Animal activists can be too active

 

Animal activists can be too active

 

In the interest of keeping APLNJ people – and all others! -- alive and well, this cautionary tale comes your way.

Earlier this month, a woman affiliated with APL heard that a deer and a car were by the side of the road in front of her home.  Being the huge-hearted person she is, she ran outside, to learn that the young woman parked there had seen a car in front of her hit the deer and keep moving.  So she had pulled over and, joined by a man who also stopped, moved the injured deer from the center of the road to a grassy area nearby.

Our good samaritan – we’ll call her “J” -- joined the other two people to try calming the deer, who got to his feet long enough to walk up a little hill – then lay down again. Though he was “amazingly calm,” “J” said, he was bleeding from his nose and mouth and had apparently hurt his leg.  One of his antlers had come off.  She kept petting his back and face, thinking he was “so sweet” and seemed to know the three people were there to help him.

One of the others had phoned the police.  “J” asked if the hurt deer could be moved behind her house to heal, but the officer rejected that idea, saying he would have to shoot him. He did so even before “J” got back inside.  As she cleaned up, she discovered quantities of blood on herself and her clothes.

Later, she wondered whether she had done the right thing and if not, what she should have done. What’s the protocol, she asked.

And an area animal control officer answered:  If a deer has been injured and can’t get up, it must be “humanely destroyed.”  (If an injured deer runs off, that’s that.)  “Adult deer are very dangerous,” the ACO said.  This one was probably in shock; otherwise, “J” could have been hurt – “sliced up” was the expression.  Think sharp hooves.  A deer’s foot has two elongated toes capped by a hard, horny toe nail, or hoof.

If a deer lets a human approach or pet him, that’s a dangerous sign.  Because deer are prey animals, they see humans and other animals as predators. They’ll choose flight every time, fighting when necessary to escape capture, confinement or cage – all highly stressful for them.  Deer have been known to kill themselves battering against enclosures to get free.  

Humans trying to “help” injured adult deer make a huge mistake.  As for removing the injured deer to “J”’s back yard, only licensed animal re-habbers can legally re-hab a wild animal.

Bottom line, as “J” said afterward: “Think with your head, not your heart!”   

(Readers, if you know of other situations when animal activists would be better off backing off, please comment here!)

As a spokesperson for a New Jersey pro-hunting and trapping organization recently found out, you don’t want to spread misinformation about animal issues and wind up on the wrong side of Animal Protection League of NJ reps. Two of them recently dealt with Edward J. Markowski’s fabrications about leg-hold traps, raccoons and rabies, effectively giving him and his supporters the old one-two. 

First, responding to his November article in the Press of Atlantic City, Susan Russell, APLNJ’s director of wildlife policy, authoritatively disproved his claims.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/commentary/new-leghold-traps-help-control-raccoons-carrying-rabies-by-edward/article_eb9e18d5-3c9f-525b-aafb-539964c16c75.html

After that, those commenting favorably on his position were treated to a stinging rebuttal by Janine Motta, APLNJ’s programs director. (Use the following link to reach Russell’s guest column-correction and Motta’s comment.)

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/commentary/trapping-lobbyist-misleading-about-raccoons-rabies-and-leghold-traps-says/article_86660b30-f5d5-5d7f-b333-4b2d952f785a.html

Since then, State Senator Raymond Lesniak has joined Assemblyman Daniel Benson in co-sponsoring a more comprehensive bill (S2750/A4407) against all such traps. See APLNJ’s website for details on the bill, its reasons and how to support it.   

--Pat Summers

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1-29-17

 

Circuses down, pangolins up

 

Circuses down, pangolins up

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will go out of business this May. That’s not soon enough, but it’s still great news for all the animals involuntarily involved with the mis-named “greatest show on earth.” 

So “send out the clowns,” as one news story had it. Ring down the curtain on the cruel and inhumane spectacle that should have ended millennia ago in the Roman Colosseum.  

“Entertainment”?  It is to laugh. What’s entertaining about deciding that animals are ours to tamper with and torture into performing for us? . . .  about tearing baby elephants away from their mothers at a criminally early age, then sadistically “breaking” them in spirit so they’ll  perform? . . . about compelling mature elephants to walk in circles holding each other’s tails, wear headdresses and balance on stools or balls?

Coupled with traveling in boxcars often chained in place, enduring severe weather conditions and being made to march through city streets heralding the circus, that’s how it goes for a performing elephant. Does any of it sound like everyday life in the forest, jungle or savanna? 

And that’s just the elephants. Don’t forget the big cats and other animals forced into wretched lives and unnatural behaviors, for our amusement.

With the end of  Ringling Bros. -- no longer able to make enough money, literally, on the backs of innocent, abused animals -- what will become of all those performing animals? Will they finally find sanctuary: a chance to live more naturally and at peace? 

Ringling was only the biggest and worst circus to ruthlessly exploit animals. There are still others out there, along with animal shows and rides. Activists have much more work to do.

Did someone say “pangolins”?  Oh, right – I did.  My last post mentioned a worldwide ban on trade of endangered pangolins, and I included an image of a pangolin that made it look scaly, huge and prehistoric.  Not to worry: “scaly” is the only accurate word of those three. Covered with scales made of keratin (think human hair and finger nails), the largest pangolins are comparable in size to a medium-size dog – say, a hound. 

Among the eight pangolin species (four each in Asia and Africa), weights can range from about four to 70-some pounds. That’s it. These “scaly anteaters” are mainly nocturnal and insectivorous, with large curved claws and long sticky tongues that help them consume ants and termites. When threatened, pangolins roll up in a ball resembling an artichoke.

That defensive position may deter a lion, but not a human hunter or poacher – the reasons behind the animals’ endangered status. Demand for pangolin meat and scales (used in medicine) caused the killing of more than one million wild pangolins in the last decade, making them the world’s most illegally trafficked mammal.

Which is where the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) came in last fall, moving pangolins to its most-protected category. Now, widespread enforcement can make all the difference.  https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/science/endangered-pangolins-trade-ban.html

(Next post:  APLNJ administers “the old one-two”! )

 

--Pat Summers

 

Looking back . . . but mostly ahead

 

Looking back . . . but mostly ahead

 

Is it [hunting] really a sport if you have all the equipment

and your opponent doesn't know a game is going on? --Bill Maher

 

Every new year begins with a transition period when we look back as well as forward, wondering how it will all fall out. What was memorable about 2016, and what will mark 2017?

Last year turned out to include numerous highlights for world animals.  Among other positives, Ringling Brothers retired their performing elephants and the US tightened sales of ivory. Sea World pledged to stop breeding captive orcas. A worldwide ban on trade of endangered pangolins took effect.

With China’s plan to shut down its commercial ivory trade by year’s end, 2017 began with hopeful signs for animal welfare – in this case, elephants, who are staring extinction in the face. We’ll watch and hope.

But as the saying goes, “Think globally, act locally.”  Which brings us to the Animal Protection League of New Jersey, where animal advocacy never stops.  Caring and working for animals has  been described as a non-partisan activity.  So, despite politics and “for the animals,” let’s go!   

APL campaigns from last year continue this year. One example: the fight to force steel-jaw leg-hold traps back into the illegal status they earned in 1984.  Recent attempts by trappers and their cronies to circumvent the statute outlawing these sadistic traps succeeded last October with an appellate court’s decision in their favor.

Not sitting still for that opinion, APL has appealed.  An op-ed column in the Star-Ledger (1-1-17) tells the story behind the court’s decision.  Susan Russell, its author, is wildlife policy director for APL; she was Friends of Animals’ VP for wildlife and chief lobbyist behind the law outlawing leg-hold traps.

 

Her incisive column opens this way:  “In a sharply criticized opinion, an appellate panel in New Brunswick allowed the state Fish and Game Council to continue its pretense that a modified steel-jaw leg-hold trap is not a steel-jaw leg-hold trap.” 

 

Don’t stop there! Please read on – then act!  (http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/01/animal_rights_court_ignored_the_law_in_ruling_on_c.html)

  

“Defending New Jersey’s black bears since 1992,” APL efforts continue on behalf of our bears, going into the final year -- and, it’s hoped, the final hunt(s) -- of Gov. Christie’s tenure.  Things can only get better for bears.  Same with the Canada geese in Edgewater Borough, where gassing has been the mode du jour for managing wildlife “problems,” despite APL suggestions for non-lethal means like habitat modification and its offer to buy out the town’s gassing contract.  

  

Reform doesn’t come easily.  “So much of what we’re doing must be under the radar, so the opposition doesn’t thwart efforts,” says Executive Director Angi Metler.  “It’s frustrating because our members need to know.”  Demonstrations or protests aren’t commonly used methods because they can so easily become counter-productive -- without huge numbers of people representing a cross section of the population, without a plan, without follow-up.  

Instead, Metler says, “We attended over 150 meetings last year,” reflecting the organization’s preference for campaigns with educational components. These can also include talks with public officials and presenting alternatives; billboards; brochures; mailings; advertising.  “We don’t do dictates,” Metler says:  “We offer solutions.  If you set up a blueprint in one town that others can use . . . ,” that’s the way to go.

For instance, much of APL’s success in convincing New Jersey towns and counties to ban animal circuses and shows resulted from return visits and patient chipping away at the issue. Bergen County freeholders praised APL reps Julie O’Connor and Laurie Perla for how they won them over to the side of the animals.  

While other 2017 action targets also exist, Metler’s aware that “our work is dynamic and it can’t be 100% planned.”  One thing is certain:  a lot will be happening.

--Pat Summers

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1-12-17