I came across the following article on Asia Times Online (basically a politics & economics newspaper) a couple of days ago. I thought some of you might be interested. It's about the capture, sale, and subsequent death of owls for 'Harry Potter' themed parties among well-off Indians, and how these are threatening the existence of some species.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LL10Df01.html
What follows is some thoughts of mine which developed after reading this article. I wonder if some of you - especially some of you in England who may be snowed in or nearly so this weekend, and have free time - might have your own thoughts having read this, and reply to the linked article itself, and not necessarily to what I say.
If you like, what I say is an attempt to contribute a few year-end reflections to Bird Forum, which has been helpful to me through this year again. But beyond being helpful in response to my own queries, there are the many threads I have read but not participated in which have given pleasure just because of the generousness of the various respondees in giving information and opinion.
It's 9pm here in Japan, my wife is away visiting her 80-year-old father (who keeps and breeds cage birds, and not just budgies but sometimes genuinely wild (but not in any way rare) birds like white-eyes, which is part of the thought stream which goes into what I say), and I have had a few beers.
I'm from England, but live in Asia (Japan, 28 years, more than half my life) and I've been birdwatching in India and met a few serious Indian birders; but unfortunately, in my experience and according to what I read, people in mainland Asia (Japan is much better these days, though not there yet) who are not involved directly with birds and animals tend to be at the opposite end of the scale, and act as though they think that living creatures are just things like stones.
It's a bit surprising when you consider all the vegetarianism and 'cows are more important than people' ideology that is around in India. I went there for the first time last year. If you want a really horrific experience in India visit the Jain hospital for sick birds (mainly pigeons) near the Jama Masjid mosque in Delhi. Any really humane person would wring the neck of pigeons who are so sick they can be picked up off the street by hand, in my opinion, but the Jain bird hospital feeds them and keeps them in small and squalid cages until they die of whatever disease they have (in fact, they seemed to sit around and die in a bed of grain that they were too sick to eat). But is this any different from the way the (even a little bit) rich in India treat their poor and sometimes starving fellow citizens?
The new rich in China are similar in their disregard for animal life, but at least they don't hypocritically go on about 'ahimsa' (non-violence) as so many Indians do. (I've been to China about ten times.) It sometimes seems like China and India and other Asian countries will be deserts devoid of animal and plant life long before the countries gets as rich as the people would like to be.
I remember being in Guilin in southern China in 1983 at Chinese New Year, and in the street there were cages with various animals - monkeys, civet cats, pangolins, snakes, and quite a lot of other things (see photo). I commented to my Chinese-speaking (but western) travel companion how nice it was to provide a zoo for the children for the holiday. My friend looked at a list on the wall and told me what the animals were (most were new to her, too). I said, 'What's the one at the top?'. She said, 'That's 'Menu'.' She's now a diplomat in Delhi, and I went with my wife to visit her last year, which is where the India-China connection comes in my personal life.
I know the 'zoo' in my picture looks horrible, but China was a very different place in 1983, there weren't many things to amuse the people, and I myself was a less enlightened person than I am now. In our hotel in Guilin (near the 'zoo') I slept with all my clothes on and a woolly hat, because the bedclothes were only changed every few weeks or months, and I thought it was safer.
It's good in a way that Liu Xiaobo has won the Nobel Peace Prize - it's true that the list of previous winners is weighted towards warmongers such as Kissinger, Sakharov (developed Russia's hydrogen bomb), and Obama, but Liu at least seems to be a peaceful and sensible person, not some religious nutcase or someone who is in opposition just because he likes arguing. You'd think the Chinese government, which is doing a lot of good things as well as not-so-good things, would be ready to open up China to a broader variety of opinion than there is at present.
But I sometimes (especially after a few beers, and when I read articles like the one I linked to above) think that the movements for better treatment for animals, like the RSPCA and RSPB and WWF, have been more important in improving our level of civilization in the west - that is more important in promoting better treatment of our fellow citizens and of foreigners, not just of animals - than some of the more overt political movements. And our movements to preserve the countryside and our built heritage also have done this, however 'middle-class' they may seem.
My wife's father who, as I said, keeps and breeds caged birds, had a very hard life, working in an undersea coal mine as part of the Japanese war effort when he was in his early teens (from 12 or so), not getting a real education, and not being fed properly, and then spending almost forty years as a deckhand (not an officer or anything like that, but swabbing the decks and doing the physical work) on fishing boats and commercial transport ships, away from his family for 11 months of most years. So when it comes to the fact that he keeps caged birds and grows bonsai trees in his retirement, I am amazed that he managed to keep some sense of beauty through his hard life, and I can't find it in my heart to criticise him. He talks about the different character of different birds - not just species, but individual birds, and he keeps the birds because he thinks they look and sound beautiful.
My wife and I are going to Laos (Luang Prabang) and Vietnam (Cuc Phuong nature reserve) for the end of year holidays. My friend who has been to Vietnam with his nature-loving wife said, 'You won't see any birds in Vietnam, they've eaten them all'. I hope not.
http://cucphuongtourism.com/
Cuc Phuong has a primate research centre with endangered monkeys of various kinds. Last year we went to Uganda and saw Chimpanzees and Gorillas in the wild. Are we destroying these animals, or is eco-tourism really increasing their chances of survival?
Anyway, Happy New Year to any and all of you who have read this far!
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LL10Df01.html
What follows is some thoughts of mine which developed after reading this article. I wonder if some of you - especially some of you in England who may be snowed in or nearly so this weekend, and have free time - might have your own thoughts having read this, and reply to the linked article itself, and not necessarily to what I say.
If you like, what I say is an attempt to contribute a few year-end reflections to Bird Forum, which has been helpful to me through this year again. But beyond being helpful in response to my own queries, there are the many threads I have read but not participated in which have given pleasure just because of the generousness of the various respondees in giving information and opinion.
It's 9pm here in Japan, my wife is away visiting her 80-year-old father (who keeps and breeds cage birds, and not just budgies but sometimes genuinely wild (but not in any way rare) birds like white-eyes, which is part of the thought stream which goes into what I say), and I have had a few beers.
I'm from England, but live in Asia (Japan, 28 years, more than half my life) and I've been birdwatching in India and met a few serious Indian birders; but unfortunately, in my experience and according to what I read, people in mainland Asia (Japan is much better these days, though not there yet) who are not involved directly with birds and animals tend to be at the opposite end of the scale, and act as though they think that living creatures are just things like stones.
It's a bit surprising when you consider all the vegetarianism and 'cows are more important than people' ideology that is around in India. I went there for the first time last year. If you want a really horrific experience in India visit the Jain hospital for sick birds (mainly pigeons) near the Jama Masjid mosque in Delhi. Any really humane person would wring the neck of pigeons who are so sick they can be picked up off the street by hand, in my opinion, but the Jain bird hospital feeds them and keeps them in small and squalid cages until they die of whatever disease they have (in fact, they seemed to sit around and die in a bed of grain that they were too sick to eat). But is this any different from the way the (even a little bit) rich in India treat their poor and sometimes starving fellow citizens?
The new rich in China are similar in their disregard for animal life, but at least they don't hypocritically go on about 'ahimsa' (non-violence) as so many Indians do. (I've been to China about ten times.) It sometimes seems like China and India and other Asian countries will be deserts devoid of animal and plant life long before the countries gets as rich as the people would like to be.
I remember being in Guilin in southern China in 1983 at Chinese New Year, and in the street there were cages with various animals - monkeys, civet cats, pangolins, snakes, and quite a lot of other things (see photo). I commented to my Chinese-speaking (but western) travel companion how nice it was to provide a zoo for the children for the holiday. My friend looked at a list on the wall and told me what the animals were (most were new to her, too). I said, 'What's the one at the top?'. She said, 'That's 'Menu'.' She's now a diplomat in Delhi, and I went with my wife to visit her last year, which is where the India-China connection comes in my personal life.
I know the 'zoo' in my picture looks horrible, but China was a very different place in 1983, there weren't many things to amuse the people, and I myself was a less enlightened person than I am now. In our hotel in Guilin (near the 'zoo') I slept with all my clothes on and a woolly hat, because the bedclothes were only changed every few weeks or months, and I thought it was safer.
It's good in a way that Liu Xiaobo has won the Nobel Peace Prize - it's true that the list of previous winners is weighted towards warmongers such as Kissinger, Sakharov (developed Russia's hydrogen bomb), and Obama, but Liu at least seems to be a peaceful and sensible person, not some religious nutcase or someone who is in opposition just because he likes arguing. You'd think the Chinese government, which is doing a lot of good things as well as not-so-good things, would be ready to open up China to a broader variety of opinion than there is at present.
But I sometimes (especially after a few beers, and when I read articles like the one I linked to above) think that the movements for better treatment for animals, like the RSPCA and RSPB and WWF, have been more important in improving our level of civilization in the west - that is more important in promoting better treatment of our fellow citizens and of foreigners, not just of animals - than some of the more overt political movements. And our movements to preserve the countryside and our built heritage also have done this, however 'middle-class' they may seem.
My wife's father who, as I said, keeps and breeds caged birds, had a very hard life, working in an undersea coal mine as part of the Japanese war effort when he was in his early teens (from 12 or so), not getting a real education, and not being fed properly, and then spending almost forty years as a deckhand (not an officer or anything like that, but swabbing the decks and doing the physical work) on fishing boats and commercial transport ships, away from his family for 11 months of most years. So when it comes to the fact that he keeps caged birds and grows bonsai trees in his retirement, I am amazed that he managed to keep some sense of beauty through his hard life, and I can't find it in my heart to criticise him. He talks about the different character of different birds - not just species, but individual birds, and he keeps the birds because he thinks they look and sound beautiful.
My wife and I are going to Laos (Luang Prabang) and Vietnam (Cuc Phuong nature reserve) for the end of year holidays. My friend who has been to Vietnam with his nature-loving wife said, 'You won't see any birds in Vietnam, they've eaten them all'. I hope not.
http://cucphuongtourism.com/
Cuc Phuong has a primate research centre with endangered monkeys of various kinds. Last year we went to Uganda and saw Chimpanzees and Gorillas in the wild. Are we destroying these animals, or is eco-tourism really increasing their chances of survival?
Anyway, Happy New Year to any and all of you who have read this far!
