Save ALL the greyhounds

“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

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.

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Grant funds TNR for Trenton's street cats

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

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 . . .?

"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?

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

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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