AnimalBeat

Peter Singer and 'animal studies'

2012-01-18T17:11:00.008-05:00

Not long ago, the words "animal studies" would probably have suggested lab animals -- that is, animals used in lab experiments. But now, the phrase often refers to a new, growing but still undefined academic field: "animal studies."

Harvard, Dartmouth and NYU are among the colleges and universities offering courses that have to do with "the way humans and animals interact," according to one prof. That could include art, literature, sociology, anthropology, film, theater, philosophy, religion -- all of which include animals.

The six-year old Animals and Society Institute lists more than 100 courses in animal studies offered around the country. Its website, www.animalsandsociety.org, describes it as "where knowledge and science meet ethics and compassion." (Yea!)

Why "animal studies"? Increasingly over the years, according to the NYTimes story where this was reported on Jan. 2, similarities between humans and other animals have become clear. Language, tool use, even the roots of morality -- all are characteristic of both animals and humans.

Among the reasons behind this growing "animal studies" trend, philosophy is mentioned as possibly the most direct influence, with Peter Singer's Animal Liberation (1975) cited as an example.

I wonder: during the production of his seminal book, could Peter Singer possibly have foreseen the effect it would have on individuals and organizations? Could he ever have dreamed it would become the cornerstone of a major new academic area of study? Then I wonder: how much more his book may yet affect human and animal life for the better.

Talk about a ripple effect -- say rather a positive tsunami!
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(http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/science/animal-studies-move-from-the-lab-to-the-lecture-hall.html?emc=eta1)

Princeton beaver-shooting case: stalled

2012-01-17T08:05:00.006-05:00

More than 8 months ago, two beavers were shot and killed in a Princeton, NJ park. The shooter, who apparently had no authorization to kill the animals, was Princeton’s animal control officer, of all people.

Since then, though there's been talk of what’s happening with this case, in fact there’s been more talk than anything else. Investigations, reports, court dates . . . blah, blah, blah. . . and the shooter is still on the job doing heaven-knows-what-else with impunity.

For a run-down of “events” since May 13, 2011, click on the link below or, worst case, copy and paste it.

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/in-princeton-beaver-shooting-case-wheels-of-justice-seem-stalled

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SAVE THE DATE to save homeless cats!

Rain or shine on Saturday, January 28, the “Trenton Cats” organization will sponsor a Cat Adoption Day in support of the Trenton Animal Shelter. Scheduled at the Trenton Farmers Market on Spruce Street, Lawrence Township, the event will run from 11 am-3 pm.

These are cats who did not find loving homes for the holidays. In fact, some of them lost loving homes – they were abandoned at just the time everyone needs a warm home.

Besides adoptions, donations are also welcome.

Watch this blog for more details, and/or contact Sandra at TrentonCats@gmail.com.

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Reminder: You’re invited to take a look at my other blog,www.nj.com/pets. Read about hypoallergenic dogs and the last word on declawing cats.

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Of caged birds

2012-01-16T17:52:00.008-05:00

Today commemorates the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, equal rights and peace activist, Nobel laureate and assassination victim. In honor of the date and the man, the poem below appeared on a couple websites, and the note with it (on www.PotW.org -- Poem of the Week) explained the connection between the poem and Maya Angelou, who came much later.

Like many poems, this one can be read on many levels, including the literal level of a caged bird and the sadness it must often feel. "Caged bird" on every level is a contradiction in terms.

Sympathy

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals —
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting —
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings —
I know why the caged bird sings!

--Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

(The above poem was published in Lyrics of the Hearthside by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1899. It was this poem that inspired the title to Maya Angelou's autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.)

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A walk in the park

2012-01-14T20:31:00.004-05:00

It's a different experience to walk in the park just for walking purposes -- briskly, purposefully, all that good stuff -- and to walk in the park for purposes of capturing animals . . . on camera.

Of course a weekend or holiday is the best time for this, preferably with warmish weather, however unseasonable it may be. That combination brings out the fathers with kids and balls -- and dogs. And the couples walking their dogs. And the loners walking two dogs. One day recently, I encountered all these, and more.

To my surprise, they all agreed to let me take their dogs' pictures. First came Cookie, a fluffy white mixed breed, who wanted to play ball with a little boy and his dad -- except that she was leashed to one of their backpacks, and dragged it around with her on the perimeter of their game.

Cyrus and Beatrix were next -- a big, black long-haired German Shepherd and a squat little Corgi. They were walking with a man who warmed up talking about them. Beatrix, he specified, was named for the royal Beatrix, of the Netherlands, while Cyrus looked the way German-German Shepherds ought to look.

Then came Baby, a female pit bull who had been saved from litter after litter. The woman walking her was a friend of Baby's owner-savior. Finally, Luna, a Boston Terrier -- haven't seen one of those in a long while -- was walking from the car she arrived in toward the home she and her people were visiting.

It was a great day to be out and around, meeting these terrific dogs who seemed to feel the same way.
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Against declawing & fur for humans

2012-01-10T11:24:00.008-05:00

It happens, but that doesn't make it right or desirable. The "it" here is declawing cats. It's most often done to protect furniture, as silly as that may sound. People look at a cat, whose standard equipment includes claws, and decide to redesign the cat -- rather than look around for alternatives to that procedure.

And there are plenty of alternatives to this inhumane practice that's illegal in at least 3 European countries, though not in the US.

For details about declawing and its alternatives, please visit www.nj.com/pets, another place where I blog about/for animals. The two most recent entries there are all about declawing.

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This reminder from Caring Activists Against Fur: this weekend, celebrating Martin Luther King, is often also the time for big sales, including furs, and never the twain should meet -- a proponent of peace and an industry that's all about death.

The organization invites others against fur to rally at three sites, as shown below:

Sat., Jan. 14 - Steven Corn Furs, 358 Rte. 17N Paramus, NJ -- 1-2:30 pm
Sun., Jan. 15 - Bloomingdale's, Lexington Ave. at 59th NYC -- 1-3 pm
Mon., Jan. 16 - Macy's, 151 W. 34th St. NYC -- 1–3 pm

For more details, visit www.CAAFGroup.com or email information@caafgroup.com.

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It doesn't end with war horses

2012-01-06T11:13:00.008-05:00

Shades of “war horses” – there are also “war dogs.” And in these enlightened times, the reactions they may exhibit to warfare can now be diagnosed and often treated successfully.

Of course, dogs’ main reaction – “What am I doing here, involved in peoples’ issues?!” – will not be diagnosed. That’s because it’s not in peoples’ interest to free dogs from that reaction – humans long ago decided other animals exist to serve their needs.

Accordingly, “military dogs” deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are being diagnosed as suffering from “canine post traumatic stress disorder,” or CPTSD. Exposed to gunfire, explosions and other combat-related violence, “war dogs” sniff out mines, track down enemy fighters and clear buildings.

Then, as happened with one dog after a firefight, they may cower under a cot and refuse to come out. That "cowering" dog wasn’t diagnosed with being intelligent or discriminating, as he was – but with CPTSD.

Usually German shepherds, Belgian Melinois and Labrador Retrievers, more than 5 % of the military dogs deployed are developing CPTSD, as James Dao reported in the NYTimes last month, in “After duty, dogs suffer like soldiers.” That can come as no surprise.

Like humans, dogs show different symptoms of CPTSD. The cases that aren't successfully handled through “exercise, play time and gentle obedience training” may get “desensitization counterconditioning” (yes, you read it right) and maybe even anti-panic medications.

The lucky ones are retired from service.
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(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/us/more-military-dogs-show-signs-of-combat-stress.html?_r=1&emc=eta1)

'War Horse' movie alert

2012-01-05T16:47:00.008-05:00

This post is written in the heat not of battle but of recollection of battle -- that which Joey, the title horse of the book, play and movie, was subjected to: World War I, the "war to end all wars," which succeeded only in ending the lives of countless horses who were involuntarily involved in it -- "They had no choice," as London's heartbreaking monument to "Animals in War" reminds us.

The book, originally intended for children, is one thing. It's an OK read, giving a face to all the horses "enlisted" to serve in a war between humans. They were cavalry mounts (a crazier waste of life would be hard to find) and they pulled ambulances and armaments, among other things. They truly were "cannon fodder."

What horses have been made to do in wartime, all against their wills and natures, is unspeakably cruel. It should be unthinkable.

The Broadway show, which I heard and read about, was of necessity, stylized. It could not begin to "show" the horrors of war.

What the play could only suggest the movie "brought to life" -- and death. Disregarding for now scenes of the bucolic English countryside, where Joey grew up, the movie shows Joey in training for war service, then actually there -- miraculously and gallantly surviving charges, guns and bombs, ill treatment, unreasonable work burdens, noise, barbed wire . . . the list goes on.

As unlikely as it would seem, Joey is ultimately reunited with the devoted farm lad who raised him and together they return home to Devon.

Easy to resent is the tear-jerking manipulation of the movie. Harder to deal with is the moral wrongness of causing "war horses" to be. That's what is worthy of our tears.
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This pantry helps people & pets

2012-01-01T13:32:00.003-05:00

(The following story first appeared January 31 in www.NewJerseyNewsroom.com.)

Any animal shelter staffer will readily tell you about the growing number of surrendered and abandoned pets. Dogs and cats from loving homes, once thought of as “forever homes,” are being turned in to shelters. Even worse, they may be left on the street. All because their owners can’t afford to keep them anymore.

What’s sadder than homeless pets? They’re unable to take care of themselves and unfamiliar with the ways of the street, or the world, yet suddenly they lose the people who took care of them.

For pet owners hit hard by the current economy who fear they’ll have to give up their pets, there’s help and hope in West Trenton. The Pet Food Pantry offers temporary help for pets much as other pantries help people going through rough economic times.

Founded by Lisa and Jonathan Iszard -- owners of Tumbleweed & Eddie’s, a natural pet treat company in Ewing – Petfood Pantry has already helped support nearly 60 dogs and more than 80 cats, as well as five parrots and a duck. Almost 2,000 pounds of food has gone out to pet owners in the greater Mercer County area.

Older and low-income people and animal shelters are among the recipients of Petfood Pantry’s help. Sometimes it takes just a one-time small boost to get over a rough spot.

The operation’s based in the Iszards’ home, where volunteers help out. Some groups have held pet food drives for the pantry and donations – both monetary and pet food -- are accepted. Counseling on spay-neuter and links to resources are also available.

“To ensure that no pet goes hungry, the pantry provides free dog and cat food to anyone in financial crisis, counsels pet owners on proper nutrition for their pets and provides information on free and low cost spay and neuter programs.” according to Petfood Pantry’s website, www.ThePetfoodPantry.org.

Guidelines for applying and possible jobs for volunteers are detailed on the site. Through the Pet Food Pantry, when the going gets tough, the tough get to work keeping pets in place and fed until the crisis passes.

The Pet Food Pantry, 1803 Scenic Drive, West Trenton, NJ. 08628. Email: ThePetFoodPantry@hotmail.com .

Then on the other paw . . .

2011-12-31T10:35:00.009-05:00

The last post spelled out the new year's resolutions our two cats, Harry and Billy, might make. Now it's every pet's turn to specify the resolutions their people could make.

The list that follows is adapted from one that appeared yesterday at www.nj.com/pets.

If they could just talk to us, our pets themselves would be the best indicators of how we could make life better for them. If pets could dictate new year's resolutions for their people to follow, what might they be?

Here's a collection of possible resolutions. We can all resolve to . . .

* protect your pet – from unfriendly animals, over-enthusiastic little kids, harmful plants, other dangers of all kinds. Consider microchipping in addition to a collar and ID tag. Keep accurate medical records and "vet your pet" as needed.

* train her/him. A puppy who jumps on people can be cute; a full grown dog who does that can be a menace. Housetraining isn't an option, it's a necessity. Barking whenever and wherever isn't acceptable. Begging is never so. Start training early and be consistent.

* respect your pet's individuality. With more than one pet, don't announce or play favorites. Cultivate (safe) idiosyncrasies and enjoy differing personalities. Don't expect or build robo-dogs or cats.

* assure daily quality time for each pet. This means your undivided attention to them, not idly petting while doing something else, not giving treats in lieu of caring, not using your cell phone while walking your dog. Give them time and attention, your two most precious gifts.

* feed pets well, on pet food only, on time. Exceptions should be rare and still be safe – so, never chocolate, never raisins. This is harder for you to do than it is for your pets. If they don't learn to know "people food," they won't miss it.

* groom your pet. You like to look your best; let your pet(s) enjoy that feeling too. Bathe, brush, comb and clip nails and claws – are we forgetting anything else?

* remember that friends don't exploit friends. So hold yourself back from dressing your cat or dog in costume, or making them pose in unnatural positions -- or teacups or purses.

* reinforce pets' sense of trust. Don't play tricks or scare or spring new rules on your dog or cat. At all times, you are your pets' protector – never the person they need to watch out for or guard against.

Want to add a resolve or two to this list for a nice round total of 10? Please comment here. Meanwhile, wishes for a healthy and happy new year to all!

Cats' resolutions -- in my dreams

2011-12-30T20:18:00.007-05:00

The next post will deal with new year's resolutions our pets might want us to make -- pertaining to them. Today, let's deal with resolutions we wish our pets would make -- pertaining to us.

For me, it's easy. I know exactly what Harry and Billy would resolve . . . if I had my way.

* Each boy would be more demonstrative. Yes, yes, I know they're cats. But. It would be great to have two cats on the bed with us, all night, instead of only one who visits late and leaves early. That would be warm and cozy and dreamy.

* Each boy would meet me, Joe or us at the door when we come home, make welcoming sounds and act glad to see us. (Or am I trying to turn them into dogs? Well, being greeted would be nice.)

* Brushing and combing would become fun activities. They would come running at my approach with tools in hand. And of course, they'd also love to have their claws cut. Uh-huh.

* Next spring, they'd give the halter and leash a good try so we could start taking walks outside. Gradually, they'd come to like actually being in the environment they see so much of through windows.

* They would climb right into their carriers when it's time to go to the vet's. If they were boarding, they would fit right in, never hiding under their bedding or showing any stress. They would work hard to avoid our feeling such guilt at leaving them there.

* They would play more. They'd forget that old saw about cats sleeping much of the day away. They'd get into all kinds of games and toys.

But, in case the Summers boys vote against all this, they're safe. We'll love them no matter . . . while still hoping for occasional tiny moves in some of these directions.
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‘Spectacular migrations’ must go on

2011-12-26T22:25:00.004-05:00

Try to imagine yourself as a tiny bird, weighing only about as much as a penny. Then think about flying from Canada to Mexico for the winter, and flying back in the spring – a total of 4,000-5,000 miles.

This “spectacular migration” by the calliope hummingbird actually happens, all weather conditions and other hazards to the contrary.

Detailed in a report by the Wildlife Conservation Society, many such long-distance trips are in peril. The report includes 24 terrestrial and 17 aerial migrations, with most of the large-scale migrations taking place in the Western US.

Hoping to marshal public support and preservation of the corridors wildlife use for their trips, the Society decided to publicize these crucial – and fascinating – migrations, instead of merely declaring, “We need to protect ecological connectivity.”

Keep hummingbirds and Alaskan caribou and arctic terns and bats going. People can understand that.

Take the bats for instance. For their trip to Mexico each year, three species of bats depend on “nectar corridors” to sustain them en route. But land development could rob them of the nectar, pollen and fruit they need.

According to the NYTimes story on this, “Wildlife migrate to seek water or food at different times of the year, or to breed. The ability to freely move across the landscape could become even more important as the climate changes and wildlife need to adapt . . .

“The problem is that corridors are often very long, and many obstacles crop up because migrations have not been recognized or protected.” Natural obstacles, such as river flooding, can also occur.

There are ripple effects when migration corridors aren’t protected. Other animals, including humans, are affected. For instance, because songbird migration is down, so is their consumption of insects, which can then do more damage to crops and forests.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/science/moving-day-for-many-species-is-becoming-more-fraught.html?emc=eta1)

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‘Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. . .’

2011-12-24T17:31:00.003-05:00

Yes, it’s definitely a bird. Question is, is it a turkey vulture? It soared around in big circles when I walked today, though happily, not right over me – but what was it?

It’s much bigger than a crow, with different, hulking configuration. It's larger than a raven, which we’ve rarely seen. So, maybe a turkey vulture?

The Birds of New Jersey Field Guide* says they’re here. A conclave of . . . whatever they are seemed to be in session in a tree near the park a week ago. Whatever those large, dark forms were, they were menacing. Not at all like commuter-birds flying over.

With distinctive red heads and legs, these birds can have six-foot wingspans, says the guide. Smaller than the bald eagle, they have two-toned wings (black leading edge; gray trailing edge and tip). Their naked heads are an adaptation to “reduce the risk of feather fouling (picking up diseases) from carcasses.”

Though it may go without saying since they live on carrion, turkey vultures have a “developed sense of smell.”

And oh yes, about migration, the guide says, “Complete, to southern states, Central and South Americas.”

So when are these guys leaving?
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* by Stan Tekiela, Adventure Publications, Inc. Cambridge, MN , 2nd printing 2000

Fresh air and rosy cheeks

2011-12-20T08:04:00.004-05:00

Taxi! Taxi! It was a blustery day in NYC and near time for the taxi shift. All the yellow cabs streaming by ignored our raised arms . . . so we took a pedicab, powered by a large man on a solid-looking bicycle. He pedaled us (sitting in an open air carriage) to our destination in less time than a taxi might have taken.

His fare was much higher, though.

The whole time we sat behind him, I thought about horse-drawn carriages, and its wrongness. How did that compare with hiring a man to pull us through town?

The man would inhale the same traffic fumes the horses do. Though he wasn’t traveling the city streets in his bare feet – especially undesirable in rain or snow – like the horses, he’d be more vulnerable if an accident occurred. True, he wasn’t bridled and hooked to the bike, and he didn’t have to eat raw carrots.

And, the man did it of his own volition; he chose to pedal a cab instead of working in some other field. He was also handsomely paid.

After our ride, he told us he’s done this for a couple years, with much lighter business in January and February. He’s a university student, so he may make his pedicab hours convenient for his academics.

He was very pleasant and flashed a great smile – especially when I asked if he’s thought about wearing a mask to ward off the toxic fumes. Guess that wouldn’t exactly attract riders.
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in our own backyard

2011-12-17T23:00:00.007-05:00

Numbers of posts here have railed against horse-drawn carriages in New York and Philadelphia. Then, just as a dent seems to be made in the mentality permitting this archaic, cruel, involuntary and unnecessary practice (see post for Dec. 12), a local venue offers . . . horse-drawn carriage rides.

Something about winter holidays, with thoughts of snow and sleighs, must suggest: Hey! let’s do horse-drawn carriages. That should attract more (paying) visitors!

Last month, Hamilton Township’s Grounds for Sculpture began radio commercials for its holiday events. (Sculpture used to be enough there, but over the years, the place has become a playground.) The ads included horse drawn carriages -- prompting me to email a couple staffers to express my disappointment.

Bonnie R. Brown, the park’s director of operations, replied, sounding pretty much like all the carriage drivers who write indignant blog reactions. Check out the factual value and logic here: ”The operators are from area farms – they have the highest regard for their animals’ health and safety,” she began.

She went on to say these “operators” have vetted GFS pathways for safety and they won’t provide rides if pathways or weather are not appropriate. And, “We have every faith and assurance from the owners that their animals are healthy and treated with respect and care.” (Would any other assurance be likely?)

Her response to my 2nd note dealt with Clydesdales’ “need to use those muscles or risk health issues from lack of challenge to their physique.” She sees “much danger in not providing proper muscular activity to a breed” and “a Clydesdale should never be expected to run, but they still need to work their muscular frames or risk severe health issues from inactivity.”

Naturally, the best way to work those frames is pulling carriages full of people who could probably use the exercise much more than the horses!

(www.groundsforsculpture.org; 609-586-0616)
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Fur-bearing animals need YOU!

2011-12-13T17:47:00.004-05:00

(The following message comes from Julie O'Connor, who leads Caring Activists Against Fur. It speaks for itself.)

Dear Caring Activists Against Fur,

This weekend - the weekend before Christmas - is the LARGEST shopping weekend of the year. Fur Free Friday is super-important, but research shows that people wait for deals just before Christmas. So, this weekend is IT! We will be at TWO major shopping locations in the city. We need reinforcements. Remember our electrifying Fur Free Friday? Well, let's keep it going - get motivated to speak up for fur bearing animals this weekend & SAVE LIVES. Very few people can watch the videos or see our posters and find that buying fur is an acceptable choice.

Help change people's minds during this critical time!

Sat.,12-17--Bergdorf Goodman 754 Fifth Avenue (57th and 58th Streets) NYC 1 - 3 Note: We'll reach shoppers from Bergdorf, FAO Schwartz and the Apple Store at this major location. We're bringing out the HUGE video screen and we'll have a sound permit. All we need is YOU! Can't make it to NY? No problem - there is also a fur demo in Red Bank, NJ: http://www.meetup.com/FAUNNJ/events/33777132/

Sun., 12-18-- Macys 151 W. 34th St. NYC 1-3 --The LARGEST department store in the world, need I say more? (At the end of this demo, some activists will be attending the horse carriage protest.) Details below.

I know that life is busy, but please come to at least one event this weekend because you are the last line of defense these animals have. In a world filled with greed and insensitivity, ruled by those who stack the deck against these innocent creatures, you are literally the animals' only voice. Your presence breaks through the haze of indifference and selfishness and MAKES CHANGE. You can give that gift for animals - don't let them down.

Additional Event Sunday (Horse Carriage Protest):
http://www.meetup.com/FAUNNJ/events/44351552/

For the animals,
Julie (Caring Activists Against Fur)

P.S. Change is happening - animal rights activists are launching an anti-fur campaign in China this year (ActAsia - No Fur China Campaign)! It's wonderful news! We will prevail!

Beginning of the end?

2011-12-12T16:14:00.004-05:00

Horse-drawn carriages. No, we’re not talking 18th century, but 21st. Despite all that’s known about treatment of the horses and dangers to the horses (as well as their cabs and passengers), some people – with more money than brains – still find it charming to ride around cities and towns drawn by horses.

But the times may be a changin’ – at least in Manhattan. A NYTimes story on Dec.7 indicated this “tranquil New York pleasure” is now facing a “growing storm of opposition.” It’s about time.

“Animal rights advocates are gaining support for legislation that would ban the hansom cabs.” That’s the news in brief. It’s not yet a done deal, and no doubt more hurdles will be thrown up along the way, but there’s serious talk about it.

Of course that serious talk springs as much from greed as from altruism. The Times reports that real estate values are rising and “developers covet the stables on the Far West Side where the horses have long been kept.”

Well, we’re not fussy about why horse-drawn carriages may end in NYC – just so it ends.

According to the Times story, “The city’s licensed carriage horse industry – 68 carriages, 216 horses and 182 drivers – brings in roughly $15 million annually. Drivers charge $50 for a 20-minute ride through Central Park, and $20 for each additional 10 minutes. On a good day, they can make 15 trips.”

It’s worth pulling up the print story* to see the photo of the horse pulling a carriage, squeezed in among cars and other vehicles, having to inhale noxious fumes and endure traffic noise all around, while walking on uneven and/or wet and/or frozen road surfaces.

May this “storm of opposition” become a perfect storm – for horse welfare.
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*“Push to ban New York carriage horses gains steam,” by Emily B. Hager, Dec.7, 2011

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/nyregion/ny-horse-drawn-carriage-industry-fights-for-survival.html?pagewanted=2&sq=horse%20drawn%20carriages%20+%20animal%20rights&st=nyt&scp=1)

(note: the photo shows a horse and driver in Philadelphia -- also a problem scene -- in February, 2010)

Creatures small and great

2011-12-09T14:54:00.005-05:00

Lucky little coquis. These tiny tree frogs, recently encountered (only by ear) again in Puerto Rico, are small enough to avoid the attention of humans – or mostly so, anyway.

Animals who can live on unnoticed by people are the lucky ones. They’re not hunted, eaten, used in laboratories. They can live life as they should – free and doing what comes naturally.

For coquis, the natural inclination for males is to sing from dusk to dawn, reportedly making “ko-kee” sounds. (I’ve never heard that in their sharp chirpy sounds, but nevertheless love hearing them, especially in coqui choruses.)

One of many internet sites for info on coquis, www.toPuertoRico.org/coqui, indicates that their genera, “Eleutherodactylus,” is Greek for “free toes.” In other words, they don’t have the membrane between digits/toes common in some other amphibians.

However, the disks or pads on the tips of their toes help them adhere to such surfaces as moistened leaves. For more on coqui reproduction – for instance, how a tiny fully functional froglet emerges from a terrestrial egg – visit the site above.

Vieques, or “little girl island,” is off Puerto Rico, but, happily, it has its fair share of coquis too. That’s where I heard them last week.

While appreciating the coqui sounds after sunset, I found a wonderful distraction during the day: wild horses. The island is known for them, I don’t know since when or for how long. But it was thrilling one morning to find nine of them in front of the villa where we stayed, peacefully grazing and ignoring the two gringos exclaiming over them.
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NJ's black bear hunt starts Monday

2011-12-02T17:13:00.008-05:00

Earlier this week, the court ruled against the lawsuit to stop the NJ bear hunt and in favor of the Division of Fish and Wildlife. The bear hunt, scheduled to run next Monday, Dec. 5 through Saturday, Dec. 10, will go on.

Last year's hunt resulted in the deaths of nearly 600 black bears of all ages, including cubs, yearlings and nursing mothers. (That doesn't sound like Category 1 bears, does it?)

Last year's hunt was marked by horror stories and heinous quotable quotes from hunters about their rugs-to-be and their right to murder innocent animals. DFW fostered it all.

What can we do now? Animal Protection League of NJ plans demonstrations next week and vows not to give up on this issue. The organization will appeal the court's decision; however, that could take much of the next year.

Those who want to continue the fight for the bears can write letters to the editor, phone the governor and take part in APLNJ's activities planned for next week.

Check the websites where specifics will be available as they become final: www.APLNJ.org and/or www.SaveNJBears.com.

(Sorry, still can't convert to active links here, but they appear to the right of this post. Please click there.)
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Doomed dogs flown to new lives

2011-12-01T17:18:00.004-05:00

From North Carolina to Philadelphia: that's just one life-saving route for dogs who were scheduled to die – but were saved. They flew to life and freedom because a Virginia college prof and his network of helpers in the air and on the ground all pitched in.

“Pilots N Paws” is the name of Michael Young’s avocation – plucking adoptable dogs from high-kill shelters and flying them to pet-rescue agencies. In the last year, he has completed more than 20 rescue flights, according to a December issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The dogs fly away from the death chamber in a four-seat Columbia 400 plane owned by Young and a few friends. He can remove seats if he’s transporting a number of dogs, and he counts on help of student volunteers from his aviation club at George Mason University, in Virginia, where he teaches engineering.

Young made his first flight in 2010, after his family dog, suffering from cancer, had to be put to sleep. A friend asked him to help with a mass airlift of dogs abandoned during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and that was the beginning.

Volunteers on the ground start the process by visiting high-kill shelters to line up canine candidates for rescue flights. The receiving groups get photos and information on the dogs coming to them, and can make plans for their future.

Young has diverted two dogs bound for rescue to his own home. “Molly” and “Biff” missed their flights but gained new lives.

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(Alert to readers: For more information and opinions about pets, try www.NJ.com/pets.)

'The Bull Moose'

2011-11-29T14:43:00.004-05:00

(The poem that follows, from The Writer’s Almanac, appeared in What Happened When He Went to the Store for Bread. © Thousands Press, 2000.)

The Bull Moose

by Alden Nowlan

Down from the purple mist of trees on the mountain,
lurching through forests of white spruce and cedar,
stumbling through tamarack swamps,
came the bull moose
to be stopped at last by a pole-fenced pasture.

Too tired to turn or, perhaps, aware
there was no place left to go, he stood with the cattle.
They, scenting the musk of death, seeing his great head
like the ritual mask of a blood god, moved to the other end
of the field, and waited.

The neighbors heard of it, and by afternoon
cars lined the road. The children teased him
with alder switches and he gazed at them
like an old, tolerant collie. The women asked
if he could have escaped from a Fair.

The oldest man in the parish remembered seeing
a gelded moose yoked with an ox for plowing.
The young men snickered and tried to pour beer
down his throat, while their girl friends took their pictures.

And the bull moose let them stroke his tick-ravaged flanks,
let them pry open his jaws with bottles, let a giggling girl
plant a little purple cap
of thistles on his head.

When the wardens came, everyone agreed it was a shame
to shoot anything so shaggy and cuddlesome.
He looked like the kind of pet
women put to bed with their sons.

So they held their fire. But just as the sun dropped in the river
the bull moose gathered his strength
like a scaffold king, straightened and lifted his horns
so that even the wardens backed away as they raised their rifles.
When he roared, people ran to their cars. All the young men
leaned on their automobile horns as he toppled.

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Cricket combat: big (?!) blood sport in China

2011-11-27T17:26:00.001-05:00

Crickets: not as in Jiminy Cricket, the famous Disney character. And not as in summer’s singing insects. Try crickets as in fighters -- engaged in a blood sport that goes back more than 1,000 years in China.

Described in a November 6 NYTimes story on the subject --"Chirps and Cheers: China's Crickets Clash" -- crickets have long been a staple of Chinese poetry, painting and storytelling. One emperor even included crickets in his subjects’ tax burden – that’s how valued they were.

Nowadays in China, field crickets are carefully selected, fed and trained to become insect warriors. They’re sold in cricket markets and indulged with “elaborately carved cricket houses [...] and hand-painted ceramic bowls fit for a tiny king.”

Some cricket matches are filmed and projected onto large screens, and illegal back-room fights attract gamblers.

An interest in cricket fighting has been revived among young men who want to return to old Chinese pastimes. Older men, who grew up without toys or TV (imagine!), make up the other main group of cricket fanciers.

The Times story includes details on identifying potential champions and building a warrior. One corn farmer who profits from cricket sales, says “The loudest chirpers are usually the fiercest.”

Two up-sides to cricket fighting: First, injuries are rare in the insect combat. Losers are tossed away and may live happily till the first frost. Second, fighting is illegal, so according to one cricket-fight fan, men “project their emotions onto crickets,” possibly lessening their own aggression.
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Dogs and cats luckier than turkeys and pigs

2011-11-24T15:14:00.004-05:00

Let’s not think about turkeys right now. Nothing to be thankful for there – just a hope that the poor, deformed, purpose-bred creatures died fast without any foreshadowing of doom.

Same with pigs. Talk about purpose-bred. The New Yorker cartoon showed a pig sitting on an examining table as his doctor said, “The problem with you is that your ribs are delicious,” or something like that. Close enough. Does anyone in the world raise pigs for the pleasure of having pigs, or to give pigs a nice life?

Ha.

Good things happened in the last week for dogs and cats, though. At least a dozen were adopted at the Easel-sponsored event last Saturday at the Trenton Farmers Market. Everything seemed to work right, starting with the weather, and moving on to the numbers of volunteers involved and people who came out.

Eight cats are in new homes right now, as are at least four dogs. (A couple additional adoptions were iffy and may have taken place this week at the Ewing shelter.)

Thanks to everyone who spread the word, who helped with the event, who adopted and/or donated to Easel. This major effort to lessen the number of animals in the shelter got a big, emphatic push last Saturday.

And for those who still want to adopt a pet, Easel resumes its “regular” adoption days Saturday, December 3. Details at www.easelnj.org.* There’s still time before the winter holidays to change the world for a homeless animal.
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* sorry, but technical difficulties precluded a link here.

Adoptions, deep-sea murders, migration menace

2011-11-22T14:58:00.003-05:00

A dozen or more animals ‘home for the holidays’

Last Saturday’s special adoption day for animals from the Ewing shelter was a big success, according to Mark Phillips, executive director of Easel Animal Rescue League, the all-volunteer organization that ran the event.

Eight cats and 4 dogs – with 1 or 2 follow-up possibilities this week – meant a needed drop in the shelter’s animal population. The Trenton Farmers Market proved to be an excellent place for the event.

Easel’s “regular” adoption days resume December 3. Check www.easelnj.org for times and places.

Say no thanks to ‘pearly’ jewelry

We’re “Loving the chambered nautilus to death,” according to a newspaper story late last month. Picture the nautilus, “a living fossil” with a spiral shell (sorry--no image available) that has inspired poems and – alas – attracted exploiters. People out to make money, in other words.

Even though it means killing a creature whose ancestors go back a half-billion years, the nautilus’s pearly shell is still a cheaper alternative to “real pearl.” In an example of deceptive marketing, the iridescent material is often sold as “Osmena pearl.”

Now chambered nautilus shells are made into earrings, pendants, display items and curios – an ignominious end for a deep-sea creature related to the octopus, which sometimes attains a breadth of 10 inches.

It’s the same old, same old: the nautilus shell caught on, humans killed chambered nautiluses by the millions . . . and now other humans are considering adding the creature to the endangered species list to “curb the shell trade.”

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/science/25 nautilus.html?emc=eta1)

Birds & glass-sided buildings

For migrating birds, glass-sided city buildings can be killers, especially when the glass facades are near parkland or vegetation. Birds see reflected trees and bushes, fly toward them and . . . . It’s estimated that 90,000 birds are killed each year by flying into buildings in New York City.

But, increasingly aware of the problem, some architects are employing design to lessen reflection. And some building managers have agreed to alter the exteriors of lower floors to cut down the incidence of bird-building crashes.

New York City Audubon volunteers scan for dead or injured birds during migration seasons and document where they’re found. Those numbers can be significantly lowered with building reps’ cooperation. One example is turning lights off after midnight during spring and fall so the bright lights don’t confuse birds in flight.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/nyregion/making-new-yorks-glass-buildings-safer- for-birds.html?emc=eta1)

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Demo at 'crime scene,' a.k.a. DFW

2011-11-17T11:07:00.005-05:00

If ever a state agency deserved to be protested against, it's the Division of Fish and Wildlife. Last Monday afternoon, that's what happened in a highly effective demonstration at DFW's headquarters in Trenton.

Numbers of animal welfare organizations took their protest directly to the source: the people who will bring us another horrific black bear hunt next month and who have been responsible for numbers of black bear deaths this year. . . the people who stack the deck against bears in myriad ways and sell hunting licenses for trophy kills.

Here's a link to the story that appeared in an online publication worth knowing and spreading the word about:

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/state/protesters-rally-for-bears-at-nj-fish-and-wildlife-crime-scene

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SOS going out for Ewing shelter animals

2011-11-13T12:16:00.010-05:00

Just "do the math" on why adopting out many of the cats and dogs in the Ewing Animal Shelter is so crucial. It's a simple case of not enough space for every animal now being sheltered because the new facility will be smaller than the present one.

Yes, it's a shame that's the case, but it's true. So before talk of euthanasia gets started, let's just work on adoptions for at least the number of cats and dogs above the cut-off number.

They're all homeless. They're all adoptable. So what's the hold up?

To motivate people who may be thinking of adopting a shelter pet, Easel Animal Rescue League is sponsoring a major adoption day this coming Saturday at the Trenton Farmers Market, 10 am-3 pm.

Dogs will be on leash and cats will be available for people to meet in a county animal rescue trailer. Every animal will have been vetted and given shots, besides being spayed or neutered.

Some newspapers will carry Easel's ad that offers $25 off the adoption fee. Bring the ad or mention the flyer that's been posted all around to get that discount. . . and a wonderful new pet.

"Save our strays" for the holidays!

(www.Easelnj.org)
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Protest DFW crimes at DFW headquarters

2011-11-09T14:54:00.004-05:00

Starting with last December’s bear hunt, AnimalBeat has included numerous posts about NJ’s black bears, including the innocent bears killed in the name of public safety or “we didn’t have tranquillizer darts.” The agency behind all those killings, as well as the hunt, is the Division of Fish and Wildlife, in the Department of Environmental Protection.

Next Monday is the date for the first protest at the DFW office in Trenton. After this year’s killings – and before the hunt that’s no doubt planned for this year – it is an appropriate time to let DFW know what we think of its “crimes against nature and crimes against good government,” as the Bear Education and Resource Group in APLNJ describes them.

The bill of indictment against DFW includes the following, taken from the APLNJ flyer about next Monday’s event.

• Since April of this year, DFW authorized the killing of more than 20 bears, cubs, and yearlings to underscore a claimed need for a hunt
• DFW continues to promote a trophy hunt despite mounting evidence that hunts achieve nothing and cause increased "nuisance" behavior in orphaned cubs and yearlings left without their mother's guidance
• DFW inflates population estimates to justify their goal to expand the bear hunt
• DFW relocates bears to repopulate the species into other hunting zones
• DFW refuses to enforce the black bear feeding ban law
• DFW killed an innocent bear cub in Stokes State Forest after the bear was exonerated on all charges

The demonstration next Monday will take place at NJ Fish and Wildlife HQ, 501 East State St., Trenton, between 1-2:30 pm. The program includes a number of speakers, from leaders of the “Bear Group,” APLNJ and the League of Humane Voters, to HSUS and NJ Sierra Club reps, to an investigator and a wildlife specialist.

Yes, Monday is a “work day,” but if hunters take off from work for trophy hunts, bear supporters can take off to speak up against bear hunts and bear killing. That would be a good day’s work!

(http://www.aplnj.org/events.php)

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Afternoon with walruses

2011-11-08T08:14:00.004-05:00

And now for something completely different -- and lighter in spirit, for a change. The following poem comes from "The Writer’s Almanac" [Newsletter@AmericanPublicMedia.org] for Sunday, October 30, 2011.

(All that’s lacking is a good image of a bull walrus. And on the subject of needed images, a chambered nautilus pix would also be welcome!)

In Praise of the Great Bull Walrus

by Alden Nowlan

I wouldn't like to be one
of the walrus people
for the rest of my life
but I wish I could spend
one sunny afternoon
lying on the rocks with them.
I suspect it would be similar
to drinking beer in a tavern
that caters to longshoremen
and won't admit women.
We'd exchange no
cosmic secrets. I'd merely say,
"How yuh doin' you big old walrus?"
and the nearest of
the walrus people
would answer,
"Me? I'm doin' great.
How yuh doin' yourself,
you big old human being, you?"
How good it is to share
the earth with such creatures
and how unthinkable it would have been
to have missed all this
by not being born:
a happy thought, that,
for not being born is
the only tragedy
that we can imagine
but need never fear.

“I care about animals and I vote”

2011-11-05T16:41:00.003-04:00

This is an unpaid political blog post on behalf of The League of Humane Voters, a New Jersey organization whose sole purpose is to unite voters who care about animals. There’s no need to summarize or rephrase its flyer; here it is:

Dear LOHV-NJ member,

The LEAGUE OF HUMANE VOTERS OF NEW JERSEY'S sole purpose is to unite voters who care about animals.

We are delighted to release our first electoral endorsements. Please visit: http://lohvnj.org/endorse2011c.html for endorsements, questionnaire respondents, and additional information. In the "Additional Information" section, we also include legislators who are members of animal-use, trade-backed legislative caucuses responsible for animal suffering.

Read, and vote! Let compassion be your guide.

Our potential as a humane voting bloc is enormous:
• Over 1.8 million New Jersey households have companion animals.
• 1,713,000 NJ wildlife watchers generate $537,388,000 in revenues for our state.

The good news is: many thousands of you have already joined LOHV-NJ!

The animals we all care about can neither speak nor vote. We can. Here's to an electoral season where humane sensibilities and compassion count!

Important Dates & Deadlines:
• November 7, 2011 - Deadline for In-Person Mail-In Ballot Applications for General Election
• November 8, 2011 - General Election Day
Happy Voting,

Angi Metler
State Chair
ametler@lohvnj.orgLeague of Humane Voters of New Jersey
PO Box 17, Manalapan, New Jersey 07726
www.lohvnj.org

Interaction with a savvy squirrel

2011-11-02T11:42:00.003-04:00

Four days after the Oct. 29 snowstorm, there were few signs of that aberrational weather in the park when I walked earlier today. The grass may have been greener, and a few clumps of weeds looked flattened in the middle as if they’d had an heavy, icy burden for a while.

The snow probably had nothing to do with the numbers of blue jays I saw. However, I encountered one squirrel who may have been reacting to the recent weather and decided to prepare for winter. She was under some trees around a small parking lot when I threw one of the (unsalted) peanuts-in-shells I sometimes carry.

I got off a good throw, the nut landed within a few feet of the squirrel and . . . she walked right over to it and picked it up. This doesn’t usually happen with me and squirrels. More often, they scamper up the nearest tree when I toss a peanut their way, and I’m left to wonder if they ever checked it out and accepted it.

Today’s squirrel was different. She seemed ready for that peanut. Not only that, she knew just what she’d do with it. She started across the parking area to grassy land leading toward a berm and then some bushes. Partway to where she wound up (planning to bury the peanut, I thought), she stopped, sat up and looked right at me.

I decided she was saying, “Thanks, amigo.” And I threw another peanut her way – in case what she actually said was, “More!”
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"Neither snow nor rain nor . . ."

2011-10-30T11:22:00.005-04:00

Yesterday's Ewing community fest -- on Oct. 29, mind you -- was a cold, sloshy, snowy-rainy, muddy mess. And even so, Easel volunteers (that is, all Easel members) were out there, working for adoptions from Ewing's animal shelter. The tally isn't in yet for cats and dogs adopted, but if that effort didn't succeed, what would?

Cats were in a Mercer County van with windows so they had a view of all the crazy humans nearby, mucking around in the weather. And visitors could enter the van to meet them and ask questions of the Easel members on hand.

Dogs were under a roof in the walkway to a parking garage, all wearing orange vests reading "Adopt Me" and all very winsomely wanting to be loved . . . and adopted. The Easel volunteers on the other ends of their leashes were in good spirits late morning when we visited and took pix.

It happened again at the fest as had occurred Friday at the shelter: some of the most unlikely people spoke so softly about wanting to adopt a "lap dog" (that man will return this week for a Jack Russell, he said); wanting to adopt an older cat because they're harder to find homes for; wanting a pal for the cat at home and for himself (and that man went home -- in the awful weather -- to get his cat carrier and come back for the pet-pal he had chosen).

Just when the news of the world could easily turn a thinking person into a misanthrope, along come people like these -- and the woman who fosters Easel cats but didn't bring them out yesterday because the weather was so bad. She was there, though!

If yesterday was any indication of how hard Easel people are working for adoptions of animals at the shelter, there may be no residents left by December, when the move to smaller quarters is tentatively scheduled.
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In 2 different ways, animals ready to go home

2011-10-26T16:02:00.009-04:00

Save the date -- and save a cat or dog too. This Saturday, October 29, is Ewing Township's "Community Fest 2011" on the campus of the College of New Jersey. One highlight of the event will be the opportunity to adopt a pet from the Ewing Animal Shelter.

The shelter will move from its present site to a new-but-smaller facility some time in December. Not all the animals being taken care of now can be housed at the new shelter, and they must be adopted before the move, or . . .

To facilitate adoptions, members of Easel Animal Rescue League will bring adoptable animals to the Community Fest, where those who are ready to share their homes and hearts with a cat or dog can meet them. All animals are spayed or neutered and have their shots. (www.EaselNJ.org)

The event runs from 10 am-5 pm.

* * * * * * * * * * *

This just in: Jack the cat has been found! People who may have read about the cat lost at JFK Airport last August probably gave up on him by now. His owner was moving from East to West Coast when Jack vamoosed, escaping from his carrying case. Despite American Airlines’ pledge to find him, reward signs, a Facebook page and a Twitter account, no Jack.

But today’s NYTimes reports that Jack was found close to where he was lost and will eventually be reunited with his owner – after spending some time at a vet’s. Jack’s condition was not detailed, nor was his owner’s reaction to the news. Coming up: happy times in San Jose.
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Why shoot to kill, not save?

2011-10-24T16:53:00.006-04:00

“Pet – an animal kept for amusement or companionship.” Such as a lion, for instance? How about a Bengal tiger? Or a grizzly bear, mountain lion or baboon?

If these animals seem like strange choices for pets, tell it to the people in Ohio (and other states) who collect them. Invariably, in being removed from their natural habitats and living in someone’s back 40 or basement (yes, it happens) or garage, they’re mistreated, exploited, abused. They’re “exotic” animals – that is, “from another part of the world; foreign.”

Such creatures are not pets, but exotic wild animals who don’t belong in Ohio – or in much or all of the US either.

Years ago, an offbeat garden and gift shop on Olden Ave., Ewing included among the interesting things there an iguana. This unfortunate tropical creature, who had been named, lived in a glass aquarium near a window. The owners claimed he (I think) was kept warm enough and was well fed.

In reality, he was another exotic animal who should not have been there, isolated and solitary, not free, not living at all naturally.

Back to last week’s Ohio horror, wherein nearly 50 exotic animals were shot to death by law enforcement officials. The questions keep coming.

First, why don’t police types carry tranquilizer darts or have them readily at hand, especially when large wild animals are the reason for their being called? (Not long ago in NJ, a bear cub was shot to death and then too the claim was law enforcement reps didn’t have tranquilizer darts. Why not?!)

And next, what other options were considered besides the panicky-sounding result: shoot to kill? In an area where the “owner” of these animals was known to be trouble, why weren’t tranquilizer darts standard equipment?
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(http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/nation/49-exotic-animals-killed-in-ohio-lack-of-tight-regulations-cited)

2nd death, in Ohio

2011-10-21T07:56:00.004-04:00

How to react to the “exotic animals” horror story in Ohio? There are so many possible things to say, so many wrongs involved.

First and worst of course: the needless deaths of the nearly 50 wild animals who were killed. Then the fact that they had been “freed” and put in the position to be killed. Then the fact that they had been collected and kept there in Zanesville – a place they never belonged or deserved to be.

So many cruel ironies involved . . . First, this man reportedly “loved” the animals, yet he freed them – to die. He had to know that would happen, but then again, he must have been irrational for a long time.

Imagine being a majestic big cat suddenly out in the open . . . of Ohio, for god’s sake.

Second of many ironies: for these captive animals, freedom (not in their native habitats, but merely from cages) meant fright, disorientation and then death.

It was a tragic end to the diminished lives they had been forced to lead. For them, death in Ohio was really a second death.

Animal-advocacy organizations such as PAWS, the Humane Society of the US and PETA reacted to the events in Ohio, where it quickly became clear that stringent laws (and enforcement) are needed to prevent such things from happening again. The Humane Society, for instance, put up a long report of exotic animal abuses and offenses in Ohio.

Links to all three organizations are on this blog’s home page. Please take a look.
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A day for feral cats

2011-10-16T15:34:00.004-04:00

Today is national feral cat day, and it would be great to be able to say, “Happy feral cat day!” – except that for many or most ferals, life is uncomfortable, unhealthy and short. Too many people hear “feral cat” and think trouble; too many animal control officers and shelter staff hear “feral” and think euthanasia.

In reality, of course, feral cats are a human creation, and the least humans can do is protect and take care of them.

The word “feral” means (1) existing in a wild or untamed state; (2) having returned to an untamed state from domestication. Feral cats, therefore, were either felines born in the wild to existing ferals or strays, or domestic cats who were abandoned or lost. In both cases, they are now wild animals, living outdoors and fending for themselves.

The best known way to care for ferals is through Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR) because without spaying or neutering and basic shots to help them survive in the wild, feral cats are the often-unhealthy-but-fertile parts of an ever-growing problem.

Right now, according to stray and feral cat advocates Alley Cat Allies – the group that started National Feral Cat Day 10 years ago -- “feral cats taken to animal shelters are almost always killed. Being killed in an animal shelter remains the leading documented cause of death for cats. TNR ends the breeding cycle and stabilizes the population, halting further deaths,” according to ACA president Becky Robinson.

Today is dedicated to raising awareness of feral cats and the ways they can be protected. Living outdoors and typically not socialized to humans, many or most adult ferals can’t be adopted – but TNR would allow them to return to their colonies and live out their lives without reproducing.

They deserve at least that much.
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(http://www.alleycat.org)

Rabies and its test: both fatal

2011-10-14T09:29:00.008-04:00

"Rabies": a loaded, inflammatory word and generally for good reason. It's defined as "an acute infectious viral disease of warm-blooded mammals that attacks the central nervous system. It is believed to move from a saliva-infected bite wound through sensory nerves to the brain."

That's bad enough, but it gets worse. There's no treatment or post-exposure vaccination available for (non-human) animals; therefore, rabies is fatal to them.

Humans can survive rabies if treated before the onset of symptoms with post-exposure vaccinations and immunoglobulins.

"Rabies" becomes a big scare word when a human may have contracted it -- which can happen through a bite by a rabid animal. People have usually heard terrible tales about the series of shots they must go through if exposed to rabies.

It's worse of course for rabid animals, who will die. It's equally bad for animals suspected of having rabies who are tested for the disease: they too will die -- a fact that most people don't seem to know.

Rabies can be detected only in an animal's brain. Therefore, to test that animal for rabies, s/he must be killed. Once euthanized, the animal is decapitated, with the head going to a lab for the testing that will prove or disprove rabies was present.

The decapitation step is not necessary only for animals under 2 pounds in weight -- a bat, for instance, or a squirrel.

People who may talk casually about getting this or that animal tested for rabies should know what that entails: it means the animal must die, whether or not s/he then tests positive for rabies.
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Bon voyage, monarchs!

2011-10-09T12:46:00.003-04:00

Who knows what a single monarch butterfly weighs. Who understands how such a creature can migrate thousands of miles – for instance, from Canada and the islands of Maine south and west to a mountainous area near Mexico City?

They “ride winds a thousand feet above the ground, covering 25 miles or more every day,” according to a Washington Post story in today's local paper. That’s almost more unimaginable – though evidently true.

To do it, the story reported, they “need water. They need flowers. They need nectar.” But this year, the monarchs’ route will include “a thousand miles of hell” – a.k.a. Texas – as they head for their Mexican retreat.

Texas is scorched and “nearly waterless, flowerless, nectarless,” right now. No matter how hardy and vigorous the monarchs are, there’s trouble in store for them in Texas. (No, they won’t change their route, which they’ve taken for thousands of years.)

As a result, there are serious questions about how many monarchs will make it to their over-wintering site, where traditionally they arrive “fat and happy, having gorged on nectar for thousands of miles.” That built-up fat helps them get through the winter and back north in the spring.

Usually, the monarchs “converge on a few acres of forest in mountains about 60 miles west of Mexico City. There they’ll roost over the winter, thick as quilts on fir trees.”

This year’s trip south could be another story if these amazing butterflies arrive thin and bedraggled -- and vulnerable.
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'Let the punishment match the crime'

2011-10-07T11:33:00.007-04:00

Bad enough some people are crazy, cruel and murderous toward one another. Worse when they practice on defenseless animals.

News that a 10-11 foot long whale had been shot somewhere off the East Coast, then died a long, lingering death from starvation, hit hard this week. It surprised even Bob Schoelkopf, founding director of the Brigantine-based Marine Mammal Stranding Center.

He reportedly told the Star-Ledger that this is the first time in his 33-year career that someone has shot a whale.

The short-finned pilot whale beached himself at Allenhurst, a small Monmouth county town north of Asbury Park, on Sept. 24. He weighed more like 700 pounds than the usual 1,000 pounds. Soon after help was summoned, the whale died.

A necropsy performed at the U of P disclosed a gunshot wound near the whale’s blow hole. The bullet, which may have come from a .30-caliber rifle, was recovered from his jaw. Lodged there, it had caused an infection that left the animal unable to eat – for about a month, the time the animal took to lose the weight.

“It was wandering around and slowly starving to death because of the infection,” Schoelkopf said, according to msnbc.com. “Who would do that to an innocent animal?”

At least one federal agency will be trying to find out. . . . (please click below to continue)

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/whale-shot-off-nj-coast-prompts-federal-investigation

You say 'animal research,' I say. . .

2011-10-05T12:31:00.009-04:00

“Mistreatment of lab animals alleged at a Princeton lab” -- headline in last Friday’s Times of Trenton. But by definition, don’t the words “lab animals” alone mean mistreatment?

Those animals aren’t in labs, at Princeton or anywhere, for fun and games. They’re likely to be in cages, robbed of their freedom and natural lives, and used in experiments – all against their will. If all that is not mistreatment . . . !

The story reported on what an anonymous whistleblower claims has happened in a lab at Princeton University – where, by the way, they call what they’re doing “animal research” as if that would make it less horrible than the vivisection it is.

In his letter to a rep of the USDA division that handles violations of the Animal Welfare Act at Princeton, the executive director of SAEN (Stop Animal Exploitation Now) details a number of violations the whistleblower alleges occurred at the university.

Because they are spelled out in detail on the SAEN website – www.saenonline.org – they won’t be listed here. Besides the alleged mistreatment of lab animals, the SAEN leader also alerted the USDA official to a possible, or likely, leak that allows lab staff to know ahead when “unannounced inspections” will take place.

Citing the “carelessness and negligence” at Princeton that leads to the taking of animals’ lives, he invites an investigation, mentioning the need for punishment and fines. (Not known: if or how the USDA official responds to the executive director’s letter.)

Meanwhile, “animal research” continues at Princeton.
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In next twp. evacuation: people -- & pets!

2011-10-01T13:56:00.008-04:00

“We’re changing out policies,” said Lawrence Mayor Greg Puliti yesterday, referring to how Lawrence handles pets during emergencies such as Hurricane Irene late last summer.

A township bulletin about storm preparations included this sentence, inflammatory for some residents with pets: “Pets are prohibited at all shelter locations.” This position prompted questions to town management (see blog post for Sept.1); sharing of a Packet group story about the town of Manville, which practiced enlightened, humane care for pets during Irene; and a letter to the editor of the Lawrence Ledger.

Yesterday, Mayor Puliti indicated Lawrence will be getting with the program. He made these points:

1. Lawrence will add a few alternate evacuation locations that can accommodate pets. These will be identified up front (presumably, in any bulletin preceding the next hurricane of disaster of any kind).

2. In checking with the county, he learned it has a mobile trailer that Lawrence can request as needed to accommodate any pet overflow.

3. The township will buy some temporary cages for use with animals housed at Camp Bow-Wow, a Bakers Basin Road boarding facility for pets.

4. It and other places like Pets Plus, near the Brunswick Circle, could become evacuation sites for pets.

5. Lawrence’s animal control officer (ACO) is part of the emergency management team.

Of course, questions remain. How will these changes be communicated to Lawrence residents? Can Lawrence be assured use of the mobile trailer(s)? – or could another Mercer County town get there first? How will pets alone at home be identified and evacuated? (Asked this, the mayor said the municipal clerk may devise some kind of registry, maybe drawing on cat and dog license information.)

It’s a great relief to know Lawrence is moving in the right direction on caring for pets during disasters.
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SOS = Save Our (vanishing animal) Species

2011-09-30T15:14:00.004-04:00

African elephants, Asian elephants, great apes, rhinoceroses and tigers, marine turtles. Conservation funds for all these vanishing animal species will benefit from sale of the new USPS stamp, “Save Vanishing Species.”

The graphically vivid first class stamp features the head of a tiger cub. He looks at us with great presence and dignity – and maybe sadness too. Tigers are fast disappearing from the earth. They depend on humans – responsible for much of their vanishing – to save them.

Text on the reverse of a 20-stamp sheet says the postal service will transfer the net proceeds from sale of these stamps to the US Fish and Wildlife Service to support the Multinational Species Conservation Funds. There’s also a blurb about each of the vanishing animal species. The words “poaching,” “habitat loss,” “and “exploitation” appear throughout.

It’s hard to feel too optimistic.
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It's “fish or cut bait!”

2011-09-29T15:48:00.004-04:00

“Purchase our exclusive bracelet and support PAW for a cause.” The jeweler’s ad in a recent Sunday NYTimes edition showed a paw charm on a silk cord.

The text read: “In the United States millions of animals die in shelters every year. With the net proceeds from the sales of these charming bracelets you can help build and support model humane no-kill shelters that provide spay and neuter services.”

A sterling silver paw charm with diamond on pink, black or red silk cord sells for $100. The same bracelet without the diamond goes for $65.

So a person with spare cash can decide whether to buy the bracelet or donate that amount to a shelter or a TNR organization. These groups often get reduced rates because of the number of cats to be sterilized and “vetted.”

The choice: a PC bracelet that doesn’t neuter a single cat or dog . . . or “fixing” a number of animals to prevent their creating still more animals needing homes.

Those who choose to help animals directly might consider “Sponsor our Strays” (SOS), a program of Project TNR, in the Animal Protection League of NJ. So feral cat trappers can get more cats neutered, the organization invites donors to subsidize the cost of “vetting” ferals.

During October, a benefactor has promised to double all donations to SOS up to $500. Any size donation will help; for instance, $15 will become $30, and for that amount one cat can be sterilized, immunized and ear-tipped (to signal a feral cat who has been vetted).

Instead of the $65 charm bracelet without a diamond, donate that amount. Once doubled, it will take care of four cats, with change!

(http://www.aplnj.org/assets/pdf/NexusNewsFall.pdf)

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Not too small to escape the human gaze

2011-09-26T23:07:00.004-04:00

Fireflies: already at risk and probably dropping off in number because of loss of habitat, pesticides and other man-made obstacles to their continuing to do what they always did.

Now comes another way humans have regarded fireflies as theirs to use for whatever serves people. A website for Boston’s Museum of Science includes news of a “Firefly Watch” program, and its monthly page sometimes includes Q&As about fireflies.

One person reported learning about a firefly harvesting program, involving the capture of great numbers of fireflies, and asked if this really happens.

The response, from a Museum of Science rep, regretfully confirmed it. “Tens of thousands of fireflies have been collected and sold for their luciferase, one of the chemicals responsible for their light production,” he wrote. “This chemical is used to detect contamination in food.

“At one time, the only way to collect luciferase was to harvest it from the abdomen of fireflies. For the past 20 years however, a less expensive, synthetic form of luciferase has been available, making the need for sacrificing real fireflies obsolete.

“Even so, at least one company continues to sell firefly abdomens for their luciferase in addition to selling the synthetic form.”

(https://www.mos.org/fireflywatch/about_firefly_watch)

This situation seems parallel to that of lab animals and vivisection. Although many more effective ways of testing without using lab animals have been devised, some "scientists" insist on continuing to test on animals. So many humans regard so many animals as existing only to serve them and utterly disposable.
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Animal adoptions & pet expo on Saturday

2011-09-20T21:30:00.009-04:00

Thirty or 35 cats and kittens needing a real, forever home and not the Trenton Animal Shelter (where, besides other problems, their days are limited). The adoption price is right, pre-approval is possible and cardboard carriers are even provided if you don't bring your own crate.

This coming Saturday at Trenton's Waterfront Park -- usually the scene of baseball games, not animal adoptions -- the 2nd Annual Pet Expo will take place inside, while animal rescue groups and shelter reps will be outside, with animals ready to be adopted.

One such group is Trenton TNR, headed up by Sandra Obi, also director of the TNR Program of the Animal Protection League of New Jersey. She will bring the cats mentioned above in a huge blue and white van that should be easy to spot in the parking area.

(For details, click the link below.)

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/cat-adoption-day-and-pet-expo-converge-at-trentons-waterfront-park
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Just leave them alone!

2011-09-17T16:21:00.006-04:00

A mountain lion on a treadmill, for scientific reasons having to do with our being better able to "manage wildlife" (a contradiction in terms?). It had taken scientists months to "train" the animal to walk steadily on the thing. Eventually, they hope to be able to position specific animals (wearing a collar -- another scientific contribution) and know exactly what they're doing and likely to do.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/us/30collars.html?_r=1&ref=globalpositioningsystem)

Whatever the scientists were up to, it wasn't natural for the cat and it wasn't even for the cat, who was merely a vehicle for experiment. To all of which I say phooey! and pfui!

But prescient poet Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) says it so much better:

The Horrid Voice of Science

"There's machinery in the butterfly;
There's a mainspring to the bee;
There's hydraulics to a daisy,
And contraptions to a tree.

"If we could see the birdie
That makes the chirping sound
With x-ray, scientific eyes,
We could see the wheels go round."

And I hope all men
Who think like this
Will soon lie
Underground.
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For hummingbirds, the tails have it

2011-09-15T20:49:00.004-04:00

It began with a blur, a moving blur over flowers in a pot on a neighbor’s deck railing. When the blur moved to a flowering bush closer to my window view, I realized it was a hummingbird. Amazing: in September, with fewer flowers out there and the weather likely to change at any time.

Next time I looked out, the bird was gone – but I was curious. The Birds of New Jersey Field Guide, by Stan Tekiela, lists only the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris), indicating it migrates to southern states, Mexico and Central America. But how could it possibly cover such distance while also seeking nectar and insects? Without food, what powers it?

And how could such a tiny thing make it to the next town over, let alone a southern state, or beyond? (“Stan’s Notes” say this bird “weighs only two to three grams” and “it takes about five average-sized hummingbirds to equal the weight of a single chickadee.”)

Coincidentally, a NYTimes story about hummingbird romance disclosed that the humming of their wings is what gives the birds their names. However, it’s the male hummingbirds’ high frequency tail feather vibrations produced during dives in front of females that may be what female birds use to choose mates.

Each of 14 species makes fairly unique and distinctive sounds, scientists reported, also mentioning that a single tail feather may vibrate (“the sound of one feather vibrating”?), or two, or all of them.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/science/13feather.html . . . photo by Chris Clark)
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Of moose, lobsters, flamingos -- & a pet festival

2011-09-11T16:23:00.011-04:00

* Tsk! behaving like a human
A newspaper photo last week showed a moose cow “entangled in an apple tree” in Sweden. She was thought to have gorged herself on fermented apples, then somehow become snagged in the fork of the tree.

Moose – who reportedly love apples and can smell fermenting fruit from a great distance -- have been known to become intoxicated on fermenting fruit and berries. Birds do too.

People in the neighborhood tried sawing off a branch, but that didn’t work. It took a crane to “bend the tree and free the tipsy moose.”

* A pet service announcement
Coalition for Animals and Seer Farms Present 2nd Annual Pet Festival
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Unionville Vineyards
9 Rocktown Road, Ringoes, NJ
11 AM - 4 PM
For more details: www.coalitionforanimals.org

* Lobsters: too much of a good thing?
Although for some people, there can’t be too many lobsters, believe it or not, too many can be bad. It’s happening right now in Maine, where intense fishing for cod, hake, haddock, halibut and swordfish in the area – together with baited lobster traps, a.k.a., a steady food supply -- has caused diversity to disappear. The result: lobsters are “hyperdense,” which could mean big trouble if anything damages the species -- as has happened before.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/science/23lobster.html?emc=eta1)

* Flamingos: no more Mr. Nice Guys
Round green eyes with deep coral-to-white feathers and spindly legs = flamingos (with no “e” in that last syllable). “The real birds are not peaceful, gentle or dainty,” the NYTimes reported last month, in an amusing and surprising story.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/science/23angier.html?emc=eta1)
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Save the date to save a cat!

2011-09-08T16:55:00.004-04:00

Mark your calendar for Saturday, September 24 between 10 am – 4 pm -- “Adoption Day” for cats and kittens, an event sponsored by Trenton TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) at Waterfront Park, 1 Thunder Road, Trenton. Look for the big blue North Shore Animal League bus in the parking lot.

Adoption Day will be part of the Chamber of Commerce’s 2nd Annual “Pet Expo” at the same location.

Trenton’s shelter and foster homes are “full to the brim” with cats and kittens who need loving forever homes. Every adoptable cat is fully vetted, and every cat adopted is a cat saved. (Cats returned to the shelter may not be safe from death.)

Fee (cash only): $50 kittens and $40 adult cats. If you adopt 2, the second cat or kitten is half price.

If you can’t adopt, please consider dropping off food and/or litter to help out. (And if you can adopt, please consider dropping off food and/or litter to help out!)

For more information or to be pre-approved to adopt before the event, contact Sandra at TrentonTNR@gmail.com.

Please tell your friends who need cats in their lives: come to Adoption Day on September 24 (rain or shine) and save a cat.
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News briefs about (natch) animals

2011-09-07T20:53:00.004-04:00

*Planet of no apes -- it could happen

Apes, our first cousins in the primate family, are much more similar to us in anatomy, genetics and behavior than they are to other animals. And yet we’re allowing them to move ever closer to extinction. Several million years ago, as many as 40 kinds of apes really did rule the planet. Through habitat destruction and hunting, humans have since imperiled the five surviving types – gibbons and orangutans in Asia; chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas in Africa. Vital in protecting them, the Great Apes Conservation Fund now needs federal re-authorization.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/opinion/sunday/fearing-a-planet-without-apes.html?scp=1&sq=)

* Keeping rhino horns where they belong

What next? First there was shark fin soup, a favorite in some Asian cultures, but one that condemns sharks to a cruel, helpless death. And now, rhinoceros horns are coveted and killed for. Ground up, they’re made into medicine believed in China and other Asian countries to have aphrodisiac qualities and cure cancer. Because they’re sought after, thieves have stolen up to 30 horns so far this year from European sites. Expanding their reach, they pay poachers in African countries to saw off horns from live rhinos, leaving them to bleed to death.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/arts/design/rhino-horns-lure-museum-thieves.html?emc=eta1)

* Re-design with ‘bycatch’ in mind

In commercial fishing, “bycatch” refers to “fish, whales, turtles, sea birds and even corals killed or injured by fishermen in search of other species.” The best known example: dolphin caught in tuna nets. Now, though, new efforts to prevent bycatch include changes in hook design, making fishing lines more visible to whales and modifying the mesh size of nets.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/science/23catch.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fscience%2Findex.jsonp
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Afternoon in heaven

2011-09-03T21:08:00.006-04:00

Late Saturday morning, a half-dozen dogs from the Ewing Animal Shelter arrived at Princeton Shopping Center. To get there, they were walked out of the shelter building, along a sidewalk lined with grass, to the cars in which Easel volunteers would drive them to the Princeton Shopping Center.

The drive gave the dogs big gulps of fresh air, sunshine and new sights, as well as the excitement of being free -- out of their cages, socializing with other animals and people. Once at the Cutter's Mill pet store, where adoption day was scheduled, each dog wore an orange vest that said "Adopt me!" They all got treats, a bowl of water and time to loll in the grass or on a blanket with a person who petted and talked with him or her.

In the grassy court area inside the ring of stores, Cutter's Mill staff had set up fenced rings with children's swimming pools inside and wooden chairs here and there. Balls and other toys were scattered around. It looked like a pool party, and the best thing about it was that it was for the dogs.

People there to shop slowed their pace to interact with the dogs, who by then were in utter heaven: freedom, positive attention, exercise, fresh air, food and water -- and little did they know: also the chance they'd be seen, liked, adopted.

But whether any adoptions resulted from the dogs' afternoon out hardly mattered. They got away from the animal shelter for a few hours and experienced the good life many dogs have -- and all dogs deserve.
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(www.EaselNJ.org)

Mayor's take on no pets in shelters

2011-09-01T16:22:00.007-04:00

As reported in the last post, Lawrence Township's message about emergency shelters said, “Pets are prohibited at all shelter locations and pet owners need to make prior arrangements for care.”

Believing that there must be better emergency management than this, I phoned the township manager asap Monday, August 29, and was referred to Mayor Greg Puliti.

In a phone talk that evening, he made the points below, ending with his intention to “raise the issue of animals” at the next Office of Emergency Management meeting (which sounded like an informal in-house affair a week or two after the event).

• Shelter rules are dictated by the event and what’s available at the time “where we can get people out of harm’s way.” As the or one shelter for Hurricane Irene, Rider University did not allow animals.

• “Our priority purpose,” Puliti said, “is to protect people.”

• He suggested there would be negative reactions by residents if the township spent $20,000 “for animals.”

• Hearing about Atlantic County’s decision 2 years ago to designate the AC race course as a regional pet-evacuation center, Puliti said he may raise this issue with the county executive.
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(http://www.centraljersey.com/articles/2011/09/02/the_lawrence_ledger/your_views/doc4e5ed05268977715736406.txt)

OK, Fido & Fluffy, you're on your own

2011-08-30T13:21:00.005-04:00

To my surprise and disappointment, an online notice from Lawrence Township before Hurricane Irene included a paragraph about shelters if they become necessary. The last sentence read, “Pets are prohibited at all shelter locations and pet owners need to make prior arrangements for care.”

In other words, people can be sheltered, but they should make other arrangements for their pets. Really! Like, leave them at home, wish them good luck and head for safety without them?

Wasn’t there one huge lesson learned from Katrina: that some people would not evacuate their homes if they couldn’t take their pets with them? How could officials – township and/or shelter managers – essentially tell people to leave their pets behind? Or, at some cost and inconvenience if possible at all, to board them somewhere during the storm?

Besides pet stores and veterinarians left and right and even pet TV as part of our lives these days, Lawrence Township has pet licenses and pet censuses and pet clinics for shots – yet residents are expected to turn their backs on their pets when a hurricane moves in?

This “policy” is unacceptable. There has to be better emergency management than this.

(The next post will report on what Lawrence’s mayor had to say on this subject during a phone conversation Monday evening, 8-29-11.)
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Hurricanes, animals & questions

2011-08-29T13:55:00.007-04:00

Before hurricane Irene blew through, I thought Harry and Billy seemed a little anxious, seeming to stay closer to us than usual. But I don’t know how indoor cats typically react to big storms – if there’s any “typical” about it.

Outside, though, for a few hours before the heavy rain started, I saw no birds or squirrels, causing me to wonder whether they were somehow, somewhere hunkered down for safety, and to hope that was so.

As for wild animals, all I could do was wonder whether they can tell when a biggie’s coming – and if, so, what they can do about it. For instance, where do deer go in a hurricane?

Evidently, some wild animals didn’t survive the storm: a radio host the morning after mentioned seeing “animal carcasses” on his drive to work. Happier news came in Sunday’s Trenton Times with a reference to Atlantic County residents “with dogs, cats and luggage” heading for shelter at Trenton’s Sun National Bank Center.

Today's paper had “Views from the state,” including a photo of a deer wading through floodwaters and another pix of National Guard members moving cats and dogs to a shelter.

Three other survivors: a creepy-crawly that quickly moved out and away from under the umbrella stand when it was repositioned, and two sizeable centipedes or millipedes – thousand-leggers! – who had taken shelter in the furled up deck umbrella. They too went on their way.
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When threatened, more valuable

2011-08-26T21:17:00.004-04:00

It’s funny. Till now, the seven-day holding period for animals taken to shelters didn’t seem like such a great thing. Often after that, if not adopted out or found by their owners, they might be euthanized. All the seven days did was assure them that time to be found or adopted.

But threaten to take away even that seven day period – and suddenly it’s worth fighting for.

During the last couple weeks, that’s what happened in New Jersey, as animal activists took steps to convince Governor Christie to conditionally veto S2939, a bill that would allow shelters to euthanize animals without a seven-day hold period because of their age, health or behavior.

Happily, the governor did conditionally veto the bill, calling for removal of the specific part having to do with changing the “impoundment laws” that are currently observed. So the seven-day hold remains as it was.

And suddenly it looks great! Thanks, Guv!
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Wounds that time can't heal

2011-08-25T17:30:00.005-04:00

It was dusk last May 13 when Mark Johnson, Princeton’s animal control officer, walked into a borough park carrying a rifle and shot two beavers. As news of the killings spread, outrage was expressed in letters to the editor and comments on newspaper coverage.

Shooting beavers is illegal in New Jersey. A spokesperson for the state’s DEP said no permit had been issued to trap the beavers, nor had there been beaver activity in the department’s Division of Fish and Wildlife.

The ACO had told a resident he encountered en route that DFW ordered the killing, according to a Princeton Packet story soon afterward.

That was all more than three months ago, yet the official reaction to date has been negligible. DEP issued one summons to the ACO on July 14, although a report about the beaver shooting incident has still not arrived. The court date is not yet known, and its location has changed twice, from local to county to Ewing Township.

Johnson reports to David A. Henry, health officer with the Princeton Regional Health Dept. On August 19, Henry said he’s still waiting for the DEP report, which “may indicate what some of the conversations were between Johnson and DFW.”

Once the court case is complete, he also expects a report from the Dept. of Health and Senior Services, where animal-related laws and the Animal Welfare office reside.

Local police investigated the shootings, but their findings are “personnel matters” that can’t be discussed, Henry said in May. At the same time, he declined to say whose rifle was used to kill the beavers or whether Johnson had his permission to shoot them.

And so the wait continues.
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3 days left to assure 7 days in shelter

2011-08-22T21:30:00.005-04:00

The bill S2923, already a done deal in the state senate and assembly, awaits Governor Christie’s signature. He must conditionally veto it before this Thursday when otherwise it will become law.

Why? because while much of the bill is well intentioned and good for shelter animals – requiring that those who leave shelters must be spayed or neutered, for instance – one part of it is very bad for them.

It would give shelters three reasons to waive the current 7-day holding period for animals that animal control officers bring there: age, health or behavior – and euthanize them right away. That’s an awful prospect.

Age means different things to different animals; short of terminal illness, health is often misleading and treatable; behavior is a very subjective area that benefits from observation time after an animal new to a shelter has relaxed a bit.

The seven-day holding period also gives animals the chance to be found by their owners or adopted.

If the bill were amended to cut the part about eliminating the seven-day hold, it would be acceptable. Therefore, the immediate need is to ask the governor to conditionally veto S2923.

There are two ways to do that: phone 609-292-6000 and leave a message, or use webmail: http://www.state.nj.us/governor/contact/ and write a comment.

For “topic,” choose “Health and Senior Services” (the department where the Office of Animal Welfare is located). A “sub topic” must also be chosen, and since there’s no option having to do with animals, choose any of them before typing the message in the comment box.

Please don’t delay: ask the governor for a conditional veto!
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http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/unless-christie-vetoes-by-wed-shelter-animals-will-lose-7-lifesaving-days-in-new-jersey/

‘Today’s word’ is . . .

2011-08-18T17:39:00.005-04:00

Vivisection: The act or practice of cutting into or otherwise injuring living animals, especially for the purpose of scientific research. (from Latin for alive and dissection)

“I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't. The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.”

--Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
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"Stop using chimps as guinea pigs"

2011-08-17T09:46:00.004-04:00

In the world of animal experimentation, what could be more welcome than the animal experimenter who changes his mind? Not only that, but is now taking action to stop further “research” like the kind he was once involved with.

In the August 10 NYTimes, columnist Roscoe G. Bartlett writes about how before he was elected to Congress, he was a physiologist at the Navy’s School of Aviation Medicine, where the devices they invented were tested on primates.

First, he says, he thought the research was worth the pain inflicted on animals. Then he became aware of “its effects on primates, as well as alternatives to it.”

Now, “I no longer believe such experiments make sense — scientifically, financially or ethically,” he says.

He mentions a number of research techniques not involving animals that are cheaper faster and more effective, also pointing out that “Ending chimpanzee research and retiring the animals to sanctuaries would save taxpayers about $30 million a year.”

Bartlett cites cases of primates who have made it clear to their handlers/scientists/captors – take your choice of terms – that they don’t like their lives and want out of experimentation. “There is no question that chimpanzees experience pain, stress and social isolation in ways strikingly similar to the way humans do,” he notes.

For these reasons, Representative Bartlett (Republican of Maryland) is co-sponsoring the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act with Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington. The bill would phase out invasive research on great apes and retire the 500 federally owned chimpanzees from laboratories to sanctuaries.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/opinion/stop-using-chimps-as-guinea-pigs.html?emc=eta1

Shelter bill must 1st be fixed

2011-08-15T17:45:00.005-04:00

A bill affecting shelter animals that now sits on the governor's desk should be conditionally vetoed. Most of S2923 is OK. It would establish a pilot program for required sterilization of stray and adopted animals and set up a voluntary registry of animal rescue organizations in the state.

The bill also revises various sections of existing law that address care, impoundment and sterilization of stray, adopted and abandoned animals.

But one of those revisions is big trouble, and that's the part that needs to be fixed before the bill becomes law. The proposed law would allow elimination of the seven-day holding period for animals brought to shelters and permit euthanasia for any of three reasons: age, health or behavior.

That change is wholly unacceptable. Shelter animals need more than seven days, not fewer, for a better chance at staying alive. This change is a particular threat to feral cats, undercutting the efforts all over NJ to make Trap-Neuter-Return the humanely death-free way to care for them.

Please click on the link below to learn about S2923, then follow the directions provided for contacting Governor Christie and urging him to conditionally veto this bill.
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http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/needing-veto-nj-bill-would-deprive-some-shelter-animals-of-7-days-to-live

Rules for carriage horses in NYC

2011-08-13T23:48:00.004-04:00

Another long hot summer, another season when their "jobs" must have taken a terrible toll on carriage horses in New York City. A Q & A column in the NYTimes last month spelled out what to do if you witness animal cruelty toward a carriage horse or any animal in NY.

Report it to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Humane Law Enforcement dept. at 212-876-7700, ext. 4450, or humanel@aspca.org. The ASPCA handles these complaints for the city's health dept., whose rules for carriage horses include . . .

1. If the air temp is 90 degrees F or the wet bulb temp ( a humidity indicator) is 85 degrees, drivers must stop working horses and make sure they're cooled off and walked to the stable.

2. In the winter months, they must be covered with blankets while awaiting passengers. (no mention of temperature)

3. Horses must be given at least 15 minutes rest for every two working hours, and cannot be driven faster than at a trot.

4. They must not be worked more than 9 hours in any continuous 24-hour period or during "adverse weather" including snow, ice, heavy rain or other slippery conditions.

5. A veterinarian's exam is required every eight months.

Probably the most laughable rule is the recent City Council requirement at least five weeks' vacation for each horse every 12 months, at a stable allowing access to a paddock or pasture.

Well, all these rules are on the books anyway. And once in a while, one or two of them may even be enforced. Meanwhile, the poor horses plod on.
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Comments on cub’s cruel death

2011-08-12T16:35:00.005-04:00

The following opinions came from comments on a story about the bear cub in Stokes State Forest who was killed last week.)

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/cleared-of-attacking-kids-aggressive-new-jersey-black-bear-cub-still-killed

Leonardo da Vinci wrote that there would come a time when the murder of animals would be considered the same way as the murder of men. That time is now.

We now know that our bears and other wildlife are our brethren and our support system for life itself. We all need to step up to help our bears, pollinators, bats, and the natural predators, deer, and wildlife being farmed for killing by state agencies.

The NJDEP and NJDFW are mostly hunters setting our beautiful black bears up for another hunt. These "officials" are fear mongers trying to get support for their killing "sport." . . . It's all about instilling fear to justify getting some nice bear rugs and head trophies!

You are on a slippery slope, DFW - and losing your reputation as you slide. . .. data show you have done NOTHING to educate, but everything to kill.

NJ Fish and Wildlife needs total overhaul, along with wildlife bureaus in every state. It is outrageous that a group of good ole boys keeps stocking these agencies with hunters, instead of getting regular people into these jobs.

This most distrusted state agency is permitted to operate by archaic New Jersey statues despite public disapproval of its operations. Why is there no investigation into the allegiance of this partially-taxpayer funded entity to hunting organizations & weapons manufacturers? .

The NJ Division of Fish & Wildlife is out of control. They killed this bear—against huge public sentiment—to instill fear and to promote trophy hunting. They do this because hunting is in decline, and without hunting they'd be out of a job.

. . . to learn how to protect New Jersey's black bears, please visit: www.SaveNJBears.com
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N0 chance for 102-pound “aggressor”

2011-08-07T16:20:00.008-04:00

The black bear cub who wandered into a north Jersey campsite on Wednesday -- and did not hurt two young boys, as first claimed -- was caught and killed on Friday. Talk about guilty even if proved innocent. This bear was doomed just by showing up.

The discrepancies in the newspaper stories on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, especially whether the boys were attacked, are far less important than the sentence of death announced in Thursday’s story – regardless of subsequent corrections.

Is it “aggressive” for a young animal to explore a new area, hurt no one and go away? Does that sound like what DEP’s Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) calls a “Category One Bear,” the most dangerous kind?

Despite their shy and non-aggressive nature, New Jersey’s black bears can’t seem to win once they’re spotted doing anything by DFW and some law enforcement reps, who shoot (with bullets, not tranquilizers) first and make excuses later.

Similarly, DFW seems to take fatal action first, then make up a rationale. In Sunday’s story, after this cub was killed, “officials” said young bears on their own for the first time can be “cantankerous” – now apparently a crime punishable by death.

DFW is the organization that gave us last December’s heinous bear hunt. Now they seem determined to demonstrate the need for another mass murder of black bears this year. All those curious 102-pound bear cubs (possibly orphaned last December) to contend with: scary!
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Damned if they do -- or don't

2011-08-06T16:54:00.004-04:00

Early last Wednesday -- some eight months after New Jersey’s notorious December 2010 bear hunt -- a young black bear wandered into a campsite in Sussex County’s Stokes State Forest.

Estimated at 150 pounds, the yearling reportedly reached into a tent, grabbed a boy’s foot and tried to pull him out. He then went to a second tent and took a swipe at a second boy before “scampering” away.

The 12- and 11-year olds suffered “superficial wounds,” according to a DEP spokesperson quoted in the Times of Trenton story. When the bear returned, “tearing through the camp,” group leaders followed guidelines including calling for help. In response, a “conservation officer” (you read it right, “conservation”) shot the bear in the neck, wounding it.

The bear ran into the woods, pursued by DEP’s bear response team with their snares and traps – and intentions of shooting the bear, described as aggressive and “a Category One Bear.”

Next day the same newspaper reported errors in the first day’s account: The bear had not injured the boys (their scratches and abrasions were not fresh); furthermore, the two boys had not claimed they were struck by the bear (a case of adult, and/or DEP, overreaction?).

But there was consistency in one part of the story: despite any corrections, including the fact that the bear did not attack humans, wildlife officials still plan to shoot him or her.

Among the many other distasteful things they are, these people are cruelly trigger-happy when it comes to bears. New Jersey (led by the Fish and Wildlife Division of the Dept. of Environmental Protection) offers black bears neither mercy nor justice.
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'What’s in a name?'

2011-08-04T20:22:00.006-04:00

Living with animals and observing them over a long, long time, people have come up with words to describe them. Sometimes those words are complimentary, sometimes not. Probably most of the human-coined words for animals are over-generalized, and at least some are inaccurate.

“Bovine” is one example of animal-related words used metaphorically. Its definition is “of or relating to cattle, especially a cow. Dull; sluggish; stupid.” If one person describes another person’s behavior as “bovine,” that’s an insult, going by the dictionary definition of the word.

But we know that “bovine” is not a fair summary of cows, who are in fact capable of strong feelings, for instance.

Other examples of “animetaphores” include “hircine,” or relating to a goat – having a strong odor; lustful, lewd. “Anserine” relates to a goose: stupid; silly. “Pavonine” relates to a peacock: vain and showy, while “porcine” relates to swine – piggish, greedy, sloppy, boorish.

Just looking at the words, then the (alleged) characteristic behaviors that go with them, we can easily see the inaccuracies. First, the animals get a bad rap, and then humans are described with words that link them to inaccurate descriptions of animals.

Wouldn’t it be fun if animals could turn the tables and describe various human types with just one word for each? What would they come up with for (1) a man with a giant beer belly; (2) a vampy femme fatale; (3) a pompous, disdainful man or woman; (4) an artiste; (5) a professional athlete?
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Ride ’em, sheepboy!

2011-08-02T16:59:00.004-04:00

Sick, sick, sick: Little kids riding sheep . . . seeing who can stay on the longest . . . winning medals . . . being lauded for getting back on if they’re jounced off . . .

“Mutton busting” is called a “sport” and often used as a steppingstone to competitive rodeo events.

The July 26 NYTimes carried this sports section story, “Little Lambs, Not the Sheep, Get Early Lessons in the Rodeo Life.” When you think humans have already concocted all the fiendish things possible to do to innocent animals, along comes something new.

Mentioning that make believe rodeo with sheep is an old farm pastime now being mainstreamed, Sarah Maslin Nir details how it works for kids 3-6 years old. Although they wear helmets with face cages and protective vests, they’re still subject to bloody noses and faces full of dirt.

The sheep involved – involuntarily, needless to say – can sustain sprained limbs.

Now on its way to becoming “a codified sport with its own gear and championships,” mutton busting “builds character,” one mother (also a nurse) believes. She mentions that her son is small for his size and says successfully riding sheep “did so much for his little ego.”

Well, that’s just great. What else do sheep exist for but that? (Years ago an acquaintance whose family had moved West wrote back that shooting his first wild animal had helped her son overcome his shyness and gain confidence.)

The story quoted one person who said mutton busting “borders on child abuse.” No one commented on its inherent animal abuse.

Sick, sick, sick.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/sports/mutton-busting-comes-out-of-corral-into-the-main-arena.html?emc=eta1

Heat advisory for pets (& their parents)

2011-07-31T11:54:00.004-04:00

The following heat advisory comes from Animal Protection League of NJ. It's a good idea to read and re-read it, save it, print it, post it and carry a copy in your car. And most of all, to follow it!

Are your cat's or dog's gums suddenly bright red? Is the animal lethargic? Is she panting excessively, even when the temperature is cooler? These could be signs of heat stroke, a potentially fatal condition, and you should bring your cat or dog to the veterinarian immediately.

Even before bringing your animal to the veterinarian, your immediate goal is to cool the animal down. Place the animal in tub of cool water (not cold), wrap her in cool, wet towels, ice-packs, or simply use the hose to bring down body temperature. Take your animal immediately to the veterinarian in an air-conditioned car.

Never leave companion animals outside or in enclosures on hot days, and provide cold, fresh water at all times. Dogs, cats, rabbits, and all other animals are all susceptible to heat stroke.

Never leave your dog or cat unattended in a parked car. If you see a dog or cat in a parked car, enter the closest store and ask that the owner of the car be paged. If the animal is obviously under duress, immediately call the local police because it's against the law to leave an animal in a car in extreme heat.

In a relatively mild 85-degree day, it takes only 10 minutes for the interior of a car to reach 102 degrees-and within 30 minutes, the inside of the car can be a staggering 120 degrees. New Jersey is under an extreme heat wave, where the temperature is reaching 100 and above and cars can get much hotter and quicker.

Leaving car windows open a few inches does not help. Dogs cool down mostly by panting and the car can become an inferno with the addition of hot panting breath. In only a short amount of time a dog with a high body temperature can suffer critical damage to his nervous system, heart, liver and brain, resulting in death.

For more information about Animal Protection League of New Jersey and our programs, please visit www.aplnj.org.

A choice of actions

2011-07-29T17:22:00.003-04:00

Neither is “wrong,” and both would help, but the issue of animal experimentation can cause animal advocates to argue either (1) make it less painful and treat the animals involved better, or (2) stop it altogether as the immoral and often unnecessary thing it is.

Should we stress improving conditions for animals in laboratories or hold out and work for a total halt to animal experiments?

These questions were suggested by the last two issues of All Animals, the magazine of the Humane Society of the US. The May/June issue carried an article titled “Behind Closed Doors,” which talked only about lessening lab animals’ fear and suffering.

Then, in the July/August issue, two letters to the editor pointed out that the article had omitted entirely any reference to the alternative: non-animal research.

These letters prompted a response from the organization’s animal research dept., whose representative claimed to agree with the letters’ overriding goal of eliminating animal research. She advocated working toward both goals – end use of animals “in the long term” and eliminate their suffering now – and directed readers to www.humanesociety.org/animalresearch.

The unknown: whether animal research could be stopped even sooner if those who work only to ameliorate suffering concentrated instead on the bigger goal.
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Easel: volunteers fighting homelessness

2011-07-28T11:03:00.006-04:00

Mark Phillips, executive director of Easel Animal Rescue League, shelters two feral kittens and two older feral cats in his office.

He hopes the kittens – now in a big multi-level big wire cage -- can be socialized; he doubts that can happen with the older cats, who may not have been caught in time to learn to trust people. They’re “at large” but typically invisible in the two rooms he can close off from the rest of his business.

Regarding cat adoptions – now underway everywhere because this is the height of the “kitten season” – Phillips says, “It’s the cat, it’s not the group [behind the adoption].” His purpose is “to get animals adopted” from the huge adoption pool; he’s not about having to take credit.

Most of Easel’s adoptions result from internet contacts. There’s Petfinder.com and Adoptapet.com, Phillips says. And every couple months, he prints out color posters showing 10 cats and 10 dogs in the Ewing shelter that are displayed at markets and other sites.

If people who respond arrive too late for specific animals, there are many others to choose from.

As all-volunteer Easel continues working toward its own shelter, the focus is on the Ewing site. Only kittens are fostered.

Organization members also take animals for adoption to PetSmart and PETCO (whose foundation Phillips lauds), as well as Rosedale Mills and Cutter’s Mill (whose generous manager he also praises).

Even if animals aren’t adopted at these stores, “It’s a good day for those dogs,” he says: “They get out of the shelter.”

(See February 23 post about Easel – www.EaselNJ.org)
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SAVE's future will allow more saves

2011-07-26T16:08:00.009-04:00

Wondering what’s been happening at SAVE, a friend to homeless animals, in Princeton? A visit and talk earlier this week with Piper H. Burrows, SAVE’s executive director, provided the information update that follows.

Burrows indicates that while the organization has “a very big presence” on FaceBook and Twitter, it’s hard to maintain these social media outlets when most energy is expended on the animals, first, and fundraising through a variety of means, second.

Petfinder.com, which sends queries directly to SAVE’s website, continues to be a major source of contacts, and Burrows also mentioned www.LocalSplash.com. A feature every other week in Princeton’s Town Topics showcases a dog with his/her image and a blurb.

A recent story in the Princeton Packet focused on SAVE’s volunteer program, and last Sunday’s Times of Trenton ran a story about animal adoption from shelters, with images from SAVE.

One of Burrows’s main concentrations: SAVE’s “New Beginnings” capital campaign. The goal is $3 million, which will make a new, state of the art shelter a reality. Current conditions at the organization’s Herrontown Road site cry out for a new facility.

With about $1.5 million “in hand,” Burrows anticipates a ground-breaking date this fall.

(See 6/29/10 post about SAVE -- www.savehomelessanimals.org.)
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Save the date . . . save a cat!

2011-07-25T17:37:00.004-04:00

(Blogger's note on 7-27-11: The event described below has had to be postponed and will be rescheduled asap. Please watch this blog for news of the new date.)

Mark your calendar for Saturday, August 6 between 10am-3pm: “Adoption Day” for cats and kittens, an event sponsored by Trenton TNR at the Trenton Farmers Market (960 Spruce Street, Lawrence Township; 609-695-2998).

Look for the big blue North Shore Animal League bus in the parking lot.

The shelter and foster homes are “full to the brim” with cats and kittens who need loving forever homes. Every adoptable cat is fully vetted, and every cat adopted is a cat saved.

Fee (cash only): $50 kittens and $40 adult cats. If you adopt 2, the second cat or kitten is half price.

If you can’t adopt, please consider dropping off food and/or litter to help out. (And if you can adopt, please consider dropping off food and/or litter to help out!)

For more information or to be pre-approved to adopt before the event, contact Sandra at TrentonTNR@gmail.com.

Please tell your friends who need cats in their lives: come to Adoption Day on August 6 and save a cat.
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Invaluable ants

2011-07-19T21:52:00.003-04:00

Ants, one of the smallest of all the animals, come highly recommended by E. O. Wilson, a biologist who studied them.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1929, he said in answer to potential critics of his famous specialty,

For a skeptical audience who says, '. . . how could studying ants be very important?' Well, let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the biomass of all insects in the world. They are the principal predators. They're the cemetery workers. Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them. In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems. Take away humans, and everything would come back and flourish. But I don't want to go down that down that road for a broad audience.

(According to the Writer’s Almanac, the source of info here, Wilson’s books include The Theory of Island Biogeography (1967), Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), In Search of Nature (1996), and most recently, The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct (2010).)
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Keeping pets and families together

2011-07-17T17:20:00.006-04:00

People can make arrangements for their pets after their own deaths (See post for April 13, '11), but what happens to pets while their people are dying? This is a time when pets might be forgotten, or worse.

A Times of Trenton community news story on July 9 described a “Pet Peace of Mind” program now offered through Trenton’s Greenwood House. The volunteer program provides pet care services for clients who are unable to care for their pets while in hospice.

These services include financial assistance for food and routine vet care, transporting pets to vet appointments, pet boarding and walking, and more.

Susan Whitman, coordinator of volunteers at the Renee Denmark Punia Community Hospice of Greenwood House, credits a grant for helping provide such services. The Banfield Charitable Trust (BCT) is behind the good deeds for pets, as part of its goal -- to promote the human-animal bond, keeping pets and families together.

(http://www.banfieldcharitabletrust.org)

One Banfield program is “Pet Peace of Mind,” which “enables hospice patients to keep their pets at home with them throughout their end-of-life journey, with the comfort and companionship of their pet, without worrying about their pet’s current or future needs.”

The Greenwood House hospice is the only one in New Jersey to offer this program. Ms. Whitman says so far, a hospice patient’s dog was groomed through it. She anticipates helping in many other ways, and possibly taking the program to the community, where more people may need help.

Isn’t it great that this program is all about keeping pets in place while taking care of their needs?

(For more info about Pet Peace of Mind at the Greenwood House hospice, phone 609-883-6026 or visit www.greenwoodhouse.org.)
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(Note to Linda, whose comment follows: Yes, please do, and thanks!)

Times editorial gets it right

2011-07-14T13:26:00.004-04:00

Today's Times of Trenton includes an editorial that's wonderfully right-on: "Garbage control key to bear control." With it, the Times has started a potentially useful dialogue on the subject of bear hunts way before the projected December '11 hunt -- and maybe in good time to help head it off.

Last year's hunt drew protesters in droves, and for excellent reasons that only began with the fact that New Jersey's black bears are not harmful to humans. Try to convince the DEP division agitating for an annual hunt of that.

The editorial writer says, "There are more humane and responsible ways to regulate the state's bear population than annual hunts. . . " before detailing many of those ways.

We hope this editorial is the first in a series, coupled with responsible letters to the editor and op-ed pieces that amplify the case against bear hunts in this state.
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Love is love

2011-07-12T21:48:00.008-04:00

(The poem below is reprinted from today's Writer's Almanac(newsletter@AmericanPublicMedia.org)

Love Poem

by Paul Zimmer

In southern France live two old horses,
High in the foothills, not even French,
But English, retired steeplechasers
Brought across to accept an old age
Of ambling together in the Pyrenees.
At times they whinny and kick
At one another with impatience,
But they have grown to love each other.

In time the gelding grows ill
And is taken away for treatment.
The mare pines, pokes at her food,
Dallies on her rides until the other
Comes home.
She is in her stall
When the trailer rumbles
Through the gate into the field,
And she sings with impatience
Until her door is opened.
Then full
Of sound and speed, in need of
Each other, they entwine their necks,
Rub muzzles, bumping flanks
To embrace in their own way.
Together they prance to
The choicest pasture,
Standing together and apart,
To be glad until
They can no longer be glad.

Animal news briefs

2011-07-11T10:07:00.003-04:00

1.
The United Nations announced last month that a second disease has been vanquished world-wide. The first was smallpox, declared eradicated in 1980. Rinderpest is the second disease to be wiped off the face of the earth. The added good news about it: rinderpest is an “epizootic” – an animal disease.

The NYTimes reported on the “long but little known campaign to conquer rinderpest,” citing the “skill and bravery of ‘big animal’ veterinarians, who fought it in remote and sometimes war-torn areas.”

The paper explained that “Any society dependent on cattle – or relatives like African zebu, Asian water buffaloes or Himalayan yaks [all cloven-hoofed animals] – was vulnerable” because “when herds die, their owners starve.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/health/28rinderpest.html?pagewanted=3&emc=eta1

2.
In 1990, when the northern spotted owl was listed as a threatened species, it became “the cause celebre of the environmental movement” – a symbol of the battle over whether to save or saw down Pacific Northwest forests.

Since then, threats to the owl have increased in number to include climate change and the growing presence of the barred owl, reportedly a “bigger, more adaptable bird” and one that sometimes kills spotted owl males and mates with the females.

The federal government’s final plan to prevent the spotted owl from going extinct was released last month, but whether it’s enough or in time remains to be seen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/us/01owls.html?emc=eta1

3.
Feral hogs, wild pigs, whatever you may call them – their population’s growing in the American Southeast and Southwest – any state where “it’s warm and wet,” according to a news story last week. Not native to this continent, the animals reportedly damage ecosystems and threaten other animal species meant to be protected in wildlife refuges.

The solution being proposed: lift current restrictions to make it easier to hunt the feral hogs. In Texas, land of the great excesses, Gov. Rick Perry “has signed legislation that . . . will allow any licensed hunter to shoot feral hogs from helicopters.” Real Texas (and Alaska)-style sportsmanship.

Another news story dealt with invasive fish and how learning to eat them may be the best way to deal with the problems they create.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/science/earth/10fish.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23
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Grizzly love -- and defensive attack

2011-07-09T20:26:00.005-04:00

Grizzlies. The word comes with scary associations of grizzly bears on the attack, charging humans.

But there’s also a softer side to the word: mother grizzly bears protecting their young against perceived threats. That’s what seems to have happened in Yellowstone National Park last Wednesday, when a hiker-couple were charged by a mother grizzly defending her two cubs.

The bear was only “doin’ what comes naturally,” as the song goes. Unhappily for the hikers, the husband of the pair was killed, while the wife, who played dead, lived.

They don’t seem to have bothered the bears; they just walked into a meadow and saw them. They then went in a different direction, but the mother charged them.

Related stories mentioned “bear spray,” which deters bear attacks, and the advisability of playing dead, not running away. Even harder to imagine: the advice to stand up to a charging grizzly because some charges are bluffs. Some are.

The only good news to come out of this incident: the mother grizzly wasn’t punished for doing what she would naturally do. She and her cubs went on with their lives.
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http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/mother-grizzly-bear-in-yellowstone-killed-in-defense

"For the animals’ for sure

2011-07-07T07:15:00.004-04:00

“Mark your calendar and get ready for some amazing cow kisses, pig nuzzles, chicken snuggles, goat rubs, and kitty cuddles.”

Who could resist that invitation?

It’s the opening greeting in the newsletter from “for the animals sanctuary” in Blairstown, NJ, a place I hope to visit this summer. You might feel the same way.

The sanctuary was started by Debbie Kowalski, whose name and image appeared earlier in this blog when she was the fiery co-leader of CAAF (Caring Activists Against Fur), along with Julie O’Connor, also mentioned earlier here. Debbie was the woman behind the megaphone as marches and demonstrations got underway in NYC. She was always there, ready to lead parades of protesters, who often brandished posters Debbie had also supplied. Her commitment was undoubted and she always seemed fearless.

Now, her ultra compassionate-sounding sanctuary is a beacon for those who truly “love animals” (not those who “love animals” because they're pets and/or pretty and/or needy – then eat and wear and experiment on other animals).

Here’s a link to the website, where you can sign up to receive the newsletter. Please consider donating to and/or visiting the sanctuary. (July 10 – this coming Sunday – and July 17 are visiting days this month.) Maybe we’ll meet there sometime soon -- in line for a cow kiss or a pig nuzzle.
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http://fortheanimalssanctuary.org

Gorillas . . . trailed by scientists

2011-07-05T16:57:00.004-04:00

Sunday night’s Nature program on PBS, about the mountain gorillas in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, raised bigger questions than it answered.

These are “silverbacks,” named for the distinctive band of (you guessed it) silver that marks mature gorillas. These are also the gorillas with whom scientist Dian Fossey was long associated.

The program followed one gorilla, Titus, 33 years old and still, amazingly, the ruler of a large band of females and other males. He had been orphaned at 4 and for little other reason that was given than that he was good looking, he assumed leadership. However, Kuryama, another, younger male, threatens Titus’s dominance, eventually taking over.

At one point, Titus leads his followers to the top of a volcano and into its crater; this part was surprising and interesting. Far down the green hillside was a crater lake, although the gorillas stay near the top until Kuryama leads most of the band back down. End of Titus’s rule.

Most of the questions raised had to do with why scientists have for years trailed these gorillas around making notes on the most minute details of their lives. There was no answer given – just lots of footage of young and older-now scientists taking notes and speaking in whispers to the camera.

What good did their observations – or “intrusions” -- do for the gorillas? It’s anybody’s guess. But no doubt there’s a scientist connected with this project who can tell us when and how many times each one thumped his chest with his fists.
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It's fitting: fine writing about a fine day

2011-07-02T15:47:00.005-04:00

Published in the July 2 NYTimes, Verlyn Klinkenborg’s latest editorial comment on the Rural Life is about “One Fine Day.” For him, it occurred late last month – one of those wondrous June days.

Till I saw there were steps to go through for permission to reprint, I had briefly thought of cutting and pasting the whole thing right here. Now, I’ll limit myself to a couple excerpts with a link to the piece, and a few specifics about it.

Let’s start there, with the specifics. Klinkenborg’s editorial is a mere 349 words, counting headline and byline. It’s only five paragraphs long. And it’s great.

His farm has for years been a place that prompts his musing about life – his and that of the animals there – and that musing usually becomes lyrical songs to nature and life. “One Fine Day” is such a song.

In it, Klinkenborg alludes to bees, woodchucks, kit foxes, spiders, ants and earwigs. Six kinds of creatures, besides himself, in five paragraphs. And he says just enough about each one for an image to readily come to mind.

“Any object I move, I discover a colony of creatures behind or under or inside it. This is a farm of overlapping settlements and empires, . . .”

And “I take refuge in the chaos of life here. It is what we have — 'we' meaning the kinship of all species.”

“One Fine Day,” with the world’s creatures in harmony, and at least one of them recognizing the day and the creatures’ connections for what they are.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/opinion/02sat4.html?emc=eta1

Turtles with a mission

2011-06-30T11:58:00.005-04:00

In some seashore towns right now, the signs are up: Turtle crossing. Watch for turtles. Give turtles right of way.

By now, a turtle silhouette usually suffices – that and the visible remains of turtles run over by drivers while they made their slow way across the road.

These diamondback terrapins, who live in coastal salt marshes, were heading for sandy places to lay their eggs. The journey grows harder each year, as their habitat disappears to development and vehicular traffic increases.

Click on the link below to read about turtles who tied up air traffic yesterday at a New York City airport – and were helped on their way.
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http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/turtles-causing-flight-delays-at-jfk-airport

Saved from the zoo -- sort of

2011-06-27T21:18:00.006-04:00

Q. For an animal, what could be worse than being in a zoo?

A. Being in a zoo likely to be flooded by a rising river threatening the whole town.

As the Souris River (a.k.a. “the Mouse”) rose to historic levels and threatened Minot, North Dakota, people moved the zoo animals -- every one of them – to higher ground, area farms or other zoos. The Roosevelt Park Zoo had been flooded in 1969, but this time there was enough advance warning to make better plans for its animal inhabitants.

Most of the 100-plus animals were evacuated to an old furniture warehouse “high above the valley floor,” according to NYTimes.com. Inside, the warehouse is divided in dozens of pens – chain link, wire mesh or metal-walled -- suitable for the refugees, who may be there for months to come.

Giraffes reportedly had to be persuaded to enter a trailer that accommodated them for the trip to “the north zoo,” and other animals fought being transported. One staffer remarked on “the terror in their eyes.”

Once resettled, the camels turned mischievous, moving light switches with their tongues and trying to escape. A lamb was named “Noah,” after the first know rescuer of animals. Occasionally allowed to roam free around the warehouse, he quickly learned to avoid the caged bobcats’ unfriendly swipes.

And so the zoo animals are riding out the flood safely if not happily.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/us/25flood.html?emc=eta1

'Hurt Hawks'

2011-06-26T12:41:00.006-04:00

Hurt Hawks

by Robinson Jeffers

I

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,

No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.

He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it.

He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and torment him
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,

The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.

You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him.

II

I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk;
but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.

We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implacable arrogance.

I gave him the lead gift in the twilight.
What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.
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Mock meat: bring it on!

2011-06-24T17:39:00.005-04:00

Mock meat, faux meat, lab meat, cultured meat . . . The May 23, 2011 New Yorker includes an article about a possibility that would make environmentalists, animal welfare advocates and yes, animals, very happy.

Scientists around the world are working to develop “meat” that would have the benefits of animal meat without its many downsides -- consumption of freshwater resources and farm land, as well as greenhouse gas emissions.

The worst downside of animal meat is its production: animals “born solely to be killed”; factory farms where animals live short, confined, horrid lives; the slaughterhouse.

Willem van Eelen, the man credited for the initial idea, has worked toward the goal of laboratory-made meat for most of his life. He’s now 88.

Not till stem cells were discovered in 1981 could his idea start to catch on. In
1999, van Eelen received US and international patents for the Industrial Production of Meat Using Cell Culture Methods.

“For the most part,” says “Test-Tube Burgers” author Michael Specter, “the meat we eat consists of muscle tissue taken from farm animals . . . In-vitro meat, however, can be made . . . ” with this goal: “to grow muscle without the use of animals, and to produce enough of it to be sold in grocery stores.”

Today “the world consumes 285 million tons of meat every year – 90 pounds per person,” Specter reports.

Considering the world’s ever-growing population, which means still more meat eaters, the option of attractive, edible “cultured meat” may seem far more attractive to people than their becoming vegans.

But whichever option “wins” – and of course they could co-exist -- it will mean a great new world for animals. Chickens, cows, calves, pigs and sheep, rejoice!
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http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_specter

‘Animals in War’ – another example

2011-06-23T21:28:00.003-04:00

(The following poem appeared as yesterday’s “Poem-A-Day,” from the Academy of American Poets. [PoetNews@poets.org])

Mosul

by David Hernandez

The donkey. The donkey pulling the cart.
The caravan of dust. The cart made of plywood,
of crossbeam and junkyard tires. The donkey
made of donkey. The long face. The long ears.
The curled lashes. The obsidian eyes blinking
in the dust. The cart rolling, cracking the knuckles
of pebbles. The dust. The blanket over the cart.
The hidden mortar shells. The veins of wires.
The remote device. The red light. The donkey
trotting. The blue sky. The rolling cart. The dust
smudging the blue sky. The silent bell of the sun.
The Humvee. The soldiers. The dust-colored
uniforms. The boy from Montgomery, the boy
from Little Falls. The donkey cart approaching.
The dust. The laughter on their lips. The dust
on their lips. The moment before the moment.
The shockwave. The dust. The dust. The dust.

(from Hoodwinked, published by Sarabande Books, Inc.)
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Along the bike trail

2011-06-21T16:21:00.005-04:00

It never fails: at whatever time of day I take a bike ride, I see animals along the way. They may be dogs being walked (or walking their owners, as sooo many people like to say); they may be other commonplace - but - interesting creatures.

Yesterday I rode around 2 in the afternoon, a time when I expected most animals to be napping through the afternoon heat and humidity. I knew I was wrong when soon after entering the park and starting along the blacktop path, I surprised a groundhog, right in the middle of it (and near bushes s/he could bolt into). Which is just what happened, but not till I was closer to this "critter" than I've ever been to one.

Groundhogs don't lope, they ripple along, w/ parts of their bodies undulating at different times. They look much like Harry, our orange cat, making his escape from a room when a stranger threatens to appear: he gets close to the floor and undulates quickly away.

Next along my ride I encountered two rabbits, one smaller and younger than the other. They too moved quickly into nearby bushes. Then came one black(ish) "Princeton" squirrel, who didn't move away but kept busily at whatever s/he was doing.

Finally, overhead, I saw a familiar bird soaring over the field. I want to think it was a hawk, but its flight didn't look purposeful (as I suppose hawks' would); it looked instead as if the bird was enjoying the air and the afternoon. (Was it cooler up there than on my bike?)

Maybe it was a vulture. I've been told they soar too and they're common around here. Somehow, though, it looked too streamlined for my idea of a vulture in flight; that, as well as too leisurely to be eyeing the ground for road kill.
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Yes, in our backyard

2011-06-19T20:21:00.006-04:00

The very expression, “lab animals,” is repugnant. As is “food animals,” seen just yesterday in a newspaper. And of course there’s also “service animals.” And “domestic animals,” a sad contrast to “wild animals.”

One expression not used is “free animals” – thanks to human assumptions that all animals are ours to capture, tame, train, eat, experiment on. . . .

Which brings me back to “lab animals” and the local scene. Princeton University can claim all it wants that its animal “research” is good for the world (of humans). Maybe the school’s animal experiments have helped some people. So what? They were done on the backs of innocent animals.

Merely reading through the 15 pages of USDA inspections reports (2008-2011) for the university’s animal research program should be enough to make an anti-vivisectionist of anyone. References to “NHP” for non-human (of course!) primate; to water-provision schedules, to pain killers administered “as needed” and to how many surgeries an NHP may have . . . all suggest images of mad scientists with their clipboards and schedules, playing with the lives of other sentient beings.

What gives them this right?
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The story at this link includes the website for obtaining USDA inspection reports as well as the site for Stop Animal Exploitation Now (SAEN).

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/sides-of-vivisection-issue-princeton-university-and-animal-research-watchdog-group

"Gray," a family cat, outside

2011-06-18T10:11:00.008-04:00

Just found this poem at "The Writer's Almanac" [newsletter@americanpublicmedia.org] and had to share it.)

Gray

by Philip F. Deaver

This was our pretty gray kitten,
hence her name; who was born
in our garage and stayed nearby
her whole life. There were allergies;
so she was, as they say,
an outside cat.
But she loved us. For years,
she was at our window.
Sometimes, a paw on the screen
as if to want in, as if
to be with us
the best she could.
She would be on the deck,
at the sliding door.
She would be on the small
sill of the window in the bathroom.
She would be at the kitchen
window above the sink.
We'd go to the living room;
anticipating that she'd be there, too,
hop up, look in.
She'd be on the roof,
she'd be in a nearby tree.
She'd be listening
through the wall to our family life.
She knew where we were,
and she knew where we were going
and would meet us there.
Little spark of consciousness,
calm kitty eyes staring
through the window.

After the family broke,
and when the house was about to sell,
I walked around it for a last look.
Under the eaves, on the ground,
there was a path worn in the dirt,
tight against the foundation -
small padded feet, year after year,
window to window.

When we moved, we left her
to be fed by the people next door.
Months after we were gone,
they found her in the bushes
and buried her by the fence.
So many years after,
I can't get her out of my mind.

"Gray" by Philip F. Deaver, from How Men Pray. © Anhinga Press, 2005.

Wish we could ask Princeton's lab animals

2011-06-16T13:03:00.007-04:00

Since the June 11 newspaper story about Princeton U's violations of rules for lab animal care -- not for the first time -- opinions, arguments and "facts" have been flying. First, it was the university's spokesperson, named in the Trenton Times story; then it was Michael Budkie, who heads the Stop Animal Exploitation Now (SAEN) watchdog organization, also mentioned there.

Next came Peter Singer, Princeton professor of bioethics. Reached while traveling in Europe, he weighed in with his opinion based on the Trenton Times story. (Singer's comments are projected to appear in Friday's Princeton Packet, as a sidebar to a story about the university's violations.)

Information is still coming in, with some sources diametrically opposed to others. The story at the link below is just the opening installment. There's much more to be said on this subject. . . !

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/princeton-university-again-cited-for-violations-in-lab-animal-care
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Princeton U's lab animal violations (cont.)

2011-06-14T09:47:00.006-04:00

For at least the 2nd year in a row, Princeton University has been cited for violations in caring for laboratory animals. The Times of Trenton reported on Saturday that once again a USDA inspection revealed that some primates were not provided with water for over 24 hours and there were “inconsistencies in the use of animals from what was described in the IACUC protocol.”

IACUC stands for Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee – a group legally required to exist where research occurs. According to a university spokesperson last year after violations were publicized, this committee consists of 3 members, a veterinarian, a member from the Princeton-area community and “a practicing scientist experienced in animal research.”

The same spokesperson reportedly indicated last year that the university was “strengthening" this committee. However, this year’s repeat of some violations prompts questions about how much stronger the committee is now – assuming members exercise any kind of oversight.

Of course the far bigger question is, Why animal research (Princeton’s term) or experimentation (the word others use) at all in 2011? One quick answer seems to be “money.” Animal research for the government and for companies wanting to test products on animals pay institutions and/or their researchers.

Decades ago, Peter Singer, ethicist and Princeton faculty member, wrote about the field of animal research – its horrific cruelty and its inapplicability to humans. How could it possibly have become more humane or germane since then?
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Being war horses -- against horses' nature

2011-06-11T13:30:00.005-04:00

The last post dealt with one person’s views on War Horse. The “Lincoln Center Theater Review,” about the play, the book and the time in which they're set, includes a piece by professional horse trainer Monty Roberts. He writes about the nature of horses (as part of his answer to the question “Why do we love horses?”).

The following passages are quoted from Roberts’s article.

* Horses are flight animals. They do not stalk, kill, or devour the flesh of any other animal in order to exist. They are herbivores. They graze on large areas where they can see for great distances in every direction. They do not possess anatomical tools designed for violence toward other species. They live in a virtually nonviolent environment, wish to exist in a tranquil state, and mean no harm to others. Horses have but two goals in life: to survive and to reproduce.

(After humans saw horses as the means of moving their belongings, and then their bodies, from one location to another, the war horse was born.)

* While most soldiers loved their horses, they typically prioritized the lives of other humans and their own well-being ahead of the horses that brought there and assisted them in their war. Through all of that, remember that it was never the horses’ war. These wonderful animals would never know the meaning of war or understand the intent of any human to inflict harm on another.

* Horses want no part of war or any of the pain, the sound, or the smell of it. They are truly animals with a deep disdain for violence. And yet they came along with us and I believe they constantly wondered what in the world we were thinking about, but they did their job without question.

* The saddest chapter in any war was when the horses were left in trenches when the soldiers were shipped home. The horses did not get a hero’s reception back in the old hometown.

Fight against future war horses

2011-06-10T08:13:00.010-04:00

The much-acclaimed play, War Horse, is a contender for Tony awards this weekend. As probably everyone knows by now, the show – based on Michael Morpurgo's book of the same name – is about a horse involuntarily involved in World War I, the so-called Great War and “War to End All Wars.”

A woman who has read the book and seen the show recently commented on both. Here are her main points:

* buy and read the book, which is short, deeper and gives a more
nuanced and more poignant story of horses in the first World War
. . . and costs only $7, instead of buying tickets that cost $125
at the Vivian Beaumont theater in NYC.

* the book is so beautifully written and poignant that I think it
emphasizes the theme of humans' need to lay down our arms
and be peaceful more than the play does.

She found the show “impressive, particularly the beautiful puppets
for Joey, the hero horse and his supporting-star Topthorn, and as usual the special effects of the war are powerful.”

And she cites “a wonderful touch of irony in the presence of a goose at the very end (humans,is my interpretation) and the haunting voice of a balladeer singing, ‘only remember for what we have done’ as the stage lights go out.”
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Buying time in beaver case?

2011-06-08T09:50:00.004-04:00

The Princeton beaver shooting case is on hold, with no action taken for or against the ACO who shot the two beavers on May 13.

The link below leads to a summary story telling where things stand right now on this issue. Overall, it still sounds like a situation of “Let’s buy time so maybe those who protested will move on to something else.”

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/princeton-beaver-shooting-case-on-hold

Meanwhile, yesterday’s Packet reported the same animal control officer caught a rabid raccoon near a school. The story gave him some quotable quote opportunities, and he sounded like "Mr. Careful and Compassionate."

Nay, not so.
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Save ALL the greyhounds

2011-06-07T08:24:00.004-04:00

“Adopt a greyhound,” the billboard invited. Meaning, save a greyhound who used to race and now needs a home.

A recent newspaper story reported “Greyhound racing in steep decline” -- but it can’t end fast enough. Animal welfare activists have for years claimed “the dogs are kept muzzled in small cages, fed inferior food, injected with steroids and frequently injured at the track,” the story said.

The good news is that “Ten years ago, there were 50 greyhound tracks in 15 states. Today there are just 25 tracks in seven states, with 13 of them in Florida, once considered the hub of dog racing.” There are fewer than 300 greyhound farms today, a number considerably lower than the 750 estimated to have operated in the 1980s.

According to the story, greyhounds live an average of 12 years and run between 42-45 mph – they’re the world’s fastest dogs. They usually race when they’re between 1½-5 years old.

It’s easy to imagine why racing is dangerous for the dogs, who are subject to myriad injuries and cardiac arrest. Of course, those on the side of greyhound racing claim the dogs are well taken care of and – ready for this? – “love to run.”

Ha! Shades of the Lipizzaner horses, described some time ago by a promoter as loving to do the idiotic things they’re forced to do, or the service animals, who love being shackled to a human and co-living that person’s life instead of their own. And on and on.

Save a greyhound – and pray for that steep decline to quickly grow more steep.
www.Ngap.org.
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Antibiotics are not the worst of it

2011-06-04T07:45:00.007-04:00

Factory farming is bad enough all by itself. Animals lead short, brutal lives in hideously overcrowded and filthy conditions. It's all about the money. People want meat, preferably cheap. Farmers make more money the more animals they can rush to slaughter.

One of the ways they can do this is to routinely feed antibiotics to factory farmed animals, in an attempt to keep them "healthy" till slaughter. For many, many years, this practice has been criticized because of its eventual effect on humans (no not the animals -- of course).

Reproduced below, a New York Times editorial published on June 2 discusses this problem. Instead of ending the feeding of antibiotics to factory-farmed animals, the temptation is to say, "Stop factory farming!" But the far better thing to say is, "Stop eating meat!"

THE HIGH COST OF CHEAP MEAT

The point of factory farming is cheap meat, made possible by confining large numbers of animals in small spaces. Perhaps the greatest hidden cost is its potential effect on human health.

Small doses of antibiotics — too small to kill bacteria — are fed to factory farm animals as part of their regular diet to promote growth and offset the risks of overcrowding. What factory farms are really raising is antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which means that several classes of antibiotics no longer work the way they should in humans. We pay for cheap meat by sacrificing some of the most important drugs ever developed.

Last week, the Natural Resources Defense Council, joined by other advocacy groups, sued the Food and Drug Administration to compel it to end the nontherapeutic use of penicillin and tetracycline in farm animals. Veterinarians would still be able to treat sick animals with these drugs but could not routinely add the drugs to their diets.

For years, the F.D.A. has had the scientific studies and the authority to ban these drugs. But it has always bowed to pressure from the pharmaceutical and farm lobbies, despite the well-founded objections of groups like the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization, which support an antibiotic ban.

It is time for the F.D.A. to stop corporate factory farms from squandering valuable drugs just to promote growth among animals confined in conditions that inherently create the risk of disease. According to recent estimates, 70 percent of the antibiotics sold in this country end up in farm animals. The F.D.A. can change that by honoring its own scientific conclusions and its statutory obligation to end its approval of unsafe drug uses.

Grant funds TNR for Trenton's street cats

2011-05-31T15:54:00.007-04:00

The headline included a startling number: “14,000 stray cats.” That’s how many feral, stray, wild and street cats – none of those terms defined, BTW, though they’re seemingly used interchangeably – live in Trenton.

These are the cats without homes, regular meals or veterinary care who still somehow survive in the city.

Now, according to today’s Trenton Times story, an organization trying to control cat colonies and cut down on cat euthanasia as a solution is working with the Trenton Animal Shelter to trap, neuter and release cats.

Thanks to a grant of $10,000 from PetSmart, Trenton Trap, Neuter, Release can offer reduced prices for neutering cats -- $15 for a street cat and $35 for a pet cat. Once neutered, cats are returned to where they had been. Over time, their colonies get smaller as reproduction stops.

The organization is headed by Sandra Obi, a Trenton resident who started TNR on her own block when she moved to town six years ago. She’s also affiliated with Project TNR of the Animal Protection League of NJ (www.APLNJ.org).

The sequence goes like this: Once a week, with some of its 70 volunteers, Trenton TNR rounds up “feral stray and street cats for health screenings and immunizations. The cats are also spayed or neutered.”

Once the cats are returned to their original areas, residents serve as their caregivers. They check for new cats and have newcomers vaccinated and fixed.

“It costs animal control between $100 and $120 per animal to capture and euthanize a cat,” Obi said. So not only is TNR a humane way to deal with this problem that humans have caused, but it’s also cheaper.
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Back atcha, Smita, & ACO shooter status

2011-05-29T09:14:00.006-04:00

First, thanks to Smita Joshi, of India, who sent a comment on the last blog post, "With friends like this, who needs. . . " Can we hear from you again, Smita? Where are you and what are you doing for animals in India? How did you find AnimalBeat? Tell us about you and your life with animals, please!

Second, the situation of the Princeton animal control officer who shot two beavers on May 13 continues to be unresolved. The Princeton Packet stories printed since then have attracted numerous reader comments, mostly all negative toward the animal control officer. More recently they’ve also grown more critical of the town officials who seem strangely reluctant to take a stand.

The Friday, May 27 story on the issue was comparatively small and ostensibly about another animal issue in town: a fox that reportedly bit a dog. That incident has raised questions about whether the fox is rabid . . . and who should deal with the problem.

The answer: Mark Johnson, the trigger-happy ACO.

Officials indicated he’s been “cleared” to deal with the fox situation. They also said they’ll put together a list of guidelines for correct behavior in various situations involving animals – a “bible” Johnson can refer to.

HUH? Does this mean that till now, after nearly 20 years on the job, Johnson has not known what to do (which the beaver shooting would suggest, although that act seemed more like an ‘I can do what I want’ act than one resulting from ignorance).

And is that the only reaction his superiors will have to Johnson’s behavior?

Hoping there’s more news, and some backbone, in this Tuesday’s Packet.
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With friends like this ACO, who needs . . .?

2011-05-25T13:45:00.009-04:00

"Beaver shootings by Princeton animal control officer prompt outrage and alleged cover-ups," read the headline in NewJerseyNewsroom.com today. The story:

The shooter in the May 13 killing in Princeton of two beavers is known. He reportedly told a resident he was going to get rid of them. Then he did – after dark, in a town park, with a .22 rifle.

Mark Johnson, the shooter, is the animal control officer in Princeton borough and Princeton township, which share the health dept. services that include animal control.

Robert Bruschi, Princeton borough administrator, told the Princeton Packet (May 20) Johnson viewed [the beavers] as “a nuisance.” . . .

To read the rest of this story, click below. Then please write a comment after the latest Packet story about the killing of these 2 beavers. If the public doesn't let Princeton officials know how they feel about this ACO's latest bad deed, things will never change.

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/beaver-shootings-by-princeton-animal-control-officer-prompts-outrage-and-alleged-cover-ups

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Not whodunit, but who will act on it?

2011-05-23T21:19:00.008-04:00

On May 13, the animal control officer in Princeton (borough and township) shot and killed two beavers in a park there. He had told a resident on her way with her dog to see the beavers to leave the park, saying he was going to get rid of them.

A week later, on May 20, both the Times of Trenton and the Princeton Packet carried stories about his shooting the beavers with a rifle.

Borough and township officials were quoted, saying not much of anything except "investigations will happen," and the ACO was reported to be "on vacation" till this week.

The overtures I made today to Mark Johnson, the ACO, to his health dept. supervisor, David Henry, and Robert Bruschi, borough administrator, went unanswered: no reply to my e-note to Johnson requesting an interview; no return phone calls from Henry, Bruschi or Chad Goerner, township mayor.

I'd like to think they were all huddled together, figuring out what to do next, given the newspaper stories and the revealing comments -- about the ACO's history on the job and his being protected from the start -- that Packet readers took the trouble to write.

In my dreams.

We'll see what happens, and what's printed, tomorrow, then I'll post results here next time.
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'Unsung animal heroes' would choose life

2011-05-21T15:46:00.002-04:00

There’s nothing fair or humane about it, but (non-human) animal involvement in human wars is practically a forever thing. The London memorial to Animals in War details and illustrates some of that, but only some.

Behind that monument was a book, Animals in War, by Jilly Cooper (c. 1983, 2000, 2002 [Lyons Press]), a Brit, who went on to help make the monument a reality.

A strange book, it’s not very well-written and its content is of course very painful to get through – even though Cooper reports a few stories that she, at least, finds humorous. (Somehow, the word “hilarious” seems wholly out of place in a book about how animals were widely conscripted and made to serve in the so-called Great War and World War 2, among others.)

The book includes chapters about horses, dogs, camels, mules, elephants, donkeys, mascots and domestic animals. Talk about “cannon fodder.” Cooper’s facts include how hundreds of thousands of animals died – in warfare, in related experiments, in mistakes and in fiendish decisions that were made. As usual, the animals had no say; their service was involuntary.

But, for the person unsure of the extent of animal deaths in war, or wondering about specific animals or specific campaigns, this book is the ticket. I’m glad to have finished with “. . . a book which will touch the heart of any animal lover,” according to one blurb.

To which I reply: A true "animal lover" would not let this happen to animals.
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Patrick got lucky; most animals don't

2011-05-19T23:05:00.004-04:00

(Here’s the beginning of a column about animals who “have no choice,” prompted by the recent media attention over the dog who took part in the bin Laden raid. It also refers to Patrick, the pit bull who was so badly abused a couple months ago in Newark, NJ.)

Navy SEAL dog, hero dog, canine commando . . . whatever the name, it's a “service dog” -- meaning service to and for humans; meaning that humans' agendas are served; meaning, basically, involuntary servitude by a non-human animal.

From all the excitement over the dog who took part in the bin Laden raid, you would think puppies aspire to join the Navy SEALs (or to become seeing-eye dogs, or take on any of the other “jobs” humans so kindly dream up for them and other animals). When national security and patriotism are also involved, it becomes even easier to go along with using dogs as if they’re inanimate, disposable tools without lives of their own.

The same newspaper story about the SEAL dog also mentioned Labrador Retrievers as a breed increasingly used in war. They’re trained to walk ahead of humans to sniff out explosives. The story didn’t mention what happens to them when they find explosives. Another dog recognized posthumously?

What a dubious distinction for a dog -- risking life and limb doing un-doggy things so humans can wage war more effectively – that is, kill and conquer other humans.

To continue reading, go to:
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/science-updates/patrick-the-abused-pit-bull-from-newark-got-lucky-most-animals-dont
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Solidarity against horse-drawn carriages

2011-05-18T21:31:00.006-04:00

Continuing the thread from the last post, about NY State Senator Tony Avella’s bill to prohibit horse-drawn cabs in NYC, the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages announces news of a related event. On Saturday, June 4 – also Horses Without Carriages International Day -- Coalition members and other advocates will hold a press conference.

Scheduled for noon, the event will take place on the north/east side of Central Park South and Fifth Ave. Senator Avella will formally announce the bill, joined by Representative Linda Rosenthal, its sponsor in the State Assembly.

The event is intended to be a time for solidarity, according to the Coalition notice, which encourages everyone against horse-drawn carriages to attend. Legislators need to see there’s strong support for the bill, and they need to hear the same message from their constituents.

Amending the NYC Administrative Code, S5013 is essentially the same as the historic bill that then-Council Member Avella had introduced into the City Council in 2007.

Besides hoping all those committed to this issue will attend the press conference, the Coalition’s also looking for an experienced, reliable person who will donate time to videotape the entire event. If interested, contact Elizabeth at coalition@banhdc.org for details.

June 4 also marks one of two times annually for Coalition members to stand in solidarity for the horses with activists in other countries. Founded in 2008, Horses Without Carriages International is “a global coalition” made up of activists “whose common goal is to expose the injustice, cruelty, and inhumanity in the horse-drawn carriage tourism trade.”
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