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

[Guest guest]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

 

 

Editorial feature:

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

 

 

Most ANIMAL PEOPLE readers are probably buried lately in a

blizzard of appeals reviewing the deeds of animal charities during

the past year and decade. Recipients will be cheered by recaps of

" victories, " no matter how transient. Some may notice, though,

that " defeats " are seldom mentioned.

Comprehensive assessments of progress tend to be fewer--and

can be discouraging, in view of frequent contradictory indicators.

But the animal cause does not advance primarily through obvious

" victories, " or fail through the unmentioned defeats, which most

often result when legislation is proposed before sufficient

groundwork is done to pass it, or when resources are inadequate to

achieve an ambitious goal.

Fundraisers and campaigners like to evoke imagery suggesting

that at some point a cause will " triumph, " perhaps after someone

blows the right horn to bring all obstacles tumbling down. This is a

tried-and-true appeal format, but reality is that if any " war "

metaphor is appropriate to advancing the cause of animals, it is

that of trench warfare.

We are pushing for change against deeply entrenched

industries and cultural traditions, who try to choke every challenge

with drifting clouds of poison gas-like propaganda. Quick advances

tend to come at immense cost. Abrupt gains are often just as

abruptly lost, after opposition mobilizes. For every new activist

charging ahead, a veteran reels back in shellshock, having seen

entirely too many horrors while experiencing too little progress.

Authentic victories are won by inches, by a process that no

" war " metaphor accurately describes. Authentic victories come not

through " fighting, " but through persuasion, when sufficient numbers

of people who are not directly involved in the cause, and usually

not directly involved in resisting it, either, decide to make

changes in their lives and their voting patterns. They may decide to

have a pet sterilized, stop chaining a dog outside, or--most

important--to eat less meat. Or none. They may just quit hunting,

or wearing fur, without even thinking much about why.

The choice to make a beneficial change does not come because

the people are confronted by rhetorical bayonet charges. Shock

tactics may get attention, but to be effective must be followed,

immediately, by a positive message that people will internalize and

accept, despite having been put on the defensive. Most often the

choice of change is made because someone the person making the change

knows or admires has already made the same choice, setting a

heartening example. A comprehensive review of overall progress in

the animal cause, accordingly, is a review of depth of influence.

Where enduring gains have been made, strings of political

victories may follow, because public opinion and behavior have

already advanced. Legislation, in those instances, codifies what

the majority have come to believe. Recent victories of this sort

include the reforms of farming practices approved by ballot

initiative in California in November 2008, and the simultaneous

abolition of greyhound racing in Massachusetts, also by ballot

initiative.

Opinion polls indicate that the 2009 European Union ban on

imports of seal pelts and byproducts was also such a victory, with

broad-based public support throughout most of Europe, but Canada has

appealed the ban to the World Trade Organization, contending that

the EU had no right under international law to enact it. Should the

appeal succeed, the ban would be overturned, and the real test of

European opposition to the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt would revert

to consumer choice.

Consumer choice can be a misleading indicator, because many

of the most abusive industries survive through the participation and

patronage of very small minorities: just 4% of Americans hunt, for

example. Such industries may have hugely disproportionate political

influence, through alliance with other industries, the involvement

of well-placed lawmakers, and as a legacy of past popularity. The

overwhelming majority of the public may not support the abusive

activity, but until they are politically mobilized in opposition to

it, as they were in the example of greyhound racing in

Massachusetts, the activity will continue through the addiction of

the devotees.

The decline of greyhound racing in the U.S. offers some of

the most encouraging comparative data from the beginning and end of

the past decade: of 50 greyhound tracks operating in 2000, just 23

remain. Declining attendance and an aging clientele point toward the

probable demise of the entire U.S. greyhound industry before the end

of the new decade.

Greyhound racing may become the first of many forms of animal

use in popular entertainment to collapse and disappear. Horse racing

and animal use in circuses appear to be following the same trajectory

to oblivion, worldwide. Wildlife SOS is cautiously optimistic that

the last dancing bear act is off the road in India, and that the

last dancing bear has joined hundreds of others at the Wildlife SOS

sanctuaries. Rodeo, though still a big business in the U.S., is

economically struggling and contracting. Spanish-style bullfighting

has just been abolished in Catalonia, which a decade ago still had

three of the five most prestigious bull rings in the world.

Bullfighting and rodeo promoters continue to try to develop new

venues and audiences in China, and elsewhere beyond their

traditional bases of support, but with little evidence, so far, of

success.

The decline of sport hunting is less obvious, but not less

profound. The number of active hunters in the U.S. fell from 13

million in 2000 to about 12.5 million today, not nearly as steep a

drop as the attrition of about eight million hunters over the two

preceding decades. But most of the casual and occasional hunters

dropped out earlier. Now we are down to the most dedicated hunters,

most of whom are middle-aged or older, in the age brackets at which

hunting participation plummets due to mortality and infirmity. Even

very aggressive and well-funded recruitment efforts are not

attracting new hunters as rapidly as old hunters die or quit.

Now U.S. sport fishing participation is also down, for the

first time over an entire decade in the 70-odd years since the

numbers of participants have been tracked--and the 15% drop is

proportionately about three times larger than the drop in hunting

participation.

The numbers of both hunters and fishers may be expected to

continue to fall. With the decline will come a loss of hunter and

fisher influence over wildlife policy, especially after opponents of

consumptive wildlife use become as politically mobilized as hunters

and fishers long have been.

 

Meat consumption

 

Hunting and fishing are rationalized by many participants as

food-gathering, even though the meat thus obtained costs many times

more than meat bought at a supermarket. In truth, hunting and

fishing for personal and family consumption account for less than 1%

of total U.S. meat production, and make even less of a contribution

globally. Despite the importance of hunting and fishing to some

small and relatively isolated communities, mostly in climate zones

at the extremes of human habitability, hunting and fishing persist

almost entirely as blood sports.

Global meat production and consumption, unfortunately, have

increased even faster than hunting and fishing have declined: from

36 kilograms per person per year in 2000 to 42 in 2009, a rise of

14%. Global meat slaughter has increased 25%, from 42 billion

animals killed in 2000 to 56 billion in 2009. Chicken slaughter

alone has risen from 13.5 billion to 17 billion, despite the impact

on farmers and consumers of the H5N1 avian flu and several other

major poultry disease outbreaks.

Yet some encouraging trends lurk among the numbers. Most

significantly, U.S. per capita meat consumption has not increased,

even as the post-World War II " Baby Boom " generation passed through

the age bracket where meat consumption peaked among previous

generations. Moreover, per capita meat consumption continues to

drop among younger people. Some surveys indicate that up to 18% of

U.S. university students are vegetarians or " meat avoiders, " who eat

little meat without actually declaring themselves to be vegetarian.

Even if this number is three times too high, the percentage of

vegetarians among Americans between 18 and 25 appears to be about

triple the percentage of vegetarians among their elders

Similar tendencies are evident in Europe. Meat consumption

is actually rising almost entirely in the developing world,

especially India and China, among people who have historically been

unable to afford to eat as much meat as they wanted, and are now

indulging themselves. Dietary disorders once rare in India and

China, including obsesity and diabetes, are correspondingly

becoming recognized as national problems.

Per capita meat consumption in India is still less than 10%

of U.S consumption, and in China is about 40% of U.S. consumption.

How long the trend toward increased meat consumption will continue in

India, China, and the rest of the developing world is an open

question, but the environmental costs of the increase, both

globally and locally, are much more apparent today than when U.S.

meat consumption spiked upward toward the present rate several

decades ago.

The most likely forecast, based strictly on present trends

and demographics, is that U.S. and European meat consumption will

drop during the next decade, while consumption in the developing

world will peak and level out. Global animal slaughter will probably

rise to 70 billion before falling--unless climatic, economic, and

cultural factors intervene. Rising concern for animal welfare

worldwide may change the trends in meat consumption sooner,

especially in India and China, where women are enjoying

unprecedented political and economic emancipation, and are driving

unparalleled growth in pro-animal activity.

 

Vivisection

 

There is as yet little antivivisection activism in India,

though there has long been some, and is almost none in China.

Historically little animal-based biomedical research was done in

either nation, and even if much had been done in China, most

Chinese people had little way to know about it and no opportunity to

protest. This has hugely changed in all respects during the past

decade. The rise of strong Indian and Chinese antivivisection

movements may follow, but will most likely grow out of pro-animal

activism initially organized around other issues. By contrast,

public demonstrations of vivisection were among the flashpoints for

the rise of organized pro-animal political activity in the western

world, more than 200 years ago--along with animal fighting and

misuse of working animals.

In the west, laboratory use of animals and animal advocacy

have grown approximately parallel to each other ever since. There

has never been a time in the history of the U.S. and European

biomedical research industries when antivivisectionists were not

monitoring their activity and trying to rally opposition to the

practices most cruel to animals. Therefore laboratory animal care is

relatively strictly regulated in the U.S. and Europe, if not what is

done to animals in actual experiments, and U.S. and European

researchers have long at least rhetorically accepted the premise that

animal use should be reduced, refined, and replaced as much as

possible.

The markets for advanced biomedical procedures and

pharmaceutical products have rapidly expanded in the newly affluent

nations of Asia. Many of these nations already trained scientists

who went on to staff laboratories around the world. Now governments

interested in keeping their best-educated scientific talent at home

are pouring billions of dollars into building their own biotech

industries--and are luring western companies to relocate research and

developent from the west to Asia.

This has coincided with increasingly violent antivivisection

protests in the U.S. and Europe, including arsons, bombings, home

invasions, and threats of worse.

The number of nations involved in advanced biomedical

research has approximately tripled since 2000. Many of them--like

China--have no requirements for public disclosure of information

about animal use, little public awareness of animal use in

laboratories, young animal advocacy sectors, and restricted though

expanding freedom of speech and assembly.

Estimating trends in laboratory animal use, always

difficult, has accordingly become more problematic than ever.

Working from a variety of sources, including a five-year-old

estimate by the British Union Against Vivisection and other numbers

wherever available, ANIMAL PEOPLE projects that global use of

animals in labs has probably risen from the BUAV figure of about 115

million circa 2000 to nearly 200 million in 2009, with more than

half of the total use now occurring in Asia.

British use of animals in labs increased from 2.8 million to

3.7 million during the same years. U.S. lab animal use probably

followed the same trend, but since the U.S. does not require

laboratories to report use of rats, mice, and birds, there is

little way to know for sure. What we do know is that the available

data shows several different trends.

U.S. lab use of species other than rats, mice, and birds

actually fell from 1,286,412 in 2000 to 1,027,450 in 2007, the

latest year for which data has been published. Farm animal use

dropped from 159,711 to 109,961. Cat use remained virtually

identical, going from 22,755 to 22,687. Dog use increased slightly,

from 69,5126 to 72,037. But--though use of chimpanzees in

experiments all but stopped--lab use of nonhuman primates jumped from

57,518 to 69,990, reportedly driven by monkey use in bioterrorism

research.

The good news, if there is any involving laboratory animals,

is that the number of scientific procedures reported in journals has

increased at about six times the rate of estimated animal use. Thus

the numbers of animals used per experiment are continuing a long

downward trend, with progress especially evident in product safety

testing.

 

Dogs & Cats

 

While laboratory animal use occurs mostly out of sight of the

public, dogs and cats live in or near most human homes worldwide,

and are so ubiquitous that few people go a day without seeing one or

the other. Even feral cats, furtive as they often are, have became

widely enough recognized to be mentioned by late-night TV comedians

with the expectation that their audiences will know what they are

talking about.

The only relatively invisible aspect of the lives and deaths

of dogs and cats is what becomes of the 5% or thereabouts who are

deemed problematic, or just too numerous, and are delivered to

animal shelters in the U.S. and most other developed nations, or are

simply poisoned on the streets in much of the developing world.

ANIMAL PEOPLE extensively reviews U.S. animal shelter data

every summer, in our July/August edition. Those numbers are less

encouraging than we thought they might be by now, a decade ago.

Total U.S. shelter killing of dogs and cats has dipped from 4.5

million to 4.2. million, according to our 2009 findings, but the

numbers have wobbled up and down within a narrow range throughout the

decade. The only clear indication of progress is that because the

U.S. human population has markedly increased, the numbers killed per

1,000 Americans have fallen from 16.6 to 13.5.

Feral cats, typically defined by shelter staff as cats who

cannot be handled, ten years ago accounted for 35% of the U.S.

shelter death toll. Pit bull terriers accounted for 15%--30% of the

dogs. Feral cats are today 43% of the U.S. shelter death toll; pit

bulls are 23%, including 58% of the dogs in 2009.

The problem once defined as " pet overpopulation " now has two

distinctively different major components.

Feral cats reproduce almost totally beyond any direct human

influence. Many feral cats are the offspring of free-roaming or

abandoned pet cats, but the pet cat matriarch may have been several

cat generations ago. The pet cat sterilization rate has increased

from about 70% twenty years ago, nationwide, to 83% today. The pet

cat reproduction rate is now well below replacement, with pet cat

population replacement and growth occurring in large part through

adoptions of feral kittens. This has helped to stabilize feral cat

numbers. So has neuter/return, wherever it is conscientiously done.

Nonetheless, further reduction of the feral cat

population--and death toll--will require finding more effective ways

of sterilizing about three million feral mothers who presently have

little or no human contact. A breakthrough may come through the

development of affordable and easily deployable non-surgical

contraception. Unfortunately, the most promising methods that were

in the research and development process a decade ago have not worked

in cats. Found Animal Foundation founder Gary K. Michelson, M.D.

in October 2008 offered incentives of $75 million to help encourage

the discovery and introduction of effective methods of non-surgical

dog and cat contraception. This has stimulated scientific effort.

What may come of it remains to be seen.

In contrast to feral cats, pit bull terriers are almost

entirely purpose-bred. Like the purebred dogs who make up about 15%

of shelter intake, according to ANIMAL PEOPLE shelter surveys done

in 2008, the overwhelming majority of pit bulls are bred by someone

who hopes to profit from selling them. Most pit bulls, like most

purebreds who come to shelters, are bought by someone, and flunk

out of at least one home before being surrendered or impounded.

Altogether, purpose-bred dogs now make up about 40% of the

shelter dog population. Accidental litters are still born, and dogs

of unidentifiably mixed ancestry still come to shelters, but they

are now a minority in much of the U.S., and may soon become a

minority elsewhere. Significantly reducing shelter dog intake will

accordingly require significantly reducing intentional breeding.

Strengthened legislation against " puppy mills " has increased

impoundments from abusive and negligent breeders more than fourfold,

from just over 2,000 in 1999 to nearly 10,000 in 2009. More than

25,000 dogs have been seized from puppy mills just since 2007. This

may cut into the volume of badly reared purebreds coming to shelters

in the next several years. Pit bulls, however, appear to be coming

mainly from backyard breeders, who are far more numerous than puppy

millers, and are more difficult to identify.

The only big U.S. cities to have reduced pit bull intakes and

shelter killing over the past decade are a few that have either

banned pit bulls entirely, like Denver and Miami, or require that

they must be sterilized, like San Francisco.

The humane and animal control communities have mostly

responded to the pit bull influx by escalating efforts to adopt out

pit bulls, after behavioral screening and sometimes after remedial

training. In consequence, about 16% of the dogs who were adopted

out in 2009 were pit bulls, compared to about 5% of the dogs who

were bought from breeders through classified ads. If pit bulls were

still killed at the rate they were 10 years ago, the annual toll of

a million pit bulls killed in shelters per year would have increased

to about 1.3 million.

But whether behavioral screening adequately protects the

public from adoptions of dangerous dogs is a question that the

courts, adopters, and public opinion are beginning to reconsider.

In the first decade that ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton logged

dog attack fatalities and disfigurements, only two shelter dogs made

the list. Both were wolf hybrids. None made the list in the next

decade. In the past decade, however, 24 U.S. shelter dogs have

killed or maimed someone, 16 of them in the past three years and

eight in 2009 alone. The deaths and injuries by shelter dogs were

inflicted by 14 pit bulls, two chows, two German shepherds, two

Labrador retrievers, a Presa Canario, a Doberman, a Great Dane,

and a hound. Nine of the victims were children.

These are not huge numbers, but just 27 deaths in 10 years

from exploding gasoline tanks destroyed the reputation and sales of

the Ford Pinto, once among the most popular cars ever made,

promoted and defended by a public relations machine much larger than

the animal sheltering community.

Progress in reducing dog attacks in general has gone rapidly

backward. Fourteen Americans and Canadians were killed by dogs in

2000; a record 33 in 2007; and 30 in 2009. Pit bulls killed seven

of the victims in 2000; a record 22 in 2009. Pit bulls disfigured

40 Americans and Canadians in 2000; 78 in 2009. But Rottweiler

attacks have declined, from three deaths and 24 disfigurements in

2000 to four deaths and nine disfigurements in 2009. Rottweiler

shelter intake also appears to be coming down, peaking circa 2005.

Dogfighting arrests dropped from 297 in 2000 to 87 in 2009.

Fighting dog seizures slipped from 896 to 750.

As there seems to be no indication that dogfighting is

actually reduced, and efforts to expose and prosecute dogfighting

have intensified since the high-profile arrest of football star

Michael Vick in April 2007, the explanation might be that

dogfighters are becoming much more sophisticated about evading

arrest. The same might be said of cockfighting. 1,508 alleged

cockfighters were arrested in 2000; just 656 in 2009.

Yet gamecock seizures barely changed: 7,995 in 2000, 7,917 in 2009.

 

Abuse & neglect

 

Strengthened laws and greater public interest in prosecuting

animal cruelty and neglect cases have markedly increased the numbers

of arrests and convictions resulting from most offenses against

animals.

At the rarest extreme, more people have been brought to

justice for dragging animals behind cars in each of the past four

years, an average of 18 per year, than in the entire decade of the

1990s. More people (22) have been brought to justice for bestiality

in 2009 than in the entire decade of the 1980s. At the most common

end, animal hoarding convictions, exclusive of puppy mill cases,

have nearly doubled in 10 years. But convictions of recognized

animal rescuers for neglect are also up 175%, as was discussed more

extensively in the November/December 2009 ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial.

Horse neglect and abandonment cases have not increased during

the past decade, somewhat surprisingly in view of the amount of

media notice focused on alleged horse dumping since the last U.S.

horse slaughterhouses closed in 2007. In truth, more horses were

impounded due to neglect or abandonment in 1996 (2375) than in any

year since, and the numbers since 2007 have remained below 2,000.

But horse slaughter in North America is not reduced. In the

year 2000, U.S. slaughterhouses killed 50,449 horses; Canadian

slaughterhouses killed 62,000. The Mexican horse slaughter industry

was just starting. In 2008, when no horses were slaughtered in the

U.S., 77,063 were killed in Canada; 56,731 were killed in Mexico.

Among the pretexts often cited for resuming horse slaughter

in the U.S. is the expense of holding increasing numbers of wild

horses impounded from leased grazing land by the Bureau of Land

Management. An estimated 39,500 wild horses roamed public land in

the U.S. west in 2000, while 9,807 horses had been impounded and

offered for adoption. Currently, according to the BLM, there are

37,000 wild horses still on the range, and 32,000 in captivity. As

obviously unviable as this situation is, the BLM is continuing to

capture wild horses at an allegedly unprecedented rate.

 

Fur & whaling

 

U.S. retail fur sales, as of 2007, the most recently

reported year, came to $1.3 billion, exactly the same as in 2001.

This, in inflation-adjusted dollars, meant the fur industry really

had not recovered from the crash of 1988-1991, when retail sales

bottomed out at $950 million. After two consecutive winters of

apparent steep losses, the U.S. retail fur trade may be close to

another contraction phase.

But these numbers do not include the use of cheap fur trim on

garments, mostly imported from China as byproducts of killing

rabbits, dogs, and cats for human consumption. Though importing

dog and cat fur into the U.S. and Europe is illegal, detecting it in

small amounts is sufficiently difficult to make enforcing the laws

difficult.

The rapid rise of animal advocacy within China may

significantly reduce consumption of dogs and cats. Meanwhile,

encouraging consumer rejection of fur trim remains essential to

keeping the fur trade from attracting new customers.

Innumerable issues might appear at a glance to have gone

backward abroad, with a second look showing reason for optimism.

For example, the self-set Japanese and Norwegian whaling quotas have

increased from 560 and 549 in 2000, respectively, to 985 and 885 at

present--but neither nation appears to have killed the full quota in

either 2008 or 2009.

As a second case in point, the destruction of Zimbabwean

wildlife and the Zimbabwean humane sector that began with the land

invasions of 2000 has continued. Yet Zimbabwean animal advocates and

organizations still exist, and from recent communications, seem

optimistic about soon being able to rebuild and resume their work.

History may show that the growth of animal advocacy in the

developing world during the first decade of the 21st century was a

turning point toward a changed relationship with animals throughout

human culture, away from the attitudes which have prevailed since

the beginning of agricultural animal husbandry. Among the milestones

were that India, Turkey, and Costa Rica adopted national dog

sterilization programs; the indigenous Kenyan organizations Youth

for Conservation and the Africa Network for Animal Welfare repeatedly

rebuffed the well-funded efforts of Safari Club International and

others to restart sport hunting, halted in 1977; and the number of

active animal advocacy organizations outside the U.S. and Europe

appears to have increased at least tenfold.

Among the animal advocacy organizations enjoying the greatest

economic growth during the past 10 years, People for the Ethical

Treatment of Animals more than doubled donation receipts, from $14.5

million to $31.2 milion; the Humane Society of the U.S. also more

than doubled donations, from $36.6 million to $87.2 million;

PetSmart Charities nearly tripled receipts and disbursements to other

animal charities, from $3.5 million to $10 million; the Best

Friends Animal Society sextupled donation receipts, from $6.2

million to $37.5 million; and the World Society for the Protection

of Animals increased donation receipts sevenfold, from $5.9 million

to $44.6 million.

Four of these five organizations, with PetSmart Charities

the exception, markedly escalated investment in overseas programs

during the decade. PetSmart Charities is not structured to work

outside the U.S., but--via ANIMAL PEOPLE and Best Friends--was a

significant contributor to relief efforts after the December 2004

Indian Ocean tsunami.

Barely existing at the beginning of the 21st century, the

Animals Asia Foundation is now raising $4 million per year in support

of humane work in China, South Korea, and Vietnam. The number of

active U.S. affiliates of humane societies in the developing world,

as of 2000, could have been counted on one front paw of a six-toed

cat. There are now many dozens.

ANIMAL PEOPLE helped to inspire the explosive growth of

humane work abroad, by sending free subscriptions to every humane

organization; by reporting about overseas issues, beginning before

most of the U.S.-based big organizations were much involved abroad;

by helping to organize and fund the Asia for Animals and Middle East

Network for Animal Welfare conferences; by relaying funds from U.S.

donors to foreign animal charities; and by walking many of the

foreign animal charities through the steps required to incorporate

U.S. affiliates to raise funds for them.

We receive some complaints from readers and donors about

allegedly devoting too much page space to international issues, but

far more often we hear from readers who are relieved and excited that

at last there are open channels enabling them to become directly

involved in helping animals in some of the neediest parts of the

world.

The stasis of World War I trench warfare ended after help

arrived from abroad. Much as we dislike war metaphors, a

fast-growing global alliance of animal advocates is enabling the

animal cause to challenge entrenched forms of exploitation along a

broader front than ever before. Not long ago international

networking could be done only by big businesses and governments.

Now animal advocates are networking quite routinely across all

national and cultural boundaries. Animal use and abuse remain as

bloody as ever, but new hope and energy have become as ubiquitous as

e-mail.

 

 

--

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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