(TW) Taipei animal rescuers tap Pacific Rim rivalry

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:

 

 

Taipei animal rescuers tap Pacific Rim rivalry

by Merritt Clifton

 

TAIPEI, TAIWAN--Taipei is not a city that likes to be seen

as trailing economic rival Hong Kong in anything--and that tends to

help animals.

The almost equal heights of the tallest building in Taipei

and the three tallest in Hong Kong attest to the intensity of the

civic sibling rivalry. The three tallest Hong Kong office towers are

actually slightly higher, but the Taiwan tower has six more stories.

Now fundraising to build a state-of-the-art Taipei animal

adoption center is gettiing underway with quiet descriptions to

affluent and influential people of what Hong Kong did ten years ago.

The adoption center may be built by Animals Taiwan, or by a

coalition of organizations, perhaps with government help. The

details have yet to be negotiated. But there is agreement among the

Taiwan animal care and advocacy community that the time to do it is

now.

Hong Kong SPCA director Sandy MacAlister and director of

animal care Fiona Woodhouse have recently given grand tours to

several delegations of Taipei animal advocates, with more scheduled

to visit soon. The Taipei visitors expect potential funders to

follow, as word circulates about what they are seeing.

Hong Kong SPCA shelter architect Jill Cheshire's many

innovations are now so widely emulated that few people remember where

they began--but they are still revolutionary to the Taiwan visitors.

The Taipei region as yet has no gleaming no-kill adoption

center, conveniently located and resembling a shopping mall.

Neither does Taipei have any totally clean, quiet, odor-free animal

control shelter. Taipei might still be deemed to be about 15 years

behind global " best practice " standards.

Yet Taipei has compressed 150 years of shelter evolution in

other parts of the world into barely 15 years of increasingly

ambitious development. The fast-growing Taipei animal advocacy

community shows no hint of losing momentum. To the contrary, as

more is done, more is expected, pushed by a generation of young

Taiwanese activists with U.S. and Canadian educations, allied with

well-connected expatriates.

Hardly any of the present Taipei animal advocacy leaders were

involved a decade ago, when Animals Taiwan and Taiwan SPCA founder

Sean MacCormack arrived from England. MacCormack, a former

bartender, had no animal advocacy or shelter management background

either. He came to Taiwan to work in sales, then became a promoter

of professional mixed martial arts cage fighting.

Twin sisters Connie and Annie Chiang, who coordinate most of

the Taiwan SPCA activities, were then in grade school. Animals

Taiwan board member Faye Angevine, the Taipei antique dealer who is

now the biggest current Animals Taiwan funder, was not yet involved

in organized animal work. Most of the other key volunteers, staff,

and major backers of the fast-growing constellation of Taipei-area

animal welfare organizations were in Taiwan and concerned, but had

yet to bring their abilities and resources together.

MacCormack admits he was an unlikely galvanizing personality,

but he was also an unlikely sales person and fight promoter, not

knowing a word of Mandarin when he arrived, not knowing anyone in

Taiwan, and having no background in martial arts. Already a vegan,

MacCormack struggled for a year just to read menus and signs well

enough to eat. Vegan food is widely available in Taiwan, called

" monks' food, " but is rarely labeled in English.

Struggling in the cage fighting business, MacCormack

discovered his calling as a polite British-accented counterpart of

the screen character Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, played by Jim

Carey. Usually looking as sleepless and disheveled as Ace Ventura,

racing around Taipei with a van full of newly rescued animals en

route to veterinarians and foster homes, MacCormack soon attracted

media notice through colorful animal rescue exploits. Easily

recognized on the street, MacCormack had difficulty at first

accepting donations and offers of help, but eventually realized

" It's not for me--it's for the animals. "

In other words, MacCormack laughs, " I became desperate

enough to accept. "

That mental breakthrough enabled MacCormack to start asking

for more help, including the help of people with the skills he

didn't have. " That was every skill, " MacCormack admits. " I had a

good idea what a successful humane society should be doing, and what

attributes our staff should have, but I either had to learn how to

do everything on the fly, or find volunteers who could do it. I had

the good fortune that many talented volunteers found me. "

The original shelters in Taiwan were, and remain, the

shacks of " kind mothers, " as local rescuers are called. Most are

older women, but not all. The shacks are basically feeding stations

for street dogs and feral cats, with some protection against the

elements and sometimes cages for puppies, kittens, and sick or

injured animals. Crudely built with scrap materials, they are

typically to be found back in the bushes near shrines where people

dump unwanted pets and litters.

MacCormack's first humane project in Taiwan was encouraging

" kind mothers " to cooperate with efforts to sterilize the animals in

their care, and to rehome those who might be adopted. This needs to

be done all over the island, MacCormack says. " The 'kind mothers'

are going to be finding and feeding animals anyway, " MacCormack

said, " so we might as well bring them into a program--there isn't

any point in just telling them not to do what they are doing just

because it is perceived by other people as creating a nuisance.

There are 'kind mothers' everywhere, and if we can get them to work

with us, to get all the animals treated in whatever way they need,

we won't need anyone else to catch the animals or to look after those

who can be fixed and returned to a habitat. "

Like most beginning animal rescuers, when MacCormack

started, he thought first of founding a shelter. Animals Taiwan

resulted from that effort. Like many of the " kind mothers, "

MacCormack and his newfound allies feared becoming overwhelmed by

abandonments--so, though they hoped to promote adoptions, they hid,

converting an old house into a shelter without signage.

Within a few years MacCormack came to believe that education

and advocacy were more critical missions than animal rescue, and

that a humane organization needed to be formed to help encourage

enforcement of the 1998 animal welfare law.

MacCormack had not lost interest in hands-on animal rescue,

still an around-the-clock pursuit, nor in sheltering per se, but

Animals Taiwan had attracted other people who could operate an animal

shelter. Animals Taiwan will also soon have the opportunity to

relocate and rebuild to better specifications, " with a real

architect, " MacCormack suggests, since the original site is slated

for government redevelopment.

Leaving Animals Taiwan on mostly friendly terms, MacCormack

founded the Taiwan SPCA-- " or rather, " he says, " I let Annie and

Connie found it. I do the little bit that I'm good at, and try to

stay out of the way while they and our volunteers do everything else. "

While I visited, Annie and Connie Chiang spent nine-hour

days introducing visitors to the Taiwan SPCA at a pet fair,

alongside representatives of Animals Taiwan and half a dozen other

relatively young animal rescue groups; helped to coordinate

fundraising dinners on back-to-back nights, featuring a galaxy of

local celebrities who volunteered their time and talents; and

coordinated my visits with volunteer translators to most of the

animal shelters in the Taipei area.

The Chiang sisters also found the volunteer translators,

using social networking web sites, and directed bewildered drivers

to the shelters by cell phone.

MacCormack did the driving in the rugged mountains rising

abruptly from the edges of Taipei. At the wooded southern edge of

Yonghe, near where the roads end, MacCormack stopped to offer help

to a man who recycles junk and feeds half a dozen mangy dogs.

MacCormack explained everything that could be done, with Taiwan SPCA

help, to cure the dogs.

The man had one question: could the Taiwan SPCA have the

dogs sterilized, too?

" Of course, " MacCormack assured him.

" That would not have happened even five years ago, "

MacCormack said later. " Offering to fix the dogs would have been

seen as interfering in the life process. Now people ask for our

help. "

 

 

--

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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