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•Rev. 9.6.07 Copyright ANIMAL PEOPLE, INC. 1992--2007
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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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OCTOBER 2007
This Month In Humane History
BY MERRIT CLIFTON
EARLY STEPS OF THE HUMANE SOCIETIES |
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From humble beginnings to more ambitious horizons. |
130 years ago, on October 9, 1877, a year of correspondence among the founders of the first several dozen humane societies in the U.S. culminated in the organizing meeting of the International Humane Society, in Cleveland, Ohio.
The initial title of the organization reflected the participation of both U.S. and Canadian organizations, as well as emissaries from the British-based Royal SPCA. It also reflected the hope of the founders that the IHS would become not only a collective voice for the young U.S. humane movement, but a source of support for humane missionary work worldwide.
The founders were aware of several humane societies already existing in India, Sri Lanka, and other far away places, and dared to dream of a global movement on behalf of animals such as would not actually be realized until the introduction of the Internet finally facilitated cheap, fast international communications.
Within a year the International Humane Society retrenched, as the American Humane Association. The goal of collectively representing the U.S. humane movement was retained, but the child protection division was split off from the animal protection division, as a means of accommodating conflict over movement priorities.
The ambition of international outreach was not abandoned. The ability of the AHA to do international humane missionary work, as the founders envisioned, was severely inhibited by lack of funding. Yet the AHA did provide significant stipends to humane societies throughout Asia and Latin America during the next 60-odd years.
Until the Great Depression and World War II made supporting overseas humane work both economically and logistically impossible, the AHA-published National Humane Review encouraged the work of AHA-assisted humane societies in such seemingly unlikely places as Havana, Cuba; Port au Prince, Haiti; Seoul and Chosen, Korea; and Shanghai and Guangdong, in China.
Indeed, humane societies thrived in all of these now “difficult” venues, and in many other locales in the developing world. Their reports indicate that many of the issues of today were significantly smaller then. Eating dogs and cats, for example, appears to have been far more geographically confined.
Female infanticide, on the other hand, was an issue confronted in rural China, where it still occurs. Humane missionaries working in China were especially distressed by instances of female infants being exposed to be scavenged by dogs. Yet instances were also reported of dogs protecting and finding help for the infants.
Until World War II interfered, humane workers were hopeful that female infanticide would end with a rising standard of living and improved education.
Even World War II did not break the optimism of the humane movement.
Sixty years ago, in October 1947, the National Humane Review dedicated an entire edition to outlining a humane agenda for the post-World War II era, based on the preceding seventy years of experience.
With 22,000 subscribers at that point, each paying $1.00 per year, the National Humane Review anticipated building a circulation of 100,000 within a decade. Instead, the advent of television caused the entire magazine industry to implode. A decade later, in 1957, the National Humane Review was forced to go from monthly to bimonthly publication. By 1967 it had declined further, and by 1977 it was no more.
Nonetheless, the humane agenda that the National Humane Review projected in 1947 was sufficiently far-looking that most of the ideas it offered are at last being implemented, not just by one organization but by many, in a variety of ways.
Among the editors’ recommendations were “establishment of a training school for humane workers to provide instruction in the practical side of humane procedure,” “more motion pictures..essential in the promotion of visual education,” distribution of technical literature to assist humane societies, expanding programs on behalf of farm animals, expanding legislative efforts, planning and preparing for disaster relief, introducing humane concerns into wildlife management, and revitalizing humane outreach abroad.
Why little of this happened during the next 40 years, only gaining momentum during the last 20, is implicit in progress reports issued by local humane societies.
The Washington County SPCA of Hagerstown, Maryland, for example, in 1946 achieved a “live release rate” of nearly two-thirds of the dogs and cats it received––a rate that would be considered very good today.
The Gulf Coast Humane Society, of Corpus Christi, Texas, a community known for extraordinarily high rates of shelter killing in recent years, was able to place nearly a third of the dogs and cats it received in new homes, even while battling a rabies epidemic as the city’s contracted animal control agency.
These and hundreds of other local humane societies appear to have been functioning very much as the best humane societies function today. They focused on helping injured, ill, neglected, and abused animals, reported holding adoptable animals for six months or more if necessary to find homes for them, made extensive use of foster-boarding arrangements, and were very proud of the extent to which they involved their communities in public education. Young volunteers were welcomed and celebrated.
But these then-successful humane societies were not yet embarked in a futile effort to rid their communities of street dogs and feral cats by killing any animal who had no home. Street dogs and feral cats were casually accepted as normal aspects of civilization.
How and why killing homeless animals became the chief activity of humane societies during the next several decades is illustrated by the annual reports of the San Francisco SPCA. In 1947 the SF/SPCA mobilized one of the first national campaigns against a proposed state bill to defeat an attempt in the California legislature to require humane societies holding animal control contracts to surrender dogs and cats to laboratories for research use. Several other states passed similar legislation.
Facing the likelihood of having to fight the fast-growing biomedical research industry over and over, the SF/SPCA became a national leader in introducing the use of decompression to kill impounded animals en massé. The SF/SPCA even formed a subsidiary, the Western Humane Society, to promote decompression killing to other humane societies.
This appears to have been the origin of the notion that killing homeless animals was for their own good. Internalizing this idea rapidly sucked the life out of the hopes and dreams of 1947. By 1957, few young visitors were admitted to humane societies, volunteers were kept at arm’s length, and the cause would remain demoralized until long after Richard Avanzino assumed the presidency of the then near-moribund SF/SPCA in 1976, beginning an institutional turn-around by decommissioning the SF/SPCA’s own decompression chamber on his second day.
This Month In Humane History is a www.AnimalPeopleNews.org online feature produced to promote awareness and appreciation that some people have always cared enough about animals to act on their behalf.