Animal Earth Human

Ruby Being Peace on Earth

by Lucie Peytermann

KAMPALA (AFP) - Ugandan and French scientists have for months been observing the behaviour of a group of chimpanzees whose uncanny aptitude for self-medication could help their human cousins discover new drugs.

The great apes’ ability to treat ailments by adjusting their diet has long been observed by scientists, including world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, but a project in Uganda’s Kibale forest offers a unique opportunity for pharmaceutical research.

“It’s the first time that a chimpanzee observation aimed at discovering new medicine for humans is conducted within a scientific framework,” said Sabrina Krief, a French veterinary and professor at the Paris National History Museum.

Uganda is an ideal research ground for the scientists’ double mission of better understanding the chimps’ behaviour and using them as guides towards new molecules — and potentially new drugs.

“Uganda happens to be a country where eight of the 16 centres of endemic plants in the whole of Africa converge,” said John Kasenene, professor of botanics at the University of Makerere in Kampala.

The university is conducting the project in partnership with the Natural History Museum in Paris, France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Uganda Wildlife Authority.

Should a new drug be discovered through the project, the memorandum of understanding signed by all the partners includes a revenue-sharing clause.

The Kibale equatorial forest, located some 250 kilometres (130 miles) west of the capital Kampala, offers a high concentration of primates.

“There are very few research stations in the world where chimps have been so well accustomed to being in the presence of human observers,” said Krief, who heads the chimp project there.

The key moment in the observation is when one among the group of around 50 chimps she monitors gets sick.

The primate’s choice of food — what he pulls out of his medicine chest — is packed with information that could lead the scientists to new discoveries.

“We want to compare which plants are used by the traditional healers or traditional practitioners, and the medicines used by chimpanzees. Is there a relation for the kind of treatment they go for?,” Kasenene said.

At dawn the team collects the animal’s faeces from under that night’s nest and carry out a range of analyses.

Krief explained how a chimp named Yogi, suffering from intestinal worms, ingested Aneilema aequinoctiale leaves in the morning and Albizia grandibracteata bark in the evening.

Such plants have been used in traditional medicine in some areas and the Kibale team later confirmed through in vitro testing that they acted against parasites.

Another male chimpanzee who had been feverish and weak was observed eating only Trichilia rubescens leaves for a whole day.

The plants’ molecules, later isolated by the scientists in a laboratory, were found to be effective against malaria.

“These findings have allowed us to discover new plant molecules with significant properties against malaria, worms or tumours,” Krief said.

Dennis Kamoga, a botanics researcher from Makerere University, is tasked with collecting samples from plants ingested by chimps that will later be analysed in both France and Uganda.

“What is surprising to me is that these chimps have no chemist, no lab… They simply move in and collect plants and eventually find themselves getting cured,” the 27-year-old marvelled. “It’s a proof that they are very close to us.”

Around 100 different kinds of plants have already been sampled in Kibale since the start of 2007.

“It’s quite rare to find active molecules but especially new molecules which might put us on the path to developing new pharmaceuticals,” which is the ultimate goal of the project, Krief said.

The French scientist said she hoped that, while advancing medicine for humans, the research project in Kibale could also contribute to “a better understanding and protection of the flora and the great apes” in the forest, both of which include critically endangered species.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071220/sc_afp/ugandafrancewildlifesciencepharma;

_ylt=AiJViJF8rRA.TxivUbG1b52s0NUE

Rescued Animals Benefit from Special Gifts this Season

The American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) is getting into the spirit of the holiday season by awarding nearly $60,000 in grants to care for rescued animals. Sanctuaries across the U.S. That provide haven for animals released from research facilities will receive donations ranging from $1,000 to $15,000 by Christmas.

You can help us provide sanctuary for animals in laboratories by donating to the Tina Nelson Sanctuary Fund.:
http://m1e.net/c?16472024-u.paiMitvO60g%402987703-/ugEDsZcJawAc

As the first animal protection organization in the U.S. dedicated to ending the use of animals in science, AAVS’s mission includes providing direct assistance for animals formerly used in research.

These grants not only help the animals, but allow supporters to make dedicated gifts to sanctuaries that they know adhere to high standards of animal care. One hundred percent of donations to AAVS’s Tina Nelson Sanctuary Fund are funneled directly into the grant program, which carefully vets potential recipients.

Particularly at this time of year, says AAVS President Sue Leary, “We caution donors whose kind hearts may be exploited by outfits that call themselves sanctuaries when they are not.” Before donating to a sanctuary, people should check to make sure the animals in its care are prohibited from breeding, which only exacerbates the problem; that they are not commercially traded (bought or sold); and that they are cared for properly.

Among the sanctuaries receiving AAVS grants this month are two that serve a particularly hard-hit group: primates. Monkeys are widely used in invasive research, but are occasionally released after experiments that might include implanting hardware in their skulls for neurology experiments. Both Mindy’s Memory Primate Sanctuary in Oklahoma and Jungle Friends Primate Sanctuary in Florida care for some real hard-luck cases, such as monkeys who have had coils surgically implanted in their eyes to record eye movement.

Two Chester County, Pennsylvania sanctuaries–Ryerss’ Farm for Aged Equines, in South Coventry Township, and Chenoa Manor in Avondale– are also among the grant recipients. Ryerss’ Farm cares for 80 horses, including several who were once used in pharmaceutical production. And rabbits, who might otherwise have been euthanized after being used in experiments, now call a naturalistic setting at Chenoa Manor home.

Other awardees include Animali Farm in California, Peace River Refuge & Ranch in Florida, and International Primate Protection League in Georgia, which has a male and female gibbon pair who recently celebrated 25 years out of a research laboratory.

“We know that animals used in research suffer immensely,” said Tracie Letterman, Executive Director of AAVS. “It’s gratifying to know that we can play a part in rescuing animals from research, and help provide a home where they can live out the rest of their lives free from harm.”

Designate a gift to the Tina Nelson Sanctuary Fund and help animals rescued from laboratories! : http://m1e.net/c?16472024-i72qdrTilTrRk%402987703-1bAfy8XqQkABA

Lorri Bauston, founder of Animal Acres, loving Jamie.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2007/12/15/2003392585

LAWMAKERS PASS OVERHAUL OF LAW ON ANIMAL RIGHTS IN TAIWAN

Staff Reporter

By Flora Wang
Saturday, Dec 15, 2007, Page 1

The legislature overhauled the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法) yesterday, introducing better protection of animal rights as well as tougher fines and prison sentences for those who abuse or abandon animals.

The amendment also defines animal abuse for the first time, stipulating that any “violence, undue use of drugs or other behavior that harms animals or prevents them from maintaining normal physiological functions” is considered abuse.

According to the amendment, animal owners are required to provide vaccinations for their animals in addition to satisfying their basic needs such as food, water and protection from harassment and abuse.

Also included is a new requirement for the government to provide public play areas for pets.

The amendment clarifies the ban on killing “pets” for meat or fur by specifying dogs and cats as pets.

It also bans inhumane methods of slaughtering livestock.

The amendment, however, allows for the killing of animals that pose “immediate danger” to a person’s life, health, freedom or property or to public security.

It also requires pet breeders to renew their licenses every three years, while authorizing the government to inspect their facilities.

According to the amendment, anyone who abuses or causes serious harm to animals or kills a dog or cat may be fined between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000 — double the fine before the bill was passed. Photographs and names of violators may be published as part of the punishment.

Violators who repeat their offense within two years may be fined between NT$200,000 and NT$1 million (US$30,800).

Upon a third violation within five years, violators may be sentenced to one year in prison and be fined up to NT$1 million.

Anyone who uses live animals as game prizes or sells dead dogs or cats may be fined between NT$50,000 and NT$250,000 and have his or her name and/or photograph made public. This means that vendors who offer hamsters and rabbits as game prizes at night markets will be subject to fines if they do not cease the practice.

The amendment also introduces tighter penalties for people who abandon animals.

Abandoning an animal that could negatively affect the ecosystem is punishable by a fine of NT$30,000 to NT$150,000.

Abandoning animals not detrimental to the ecosystem is punishable by a fine of between NT$15,000 and NT$75,000.

The same fines will apply to animal owners who fail to provide adequate medical care for sick or injured pets or livestock after having been warned by the government.

The amendment also empowers the government to remove animals from an owner’s care where there is evidence of abuse or negligence.

In addition, if owners neglect to control their animals and this results in damage to the property of others, authorities may confiscate the animals.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), one of the proponents of the amendment, called it “a humane and progressive bill.”

“The amendment helps Taiwan improve not only its international image but also animal protection in the country,” she said.

Breaks my heart…

December 11, 2007 at 21:48:45

by Mark Hawthorne
http://www.opednews.com

A common misconception shared by those who sneer at animal-rights activism may be best framed in the following statement, hurled at me as I protested Canada’s annual seal slaughter: “Why don’t you animal-rights people spend your time helping humans?” Implicit in such a question (it’s really an accusation) are the beliefs that a) Humans are superior to all other species and b) Those who work to advance the interests of non-human animals are misanthropes – or at least they don’t care much for their fellow humans.

Actually, every animal activist I know understands there is a direct link between animal liberation and human liberation. They know that violence against animals frequently precipitates violence against humans; that vivisection is a barbaric and dangerous practice; that eating animals and their secretions (eggs and dairy products) is a major contributor to human diseases; that while an estimated 750 million people go to bed hungry every night, a third of the world’s grain is fed to farmed animals; and that our subjugation of animals has led to a host of human tragedies, including euthanasia killings, genocide and slavery. Not only are animal activists aware of these realities but, unlike most people who waggle their fingers at us, we’re doing something about them.

The relationship between animal exploitation and the degradation of humans goes back thousands of years. In his book “Eternal Treblinka,” historian Charles Patterson demonstrates how the domestication and abuse of animals has served as a model for how humans treat one another. Practices used in the slave trade, for example, such as chaining, whipping, branding and castration, were first used to control and dominate animals raised for food. Feminist Elizabeth Fisher, notes Patterson, asserts “that it was the vertical, hierarchical positioning of human master over animal slave that intensified human cruelty and laid the foundation for human slavery. The violation of animals expedited the violation of human beings.”

We even use animals abstractly to degrade and oppress humans: men are “pigs,” enemies are “rats,” a coward is a “chicken,” liars are “dog faced,” people sometimes act like “sheep” and women are often referred to as “dogs,” “chicks,” “bitches” or “cows.” When driving, we might flip the “bird” to a “road hog.” Thus, equating a person with an animal is the height of vilification. Even calling someone “an animal” expresses opprobrium.

Meanwhile, as eating animal flesh has become a national pastime, so has dying from heart disease, cancer and stroke. No one is immune to illness, but, according to the American Dietetic Association, vegetarians have lower rates of death from coronary heart disease, and they have lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure and lower rates of type-2 diabetes and prostate and colon cancer. In fact, on average vegetarians live six to 10 years longer than meat-eaters, who are nine times more likely to be obese than vegans. Studies have shown that vegetarian kids grow taller and have higher IQs than other children, and adults who switch to a plant-based diet can prevent and even reverse many of the chronic ailments plaguing our meat-loving culture. Animal activists know that a well-planned veggie meal provides us with all the nutrients we need (even protein!), liberating us from the saturated fat, cholesterol and contaminants found in meat, eggs and dairy products. Moreover, the typical Western meat-based diet can only feed 2.5 billion people, but a plant-based diet will feed everyone on the planet.

Though agribusiness churns out the most animal suffering in terms of numbers (55 billion raised and killed each year for food worldwide — a staggering statistic that continues to rise), using animals in product testing and medical research (vivisection) is doubtless the most sinister cruelty imaginable. Millions of animals every year are tortured and infected with diseases. Rabbits are blinded. Mice grow tumors as large as their bodies. Animals have their spines crushed, their bodies repeatedly cut open and their brains implanted with wires. Most of these procedures are conducted without painkiller. Animals often witness other animals killed right in front of them.

Aside from the horrific animal abuse involved, vivisection can be dangerous to humans, since the physiological differences between humans and other animal species cause our bodies to react differently to drugs and diseases. Dr. Charles Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinic, remarks: “I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil.” Across the pond in the UK, Dr. Vernon Coleman, Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, puts it even more bluntly: “[M]any vivisectors still claim that what they do helps save human lives. They are lying. The truth is that animal experiments kill people, and animal researchers are responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, women and children every year.”

Finally, psychologists and criminologists recognize that those who abuse animals are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people; indeed, animal cruelty is now on the FBI’s list of warning signs for future violence. “Murderers …very often start out by killing and torturing animals as kids,” says FBI profiler Robert Ressler. Even violence in the home frequently begins with animal abuse: studies have shown that in situations where women or children were abused, so were their animals. A 1995 study, for example, revealed that 71 percent of battered women in one U.S. shelter said their abusive partner had harmed, or threatened to harm, the family pet.

Far from being misanthropic, when an animal activist reaches out to a fellow human being, she or he is not only advocating on behalf of animals but helping another person realize the connection between our oppression of animals and the oppression of humans — and how liberating one group benefits the other.

Professor Diane Beers reminds us that animal activists have long been engaged in other social reforms. In her book “For the Prevention of Cruelty: The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States,” Beers observes that even 19th-century reformers understood that animal abuse, domestic abuse and child abuse all sprang from the same insidious well. Animal advocate and ASPCA co-founder Henry Bergh, for example, had a central role in the formation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1874. And let’s not forget the work of humanitarian William Wilberforce, who co-founded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and is best remembered for helping to abolish the slave trade throughout the British Empire.

Neatly summarizing the animal liberation-human liberation link is a popular activist slogan: “One struggle, one fight! Human freedom, animal rights!” But perhaps Andrew Linzey, the director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, characterizes the connection best. Professor Linzey shares a story about a beleaguered animal activist who was confronted by someone demanding to know how she could dare work for animals while there was still cruelty to children. “I’m working at the roots,” replied the activist.

Mark Hawthorne is the author of Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism (O Books).

www.strikingattheroots.com

Mark Hawthorne is the author of “Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism” (O Books). Mark adopted a vegetarian lifestyle soon after an encounter with one of India’s many cows in 1992 and went vegan a decade later. He is now a committed animal activist who has engaged in nearly every model of activism, from leafleting and tabling to protesting and direct action. Currently, he is working with hundreds of other activists on an historic ballot initiative that will ban the use of battery cages, gestation crates and veal crates in California. Mark was a contributing writer for Satya from 2004 until the magazine ceased publishing in June of 2007, and his articles, book reviews, essays and opinion pieces have also appeared in Herbivore, VegNews, Vegan Voice, Hinduism Today, Utne.com and many daily newspapers across the United States. Mark is a volunteer for Animal Place, a vegan education center and sanctuary for farmed animals in northern California, where he serves on the outreach advisory council. He is also involved in rabbit rescue and lives with five rescued rabbits.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/12/11/vicked_1212.html

By KENNETH J. SHAPIRO
The Animals & Society Institute
Published on: 12/12/07

Michael Vick’s prison sentence is an unfortunate but necessary consequence of engaging in illegal animal cruelty. The judge’s order includes jail, fines, probation and drug treatment, but failed to include an important element that would hasten Vick’s personal and professional redemption: psychological counseling to understand why Vick ever considered fighting and killing dogs acceptable in the first place.

As a psychologist, I have studied animal abuse for 15 years and have seen firsthand how a cycle of violence victimizes animals and people alike, including the abusers themselves. This “violence link” forms a behavior chain stronger and more dangerous than any pit bull.

Violence toward animals doesn’t always lead to violence toward human beings, but there is a strong correlation. Children who abuse animals and get away with it often adopt the attitude that it’s OK for the strong to victimize the weak. It is no coincidence that many wife beaters, child abusers, school shooters and some of our most notorious serial killers have a history of hurting animals early in life. This doesn’t mean that every kid who shoots a cat or beats a dog will end up shooting his classmates or beating his girlfriend, but violence in any form must be dealt with promptly.

To address this violence link, a program called AniCare was developed in 1999 and today is used in more than 30 states. Training workshops are used to educate social workers, mental health clinicians, criminal justice officers and others about the need to assess and treat those convicted of animal cruelty. The program uses a cognitive-behavioral approach that requires juvenile and adult offenders to be accountable for their violent behavior and learn other ways of dealing with the world.

The Vick case has put a famous face on the tragically common issue of animal cruelty. Animal fighting, whether with dogs or chickens, takes place daily in urban streets, rural fields and backyards across America, despite felony laws against it. Police know well that animal fighting often involves illegal gambling and the presence of dangerous drugs and weapons. Both animals and people — participants and spectators — are threatened by this recreational cruelty, and children are especially vulnerable to its influences.

Many who seek to explain Vick’s behavior look to his background and lifestyle; some blame poverty, some blame privilege. He reportedly grew up (or hung out) in an environment where certain types of abuse were either tolerated or perpetrated, and no one seems to have intervened to stop him or his friends from doing something that they knew was legally wrong but not, apparently, morally wrong.

If he knew better, he failed to do better, and there are thousands of other animal abusers out there whose names will never make the evening news. But for most of them, counseling and treatment goes a long way toward preventing the type of indoctrination that can lead to incarceration.

In life, as in football, there are penalties for not playing by the rules. With his personal and professional life on the line, Vick’s game plan for the future must include psychological counseling so that he can break the cycle of violence.