From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2011:

Among African Apes
Edited by Martha M. Robbins & Christophe Boesch
University of California Press
(2120 Berkeley Way,  Berkeley,
CA  94704),  2011.  196 pages,  hardcover.  $29.95.

A series of essays and memoirs by field researchers,  Among African Apes both intrigues and troubles the reader.  Editor Martha M. Robbins says her life is often perceived as glamorous. It is not. Sometimes Robbins and her colleagues sit for hours just waiting for animals to appear. Collecting and then analyzing data is tedious work.

 

Of one expedition,  Robbins recalls,  “I had itchy mosquito and black fly bites everywhere.  I knew that to get through the day I should stop complaining to myself and be more positive about finding apes in the forest.”

Cleve Hicks in “Bili, Chimpanzee in the Gangu Forest,”  adds vivid further detail about the realities of field primatology: “Although it is exciting to find such a large number of chimpanzee nests, the swamp is slowing us down,   and we only have a day or two before we must return to the village.  By the time we reach the far shore of the flooded swamp,  having lifted our boots over innumerable clumps of elephant dung,  it is early afternoon and we are exhausted. We are relieved to be on dry land again.”

The effort yields interesting information about social relationships between males and females,  tool use and traditions, and disease in wild chimpanzees–and stunning color photos of gorilla families in their natural habitat.

Beyond offering captivating stories,  Among African Apes is disturbing.  More than 25 years after Dian Fossey died in 1985 while studying gorillas in Rwanda,  gorilla and chimpanzee habitat is still rocked by tribal warfare.  The project in the Congo that Hicks diligently pursued for at least five years was abruptly shut down in 2007 by an illegal invasion of gold miners into the Bilil-Uere Game Reserve. Poachers shoot at or threaten scientists.

The great apes are losing their habitat to development and deforestation,  and are slaughtered for bushmeat.  Human population continues to surge,  devouring wildlife preserves to make room for farms and plantations.  Though the preserves are a valuable source of tourist income for poverty-stricken nations,  pursuit of individual gain often supersedes consideration of national economic interest, let alone of the needs of animals.  Park rangers often yield to bribery from poachers.  Honest rangers are vulnerable to violence.

Among African Apes reminds us that great apes may soon become extinct in the wild.

–Debra J. White
•••
Editor’s Note: As the stories collected in books of this type abundantly show, the natural world is vanishing right before our eyes while humanity, in absolute confusion and disorder due to the criminal system it lives under, instead of helping, accelerates the demise of precious fellow species.  The crime is all the more spectacular because it is so avoidable.  Just think how easy it would be to correct this calamitous state of affairs. All it takes is a little bit of honest and firm leadership—which of course we don’t have—and haven’t had for generations—which is why the nation and the world are finally exploding with the long overdue “OccupyWS” movement. 

Every year, trillions of dollars are squandered and stolen by the American plutocracy alone, through wars, by looting the public, by sowing corruption and deceit everywhere it casts its interested eye…Meantime, leaving aside for a moment the abject policies enforced on humans, projects designed to defend the precious lives of animals or their natural habitats go begging, or founder entirely.  As well, the lives of the few heroic people engaged in the work of protecting nature are constantly threatened.  With millions of people in uniform, equipped with every conceivable weapon and gadget imaginable, but tasked with expanding and protecting the power of the ruling elite, an assignment that often results in the death of hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, and the destruction of whole nations (as in Iraq, for example), obviously we do possess the muscle, the resources to do something sane and worthwhile, but we lack the will and the direction. Just imagine if the Marines—as part of a new UN command— instead of being the shock troops of capitalism around the world did nothing but protect nature in all latitudes. It might change more than just a few people’s opinions. Well, I’m obviously dreaming.—PG, The Greanville Post

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BY IRA FISCHER

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WWW.IRAFISCHER.COM

Dolphins sold to marine parks are removed from their habitat and never again will they be free to swim and socialize with their pod. Instead, they are doomed to a life in captivity where they must perform tricks to survive. The trademark smile and the playful nature of dolphins, who are among the most intelligent animals on the planet, belies the predicament that they must endure in confinement.

The “surplus” dolphins (i.e., those not purchased by operators of dolphin exhibits) are not released back to the sea. Instead, they are slaughtered, for sale as food or fertilizer, by stabbing them with long knives, usually just behind the blowhole or across the throat, causing the animals to die from blood loss and hemorrhagic shock, or their spinal cord is severed. The maimed and dyeing dolphins thrash about and writhe as they try to escape, but there is no escape from the bloodbath.

The carnage off the coast of Japan had been a carefully guarded secret, until the Academy Award winning documentary The Cove exposed the horrifying truths behind the hunting of dolphins. The Japanese Times reports that the Japanese government allows about 19,000 dolphins to be killed each year. Yet, despite the magnitude of the killing and its gruesome nature, the International Whaling Commission has failed to take any action because, they say, dolphins are not included in its list of protected cetaceans.

Given inaction by the IWC, Congress should take measures to protect dolphins from being hunted. Congress has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and can ban the importation of products in order to effectuate policy objectives. The International Dolphin Conservation Program Act, which bans the importation of certain products in connection with the use of purse seine tuna fishing nets to reduce the incidental killing of dolphins, is a prime example of Congress enacting trade measures to protect marine mammals.

It is imperative that Congress amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act to prohibit the importation of dolphins, or dolphin products, taken as a result of hunting or any capture method that involves the killing of dolphins. The brunt of the economic impact of such legislation would be felt on the lucrative sale of “show” dolphins. A crucial side effect would be to marginalize the profitability of the dolphin slaughter business of the targeted fisheries.

With respect to the supply of dolphins for the exhibition industry, current sourcing methods can be replaced with a protocol whereby these magnificent creatures are obtained solely from certifiable rescue programs. Such a paradigm would serve the goal of affording sick and injured dolphins sanctuary, while not holding captive those capable of surviving at sea.

Hopefully, operators of dolphin ventures will see fit to reform their business models such that the beauty and grace of these remarkable beings can simply be observed in a serene environment compatible with their acoustical sensitivities. This new paradigm offers hope of making the dual stains on our legacy of dolphin captivity and dolphin slaughter a thing of the past.

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Ira Fischer is an attorney-at-law in Delray Beach. He devotes his retirement to the cause of animal welfare through advocacy.

 

 

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/03/2437069/protect-dolphins-from-slaughter.html#ixzz1aWTd9SvR

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Originally seen on November 7, 2009
ARTICLES YOU SHOULD HAVE READ THE FIRST TIME AROUND, BUT MISSED. 

Simulposted with Animal Rights Africa 

Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting (C.A.S.H.)

object of the hunt is to kill animals. Hunters argue that it is not just about killing. They claim that the camaraderie, nature appreciation, exercise, nature education, and so-called conservation benefits are just as important a part of the hunt as the actual killing or attempted killing of the target animal.

 

But most people can appreciate and learn about nature and also contribute to nature conservation efforts without having to kill animals, and by doing their shooting with a camera instead of a gun or bow.

 

Do hunters really care?

It is ludicrous to believe that someone who actively sets out to kill a healthy animal for fun, trophy or profit really cares about wild animals specifically or nature in general. Photographs of smiling hunters posing with their dead victims hardly reflect the kind of “caring” that most normal people relate to. If hunters are the “true” conservationists they claim to be, and really do care about animals, they would pursue every humane, non-lethal possibility or means of caring for wild animals and the environment. Instead, their solution to any perceived problem with animals is to reach for the gun. Why is it that hunters, as so-called conservationists, are interested only in those animals that are most attractive as trophies, most enjoyable to eat or most “challenging” to hunt?

 

Do hunters pay for conservation?

Killing wild animals is big business, and there are lots of people who make a lot of money out of it. Those who encourage and participate in hunting form part of a multi-million Rand industry that will fight to its last breath to stay in business. Manufacturers and marketers of hunting gear and clothing, guns and ammunition, bows and arrows, camping equipment and much more have a vested interest in promoting hunting as a good, healthy outdoor sport for the whole family. The more hunters out there killing, the more they sell.

 

Game ranchers and provincial and national conservation authorities generate millions of Rands annually by selling wild animals to private game farmers where hunters pay exorbitant fees to kill them for fun, trophy or meat.

 

As with every other type of institutionalised animal abuse, hunting will not easily be abolished in spite of relentless pressure from animal rightists. What makes hunting relatively easy to defend is that the hunters have spread a false message that it is they who fund conservation, and that were it not for them, most conservation areas currently in private ownership would convert to agricultural land with the total loss of the wildlife at present on that land. This implies, firstly, that the only justification for maintaining wild animals on the land is to generate funds from hunting, and, secondly, that all land which is not profitable game ranching land must automatically be taken over by environmentally destructive agriculture. This is absolute nonsense.

Conservation and the protection of wild animals must be funded from ethically acceptable sources, including a conservation levy on all profits from the sale of goods or services which have their origin in any natural resource. Wildlife and environment conservation must not be abandoned to an animal-unfriendly system that uses profit to justify the killing of healthy, defenseless animals. By allowing hunters to make the claim that they “pay for conservation”, human society is failing in its responsibility to wildlife. The fate of wild animals has literally been abandoned into the hands of killers.

 

Do hunters fulfill the role of predator?

Definitely not. Hunters will not miss out on any opportunity to cover themselves in glory, even to the point of claiming the role of natural predator in those areas where natural predators have been eradicated or do not occur.

 

But as so-called predator, the hunter selects only the finest specimens to kill. This is in direct contradiction of the role of true predators, who hunt the old, disabled and unwary and in so doing maintain the health of the populations. Predators too old, disabled or incompetent are also preyed on, but not by human hunters who only want healthy specimens in the prime of life.

 

The sustained killing of prime specimens of any population or species leads to debilitation of the gene pool and can hasten the rate at which that population or species becomes endangered or even extinct. No natural predator would act in this manner unless in very unnatural and exceptional circumstances. Natural and balanced predator/prey relationships lead to healthy populations of both the prey and the predator species.

 

Why hunting is wrong!

Hunting is wrong because for no good reason it violates the most basic right of any living creature – the right to life. According to hunters, they only shoot animals who are surplus or excessive to the carrying capacity of the land or who are old or injured . They claim that their killing is done for humane and practical reasons, and that an untimely death by bullet or arrow is preferable to death from natural causes.

 

All of this presumes that animals who are killed or wounded by human hunters, endure less fear, stress and pain than those animals dying from natural causes, including predation.

 

It is a fact that hunters kill for the pleasure, the satisfaction and the boost it gives their fragile egos. This makes killing seem like an honorable pastime that others should strive to emulate. It relegates animals to the status of utility items that exist to pleasure humans, and if that pleasure lies in the killing of an animal, then so be it.

 

Hunting simply perpetuates the ethically indefensible conception that animals exist for humans. And nothing more emphatically emphasises this misconception than when humans deliberately track down a wild animal and kill it for fun, trophy or profit. This shows an absolute disregard by hunters for the right of wild animals to live out their lives as nature intended, in circumstances which allow them to enjoy the diverse experiences of living in their natural environment. And for as long as hunters are allowed to conduct their bloody war on innocent wild animals with the sanction of civil society, then every human in that society shares in the guilt of the wrongdoing.

 

Also, when a hunter removes the body of the animal he/she has killed, this in fact robs that ecosystem of the nutrients locked up in that animal’s body. Every animal is composed entirely of elements accumulated within the ecosystem in which that animal has lived. When an animal dies of natural causes, the body is decomposed or consumed within that ecosystem, and the elements which made up the body are released back into that ecosystem and recycled through other plants and animals. When a hunter removes the dead animal from that ecosystem, the elements contained in that body are lost to the ecosystem.

 

Considering the weapons used by hunters today, it is an understatement to say that a targeted animal has little or no chance of avoiding being killed or wounded. The distance from which a hunter can deliver a fatal shot far exceeds the distance from which a natural predator could successfully attack it’s intended prey. Wild animals have not yet evolved the instinct required to keep modern hunters at a “safe” distance.

 

Man has always hunted

There is a very clear attempt by hunters to defend their bloody sport by claiming that it is in the human genes to hunt. This is absolutely not true. Hunters are conditioned into hunting by their peers and by an industry, which in various ways encourages people to become hunters by associating it with manhood, adventure and even Divine decree.

 

What this implies is that humans are incapable of evolving into more civilised, caring and tolerant beings. Fortunately nothing could be further from the truth. There is hope for a future in which animals are respected for their inherent value, and that those laws which now give humans the “right” to own and abuse animals will be replaced by popular laws which protect the rights of all animals, just as they now protect the rights of all humans.

 

Hunters and criticism

Hunters are notoriously intolerant of anyone who questions their so-called “ethics” or who dares to criticise their violent pastime. Anyone who opposes the killing of innocent animals by hunters is labeled a “bunny-hugger”, “unrealistic”, “impractical”, “emotional”, “ignorant”, “humaniac”, even a “terrorist” if you happen to be an animal rightist.

 

Any critics of hunting are so ridiculed that both they and civil society at large are cowed into a state of silent acceptance of hunting as an indispensable, even honorable, component of orthodox conservation policy and practice.

 

That hunters have to go to ever-greater lengths to defend their actions to an increasingly critical, well-informed public, is encouraging. However, the use of terms such as “sustainable use” and “wise use” have become the everyday language of hunters and are intended to give legitimacy to their killing.

 

It is also an unfortunate reality that most wildlife-related NGO’s are dominated by people who are themselves hunters or who see no wrong in others killing wild animals for fun, profit or trophy. Most ordinary members of these organisations are quickly indoctrinated into accepting that hunting is a necessary evil that goes hand in hand with so-called “sustainable use”. Those who criticise the hunting aspect of “sustainable use” are ostracised and sidelined within the organisations of which they are members.

 

What you can do to oppose hunting

1. Join JA and become an anti-hunting activist

2. Write to provincial and national conservation authorities and object to the opening of conservation areas to hunters

3. Let hunters know that you are opposed to their violent pastime

4. Don’t visit conservation areas which allow hunting

5. Don’t purchase the by-products of hunting i.e venison, biltong, animal skins, curios from hunted animals

6. Boycott stores that sell hunting equipment and promote hunting

7. Write anti-hunting letters to newspapers and magazines

8. Support campaigns to end hunting

9. Do not join or support conservation organisations that promote or tolerate hunting as an acceptable component of “sustainable use”.

 

For the latest updates on the animal liberation movement, visit NAALPO at http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/

Special From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  (January/February 2011): 

CHENNAI,  Dehrudun—THE FIRST WEEKEND OF 2011 Pongal harvest festivals in Tamil Nadu,  India,  brought a drop in reported deaths and injuries in jallikattu,  the predominant Indian form of participatory bullfighting–but chiefly because new rules discouraged many communities from hosting jallikattu.  Relative to the unrestrained mayhem at Bunkhal village in Uttarakhand state a month earlier,  that was major progress.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: At the foot of this article we have attached a defense of this practice by someone who sees nothing wrong with tormenting and killing animals for fun. We present it, not as a counterpoint to the main piece, for we see not possible balance between the two views, and we certainly don’t believe in letting readers arrive at the truth by simple presenting two opposing views, one of which may be logically and factually indefensible, BUT as one more example how this kind of mind operates.—TGP
_________________ 

Where jallikattu proceeded,  deaths and injuries continued, despite  enforcement of the new rules by the Animal Welfare Board of India at direction of the Supreme Court of India.  Injuries to bulls are seldom tabulated,  but may be inferred from the counts of human deaths and injuries,  chiefly suffered in attempts to tackle bulls.

Tamil Nadu media reported two human deaths and 21 injuries at Avaniapuram on January 14,  one human death and 68 injuries at Palamedu two days later,  and 72 human injuries at Alanganullur on January 17,  half again more than at Alangunullar in 2010.

The 2011 Alanganullur jallikattu was stopped by officials for having become too violent before all the bulls were released. Participants then stoned police,  injuring 12.  The police responded by clubbing at least 40 people in two baton charges.

The object of Tamil Nadu-style jallikattu is for a participant to untie a prize strung between the horns of a bull.  The bull is pursued through city streets by a mob usually numbering in the hundreds,  who typically wrestle the bull to the ground and seize the prize after repeated attempts.

Major Pongal festivals often include the release of hundreds of bulls,  one after another.  Reports of the number of bulls released at Alanganullur varied from 335 to 577.

The Supreme Court of India in January 2009 reaffirmed a July 2007 ruling that jallikattu constitutes cruelty to animals,  and that jallikattu held under a limited exemption granted in January 2008 did not meet the Supreme Court-imposed condition that harm to the bulls must be prevented.  The Supreme Court acted after 21 people were killed and at least 1,614 were injured in January 2009 jallikattu, four years after 13 people were killed and 350 injured in a single weekend.  New restrictions introduced in response to the Supreme Court verdict reduced the number of jallikattu,  cutting the 2010 toll in Tamil Nadu to six people killed,  442 injured.

The current rules for jallikattu require organizers to obtain permits a month in advance.  Jallikattu sites must be fenced,  with spectator galleries certified as safe a week in advance by the local public works department.  Deposits are required against the possible costs of deaths and injuries.  Participants must be at least 21 years old and must wear uniforms excluding the color white.  The bulls must be certified as fit by government veterinarians,  and must have photo identification.  The bulls must not be tranquilized or tormented.

Practiced by the Indus Valley culture as long as 9,000 years ago,  participatory bullfighting is combined with sacrifice at Bunkhal village,  near Dehrudun in Uttarakhand state,  in the Indian far north.

Responding to a report that 3,200 buffalo and goats were killed in December 2009 at  a rock pile locally honored as a temple to the goddess Aradhya Devi,  People for Animals/Uttarakhand on December 1,  2010 won a Dehrudun High Court order forbidding public animal killing and dumping carcasses.

Arriving to observe  on the night of December 10th, PfA/Uttarakhand secretary Gauri Maulekhi e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE, “We were reassured to find hundreds of police,”  but  “They had no instructions to act.  They could only advise politely and not use any kind of force.”  A main road was barricaded,  but “The traditional routes around the temple hill were left unguarded.  Drugged or drunken men,  women,  and children streamed in.  There was a crowd of 30 to 50 people with each animal.  Each person carried a weapon.”

Despite the efforts of PfA Uttarakhand members,  “The mob took over and the first buffalo was hacked by an ecstatic crowd,” Maulekhi wrote.  “Girls danced seductively in front of the dying bulls.  Women bathed their children in blood.  Children were made to sit on a wall so that they get a clear view of the killing.  Young men chased the buffalo,”  before disabling them with swords.

PfA/Uttarakhand member Pankaj Pokhriyal videotaped much of the massacre,  later posting video excerpts to web sites. 
“A woman nearby declared the Devi alive in her and sunk her teeth in the neck of a living lamb.  A man took the severed head of a goat and drank blood from it,”  Maulekhi continued.  “Some children showed exemplary courage by shouting” against the killing,  but “were beaten with sticks by the drunken devotees and their clothes were torn in front of 20 policemen.  When the children asked for help, the policemen told them to go to their superior officer and complain.”  The superior officer was nowhere to be found.

“At least 50 buffalo bulls and 450 goats died,”  Maulekhi finished.  “The police sat like dead bodies.  Their commanders will now have to answer in court,”  where Pokriyal’s videotapes will be introduced as evidence of failure to enforce the Dehrudun High Court order.
•••• 

Defending the indefensible 

JalliKattu – Ban or Run 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2009

CAUGHT AN ARTICLE in the papers today – some obnoxious activists want to ban the Jallikattu tradition in Tamil Nadu. The Times of India has even put up a microsite http://www.jallikatu.com/ that has a debate going on – Ban or Run Fair.

To the un-initiated, its all about cruelty to animals, unnecessary loss of human life, wasted heroism, – “stop these mad caps running after these poor animals”. Fair. A huge animal lover myself, might normally say the same thing. But, there are some things that transcend such modern concepts such as “PETA” and that is History, Tradition, Culture, Myths, Legends, Generations, Pride, Belonging, etc. That’s the magic and irony of being human.

Tamils are a very ancient people – far more ancient that you might ever realize – remember it’s the oldest “surviving” language in the world. And this ancient sport of Jallikatu goes way back, before many parts of the world figured out how to say hi to one another, way before the Spaniards or the French or the South Americans started their famous bull killings that keeps playing on sophisticated channels like Discovery and Travel & Living, that many people travel half way around the world to see.

Rock paintings in Karikkiyur (40 km from Kotagiri, Nilgiris district, Tamil Nadu, discovered in 2004) has several rock paintings, more than 3,500 years old, showing men chasing bulls. Jalli kattu or Manju Virattu (chasing the bull) gained popularity during the Sangam period (300 BCE to 300 CE), the game was also used to help choose husbands. Successful “matadors” were choosing as grooms – an idea that’s reflected even today in “rustic” tamil movies. The ancient Tamil tradition was “manju virattu” (chasing bulls) or “eruthu kattuthal” (lassoing bulls) and it was never “jallikattu,” that is baiting a bull or controlling it as the custom obtained today. In ancient Tamil country, during the harvest festival, decorated bulls would be let loose on the “peru vazhi” (highway) and the village youth would take pride in chasing them and outrunning them. 

It was about 500 years ago, after the advent of the Nayak rule in Tamil that this harmless bull-chasing sport metamorphosed into “jallikattu of today. It exists till today, happening during the harvest festival Pongal. Wealthy villagers raise the “kangeyam bull” specially for this day’s event, transforming it into a village’s version of “Gallery Sport”.

So as long as the world is insane enough to still hold boxing matches in the Olympic Games, or continues to hold animals captive in incompatible habitats in Zoos, there is no reason why the poor Madurai villager alone needs to be told to go fuck themselves. So you crazy activist faggots go spend the energy on something more productive and leave the Tamils be. Instead, ask the Tamil Nadu (Tourism) government to own it, institutionalize it, in way that it becomes more sophisticated, more organized and with a frame work of rules and generally a little more acceptable to these pseudo meat eating animal lovers! 

POSTED BY PK

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