Animal Rights India

May 14 is Stray Dog Day!!!

2006-05-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

Via email from Abodh at Welfare of Stray Dogs:

Meet the Stray Dog Heroes Lara and Jerry.

Lara – She wasn't born a stray, but she became one when her callous owner abandoned her on Sion highway. Not surprisingly, she was soon hit by a car and both her back paws were severely wounded and fractured. In fact, the toes of the right hind paw were completely severed. When she was brought to the WSD kennel in January 2006, she was unable to get up. Instead of sinking into self-pity as most humans would have done, Lara made the best of what she had and started propelling herself around on her front legs. As her wounds healed, she started using one of her hind legs, and finally, a couple of weeks ago, she began walking almost normally on all four paws. WSD salutes this quiet, gentle little dog for her tenacity and will to survive, and above all for retaining her trust of human beings even after the cruelty she had suffered.

Jerry - Those of us who are different from the mainstream are usually burdened with the pity and low expectations of our fellow human beings. Perhaps only in the eyes of dogs are we truly equal. Adopted from WSD four years ago, Jerry lives at the Helen Keller Institute of Deaf & Deaf Blind . She performs a valuable and unique service by providing love, companionship and lots of fun for the students. Like all dogs, Jerry does not discriminate in any way, and to her the children are simply her beloved playmates, no different from other children.

*****

In 2005, The Welfare of Stray Dogs decided to celebrate the second Sunday of May every year as Stray Dog Day.

This year, Stray Dog Day will be held at the Dhanraj Mahal in Colaba (Near Cottage Industries/Gateway Of India), Mumbai on May 14, 2006 at 4:30 pm.

Seven individuals will be felicitated for their outstanding contributions to the cause of stray dog welfare, public health and above all, furthering the goal of harmonious co-existence of dogs and humans. Seven of these awardees are human; two are dogs.

WSD will felicitate two Stray Dog Friends, five Stray Dog Saviours and two Stray Dog Heroes.

WSD products (for humans and dogs) will also be on sale. You can buy gourmet vegetarian food prepared and sponsored by the Taj President, Mocha, Zaffran, Joss & Patchi chocolates.

Cyrus Broacha will compere the event and Cyrus Guzder, CMD, AFL will hand over the token of appreciation to the awardees. The honorary director of the Helen Keller institute, Ms Behroze Vaccha will also be present.

Children can get themselves photographed with the kennel dogs and the Stray Dog Heroes by WSD volunteer and professional photographer Rohan Mukherjee.

*****

Who are the Stray Dog Friends?

The Hiranandani Gardens Residents group, and lawyer Porus Kaka.

The Hiranandani Gardens Residents – All citizens reserve the right to complain about civic problems, but most shrug off their responsibility when it comes to solutions. Given that garbage is one of the main causes of the stray dog population, everyone in the city is actually contributing to this particular problem. The residents of Hiranandani Gardens decided to take positive action with the support of the Hiranandani Constructions and took the unique initiative of carrying all the dogs in the colony to NGOs to be sterilized and vaccinated. The process took several months of consistent effort, and there are now no pups being born in the colony. If all housing societies followed the example of Mriganko Chatterjee, Mrs. Shahani and others, it would be a huge step towards permanently reducing the dog population.

Porus Kaka – Helping dogs does not necessarily have to mean spending hours with them on the street. A few high-calibre professionals provide invaluable service to the cause by actually adopting four street dogs, including an amputee. As a prominent and very successful tax lawyer Porus has extremely hectic work and travel schedules, but this has never prevented him from befriending dogs in any way possible, whether by giving advice or lending his premises for WSD activities.

*****

Who are the Stray Dog Saviours?

Suresh Naidu, Vijayan & Aspi Chinoy, Zal Andhyarujina, Jerestin Sidhwa

Suresh Naidu – Most people see volunteering as a hobby, to be indulged in only in one's leisure time. Not Suresh Naidu. For years, he has managed to do a full-time job, care for his family, and be a full-time animal lover. Humane, conscientious and incredibly dedicated, he cannot ignore an animal in distress. After office hours, when ordinary men would want to put their feet up and unwind, Suresh goes on his first-aid rounds with his medicine kit, treating injured and ailing strays.

Vijayan – There are many people in this city who deserve our compassion – especially the homeless, and those scratching out a living in slums and on the street. A little-known fact is that some of these people, in their turn, give an enormous amount of compassion to those even less fortunate. Vijayan is a familiar sight outside Standard Chartered Bank on DN Road, where he has been shining shoes for many years. He is a familiar sight to the local dogs, too, for different reasons. Vijayan takes all the needy strays around under his wing, bringing them to WSD for sterilization and vaccination, and caring for them when they are ill or injured. He even nursed two semi-paralysed dogs back to health.

Aspi Chinoy, Zal Andhyarujina, Jerestin Sidhwa – If not for the support of these talented and eminent advocates, the stray dog sterilization programme might not have still been in existence. Aspi Chinoy, Zal Andhyarujina and Jerestin Sidhwa have always come to the rescue, somehow managing to include the stray dog matter in their busy schedules, even when it must have caused them considerable inconvenience. Stray dogs are extremely fortunate in having such staunch and vociferous supporters to fight their legal battles.

*****

Please be there and support these wonderful efforts!!!

(Many thanks to our friend Abodh for the detailed email!!)

Chinkara

2006-04-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

Why would anyone kill this animal...

WSD Adoption Mela!!

2006-04-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) will be hosting the WSD ADOPTION MELA at Dhanraj Mahal, Apollo Bunder, Near Cottage Industries Emporium, Colaba, Mumbai on Sunday, April 9, 2006 between 5 pm and 7 pm.

10 dogs will be put up for adoption. These dogs are either abandoned pets or pariahs brought from the Mumbai Airport area. All these dogs require a good and loving home. All the dogs have been temperamentally tested to ensure that they would make good house pets. They are all sterilised and immunized.

This is Milo.

The WSD veterinary physician and volunteers trained in dog behaviour will guide the prospective adopters to make the correct choice, and advice the new adopters about dog care, diet, behaviour, vaccinations and grooming.

Prospective adopters would be screened and interviewed by WSD adoption counsellors to ensure that the dog goes to a loving and responsible home. If found suitable,they would be allowed to adopt the dog. The new adopters will be given vaccination certificates, leaflets on Dog Care. The adoption counsellors will also accompany the new owners with their pets to their residence.

The objective of this ADOPTION MELA is to encourage people to adopt dogs that really require a home instead of going and buying one. Hundreds of dogs (abandonded pets and pariahs) have been adopted by people from The Welfare Of Stray Dogs (WSD) in the past and have made wonderful pets. WSD has organized two Adoption Mela's in the past through which 13 out of 15 and 8 out of 10 dogs had been adopted.

There will also be a SALE OF WSD PRODUCTS for doggies and their owners

For Doggies – Tags, Ruffs, Pillows, Mattresses, Scarves

For Owners – T-Shirts, Mugs, Trays, Jute & Cloth Bags, Notepads, Towels & Caps.

WSD contact nos : 23733433/23891070 E-mail : wsd@wsdindia.org

PROFILEs OF SOME OF THE DOGS FOR ADOPTION

1) Suraj: Suraj was rescued from the airport. He is dark and handsome. He is very sweet, timid and can be slightly mischievous too. He will make an excellent family pet. He loves attention and enjoys going out for walks.

2) Lara : She is an abandoned Pomeranian who was ruthlessly abandoned by some one. She was left to die on the highway near Sion till a WSD volunteer found her with both her hind legs incapacitated. One leg had a fracture and the other was eaten up by maggots. At the beginning she used to walk around on her front legs but now she can walk around. She is very gentle and sweet and needs a very loving and extra caring home.

3) Laila – She is a tan female, very sweet gentle and mild. She longs for human company but she is equally happy to sit next to you and enjoy the world go by.

4) Brandy: She is short haired with black and brown fur, brandy colored eyes and erect ears. She is calm and peaceful. She is slightly shy but give her some time and she will be your good friend.

5) Milo: You look at him and you will remember Jim Carey's Milo in The Mask. His short stature will not come in the way of jumping high to attract your attention. He was found abandoned at Powai. He is a mixed breed dog with grey and white markings.

6) Kalu : He is fat ,podgy but will jump on you to greet and will love to play with you. He was brought from the Mumbai zoo. He is very sweet, loving and timid. He loves being fussed upon.

7)Mamta : She is black and will make an excellent watchdog. She will be always excited to see people.

8) Bholu: He is very good looking and can be quite a clown. He will run around you with excitement. He takes a little time to know you but once he is friends with you, he will give to all the love and attention in the world.

9) Sucheta : She is a tiny little bundle of joy. She is always full of life. She will make the perfect family pet. She loves other dogs and some of the cats are her best friends. She is brown in color and very furry.

10) Raja: He will be true to his name and be the king of the house. He will guard it with all his might. He is very good looking and will love and protect you with his heart.

*****

Please do visit the Mela, with your children... and show your support for these beautiful stray animals!

Animals in captivity

2006-02-19T06:02:00.000-08:00

I have a post, over at The Other India, about the living conditions of animals at the Mumbai zoo.

Garage Sale in aid of Stray Dogs

2006-02-13T08:13:00.000-08:00

From my mailbox:

The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) is an animal welfare NGO that sterilizes and immunizes stray dogs. WSD also has an adoption program for abandoned pets and pariahs, an on-site first–aid program and an education and awareness program in schools, colleges, streets and slums. WSD has so far sterilized more than 29,000 stray dogs and impacted the lives of thousands more through first-aid and adoption.

WSD spends Rs 1,40,000 per month on the above activities and we depend on the largess of donors to fund these activities. One of WSD's methods of raising funds to sustain costs is a regular garage/jumble sale, the next one to be held from February 17-19, 2006 (Friday-Sunday) at Bandra Reclamation, Bandra(W).

On sale would be C.D’s, Artefacts, Glassware, Kitchenware, Crockery, Clothes and Accessories, Linen and Electronic Items.

The proceeds of the Garage Sale would be used to fund the above–mentioned programs.

Venue : Shop No 16, ONGC Complex , Near Candies, Opposite Leelavati Hospital, Bandra(W), Mumbai

Date : February 17-19, 2006.(Friday-Sunday)

Time : 11 am to 6:30 pm

For more information please call WSD on 23733433/23891070 or e-mail wsd@wsdindia.org.

Please visit!! Please tell your friends too!

@#$%^%$#

2006-02-03T08:23:00.000-08:00

Human evil knows no limits.

What kind of scumbags would use puppies to smuggle drugs, by surgically implanting the little animals with packets of heroin?

Surfacing...

2006-02-03T08:12:00.000-08:00

...after a long break. Apologies: just too many other things happening. This post is just to start things going again around here. I hope I'll be more regular from now on.

Remember Happy, Go and Lucky, the three puppies in my building compound who needed oood homes?

Well, Go decided to live up to his name, and went - he was the first one to be adopted.

Happy, Lucky and their mother Bitiya were hanging around mostly in the building garden and on the pavements outside. But this was not a sustainable solution.

Unfortunately, Lucky... wasn't so lucky. He was scrawny and very weak. He didn't survive.

But Bitiya and Happy are now at Jeev Raksha, where they'll be cared for, fed and loved.

The nicest New Year card I got this year...

2006-01-07T21:14:00.000-08:00

is this. "All I want ia a kinder world for stray dogs and people."

My cat Bilkul adds, from his perch on the dining table: "And stray cats, too!"

Happy Happy, all!!

(also on Indian Writing)

Killing humanely

2006-01-01T21:27:00.000-08:00

If they must kill animals or birds, shouldn't they do so humanely?

Dog Day Afternoons...

2005-12-09T04:48:00.000-08:00

In Hyderabad, police hunt for this missing four-year old German Shepherd, Bheema II. I hope he's safe, and I hope they find him soon.

In Kolkata, Nilanjanaa Sengupta writes about the wonderful pariah dog.

In Mumbai, this lovely pooch attends college. Workplace environments would really be much friendlier if people could bring their dogs to work occasionally.

In Europe, this heroic German Shepherd saved the lives of three people from a burning building, but himself perished in the fire.

And in the US, activists are trying to ensure that puppies are bred in humane conditions.

Every dog has his laugh

2005-12-06T06:16:00.000-08:00

Heh. If you've visited my blog more than once, you've probably realised that just as the tabloids lose no chance to put in a Mallika Sherawat picture, I lose no opportunity to slip in a dog picture. Or two, or three.

Here's a link for my dog Whisky, c/o me, that Nanoblogger Abi sent across by email today. A dog bark, it seems, is generally just a bark — but that long, loud panting sound - doglovers will know this well - has real meaning. Researchers say the long, loud pant is the sound of a dog laughing, and it has a direct impact on the behavior of other dogs.

Well, going by this criterion, Whisky has a great SOH. You know when I hear that long, loud pant most often? When I've got up to get a drink of water, or put away a book - and I return to find that a huge yellow Lab has taken over three-quarters of the bed, AND the pillow. That's when he settles in for the night with a loooong, contented sigh. Now I know why he sighs: he's laughing at me. Heh heh, he seems to be chuckling, and his butterscotch eyebrows quiver in his mirth.

My cat, on the other hand, is the quiet, baleful kind. Forever sharpening his claws and twitching his gophe.

And here's my doggie picture of the day: Rocky, sniffer dog extraordinaire who solved a crime just by staring hard at the criminal. Just look at that If-Looks-Could-Melt-You-into-Small-Puddle-of-Ice-Cream gaze: can you even conceive of a Lab staring someone down?

I can imagine what Rocky does after the guy confesses: he lets out a long, loud, satisfied sigh. He laughs. Muahahahaha.

Cross-posted on Indian Writing.

What a Babe!

2005-10-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

Dhingroo the Donku thinks he's a dog. He wants a cuddle and a scratch, and he'll lick your fett if you're nice to him. Heh.

Well, I have a dog who thinks he's a human, and I have a cat who not only thinks he's a dog, but who according to our vet, is one - a pit bull and a rottweiler rolled into one. So I know what this is all about!

Cross-posted on Indian Writing. Pictures from Mumbai Mirror.

Dog-friendly

2005-10-11T06:32:00.000-07:00

I'm always happy to see friendliness towards dogs. Via email from Ravikiran R comes a pointer to Honda's new dog-friendly car. It's a WOW concept: "wonderful openhearted wagon".

More seriously, it's always a worry when a dog is alone in the back seat because they can fall and injure themselves if the brakes are applied suddenly. So I'm doubly glad to see that Honda has done something about it!

WSD Sale Alert!!

2005-09-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

From my mailbox, this mail from Abodh Aras, CEO of The Welfare of Stray Dogs:

The Welfare Of Stray Dogs(WSD) is having a sale of WSD products at Shilpi Kendra, near Sahakari Bhandar, Colaba Causeway, Colaba on September 30 and October 1 , 2005 (Friday and Saturday) from 11 am to 7 pm. The sale will have our products that include towels, T-shirts, caps, eco-friendly bags (jute and cloth), wood free pencils, mugs, files, note books, note pads, photo frames, key chains and pillows. All the products have our popular doggy design prints.

Adopt a street dog ! They are a breed apart!

The Welfare Of Stray Dogs(WSD) Tel:23733433/23891070
Email: wsd@wsdindia.org

Shilip Kendra is in Colaba, on the Causeway, right across the road from Cafe Mondegar.

Folks in Mumbai, please come! Please buy gifts and stuff from WSD, and support efforts for the welfare of street pooches!

What a Hero

2005-09-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

And so gorgeous.

I don't know if heaven exists

2005-09-23T05:44:00.000-07:00

...but there HAS to be a hell, and a special place reserved there for sick people who shoot stray dogs with their air gun. Some time ago there was a report about a driver who had run over a cat, leaving her three tiny kittens motherless; before that, there was this depressing series of reports about some sicko drunks who beat a dog with sticks and set fire to it. It was all too depressing even to link to. But why oh why do some people do this?

(Cross-posted on Indian Writing)

Oh wow.

2005-09-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

The Serengeti migration:

It's one of the great sights of the animal kingdom. In the days of the wild west, American explorers used to report how bison would thunder across the plains for days. Today, the bison have almost vanished, and the wild west too, but here in east Africa herds of wildebeest and zebra still darken the land until they vanish into the distant blue horizon.

The whole thing here.

Cross-posted on Indian Writing.

Heroes

2005-09-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

This is such a sweet, sweet story for a grey rainy morning that I just had to share it. Electrician J.P.Mistry found a turtle struggling for life in Kane Wadi's well and, with the help of two of his friends, took it to the friendly neighbourhood vet, got the animal surgically treated - not once but twice - and helped it recuperate for weeks, first in his one-room house and then in a pool of water in his bathroom, and finally in his friend's electronics shop. And now that the stitches have healed, they have put the animal back in the water.

Once the surgery was over, Mistry took the creature back to his house. This time, though things were not as simple. "I used to fill my bathroom with water once everybody was done using it in the mornings. But my wife didn't like my messing up the house," says Mistry.

Realising that the tortoise was not welcome at his home, Mistry took the creature to Dabke's electronic shop. The tortoise spent the next three weeks at the shop.

Three weeks later, after stitches had dissolved, Shelar, Mistry and Dabke decided to release the tortoise back in to the well. It's been three days now and the tortoise seems to be absolutely well. "Earlier it could barely swim, let alone jumping around. Now it dives deep inside the well, the minute it spots a visitor," laughs Mistry.

Thanks, guys. I'm just speechless with delight and admiration.

Cross-posted on Indian Writing

Gods of the petridish

2005-09-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

From The Scotsman, a look at potential ethical minefields in the animal testing arena:

A quarter of all experiments now involve genetically modified animals - mainly mice, which are easy to alter genetically - but also horses, cats and monkeys. According to the magazine Nature, Britain is facing a "deluge" of mutant mice. They are the currency of cancer research, and new phrases have sprung up to describe them. A "knock-out" mouse has a gene missing, a "knock-in" mouse has had one changed or substituted. In addition to the celebrated "oncomouse", which is primed to get cancer (and had a patent case fought over it), there are mice which have been genetically altered to make them deaf or to give them the mouse version of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's.
The question of whether a mouse's suffering can be justified is no different if that suffering is induced from the outside, by experiments, or from the inside, by genetic engineering.
The difference arises when genetic engineering changes the nature of the animal. Is a chicken still a chicken if it is bred to have no feathers, as has been done in Israel and in India? A dog is still a dog with a docked tail, but would a sheep be a sheep without wool? Woolliness, surely, is what a sheep is all about.
This idea of a clear species identity is what makes the idea of hybrids or chimeras so disturbing. Mixing human and animal cells is a hot topic in bioethics and beyond. The government is asking for views on whether scientists should be allowed to create hybrid embryos, which would have to be destroyed after 14 days.
But the focus is entirely on the human side of the process: the implications of injecting a monkey with human brain cells or creating a human-mouse embryo. Whether it makes the monkey less of a monkey or the mouse less of a mouse is rarely mentioned. Just as we looked at Dolly and saw human clones, we look at chimeras and see talking monkeys, or Jeff Goldblum as a giant fly. The ethics of altering animal nature have been subsumed by the ethics of altering human nature.

The rights of circus animals...

2005-09-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

...are so limited it's not funny. This report is about the Apollo Circus, currently in Chandigarh, where the Deputy Commissioner has directed a vet to check the conditions of the animals performing. This is where the circus's responsibility ends:

Jain had lodged a complaint with UT District Magistrate-cum-Deputy Commissioner R.K. Rao. He said the circus owner should ensure proper watering and feeding of animals besides proper care.
The owner should also ensure that the animals are not inflicted any unnecessary pain or suffering before or during or after its training and exhibition, he said.
The Inspecting Authority added that animals should not be made to fight with each other and that the Circus owner should ensure that sedatives or tranquilisers or steroids or any other artificial enhancers are not administered to the animals.
Besides, the owner shall not deprive the animal of food or water in order to compel an animal to perform any trick.
The owner shall ensure that the animal shall not be transported or be kept or confined in cages and receptacles which do not measure in height, length or breadth as specified under the Transportation of Animal Rules, 1978, the complainant said.

It's pretty much like saying don't torture them, feed them gruel, and let them stretch--not even, you'll note, let them have comfortable living quarters, let them get proper exercise, make sure they're happy, none of that. Just make sure the scars don't show and that they're not too thin.

And...

2005-09-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

This 82-year old circus trainer in Kerala has sent his 21 caged big cats to the Tirupati Zoo.

Ever since a Supreme Court order banned the use of wild animals in circus and other shows in 1998, Cruz and the animals have been jobless. The owner of Jumbo circus, M.V. Shankaran, kept 19 lions, a lioness and a blind tiger at an estate near Mananthavadi. in Wayanad district as long as he could afford to.

More here.

Meanwhile, at the Byculla zoo in Mumbai, life gets more interesting for the animals - in a good way, we hope.

Other animals weren't so lucky.

And finally, optimistically: the youngest animal rescue and rehab team.

Mumbaiites, please think about saving a bird!

2005-09-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

This MM report today:

A study conducted by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) in partnership with BirdLife International and the Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSPB) has shown that the country has 465 important bird areas, of which 198 are outside the protected areas. Three hundred and twenty four species of birds in Asia are listed as globally threatened, which makes it one fourth of the globally threatened birds. The study has noted that the destruction is the most rampant in Asia.

...BNHS and Lintas Lowe have started a campaign, called Adopt a Rare Bird for BNHS. The organisation hopes to secure at least 5000 adoptions. If you care for the endangered species, all you have to do is adopt an endangered bird for Rs 300. And for saving the bird you will be given a personalised photo frame of the bird you have saved. For details please call the Bombay Natural History Society on 22821811.

A good first step

2005-09-16T17:30:00.000-07:00

...for animals in post 26/7 Mumbai is that the city's cattle market will soon be shifted to Palghar, outside the city.

This is being viewed as a first step toward shifting all city tabelas after the July 26 floods.

The government has asked the cattle controller to implement the order. Started in 1976 on a 3.25 acre land, the market runs 365 days a year and mostly deals with buffaloes. The market is used extensively by traders from Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat. Since the market and tabelas will soon move out of the city, the community involved in the trade will also have to follow. The state government has appealed to tabela owners on various occasions to shift their tabelas to Dapchari. The land earmarked for the purpose has been lying vacant as none of the tabela owners are willing to shift.

How they are doing...

2005-09-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

"They are listless, just lethargic. Or they are scared, if quivering is any measure..." begins this report, but a huge pet rescue operation is going on in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I'm so, so glad. It's a truly remarkable and compassionate effort. (Thanks Suj for the link)

Back home in India, this 80-year old tortoise was saved because of a "sensible" diet! And this python was saved by a team of surgeons.

These pigs, however, weren't so fortunate. (Thanks, Amit, for the link)

And finally, Suniti Bhushan Datta writes about Kabini, a human project that benefits wildlife.

Saving the shahtoosh, not the chiru

2005-09-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

Turns out the point is to save the shahtoosh, not the chiru, or at least that's what Swaminathan Aiyar tells us in his Sunday ToI column this week.

As you may know, the chiru, or the Tibetan antelope, is a species in danger of becoming extinct because of relentless hunting. Once hunted, its skin is made into shahtoosh shawls. About three chiru are killed to make one shahtoosh shawl. Here is a summary of the chiru issue.

And what's so great about the shahtoosh shawl? Well, I've never (shudder) seen one, nor do I ever want to - but I presume it's warm, because each shawl is after all made from the skin of three of these beautiful animals that lived - before they were killed and skinned - in sub-zero temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau.

Oh, and apparently you can put each of these shawls through a ring, if you care for that sort of amusement.

The chiru lives on 11,000 to 18,000 feet altitudes at temperatures of -40 degrees F. As this report points out, its numbers have come down to 70,000 from an estimated 1,000,000 in the earlier part of the last century, and 20,000 are killed every year:

Traditionally, the animal is trapped prior to killing. However, with today’s increasing demand, contemporary poachers have devised innovative, cost and time effective ways to kill. At night, they shine bright lights at whole resting herds. The innocent animal, baffled by this new experience, freezes - and thereby signs its own death warrant. The poachers let loose their automatic weapons at these sitting targets.

Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar suggests a solution for the problem of the vanishing chiru: farm the chirus, and save the shahtoosh. Of course, it isn't as if he is the first to have suggested this: chiru farming is one of those ideas that seem totally bizarre to me, but yes, it's been discussed.

Aiyar harks back to other examples, including that of the eider duck farming in Iceland, and a law enacted in 1281 making eider ducks the property of farmers on whose land they bred. But hello: eider ducks are now a protected species, and farmers in Iceland use a technique of collecting the down without harming the bird. And no, it is not possible to obtain the shahtoosh wool without killing the chiru.

Here is Aiyar's suggestion, make what you will of it:

We must allow the chiru to be farmed and harvested. The farmed chiru will have to be killed selecively, just as minks are killed for their fur...Farming chirus will be no more unethical than farming goats for meat and skin.

Why do this? He says:

If chiru-farming spreads quickly, the price of shahtoosh shawls will crash. This will make poaching less profitable and attractive. Low shahtoosh prices will greatly reduce the money power of poachers...In any event, farm-rearing will ensure that the chiru flourishes in farms, and does not become extinct.

To me, it's impossible to justify killing three beautiful wild animals every time you want to push a length of shawl through a ring, blah blah. And to farm them just to kill them for shawls. Farm them and kill them to protect them from becoming extinct?

Meanwhile, here is a detailed factsheet about the chiru and its regulatory status.

Cross-posted on Indian Writing. Chiru picture Earth Island.

"Un-American about animals"

2005-09-09T05:04:00.000-07:00

Peter Singer on where America stands in the matter of animal protection legislation, and why it is so far behind Europe:

In May 2004, a proposed law banning the chicken ''battery cage" was put to a vote in the Austrian Parliament. It passed -- without a single member of Parliament opposing it. Austria has banned fur farming and prohibited the use of wild animals in circuses. It has also made it illegal to trade in living cats and dogs in stores and deems killing an animal for no good reason a criminal offense. Most important, every Austrian province must appoint an ''animal lawyer" who can initiate court procedures on behalf of animals...

..The animal movement in the United States has not succeeded in turning animal rights into electoral issues about which voters seek their candidates' views. As a result, the American animal movement has shifted toward targeting corporations rather than the legislatures.

(via Arts and Letters Daily)

Pet Rescues in the Gulf Coast...

2005-09-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

...are continuing, thanks to some remarkable efforts like this one. But there are many, many animals out there:

In addition to untold numbers of pets killed, animals made homeless by the hurricane are wandering hungry and confused throughout the Gulf Coast.

Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, said, "In New Orleans alone, we think there are 50,000 pets."

Details of more efforts here, and here, and here, and here. Also here and here, and here.

Here is something you can do if you are in the US and would like to offer assistance.

This letter from a reader to the Delaware Online reflects the views of almost all pet owners worldwide:

I can't imagine what I would do if I was told that I must leave my pet behind to die. For some people, it is like telling someone to leave their child behind to die... Is it not a known fact that pets rely on their owners to care for them not only with food and shelter, but with love and kindness? I would hope that even people who don't have pets would empathize and understand that even a pet is a vital member of a family. - Amy Spavlik, Hockessin

A Petition to Include Animals in the Evacuations - Please Sign!

2005-09-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

In my mailbox today:

Please go here and sign, only takes a few seconds. This petition was forwarded to me from a caring person in Europe and comment below from S. Africa, the world can't believe what is happening here and neither can we. Thanks, Eileen.

Sign Here.

The Petition aims to ensure that all animals are included in the evacuations occuring as a result of the Emergency Order issued on Tuesday, September 6, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and that those animals are provided adequate supplies and shelter until they are reunited with their owners or adopted.

...Please sign this petition, and forward it to anyone you can to sign, to make sure animals are included. Animals are going to starve to death and the contaminated water will shortly start to kill them. Some are chained and cannot get food...Humans shouldn't be the only priority - we're the ones responsible for (the animals) and now they're dying with each passing moment.

Sign Here

Where have all the tigers gone?

2005-09-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

If you're wondering where all the tigers have gone, this report indicates that they've ended up as skins and gone to what is arguably the biggest wildlife blackmarket in the world, in Tibet. Says the report, "The situation has only worsened since October 2003 when China’s Anti-Smuggling Bureau intercepted a truck in their "Tibetan Autonomous Region" that was carrying a consignment of 31 tiger, 581 leopard and 778 otter skins from India."

If those numbers are frightening, here's this:

In Lhasa, many new shops were openly selling tiger and leopard skin chubas — a traditional Tibetan outfit. At one shop, the team found three fresh tiger skins — priced up to Rs 5.4 lakh each — and seven fresh leopard skins for sale. All these skins were said to have been smuggled from India.

• Most Tibetans wearing chubas claimed they had purchased the outfits during the past two seasons.

• Only 10 shops in the main Barkhor circuit stocked 24 tiger skin chubas. Another 20 stocked 54 leopard skin chubas. There are a total of 46 shops in the market.

• A large number of leopard and snow leopard skins were also found on the streets of Linxia.

And where do you think they're coming from?

Meanwhile, here's Asha Krishnakumar of Frontline on the report of the Tiger Task Force:

The Task Force report, while agreeing that relocation of all forest dwellers is the ideal solution, wonders where the funds would come from, particularly considering that 1,500 villages (66,516 families) still lie within the reserve areas and hardly 80 villages (2,904 families) have been relocated in the past 30 years. At the government-stipulated norm of Rs.1 lakh to relocate a family, the cost works out to Rs.665 crores plus land cost (Rs.11,508 crores at an enhanced rate of Rs.2.5 lakh for a family, including the land cost, which will be Rs.9,645 crores). Contrast this with the Rs.373 crores spent on Project Tiger by both the Central and the States governments in the past 30 years.

And on the tiger-tribe debate, here's an interview with Sunita Narain, ("Find strategies for co-existence") and this one with Valmik Thapar, ("The tiger has been placed in its coffin"). I have to confess that I haven't yet figured out which "side" I'm on in this debate. Ideally, I would say that whatever it takes, the money should be found...

A welcome judgement

2005-09-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

of the Bombay High Court directs that if any animals ro birds are used in a film, the Censor Board should first check whether the use of animals has been permitted by registration with the Animal Welfare Board. I was just thinking about this a few days ago when I saw the film Iqbal, in which five buffaloes have been named after cricketers including Kapil, Balaji and Harbhajan (no, that's not cruelty :)) but later in the film, they're used as targets for field practice.

If you thought they didn't care...

2005-09-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

...they do. Animals and humans experience many of the same emotions, says this research finding. Well, I knew that already. I knew that when my dog came and licked my hands as a puppy five years ago.

Those who were left behind

2005-09-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

How are animals faring in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? As this report points out, most of the zoo animals have weathered the storm. Two sea otters died of stress; some waterfowl, and an alligator, were missing. Not only the zoo animals, but the zoo staff's own animals seem to be fine.

Chicago's Lincoln Zoo is coming to the aid of the Audubon Zoo and the aquarium in New Orleans:

Officials say fish are dying by the hundreds and some otters have died. A white alligator and a black vulture are missing, but the elephants, orangutans and rhinoceroses have fared relatively well.

A skeleton staff of about 12 people, instead of the usual 200, has remained around the clock, feeding and tending to the animals. The American Zoo and Aquarium Association announced a national fundraising initiative headed by the Lincoln Park Zoo. People can donate through the Lincoln Zoo website.

Pets, however, are not doing as well. There are thousands of abandoned pets in the city. Some have formed packs and are foraging in the streets; others are still locked inside houses:

"It's just overwhelming," said Laura Maloney, the executive director of the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. "There are countless thousands of abandoned pets in the city. And hundreds and hundreds are stuck inside their homes."

Maloney said she had been bombarded with calls from evacuated residents who left pets in their homes. Many people were forced to abandon pets because they weren't allowed to take them on evacuation buses.

For the past few days, about 10 volunteers have been going to addresses where people left animals and are breaking in to save them, Maloney said.

Not everyone in New Orleans left pets behind. Lalande refuses to evacuate without his dog, Charlie, and his cats, Miranda and Babettes. "I've never cried in my life, but the saddest thing in the world is when all night long you hear dogs crying; big dogs, little dogs, medium dogs," said Lalande, 62. "People left thinking they'd be gone two or three days, but now they can't come back and their pets are starving. Tomorrow, I'm breaking in and feeding dogs."

One more effort for animals.

Animal Precinct

2005-09-01T16:22:00.000-07:00

In a city where people are packed like cattle into the local trains every day, who has time for – cattle?

Few people have time for stray animals in Mumbai. Generally people just smile at them distractedly; some ignore them; and a few warped ones throw stones at the animals, tie firecrackers to their tails, and even try to poison them. It’s tough enough for humans to survive here, and animals have a much harder time.

And so it is heartening that in one leafy corner of Parel, in the Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Memorial Animal Hospital, also the office of SPCA Mumbai, animals still have a shelter. This worthwhile project began in 1883 when Sir Dinshaw Petit donated his grandfather’s estate of 40,500 square yards, costing Rs 45,000 at the time. The centre has now been working for well over a century for the well-being of animals.

Dr Khanna, the Secretary of the SPCA Mumbai, is a retired senior army veterinarian. He tells me about the tragic impact of the recent floods on buffaloes and cattle in the tabelas across the city. The animals are shackled in their stalls for most of their milk-producing life. Naturally, they were unable to escape when the waters rushed in, and drowned by the thousands. Others who survived have injuries and infections, and are still being treated for these.

But through the year, the SPCA also has its daily struggle with cases of animal cruelty: snakes with their mouths stitched up, a pregnant mare being whipped to near-fatal exhaustion, a pregnant camel brought into the city illegally for slaughter; and cows who have swallowed plastic bags while foraging in open dustbins.

And then there are the everyday cases. A man drives up in a Santro and out jump two Labrador puppies, wriggling happily, and a German Shepherd puppy who immediately lets out a series of sharp, indignant barks. They have come for their vaccinations. Another stray dog, brought by an animal-lover, gets an injection and a friendly pat. I walk past the open pens where groups of dogs are housed – some old, some sad, all looking up at me with hopeful eyes – are they looking for homes?

Further ahead, at the electric crematorium, a father waits with his four children, their eyes red with weeping. I know immediately what has happened: the death of a pet is always like the death of a member of the family.

But even as I feel despondent, a board on the wall reminds me of the sayings of Mahavira. A cat curled up on a window AC looks up sleepily at me. And an old man in a lungi, his head wrapped in a red bandanna, walks past me towards the hospital, carrying a wounded wildfowl in his hands. He fusses over it repeatedly, smoothing its feathers, talking to it in a low, reassuring murmur. I smile. There’s sadness here, but also love, and one more animal is being cared for in this quiet corner of a busy city.

(Crossposted on Indian Writing. This is my Mumbai Mirror column which has appeared in the paper today).

When the cows are homeless

2005-08-31T18:19:00.000-07:00

You'll remember this. Bounty hunters on motorbikes, herding up stray cows on Delhi streets. And Hurree has this post about it recently.

Now this report goes in search of the cows who have been taken off Delhi roads, and finds this:

Decomposed bodies of unattended stray cattle infested with flies are not an uncommon sight in some of the NGO-run gosadans that fall under the purview of the Delhi government. There are reports of three to five cattle deaths in some of these shelters every day.

There are several reasons for this. In Mumbai, it's usually the oldest and weakest cattle, their bodies emaciated by lifelong shackling in tabelas and too much injection of oxytocin, that are left to wander the streets in their old age when they cannot produce milk any more. But another reason for their ill health is that they get no food on a regular basis when they are on the streets, and often have to scrounge around in open dustbins. And what do we see most often in dustbins? Plastic bags, of course. Here is a case where 55 kg of plastic was found inside a cow's stomach. The report goes on to highlight just this:

One of the reasons offered for the death of animals by the volunteers working in the gosadans was that these animals are accustomed to eating garbage and their stomach contains polythene and are unable to digest the food offered at the gosadans. Some animals refuse to take the green fodder and prefer to stay hungry.

A welcome step

2005-08-31T18:15:00.000-07:00

In a rare case, Delhi customs slapped Delhi-based importers Nadia Studio a fine of Rs 50,000 for importing 18-kg consignment of copperhead rat snake skins last year. In the first ever case, the courier company, DHL, whose consignment was held at the Indira Gandhi International Airport's cargo-courier terminal in mid-July 2004, has also been slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 for despatching the import from Hong Kong.

This report adds that while there are no restrictions on poaching these snakes in Hong Kong, they are an endangered species in India.

Outside the bill

2005-08-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

Bijal Vachcharajani on how she was always an animal rights activist:

Ever since I can remember, the treatment of animals at the hands of humans has always made a deep impression on me. When a roadside chicken vendor raised his hand to sever a hen’s head from her body, I would cringe; when children of my age flocked to Juhu beach to ride horse-carts and clap at monkeys dancing, I would desist; my first trip to the circus turned out to be the last one. My sister gifted me a leather watch for my birthday, but on chancing upon a newspaper report about investigations in the leather industry—photos of cows and bulls forced to walk for miles between trucking points, beaten, chilli pepper rubbed into their eyes, tails twisted and broken to herd them ahead, overcrowded into trucks where live animals struggle under the dead, and finally meeting a painful death — I promptly changed my belt to a blood-less synthetic one.

I so agree. It took me far more time than it took her, but for some years now, I've stopped buying silk or leather. There are enough other natural as well as synthetic fabrics, suiting all budgets these days, to justify buying another Kanchipuram silk.

But, Bijal points out, there are also difficulties in working for animal rights. Some of these are ethical difficulties; some come in the form of threats:

There are times when people come to me and say: “Why are you working for a bloody animal when people are dying on the streets?” Makes one wonder-- if that person cares passionately for the underprivileged, then why isn’t he out on the streets helping them instead of asking pointless questions. Apart from the evolutionary, philosophical, emotional, moral and ethical argument, which rationalises why a person works for animals, at the end of the day it’s simple--animals too have rights.

So many times, people on the road have ganged up against us when we have confiscated parakeets from sellers or stopped urchins from stoning a stray dog. These are times when the man-animal conflict comes to the fore and it is always a painful experience. In the larger picture too, be it the leopards of Bollywood, or the elephants down south, there is always a flip side-- either a human is hurt or an animal is killed. Of course, deep down, it is our so-called development that drives animals to desperate measures and come hunting for food in what was once their own home, but now is taken over by people.

Our animals and other family

2005-08-27T00:44:00.000-07:00

"Khushi was tiny, blue-eyed, and absolutely delightful. He wanted to climb all over my shirt, sit on my shoulder and generally look at the world from there." Uma blogs about the first kitten she took to the Jeev Raksha hospital in Pune.

And I sorted the monkey problem, with or without the langur (see Urgent: Langur Wanted post). Or rather, they sorted it out for me. The house we live in is a quirky place in the middle of Nizamuddin, which still has vast green areas surrounding it; we have a fenced-in verandah overhung by a sprawling Bodh tree. The first band of bandars who dropped in settled in pretty fast, didn't bother our many cats (one set lives Inside, one set lives Outside), and beyond the occasional raid on trees for fruit, didn't really hassle us. I got kind of used to their visits; the mothers would snooze on the branches keeping half an eye out on their kids and making "I need a babysitter" faces; the bulls reclined luxuriously and got the younger bimbo-type monkeys to groom their fur for lice.

Then they disappeared for a few days, and we assumed they'd moved on. That's when Band of Bandars Two came in and created havoc. They were aggressive around humans; two of them had trailing ropes around their necks, so they must have been pressed into service at some stage by a madari, and had probably escaped. They made it clear they didn't like or trust humans, and I suspect they'd been treated badly: the marks on their necks from the rope were livid. It was a band of misfits, clearly; the bulls were young and aggressive with each other, and there was no clear leader or older bull. There were babies, whose response to humans was to first chitter in absolute fear and then make threatening gestures; the mothers looked young, exhausted and defensive. We didn't get the same sense of "family" off them as we had from the first troupe; they seemed to be suspicious of each other, like stragglers who had banded together out of necessity, or perhaps they had been part of a larger band that had been dispersed.

For the first few days, we had a lot of trouble doing the peaceful co-existence thing: they rampaged everywhere, broke through the fencing, chased anyone they saw, destroyed anything they could find, and went after the kittens and dogs who live in the compound. Thankfully, no one was injured. But while we went looking for a langur man (for reasons I explained earlier), we also warned everyone living in the compound not to respond to the monkeys' aggression with a similar display of force. (The langur man was located, but his langur had, I kid you not, gone to the hills on holiday. I hope she had a nice time.)

In a few days, I thought I saw a change. The monkeys seemed to settle down; perhaps they just had more food and water at hand and they were no longer on the run. They started looking at us with puzzled curiosity: maybe I'm imagining it, but I thought they began to figure out that we weren't going to threaten them or beat them. Then I started asking the baby monkeys not to do certain things (shake the fencing, throw muck through the fence, pee through the fence--you know, all the stuff human visitors do at the zoo). The first few times, they responded with aggressive displays and posturing. Then that was replaced by a sort of toddler's tantrum; they'd stop doing what they were doing, but only after they'd made it clear it was their idea to stop, not mine. After a while, they started listening without prejudice, especially to my husband. Then the older monkeys began to relax around us. They'd listen if we asked them to please quit jumping on the roof. They weren't friendly, they were still wary, but I had the sense a truce of sorts had been called. The destruction of property stopped completely.

Just as we were settling down in this new, cautious detente, the old band of bandars came back and reclaimed their turf. I haven't seen the smaller, more aggressive troupe for the last few days, and while I'm happy to have the "family" I know back--we kind of waved at each other shyly, the mothers said, oh hello, you're still there?--I wonder whether those dudes and us would eventually have settled into some sort of mutually comfortable routine.

I know most people in Delhi hate urban monkeys, often with reason; they are hugely intelligent, can figure out locks and doors, can be destructive and have been known to bite. But they're migrants, just as much as the endless flow of people who come into the city, and they're migrants because we've built office blocks and apartments in the green spaces where they used to live, without offering them anything in return. We feed them at temples, we leave garbage dumps (think fast food centres for simians and other animals) tantalisingly strewn across the city, and then we chase them away. Most of these monkeys seem to spend their lives moving endlessly from one neighbourhood to another, driven off by violent methods, or by the langur man I was thinking of bringing in. I don't quite know how to deal with them, but so long as they're not bothering me, I don't see why I should chase them away. They're citizens of this crazy city just as much as any of us, I guess; they're part of the ranks of the homeless and dispossessed who live in Delhi. The humans sleep on pavements, the monkeys sleep in trees: sooner or later, someone tells them to move on, and so the cycle continues.

Zoo stories

2005-08-27T00:33:00.000-07:00

Courtesy Amit, this story says visitors to the Byculla zoo have been pelting animals with stones:

The animals in the city zoo, (Veermata Jijabai Bhonsale Garden), at Byculla, are being harassed by insensitive visitors.
The visitors pick stones from heaps of rubble and raw material left behind by the BMC contractor repairing the zoo roads, and pelt them at the animals.

Why would anyone do this? The saddest stories come out of Indian zoos; staff report that visitors have offered monkeys lit cigarettes and razor blades, pushed plastic bags into animals' cages, poked them with sticks, shouted in order to wake sleeping babies so that they can "perform".

I'm thinking we should round up these guys and ask the London Zoo whether they'd like to make their Human Exhibit permanent--and throw away the key, yeah?

Oh, on the subject of poking cigarette butts in at animals? You're creating a Marlboro Chimp.

Zoo Keepers at the Qinling Wild Animal Zoo in Xi'An in China are encouraging a 26-year-old chimpanzee called Ai Ai to quit smoking.
Ai Ai, which means "love love" in Mandarin, has been smoking for 15 years. She started by picking up tourists' cigarette butts.

Urgent: Langur Needed

2005-08-20T21:42:00.000-07:00

If anyone knows how to contact a "langur handler" in Delhi--the men who hire out their langurs by the day, week or month in order to scare away the more aggressive urban monkey troops--please let me know through the comments section as soon as possible.
The old band of monkey brothers who used to drop by were never a hassle; they'd sleep in the branches of the tree, do the occasional raid on dog food, but that was about it. A few days back, a new bunch drove out the first band; this one is composed largely of teenage males and adults fighting for dominance and babies, which makes for a very aggressive combination.
So if you know of langurs who're willing to work Sundays--get in touch. As soon as possible; these rhesus macaques are picking on my kittens.

You Can't Be Coldblooded

2005-08-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

An interview with Ullas Karanth in the NYT:

Q. Have you ever gotten emotionally involved with the animals you were observing?

A. Objective scientists aren't supposed to, but I have. During the early 1990's, I was putting radio collars on tigers and leopards at Nagarahole reserve in southern India and then tracking their behavior.

With time, this one leopard got really quite habituated to me. For two years, I'd follow him at night. I had a little laboratory in the middle of the forest, and this leopard used to come around at midnight frequently and I'd hear his call.

Even half asleep, I'd turn on my receiver and when I'd pick up his signals, I felt, oh, O.K., there's my leopard. But one morning, his signal read as if he was lying inactive somewhere in the forest and I really got worried.

When I finally located him, he was strung up like a lynching victim. The leopard had walked into a snare some poacher had set up for deer. Yes, I know, leopards have high mortality rates, and I'm not supposed to feel emotion. But when this happens to a creature you know, you can't be coldblooded.

Incidents like this happen every day and their toll on animal life is cumulative. The killers are usually local people trying to get some protein.

R.I.P. Hobra

2005-08-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

This crossbreed of a horse and a zebra had originally been rescued from a circus and was kept in a small room at the Byculla Zoo for most of his life. While CZA rules do not permit public displays of crossbreeds, activists have been trying to move the animal to a more spacious environment.

Animal activists feel that many circuses illegally cross-breed species for added public attraction. "There are cross-breeds like tigon (male tiger with female lion) or liger (male lion with female tiger) that are created for scientific study. But in circuses, such cross breeding like the hobra should never be allowed as it is unlawful and unnatural," said secretary of Bombay SPCA J C Khanna.

Its beak can hold more than its bellycan

2005-08-14T02:30:00.000-07:00

Think of it as an Independence Day present.

The Independence Day horticultural show at Lalbagh in Bangalore has a new attraction this year: five spot-billed Pelicans, deemed an endangered species, were sighted at the Lalbagh lake. The birds were spotted on Friday by Mr J Ramesh, wildlife photographer and artist, who has been engaged in bird-watching at Lalbagh since 1993. “This is a pleasant surprise,” he says. The attraction for the birds, he adds, could be the fish in the recently-desilted lake.

Grisly evidence

2005-08-14T02:26:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to figure out how many slaughtered snow bears and wild pigs it takes to fill nine cartons with animal hair. Something tells me I really don't want to know.

From The Kolkata Telegraph:

A consignment of nine cartons of animal hair, seized at the Tatanagar railway station last week, has been traced to Nepal and adjoining areas of north Bihar.
The state forest department officials said the hairs, 8 to 10 centimetres long belonged to wild animals, namely snow bears and wild pigs.

College fests: garbage pail kids?

2005-08-14T02:19:00.000-07:00

A bunch of students who got together to form the Green Festival Initiative would like college fests to clean up their act:

The GFI team collected over 63,000 branded Pepsi and Nestle cups. Pet bottles totalled 2,700, along with 43,000 plastic spoons and forks.
The banner audit showed that 16,459 sq feet of banners made of PVC or other plastic material were put up by 23 sponsors. Hutch, Nokia and Sunsilk accounted for 14,400 sq ft, or 91 percent of the non-biodegradable banners.

That was generated by the hugely popular IIT Madras festival, which is right near a wildlife sanctuary:

The sanctuary has about 3,000 spotted deer (about 300 of them roaming in the IIT area itself) and about 700 blackbucks, besides monkeys, foxes, pangolins and a variety of birds.
Supervisor of IIT's civic team, K.S. Pannerselvam said, "Attracted by the sweet residues in disposable cups, monkeys and deer often consume the entire container and sometime they die."

Given the intelligence and creativity of the average IIT student, I'm pretty sure they can come up with a solution--perhaps one that could be exported to other college fests across the country.

The tiger doesn't get a cut

2005-08-14T02:09:00.000-07:00

Peter Foster reports in The Standard:

Tourists who pay up to 30,000 rupees to watch Indian tigers from luxurious eco-lodge hotels are contributing almost nothing to the animals' well-being or their parks, according to a new conservation report.
Its findings will astonish tourists who visit parks such as Ranthambore Reserve in Rajasthan and leave convinced that, with their patronage, they are helping to save the species.

The report he's quoted from, Joining the Dots, is controversial. Valmik Thapar doesn't agree with the conclusions of the Tiger Task Force, while Sunita Narain defends their position.
In absolute terms, you've got to agree with Valmik, who's seen attempts at conservation and resettling humans around tiger sanctuaries come up against realpolitik time after time--and the ones who pay the price are the animals we're supposed to be protecting. Sunita Narain's platform is pragmatism, which is another way of saying that there isn't much you can do about a situation where humans encroach on sanctuary space except try and handle it, since it's going to happen anyway.
And you can't get a soundbyte from a tiger; so the focus always stays on the sufferings of humans, with the sufferings of the animals who are forced to live with us on our terms blanketed in silence.

Rains Affect Rescue Centre

2005-08-13T05:03:00.000-07:00

At the animal orphanage at Katraj in Pune, one of the best shelters I have seen - we made friends with some wonderful leopard cubs there, and a wild boar named Antya - heavy rains have been giving them a tough time. We often think that birds don't suffer in the rains because they can simply fly off to a dry place, but here is a report about thirty crows that were electrocuted, nests that were destroyed, adn owls whose wings were so thoroughly drenched that they could not fly.

As for the 300 rescued animals at the shelter, they were kept dry with borrowed sheets, newspapers and blankets. The shelter is run by the Indian Herpetological Society. More about it later, but right now I'm jsut glad the animals are fine.

"When meat is not murder"

2005-08-13T02:06:00.000-07:00

is the title of this interesting Guardian report about a technique to grow fresh meat from animal cells in the laboratory, without any animal being killed for the purpose:

Scientists have adapted the cutting-edge medical technique of tissue engineering, where individual cells are multiplied into whole tissues, and applied them to food production.

I wouldn't eat it anyway, even if it came on a petri dish, but right now it's still one of those wait-and-see proposals. So, we'll wait and see.

Disgrace

2005-08-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

A public works supervisor in Jourdanton, Texas reportedly ordered six stray dogs drowned in the sewer plant instead of being properly euthanised. The dogs were taken to the sewer plant and dropped into the water. Why did they do it? Because the veterinarian, who usually administers lethal injections to stray animals, was on vacation. How did the city council find out? A child saw the act and told his mother, who made a complaint. The supervisor has now been reprimanded and asked to attend classes with animal control officers.

That one child had more sense than the man who ordered the act, and all those who did it.

Animal Abuse by Children...

2005-08-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

...is bad enough. It can also be an early warning that such children will grow up to commit acts of extreme violence to humans later in life, says a Peta research study, according to this Guardian report:

Thomas Hamilton, the Dunblane killer, enjoyed shooting animals and squashing rabbits' heads beneath car wheels as a youth. Robert Thompson, who was 10 years old when he and John Venables killed two-year-old Jamie Bulger, pulled the heads off live birds....

Peta's research found that some children in abusive homes copy the abusers' behaviour. "Children in violent homes are characterised by frequently participating in pecking-order battering, in which they maim or kill an animal. Domestic violence is the most common background for childhood cruelty to animals."

I'm not surprised.

Baby's Best Friend

2005-08-10T01:14:00.000-07:00

This pet Pom rescued his family's baby when their house collapses in a landslide. Says the child's mother: "Sonu is a member of our family and we treat him like our child. But how do I thank him and tell him I’m so very, very proud of him!"

Cowboys turn, well, Indian

2005-08-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

So you have cows on the road. So they're blocking traffic. So instead of setting up a proper animal welfare organisation that might actually prevent Delhi's holy cows from corrupting their intestines with plastic bags and the like, and that might look after stray cattle, what do you do? You put a bounty on their heads and exhort the general citizenry to go catch cows.
No, seriously. This really happened, courtesy a court order that sounds like arrant b..., er, cow-manufactured natural products. It's not working very well, though:

With the prospect of instant cash fading with each passing day, the public's enthusiasm to capture and hand over stray cattle to the civic authorities in the capital is waning.
The Delhi High Court Thursday directed MCD to reward anyone who captured the stray animals and deduct the reward amount from the salary of veterinary officers posted in its 12 zones.
In the wake of the court ruling, many an adventurous person took on the cowboy role in the city, herding the stubborn animals towards a cattle pound on bikes, cars and even military trucks.

And the end result of this? Terrified animals. Unhappy veterinary officers. Unpaid cowboys. And, well, more paperwork. Nice going, gentlemen.

Dedicated to Uma..

2005-08-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

..who held the fort while I was away. My apologies for such a long absence; spent eight days in Sri Lanka and the next eight back in Delhi with a hacking cough and high fever, which reminds me: if you're ever in Colombo, cough or no cough, take that walk down the seafront. It's gorgeous.
One of the things I did in Sri Lanka was visit the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage. Pinnawela's pretty well known; it hosts about 70 rescued elephants at this point, and has never had less than 50 pachyderms since 1997.
I had "seen" elephants in the way most urban people do. Cruelly, at the circus, where these gentle creatures looked so miserable sitting on painted wooden tubs. Penned up in zoos, which feels all wrong for animals that live in large herds and are used to acres of roaming space. Or making waves in Delhi's already-chaotic traffic as they marched down the road, on their way to a marriage procession.
The thing is, you never really LOOK at elephants; you look at their size, their bulk, sometimes at the decorations their mahouts have caparisoned them with.
If you look at an elephant closely, this is what you see. The skin is hard, wrinkled, often dusty, unless they're bathing, in which case it transmutes into a gleaming black shell. Their mouths are very large, their trunks capable of extracting a peanut from a pocket with the greatest of delicacy, or thwacking an errant hathi backside with some energy. Their eyes? Even the youngest elephants I saw--the babies at Pinnawala and the baby fellow with the topknot at Kelaniya--seem to be born with those sad, old, watchful eyes. They take in everything, especially if "everything" includes "bananas".
I love the way they splashed each other in the river. I loved watching the babies shuffle around spraying water in a slightly tentative fashion, and loved the way the elephants took turns protecting the babies from too much roughhousing. The Pinnawala elephants are used to humans, so they took not the slightest notice of the crowds watching them, unless we proffered fruit. They love the time in the water; they sulk when they have to come out and march crossly up the path, expressing their disapproval of short bathing times by smacking each other--and once in a while, the odd careless human who's strayed on to the path--with their trunks.
I suppose Pinnawela counts technically as "captivity", but the elephants there looked so much happier than the ones you see in most Indian zoos. They had friends and relatives in the herd. They knew their mahouts well. They had conversations with each other; they looked us up and down, and one young male cheekily patted me with his trunk in a terribly familiar sort of way.
The one who stands out in the herd is Sama, who had part of her left foot blown up by a land mine when she was just two years old. Sama limps, terribly, but if you drop bananas in the water by accident, she's the first to scoop them out of the waves with her trunk. Her spine is curved like a question mark; as she grows older, the curvature will increase, the mahouts said. The people at Project Lucky Sama are trying to train Sama to accept and use a prosthetic foot. Meanwhile, she gets around, on three legs, as best as she can. And if you have a bunch of bananas secreted on your person, she'll sniff them out faster than any of the rest.

When the Dogs Start Crying

2005-08-05T22:19:00.000-07:00

Animals, too, died in the terrible rains the lashed Mumbai on 26 July. Buffaloes inside tabelas; goats and sheep inside slaughterhouses; and stray animals. Writing about that Terrible Tuesday, Amit Varma hears the crying of the street dogs:

Every year Bombay is badly hit on at least a couple of days during the monsoons, as the city shuts down because of too much rain. Weather forecasts rarely give enough notice, and a more accurate warning is the crying of street dogs. As rain lashes down and the water level rises, they keep moving along the streets in search of higher ground. When there is none to be found, and they cannot escape the water, they start crying. They do not do this in packs, mostly, and it is not as conspicuous as wolves wailing at the wind. So it is often lost amid the many other noises of a busy city.

Walking around the city's hard-hit suburbs, this is the sad aftermath that he sees:

Some suburbs remained flooded in the interim, and did not get power and water supply for a week. Where the water receded, the streets piled up with massive amounts of rotting garbage, onto which crows descended and stray dogs lingered. I came across the carcass of a buffalo lying in the middle of the road, which for some mysterious reason was wearing a helmet. As many as 1,500 dead cattle punctuated the streets of Bombay...

...Eventually the city would function again, and everyone would feel proud of living in such an important city. And the dogs, those that were left and were now dry, would stop crying. Until next year.

Those that were left.

(Cross-posted on Indian Writing)

Have Some Fun

2005-08-04T01:56:00.000-07:00

Here (thanks Amit for the link!)

Snake Rescue Hero

2005-08-04T00:20:00.000-07:00

During Mumbai's heaviest rainfall and flooding ever, Shrikant Gujjar, leaving his own house in Ambarnath under five ffet of water, was busy rescuing snakes. According to this Mumbai Mirror report, he has rescued 17 snakes so far:

Gujjar, who calls himself a Sarp Mitra, or a friend of snakes, is a member of the non-governmental organisation Protection for Reptiles of India. In the last one week, he has captured 17 snakes - 7 Common Kraits, 4 Russell's vipers, 4 cobras, one saw-scaled viper and one cat snake - all of which, except one, are poisonous. He did this is response to distress calls from people in the neighbourhood...When it started pouring heavily on July 26, almost all the houses in Kansai section, Ambarnath (East) got flooded. Gujjar’s bungalow was no exception. It was submerged under five feet water. He shifted his family to his aunt’s house in another area and stayed back to guard his house. “I was trying to figure out how much of the furniture in the house could be salvaged when I got the first call. The caller said a snake had entered his house,” says Gujjar. He quickly forgot about his furniture and other worries and left for the caller’s house. He returned an hour later — with a cobra, wet and poisonous.

Gujjar, a businessman, has been reportedly rescuing snakes since 1995. After rescuing them from residential areas, he releases them in the forest near Ambarnath. And all free of charge, of course.

Flood Rescues at Kaziranga

2005-08-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

From my mailbox, this appeal from IFAW:

"A scared rhino calf thrashes helplessly, swept along the surging floodwaters that will soon rage across Kaziranga National Park in India.

A herd of rare Asiatic elephants crosses a highway in desperation, searching for higher ground. If they are lucky enough to make it across the road without being hit by a car, poachers may be waiting on the hilltops to slaughter them.

You may have already heard about the terrible floods currently wreaking havoc in Bombay. But each year monsoon rains also turn Brahmaputra, one of the world’s great rivers, into a destructive force of nature. When the river overflows its banks, it means possible injury or death to many of the world’s most endangered species living in Kaziranga, including the one-horned rhino and Royal Bengal tiger.

Caught between drowning and poacher gangs, there’s no place to hide. But if these animals are lucky, they may be rescued by one of the few forest rangers who risk their lives every day to save them....

The IFAW-supported Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) in Kaziranga plays a vital role in the rescue and rehabilitation of animals during the annual Indian floods.

The Centre is a flurry of activity, with reinforcements in the form of rescue staff and trained volunteers, including veterinarians, working grueling 20-hour days to treat injured and sick animals before releasing them back into the wild.

Last year CWRC handled 44 wild animals injured in floods or accidents and spent day and night patrolling along the highway rescuing injured wildlife. The floods also damage the infrastructure of the park, destroying most of the roads, and a huge amount of work is required every year to repair the damage.

Together, we can protect one of the world’s most important animal sanctuaries

Created in 1905 to prevent the extermination of rhinos, Kaziranga is renowned as one of the finest and most beautiful wildlife refuges in southern Asia. It protects approximately half of the remaining one-horned rhinoceros population (of only some 2,300 left in the world), as well as many other threatened species.

The park also boasts the highest density tiger population as well as a multitude of other Indian species that are large in size: elephants, wild buffaloes, gaurs, swamp deer, sambar deer; Kaziranga has it all..."

Please visit www.ifaw.org for more details.

Elephant Abandoned by her Mahout

2005-08-01T18:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, it happens. It happened in Mumbai last week, as this Indian Express Newsline report tells us:

For days, as hapless residents watched, the 35-year-old female elephant passively stood in the open, tied to a tree.

"The poor thing was drenched and her legs have been affected. She has been in the rain for four days now," he said.

Dr Kazveen Umrigar, a veterinarian, said that while an elephant is unlikely to be affected by the rain, wet feet could lead to an infection. "If they start to feel cold, they can turn hypothermic and the body temperature can dip below normal," she added.

But now the rains have abated, and the mahout is back.

Tigers of Salsette, Song of Sandsumjee

2005-07-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

A Gond fable from Seoni:

Sandsumjee married six wives, but had no heir, so he married a seventh and departed on a journey; during his absence, after his relatives had sacrificed to a god, she bore a son, Singbaba.

The “small wife was sleeping, the other six were there,” so they took the babe and threw it into the buffalo’s stable, placing a puppy by her side, and said “Lo! A puppy is born.”

But the buffaloes took care of Singbaba and poured milk into his mouth.
When the six wives went to look for him, they found Singbaba playing.
Thence they took him and threw him to the cows, but the cows said, “Let no one hurt him,” and poured milk into his mouth.

Read on.

And here are the tigers of Salsette.

Terrible Tuesday, Terrible for the Animals Too

2005-07-30T01:50:00.000-07:00

Thousands of buffaloes, goats and sheep died by drowning in tabelas and slaughterhouses across suburban Mumbai as their owners left the shackled animals - many of whom could have otherwise swum to safety - before escaping themselves.

I'm sorry, but I just cannot bear to post any of the pictures. But they deserve to be seen if only as evidence of our own cruelty as human beings. Rediff has this report on the deaths of buffaloes in tabelas across suburban Mumbai. Ashish Panchal has more pictures of the devastation. NDTV has this brief report.

The Good News First

2005-07-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

Good news at Syracuse Zoo. The hard work begins when the elephant pups have to be trained. Just like training a puppy, except these weigh several hundred pounds. Meanwhile, bad news at these French zoos.

In Sri Lanka...

2005-07-26T21:07:00.000-07:00

...A project to move 150 wild elephants back to protected areas.

Legislating to Protect

2005-07-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Senate has passed four conservation measures that will preserve some of the country’s most beautiful wild places for generations to come. This Senate vote comes as Americans are getting out with their families for summer vacations, with many choosing to travel to and explore our country’s natural heritage. The legislation would protect wild lands in California, New Mexico, Washington, and Puerto Rico.

At Kaziranga, helping to prevent roadkill

2005-07-26T21:04:00.000-07:00

This report tells of young men in Assam helping to protect the wildlife at Kaziranga National Park. Young men patrol through the night along the highways to prevent roadkill.

The Kaziranga National Park lies to the south of the Brahmaputra river and is often flooded during the monsoon. Because of these heavy showers, animals in the Park cross tend to the highway to reach the other side of the hilly area in search of food, and are often hit by speeding vehicles.

Home for Elephants

2005-07-24T07:34:00.000-07:00

In Kerala, a home for 62 elephants, and a month-long rest for the jumbos:

During these 30 days of an annual sukhachikitsa (administration of restorative health care and treatment) session (it commences on July 1), they will be free from the exacting "parade duties" of festival processions. For them, it is a period of complete rest, frolic, feasts and rejuvenation.

The jumbos at the Punnathoor Kotta are plied with sumptuous and highly nutritious food, laced with ayurvedic and allopathic medicines. It ends with an elaborate bath that will almost mirror the effect of a thorough massage therapy every day. This rejuvenation care session for elephants was a unique initiative of the Devaswom, when it was started some 20 years ago. According to veterinarian K.C. Panikker, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have started sukhachikitsa for elephants in sanctuaries there.

The initiative has its roots in the intense man-elephant bond that has always existed in Kerala, and in the best traditions of elephant management practices inspired by that bond. The bond has been so strong, at least in Central Kerala where becoming a mahout had often been the cherished "career and goal" of many an adolescent even in upper middle class families.

Meimei, the World's Oldest Panda in a Pen...

2005-07-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

..died in a South China zoo last week. I know I saw a picture somewhere, but I can't seem to find it right now.

Good Guy

2005-07-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

This crow had injured its wings. Arjun Rampal made sure it found treatment.

Animal Hospital planned

2005-07-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

by Bombay vet Sangita Vengsarkar and actor Raveena Tandon. There will also be an animal rehabilitation centre:

“The hospital will have state-of-the-art medical facilities and a clean, healthy environment for domestic animals coming there to recuperate,” said Raveena, who has already applied for a license for the two institutions.

A laudable plan. I hope it materialises soon.

Overcrowding

2005-07-07T07:09:00.000-07:00

at the Dhaka Zoo.

Dolphin Sanctuary

2005-07-07T07:07:00.000-07:00

... in the Ganges. Maybe.

Greenpeace and the Whales

2005-07-07T07:02:00.000-07:00

Maybe you can't hear the songs of the whales in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. But, in the oceans, they reverberate. Only, the orchestra gets a little weaker every day.

They say these `submarine songs' last for hours, and can be heard from hundreds of kilometres away. In Ulsan, in Korea, the whales' songs rang through the city centre, as more than 50,000 people marched in, to stand up for the world's biggest mammals.

Read about the anti-whaling campaign in India.

Oh no.

2005-07-06T23:23:00.000-07:00

Oh no. I hope they don't decide to euthanise our stray dogs. our stray dogs are often befriended by our street people. they need to be sterilised, and they are being sterilised through the animal welfare ngos. killing is not the answer.

Joint Tiger Census from October

2005-07-06T23:19:00.000-07:00

Indian wildlife authorities have decided to carry out a census of tigers simultaneously in all forests across the country from October. The census will be spread out over a period of four months.

Animal Abuse

2005-07-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

There's been some discussion, after our posts on PETA. I'd like to respond in phases, because several issues were raised. First I'd like to point to this PETA release about an animal hoarder:

McVay faces 246 charges stemming from authorities’ reported June 23 discovery of as many as 123 gravely ill cats—whom she evidently claimed to have "rescued"—along with the remains of 13 others, including one decomposing carcass under a couch, inside her filthy home, which reportedly reeked of ammonia. News sources state that the survivors—at least 18 of whom have since been euthanized—suffered ailments including flea infestation, missing hair, dental problems, and upper respiratory infections. An Idaho Humane Society representative told news sources that virtually every surface inside the house was covered in cat feces and urine

This is of course an extreme case. But even in the matter of the 'ownership' ('ownership'?) of pets, there are innumerable cases of abuse and neglect. One morning last week I saw two Labradors being walked on the road. They were trying to sniff at something under a plant. Their handler pulled at their leashes roughly, so roughly that the dogs almost choked, and walked off, dragging the dogs behind him.

At Jeev Raksha, too, I saw a beautiful dog that had been abandoned there by his 'owners' after he got maggots all over, on his flanks and his nose. Pet ownership isn't always a matter of cuddly, feel-good, playing-with-the-kiddies sentiments. Often the most disheartening abuse of animal rights happens with pets.

What can be done? More later.

Let's Share the Planet - Please

2005-06-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

I've never understood why, for a country where the so-called majority religion
professes to worship the cow, we're so cruel to the rest of our
animals. Every morning, we emerge religiously from the temple and
stick a bunch of grass in front of a dewy-eyed animal, toss a couple
of coins at the woman who owns the cow and move on. If we're in a bad
mood, we pretend to pick up a stone to throw at the stray dog that
walks beside us. If we're in a really bad mood, we throw the stone, or
kick the animal. For the starving kitten on the roadside, of course,
we have no time at all.

Sitting in our cars at the traffic signal, we honk so hard when the
light changes that the tangawalla in front of us whips his poor pony
out of its wits. When the poor animal gets too old and is tied to a
pole on the seashore and left to die, we wonder briefly whether to
ring the SPCA, then decide that it's too much trouble to look for the
number. If the animal falls on the road, we wait impatiently for the
corpse to be lugged to the pavement and out of our sight.

In a country where grandfathers have raped their five-year old
grand-daughters, we want to shoot stray dogs - simply because they
exist. We won't fund shelters, we won't help to sterilise them, we
won't volunteer to clean out their kennels - heck, we won't even buy a
t-shirt to support voluntary animal welfare efforts - but we want to
shoot stray dogs.

And we teach our children all this too. We take them to the circus and
clap when the bears are led in. We watch from a distance and laugh
when the monkey-man makes his monkey perform on the street. We take
our kids to the zoo and show them how to throw pebbles at the chimps
and make annoying sounds at the big cats. Oh, and if, being children,
they want to play with someone's pet dog, even a puppy, we
hyperventilate neurotically and make them wash their hands about
twenty-five times. And if our children, being better people than us,
insist on having a puppy as a pet, we finally give in to their
demands: but when we realize that puppies need care, too, we decide
that it's all too much of a pain and we throw the little creature out
of a moving car. Instead of teaching our children to share the planet,
we teach them to fear animals and hate them. Life, we teach them, is
really all ha ha hee hee: cricket, movies, and nabobbing. And when
we're too old for all that? Then we go on picnics to the forest and
shoot the deer.

--------------

450 species can't be wrong

2005-06-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

Hmmm.
From the Seattle Times:

"From whales to buffalo to Caspian terns, a profusion of animals exhibit behavior that in humans would be called gay.
In his book "Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity," Seattle biologist Bruce Bagemihl estimates 450 species display some form of homosexuality, which can include same-sex courtship, displays of affection, sexual activity, long-term pairings and parenting.

To paraphrase the old Cole Porter song has it, birds do it, bees do it, bonobos on their knees do it...

Thorny problem for white peacocks

2005-06-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

Madurai's rare white peacocks are under threat as their habitat disappears to make way for a teak plantation:
A report says:

"But peacock lovers like Pandiyarajan are also concerned about the future of these rare birds as temple authorities in Thiruparangundrum have begun clearing the dense growth of wild shrubs and trees in the area for commercial plantations.
However, temple authorities say thorns in the wild shrubs could hurt the birds and raising commercial plantations is for their good.
"Those trees had thorns and we do not want the birds to get hurt. That is why we removed them. We have teak plantations and want to add another 5,000 teak trees," said Padmanaban, Subramaniaswamy temple.
But it may take close to two years for the trees to grow in the area. And with no place to hide, the rare birds have become easy targets for poachers and hounds.

The P word

2005-06-19T12:37:00.000-07:00

Uma had an interesting post about PETA a while back, that got me wondering why PETA is so widely seen as the bogeyman of the animal rights movement. (Out of the last four stories I browsed about zoos, three mentioned PETA in deeply negative terms.)
I think this is an important point to address, because it throws an illuminating light on common perceptions of both PETA and the animal rights movement. PETA is often identified only by its celebrity-studded no-meat ads, often in terms of some disapproval: aren't they wasting money that could have funded shelters, hospitals and better care programmes for animals?
It often surprises me is how little people know about the rest of PETA's work. It supports and runs animal shelters. It lobbies big companies in order to improve conditions for animals on factory farms. It's been at the forefront of the gathering demand to stop laboratory experiments on animals and other abuses. And the organisation can come out with positions that are very nuanced, as with Ingrid Newkirk's explanation of why PETA might encourage a ban on the breeding of pit bulls and reluctantly endorse the "automatic destruction" policy that many shelters have towards pit bulls. Anyone who thinks that PETA is lacking in subtlety should read her letter. It's a lament for the tragedy of a dog created by human beings as the ultimate weapon, subjected to constant abuse by most of its owners, and it's a recognition of the terrible paradox that animal lovers are faced with in the case of pit bulls: "we can only stop killing pits if we create new ones".
I like the fact that PETA saw earlier than many NGOs the importance of grabbing mainstream attention: you won't run animal rights stories because they're unsexy, but you'll run a go-veggie feature because it features stars in the buff, no problem, here's one star to go. Part of PETA's job is to get people who might not otherwise think about animal rights to consider the subject; if they do that because they're confronted with some model wearing a cabbage leaf or two on a billboard, that's okay by me.
What I don't like about PETA is simple: I hate the hectoring tone, I hate the stridency, I dislike being at the receiving end of a lecture, and I wish they'd use their website to answer issues of this sort, where two of their employees have been arrested on animal-cruelty charges. [It's frustrating that PETA doesn't use its website to either explain what happened, or to correct misconceptions. To take a small example, the story mentions a website called Peta Kills Animals, and also mentions that the website is aided by the Center for Consumer Freedom. What it doesn't mention is that CCF is not quite as disinterested a body as it appears to be: it represents the interests of the food and restaurant business (Wiki has a list of 1998 members of its advisory panel, which includes several members of the meat supplying and processing industry--you can hardly imagine that they'd be paid-up PETA supporters!)]
Now here's the larger point about the animal rights movement: like so many other 21st century rights movements, this is not a neat army of the faithful going out to march for a specific mission. It's a loose coalition of people at different levels of awareness, commitment, fanaticism, caring and knowledge, held together only by the fact that they care about what happens to animals. PETA is one of the many organisations that works on behalf of animals; the fact that PETA inspires so much fear and loathing is also a tribute to the way in which it's managed to catch the public eye. You don't have to support or even agree with PETA in order to be part of the animal rights movement. But you do have to acknowledge the fact that the history of the animal rights movement in this century would have been radically different without PETA. It's because they scream so loudly that someone like me has the luxury of keeping the conversation pleasant.

Outside the cage

2005-06-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

Do I like zoos? It depends. I haven't been on the other side of the bars, so how would I know what it feels like from the perspective of the inmates? But this story is moderately heartening.
From The Financial Express:

"From being mere amusement park where wild animals can be shown to children, zoos in India are fast turning into institutes where not only endangered species are saved but various research works are also being carried out.
The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) has come up with a novel initiative to improve the management of zoos and give them a new look, besides converting them into wildlife research centres.

As I said in a previous post, I'm not a big fan of zoos, especially the kind that don't protect the animals from animals like us. But as long as you still have zoos, it's worth fighting for better conditions for the animals who have to live there.
In The Chicago Tribune, Charles Madigan sums up the love-hate relationship many of us have with zoos:

"Of course, I have a conflict of interest because I have been in love with the zoo for 26 years. When we moved to Chicago from Moscow in 1979, Lincoln Park Zoo was where my little boys and their mother went to escape apartment living and city noise. I can't go there today without seeing all three of my sons as infants, scrambling around the pathways and staring, absolutely fixated, at the chimps and big cats.
They knew the now-departed Otto when the lowland gorilla was Chicago's biggest celebrity.
That being said, I still don't like the idea of zoos, particularly for large animals. Elephants need vast spaces for roaming. Big cats do indeed need red meat that comes from a kill, not from a kitchen. Wild birds have to fly."

Passing the buck

2005-06-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

Pataudi turns himself in, just as the media focus shifts to hunting:
From The Kolkata Telegraph:

"It is difficult to accept that a person of Pataudi’s intelligence and educational background (he went to Winchester, the famous British public school, and to Balliol College, Oxford) is ignorant of the many prohibitions on hunting that exist in India. But he chose to flout the law. Shikar has a long tradition associated with the princes of India. In the past, when there were no restrictions on hunting, princes and rajas shot wild animals indiscriminately and thus decimated India’s rich wild life heritage. Pataudi, it would appear, is committed to continuing this tradition. The only problem with this commitment is that it runs counter to the laws of the land."

Outlook devoted its cover story to the scandal of shikar:

"It is the rich who hunt for pleasure. And for this category in the social ladder, the country's laws are at best non-existent; at worst, a nuisance that can be tackled with money and a phone call to a cocktail party acquaintance. And so ingrained is this blood lust that when Outlook contacted Maneka Gandhi to comment on the Pataudi episode, her first reaction was to try to dissuade us from doing this story as it might inadvertently glamourise hunting. We compiled a list of all the areas around the country where the wildlife laws are being broken with impunity every night, and the various modus operandi of the illegal hunter, but have decided not to publish this information, because it could get some people to head for their jeeps to seek out new prey."

In Search of the Great Indian Bustard

2005-06-13T18:05:00.000-07:00

Asad Rahmani, Director of the Bombay Natural History Society, who has been studying the Great Indian Bustard for 25 years, in an interview about the importance of saving the bustard which is on the verge of extinction:

There are 22 species of bustards in the world, 16 of which are found in Africa. The Indian subcontinent had six species: GIB, Houbara or Macqueen's bustard, Lesser Florican and Bengal Florican, but in the last 80 years, there has been no record of the existence of the Great and Little bustards. Houbara bustard is purely migratory and seen in arid parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat during winter.

Ctrl+Alt+Delete rabies

2005-06-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

Rachel Wright took seven years to work out this project; kind of fitting that an animal lover who wants to eradicate rabies should come from a place called Dogsthorpe :)

Rachel (31) has also set herself the ambitious target of ridding the country of rabies and creating an environment where animals are free from suffering.
The charity is being set up in Rajasthan, to provide treatment to animals in remote locations.
Rachel, of Fairchild Way, Dogsthorpe, Peterborough, is delighted to finally be fulfilling years of ambition.
She said: "It has been a massive effort to get all this set up. People forget how well looked after animals are in Great Britain – in India they have virtually no vet care whatsoever.
"We are used to taking a sick pet to the vet. However, animals in India have to put up with suffering for their whole lives, and many die because they do not get the treatment they need. This causes rabies to spread across the country and this is something I want to reverse."

And About Zoos...

2005-06-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

I remember this bit in Calvin and Hobbes, when Calvin comes running to Hobbes and says, Mom's taking us to the zoo, will you come? And Hobbes says, sure, but only if we can go to the prison and look at the prisoners there afterwards.

I have mixed feelings about zoos. Any views?

This question was going to come up sooner or later

2005-06-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

Behind the scenes at a PETA campaign. I've always found it fascinating how people keep saying that PETA should be more subtle. I've never understood this demand. I mean, how subtle can it be to clobber an animal to death, or to skin it while it's fully conscious? When our society is killing animals for food every day, it's a bit lame to ask those who protest against such killings to be subtle.

I've said this before, and I believe it fully: every strategy counts.

“One of the things you’ll see about PETA activists who’ve been at it for a while,” Lange said, “is that they have no fear.” Thus, Lange has been arrested while dressed as a chimpanzee and as Mother Goose and has marched through Paris with her hair shellacked into a 2-foot spire. Reiman has sledge hammered a sedan while wearing a rabbit costume. Mathews has been hauled to jail while marching naked in Paris, nearly so in Hong Kong and wearing only SpongeBob SquarePants boxers in Harvard Square.

All got results, at least in terms of press coverage. “We’ve learned,” Mathews said, “that two people in their underwear and a banner gets a lot more conversation going about an issue than a thousand people and a march.”

Not surprisingly, such stunts also ignite debate about PETA’s ultimate effectiveness; what grabs headlines, as often as not, are the group’s methods rather than its message. How much “conversation about an issue” actually results is debatable.

'Results' again: always the pressure to deliver 'results'! You know, if I was a fox, I'd be happy if even one person stopped wearing fur as a result of a PETA campaign. J-Lo might not, but other people present at the incident were certainly affected by PETA's screening of the videos:

A couple of guys in Yankees caps stopped. “What they doing to that dog?” one asked. His eyes bugged. “Oh, my God.”

“That can’t be real,” a woman said.

“It is,” an activist replied.

“No,” the woman said. She covered her eyes with her hands.

How Many Leopards?

2005-06-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

Is the leopard count at Mumbai's Sanjay Gandhi National Park really up by 17 from last year, or has there been a miscount? "All these figures should be termed ‘estimations’. No one can accurately count wild animals in a forest," says Bittu Sehgal.

Crows still dying in Mumbai

2005-06-07T08:01:00.000-07:00

Why?

Shrinking Space

2005-06-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

Elephants are the world's largest vegetarians. They don't attack any animal for food—yet food is at the root of many elephant conflicts.

Read more. It's something we all need to be concerned about.

Too Hot for You? Think of your Dog!

2005-06-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

This is something many people don't realise: hot weather is very, very hard for your dog. Please take care!

Real Tigers

2005-06-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

In the meantime, The Hindu Magazine does a reality check on the state of the tiger.

The seizure of "wildlife trophies" is being reported from across the country with alarming regularity. On February 1 this year, the Delhi police confiscated 39 leopard skins, two tiger skins, three kilograms of tiger claws and 42 otter skins from a warehouse.

There's also this lesser-known reserve in Maharashtra:

The name "Tadoba" is derived from the Gond King Tharu who ruled over Gondwana, a domain stretching from Telangana to Chattisgarh. His main palace was at the Chanda Fort — now a railway station on the Chennai-New Delhi trunk line. From Chand he would visit his youngest queen at Jamni in the dense Tadoba forests. It was during one such a visit that a tiger killed him.

And what about the lions at Gir?

The Asiatic lion once roamed the forests of Asia Minor, Arabia, Persia and India. It lived in the forests of northern India as far to the east as Bihar and Orissa, with the Narmada river marking the southern limit. By the 1880s, it had become extinct in the rest of India except Gir. The last of the species is still in Gir because it is a compact, unfragmented ecosystem. And, since the time of the Nawab of Junagadh, there have been continuous conservation efforts here. The Nawab was shocked to find that only 12 lions remained in the grassland. In the early 1900s, he declared a ban on lion hunting and ensured their protection.

One Blackbuck, Two Rabbits, and a Tiger in a Mess

2005-06-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

'Tiger' Pataudi seems to have been living up to his name. Read all about it. Pataudi and the others haven't appeared before the police yet. On the other hand, in NYC, Russell Crowe is already in handcuffs: for phone rage.

The turtle twixt plated decks...

2005-06-01T14:19:00.000-07:00

It's been a strange year for turtles, especially the endangered Olive Ridleys. The Indian government has signed an MoU that might protect them... but Greenpeace India warns that a new port project at Dhamra poses a potentially deadly threat to thousands of turtles. They're running a "Don't Say Tata to the Turtles" campaign:

"The proposed port is to be located close to the Bhitarkanika National Park, a major nesting ground for the endangered Olive Ridleys (1). In recent years, as many as 250,000 turtles have been known to nest at the Gahirmatha beach in one season, making it the world's largest rookery...
"The huge and prolonged construction activity that a port of this size will require will severely disturb the ecosystem. Once the port is functional, the increased volumes of shipping traffic will wreak havoc in the offshore turtle congregation zones. Moreover, the resulting pollution from oil spills and chemical leaks will pollute the waters and eventually drive off the Ridleys" said Sanjiv Gopal, Oceans Campaigner, Greenpeace India."

And this is kind of sad, but the tsunami that destroyed the lives of so many people and crippled sections of the fishing industry actually did turtles a good turn, according to this report by Harsh Kabra:

"The highly endangered Olive Ridley turtles have had a safe breeding season this year along the coast of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Large numbers of the Lepidochelys oliveacea turtles are normally killed when they get entangled in trawler fishing nets.
But fishing activity in 2005 was significantly reduced because of last December's tsunami. Fishermen lost their equipment in the disaster and were scared to venture out to sea. As a result, very few turtle deaths were reported during the November-April breeding and nesting period."

The lives of the Limuli

2005-06-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

The horseshoe crab is one of the oldest species on the planet; I remember it only because it has a wonderfully lilting name, but Gautam Pandey has just done an important film on the small living fossil. S Radhika reports on Limulus Polyphemus in The Indian Express:

"Until about three years ago, Gautam Pandey hadn’t seen a horseshoe crab. So, when he came across a washed up crab, upturned, on the sands of Balasore, Orissa, he didn’t quite know the discovery he’d stumbled upon. The crew, his father Mike Pandey’s, was shooting turtles but the upstart shell got Gautam wondering.
...The humble living fossil became the hero of Timeless Traveller: The Horseshoe Crab—grabbing the spotlight at the International Wildlife Film Festival at France—and Gautam, the crab advocate.
Here was an ‘‘animal’’ that barely moved, had no impressive stripes or spots, not a sound but crawling on a stealer of a story—16 ice ages, 562 million years and not a change. A fossil carrying a veritable medical store, with documented medical value in countering osteoporosis and diabetes with research on for possible cures for AIDS, given the immunity powerhouse it is. But there was another story—the crab that successfully saw off dinosaurs and mammoths might just give up with man."

Waiter, there's an elephant in my soup

2005-06-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

From The Times of India:

"Agriculture minister K. Sreenivasa Gowda truly had an elephantine problem in his hands on Saturday. A rampaging pachyderm got into his house, behind Shivananda Circle, and damaged the garden and a door.
Just moments earlier, it had uprooted a tree and damaged surroundings of Gowda's house. The hungry elephant was being paraded on the road when it saw greenery around the minister's house and made a dash for it.
The police diverted traffic and summoned forest department officials. But the giant creature could be pacified only by its regular mahout, who cajoled it with some food and dragged it away from more trouble. The elephant was being cared for by a stand-in mahout on Saturday, who could not control it."

It sounds pretty sensational, but then I guess "hungry elephant gets his greens in minister's garden" wouldn't have made a story at all. It had to be a "rampaging" "giant creature", just so that we could feel a sense of threat, instead of wondering why the poor thing was being paraded on an empty stomach and by a strange mahout--elephants tend to get very attached to their regular mahouts, and don't seem to enjoy changes in personnel.

Stephen Alter had a lovely passage in his book, Elephas Maximus:

"Both Rajappan and I saw the elephants at the same moment. They were swimming about fifty feet from shore, rolling over on the surface, almost like whales or porpoises. The water was not very deep, and when they stood, I could see the upper half of their bodies. Soon afterward, the elephants started to wade out on to the bank, their trunks waving and their black silhouettes like fluid shadows emerging from the lake. They were a small herd of six cows and two calves, the youngest of which was probably a year old. Standing in the shallows at the edge of the reservoir, they sprayed themselves and seemed reluctant to leave the water...
For half an hour we watched the herd before they started to move off.... The colours and contrasts in the landscape were muted now that the sun was directly overhead, but the elephants, still wet from their bath, stood out sharply against a backdrop of dense forest and scalloped hills. Their movements were graceful and unrestrained. No mahouts were seated on their backs. No human commands directed them. No chains or ropes held them in place. As the elephants made their way towards the trees, they moved not as in a procession or parade. Instead they seemed to drift through the grass with absolute freedom, guided only by the shared instincts of a herd, the companionship of their own kind."

"A choice between kindness and cruelty"

2005-05-31T13:03:00.000-07:00

From this profile of Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA:

"The people who get really, really angry, Newkirk responds, are those "who have businesses that test [cosmetics and medical procedures] on animals, that kill animals for food, depend on caging animals for the fur trade. Those people are very anxious to demonize me so that will scare people away from listening to the message," which is that you do have a choice between kindness and cruelty."
That's the theme of her chatty, emotional new book, "Making Kind Choices." There's more sorrow than anger in its 472 pages, which show how the world around us - of food, fashion, cosmetics - is filled with unbearable pain for animals that cannot speak, except through their torment and misery. The book brims with ideas about how to make consumer choices that are friendly to animals and the environment.

Vishakha SPCA

2005-05-30T22:44:00.000-07:00

Dogs have been wedged into the cage by vindictive methods...strangling their necks by a hook, which cuts down their guts and most often subjects them to the cruellest of deaths by being beaten with iron rubber rods on the forehead.

Dogs collected from different places are crammed into a small container...This three-month-old puppy could not defend against the pressure of the big dogs, and was strangled in between the grill till it died.

There were already more than twenty-three dogs crushed. One dog kept trying to rise to his feet but could not. He struggled before collapsing under the scorching sun, blood oozing out of his nose, legs and neck broken.

These are a few extracts from a report compiled on the condition of animals at Visakhapatnam rural. Says the Vishakha SPCA, the solution lies in updating animal welfare laws. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 is exhaustive but the deterrents are ridiculously inadequate: it imposes a fine of Rs 50 for any violation. VSPCA has been conducting an Animal Birth Control Programme in the Visakhapatnam Municipality limits since February 1999, in place of gruesome killings by electric current.

Visit the site of the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights to learn about a visit by their team in May 2005 to two animal shelters assisted by AVAR in the aftermath of the tsunami.

Bachman and Bannasch worked side by side with Visakha SPCA President Pradeep Nath for more than 12 hours each day to improve the medical care offered to the approximately 700 animals (dogs, cats, cattle and other species) living at the shelter... The primary accomplishments of the visit include:

Improving anesthetic protocols for all animals sterilized by the Visakha SPCA. That included revamping the injectable anesthetic protocol to allow for quicker recovery of street dogs sterilized by the Visakha SPCA. (The VSPCA plans to start mobile spay/neuter operations in area villages.) The AVAR team also supplied and trained the Visakha SPCA staff in the use of a new gas anesthesia machine.

Developing better sanitation protocols for the entire shelter and improving animal intake/animal traffic flow to improve disease control and prevention. The AVAR team also worked with the Visakha SPCA to introduce a new vaccination program that will control the spread of distemper and parvo, both a major problem in the area.

Introducing diagnostic capabilities with the use of a microscope, centrifuge, and veterinary textbooks provided to the shelter. The shelter will now be able to differentiate between skin diseases and check for problems with various parasites.

Improving surgical aseptic techniques, including providing the shelter with a new autoclave.

Helping provide better surgical aftercare for the animals, including purchasing pads that the dogs can recover on, as opposed to lying on the cement floors after surgery.

Train runs over tigress at Dudhwa

2005-05-30T18:03:00.000-07:00

This is the third instance of a big cat being run over in the national park, the only one in Uttar Pradesh, which has about 140 tigers, a forest officer said. Elephants have also met with a similar fate, he added, citing the running over of three cubs by a goods train last June.

Big cat lovers had made a big noise in 1987 after eight tigers were found poisoned in the Dudhwa park and two run over by trains. They had demanded that the tracks be removed as trains made it easier for poachers to access the park.

It is when they are crossing the tracks to drink water that the animals get run over. Says Billy Arjan Singh, rightly, if the tigers die, the forests will too.

96 elephants? Or 28?

2005-05-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

Let's count again, say foresters at Dalma, where, according to this Telegraph report, the number of elephants has slipped to 28 from 96 two years ago.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

2005-05-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

Steven Best on the 'burning house dilemma':

Too often, animal rights advocates (ARAs) are challenged with the hysterical hypothetical of the “burning house dilemma.” It runs something like this: If you were caught in a burning house, were running out the door to save your life, and only had time enough to save a dog in one room and a human being in another, which would you choose?

Invariably, the question is asked with the intent to find an inconsistency in the value scheme or commitments of the ARA, such that for all their talk about animal rights or species equality, they would still save the human. Deep down, therefore, the ARA is like everyone else and a speciesist at heart. When faced with the burning house question, you are always damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If you answer that you would save the human being, your interlocutor glibly and gleefully derides you as a hypocrite. If you answer you would save the dog, you are vilified as a miscreant and deviant misanthrope with warped values.

In November 2004, during Martin Luther King Jr week, Best had said that he would save his dog over a human stranger: a reply that provoked much furore. Now, amplifying his response, he lays out an interesting list of scenarios: dog or family member; family member or family member; baby harp seal or sealer; and so on. But his conclusion is the most interesting part of this essay:

I think the burning house scenario is an empty, sterile, and hypothetical question that is completely useless and raised disingenuously by vapid fools who do nothing to help the planet, but carp on those who do. Its academic nature distracts from the all-too-real and concrete issues every person faces concerning how to live a life that does not cause harm to animals and the earth.

The real issues people have to face are not what will they do when they find themselves in a burning house with choices to make and lives to save, but what type of clothing do they put on their back, what kind of food do they put on their plate, what type of products do they use, and what kind of transportation do they choose.

When asked the burning house question again in the future, I think I will simply reply, “When I am in a burning house and have to choose between an animal and a human, I will let you know what I do. In the meantime, I have some serious ethical choices to make every day.”

Read the whole thing here.

Travelling? Make arrangements for your pet

2005-05-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

This dog was left hungry, thirsty, and without fresh air by his human family. The neighbour who was supposed to have looked after the animal obviously hadn't done so. Animal welfare activists rushed the dog to medical help.

“There are several centres and hospitals that take care of such dogs whose masters are on vacations. I have registered a case against Capt. C M Shrivastava under Animal Cruelty Act 1960 at the Dindoshi police station and the pet will only be handed over to the family after all the legalities are taken care of,” stated animal welfare officer Bhavin Gathani of Karuna Parivar, Goregoan.

If you're going on a road trip to a dog-friendly hotel or house, consider taking your pet along. If you're taking the train, you can take your pet along in a first-class coupe or a first AC coupe; if not, the animal will have to travel in the guard's van. If you're travelling by flight, Indian Airlines allows only lapdogs inside the cabin with you; if your dog is bigger than a lapdog, he or she will go into the hold, in a cage. Ask your vet about a suitable sedative.

If you're leaving the animal at home to be looked after, please make sure you leave him/her in the care of an animal-lover/trained professionals.

The Good Doctor

2005-05-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

This veterinary surgeon i Bombay has sterilised over 45000 stray dogs. Meaning, he has saved their lives: because the earlier policy was to kill stray dogs.

Several animal welfare associations and NGOs that he works for reveal that he charges a paltry Rs 100-150 as fees. Mrs Fizzah N Shah, honorary vice president of In Defense of Animals (IDA) says, “Private veterinary surgeons in Mumbai can charge even Rs 4,000 for sterilisation operations. NGOs don’t have much financial strength; we pay Dr Ghanwat a pittance in comparison. Sometimes, we are forced to pay him in installments, but he doesn’t complain. Also, the mortality rates, post-surgery, are negligible in Dr Ghanwat’s cases. We really need more vets like him.”

It’s passion, rather than money, that sustains Dr Ghanwat’s livelihood; unsurprisingly, he’s always harboured an enormous love for animals. “I grew up on a farm near Baramati. While other children would play once classes were over at school, I would visit the animals, wash them, feed them. It was fun, because there were 40 cows and 10 buffaloes, among other animals!” he laughs

Sterilisation, rather than killing, is the only humane and civilised answer to the problem of the stray dogs living on our city streets. Sterilisation, and good doctors.

And thousands of cattle slaughtered

2005-05-27T19:09:00.000-07:00

In China, thousands of cattle have been slaughtered at dairy farms outside Beijing in an effort to stop an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Here's the entire report.

Four million sheep and cows were slaughtered in Britan during the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak. Was slaughter really necessary, when foot-and-mouth is not fatal to animals, and most recover within two weeks? "On animal and human health grounds, almost certainly not. 95% of animals will recover within 2 weeks with little or no treatment. There is virtually no risk to human health," says Abigail Woods, who is working on a Wellcome Trust funded research project on the history of animal plagues.

Slaughter as a means of FMD control entered almost by the back door, as it was applied to a small number of outbreaks in the 1910s during a period of relative disease freedom. The rationale here was to quickly stamp out the disease before it took hold. Only later, during the huge 1922-24 epidemic, was slaughter adopted as the normal policy, though in these years pedigree breeders were exempted and allowed to isolate their valuable herds.

Criticisms of slaughter have accompanied every outbreak of FMD in Britain and intensified following the discovery and continental application of a vaccine. However, economically speaking, slaughter is more justified today than at any point in the past, when only the interests of a select group of pedigree breeders were served by this policy. Then, farming productivity was not as important as it is today and the export market was markedly smaller and less valuable than at present. The irony is that Britain encouraged the world to impose import prohibitions upon potentially FMD infected products and now finds itself at the receiving end of this policy.

In short, slaughter wasn't necessary, isn't necessary, except on 'economic grounds'...