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, […]
Train speeding in the wee hours kills four elephants
“India ain’t big enough for both of us.” KOLKATA, India––The Howrah-Mumbai Mail train in the wee hours of April 16, 2018 killed four elephants on the same stretch of track in Jharsuguda district, Odissa state, where two others died after falling into trackside ditches in separate incidents in September and October 2017. […]
A Perfect Day dawns for dairy cows, 7,000 years after domestication
Brewing beer for 9,000 years, humans learn to brew milk without using cows or other mammals BERKELEY, California––Using fermentation to produce food and beverages apparently originated in China circa 9,000 years ago. Keeping dairy cattle appears to have begun in Anatolia, the eastern part of Turkey, circa 7,000 years ago. The commercial dairy industry […]
Dog rescue on the slopes of Agung, Bali’s erupting “Mount Doom”
BAWA rushes to save animals beneath clouds of hot ash UBUD, Bali, Indonesia––More than 4.2 million people, 350,000 dogs, and perhaps a million other animals from monkeys and chickens to goats and cattle, plus wildlife, are looking over their shoulders at a 30,000-foot column of steam, smoke, and ash boiling out of Mount Agung. […]
Remove bees, wasps, or hornets without getting stung
First, don’t go bugs by Merritt Clifton For years I was the fellow whom people would call for help when they had problems with bees and closely related species. I never had much trouble handling bees, wasps, or hornets, but even though handling them may not be hard, there is not any one simple […]
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, […]
Indian-style bullfights resume at urging of prime minister Nahrendra Modi
Hindu nationalists defy Supreme Court & Animal Welfare Board of India CHENNAI, India––Stampeding bulls, rampaging young men and the blood of both are again flowing through the streets of cities in participant bullfights called jallikattu conducted throughout Tamil Nadu state, India. Held in the name of celebrating harvest festivals, the resurrection of jallikattu represents […]
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 […]