units, individuals and organizations with the requisite conditions to engage in free-range poultry and livestock production." Without specifically addressing factory egg-farming, but describing factory egg farm practices, Article 57 adds, "The living environment may not be kept in permanent darkness and may not be artificially illuminated during the animals' rest periods."
Article 61 would appear to prohibit forced moults, often used in the U.S. to induce laying hens to start a new egg-laying cycle at times when they normally would not. The technique involves keeping the hens on severely restricted rations for several weeks, or even starving them, to simulate winter scarcity. When feeding resumes, the hens respond as if to spring, with increased egg production.
Article 61 states that, "Abandon-ment of and cruelty towards economic animals, through deprivation of food and water and other means, are prohibited."
Article 61 also includes another of the many prohibitions on animal fighting in the draft Chinese law, in this context apparently to ensure that intent to prohibit cockfighting is not misunderstood or misinterpreted.
Article 61 adds that, "The use of sharp implements, blunt instruments or implements which contain sharp or blunt parts to whip or drive economic animals, and the use of electric shock are prohibited, except for in circumstances where there is an immediate threat to public safety."
This passage, as well as others in the draft Chinese law, would prohibit bullfighting and rodeo. The Beijing Wildlife Park built an arena in 2004 that was to host bullfights and rodeos, but abandoned the plan after the Beijing Youth Daily reported that the Beijing municipal government was considering a bill closely paralleling the current draft national animal welfare bill.
The Beijng municipal bill was withdrawn soon after the Beijing Wildlife Park backed down. Ling Peili of the Beijing legal affairs office told Irene Wang of the South China Morning Post that humane legislation would probably not get priority attention for at least five years.
Incorporating all the same provisions, in much the same language, the current draft animal welfare law was completed almost exactly five years later.

Ducks & geese

The authors of the draft Chinese animal welfare law have also addressed foie gras production methods.
A firm called Jifa Group introduced foie gras manufacture to China in 2004. "For the past two years we have produced about 100 tonnes of foie gras, about two-thirds of Chinese production, force-feeding some 200,000 geese," Jifa managing director Qi Mingce told Agence France-Presse in April 2006. "Our aim," Qi Mingce said, "is to reach 1,000 tonnes over the next five years, with two million geese."
This would make Jifa the second largest foie gras producer in the world.
Jifa in April 2006 formed a partnership with the largest foie gras producer, Delpeyrat, of France. The French farmers' cooperative foie gras producer Euralls followed Delpeyrat into China in February 2008, buying a duck farm near Beijing.
But Article 58 of the draft Chinese animal welfare law states that "Force-feeding of economic animals for the purposes of fattening is prohibited, except for the treatment of animal disease and only then with the consent of a veterinarian."

Pet care

The legislation of most nations, the U.S. included, combines provisions for the care of companion animals with the laws governing animal care and control. The draft Chinese animal welfare bill discusses animal care and control primarily in the context of disease control and prevention. Most parts of the draft bill that deal specifically with dogs and cats come later.
Article 65 of the draft bill accommodates bylaws in most Chinese cities which limit the size, breeds, and numbers of dogs who may be kept in high-density living areas.
Article 66 in effect recommends the formation of local humane societies: "The State encourages residents' committees, village committees and [enterprise] owners' committees to engage in public campaigning, education and mediation work on pet animal protection and management, in order to strengthen the sense of responsibility among pet owners, and to protect and rescue stray cats and dogs, while giving equal consideration to the interests of non-pet-keepers so as to reduce social conflict."
Article 69, potentially covering the pets of 1.3 billion people, requires that "Before dogs or cats are sold, they must undergo compulsory immunization and neutering at the breeding establishment." This, if introduced as a formal legislative proposal, would be by far the most sweeping mandate for pet sterilization ever advanced.
Article 87 will probably seem a bit odd to people who are unfamiliar with the water scarcity and water quality issues afflicting much of China: "No work unit, individual or organization may throw out at will the carcass of a dead pet animal, jeopardizing public health and safety and environmental safety. No work unit, individual or organization may dig a grave for the burial of the carcass of a dead pet animal."
Pet cemeteries for the pets of nobility existed in China in dynastic times, but burying pets was officially discouraged during the latter half of the 20th century. The Association for Small Animal Protection opened the first pet cemetery in contemporary China in 2002 on the premises of a former pig farm. The project was opposed by local officials as an alleged misuse of arable land.

Lab animals

While some protection for animals used in laboratories is included in Article 29 of the draft Chinese animal welfare bill, most language pertaining to lab animals comes much later.
Article 89 outlines as basic principles that, "The state encourages the sharing of experimental data and material domestically and internationally, in order to reduce the numbers of laboratory animals used; the state also promotes alternative [replacement] experimental methods, in order to reduce the number of unnecessary animal experiments; and refinement of experimental methodology, technology, content and procedures in order to avoid causing animals unnecessary suffering and harm. The breeding, transport, use and disposal measures of laboratory animals should be humane, and teasing, harassment, abandonment of and cruelty toward laboratory animals, and engaging in experiments involving animal fighting are prohibited.
Adds Article 90, "Animal experiments may not violate society's recognized concepts of humane ethics."
Ensuing articles of the draft bill differ from laboratory animal regulation in the U.S. and Britain primarily in omitting requirements for publication of animal use data.

Performing animals

Articles 102 through 121 of the Chinese draft bill add specific regulations governing the use of performing animals to those implied in earlier clauses pertaining to wildlife and livestock.
"Animal performances should be for the purposes of education and spreading knowledge," adds Article 113. "Use of cruelty toward, or harassment or humiliation of animals in the content of performances is prohibited." Prohibitions on animal fighting are restated. An additional clause states that "The media may not publicize or give prior notice of such animal fighting or killing performances." The article continues to forbid "activities in which animals and humans fight or wrestle."
Article 115 asserts that, "Filmed images of animals should illustrate in a scientific manner the natural behavior of animals. Methods involving cruelty or harm toward animals may not be used in producing filmed images."
Article 117, as well as reinforcing the apparent prohibitions in the draft bill on bullfighting and rodeo, would appear to prohibit whipping race horses: "In training, sports contests or similar activities, the use of sharp objects such as spurs or blunt instruments to drive or cruelly treat animals is prohibited."
India has prohibited striking racehorses with stiff whips since 2001. No other nations are known to regulate whipping racehorses under federal law.

Live skinning

Language specifically addressing the most flagrant abuses of animals in China comes late in the draft animal welfare bill, which appears to have been organized according to the Confucian principle of building consensus around points of agreement before addressing points of potential controversy.
The state-published Beijing News in 2005 extensively exposed live skinning of dogs by some fur sellers. The exposé was globally amplified by animal advocates, many of whom responded in apparent unawareness that the Chinese government itself strongly disapproved of live skinning, and appeared to be exposing it with intent to stop it.
Editorialized ANIMAL PEOPLE, "Compare the live skinning of dogs to the live skinning of cattle at the Iowa Beef Packers slaughterhouse in Wallula, Washington, exposed in 2000 by the Humane Farming AssociationŠHFA obtained affidavits from 17 Wallula slaughterhouse workers who testified that up to 30% of the cattle they killed were inadequately stunned. No one was successfully prosecuted."
Article 158 of the draft Chinese animal welfare bill addresses both fur farm killing and meat slaughter: "Animals may not be flayed, scalded, dehaired, defeathered, eviscerated or delimbed before death."
Article 158 would also prohibit boiling cats to death, a practice known to occur chiefly in Guangdong.
The draft Chinese animal welfare bill does not forbid slaughtering dogs and cats for human consumption. But it does open the way for this to be done, as rapidly as opponents of eating dogs and cats can build public and political support. States Article 162. "People's Governments at the provincial level may prohibit or restrict the slaughter of dogs, cats and other animals in their jurisdiction."
The draft bill concludes with veterinary regulations and rules governing trade in animals and animal parts.
Article 165 makes clear the intent of the framers: "The state encourages export enterprises to adopt animal protection measures in accordance with the legal requirements and animal protection standards and requirements of the importing country. The Government of the People's Republic of China prohibits the export and import of animal products manufactured using brutal methods, and prohibits the import of animals which do not comply with China's requirements for the protection of the environment, public health and ecological safety." --Merritt Clifton

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

LETTERS

Priorities

I believe the animal welfare movement has lost its compass. In its quest to "save" individual animals, the movement has lost sight of what's best for dogs and cats as a whole. What used to be called animal shelters now offer no shelter unless there is room or the animal is especially adoptable. The quest to become "no kill" has created untold cruelty and suffering for animals turned away by organizations who proclaim that their mission is to protect those who cannot protect themselves. All too often, animal care and control facilities, both private and public, no longer accept animals surrendered by their owners, with the inevitable result that the refused animal winds up dumped on the street or comes back to that same facility, this time as a "stray".
In the early 1970s I wrote an allegory about endless dogs and cats floating down a river. Let's get out of the river, stop trying to save one in a thousand, I opined, and instead go upstream to find out how and where they are falling in. We did that, and to a great extent pet sterilization has reduced that flow to a comparative trickle. But rather than see this strategy through to conclusion, the movement is now back in the river saving one while a hundred suffer. The movement has gotten misdirected on adoptions, often to the exclusion of spaying and neutering.
In 38 years working in animal welfare I've had to kill more than my share of unwanted dogs and cats. I know what it's like to shoulder that responsibility: to look them in the eyes and do what I believed best. So let's stop abandoning animals to their fate on the streets, or with owners who don't want them. Let's not be seduced by gurus telling us the problem is our adoption policy. Our primary problem is too many animals, and the solution is spaying and neutering. We've known this for years; let's not turn our back on it when we're so close. The animal protection movement should return to full access for unwanted animals. Until overpopulation is solved we must have the courage to do what's best for all the dogs and cats in our communities. And please, let's stop demonizing shelters because they kill animals. It is far more humane to end an animal's life than to put him or her in a cage for life. Let's re-calibrate our moral compass and do what's best for all animals. --Doug Fakkema
Charleston, South Carolina
<dkfakkema@aol.com>

 Editor's note:

Allegations that no-kill shelters "turn away" animals, however true they might be, tend to overlook that the millions of animals they do accept now amount to nearly half of the total volume of dogs and cats entering shelters, including many who are rehomed through extraordinary efforts that conventional open-admission shelters are not positioned to make.
Animal control agencies historically are obliged by law to accept all animals, including those who are too dangerous to adopt out, or are otherwise un-adoptable. Therefore, they do a disproportionate share of shelter killing. Recently we have seen some agencies rebel against this role by, for example, instituting high surrender fees. This usually does result in increased animal abandonment.
Discussion of "abandoning animals to their fate on the streets" unfortunately often overlooks that most feral cats and street dogs have never lived anywhere else, were never pets (though many are fed by someone), and have thrived since the dawn of civilization as semi-tame urban wildlife. Feral cats, abundant in the U.S., and street dogs, abundant in the developing world, tend to be happiest and healthiest in the habitat niches they have evolved to fill. If they are perceived to be too many, neuter/return is usually the only effective way to reduce their numbers.
The actuality, though, that feral cats and street dogs rarely need help from shelters is not to be confused with the plight of abandoned ex-pets, who seldom thrive on their own, and often spend the rest of their brief lives trying to find their way back to the homes they have lost.

Tom Skeldon

-
I was very appreciative of your November/December editorial "No-Kill sheltering & the quest for the holy grail."
The current environment fostering character assassinations of those in animal welfare leadership is not in the best interest of the animals, nor do these attacks help to increase the community resources needed to improve the plight of the animals.
I am very disturbed by how former Toledo dog warden Tom Skeldon was treated. I worked with Tom when I headed the Toledo Area Humane Society. We did not see eye to eye on every issue. However, Tom worked to reduce the numbers of animals coming into the Toledo animal control shelter. He worked with the primary local spay/neuter organization to ensure that dogs who returned to owners for various ordinance violations were sterilized, including pit bull terriers. He worked hard to eradicate dogfighting. His training for meter readers and postal personnel prevented many a bite. This in turn prevented many a dog from being deemed dangerous and possibly being destroyed. Tom was hard-headed but a liar never. On several occasions he took the heat for staff mistakes, which he would not have made. After 22 years he deserved better.
I was vehemently opposed to the manner in which the public was led tobelieve that the fighting dogs confiscated from Michael Vick could easily be evaluated, rehabilitated, and rehomed into loving homes. In truth, about two dozen remain in high security impoundment, and are never to be adopted. I wrote a letter to the American SPCA voicing my concerns about this. However, the treatment of the "A" over their decision to euthanize the dog Oreo is beyond my comprehension. I do believe that rehoming fighting dogs and other vicious or aggressive dogs was made to look much too easy, and that the public now has highly unrealistic expectations about what shelters can be expected to do in such cases.
Thank you for researching the facts in these situations.
--Mary Pat Boatfield, RVT, M.Ed, CAWA
Executive Director
Nashville Humane Association
213 Oceola Avenue
Nashville, TN 37209
Phone: 615-354-6335
Fax: 615-352-4111
<www.nashvillehumane.org>

Dancing bears

-

I thought you would like to know that the last known "dancing bears" in India have just been rescued. So far as we are aware, there are no more of these poor sloth bears suffering on the roads of India. I have just come back from India, where I helped to take the last bear to the Bannerghatta Bear Sanctuary, operated by Wildlife SOS in Bannerghatta National Park.
This is a most gratifying time for all of the members, sponsors, supporters and volunteers of the Free The Bears Fund, who have dug deep to help fund the Kalandar Rehabilitation Program, which has enabled the retirement of the Kalandar people from the dancing bear business. We have helped to fund the rescue of more than 500 bears, but the most successful part of this program is that we have funded help for more than 500 Kalandar families, who are earning much better livelihoods and enjoying a much improved quality of life.
Working closely with Wildlife SOS cofounders Kartick Satyanarayan and Geeta Seshamani, and with International Animal Rescue and One Voice, we now help to fund four bear sanctuaries in Agra, Bophal, West Bengal, and Bannerghatta, near Bangalore.
--Mary Hutton, founder
Free The Bears Fund Inc.
PO Box 1393
Osborne Park DC
Western Australia 6916
Phone: 08-9244-1096
Fax: 08-9244 4649
<info@freethebears.org.au>
<www.freethebears.org.au>

Wild horses

-

The Government Accounting Office reports that U.S. taxpayers pay $144 million to the Bureau of Land Management to manage the private livestock grazing program.
This program only generates $21 million in land use fees. If that program ended and the land was restored to the public and mustangs, there would be no wild horse overpopulation problem.
--Charise DeMao Richmond, Indiana
<cdemao@parallax.ws>

Zoo & circus eles

-

Thank you so much for "India bans keeping elephants in zoos & circuses." It throws so much light on the elephant scene in India and the world--very useful for all of us working for captive elephants.
--Brindha Nandakumar, Advocate
Karnataka High Court
Bangalore, India

Elephants & bears

-

Re "India bans keeping elephants in zoos & circuses," what an excellent resume of the history of captive elephants!
We have been campaigning against the use of elephants in temples. Unfortun-ately, since this is a religious issue, these elephants are not protected by any law.
I just read that the last dancing bear in India now walks free. Congratulations to former Indian minister for animal welfare and social empowerment Maneka Gandhi. It was her idea to find employment for the Kalandar bear trainers and handlers that took them away from catching and training bears. If they had not found alternate employment, it would not have been possible to free all the bears. The law banning dancing bears, like many others, would have remained on paper only.
Retraining the Kalandars gave me the idea to train the Kurumbas in the Nilgiri Hills. They are excellent trackers and were the poachers' guides. After the C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation trained the young men of the tribe to paint on paper, they became occupied and well-paid in their new career--and the number of tigers in the Nilgiris has gone up. The forest departments of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala say there are now 266 tigers, where there were just 16, but I think the figure is high, since the tigers move all over the area and each state has a separate census--there must be some double counting. However, the population has gone up considerably, due to weaning the Kurumba tribes away from hunting. The Nilgiris are probably the only place in India which show a steady rise in the number of tigers.
-Nanditha Krishna, Ph.D.
Honorary Director
C.P. Ramaswami
Aiyar Foundation
Chennai, India
<drnandithakrishna@gmail.com>

Sacrifice

-

Re "'God is not Dracula'--but sacrifice continues," in your November/December 2009 edition, news reports mentioned that many of the animals sacrified in Nepal to the goddess Gadhimai came from India, as Nepal did not have enough. If this was true, the crime started here, and we can at least question how animals protected under Indian laws came to be smuggled to Nepal and slaughtered. Even if the numbers were small, and no matter how porous the borders are between India and Nepal, they were our animals, supposed to be protected by our laws.
--Vivienne Choudhury
In Defence of Animals India
7, Shanti Kunj, 124,
Hindu Colony, 5th Lane,
Dadar, Mumbai 400 014
India
<info@idaindia.org>
<www.idaindia.org>

Eid slaughter

-

Eid ul Azha slaughter in Saudi Arabia may be declining, as you reported in "'God is not Dracula'--but sacrifice continues," but in Pakistan the Eid slaughter of cows increased 15% and the slaughter of other animals increased 4% from November 28 to November 30, 2009. Approximately 12 million animals were slaughtered, including eight million sheep and goats, 2.5 million cows, and one million camels and buffalo, according to the president of the hide and skin merchants association. Animal Save Movement Pakistan strongly protests this debacle, and wants to abolish it.
--Khalid Mahmood Qurashi, President
Animal Save Movement Pakistan
H#1094/2
Hussain Agahi
Multan 60000
Pakistan
<thetension@hotmail.com>

Invasive adoption screening & high fees

-

After thousands of Chihuahuas were rescued in California and sent to Washington and other states for adoption, I searched for one to adopt, and was amazed by the extensive applications one needs to fill out just to give one of these little dogs a home. I have seen 14-page adoption applications, that cover bank accounts and lifestyle, even requesting photos of the applicant's home and requiring home visits to verify the details. And the costs! To adopt a little dog runs between $300.00 and $600.00. Now I know this covers the costs of vaccinations and altering, but still, these costs are a little high. I wonder how a lot of these little orphans will ever find homes.
--Christianne Erwin
Orcas Island, Washington
<cpeorcas@interisland.net>

Editor's note:

Adoption screening evolved first to protect human children, when humane societies often managed orphanages. The first animal adoption screening questionnaire was adapted by the American Humane Association circa 1948 from the human adoption questionnaire that the AHA had introduced several decades earlier. The AHA reduced the original 114 questions to 101 by eliminating inquiries about such matters as where the adoptee would attend school and go to church.
Many adoption screening questionnaires based on this model remain in use. Yet despite the intensive questioning, the animal adoption failure rate remained at about 20%, nationwide, for several decades. Eventually Mike Arms, then shelter manager at the North Shore Animal League America and now president of the Helen Woodward Animal Center, reduced the old questionnaire to just 20 questions, worked to prevent adoption failures with post-adoption follow-up, especially behavioral help, and adopted out more than 40,000 animals per year at peak in the early 1990s with an adoption failure rate of just 4%. In the ensuing 20 years, most shelters have moved to the 20-question screening format, and the national adoption failure rate has dropped to about 5%.
Unfortunately, there are still many adoption counsellors who remain unaware that effective adoption screening means getting truthful answers about a few key points, not just a blizzard of personal information.
Shelters and rescuers currently spend between $250 to $400 preparing each dog they place for adoption, from the costs of intake to the costs of advertising, and including the costs of boarding the dogs until they find homes. Adoption fees are typically set at about half the actual cost of facilitating the adoption, in order for shelters to compete successfully against pet stores & puppy mills, but with small dogs, who are almost always in high demand, the adoption fee may be set at full cost.

Bustards

-

I am dismayed to have learned on December 24, 2009 that the Pakistani government is awarding hunting permits to sheiks and dignitaries of the Persian Gulf States and Saudi Arabia to kill the endangered houbara bustard. These gentle creatures are facing extinction and are protected under Pakistani and international law. It is a shame that the Pakistani government is allowing foreign VIPs and kings to carry out an illegal act for which a Pakistani citizen could go to prison.
At one time these birds migrated through the Gulf nations, but years of shooting sprees eventually extirpated them from that flight path. Now their killers are venturing into neighboring countries like Pakistan to destroy the remnant houbaras.
These kings and sheiks who claim to be protectors of Islamic values by enforcing Sharia laws are hunting contrary to the teaching of the holy prophet Muhammad, who said "One who kills even a sparrow or anything smaller without a justifiable reason, will be answerable to Allah.
-Syed Rizvi
Engineers and Scientists
for Animal Rights
San Jose, California
<esar01@aol.com>

Correction

Action for Animals coordinator Eric Mills in his November/December 2009 letter "Time to ban horse-tripping and steer-tailing" listed nine states that have already done so, including Arizona, and nine states where these events still occur as part of charreada-style rodeo. Arizona was inadvertently included on the second list, as well, in place of Arkansas.

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Mississippi burning

HATTIESBURG--Southern Pines Animal Shelter employee Ricky Pierce Jr., 24, of Petal, Mississippi, was charged with commercial burglary and arson on December 23, 2009 for allegedly stealing a computer hard drive and torching the shelter office. The fire killed four handicapped cats.
Southern Pines office manager Michelle Bullock told Hattiesburg American staff writer Erica Sherrill Owens that Pierce was angry because he was recently transferred from the office to do kennel work. Hired in the summer to work in the office, Pierce lived with a female shelter office assistant.
The Southern Pines facilities that burned were built after a May 1995 fire at the former Forrest County Humane Society killed about 60 animals. Firefighter Marvin Loftin suffered a severely burned hand while cutting fences and cage locks to save about 20 dogs.
The organization became the Southern Pines Animal Shelter in 2002.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Transporter sinks

BEIRUT--Thirty-nine people were rescued, but nine were found dead, 35 were missing and presumed dead, and 10,224 sheep plus 17,932 cattle died when the livestock transporter Danny F II capsized and sank on December 17, 2009, 11 nautical miles from Tripoli, Lebanon, en route from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Tartarus, Syria. The British captain reportedly went down with the ship.
Launched as the car transporter Don Carlos in 1975, the Danny F II was renamed when converted to haul livestock in 1994. In 2005 the Danny F II was reportedly detained at Adelaide after inspectors found holed bulkheads, defective navigation lights and radio equipment, and defective watertight doors.
The sinking brought the biggest loss of life of any livestock hauling incident since the sheep transporter Uniceb burned and sank in September 1996, killing 67,488 sheep who were en route to Jordan from New Zealand and Australia.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Obituaries

Billy Arjan Singh, 92, died on January 1, 2010 at his Tiger Haven refuge, 250 kilometers from Lucknow, India. Born into the Ahluwalia royal family of Kapurthala, Singh shot seven tigers as a youth, but came to detest hunting as he saw tigers, leopards, blackbuck, and other Indian "trophy" animals shot to the verge of extinction. Founding Tiger Haven in 1959, which has never had any relationship or resemblance to the captive tiger facility by the same name in Tennessee, Singh created the private preserve that eventually became Dudhwa National Park. Singh notoriously dragged poachers to town behind his jeep and expressed unsympathetic views about the losses of employees and visitors who brought their children into proximity with the captive tigers and leopards he rehabilitated for release and bred with former zoo stock, including Tara, a part Siberian tiger he imported from England in 1976, dismissing objections that he was "contaminating" the Indian tiger gene pool. A recluse, whose closest companion for many years was his elephant, Singh preserved wildlife at the cost of antagonizing so many people that elected officials came to treat him as a public enemy. Backlash against his methods, as well as flagrant corruption, nearly ruined the Indian refuge system in the late 20th century, under the mantra of "sustainable use." The theory was that ordinary Indians would support refuges only if the refuges contributed to their prosperity. Refuges were opened to grazing, wood-gathering, and eventually to so much other economic activity that some, like Sariska, were reduced to heavily trafficked tourist corridors, losing the wildlife that they were founded to protect. Valmik Thapar, an initially reluctant student of Singh's, redeemed Singh and the refuge concept by demonstrating with Singh's help and investment how habitat reclamation could provide even greater economic benefits than the other common uses of refuge land.

Roy Edward Disney, 79, died of stomach cancer on December 16, 2009 in Newport Beach, California. His father, Roy O. Disney, and uncle, Walt Disney, co-founded Walt Disney Inc. in 1923. Roy E. Disney joined the family business in 1953, after a year as assistant film editor for the Dragnet TV series. In 1956 Walt Disney and Roy E. Disney were duped into purchasing footage from independent film maker Tom McHugh purporting to show lemmings rushing into the sea. In truth, McHugh faked the scene by throwing Arctic voles into a Canadian waterfall. Unaware it was fake, the Disneys incorporated the footage into their documentary White Wilderness. Disney Inc. withdrew White Wilderness from distribution after McHugh admitted the fakery, shortly before his death, but it reappeared in 1994, in video format, and was reissued in 1998--with blurbs highlighting the "lemming" segment. Roy E. Disney meanwhile received Oscar nominations as writer and production associate for the 1959 short subject film Mysteries of the Deep, and as executive producer of Destino, a 2003 film based on storyboards and art by Salvador Dali. As longtime head of animation for Disney Studios, Roy E. Disney presided over the production of many productions with pro-animal messages, including Beauty & the Beast and The Lion King. He retired in 2003.

Andy Mireles, 59, for 20 years a state district judge in San Antonio, Texas, died of a heart attack on December 15, 2009. Mireles on September 8, 2006 ruled that nine chimpanzees and two human plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue a PETA-backed lawsuit against the Primarily Primates sanctuary. The chimps were retired to Primarily Primates by Ohio State University, with a $324,000 endowment for their facilities and care. Objecting to the transfer, PETA pursued further litigation against Primarily Primates. The sanctuary was placed in receivership due to PETA allegations in October 2006, and the OSU chimps were transferred to Chimp Haven, in Shreveport, Louisiana. The PETA allegations were dismissed in 2007. Primarily Primates became a project of Friends of Animals while the initial litigation was underway, but only after the receivership ended was FoA actually able to assume management of the sanctuary. The Texas Fourth Court of Appeals upheld the original Mireles verdict in January 2008.

Samuel DeWitt Haddock, 53, died in December 2009 of liver failure, in Clermont, Florida. A circus elephant caretaker since 1976, Haddock in 1997 joined the staff of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida. A meat-eating dove hunter, Haddock was not involved in the long history of litigation between Ringling and animal advocacy groups (see page 13), but his wife Millie, who died in 2005, urged him to come forward with what he knew. "My wife never liked what the elephants went through at the circus, especially the baby elephants," Haddock declared in 2009. "Before she died, she told me, 'Sammy, I know you'll do the right thing.'" Recounted Washington Post staff writer David Montgomery, "Last spring Haddock Jr. brought his story and snapshots to PETA director of captive animal rescue and enforcement Debbie Leahy. PETA used Haddock's material to file a complaint with the USDA," alleging violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act and seeking to have the Ringling permit to keep elephants revoked.

David Newman Radabaugh Sr., 72, died on December 10, 2009 at his home in Vero Beach, Florida. After a long college and university teaching career, Radabaugh for 14 years volunteered for the Humane Society of Vero Beach & Indian River County, where his wife Joan Carlson was for 27 years executive director. "In 1992 he coordinated a phone survey of 2,000 animal guardians to help the shelter gain a better understanding of its community, and advocated for other shelters to do the same," recalled Janet Winikoff, director of education for the Humane Society of Vero Beach & Indian River County. The survey discovered that residents of the Vero Beach area were approximately twice as likely to want to breed their dogs as respondents to similar surveys done in other parts of the U.S.

Carl Gans, 86, died on November 30, 2009 in Austin, Texas. Born in Hamburg, Germany, Gans emigrated to the U.S. in 1939. After World War II Army service in the Pacific theatre, Gans studied herpetology in Brazil, but installed power boilers for a living until 1958, when he began a 40-year university teaching career. Known for studies of evolutionary biology and biomechanics, Gans edited the journal Morphology for 25 years; edited the 23-volume Biology of the Reptilia, serialized from 1969 to 2009; and authored the handbook Reptiles of the World.

Julie Ann Kroll, 39, a dog rescuer in Woodbridge, Maryland, was found dead on December 29, 2009, near where she crashed her car on December 16. Witnesses said she was "driving recklessly," wrote Washington Post staff writer Matt Zapotsky. An open container of alcohol was found in the vehicle. Kroll's eight-year-old daughter left the vehicle before the accident. Kroll briefly pursued her on foot, leaving the car in gear. The car collided with a tree. Kroll then backed the car into a driveway and was last seen stumbling away on foot.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Animal obituaries

Rodney, a one-and-a-half-year-old mule deer buck, was on December 21, 2009 confiscated and shot by California Department of Fish & Game wardens. Rodney was picked up on June 3, 2008 by Katie McFadyen, 16, of Los Molinos. She gave him to neighbor Thora Adcock after her family moved. "Wardens considered releasing Rodney onto a refuge," warden DeWayne Little told Dylan Darling of the Redding Record-Searchlight, "but opted to kill him because he had become habituated to humans during his time with Adcock and showed aggression to people."

Tappy, a member of a 10-dog team kept by veteran musher Ted English, was apparently strangled in her harness in the aftermath of a December 27, 2009 team runaway from Jan Stevens, 53, of Edmonds, Washington. Training in hopes of competing in the 2010 Iditarod Trail race, Stevens lost the team when she hit a tree and was thrown off the sled. The team was found two days later.

Dr. Jumble, 16, the first Blue Cross of India therapy dog, certified by Animals Asia Foundation and Dr. Dog program founder Jill Robinson, died on December 14, 2009 in Chennai, India.

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B O O K S

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Cat Be Good: A Foolproof Guide for the Complete Care and Training of Your Cat
Third Edition / by Annie Bruce
2000, 2003, 2005 -- Free online at <www.CatBeGood.com>; 208 pages.

After selling out three printed editions in less than 10 years, Colorado cat advocate Annie Bruce has now made Cat Be Good available for free online.
While the priceless advice in Cat Be Good is now freely accessible, a free cat is never free of expenses, Bruce cautions. Who pays for the food, litter and vet bills? Cats also need scratching posts and toys to keep them occupied, and usually are happiest with cat companions, who bring their own expenses. Keeping a cat--or several--is a lifetime responsibility, Bruce emphasizes. A cat may live 18 to 20 years, especially if the cat lives indoors.
Bruce favors acquiring cats by adoption, though she acknowledges that there are some conscientious cat breeders. Animal shelters and rescues are loaded with unwanted kittens and adult cats in perfect health. They all need a safe snug place to call home and Bruce encourages readers to give these cats a chance, as she herself has, many times.
Shampooing cats has come into vogue to reduce allergic responses to dander and to remove loose hair so that cats don't develop hairballs. Most cats, however, believe any bathing is too much. Bruce advises against frequent shampooing. Brushing, however, should be done often, Bruce believes, particularly with long haired cats. A good brushing keeps excess fur off the furniture, your clothing, and out of the corners of rooms. It also stimulates a cat's skin and keeps her coat healthy.
Nail-trimming is a must, both to prevent claw damage to home, clothing, and furnishings, and for a cat's own comfort in any environment where claws will not be constantly worn down by use. Bruce so strongly opposes declawing cats that declawing campaigners are among the three categories of people to whom she will still sell a hard copy of Cat Be Good.
Bruce devotes a chapter to diet, comparing wet, dry, home-cooked and natural foods. Bruce says cats should eat only wet food, I disagree. Many experts believe cats should eat mostly dry food, with only a splash of wet, unless of course they have few or no teeth. Cat-keepers should do their own research and use their own judgement.
Giving pills to a cat can be traumatic for the cat-keeper, as well as the cat. Bruce offers pointers on how to medicate even the most cantankerous cat. This is essential, especially since older cats may need daily pills.
Cats are like people, Bruce says, in that sometimes they like each other; sometimes not. Hissy fights break out, fur flies, and screeches follow when two mismatched cats are introduced. That doesn't mean the new cat has to go. Bruce has some handy ideas about how to smooth tense introductions. Give it a chance, she says. The cats may learn to get along.
Bruce allows her cats to romp briefly in her yard. This will be a point of debate with many people. I lean toward keeping cats indoors, where they can have quite happy lives.
Bruce urges cat people to donate used linens, towels and sheets to local shelters or rescues. Shelter and rescue personnel will appreciate this--and will appreciate even more her strong recommendation that cats should be sterilized, to avoid adding to the numbers of cats who are abandoned at shelters. --Debra J. White

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Rescue Matters: How to find, foster and rehome companion animals
by Sheila Webster Boneham, Ph.D.
Alpine Publications (38262 Linman Road, Crawford, CO 81415), 2009.
166 pages, paperback. $14.95.

Sheila Boneham recognizes that animal rescue is central to the volunteers involved. They give up evenings to transport unwanted animals from shelters to foster homes. Huge chunks of their weekends are spent at adoption events. They may skip a holiday dinner to pick up a stray dog who has been hit by a car. Hearts get broken along the way too, when favorite animals don't survive.
Rescuing animals can be rewarding, but it can also be challenging and dangerous. And it's not for everyone. There is a lot more than plucking a stray dog from an animal shelter or saving a cat from a band of hoodlums. Be prepared for hard work.
From her own rescue experience, Boneham emphasizes that groups have to organize, be professional, and raise money. Tending to details like record-keeping takes time from animal care, but it must be done. Only strong, cohesive and organized groups grow into fulfilling their mission.
Each group needs a mission statement. Older groups who already have a mission statement may need to review it, and amend it to accommodate changes--for example, transitioning from shelterless rescue to operating a shelter, or from working as an auxiliary to a local shelter to working with several shelters, or standing alone. A mission statement succinctly explains who you are, what you do, and who you represent.
A mission statement is a legally required part of incorporation, and incorporation is an essential part of operating on any basis except as a sole proprietorship small business, managed for profit. Nonprofit incorporation is a far more appropriate structure for animal rescue. If incorporated as a charity under IRS Section 501(c)(3), an organization may issue receipts for tax-exempt contributions. Nonprofit incorporation also gives you legal standing to open a bank account in the name of your organization, acquire a telephone number in the name of the organization, rent a post office box on behalf of the organization, and obtain nonprofit mailing permits, which will be needed once your organization begins building a donor base. Most grant-giving foundations require applicants to provide proof of having both state and federal nonprofit status.
The organizational issues need to be taken care of before beginning actual animal rescue. Merely accepting animals from the public may become legally complicated. Some people "surrender" animals who are not theirs to begin with. Some conceal significant issues, such as bite history.
Boneham outlines the surrender process nicely. Never take an owner-surrendered animal, she emphasizies, without a signed agreement. Always have an attorney review your agreement before using it. Rescue groups typically operate on threadbare budgets. One lawsuit can ruin years of good work. Organizations can be destroyed by legal fees even in cases that they nominally win in court.
Handling animals can be complicated, or can be easy, depending on whatever physical and psychologic issues each animal has. Boneham offers practical suggestions on dealing with dogs who are out of control and those who just need special care because they are afraid. No matter how eager you are to help, she advises, avoid approaching animals who snarl, hiss, or growl.
But Boneham omits some tips which might be lifesavers for anyone working in animal care, either as a fulltime professional or as a volunteer. First, never get between fighting animals, as this can result in an instinctive redirected attack --from both directions. Instead, separate the combatants by pushing something between them. A chair will work and is usually handy, but something they cannot see through, such as a sofa cushion or even an upended table is better.
In extreme emergencies a fire extinguisher may be used. Actually spraying the fighting animals will help to some extent, and creating a slippery foam barrier between them often helps even more.
Keep records, Bonham emphasizes, because you may need them later, no matter how simple a situation appears to be at the time. Always check incoming animals for identification, especially microchips. Some animals may be lost or stolen, regardless of whatever history they are said to have, and can be returned to their homes.
Rescues survive almost entirely on the generosity of volunteers. Boneham says don't turn potential volunteers away, even if they can't foster animals. A prudent leader will put all willing hands to work helping with transport, fundraising, publicity, and computer work.
Happy endings keep rescues going. Saying no, however, is a sign of a responsible rescue. A potential adopter who says the dog will be chained outdoors, for example, should be turned down. Other tough decisions concern euthanasia. Sometimes a dog or cat may be unadoptable due to illness or behavior. The rescue must consider liability in bite cases. A dangerous dog or cat should not be available for adoption. Not only can someone be hurt, but the consequences of an animal injuring someone can include losing the entire organization and the opportunity to help other animals. No one wants to euthanize dogs or cats, but the occasional need for euthanasia is a harsh reality in the rescue world.
Creative fundraising is critical to a rescue's survival. Small volunteer groups cannot scrape by on adoption fees alone--and the adoption fee that an animal may bring is often well below the actual cost of rehabilitating and finding a home for the animal. Additional funds must be found. Boneham offers creative and clever ways to bring in money.
Burned out, fizzled, finished. How many volunteers quit rescue because they have had enough? Saving dogs and cats tugs at one's emotions because the volume of needy animals never seems to ease up. For every shelter dog and cat who is saved, on average, one is euthanized. Sometimes rescuers just can't deal with any more pet loss, ignorant owners, or hideous abuse and neglect cases. Boneham suggests ways to keep one's sanity while continuing to rescue.
Rescue Matters compliments the fine work already done by many rescue groups. Boneham understands their day-to-day struggles. Her advice, given from experience, is well considered. --Debra J. White

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Scream Like Banshee
by Tamira Ci Thayne
Dogs Deserve Better / (P.O. Box 23, Tipton, PA 16684), 2009.
172 pages, paperback. $14.98.

Fostering a dog is one of the hardest things you'll ever do, says Tamira C. Thayne, founder and president of Dogs Deserve Better. Thayne, formerly known as Tammy Grimes, offers tales and tips about dealing with unwanted dogs, many of whom have lived chained to fences, doghouses, or trees.
As a child, Thayne always liked animals. She grew up to be caring and compassionate. A chained black Labrador named Worthless changed her life. Thayne passed Worthless on her daily drive to work. Sometimes she saw the dog shivering in the blustery Pennsylvania winters, his chain snagged in debris that prevented him from reaching his dog house. In the summer Worthless panted under the harsh summer sun. His owners finally relented, after several years, and gave Worthless to Thayne. Renamed Bo, the old dog lived only a short time longer, but his last few months were surrounded by love and comfort. He died unchained.
Moved by the plight of chained dogs, Thayne started Dogs Deserve Better in 2002 to free dogs from a lifetime of misery. Friends and family said she could not make a difference, in a cause that major national humane organizations had already addressed unsuccessfully for at least 65 years. Now Dogs Deserve Better has five paid employees and Thayne speaks often at meetings and conferences around the country. Dogs Deserve Better volunteer representatives are active in many U.S. cities, most states, and some foreign nations. More than 150 local ordinances and at least three state laws have been passed to protect chained dogs.
Thayne has made so much of a difference that calls pour in from all over the U.S. asking Thayne to help with local chained dog rescues. Often people convince stubborn owners to relinquish chained dogs but then what? Many expect Thayne to take over, even from across the country. She has rescued dozens of Pennsylvania dogs, but over time she learned her limits. She tells callers they must step up too.
One person cannot help find good homes for every chained dog in the U.S., but Dogs Deserve Better has resources to help interested people become involved. Thayne encourages people to foster dogs. Even taking in one dog will make a difference. If a person cannot foster, volunteering to transport dogs or organizing fundraising events can also be a substantial contribution.
From experience, Thayne warns rescuers to avoid burnout. No one can or should take in so many dogs that the person's home becomes unsafe. Dogs sometimes fight. Too many dogs in a small space can be unsanitary. Thayne recommends networking. Don't do rescue work alone or you'll fail, she cautions.
Thayne talks about many of the dogs she has rescued. Banshee, the dog on the cover, is a handful. Magnum was chained and mistreated by a punk who wanted him to be mean. Over the years Thayne and her colleagues at Dogs Deserve Better have lost lots of sofas to hyperactive dogs. Chained dogs usually receive no training. Once inside, they don't know how to behave. Thayne shops for cheap sofas at yard sales. Why buy new, she asks, when a newcomer may tear it apart?
Thayne mentions serving two years as a military linguist. While stationed in Germany, she never saw a chained dog. Why are dogs chained in the U.S., she wonders?
Rescue is not for everyone. Much time, money, and hard work are involved. Patience helps. So does loving dogs. And one must have thick skin, because sometimes laws seem to protect abusive owners, not beaten-up dogs.
My only qualm about Scream Like Banshee is that the people who chain and mistreat dogs probably will never read this. I wish they would. --Debra J. White

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Strategic Action for Animals: A handbook for strategic movement building, organizing and activism for animal liberation
by Melanie Joy
Lantern Books (128 2nd Place, Garden Suite, Brooklyn, NY 11231), 2008. 176 pages, paperback. $20.00.

"The animal liberation movement needs to raise public awareness so that citizens become mobilized to demand change," believes Melanie Joy.
Public awareness of the major issues in animal advocacy has already long since been accomplished. References to animal advocacy themes and concerns are now ubiquitous in prime time television, popular films, music, comedy monologues, and the metaphors of common speech-and have been for decades. How to mobilize all this awareness into an effective demand for change is the continuing problem. Where the demand can be focused into a specific political goal, a tactical manual such as Get Political for Animals and win the laws they need, by Julie E. Lewin, may help. Where the goal is more abstract, more associated with shaping consumer or petkeeper behavior, for example, less directed approaches may still be appropriate-but it is essential to accurately assess where public awareness and opinion are today, to avoid merely repeating the activist approaches of the past, without further advancing the issues.
Joy in Strategic Action for Animals provides an excellent analysis of organizational behavior, plus a how-to guide about starting an activist group, but how Joy defines animal liberation is fuzzy. Are we talking about freeing dogs, rats and primates from research labs? Ending medical experiments? Emptying factory farms to let pigs, chickens, and other animals roam freely until time for slaughter? Or promoting the vegan lifestyle?
These are critical questions, because the activist strategy appropriate to achieving a goal depends in large part on what the goal is. The mere term "animal liberation" means very different and often highly emotionally charged things to different people, and whether to use it may be an important strategic decision.
The philosopher Peter Singer, whose 1974 book Animal Liberation is often credited with inspiring the modern animal rights movement, is a committed advocate of peace and human rights, and opponent of violence in the name of social causes. By contrast, the "Animal Liberation Front," a name used by all sorts of people with all sorts of motives and often no association with each other, is often linked to arsons, bomb threats, and acts of attempted intimidation of people in animal use industries.
Whether used as Peter Singer uses it, or as the "ALF" does, "animal liberation" for most people does not conjure up images of cuddly kittens at animal shelters. It is not mainstream, nor will Strategic Action for Animals likely attract mainstream readers, despite its merits of promoting nonviolence, democratic means and unifying goals. How well Joy's readers succeed in persuading the mainstream depends on how well they understand the people who must be reached and influenced.
Joy poses cogent arguments about why people should care about animals and become involved in the world around them, and identifies potentially allied causes-but animal advocates seeking cause linkage should be aware that this approach has often backfired. Most notoriously, animal groups that courted alliance with environmentalists in the late 1980s and early 1990s found that the big environmental organizations would quite readily rent animal charities' donor lists, mail appeals full of metaphorical references to "adopting" endangered species, siphon many millions of dollars from animal advocates, and continue to lend political support to sport hunting, trapping, even the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt.
Joy says that groups with noble intentions crumbled because they lacked leadership, a vision statement and organizational skills. Joy offers pages of valuable suggestions, drawn from her education and experience in other fields, that might even have prevented the global banking crisis if they had been followed. But even if all a group wants to do is help animals, Joy's suggestions are worth reading.
Take for example, her advice to keep in mind that what a speaker says will affect the audience. Emotion-laden speeches about animals suffering usually do not capture audiences who are capable of ending the agony. Joy encourages activists to make messages short but clear. Never moralize, she says and don't exaggerate. Stick to the facts.
In a section on protesting and public demonstrations, Joy recommends against destroying property, such as burning products tested on animals. While this may create public awareness, it might also alienate the same people the group is trying to win over-and is a tactic with little history of success. Certainly the well-publicized record-burnings of the 1950s did not slow the rise of rock-and-roll.
Location will be a factor. Depending on the topic, a flamboyant protest might work in San Francisco, but not in Oklahoma City.
Sponsors of products tested on animals are often targets of protest. On page 73, Joy suggests, "Try not to directly threaten the interests of the media or its sponsors." Threats, direct or indirect, can be misconstrued and be used against groups trying to help animals. Communication is usually preferable to conflict. Undoubtedly some companies perform hideous experiments on animals, sometimes for cosmetic purposes only. Yet most people, including most corporate executives, do not respond positively to threats, intimidation, or coercion. Threats will most likely backfire, even uttered in the name of noble causes.
--Debra J. White

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Japanese shelter numbers fall

OSAKA--Who is making the fastest progress toward becoming a no-kill nation?
A good case could be made for Japan, according to 2007 data collected by All Life In a Viable Environment and published in December 2009 by Animal Refuge Kansai.
1999 data collected by Yoshiko Seno, published in the November 2002 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE, showed that Japan then had a dog population of about 10 million, of whom 280,199 were killed in animal control shelters. Japan has no non-governmental shelters that kill homeless animals. As Japan has had no visible street dogs in more than 40 years, all of the dogs entering shelters were presumed to be former pets.
Since 1999 the Japanese dog population has increased to 13 million, one of the fastest acquisition rates of dogs as pets in the world, but the number of dogs killed in shelters fell by nearly two-thirds, to 100,963. About 1% of the dogs in Japan are surrendered to shelters or picked up as strays each year, compared to about 6% of the dogs in the U.S., and 1.5% of the dogs in Britain.
The Japanese cat population is also currently believed to be about 13 million. All Life In a Viable Environment found that about 1.7% of the Japanese cat population entered shelters in 2007, compared to about 4% of the U.S. cat population. Japanese shelters killed 209,494 cats in 2007.
ANIMAL PEOPLE has no earlier Japanese shelter data pertaining to cats.
Overall, Japan has about one dog or cat per five humans-- about the same as Britain. The U.S. has one pet dog or cat for every two humans. The Japanese rate of shelter killing is 2.4 per 1,000 humans; the U.S. rate is 13.6.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Madras & Delhi courts rule on dog breeding & feeding

COIMBATORE, DELHI--High Court verdicts rendered five days apart in Chennai and Delhi in mid-December 2009 were hailed by media nationwide as among the most significant for dogs since Maneka Gandhi vs. Delhi in 1992.
In the 1992 case, recalled Utkarsh Anand of the Indian Express, "the Delhi High Court held that street dogs are a part of the city, and just beng classified as strays does not mean they should be killed. The court accepted that sterilization and vaccination of dogs is the only scientific and humane solution to the so-called problem of street dogs."
The verdict established the legal foundation for the Indian national Animal Birth Control program, introduced in December 1997 but still just being phased into existence in much of the country.
The legal validity of the ABC program was definitively upheld by the Bombay High Count in December 2008, after a decade of contradictory verdicts by lower courts. But the Delhi and Bombay High Court rulings of 1992 and 2008 left unclear when the behavior of dogs and people feeding or harboring them can become an actionable nuisance.
Madras High Court Justice S. Tamilvanan on December 23, 2009 rejected the contention of Coimbatore dog breeder D. Vikram that the corpus of Indian dog law affirms his claimed right to keep a large number of dogs, despite the objections of three neighbors, all of whom have dogs themselves. A lower court had ordered Vikram to remove the dogs.
Ruled Justice Tamilvanan, "It has been clearly established that the petitioner is keeping large number of dogs, without obtaining a license, for commercial purposes, and also caused noise pollution and a hazardous atmosphere in the residential area of the respondents." These conditions, Tamilvan found, were the cause for the dogs being evicted, not the mere fact that Vikram kept dogs.
Though Tamilvan in essence ruled only against keeping dogs in "puppy mill" or "hoarder" conditions, the Tamilvan ruling was widely misreported as an anti-dog verdict--much as the December 2008 Bombay High Court verdict in favor of ABC was misreported by many of the same media.
"Two major local satellite TV channels, Sun TV and Kalaignar TV, have given their own twist to the tale," e-mailed Bangalore activist Gopi Shankar, "Both of them are owned or backed by the ruling Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam party." Word from Coimbatore, Shankar said, was that the judgment "is being used by neighbors to harass pet keepers. In some areas of Coimbatore, such as Vadavalli," Shankar said, "the police have been going from house to house asking people how many dogs they have."
"It is not what the judge said but what the media is wrongly reporting that is a major cause for alarm," responded Blue Cross of India chief executive Chinny Krishna, from Chennai. "The judge ruled that no one has a right to keep pets in residential areas at the cost of being a nuisance to others. We all must promote responsible guardian care."
Earlier, Delhi High Court Justice V.K. Jain on December 18, 2009 recognized on behalf of dog feeder Simmy Malhotra, who fed dogs as part of an ABC program, that, "The purpose of feeding dogs is to keep them confined to a particular place, so as to subject them to sterilization, vaccination, and re-vaccination."
Justice Jain asked the Animal Welfare Board of India to identify suitable sites for feeding dogs in ABC program areas, in consultation with residents' associations and humane societies that provide ABC services. The Delhi police, Jain added, "will ensure that no harm is caused to volunteers of animal welfare organizations feeding dogs in these localities, provided that they feed the dogs only during hours to be specified by the Animal Welfare Board," at the specified sites.
In August 2009 Delhi High Court Justice Rajiv Shakdher issued an earlier order to police to ensure the safety of ABC program dog feeders, after petitioner Namrata Chanda and six others alleged that they had been assaulted by dog-haters. Despite Shakdher's order, the Times News Network reported, "advocate Jasmine Damkewala was [on Gandhi's birthday] assaulted and had her car smashed by residents for feeding stray dogs."

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Jet-powered puppy mill case crashes before getting to court

PHILADELPHIA, HARRISBURG--Main Line Animal Rescue founder Bill Smith and former Pennsylvania SPCA board president Harrise Yaron just before Christmas 2009 lost their gamble that jetting dogs back from an Ohio dog auction would produce evidence sufficient to prosecute six Amish dog breeders.
Two days before a new Pennsylvania dog law took effect, 12 Lancaster County breeders either quit the business or significantly downsized, sending dozens of dogs to an auction in Baltic, Ohio.
"Animal activists around the country knew the auction was coming," related Lancaster Sunday News associate editor Gil Smart. "At a meeting in Harrisburg on September 30 with officials from the Bureau of Dog Law and shelters from across the state, Bill Smith demanded that Pennsylvania officials take action."
"But basically all [the state] did was push the safe harbor program," which allows breeders to surrender sick dogs without penalty, Smith told Smart.
"About 48 hours before the auction was to take place," Smart continued, "he called Harrise Yaron," a seven-year Pennsylvania SPCA board member who had been board president since November 2008. Yaron's daughter, Old City art gallery director Jennifer Yaron, helped to ignite the opposition to "puppy mills" that produced the new Pennsylvania legislation with a July 2007 exhibition entitled "Puppies are biodegradable." The title was taken from testimony by a Lancaster County breeder at a 2005 zoning hearing, when he was asked what became of unsold dogs.
Yaron's sister Jodi Goldberg is also a Pennsylvania SPCA board member.
"Main Line Animal Rescue didn't have the legal authority to file cruelty charges; the SPCA does," Smart continued. "So Bill Smith, with the help of a Main Line Animal Rescue board member, got a private jet to fly himself and a forensic veterinarian to Ohio."
The Pennsylvania SPCA meanwhile "went out with our trucks, and drove all night to purchase the dogs in the morning," Yaron said. The team bought 12 dogs whose condition they believed showed possible violations of the pre-2009 dog law, and flew them back to Philadelphia so that their condition could be promptly documented.
But Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman told Lancaster Intelligencer Journal/New Era staff writer Cindy Stauffer that the breeders' dogs had been checked by a licensed veterinarian before being sent to the Ohio sale. Continued Stauffer, "The Pennsylvania SPCA filed the charges without the approval of his office, Stedman said.
After comparing notes about the evidence, Stedman told Stauffer, "They decided to withdraw the charges."
Harrise Yaron resigned from the Pennsylvania SPCA board on December 13, 2009, four days after a regularly scheduled board meeting, reported Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky. Yaron denied that her exit was forced.
Bill Smith suggested to Stauffer that the charges against the breeders might eventually be refiled, but what agency he thought might do it was unclear.
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture special deputy secretary for dog law enforcement Jessie L. Smith acknowledged to ANIMAL PEOPLE that her agency opposed the attempt to prosecute the breeders. "Our focus is on getting breeders who are leaving the business to surrender their dogs, so that we can help to find the dogs good homes. If breeders think they are going to be prosecuted if we get our hands on a dog, that isn't going to happen," she said by telephone on December 31, 2009.

No immunity

The Pennsylvania SPCA meanwhile may be feeling more vulnerable to lawsuits from aggrieved breeders, among others, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on December 29, 2009 ruled unanimously that as a privately governed charity, it cannot claim sovereign immunity from legal action resulting from enforcing animal care and control laws.
The case reaching the state supreme court originated in January 1999, when a dozen dogs including 11 pit bull terriers were seized from an alleged abandoned house. A woman named Laila Snead was arrested at the scene and was initially charged with dogfighting. "Those charges were dropped the following day, although she later was convicted of a summary offense of animal cruelty," reported Associated Press Writer Mark Scolford. Snead sued the Pennsylvania SPCA for killing the dogs. A jury awarded her $155,000.
"On appeal, the state Superior Court rejected the SPCA's argument that it was immune from being sued and granted Snead attorney's fees, but reversed the $100,000 punitive-damages portion of the verdict. That lower-court decision was upheld by the Supreme Court," Scolford summarized.

Can't shoot pet

On December 30, 2009 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed a 2008 ruling by the state Superior Court that pet keepers cannot be prosecuted for killing their own animals. Wendy Colleen Kneller, 37, of Weissport, in 2006 gave her boyfriend Randy Miller, 28, a handgun and asked him to shoot a 6-year-old pit bull/chow mix named Bouta, whom she said had bitten her son.
Miller tied Bouta and beat her with a shovel before shooting her. Miller was convicted of cruelty to animals and uttering terroristic threats for allegedly threatening a teenager who witnessed the killing. Kneller was convicted of conspiracy to commit cruelty.
A three-judge Pennsylvania Superior Court panel in February 2008 overturned the cruelty and conspiracy convictions because state law allows pet keepers to euthanize animals by gunshot. Judge Susan Gantman dissented. A nine-judge Superior Court panel then affirmed the ruling of the three-judge panel, 8-1, with Judge Correale F. Stevens dissenting.
Responded the state supreme court, "The facts reveal no immediate need to kill the dog, a directive by respondent [Kneller] to her co-defendant [Miller] to kill the dog, and the unquestionably malicious beating of the dogŠThese facts provide sufficient evidence to support respondent's conviction...and should not have been undone because of considerations of a dog owner's authority."
Reported Scolford of Associated Press, "The Supreme Court sent the case back to Superior Court with directions for it to follow Stevens' dissent."

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Homeowners are liable for guests' dog attacks

MADISON--The Wisconsin Supreme Court on December 29, 2009 ruled unanimously that a homeowner is accountable for injuries inflicted by a dog who lives in the home, even if the dog belongs to someone else.
The verdict upheld an appellate court finding that Nancy Seefeldt of Menasha was the "keeper" of a dog who injured passer-by Colleen Pawlowski in October 2003, and that Seefeldt was therefore responsible for the dog's behavior.
The dog was one of two belonging to Walter Waterman, an acquaintance of Seefeldt's daughter, who had lived in the home for about four months when the attack occurred.
As Waterman "left town and could not be found," recounted Associated Press writer Scott Bauer, "Pawlowski sued Seefeldt and her insurer. The case will head back to the trial court to determine how much Pawlowski is owed in damages."

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Playful dogs

LINCOLN--The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled 5-2 on December 18, 2009 that injuries caused by dogs without intent on the part of the dog to do injury are not actionable under the state law holding dog keepers liable for dog attacks. The case originated in 2005 when a golden retriever service dog kept by Shiloh Hobelman bounded up to Anne Underhill, who is confined to a wheelchair, and collided with Hobelman causing her a knee injury that required surgery.
The outcome of the case paralleled the 1996 British Columbia Court of Appeal verdict Shelvey v. Bicknell. In that case a two-year-old Rottweiler in August 1991 collided with plaintiff Judith Shelvey while chasing an Old English sheep dog playmate. Shelvey suffered a severe head injury. The British Columbia Court of Appeal held that Shelvey was injured as result of an unforseeable accident.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Scottish SPCA & Royal SPCA reach truce

EDINBURGH, LONDON--The Scottish SPCA and the Royal SPCA have signed a joint memo of understanding under the auspices of the Institute of Fundraising to "avoid any future confusion," Scottish SPCA chief executive Stuart Earley confirmed to BBC News on December 15, 2009.
"Under the new agreement," BBC News said, "the Royal SPCA will add a line to all its advertisements making it clear that it only operates in England and Wales. It will also send all donations made out to the 'Scottish RSPCA' or 'RSPCA Scotland' to the Scottish SPCA."
"We want people in Scotland to support the Scottish SPCA. Even more importantly, if there is an animal in distress in Scotland, we want people there to contact the Scottish SPCA to get help," Royal SPCA chief executive Mark Watts told BBC News.
The Scottish SPCA in February 2009 published £100,000 worth of full-page ads in Scottish newspapers and posted a web site--still up in early January 2010--that accused the Royal SPCA of Britain of "stealing food from the mouths of Scotland's defenseless animals" by advertising to Scottish television audiences.
"We have asked the RSPCA to make it clear it does not save animals in Scotland. After six months of talks we are no further forward," said Earley then.
Responded the RSPCA, "If a station is able to restrict Scottish coverage, we only buy English and Welsh airtime. However, many satellite channels only enable us to purchase U.K.-wide."
The Scottish SPCA in a 2005 survey of 10,000 donors found that 87% had mistakenly donated to the RSPCA. The RSPCA raised £114 million in 2007, helping to fund 172 branches in England and Wales. The Scottish SPCA, struggling with cash flow for more than a decade, raised £10 million.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Ontario SPCA asks court to dump Toronto Humane board

TORONTO--Directing animal care at the Toronto Humane Society since a November 26, 2009 raid that brought five arrests of THS senior personnel for alleged neglect of animals, the Ontario SPCA on December 23, 2009 asked Ontario Superior Court to remove the THS board of directors and appoint a receiver to oversee operations.
Responding to earlier filings by Toronto Humane, Ontario Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer on the same day ruled that animal care at the shelter must "remain under the control and direction of the Ontario SPCA," and refused to quash the Ontario SPCA search warrant.
"But four weeks is too long for what has effectively become an occupation of the humane society to continue, Judge Nordheimer said," according to Anna Mehler Paperny of the Toronto Globe & Mail. "Judge Nordheimer ordered the Ontario SPCA to turn over all potentially sensitive documents, including scans of the humane society's hard drives, to a third party, and to allow all humane society employees not facing criminal charges to return to work," Paperny wrote.
"About 20 to 25 employees and 15 board members were allowed to return and resume administrative work on December 29, 2009," wrote Allison Jones of Canadian Press.
Elaborated Toronto Star staff Jesse McLean and Daniel Dale, "Former humane society president Tim Trow, chief veterinarian Steve Sheridan, and three other senior managers were all charged after the Ontario SPCA raid, and remain banned from the shelter under their bail conditions. The Ontario SPCA had also maintained a no-entry list of more than 30 people who were not charged."
"One of the Ontario SPCA's lawyers said that investigators are unearthing evidence that could lead to as many as two dozen more criminal animal-cruelty charges," recounted Paperny of Globe & Mail.
The Ontario SPCA has alleged that only between 50 and 60 of the more than 1,000 animals at the shelter at the time of the raid were in adoptable condition.
The Toronto Humane Society leadership in a countersuit has accused the Ontario SCPA of defamation, trespass, and negligent investigation.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Long-pending Ringling elephant case is dismissed due to lack of standing

WASHINGTON D.C.--U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on December 31, 2009 ruled that former Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus animal handler Tom Rider and a coalition of four animal advocacy groups lack legal standing to pursue a nearly 10-year-old case alleging that Ringling use of elephants violates the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Ringling has 54 Asian elephants, who are an endangered species in the wild. About half of the Ringling elephants are on tour at any given time, while the rest are at the Ringling captive breeding facility in Florida.
The case was filed in 2000 by the American SPCA, the Animal Welfare Institute, The Fund for Animals (merged into the Humane Society of the U.S. in 2005), and the Animal Protection Institute (merged with Born Free USA in 2007).
To win the case, the plaintiffs had to establish first that they were in some manner sufficiently harmed by Ringling use of elephants to have a right to bring the suit. However, wrote Sullivan in a 57-page opinon, "The court finds that Mr. Rider is essentially a paid plaintiff and fact witness who is not credible, and therefore affords no weight to his testimony."
The advocacy groups were found to lack standing "on more technical legal grounds," summarized Del Quentin Wilbur of The Washington Post. In essence, Sullivan found that they had no direct material interest in the outcome.
"If Sullivan had found a violation of the Endangered Species Act," explained Wilbur, "Ringling Bros. would have had to stop the practices in question or obtain an exemption from the Interior Department."
But even if the plaintiffs had won standing, the case was "the first ever brought under the Endangered Species Act to protect a captive endangered species," acknowledged the Animal Welfare Institute, and depended upon making a persuasive argument for a legally untested assertion that Ringling practices are detrimental to the survival of Asian elephants. The plaintiffs had to prove that Ringling practices either lead foreseeably to the deaths of elephants in Ringling custody, or harm the existence of Asian elephants as a species.
Aware that winning the case in court would require expanding the historical scope of the Animal Welfare Act, the plaintiffs sought to put circus elephant use itself on trial in the court of public opinion. The case was heavily covered for several years by nationally distributed news media. Coverage focused on Ringling elephant handlers' use of the ankus (bullhook) and on prolonged elephant chaining.
Feld Entertainment chief executive Kenneth Feld testified as owner of the Ringling circus that all Ringling elephant handlers use the ankus. Gary Jacobson, general manager of the Ringling breeding farm in Florida, testified that most of the Ringling female elephants "are kept chained on two legs for at least 16 hours a day on concrete floors, and that some of them are kept on chains for 23.5 hours," summarized an Animal Welfare Institute press release. "The public now knows that Ringling Bros.' Asian elephants are systematically abused on a daily basis," claimed AWI general counsel, Tracy Silverman. The Ringling ruling was Sullivan's seventh in a major Endangered Species Act case since 2002, and was the first to go against plaintiff advocacy groups. He has ruled in the past against speedboaters on behalf of Florida manatees, against snowmobilers on behalf of wildlife in Yellowstone National Park, and against the U.S. Navy on behalf of wildlife on Farallon de Medinilla, a remote Pacific island long used for bombing practice.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Humane Society of Central Missouri runs into conflict with shelter makeover contest sponsor

COLUMBIA, Missouri--Yet another animal shelter has run into difficulty after winning a makeover contest hosted by the social networking web site ZooToo.com.
"Richard Thompson, the chief executive officer of ZooToo.com, refused to sign off on the plans sent to him" in early December 2009 by the Humane Society of Central Missouri, reported Daniel Cailler of the Columbia Daily Tribune. "Instead, he sent to the board revised version that had some members shaking their heads."
Thompson's version "has less room for cats and cuts down on the existing dog population," Humane Society of Central Missouri interim executive director Alan Allert told Cailler.
Agreed board member Jim Loveless, "This is a far inferior plan."
The Humane Society of Central Missouri won the ZooToo.com "million-dollar makeover" prize as result of an online campaign led by Columbia Catholic School eighth graders Libby Burks and Amanda Huhman. In September 2009 their mothers Liz Burks and Angie Human wrote to the humane society board and told news media that they could not support their daughters' continued volunteer work for the shelter "under the current management."
Patty Forister, the executive direction since 2005, resigned in November 2009 for "personal and professional reasons."
In April 2009 Thompson and Stray Rescue of St. Louis reached a legal settlement of misunderstandings that developed after Stray Rescue won a ZooToo.com makeover prize in June 2008. "They refused to provide any details of the settlement," reported Susan Weich of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Stray Rescue founder Randy Grim "had claimed," Weisch wrote, "that he was misled by ZooToo to believe Stray Rescue had won a $1 million cash prize. But according to ZooToo's contest rules, the makeover could comprise in-kind services and donations."
Thompson, formerly chief executive of the cat food maker Meow Mix, earlier told Cheryl Wittenauer of Associated Press that Stray Rescue hoped to do more than could be done with the $1 million makeover budget.
Earlier, the Rocky Ridge Refuge of Gassville, Arkansas, reported similar issues after winning a ZooToo.com makeover prize.
Forever Wild Tiger Sanctuary founders Joel and Chemaine Almquist, of Phelan, California, ran into a different problem after winning extensive site improvements from the ABC television program "Extreme Make-over--Home Edition." The job was done as promised and was featured on the March 29, 2009 program broadcast, but the newly renovated sanctuary and a new learning center at the site could not be opened to the public until July 2009, two weeks after San Bernardino County agreed in June to waive a requirement that the access road be paved, at estimated cost of $1 million.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

New doping rules

COPENHAGEN--New International Equestrian Federation anti-doping rules took effect on January 1, 2010.
Federation president Princess Haya of Jordan commissioned a review of the doping rules after six horses tested positive for banned drugs at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, four years after three gold medalists were stripped of their awards for illegal doping at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The first major test of the new rules is expected to come at the 2010 World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Killing owls in the name of saving owls

PORTLAND, Oregon-- Public comment on a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposal to shoot barred owls to see if killing them helps spotted owl recovery closes on January 11, 2010.
Barred owls would be shot in spotted owl study areas near Cle Elum, Washing-ton; the Oregon Coast Range mountains; and the Klamath mountains of southwestern Oregon. The experiment would repeat on a larger scale a 2005 study in which seven barred owls were shot in habitat recently vacated by spotted owls in northern Calif-ornia. After the larger and more aggressive barred owls were killed, spotted owls returned. The California study became the rationale for a rewrite of the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan produced in mid-2008 by appointees of former U.S. President George W. Bush. Blaming barred owls and wildfires rather than logging for the decline of spotted owls, the Bush administration plan reduced the designated critical habitat for spotted owls by 1.6 million acres, and would have increased timber sales in the region fivefold.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken on July 1, 2009 struck down the Bush administration rules change that allowed the reduction of critical habitat. On the same day the journal Conservation Biology published a study based on satellite photos showing that Pacific Northwest forests are maturing into old growth suitable for spotted owls at from five to 14 times the rate of loss to wildfire. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar withdrew the Bush administration rewrite of the Northwest Forest Plan on July 16, 2009.
But the plan to shoot barred owls has proceeded, with final approval expected late in 2010. Shooting barred owls could buy time for the timber industry by delaying further restrictions on logging to protect spotted owls. If spotted owls die out anyway, the timber industry also benefits, since habitat not occupied by spotted owls cannot be deemed critical recovery habitat.
Spotted owls were added to the U.S. endangered species in June 1990, after 17 years of studies, litigation, and cabinet-level intervention in the endangered species designation process. In almost 20 years since, the spotted owl population has continued to decline at about 4% per year.
Spotted owls live almost entirely by hunting red tree voles, who inhabit mainly old growth. Barred owls, however, hunt many species. As spotted owls decline, barred owls take over the habitat. Known only east of the Rocky Mountains when the earliest range maps for North American birds were produced, barred owls were first recorded in Washington state in 1973--the same year that the U.S. Endangered Species Act was passed. Spotted owls were among the first species nominated for endangered status.
"Even if we were able to restore old growth habitat instantaneously," Portland Audubon Society conservation director Bob Sallinger told ANIMAL PEOPLE, "lethal control of barred owls may be necessary to have any hope of recovering spotted owls." Sallinger acknowledged that spotted owls may be jeopardized chiefly by climate change: the warmer, dryer Pacific Northwest habitat of today is no longer the habitat that spotted owls and their prey, red tree voles, evolved to occupy. In that case, spotted owls may be doomed, no matter what is done to save them.
"I don't think this is a matter of scapegoating the barred owl," Sallinger said. "I don't know anybody in the conservation or animal welfare communities who views the idea of killing barred owls as anything other than horrific. However with spotted owls basically extirpated from British Columbia and on their way out in Washington," he added, "I think we would be remiss to simply ignore that the influx of barred owls may hasten extinction long before our habitat recovery efforts have any chance of being successful.
"That does not mean that we ultimately support lethal control," Sallinger finished. "It just means that we need to take a hard look at the implications."
Responded ANIMAL PEOPLE president Kim Bartlett, "From an animal rights perspective, it is absolutely unethical to kill animals of one species to save another more endangered species, whether the plan is likely to work or not, and whether or not the possible extinction of a species is caused by human activity or more 'natural' causes.
"The truth is that the life of a starling--a species long persecuted by conservationists--or a chicken in a factory farm is of the same consequence to the starling or the chicken as the life of a spotted owl is to the spotted owl, and all three birds have the same capacity for suffering," Bartlett continued. "The whole concept of 'endangered species' has been detrimental to animal rights and welfare," she said, "by giving rise to the idea that it is acceptable to kill or exploit animals as long as they are not members of an immediately endangered species. A 'species' is just a category; it is as an individual that all creatures experience physical sensation or psychological states, and it is as an individual that all creatures die, even when an entire species passes with the death of the last of its kind."

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

N.Y. Racing Assn. bans selling horses to slaughter

NEW YORK--The New York Racing Association on December 11, 2009 announced that it would bar from competition any horse owner or trainer who is caught selling horses for slaughter. The association "also urged horsemen who are part of what is widely considered the premier racing circuit in the nation to support rescue and adoption efforts, and to find humane ways of dealing with horses who are unable to continue racing," reported Joe Drape of the New York Times.
The New York Racing Association governs horse racing at three of the most prestigious tracks in the U.S.: Aqueduct, Belmont Park, and Saratoga. The two latter host the second and third events in the horse racing Triple Crown series, which begins each spring with the Kentucky Derby in Louisville.
The racing association crackdown came after more than 170 starving horses were found in April 2009 at Center Brook Farm in Climax, New York. Property owner Ernie Paragallo was barred from racing in New York, and in August 2009 was charged with 35 counts of cruelty.
"The scandal erupted," recalled Drape, "after horse advocates discovered that Paragallo-owned horses were earmarked for slaughter in 'kill pens.'"
Allegedly illegal slaughter of former racehorses came to public notice in Miami-Dade County, Florida, just a week after the New York Racing Association acted.
Florida law allows horses to be slaughtered for human consumption only if the consumer owns the horse. The Calder Race Course in Miami-Dade has "zero tolerance" for owners and trainers who illegally sell horses to slaughter, spokesperson Michele Blanco told Alexia Campbell of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
But Animal Recovery Mission founder Richard Couto, a former South Florida SPCA investigator, on December 17, 2009 recognized two former racehorses at an alleged illegal slaughterhouse and called police. Calder Race Course trainer Laurie Goedecke, of Davie, Florida, identified the horses from a newspaper photo as two she had worked with, one of whom she believed had been retired and adopted out.
"But Dance Hall Graeme, offspring of 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat, was later euthanized. The filly [found with him] is slowly recovering at Goedecke's friend's farm in Southwest Ranches," wrote Campbell.
Couto has for about two years documented and tried to close a neighborhood of alleged illegal slaughterhouses in Miami-Dade. Kim Segal and John Zarrella of CNN profiled his campaign on December 28, 2009.
In July 2008 Couto helped to rescue and later adopted another descendant of Secretariat named Freedom's Flight, whose ancestors also included 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Sea Shepherds trying to catch whalers

HOBART--The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society flagship Steve Irwin returned to Antarctic waters on December 31, 2009, after a 60-hour resupply and refueling stop in Hobart, Tasmania.
Tailed and harried by the Japanese harpoon ship Shanan Maru #2, the Steve Irwin and the high-speed trimaran Ady Gil failed to locate the factory ship Nisshin Maru and the whale-catchers Yushin Maru #2 and #3 during the first six weeks of the self-declared five-month Japanese "research whaling" season. The whalers hope to kill nearly 1,000 whales this winter, but have fallen far short of their quota in each of the past three winters.
The Sea Shepherds were optimistic after the Shanan Maru #2 returned to the rest of the fleet to meet a refueling vessel and was seen by yachters who reported its position.
Pre-Christmas skirmishes between the Sea Shepherds and the Shanan Maru #2 reportedly included exchanges of blasts from water cannon, some near-collisions, an incident in which Sea Shepherd crew members allegedly pelted the Shanan Maru #2 with paint gun pellets, and several incidents in which the crew of the Shanan Maru #2 used Long Range Accoustic Devices against the Sea Shepherd vessels and the Steve Irwin's helicopter.
Launched as Earthrace, the bio-diesel-fueled Ady Gil circumnavigated the world in just under 61 days in 2007, breaking the previous record for powered vessels by 13 days, but falling 11 days short of the overall record set in 2005 by the sail-powered catamaran Orange II. A series of breakdowns and a collision with a fishing vessel off Guatemala that killed a member of the fishing crew may have cost Earthrace the overall record. A 10-day investigation determined that the fishing vessel was at fault.
Earthrace, owned and piloted by Pete Bethune, was renamed for the 2009-2010 anti-whaling campaign in honor of Hollywood investor Ady Gil, who funded the voyage.
"We have modified it a bit to make it more suited for the Southern Ocean," Bethune told Charles Waterhouse of the Hobart Mercury, "but in no way is it an ice vessel. We have added about half a ton of Kevlar, which toughens the hull a bit, and will make it more resilient to little smacks of ice."

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

2010 BLM wild horse gathers start early

RENO--The most aggressive year of Bureau of Land Management wild horse captures since the passage of the 1971 Wild Free-Ranging Horse & Burro Protection Act started early, with a first gather apparently timed to try to evade activist notice.
Explained Martin Griffith of Associated Press, "The roundup of 217 horses and burros along the Nevada-California border ended the day before a BLM advisory board ignored advocates' request for a moratorium on such gathers. It also began shortly after the BLM postponed a nearby roundup of thousands of wild horses in Nevada because of a lawsuit."
"The latest roundup had been scheduled to take place next summer," BLM officials told Griffith, "but was moved up at the last minute and conducted from November 30 to December 6, about 120 miles north of Reno. Lack of advance notice prevented advocates from filing an appeal with the Interior Board of Land Appeals."
The larger Nevada gather was postponed after In Defense of Animals applied for a preliminary injunction against it. U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman denied the injunction request on December 23, 2009.
Some activists perceived encouragement in a part of Friedman's ruling which concluded that the BLM practice of trucking tens of thousands of wild horses to captivity far from their home ranges may violate the Wild Free-Ranging Horse & Burro Protection Act.
However, Friedman found that the Act appears to be violated not by removing wild horses from the range, as horse advocates contend, but because it forbids the BLM "to relocate wild free-roaming horses or burros to areas of the public lands where they do not presently exist."
The BLM, already holding about 31,000 wild horses, plans to capture another 7,163 this winter, plus 4,395 later in 2010.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Boxing Day brings confrontation over U.K. Hunting Act enforcement

LONDON--The British ban on pack hunting is at risk if the Conservative slate led by David Cameron wins a majority in the 2010 Parliamentary elections, but Labour environment secretary Hilary Benn served notice in a Boxing Day op-ed column for The Independent that the Hunting Act, passed in 2004, will not go down without a fight fully backed by Labour leadership.
Along with Christmas, Benn wrote, "We should also celebrate the fifth Boxing Day without the sight of foxes being torn to pieces. In years to come I think we will look back with horror at a time when hunting wild animals with dogs was viewed as respectable entertainment. Like badger-baiting and cock-fighting, ripping animals to shreds with dogs will become a relic of history."
"The Hunting Act is under threat if the Tories have their way," Benn acknowledged. "They have made clear that they want to get rid of it as soon as they can."
Indeed, Cameron and supporters rallied opposition to the Hunting Act at some of the mass rides to hounds that are a Boxing Day tradition in Britain.
"The 'back the ban' campaign makes clear that Labour will make hunting an issue in the 2010 general election," predicted Andrew Grice, political editor of The Independent. "Although Benn insists hunting is not a 'class issue,' the move follows Prime Minister Gordon Brown's attack on Cameron's plans to cut the inheritance tax. When Labour focus groups remind voters of the Tories' stance on hunting," Grice continued, "many people are said to reply, 'I guess they haven't changed.' People are surprised that Cameron wants to overturn the ban, and Labour believes this undermines his claim to have modernised the Conservative Party."
"This isn't a class issue," wrote Benn, "nor is it about the countryside against our towns, and it isn't about stopping people from riding their horses together, either. It is about what we think a decent, civilised society should stand for. Lots of people in rural areas oppose fox hunting," Benn said. "According to a recent Ipsos Mori poll, three-quarters of the population do not want hunting with dogs to be made legal again. The same poll showed that 72% of the rural population want to keep the ban in place. And yet 84% of Tory candidates want to repeal the ban, according to recent research. The Tories claim they have changed. Their stance on fox hunting makes clear that they haven't."
Conservative candidates, reported Grice, "are said to have been advised not to state their view on hunting, but to promise to consult their constituents before deciding how to vote. The Tory manifesto [platform] will promise a free vote on a government bill, rather than a private member's bill, a move which guarantees parliamentary time and would be harder for opponents to block."
The pro-hunting Countryside Alliance responded to the Ipso Mori poll that Benn cited with their own poll findings, showing that 57% of those questioned believe the Hunting Act is ineffective, and that 49% favor either repeal or the free vote plan. Supporting the Hunting Act, according to the Country-side Alliance, were 45%.
Joining in Boxing Day 2009 hunts were 295 hunt clubs plus 25 Welsh "fox control societies," with 181 packs of foxhounds, 90 packs of hare-chasing dogs, three packs of staghounds, and 21 packs of mink hounds.
The Conservative and Countryside Alliance strategy on Boxing Day, wrote Martin Wainwright of The Guardian, was to use hunts "to highlight enforcement problems, rather than the principles of the issue, by following artificial trails, which seldom fail to set up an actual fox. These are inevitably chased by the hounds. If the foxes are killed, the defence of lack of intention has almost invariably held good. Only nine prosecutions of traditional hunts have reached court since the act was passed in 2004," Wainwright said, "with three convictions. Other loopholes include the right to use dogs to set up quarry for birds of prey, which Labour conceded in order to protect hawking enthusiasts. Equipped with a variety of eagles, hunts have sidestepped the law.
'The Hunting Act's limited successes have been against organisers of coursing events on the fringe of organised hunting," Wainwright contended, "including the conviction of seven people for killing rats for sport on Merseyside."
But lack of police enthusiasm for enforcing the Hunting Act has been a factor. In May 2009 the Association of Chief Police Officers adopted a policy statement urging police to avoid "acrimonious, time-consuming, frustrating and ultimately fruitless activity" in trying to enforce the Hunting Act.
"Hunting is definitely not a policing priority," said Richard Brunstrom, Chief Constable of North Wales and the ACPO spokesperson on rural affairs. "It is not illegal to wear a red coat and ride a horse in a public place. If you look at hunting," Brunstrom told London Times countryside editor Valerie Elliot, "the penalties do not include a prison sentence. This puts the Hunting Act to the lower rather than the higher end of offences."
Five months later, reported Jonathan Owen of The Independent, "Crimes against wildlife, including badger baiting with dogs, hare coursing [setting dogs on rabbits released from a cage or in a confined place], poisoning of protected birds, and even trapping them to sell as caged pets have soared to unprecedented heights. New figures from the police show that the number of wildlife crimes more than doubled in the last year, from 2,177 to 5,854."
Most of the offenses involved activities banned by the Hunting Act. "One of the sharpest rises," Owen wrote, "has been in what police call 'badger persecution,' a term that includes badgers being dug out of their setts, pitted against terrier dogs, and being shot. Between February and July 2009, the National Wildlife Crime Unit recorded 241 incidents of badger persecution--a total that in just six months almost exceeded the 280 reported incidents in 2008."
In Lincolnshire alone, Owen noted, "Between September 2008 and March 2009 there were more than 900 reports of hare coursing."
Other crimes against wildlife also increased. "Crimes against bats have increased 10% a year since 2007," Owen noted. "Last year the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds received 1,206 reports of shooting, poisoning, trapping and disturbance of birds and their eggs--the second highest they have ever recorded."
But, amid continuing hunter opposition to enforcing the Hunting Act, "The National Wildlife Crime Unit has seen its staff slashed from 14 to nine since it was set up three years ago," Owen wrote, "and there were just 51 convictions in 2008-09, accounting for just 3% of the cases dealt with."

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Cats removed from "Island of the Blue Dolphins"

VENTURA--Birders and feral cat defenders both claim victory over the outcome of a cat eradication program on San Nicolas Island, 65 nautical miles west of the California mainland.
The semi-arid 24-square-mile island was occupied by the Nicoleño people when discovered by Spanish explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno in 1602. The Nicoleño were evacuated in 1835 by Spanish missionaries who hoped to save them from bloody raids by Russian-led Aleut sealers. None survived exposure to mainland diseases for more than a few years.
The story of the last Nicoleño, a young woman who escaped evacuation and lived alone on the island for 18 years, was fictionalized in The Island of the Blue Dolphins, winner of the 1961 Newberry Award for best children's book. The woman died seven weeks after Captain George Nidever and crew found her and transported her to Santa Barbara in 1853.
That left only two species of land mammals on the island: deer mice and the endangered Channel Islands fox. Sheep, introduced in the late 19th century, were removed in 1943. Cats are believed to have come after the U.S. Navy built a missile launching and tracking station on the island in 1957. Officially uninhabited, San Nicolas Island actually houses about 200 Navy personnel on temporary assignment at any given time.
In June 2008 the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed to kill the estimated 100 to 200 feral cats surviving on San Nicolas Island, using padded leghold traps, shooters, and dogs. The cats were accused of hunting deer mice, island night lizards, Brandt's cormorants, western gulls, and western snowy plovers, in competition with the foxes.
"But a joint effort by the Navy, Humane Society of the U.S., the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the California Department of Fish and Game saved the cats," recounted Oceanside freelance writer Patty McCormac in the Christmas Eve 2009 edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune. "Sixty-three cats were captured and sent to Ramona to live at the Fund for Animals Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. Their fenced habitat cost $60,000. Charter plane fares, food, and staff to care for the cats added to the expense. DoGreatGood.com, which raises funds for a variety of charities, donated $100,000."
The removal of cats from bird habitat to a fenced enclosure is the approach to feral cat populations recommended by the American Bird Conservancy, but would be prohibitive in most situations, and would not prevent other cats from migrating into habitat except for remote islands.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Pregnant mares' urine biz wins case after big losses

NEW YORK, N.Y.-- New York State Supreme Court Justice Martin Shulman on December 16, 2009 threw out 23 lawsuits brought by breast cancer victims against the makers of hormone supplements synthesized from pregnant mare's urine.
"While plaintiffs' proffered evidence is extensive, a review of the material and the record as a whole contain no evidence of fraud, misrepresentation or deception," Shulman wrote in dismissing the cases before any of them went to trial.
The verdict appeared to blunt the economic impact of recent jury awards totaling more than $165 million against the PMU industry--and appeared to vindicate the Pfizer Inc. strategy of consolidating and defending the industry, even as new scientific findings strengthened the association of PMU-based hormone supplements with an elevated risk of breast cancer.
The number of prescriptions written for Prempro and other PMU-based supplements dropped from 61 million in 2001 to just 21 million in 2004, after the the federally funded Women's Health Initiative recognized the risk in 2002, halting a long-term study of the effects of taking the top-selling hormone drug Prempro.
The Women's Health Initiative warned study participants that continuing to take Prempro might increase their risk of contracting breast cancer. "Subsequent research also linked the pill to a higher rate of death from lung cancer," summarized John Fauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
University of Wisconsin at Madison researchers told delegates to the 2009 American Association for Cancer Research annual conference in Houston that after the Women's Health Initiative findings were publicized, "invasive breast cancer rates unexpectedly dropped from 138 per 100,000 women in 2001, to 125 per 100,000 in 2003," Fauber wrote. "Using a mathematical model, they found that 42% of the decline in invasive breast cancer from 2002 to 2003, or 6,000 cases, was due to less use of hormones."
The number of pregnant mares kept confined for six months a year in urine collection stalls is believed to have dropped by about half, after a decade of attempts by animal advocacy organizations to boycott PMU drugs had little evident effect. PMU industry sources claim that the drop in demand for horse estrogen led to use of smaller horses than the draft breeds previously used, and that breeders are now trying to produce foals who have market value other than just for slaughter, but this is difficult to verify.
Prior to the Shulman verdict the momentum of court decisions appeared to favor the plaintiffs. A Pennsylvania jury, for example, on November 20, 2009 ordered the hormone drug makers Wyeth and Pharmacia-Upjohn to pay compensatory damages of $6.3 million to women who contracted breast cancer after taking the products. On November 23 the same jury assessed $75 million in punitive damages against the companies. A day later a jury in Decatur, Illinois awarded $28 million to plaintiff Donna Kendall.
To that point, reported Jef Feeley and Sopia Pearson of Bloomberg News, 35 lawsuits over health effects of PMU drugs had gone to trial. Six of the nine most recent to go before juries brought verdicts for the plaintiffs, but 19 cases were dismissed or withdrawn. At least five cases were settled out of court. A $99 million award by a Reno jury in 2007 "was later reduced to $35 million and is being appealed," Feeley and Pearson wrote. An Arkansas federal jury award of $27 million was dismissed in early 2009. The case was scheduled for retrial.
As many as 10,000 PMU supplement cases are reportedly pending.
PMU-based hormone supplements were made and sold chiefly by Wyeth Inc. from 1942 until January 2009, when Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical firm, bought Wyeth and whatever liability it might have for $68 billion. The deal was formally completed on October 15, 2009. Pfizer also bought Pharmacia-Upjohn, the longtime maker of Provera, an estrogen drug often combined with the Wyeth products.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

International Rights Film Festival awards

KHARKOV--Nineteen films on human rights and animal rights themes were honored at the Third International Rights Film Festival in Kharkov, Ukraine, during the week of December 12-19, 2009. Another 22 films won honorable mentions.
"Steps to Freedom" statuettes for best films in category were awarded to three films on animal rights themes. "Best short film on animal rights" was He'd never do that, directed by Anartz Zuazua of Spain. "Best documentary on animal rights" was "I'm an Animal: the Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA," directed by Matthew Galkin of the U.S.
"Best animation on animal rights" was Yudisthira's Dog, produced by Wolf Clifton in the style of an Indonesian shadow puppet play, with narration by Nanditha Krishna. Premiered at Asia for Animals 2008 in Bali, Yudisthira's Dog may be viewed at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0JXcPxkSGE>.
Founded by Ukrainian legislator, animal advocate, and film maker Igor Parfenov, the Third International Rights Film Festival was sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Union of Filmmakers, and the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Neuter/return requires impact study, says Los Angeles judge

LOS ANGELES--California municipal governments may not assist or promote neuter/return of feral cats without first completing an environmental impact report, ruled Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Thomas McKnew on December 4, 2009.
McKnew ruled on behalf of five organizations representing birders that the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services was in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act for issuing $30 sterilization vouchers to neuter/return practitioners and for referring people who call to complain about feral cats to charities that do neuter/return.
"Despite official denial, the implementation of the program is pervasive, albeit informal and unspoken," McKnew wrote.
McKnew did not address the value of neuter/return as a feral cat control method, or the virtues of neuter/return as public policy. The McKnew verdict lacks precedental weight until and unless affirmed by appellate courts.
But the McKnew verdict appears to point the way for birding groups to block neuter/return programs in any state with legislation similar to the California Environmental Quality Act. "The City must now implement the CEQA process, which includes full scientific review, assessment of alternatives, and potential mitigation measures," exulted the American Bird Conservancy. "The public will have the opportunity to engage in the process and ensure an open, science-based approach to the issue of free-roaming cats in Los Angeles."
The cost of performing an impact study specific to each feral cat habitat, and the time required to do it, are expected to significantly inhibit neuter/return programs throughout California, and perhaps beyond, wherever lawsuits are anticipated.
Some California communities have helped neuter/return practitioners with vouchers for discount sterilization surgery for 15 years or longer--and these communities saw the fastest drops in their feral cat populations during the early years of the programs.
After the numbers of feral cats dropped, leaving feral cats in less accessible locations, progress slowed, while the continued presence of some cats has inflamed birder opposition.
"Some animals are dying in this equation. There is no no-kill," Urban Wildlands Group science director Travis Longcore told Torrance Daily Breeze staff writer Melissa Pamer. "Our position is that we shouldn't be balancing the no-kill policy on the backs of wildlife."
The Urban Wildlands Group brought the case against the City of Los Angeles in June 2008, with coplaintiffs including the American Bird Conservancy, the Endangered Habitats League, the Los Angeles Audubon Society, the Palos Verdes/South Bay Audubon Society, and the Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society. "This lawsuit was filed because the city didn't follow the rules," South Bay Audubon Society board member Martin Byhower told Pamer.
"Byhower and Longcore both emphasized the importance of location in placing or moving cat colonies," wrote Pamer. "The way TNR was being unofficially deployed by the city didn't take into account or try to control the establishment of colonies in sensitive ecosystems or public open space, they complained."
"Without total effectiveness in neutering the colony, cats continue to breed. Additionally the colony acts as a dumping ground for unwanted pets, often actually growing over time," said American Bird Conservancy vice president for conservation advocacy Darin Schroeder.
Responded attorney Mark S. Dodge, founder of the Los Angeles cat and dog sterilization program Fix Nation, "The simple fact is that neuter/return does not produce more cats by returning them after surgery, as the wild bird advocates claim. It merely transforms cats already in the environment from being the prolific breeders they are, thereby reducing their numbers over time. The consequence is clearly not adverse to the environment. Without neuter/return, we would see more and more cats killed in shelters," as occurred year after year in Los Angeles for four decades before neuter/return was introduced, "while at the same time the homeless cat population would simply continue to expand."
Added Dodge in a separate statement to Pamer of the Daily Breeze, "I am not afraid of the environmental study issue one bit. I'm ready to take it on."
Dodge at the Fix Nation web site urged neuter/return practitioners and other feral cat advocates to encourage the City of Los Angeles to appeal the McKnew verdict.
Seconded Alley Cat Allies president Becky Robinson, "We are calling on the city to appeal this terrible decision. The California Environmental Quality Act was intended to apply to activities like highway construction, not neuter/return."
"We are certainly disappointed with the recent ruling, and will be going back to advise our client of the situation, and will be moving forward at their direction," Los Angeles city attorney's office spokesperson Frank Mateljan told Pamer.
Both Dodge and Robinson emphasized that neuter/ return practitioners may continue to trap, sterilize, and vaccinate feral cats, with the support of nonprofit organizations. But South Bay Cats founder Teri Harrington, of San Pedro, acknowledged to Pamer that "With the voucher program being eliminated, it's going to be very, very tough."
Los Angeles Department of Animal Services interim general manager Kathy Davis on December 18, 2009 warned staff, partner veterinarians, and rescue groups that sterilization vouchers may now be issued only for use with personal pets. Rental fees for use of humane traps will no longer be waived for recognized neuter/return practitioners.
"It is very short-sighted to stop a long standing program, rather than simply and responsibly cease any expansion of the program until after a study," former Los Angeles Department of Animal Services general manager Ed Boks told ANIMAL PEOPLE. "Also, California Environmental Quality Act studies are designed to evaluate the impact of development on a specific piece of property. Neuter/return does not fit that model. The California Environmental Quality Act is being used by misguided birders to shut down a program that saves the lives of cats and birds," Boks continued. "Some locations may not be appropriate for neuter/return, such as locations with endangered birds. However, if fewer feral cats is the goal of the petitioners, then neuter/return is the only methodology that will guarantee that end."
Boks was not the first Los Angeles animal control chief to encourage neuter/return, but he was the first to promote it in a personal blog at the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services web site. Boks commented on the McKnew verdict while designing a new nonprofit neuter/return program to assist neuter/return practitioners in South Los Angeles.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Zimbabwe suspends hunting to save rhinos

Special to ANIMAL PEOPLE by Barnabas Thondlana with additional research by Merritt Clifton

HARARE-Internationally criticized for failing to stop rhinoceros poaching, the Zimbabwe National Parks & Wildlife Author-ity on November 30, 2009 temporarily suspended wildlife hunting licences, interrupting trophy hunting by foreign visitors near the peak of the season.
Trophy hunting has in recent years been among the few reliable sources of foreign exchange for the financially depleted Zimbabwean government.
"National Parks & Wildlife Authority would like to warn the public that all current hunting permits have been suspended with immediate effect to verify them," said a notice published in state-approved media. "All current permit holders are advised to approach the Parks Authority to verify validity of their permits," the notice added.
The suspension, though surprising, was not unprecedented. The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority in May 2006 suspended hunting in conservancies. "We cannot allow people to continue hunting," parks public relations manager Retired Major Edward Mbewe told the government-owned Harare Herald then, "because we want the animals to be more mature, to improve the quality of the trophies."
This time, "National Parks is reacting to numerous reports of poaching, including over-hunting of quotas and abuse of permits," said a senior official with a local non-governmental organization that campaigns against poaching. The official declined to be named, from fear of reprisals.
Zimbabwe National Parks director general Morris Mutsambiwa could not be reached for comment. Zimbabwe National Parks officials have blamed a resurgence of poaching on a cartel of international gangsters they say are funding poachers to kill rare species, especially rhinoceros.
"We have lost close to 200 rhinos in the last two to three years," testified Mutsam-biwa on November 2, 2009 to the Parliament-ary Portfolio Committee on Natural Resources, Environment & Tourism. "From the intelligence we are gathering," Mutsambiwa added, "we strongly believe that there are syndicates which operate in the region involving locals, South African citizens, and also people of Asian origin. Asia seems to be the main market for the rhino horns."
Mutsambiwa said 86 suspected poachers had been arrested during the first 10 months of 2009, mentioning the arrests of South Africans, Zambians, and Chinese.
However, "Of the 45 reported [poaching] cases, 33 involved Zimbabweans either working alone or with international smuggling rings," summarized the Harare Herald.
"In the past," Mutsambiwa asserted, "poaching for species like rhinos and elephants was restricted to outside people. The worrying factor is that locals are now participating together with the international and regional syndicates."
"Journalists were asked to leave the room when national parks officials were about to give statistics on the remaining population," the Herald continued, "but experts put the figures at slightly over 500 and 300 respectively for black and white rhinos. If accurate, this means Zimbabwe has lost about a quarter of its rhino population in three years."

Ministers involved

Zimbabwean wildlife agencies have struggled to contain poaching in national parks for decades. The job became more difficult after landless villagers--encouraged by the Robert Mugabe government--began invading white-owned farms in 2000. The land invasions destroyed many of the private wildlife reserves which had catered to non-consumptive wildlife tourism, and some of those that hosted trophy hunters.
There have been widespread reports of illegal and uncontrolled trophy hunting on former white-owned conservancies, now controlled by powerful politicians from Mugabe's Zanu PF party.
In July 2009, for instance, the Zimbabwe Standard alleged that, "A massive official cover-up could be underway after police investigations into the ballooning illegal trade in rhino horns netted two Zanu PF ministers. Investigations by the Standard show that a police crack unit following the trail of rhino poachers ended up at the doorsteps of Zanu PF politicians who cannot be named, at least for now, because of the complexity of the case. The two politicians have been saved from prosecution after the dockets 'mysteriously disappeared' from the magistrates' court."
"No one wanted to take the case because we all know that cases involving high-profile people are always covered up," unnamed "judicial sources" told the Standard.
The conviction rate in Zimbabwean rhino poaching cases is just 3%, according to the World Wildlife Fund trade monitoring arm TRAFFIC.
"While attorney general Johannes Tomana could not be reached to explain circumstances surrounding the case," the Standard continued, "environmental and natural resources management minister Francis Nhema admitted that senior Zanu PF officials had been implicated."
Said Nhema, "Yes, it might be possible that some government officials are abusing their powers and are involved in rhino poaching, but we do not have the names. We are still investigating the matter." Nhema said Mugabe himself had asked him "for the names of the ministers involved."
Nhema told the Standard that in one case resulting in the arrest of a Chinese citizen for poaching rhinos, a "person very close to a minister was using the minister's name."
The arrested suspect, Wang Xuebin, 49, "was remanded out of custody," the Standard said.
"Three weeks ago two rhinos were killed in Hwange and we are positive that some top people in the government are involved," said Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force chair Johnny Rodrigues. "Right now we have the names of some senior officials who are implicated," Rodrigues added, "but we can not release their names because investigations are still underway. We cannot blame foreigners only," Rodrigues emphasized, "because there are also people from the top who are involved. There are cases where some members of the army were shot by the anti-poaching team, and it's quite clear that these soldiers were sent by very influential people."
The Standard exposé followed the release of a report from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species which described similar incidents.
"A park ranger arrested with overwhelming evidence against him for having killed three rhinos in the Chipinge Safari Area was acquitted without any satisfactory explanation for the verdict," said the CITES report. "Similarly in September 2008 a gang of four Zimbabwean poachers who admitted to killing 18 rhinos were also freed in a failed judiciary process."

Vietnamese

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Mutsambiwa told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Natural Resources, Environment & Tourism that increased rhino poaching "has been linked to two factors. The first is that South Africa and Namibia were given permission by CITES to hunt five rhinos each. Some parties in Africa argue," in opposition to allowing exports of elephant ivory, that "if you give the right to legally trade in ivory, you give rise to poaching," Mutsam-biwa said, hinting that allowing legal exports of rhino horn might have the same effect.
Mutsambiwa also noted that under current Zimbabwean law, cattle rustlers face stiffer penalties on conviction than poachers: up to nine years in jail for every beast they steal. "We haven't been able to generate enough revenue for rhino protection," Mutsambiwa added. "KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, spends $3,000 U.S. per square kilometer, while we spend less than $10."
The International Union for Conservation of Nature and TRAFFIC jointly reported in November 2009 that 95% of the rhino poaching in Africa has occurred in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
"These two nations collectively form the epicentre of an unrelenting poaching crisis in southern Africa," said TRAFFIC researcher Tom Milliken. The IUCN/TRAFFIC report explained that increasingly sophisticated poachers now kill rhinos with veterinary drugs, poison, and crossbows as well as high caliber firearms. The IUCN/TRAFFIC report noted that Vietnamese nationals operating in South Africa have recently been identified in rhino crime investigations.
Elaborated the Thanh Nien Daily, of Vietnam, "Nguyen Van Lam, a former deputy head of a government office, resigned in July 2006 after he left a handbag with 10 envelopes inside containing $10,300 U.S. at the Hanoi airport. He claimed that most of it was from friends and colleagues who wanted him to buy rhino horns for them.
"Four months later South African police accused a Vietnamese embassy official in Pretoria, Nguyen Khanh Toan, of carrying rhino horns out of the country," under cover of diplomatic immunity.
"In November 2008 the Vietnamese embassy in South Africa was again in the news after first secretary Vu Moc Anh was filmed buying rhino horns from a South African trafficker in front of the embassy building. Anh was called home by the government, but it is not clear what action was taken against her."

South Africa

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The KwaZulu-Natal wildlife department on December 11, 2009 announced the arrest of an alleged poacher who was believed to have killed two white rhinos in the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park.
"The suspect was wounded in the leg and was arrested after an exchange of gunfire with field rangers. Three other suspects managed to escape," said KwaZulu-Natal wildlife agency spokesperson Jeff Gaisford.
Blaming increased rhino and elephant poaching on gangs from Mozambique, South African National Parks chief executive David Mabunda in July 2009 announced that 57 more rangers would be assigned to anti-poaching patrols along the eastern boundary of Kruger National Park.
"Mabunda also welcomed the military back to the park," reported Yolandi Groenwald of the Johannesburg Mail & Guardian. "The military stopped patrolling the park three years ago and poaching rapidly increased. Since the beginning of 2009," Groenwald said, "Kruger National Park has lost 26 white rhino and one black rhino to poaching. Last year it lost 36 rhinos to poachers. At least 80 rhinos were killed in South Africa last year and some say the figure might be much higher."

Kenya, Tanzania

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Rhino poaching has ceased in several other African nations because they no longer have rhinos. The last four northern white rhinos in the wild vanished from Garamba National Park in the Congo in August 2006.
The Dvur Kralove Zoo in Prague, the Czech Republic, in December 2009 transferred to the Ol Pejeta conservation area in Kenya three northern white rhinos born at the zoo and one captured from the wild in 1976. The zoo and Kenyan wildlife officials hope that the transfer will stimulate breeding. None of the Prague zoo rhinos have become pregnant since the birth of the youngest in June 2000. Two northern white rhinos remain at the Dvur Kralove Zoo. The only others in existence are a pair at the San Diego Zoo.
Kenya currently has 609 black rhinos and 336 southern white rhinos, according to minister of forestry and wildlife Noah Wekesa. But Kenya had 20,000 just of black rhinos in 1973, Wekesa acknowledged. By 1989 only 285 were left.
Tanzania has 30 to 35 black rhinos left in Serengheti National Park, stretching south from Masai Mara National Park in Kenya. Tanzanian National Parks Authority planning director Allan Kijazi on November 29, 2009 announced the purchase of 32 black rhinos from South Africa, to be released into Serengheti in April 2010. The South African black rhinos are descended from rhinos originally captured in Tanzania.

Asian rhinos

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Asian rhinos, never as abundant, are comparably menaced by poaching throughout their range. As few as 10 Javan rhinos remain in Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam, plus about 50 in Ujung Kulan, Indonesia, of whom the World Wildlife Fund has identified 37 through the use of video cameras.
The largest numbers of one-horned rhinos are in Royal Chitwan National Park, Bardiya National Park, and the Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in Nepal, which have not more than 450 among them, and in Kaziranga National Park in Assam state, India, which has about 1,800.
Poachers in recent years are known to be killing about four rhinos per year in Nepal. The toll in India was about 6-7 per year until 2007, when 20 were killed in Kaziranga due to security lapses reviewed in recent editions of International Zoo News and Oryx by Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin of Save The Elephants. The situation appeared to stabilize in 2008, but 14 rhinos were kiled in Kaziranga in 2009.
Rhino protection in both Nepal and Assam was weakened during the past decade by diversions of resources into fighting insurgencies, but Vigne and Martin find basic management issues more directly responsible. However, Martin, Vigne, and Chryssy Martin explained in the June 2009 edition of Pachyderm, about 180 rhinos were poached in Nepal between 2001 and 2006, the peak years of a Maoist insurgency which has become part of the present Nepalese government.

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[Barnabas Thondlana was news editor and later associate editor of the Daily News, the first major independent newspaper in Zimbabwe, from formation in 1999 until it was closed by the government in 2003. In May 2009 he became founding editor of NewsDay, a second attempt to start an independent Zimbabwean newspaper. He was forced out in November 2009 after the backers could not obtain a government license to publish.]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

U.N. members agree to study livestock role in global warming

COPENHAGEN--A draft agreement creating an international working group under United Nations auspices to reduce global warming emissions from agriculture may become a turning point in the international struggle to reduce and mitigate climate change.
Though called "greenhouse gases," because they trap heat, the emissions at issue are produced chiefly by livestock, by the use of fossil fuels in raising fodder for livestock, and by clearing woodlands for grazing and fodder cultivation.
"Current agricultural production is estimated to contribute 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than double that of its nearest rival, transport, at 13.5%," explained Ed Hamer, reporting for The Ecologist.
Warned the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization in a November 2006 report entitled Live-stock's Long Shadow--Environmental Issues and Options, "The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening."
The draft agreement to address agricultural practices was quietly adopted as the global warming summit closed on December 18, 2009, after 12 days of discussion and often frustrating impasses among 192 national delegations. The draft agreement "was riddled with bracketed phrases at the close of the summit, leaving its ultimate fate unclear," wrote John Collins Rudolf of The New York Times. "Yet as recently as April 2009, agriculture had yet to be included on the agenda of the Copenhagen climate talks," Rudolf noted, "making the emergence of the draft agreement all the more significant."
"Research by the group," Rudolf said, "is to focus on developing technologies and techniques to mitigate emissions from crop and livestock cultivation, and adapting agricultural systems to rising temperatures. The agreement further states that countries should weigh the impact of their emissions-mitigation efforts on 'food security,' a byword for the access of poor people and nations to adequate food supplies."
"Measures to tackle deforestation and incorporate agricultural issues seem to be the only real success story" from the summit, assessed Jonathan Scurlock, chief climate change adviser to Britain's National Farmers' Union, in a blog posting from Copenhagen.
The draft agreement was pushed by a de facto coalition representing farmers, environmentalists, developing nations, and animal advocates. "Agriculture is where poverty reduction, food security and climate change intersect--and we all want it included in the climate change agreement," said Spurlock. "Much of the fine detail can await further development by the UN's subsidiary bodies," Spurlock added.
"Agricultural leaders presented a united front in Copenhagen," agreed William Surman of Farmer's Guardian. "However, debate raged over the best farming practice to deliver emissions cuts."
Warned Crop Protection Association chief executive Dominic Dyer, "Up to half the world's productive arable land could be lost over the next 40 years due to the combined impact of rising temperatures, salinity and water scarcity." Because more food will have to be produced from less land, Dyer claimed, "the adoption of more intensive farming practices offers the most effective route to mitigate and cope with the effects of climate change."
But Soil Association policy director Patrick Holden argued that "Permanent grassland grazed by ruminants represents a stable ecosystem which is more carbon-friendly than ploughing it up to grow crops to feed to intensively farmed chickens, pigs and poultry."
Holden framed his contentions as a rebuttal of vegan and vegetarian arguments, but implicit in a turn away from factory farming would be a steep reduction in meat consumption. Up to 70% of all cultivated land is used to grow feed crops for livestock, at hugely inefficient ratios of conversion of plant protein to animal protein. Agricutural economists estimate that about five times more humans could be fed if all grain crops were used for human consumption, while marginal farm land not suitable for grain cultivation was left to livestock.
"At projected levels of population growth the world will be home to more than nine billion people by 2050," pointed out Rudolf of The New York Times, "requiring a 70% increase in food production, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization."
"Climate change is a ticking time bomb for global food security," U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Olivier De Schutter acknowledged. "We know that the impacts of climate change will be felt disproportionately by some of the poorest countries and by the most vulnerable within those countries. Small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples, as well as those who depend on land for their livelihoods, will suffer most."
The presence in Copenhagen of a large contingent of vegan and vegetarian activists was noted by media, including at a December 12 street demonstration by as many as 60,000 people that upstaged an "Agriculture Day" event attracting about 300.
A sign proclaiming "Earth in Need: Delete Meat," wrote Tom Zeller Jr. of The New York Times, "was one of many promoting vegetarian diets."
"An action outside the Danish Meat Council drew attention to Denmark's dependence upon imported soya and cereals to feed its 800,000 intensively farmed pigs," observed Ecologist correspondent Hamer.
"Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better," former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern told the London Times during the preliminaries to the Copenhagen global warming summit. Stern in 2006 produced an influential report comparing the potential costs of global warming with the costs of control measures.
Agreed former U.S. vice president and longtime anti-global warming crusader Albert Gore, to ABC broadcaster Diane Sawyer, "I'm not a vegetarian, but I have cut back sharply on the meat that I eat. It is absolutely correct that the growing meat intensity of diets around the world is one of the issues connected to this global crisis--not only because of the CO2 involved, but also because of the water consumed in the process. We've all heard from our doctors for many years that vegetables and fruits should occupy a bigger part of all of our diets, and that's important for a lot of reasons. I've made those changes. I don't go quite as far as Nick saying everybody should become a vegetarian," Gore said, "partly because it's difficult enough to get the agreement without adding that, but it is a legitimate point of view."
Despite the efforts of Stern, Gore, and the vegan and vegetarian demonstrators in Copenhagen, and despite the potential significance of the draft agreement to examine agricultural contributions to global warming, the role of livestock production in creating greenhouse gases was distinctly underplayed in mainstream summit coverage.
Only 5% of web coverage of the Copenhagen summit, worldwide, mentioned either livestock or meat. Only 2% of U.S. newspaper coverage mentioned either livestock or meat. The New York Times reported much more about the livestock contribution to global warming than most U.S. mainstream media, but even The New York Times mentioned livestock or meat in just 5% of Copenhagen summit reportage --and only 5% of the 79 readers who posted response to that coverage to New York Times web pages mentioned the livestock and meat angles.
This was consistent with coverage of Livestock's Long Shadow when published in 2006. Only 39 U.S. daily newspapers--just 3%--published more than a syndicated summary of the United Nations Food & Agricultural Organization findings. The New York Times, one of the few U.S. daily newspapers that is not heavily dependent upon supermarket meat advertising, editorially endorsed the Livestock's Long Shadow findings, but more than a month after the report was issued.

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