Animal advocates wean themselves from the “gaushala” dairy tradition NEW DELHI, India––The billboard message “#DontGetMilked. Ditch Dairy! Go Vegan!” posted recently in Nehru Place, New Delhi by the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations (FIAPO), is a crowd-stopper. It might not rate a blink, let alone a shocked doubletake from visiting American and European […]
Heads & Tails, by Maneka Gandhi
People For Animals (A4 Maharani Bagh, New Delhi 110 065, India).184 pages, paperback; 1993. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12498154-heads-and-tails Reviewed by Merritt Clifton “I have always detested milk,” Maneka Gandhi opined in the first line of her first syndicated column, entitled “Milk, Meat and Animal Violence.” “My son too refused to drink cow’s milk when he was weaned,” she continued, […]
Thin ice & few buyers for pelts, but Canadian sealers kill 60,000 seal pups anyway
2018 seal hunt close to the end ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland––Perhaps the surest sign that the annual Atlantic Canada seal hunt is fading into history is the lack of prominence it has had this spring in the St. Johns Telegram, the leading media voice serving Newfoundland since 1879, which through April 2018 had barely mentioned it […]
Rabies plummets in India while “experts” ignore the data
Global Alliance for Rabies Control still says there are at least 120 times more rabies deaths than found by 14 years of annual body counts NEW DELHI––New national rabies survey data from the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence, the Indian equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, shows for the 15th […]
What Gau Rakshas, the ALF, & “pit bullies” have in common
“The difference between vigilantes and animal rights activists” NEW DELHI, India; WASHINGTON D.C.––Responding to “animal rights violence” that has cost at least 10 human lives in two years, the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations on May 7, 2017 spelled out “The Difference between Vigilantes and Animal Rights Activists.” Strongly worded as it was, […]
What if the U.S. Supreme Court ruled rodeo unconstitutional?
It happened in India! NEW DELHI, India––Imagine the U.S. Supreme Court resoundingly rebuking the Donald Trump presidential administration by holding rodeo to be unconstitutional, regardless of how culturally entrenched it is among “red state voters,” his support base. Difficult though it may be to imagine newly appointed U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions moving under […]
Sex, drugs, dogs & monkey business
Can PZP keep over-sexed rhesus macaques from taking over the Taj Mahal? AGRA, India––Faster up a tree or the side of a building than a feral cat, biting more powerfully and often than any street dog, able to leap over monkey-catchers at a single bound, and usually able to outwit public officials, rhesus macaques might […]
Farmed animals & the Brexit “diet plan”
Part II of a 5-part series (See also Will U.K. leaving E.U. mean leaving animal welfare behind?, Farmed animals & money talks, What Brexit means for “pet passports” & lab animals and Back to the Jungle Book: U.K. wildlife law post-Brexit.) LONDON, U.K.––Quipsters have it that Brexit, as the June 23, 2016 choice of United Kingdom […]
India drops animal welfare rep from lab oversight board
Animal Welfare Board of India chief ousted for opposing bullfighting CHENNAI, India––Crippling the ability of the Animal Welfare Board of India to monitor animal use in biomedical research and product safety testing, Indian minister of environment and forests Prakash Javadekar has removed AWBI chair R.M. Kharb from his position on the 13-member Committee for […]
Shaktimaan the police horse dies of complications from assault
Lost leg, suffered infection DEHRADUN, Uttarakhand, India––Shaktimaan the police horse died at about 5:30 p.m. on April 20, 2016, of causes officially unknown pending necropsy, but believed to be a post-operative infection. “It is extremely unfortunate and heart-breaking for us that the horse is no more. Post mortem will confirm the cause of death,” […]