Letters to the Editor

[Guest guest]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:

 

 

Letters to the Editor

 

[Asian topics]

 

 

 

 

Wussie dog died

 

Remember Wussie, Perry, and Polly, the three dogs who were

subjected to brutal and senseless surgery, as described in your

July/August 2007 page one article " Pound seizure shocks Sri Lanka " ?

Wussie died the night of December 8, 2007. Wussie had her pancreas

removed for no apparent purpose and her bile duct was damaged. For

over six months Wussie suffered from diabetes and jaundice, and was

dependent on expensive medication.

Polly, who was wagging her tail when she was taken for

pointless surgery, died in agony after having her adrenal glands and

kidneys removed.

Perry was used as the control in the procedures. No organs

were removed from her. She is with us at our shelter.

University of Peradeniya. The SLVC, we understand has

concluded their inquiry, and has submitted their report to the

Council. We are yet to hear from the University of Peradeniya.

--Champa Fernando

KACPAW

191 Trinco Street

Kandy, Sri Lanka

<nihalas

 

 

 

 

 

Seeking to save Asian otters from fur trade

 

Could you please mention our otter fur campaign? The

campaign is called " Furget-me-not, " as the otter is the forgotten

animal of the fur trade. Everyone always thinks about tigers and

leopards or elephant ivory, but the trade in otter furs is huge.

Recently there was a massive haul of 778 otter skins in Tibet, and

we are regularly getting reports of more and more skins found. Two

days ago we received an e-mail from Cambodia which said that a

research team at the Tonle Sap Lake had just found 10 skins of

smooth-coated otters and 6 skins of hairy-nosed otters in four

different village houses. And this is just one find in one small

area.

Many of the skins being traded are from the hairy-nosed

otter, which was believed to be extinct in 1998. Small populations

were later found in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia. At

the present rate of hunting, the hairy nosed otter will soon really

be extinct, and this time there will be no great discovery of

remnant populations.

The main market for Southeast Asian otter furs is Tibet,

where otter fur forms part of the national dress, the chupa. One

chupa may have skins from as many as six otters. These costumes are

worn at many festivals and official state functions.

The Furget-me-not campaign will raise funds to start

immediate work in Cambodia, using a team of researchers already

working there. They will train local rangers and government staff to

ensure the legal protection of otters is enforced and encourage the

local communities to take part in the otter conservation program.

--Paul Yoxon, Ph.D.

International Otter Survival Fund

Broadford, Isle of Skye IV499DE

United Kingdom

Phone: 01471-0822-487

<yoxon

<www.otter.org>

 

 

Editor's note:

 

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism,

in January 2006 denounced wearing fur of any kind at the Kalachakra

celebration in Amravati, Andhra Pradesh, India. Tibetans responded

by burning fur garments at public demonstrations, but the Chinese

government in March 2006 suppressed the bonfires as alleged illegal

manifestations of Tibetan nationalism.

 

 

 

KATC helping dogs

 

The Kathmandu Animal Treatment Centre focuses on animal birth

control for street dogs. Since our opening in 2004 we have so

successfully demonstrated to the people in our working area of

Kathmandu that Animal Birth Control is the way to handle the

population that in our locality poisoning is a thing of the past.

Kathmandu is a large city now, so this does not mean that poisoning

is not still done in the other areas. But awareness is growing, and

we are being requested to expand our project to other areas.

KAT has just recently received two copies of ANIMAL PEOPLE.

Thank you so very much. We look forward to sitting down and having a

good read. Your newspaper is without a doubt the best all-round

informative periodical we receive on animal issues

--Jan Salter

Kathmandu Animal Treatment Centre

Chapali Gaon, Budanilkantha

GPO Box 8975, EPC 4120

Kathmandu, Nepal

Phone: 977-1-4373169

<jsalter

<www.katcentre.org.np>

 

 

 

 

Helping animals in Pakistan

 

I live in Karachi, Pakistan. On December 28, 2007, my

mother's black male cat went missing from her house where he

occasionally roamed the garden and front area. We have a local slum

near our house where children are known to steal and sell cats at a

large market called the Empress Market, located at the city center.

As there was great rioting in the city in those days, we knew that

the culprits could not have gone far. We looked high and low for the

cat, offering rewards and passing the word around.

I went to Empress Market in the hope that I would find this

cat. I was truly disturbed and appalled to see numerous tiny shops

equipped with hideous little cages consisting of only bars with no

trays underneath, imprisoning cats, dogs, geese, rabbits, and

birds of all kinds. As it happened I was there on a chilly and rainy

morning. This made the situation even more torturous for these

animals. I saw an adult Persian and an adult Siamese, both

restricted in a cage no bigger than 18 inches cubed.

I am sure that all these animals are stolen pets as these

heartless shopkeepers do not have import licenses or the means to

raise or breed these animals. The cats were miserable and lonely.

Some shops had closed down due to the rain with their shutters down.

These creatures are left there in the dark every night, unprotected

from the harsh conditions.

I felt absolutely helpless to assist all these blameless

creatures. Even if I could buy all of them to release them, I would

only be encouraging this trade, leading to more animal theft and

cruelty. There are no laws protecting animal rights in this country,

as far as I know, so apart from theft these shopkeepers would not be

guilty of breaking any law.

There has to be some way of protecting these animals and

preventing this trade.

In addition to this there are street vendors who trap

ordinary sparrows and carry them around in nets, because an ancient

tradition holds that giving money to a bird vendor to set birds free

will ward off ill-fortune and attain the favour of God.

This practice is common in India as well. In some other

nations, turtles are often bought and released. Though this

practice is based on good intentions, in modern times it amounts to

kidnapping animals for ransom.

We also have men walking around with monkeys taken as babies

from the northern areas and trained to perform tricks for food and

money. When I was a child these men used to come around to our house

and show us this " bundar Ka tamasha, " as it is called. But now they

are walking around in heavy traffic and coming to cars standing at

signal, using these animals as emotional blackmail so that people

give them money.

I believe all these so called monkey trainers live in one

slum area together and are poverty-stricken. Poverty leads to these

kinds of activities. However, poverty cannot be accepted as an

excuse for cruelty to animals any more than it can be accepted as an

excuse for theft and murder. No one is too poor to feel compassion.

How can one best get this message across to those who also

feel that human life has no value?

We see much cruelty to animals in Karachi. Dogs, donkeys,

and garden lizards are also among the victims. There is a story that

when Mohammad was hiding from his enemies in a cave, a spider built

a web around the cave opening, so the enemies' tracker went away,

thinking no one could have entered without breaking the web. But

earlier, a lizard sitting on a stone nearby had nodded his head to

indicate this was the right place. So stupid people will say that

one should kill lizards, because lizards are always nodding their

heads!

On the positive side, because my domestic help and others

around us see me and my family and my husband--another animal

lover--rescuing and helping feral cats, they have learnt to assist

us enthusiastically, and have learned the value of doing this.

--Muna Kazi Pathan

Karachi, Pakistan

<munakazipathan

 

 

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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