Of bears & dogs, conserving wildlife & heroes for animals

                                                                         DEP pic

Oh, woe!  Here we go again: Another cruel and needless dog death in Sparta, NJ, reportedly by a bear.  RIP, poor innocent Tommy!  What a shame if your owner didn’t look around before letting you out last Wednesday night. 

Were there outdoor lights on?  Living in bear territory, did your owner look out for you once you were outside?  Was a bear around because your owner, and possibly neighbors too, has attracted bears to the area by careless trash disposal?

The Times of Trenton story included a link to DEP safety tips (nj.gov/dep/fgw/bearfacts_safetytips.htm). I skimmed them but didn’t see anything about bear-proof trash cans, long recommended for use to deter bears.  

Conservation-by-teamwork

Last fall’s expo by the Wildlife Conservation Network surprised me with one piece of news: Kenyan elephants are now less threatened by poachers than by people living – and growing crops and building roads, railways and bridges  – on shared land areas.

This reality stressed the importance of  experts engaging with local people to help them co-exist with animals sharing their territory.  

To protect both the elephants and the people’s way of life, conservationists partner with local residents, working with them at grass roots levels to assure and maintain elephant migration corridors as human development increases along with population growth.

Collaboration among organizations having to do with elephants aims to remind local people how to live with animals to avoid conflict. (Earlier blog posts here described jointly-developed ways to deter elephants from raiding crop gardens and other “people projects.”)

Also in Kenya, efforts to keep lions from going after livestock have included widespread planting of grasses for them.  “Saving livestock from lions is saving the lions!” one person exclaimed.

Meanwhile, in Mozambique, assuring that people have the power of decision-making that they had historically practiced, has helped break down walls between the interest groups involved.  In short, co-existence between people and animals is vital for wildlife welfare.

“Outside” experts working with local communities toward mutual goals and involving those to be affected by decisions in their development – these two principles are not unique to Africa.  In fact, they are established management techniques in the US.

Heroes for animals

And since I’ve asked blog readers to identify “heroes for animals” they know of, I’m suggesting a couple myself right now.  They are members of a statewide animal advocacy organization, the Animal Protection League of NJ, now nearing 40 years of active advocacy for our state’s animals.

It’s one thing for a person to be an organization member, period.  It’s quite another for a member to work far, far beyond expectations on behalf of animals.  For instance, one APLNJ member attended over 50 town meetings to advocate for non-lethal goose management!

"D's goose"

Just imagine spending numerous evenings meeting with town reps to talk up ways to manage geese without killing them.  And "D" got goose-saving positive results – as well as geese who came to recognize her and seemingly showed their thanks when they approached her. 

In her “free” time, the same member also works on positioning billboards on animal issues around the state and jumps right in on other special projects.  

Another APLNJ member and a TNR expert, helped community cat trappers and caregivers network with the “powers that be” to devise a unified plan -- and carry it out -- for a spay and neuter program for a 30-cat colony.  "S" also built an indoor-outdoor “catio” at her home to assure that cats needing it could be comfortably isolated from others. 

These are only two stellar APLNJ members who are “heroes for animals.”  You can count on reading about still others here too.

(To support this organization’s continuing work for all New Jersey animals, but especially for those persecuted as “invasive” or unwanted, please make a tax-deductible online donation at APLNJ.org.  Thank you!)

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Back to you, readers.  Please tell us about a “hero for animals” you know.  Just go to 1moreonce.blogspot.com.  

  

      

 

                                    

A new low: pigs' hearts for people

One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable.  We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them. –Martin Luther King Jr.

We postpone the subjects planned for this blog post to bring you the following news, reported in the New York Times and numerous other media sites. 

In a First, Man Receives a Heart From a Genetically Altered Pig

   The breakthrough may lead one day to new supplies of animal organs for transplant into human patients.

The Times’s Jan. 10 headline and blurb (above) say it all: Humans have now invented a new way to use (as in breed, modify, kill) animals to serve our needs.  As if humans had any right to do that.

Dominionism is the worldview or belief held by one species that it has a divine right to use animals and everything else in the living world for its own benefit. – Jim Mason

Already, of course, humans have used animals for innumerable fiendish purposes besides slaughtering and eating them: turning them into beasts of burden worldwide; forcing them to serve and die in humans’ wars; making them into involuntary seeing-eye dogs and emotional-support animals; and so on and on – all robbing animals of their natural lives and causing their dependence on people’s good will or mercy.    

Now, the NYTimes article extols using pigs – pork already being the most widely eaten meat in the world -- for even more medical purposes to benefit humans.

After all, the story explains, “Pigs offer advantages over primates for organ procurements, because they are easier to raise and achieve adult human size in six months.  Pig heart valves are routinely transplanted into humans, and some patients with diabetes have received porcine pancreas cells.  Pig skin has also been used as a temporary graft for burn patients. . . .”  and on and on about the benefits of using a non-human animal for our purposes.     https://tinyurl.com/4u53benj     

Alba, freed from a lab

Dominionism writ large!

It’s an emergency! (or is it?)

Say that your pet needs medical help in a hurry.  You race to the 24/7 pet hospital and check in for emergency care.  Directed to sit in the waiting area, you’re visited by a triage staffer who talks with you, taking notes about your pet’s condition.  

Then you wait.  And wait.  And get antsy.  Then angry.  You have no idea of where on a list of “emergency” patients in line for treatment your pet has been placed.

Occasionally, you ask a passing staffer when the doctor will see your pet.  The answer doesn’t help: s/he is in the lineup, but if a pet in greater need arrives, the doctor will see that animal before your pet. And theoretically, this could keep happening.

Five hours later -- no joke, and it’s been worse at other times – you’re told to take your pet to an exam room, where you wait for the vet to finish with the last patient.  Then, ta-da! it’s your turn. . . a very belated happy ending!  

Recount this story to friends who are astonished, disbelieving, even indignant.  But then remember the last time you went to a (human) hospital ER and how long you waited there.  It’s much the same story!

So where’s the emergency (“requiring immediate action”) in emergency?    

Usually, not there.  Typically in both places, the most that could happen in 5 hours is that the patient might be seen (briefly) before being moved into a temporary cubicle to wait for tests and treatment.

Is there a better word than “emergency” to use in both circumstances described here?  Is there a better way to run a so-called “emergency” facility for pets?

 

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What do you think about animals being sacrificed to serve human needs?  and how about how ER systems work in animal hospitals?  Tell us at 1moreonce.blogspot.com.             

New year's hopes for animals' better lives

January marks a new year in animal advocacy, along with countless hopes for the better.

We’ll start close to home, with the latest story about the big, bad, black bears of New Jersey -- at least as they’re viewed by wanna-be trophy hunters. 

The recent Times of Trenton story about the Sussex county woman bitten by a bear before the animal then mauled one of her two dogs to death provoked more questions than answers.  Reportedly, she put her garbage out (in a bearproof trash can?  aware that two bears were in the vicinity? . . .) then let her two dogs out (hoping they’d chase or vanquish the bears? or, if she was unaware of the bears, without checking outside before letting her pets out?).

That was the beginning of the end.  One bear grabbed a dog and as the woman fought with the bear (?!) to free her pet, the bear bit her on the leg, then took the dog off to maul to death.      

Admittedly, the story was strange and sketchy, but seemed to indicate the woman took one, shall we say UN-intelligent, step after another.  Later coverage included the claim that there are way too many bears in NJ, and promoted the need for bear hunts.  That last came as no surprise, since last fall’s hunt had been cancelled, much to the chagrin of hunters seeking trophies.  

Donkeys: most of us probably think little more about them than “what’s the difference between donkeys and mules?” or similarly ignorant questions.  

What we don’t know is that donkeys are being slaughtered in great numbers globally for their skin, a derivative of which is "used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat anemia, insomnia and reproductive issues,” according to a Washington Post article (as was the bullfighting story above).

“Traditional Chinese medicine” is the bane of numerous animals – including  rhinos and pangolins – and now we know it takes nearly 5 million donkey hides a year to meet China’s demand for them.  

Now, besides from China itself, hides stolen from remote parts of Africa (economically dependent on donkeys) and the US (via Mexican slaughterhouses) are also reaching China, altogether decimating the global population of donkeys --already regarded as “one of the most maligned, mistreated and misunderstood animals on the planet.”

Toreador, en garde!

Possibly coming soon: the end of bullfighting (at long last) in Mexico City, where the world’s largest bullfighting arena offers “the oldest incarnation” of this “sport”?  It involves “bulls raised for the fight and usually dying in the ring at the tip of the matador’s sword.”  

Yes, end it, say modernist opponents whose proposed legislation would prohibit the “barbaric anachronism.”  But it’s part of our history, claim traditionalists who   support “an ancestral tradition.”

Entitlement and dominionism for humans; cruel, drawn-out public execution for animals.  The bill to ban bullfighting in Mexico City – seen as modernism vs. traditionalism -- is expected to be acted on early this year.

Bullfighting is a sentence to public execution coupled with a torture session, and filet mignon is nothing but a piece of cadaver under cellophane. –Brigitte Bardot

. . . where the air is rare

Once thought to be aloof toward their peers, giraffes are now known to “have lunch buddies, stand guard over dead calves and stay close with their mothers and grandmothers.”

Female giraffes even bond with other females, besides forming day care-like arrangements, taking turns babysitting and feeding each other’s young.  Giraffes are now seen as “socially complex creatures, akin to elephants or chimps.”

This link details such true “tall tales”:  https://tinyurl.com/muk5rw8x

If you’ve never noticed giraffes’ hornlike ossicones atop their heads, look now.  Those appendages play a huge (and high) role in giraffe fights, which may be rare, but can also be fatal. 

With those weapons, a giraffe can wound or kill an opponent.  As for why they may fight and who can fight whom, as well as their surprising sportsmanlike approaches, this link leads to details. https://tinyurl.com/2p8d7h5r

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Please make a new year's resolution: comment on this post at 1moreonce.blogspot.com