A n i m
a l W r i t e s © sm
The
official ANIMAL RIGHTS ONLINE newsletter
Publisher ~ EnglandGal@aol.com
Issue #
03/21/01
Editor ~ JJswans@aol.com
Journalists ~ Park StRanger@aol.com
~
MicheleARivera@aol.com
THE EIGHT ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE ARE:
1 ~ A [Belated] Holiday Fish Story
2 ~ Vibrating Collar For Deaf Dogs
3 ~ The Cat Meat Trade In China
4 ~ Encourage People To Think
5 ~ Housebreaking Tip
6 ~ Vegan Easter Baskets Available
7 ~ The Legacy
8 ~ Quote To Remember
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A [Belated] Holiday Fish Story
by Beth Geisler - Dec. 01, 2000 - Animals' Agenda
In
the movie You've Got Mail, Meg Ryan rallies to protect her small, endangered
family bookshop from Tom Hanks and his menacing chain of discount bookstores.
At an upscale holiday party, the popular protagonists shoot barbs at one
another over the buffet -- all the while competing for a mere spoonful or two
of caviar that garnishes a side dish. In this scene, far more than the bookshop
is endangered. The garnish, it turns out, requires protection as well.
Just this September, the World Conservation Union included several species of
caviar-producing sturgeon -- including the European (beluga), Russian, and
stellate sturgeons -- on the Red List of Threatened Species, the most
comprehensive analysis of global conservation to date. This is grim
foreshadowing for the amazing fish, who can grow to weigh more than 1,000
pounds and live well over 100 years. Hundreds of millions of years old, the
species predated and has outlived the dinosaurs. With
enthusiasm for caviar -- the sturgeon's unfertilized roe, or eggs -- at an
all-time high, the fish today could be decimated by the demands of the
fashionable human tastebud.
This holiday season, a time when demand for caviar peaks, will the Red List
make any difference in consumers' choices? The risk to the species may be
dismissed amid excitement that the United States has lifted its trade embargo
on Iranian caviar, which has not been available since 1987. Like the Russian variety, highly prized
Iranian caviar comes from the Caspian Sea, a region that produces more than 90
percent of the world's caviar. The decline in the sturgeon population in the Caspian
Sea has
been notable since the 1970s, and the number of adult sturgeons is estimated to
have declined more than 70 percent between 1978 and 1995. Between 1995 and 1997, catch figures dropped
an additional 36 percent.
Today, many varieties of Russian or Iranian caviar can cost more than $100 per
ounce, a rate connoisseurs seem ready and willing to pay. And with their
dollars they will support fishing and poaching practices that earn an
"R" rating for violence. To obtain the roe, fishermen beat the
sturgeon
on the back of the head, tear open her belly, and remove the sack of eggs. There is no efficient, inexpensive way to
remove the eggs without killing the fish. Traditional fishing operations sell
the sturgeon meat for human consumption, mostly in Europe; poachers simply
discard the fish flesh after taking the roe.
One female can produce hundreds of pounds of roe. One record-size beluga
sturgeon who weighed 2,200 pounds produced nearly 400 pounds of caviar.
Sturgeons who produce the most commercially desirable caviars -- beluga,
osetra, and sevruga -- have become threatened with extinction primarily because
of the growing illegal trade. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, poaching
for these varieties in the Caspian Sea has become commonplace. In the frenzy to
cash in on the caviar craze, poachers have hooked, netted, and killed many male
sturgeons as well as females not yet of reproductive age, leaving the carcasses
to rot. Because of their late sexual maturity, which can occur as late as 25
years for beluga females, indiscriminate killing is a serious threat to the
species.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), international law
enforcement agencies report that the illegal wildlife trade is second only to
the illegal drug trade in volume and profit. The agency estimates that the
total trade in caviar is around $125 million, more than half of which is
illegal.
According to the New York Times, caviar experts estimate that this year's legal
yield will be around 160 tons from all producing countries.
Following an investigation initiated by the USFWS, a Maryland caviar importer
agreed earlier this year to pay a $10.4 million fine for smuggling illegal
caviar into the country and passing off domestic roe as Russian caviar. The
fine is the biggest ever in a federal wildlife case. But even with efforts by
the U.S. government and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES) to protect the sturgeon, including checks by wildlife
inspectors for valid CITES permits and even DNA analysis to
confirm the species of origin of a given shipment, buyers still stand to be
bamboozled by bogus beluga. And more importantly, whether or not their contents
are poached or smuggled, caviar tins will never qualify for the cruelty-free
label.
Overfishing and poaching of sturgeon will stop only when consumer demand for
caviar stops. This holiday season, when selecting a delectable treat or a gift
for someone who has everything, pass up the caviar. In this fish story, the
only happy ending for the sturgeon is, well, no ending.
Beth Geisler, a writer and activist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a
regular contributor to vegan.com.
“Reprinted with permission from The Animals’ Agenda, P.O. Box 25881,
Baltimore, MD 21224; (410) 675-4566; www.animalsagenda.org.”
Email: office@animalsagenda.org
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Vibrating Collar For Deaf
Dogs
by Miranda Spindel - spindel@holly.ColoState.EDU
"Emma
is a four-year-old Australian Shepherd who is deaf and partially blind as the
result of a birth defect. I adopted her from the humane society at which I
worked when she was six-months-old. She went through regular obedience training
and learned basic commands using touch signals (Sit is a touch on her butt, Down
a touch on the back, Stay a touch between the shoulder blades). The only
command I couldn't teach her was Come.
So my father, an electrical engineer, and I designed a collar based on
the principle of the shock collar, though instead of a shock our collar gave
her a signal through a gentle vibration because Emma has always known positive,
loving training, and I didn't want this to be different. I taught Emma that
this vibration meant she should come to me. And it worked. It was also a way to
tell her to come to me to work with her off the lead. It was a great
breakthrough for us. Since putting the directions on the web, many owners of
deaf dogs have written to tell me the collar has helped them as well. Emma is
an inspiration to me. She is a joyful, loving dog and lives a very normal
life despite her disabilities. We hike, run, play in the park, and live life to
the fullest. I would be very happy if her story helps deaf dogs to become well
trained and better companions."
Her father Bob, an electrical engineer, wrote:
"The basic idea is to use the guts of a radio remote controlled toy car as
a means to turn on and off a vibrator fixed to the dog's collar. The car has
everything you need - hand held radio transmitter/actuator, small radio
receiver with antenna, and a small motor that forms the basis of the
vibrator. Buy the simplest and
cheapest. Ideally the battery, receiver electronics and on-off switch should be
next to each other in a plastic assembly which can be extracted. Basically, I
broke the car apart until this was all that was left. You want these
components to occupy as little space as possible because they will be hanging
on your dog's collar. I also extracted the motor, and glued a small piece of
metal to the side of its shaft. The idea is to fix something to the shaft that
will cause the motor to be out of balance so that when it runs it will
vibrate. Anything will work, even a pebble. Heavier things will cause
greater vibrations. I put the motor in a plastic 35mm film canister (you can
get them free at any photo store) and stuffed some paper in to hold it in
place. The battery/receiver/on-off switch assembly, and the vibrator, are
sewn onto a collar. It's probably best to sew the antenna in too, and not have
it stick up where it might get in the
dog's way. If the remote controlled car you started with only runs when
activated, then you're finished. In mine the motor ran all the time, only
changing direction. Thus, it vibrated all the time, whether the actuator was
pressed or not. To stop this I put a diode in series with one of the leads to
the motor. Try the diode in each lead to the motor, and in each direction in
each lead, until you hit upon the right lead and direction to do what you want.
If this seems complicated, find a car that is normally stopped and
only runs when activated (either backwards or forwards, it doesn't
matter). That's it. I'm happy to try to
answer any questions, or to clarify the above."
http://www.thedogman.net
[Editor's note: Since dogs can't do
two things at once, (ie respond to the come command and bark at the fence) this
device could be great for hearing dogs as well. When someone is
contemplating a bark collar, which can even be set off by other dogs barking,
and is very confusing to the dog, possibly even causing neurotic behaviors --
this vibrating collar can be used to silently get the dog's attention,
triggering a come response, at which time the dog can be praised for doing the
right thing
instead of punished for doing the wrong thing.]
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The Cat Meat Trade in China
by Ian Gallagher
Find
this story at:
http://www.femail.co.uk/pages/standard/article.html?in_article_id=29575&in_page_id=2
2001 Associated New Media
The honey-coloured cat gasped for air, its face squashed against the wire mesh
of the cage. After several minutes it managed to jerk its head away, only to
sink back and be lost among the tightly packed mass of fur formed by bodies of
other cats piled on top of one another.
This pitiful spectacle is repeated time and time again at a market in southern
China where hundreds of cats - just like our own domestic pets - languish
before being killed and eaten.
In China, cats are reared for one reason: to be devoured at restaurants by
customers who pride themselves on their exotic tastes.
In some cases, the wretched creatures spend up to two months squeezed 25 at a
time inside cages which measure just 2ft by 3ft. Many die before they reach
their final destination.
Such cruelty - inconceivable in the West - is becoming increasingly commonplace
in China. To many people here, keeping cats as cherished pets is an act of
folly.
We saw the appalling scenes at Guangzhou - the capital of the southeastern
province of Guangdong and one of China's most affluent cities. At the Xin Yuan
market just outside the city, the traders are unmoved by the animals' obvious
distress and do the minimum necessary to keep them alive.
Their only concern is that the cats might die while in their hands, because
that will cost them money. The Mail on Sunday found hundreds of cats on
display, all crammed inside cages stacked, in some cases, 12ft high.
One trader, Yanwu Peng, eagerly proffered his business card stating:
'Supplier of cats to fine restaurants and hotels.'
He sat on a plastic chair, his feet resting on one of the cages containing
around 30 cats. If in the past they had tried to struggle, they were now
submissive. There was an occasional, barely perceptible, flicker of movement -
the only indication that any of them were still alive.
Beside Mr Peng lay a green gauze bag through which three more cats could be
seen. They had been set aside, he explained, for one of his regular customers,
a restaurant owner. If he is fortunate, Mr Peng will sell the caged cats within
a few days, although he boasts that he can keep them alive for 'a month, maybe
two' if necessary.
He sells the cats to restaurant owners for about £1 per pound, less if they are
bought in bulk. They are fed once a day on a mixture of rice and animal feed.
Yesterday, the prospect of food didn't - as might be expected - prompt an
excited response.
Because of their weakened state Mr Peng had to push the cats towards the bowls
and in doing so he discovered that one was dead. He picked it up by its tail,
wrapped it in a carrier bag and discarded it at the back of his stall.
One of the few Westerners who have visited the market is Jill Robinson,
director of the charity Animals Asia Foundation. She said: 'It is a sea of
cruelty. The smell lingered on my clothes afterwards and the sights I witnessed
stayed in my mind for days. I was in a state of shock.
'The cats were piled on top of each other in a horrifying way. They were
defecating and urinating on each other. It was so miserable. I have never seen
so many animals in one place at once.'
The cats come from the countryside and are raised by villagers as a cheap and
easy way of making extra money. They keep them indoors with long pieces of
nylon string tied around their necks.
Because eating kittens is considered bad luck, they wait until the cats are
more than 12 months old before selling them either directly to the markets or
to 'middlemen' such as Yei Kung who owns the Wildlife Farm Shop just outside
the town of Nanhai near Guangzhou.
Mr Kung, who buys a ton of cat meat a week, tours the villages in a van and
collects the animals in wooden crates before piling them into a huge cage in
his shed.
He said: 'My farm shop acts as a halfway house. They stay here for just a few
days before I sell them to the markets.' His biggest problem is getting the
cats to the markets alive - around 10 per cent are lost along the way.
'It is essential that the cats are moved from the farm as soon as possible,' he
said. 'They are never in my shop for more than a few days. As soon as they
begin their journey they lose weight and many die. To make money I must keep
them alive.'
Even after the cats are bought at market - usually taken away in mesh nets and
plastic bags - they are often forced to endure several days' more agony at the
Da Long Shu Cat Restaurant. The cats are stored in a cupboard, jokingly
referred to by the staff as the 'waiting room'. Sometimes they remain
there for days.
Every evening they are moved to cages outside the restaurant and customers are
invited to select the one that takes their fancy. The chef then kills the cat
of their choice by cutting its throat.
One restaurant owner in Guangzhou said: 'Cat meat is very often the least
expensive dish. Our customers want something special so that's why dishes like
cats' eyes and testicles are the most expensive. Basically we eat all of the
cat. Another popular dish is stir-fried cats' paws with garlic.'
Animals Asia Foundation believe renewed interest in eating cat is linked to the
upturn in the economic fortunes of Guangdong, the most prosperous province in
China.
'People have more money in their pockets now, so for many these so-called
delicacies have become affordable,' said Robinson. 'Eating cat is probably more
popular in the southeast than anywhere else but increasingly we are finding
that it is on the menu all over China.'
Thanks to her charity, the authorities are being pressed to introduce animal
welfare legislation to combat the trade. 'A few years ago,' she said, 'animal welfare
was a term that no one had heard of here. But gradually people are becoming
more receptive.
'It will be a slow process but we hope that things will change in the
future. People have got to learn that
cats are companionable animals and have a far greater role in society than
being simply food.'
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Encourage People to Think
from Artemisd123@hotmail.com
How do we get average folks to think about the
lifestyle choices they make? VegPledge is a neat campaign from EarthSave
International that helps people think about the link between human health, a
healthy planet, and kindness towards all living beings.
Anyone with the tiniest bit of curiosity can go to: http://www.VegPledge.com
and fill out the pledge. In turn they will receive the "Healthy
Beginnings" Care Package. They "Pledge" to either
transition
toward a plant-based diet, go lacto-ovo vegetarian, or go vegan, over the next
60 day period
Materials make it very easy to make the transition to healthier eating habits
with contact info for local groups who are working toward the same goals, and
can answer questions and provide advice.
It's fun and thoughtful. Check it out! Again, it's at:
http://www.VegPledge.com
For more info, contact EarthSave International in Santa Cruz, California;
Toll Free: 1-800-362-3648, or information@earthsave.org
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Housebreaking Tip
The
best piece of advice I have ever given any puppy owner is to get a newspaper,
roll it up very tight, secure it with a rubber band and leave it on the coffee
table.
Then when the puppy piddles in the house, chews up a slipper, or does anything
it is not supposed to do: Simply take the newspaper and bang it on the top of
your head very hard while repeating
"I should have been
watching my puppy"
"I should have been watching my puppy"
"I should have been watching my puppy"
~~
Unknown Obedience Trainer
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Vegan Easter Baskets Available
from Jilli Jones - jillipeta@yahoo.com
The Easter Bunny is coming to town, bringing
tantalizing Easter Baskets to vegan children across the world.
VeganGiftBaskets.com (VGB) unveils their latest holiday offering: Vegan
Easter Baskets. Filled with Gummi bears, candy bars, donuts, cookies, and
chocolate eggs imported from Belgium, these baskets ship complete with green
"grass" and brightly colored plastic eggs.
All products are cholesterol free and contain no dairy, gelatin, honey, or
refined sugar. "Kids will love them because they taste great, and
parents will love them because they are a healthier alternative to traditional
Easter Baskets," says Erin Pavlina, President of VGB.
A 60 day money back guarantee accompanies every purchase, and a percentage of
every sale is donated to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA). Easter Baskets can be shipped worldwide.
Regular Easter Baskets are priced at $39.95 and Deluxe Easter Baskets are
$59.95. They are available online now at http://www.VeganGiftBaskets.com
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The Legacy
by Kristen Sharer
from Vicki Sharer - Vicki.Sharer@wku.edu
I am the face of hunger.
My every rib protrudes.
My eyes are hollow and sunken.
I know not when I will eat again.
I am the face of homelessness.
The summer sun is relentless.
Winter’s bitter wind leaves me numb.
I ache for a soft place to rest.
I am the face of the elderly.
Every day it is harder for me to care for myself.
My senses are dull now.
I long for a loved one to care for me.
I am the face of infancy.
My days are spent eating and sleeping.
I am totally helpless.
My devoted mother does the best she can for me.
I am the face of the sick.
Disease weakens me daily.
I feel myself grow weaker.
I may not make it thru the night.
I am the face of the frightened.
The world is an unfriendly place.
Trust can't be given easily
But no one wants to be scared all the time.
I am the face of the lonely.
My days are long and empty.
Nights are longer still.
My soul aches for companionship.
I am the face of hunger,
The homeless, the elderly, the infant,
The sick, the frightened, the lonely.
I am called stray, feral, nuisance, cur, mongrel, eyesore,
Filthy, dangerous, vicious.
I am just one of the tens of millions.
I am the legacy of man.
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Quote To Remember
"All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life.
See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you
do?
~ Buddha
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Susan Roghair - EnglandGal@aol.com
Animal Rights Online
P O Box 7053
Tampa, Fl 33673-7053
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1395/
-=Animal Rights Online=-
&
Advisory Board Member, Animal Rights Network Inc.,
not-for-profit publisher of The Animals' Agenda Magazine
http://www.animalsagenda.org/
The Animals' Agenda Magazine: WebEdition
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