Elephants Leaving the Big Top

One of the concepts I try to educate students about is the difference between tame and domesticated animals.

A tame animal is one that is relatively tolerant of humans.  A wild animal can be tame if it has a lot of positive exposure to humans, although it is still a wild animal with all of it's instincts and behaviors intact.  Unfortunately there are many examples of tame animals turning on their handlers/owners -- from Roy Horn (Siegfried & Roy) being attacked by his tiger during a performance to the woman who was attacked by a friend's pet chimpanzee and had her face and hands ripped off.

A domesticated animal is different than a tame animal.  Domestication is a process whereby humans genetically change an organism to meet their needs.  When an animal is domesticated it loses many of it's natural behaviors and instincts, and tends to be able to be tamed much easier when socialized from a young age.

For years I have opposed traditional circuses that use tamed, wild animals to entertain audiences through trained performances.  A large part of my opposition is due to the fact it has been documented that many of these animals are trained using highly aversive and abusive methods.  These methods are unnecessary -- through my own education I know that it's possible to train any animal through the use of positive methods.

A bigger concern is that circus animals cannot have the proper environment and enrichment to thrive and engage in their natural behaviors.  When traveling from location to location animals are transported on a train.  In between performances on the road elephants are chained by shackles on their feet.  Wild cats are kept in barred cages much smaller than even the habitats that good zoos use to house their big cats -- which is smaller than what their habitat would in the wild.

 
Humans share the earth with many other species.  As the dominant species we have a responsibility to care for the earth and make choices that not only benefit us, but that treat animals in a humane manner.  Using animals solely for the purpose of entertainment when it doesn't benefit the individual animal nor the rest of their species is, in my opinion, immoral.    Additionally it sends the wrong message to children - that wild animals should be something to be entertained by, and not respected. 

Recently Ringling Bros. recently announced that they are eliminating their elephant acts, and will phase them out by the year 2018.    Although too long in coming, this is a bit of welcome news.  Now Ringling just needs to commit to eliminate all of their wild animal acts. 

The Power of Ignorance

The SuperBowl ad pulled by GoDaddy was widely criticized by animal lovers.  The ad profiled a puppy that fell out of a pickup truck and braved wilderness, train tracks, bridges and a rainstorm to make it home.  The puppy's owner was overjoyed to see him and then stated that she'd just sold him off the website she'd created through GoDaddy.  You can see ABC News' reporting of it here. 

The outrage the ad created was due to the fact that websites selling puppies are typically through puppy mill operations.  These commercial breeders raise puppies for profit without concern for the genetic health of the parents, typically house their dogs in small caging without toys or beds in unsanitary conditions.  Many times the breeding dogs aren't groomed, given veterinary care, and suffer from neglect.  Breeding females are breed with every heat cycle until they are too old to produce.

I think it's amazing that the magic of the internet and social networking worked so fast as to get GoDaddy to pull the ad before it ever made it to the Super Bowl, something that had never happened before.  In this age we have the ability to communicate instantaneously and make changes almost as fast. 

While I agree that the ad was horrible and absolutely promoted the wrong message, I do think it's a symptom of a different problem.  I have a hard time believing that anyone would knowingly create a commercial promoting such an abhorrent practice as mass commercial breeding of puppies.  It makes more sense to me that the commercial was created out of pure ignorance.  And when you think about how many people had to have been involved in it's production, it's a tremendous number of ignorant people who didn't see anything wrong with the ad. 

Those of us involved in animal welfare are immersed in what we know, and it's easy to forget that others don't have the same knowledge that we do.  Education is the key to making changes, and we have to keep in mind that many times ignorance is the cause of problems and we have it within our power to enlighten others. 

Going to the Birds

"You need to do a lot of research before you go out and get a new pet.  You need to know how much the pet is going to cost, what food you need to get, the type of cage or kennel size, what types of toys..., and how loud it's going to be." 

We require Critter Club applicants to write an essay before they can be approved as members.  The above quote is from an essay written by a very recent applicant who owns two parrots.  The timing of our receiving the essay was perfect since Critter Club just took our end of the semester field trip to the Center For Avian Rehabilitation and Education (CARE) in Huburtus, WI.  

HAWS education department stresses research before you get a pet since one of the reasons so many owners fail to keep their pets is because they weren't prepared for the needs of the pet before they brought it home.  And while this is true of any animal you might want to bring home, it's especially true when talking about an exotic animal like a parrot. 

Parrots are noisy.  When we visited CARE over the weekend there were times where we couldn't hear the person talking just a few inches away.  They also require a very large (and very expensive cage), a well balanced diet, toys, and a tremendous amount of education about their behavior. 

In the wild parrots would live in large flocks of hundreds of individuals and spend their time foraging for food, searching for nesting sites and selecting their mate.  As pets they are frequently confined to small areas (even the largest cage is smaller than their natural territory), in a relatively solitary existence, with little to do all day.  It is difficult to keep a pet parrot happy, and we saw evidence of this when we visited CARE because some of the birds had engaged in feather plucking creating large areas of baldness over their bodies.  Wild parrots don't feather pluck, which tells you how stressful it is for many pet parrots. 

The fact that many people aren't successful as owners of parrots was apparent in the fact that the large room housing the birds was jam packed with cages upon cages of homeless birds. 

These are animals that can live between 25 and 80 years, depending on their species.  If someone is going to have one as a pet, they owe it to their parrot to learn as much as they can and attempt to give the parrot the best life possible in unnatural circumstances.  And since parrots do live so long it would be great if prospective parrot owners would adopt a parrot from a rescue, rather than purchase a young parrot from a breeder or a store. 

Public Service Announcements

Back in the end of November I published a post about the public service announcement project the Critter Club kids were doing.  At that time we had two finished PSAs, and I promised to post the other three when they were finished.

They actually were finished shortly after that, but what with the holidays and planning and running HAWS Kids 'N Critters Winter Camp I completely forgot.  Last night one of the club members reminded me.  So here they are -- enjoy!


Adopt an Adult Cat


Do Your Research First


Don't Pet Unfamiliar Dogs

Last week a friend of mine lost her dog for almost 24 hours.  Initially we were sure she'd be back or we'd find her any minute, but as time went on without even a sighting we started to think the worst. 

It was a horrible experience for my friends and those of us who cared for Dixie and her owners.  But the most amazing thing was just how many people came out in 30 degree weather after dark for hours to help look in the fields and woods surrounding the area where Dixie was last seen.  Not only did friends come out to help, but people who were only casual acquaintances also showed up. 

Those of us who love our dogs and think of them as our family members can understand just how devastating it would be to lose one and not know if she'd dead or alive, injured, frightened, cold or stolen.  We can all relate to how chilling it would be to face the fact that your dog might never be found alive, or might never be found at all.  And the uncertainty would be even worse than finding that your dog had died. 

Luckily Dixie did come back the following afternoon.  She was cold, frightened, scratched up and dehydrated after a night  in the woods.  We will never know where she was or what she was doing during the time she was missing, but it's a miracle to have her back safe.  And  knowing that so many people care enough to help a fellow dog owner in a time when they are in need is another miracle. 

Public Service Announcement

Each semester we try to have the Critter Club kids do some kind of a project.  Critter Club is a program at HAWS for middle school students that helps them get involved in HAWS through educational meetings on Thursday evenings, and volunteer work on the weekends.

This semester I decided to have them create video Public Service Announcements, which meant I had to do some research on them myself.  PSAs are advertising to the public with the goal of raising awareness, or changing behavior or attitudes towards a social issues.  It is not advertising a product or promoting a company or organizations.

I also learned about what goes into a good ad and passed this information onto the club members.  A good PSA is 30 to 60 seconds in length, usually has a tag line, and narrows it's focus onto one simple concept.  A PSA that gives out too much information is one that isn't going to be remembered.

I also showed the kids some videos of both PSAs and regular commercials.  It was a great trip down memory lane to show the PSA with the Native American Indian crying over pollution and the frying egg showing what your brain on drugs looks like.  The commercials I showed were more current and I was able to point out the short duration of shots within a given commercial -- nowadays individual shots last about 2-3 seconds at the most.  Apparently modern viewers have a really short attention span!

The kids broke up into 5 groups, chose their topics, wrote scripts and created story boards.  Then they got to work shooting video, and went through the process of editing it.  Two of the groups finished their PSAs last night and those are displayed here.  I'll post the other three when they're done.

Five Things You Probably Never Knew about Animal Shelters

1) Animal Shelters are individual organizations; there isn't an umbrella organization that creates policy or that a shelter has to answer to.  

 "We adopted him from your _______ location."  At HAWS we hear things like this all the time. 
People are often amazed when we tell them that HAWS is our own organization and we aren't affiliated with other shelters. 

While some shelters have a variety of campuses within a general area, there is no national organization that oversees all of us.  And while we may occasionally work with other shelters on projects, exchange ideas with one another, and sometimes transfer animals, we aren't the same organization at all. 


2) Shelters can be government run or a private non-profit. 

It seems to be a common perception that animal shelters are government run entities that are run off of a tax base.  While some shelters are (usually called "animal control" facilities), many shelters are not.  It really depends on the specific facility.

HAWS is a non-profit organization that is run by a member elected board of directors.  The majority of our funds are obtained through donations and fundraising efforts.  The only money we get from the tax base is by contracting out our services  to many Waukesha County municipalities to handle such things as stray animals and holding animals that have been confiscated from their owners through allegations of neglect or abuse. 


3) Shelters don't necessarily have any authority to investigate neglect or abuse cases. 

 An animal control officer or humane officer is the person, besides a police officer, who would investigate allegations of neglect or abuse to an animal.  These are people who have been specifically trained to know the law as it pertains to animal welfare, and are trained in animal care and behavior.   They are also endowed with legal authority to conduct investigations, issue citations and file charges.

Because HAWS is a privately run non-profit we are not a government agency.  The people who investigate neglect and abuse cases in Waukesha County are Humane Officers employed by the county.  HAWS works closely with these officers since we're a holding facility for animals removed from homes through legal action, and also a bite case quarantine facility.  But if we get calls from people wanting to report neglect or abuse of animals in the community we refer them to Waukesha County. 


4) Not all shelters take in stray animals. 

Government run shelters will take in strays since as an animal control facility that is a large part of their purpose.  Non-profit animal shelters vary depending on their policies and the contracts they may have with area municipalities.

Shelters that chose to be what's called in the animal welfare industry "Limited Intake", take in only those animals that they have space for and that they feel they can place.  They usually don't offer stray services because to do so could mean that their intake would exceed what they're capable of housing.

The policy of an open admission shelter is to take in any unwanted animal from their community no matter how adoptable or unadoptable it is, what physical condition it is in, or how friendly or aggressive it may be.  HAWS is  run as an "Open Admission" shelter and part of our mission is to provide stray services to municipalities that want to contract with us.




5) Some shelters only take in dogs and cats, others take in a variety of animals.  

HAWS is lucky to have the space and resources to be a truly open admission shelter and we take in just about anything that can be kept as a pet.  We always have rabbits, and almost always have guinea pigs.  Additionally many times you can find birds, small rodents and reptiles at HAWS looking for their forever home!