The following questionnaire has been distributed to the candidates for NYC Mayor. We will post their responses as they are received.
Animals Vote NYC
Box 319 Gracie Sta., New York, NY 10028
e-mail: AnimalsVoteNYC@juno.com tel.212.737.9358
July 17, 2001
Dear 2001 Mayoral Candidate,
"Animal people" have long had a reputation as zealous advocates for the furry and the feathered - the sentient species that can't speak for themselves. In fact, the majority of animal people are ordinary folks with jobs and families and bills to pay. They just happen to take notice of the inexcusable suffering of animals at the hands of certain insentient humans and the desensitizing effect that such cruelty has on us all.
Much of New York City's animal advocacy has been, and remains, in the grass roots. And, how the grass roots have evolved! The proverbial Little Old Ladies Who Feed Strays have given way to today's politically astute activists whose passion for the well-being of animals is joined in Animals Vote NYC, a database of 75,000 animal-loving residents of the city's five boroughs who are bona fide registered voters*.
For the most part, our primary concerns parallel those of the mainstream: schools . . . crime . . . housing . . . the environment . . . consumer affairs . . . public policy. But our perspective on these mainstream issues comes from a unique point of view, as evidenced in the enclosed questionnaire.
The Animals Vote NYC questionnaire addresses our specific concerns: humane education . . . animal control and shelter reform . . . humane law enforcement . . . pets in housing . . . urban wildlife . . . carriage horses . . . public policy and consumer issues that impact New York City's animals. Our objective is to determine - from among all the viable candidates for the office of Mayor of the City of New York - whose policies will be best for the animals. This year, for the first time, our votes will be cast on the animals' behalf.
We ask you to take the time necessary to consider the issues raised in our questionnaire and to respond by the requested reply date of August 15. We shall make our endorsements prior to the September 11 primaries and, if necessary, a September 25 runoff, and again prior to the November general election, based on the entirety of each candidate's response.
Thank you for replying - and may the most humane candidate win!
Livi French, Coordinator
ANIMALS VOTE NYC
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* Comprises 62,000 registered voters who petitioned for the 1997 NYC Shelter Reform ballot initiative and 13,000 registered voters on the membership rolls of various local animal-protection organizations, including the Activism Center at Wetlands Preserve, Shelter Reform Action Committee, and The Caring Corps, Inc. (Breakdown of party registration reflects the whole of New York City.)
Animals Vote NYC * The voice of 75,000 New York City animal lovers who vote.
Mayoral Candidates QuestionnaireThank you for responding. There are a total of 41 questions in this 26-page questionnaire. Background information and source references are included.
The areas covered are:
Wherever a reference is made to the respondent's support of a program, policy or legislation, "support" implies active, not passive, support as well as respondent's commitment to work for the effectuation of such program, policy or legislation to the maximum extent afforded the office of Mayor of the City of New York.
Please respond by the requested reply date of August 15 so that we may evaluate your answers and make timely endorsements for the September 11 primaries. Following the primaries, and a possible September 25 runoff, we will make a single endorsement prior to the November general election.
Thank you again for your participation and your timely response. A pre-addressed return envelope is enclosed for your convenience.
Animals Vote NYC
Livi French, Coordinator
ANIMAL CONTROL AND SHELTER REFORM
A Brief History
In the mid-nineteenth century, an influential New Yorker named Henry Bergh was so appalled by the mistreatment that animals were subjected to, he founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ("ASPCA"). Being a gentleman of influence, Mr. Bergh was able to finesse from the State Legislature a unique charter that legalized the protection of animals and gave the society the unheard of power to enforce the new anti-cruelty law and prosecute its violators. [Resource: "Angel in Top Hat," Zulma Steele; 1942, Harper & Brothers, New York]
The same State Legislature granted power to the mayor of New York City to determine who would perform the City's Animal Control duties. The then-mayor designated the Department of Health ("DoH"), which in turn wanted the ASPCA. But Mr. Bergh would have none of it. The society would stick to its singular purpose, and Mr. Bergh would devote the rest of his life to the brand-new field of Humane Law Enforcement. [Note: It's a common mistake to confuse Animal Control and Humane Law Enforcement. The two are distinct and separate functions - though sometimes their activities do overlap, hence the confusion.]
Henry Bergh died in 1888. Six years later, the DoH designated the ASPCA to be the City's Animal Control agency, which, back then and over the years, has mostly meant collecting and destroying stray and unwanted dogs and cats. And so it was for the next 100 years.
During all those years, the City never funded Animal Control sufficiently enough to do much more than pick up and kill stray dogs and cats. Pick them up, hold them for the legally required 48 hours - and hope that at least some will get adopted - and then kill them. Take in owner-relinquished pets and kill them, too, without having to wait the 48 hours. And, lacking a functional lost and found system, kill lost pets along with the strays and unwanted ones.
Even after the ASPCA started using some of its own funds to supplement the City's miserly Animal Control budget, it still wasn't enough to get a handle on pet overpopulation. It was never enough to do much more than pick up and kill. No adoption outreach. No spay/neuter program. No public education campaigns. Just pick up, hold for 48 hours, and kill. One year, the City killed a record 80,000+ dogs, cats, puppies and kittens - while achieving a less-than 15 percent adoption rate. [See the Pet Adoption and Spay/Neuter entries in the Public Policy section of this questionnaire.]
Because there was never enough money for population control, the strays and throwaway pets propagated faster than they could be collected and killed. So instead of Animal Control controlling the problem, the problem overwhelmed Animal Control, and New York City's pet overpopulation problem spiraled still farther away from a humane solution.
At a time when more and more progressive municipalities had begun to tackle their pet overpopulations with innovative spay/neuter, adoption and public education programs, some with budgets 3 and 4 times the modest national per-capita average, at a time when an enlightened new concept out of San Francisco called "no kill" was in the air, New York City was spending half the national per-capita average to pick up and kill. [One possible solution - a potential annual windfall of $6.8 million - is not even being looked at. See more on this in the State of the City's Animal Care and Control System entry in the Public Policy section of this questionnaire.]
The Status Quo
When the ASPCA finally announced it would not renew its Animal Control contract beyond 1994, the City was forced to search for a replacement. An RFP produced no candidates deemed qualified, so Corporation Counsel quietly (some would argue, secretly) contrived the Center for Animal Care and Control ("CACC"), incorpor-ating it in 1994 as a private not-for-profit charity, and installed, ex officio, on its 7-seat board of directors, the Health and Sanitation Commissioners and a Deputy Police Commissioner. The DoH had, in effect, awarded itself the Animal Control contract. [See more on the CACC and the DoH in the Public Policy section and throughout this questionnaire.]
After still another dubious "search" for an executive director for its spawn, the DoH installed one of its own career bureaucrats with no prior relevant experience to manage what is the largest Animal Control and shelter system in the U.S. (After said bureaucrat's inevitable removal, despite expressions of interest from nationally prominent humane professionals, the top job was filled by a mayoral crony likewise lacking any prior relevant experience.)
The by-laws of this quasi-private charity/quasi-public bureaucracy allow the mayor to hire and fire the other four board members at will and on whim. That's exactly what happened on June 16, 1997, during a City Council Contracts Committee hearing on the CACC, when two qualified and respected CACC board members dared to give sworn testimony critical of City Hall's interference. Within minutes of their testimony, the two were fired, and before the dust had settled, they were replaced with two election-year paybacks, neither with any relevant experience. (That action earned the mayor the sobriquet "Crueliani.") Instead of firing members of the humane community, City Hall should be welcoming their expertise.
The CACC is a two-headed hydra with no accountability, crippled in its ability to raise charitable donations because of its ties to City Hall, unable to meet its corporate mission, and frequently the subject of lawsuits and bad press. In its controversial 6-year history, it has managed to garner the mistrust of just about everyone who has dealt with it. [Resource: www.shelterreform.org]
1. Will you support a truly independent charitable organization to contract for Animal Control by, first, naming humane professionals to manage the CACCand then relinquishing City Hall's control of its board of directors?
Historically, the DoH has paid so little attention to its responsibility for animal management that for years its Bureau of Veterinary Public Health Services (a k a Office of Veterinary Services) was omitted from the DoH'spublished organizational chart. Many New Yorkers believe that the DoH is entirely the wrong entity to oversee animal issues because of its mandate to protect human health and its bureaucratic perception that animals exist only as a threat to humans (e.g., dog bites and rabies). The DoH essentially confirmed that belief when it recently combined its Veterinary Services and its Pest Control Services into a single office.
The DoH is roundly, and rightly, criticized for its mishandling of local animal issues and its antiquated approach - collecting and killing tens of thousands of dogs, cats, puppies and kittens every year - as a solution to the pet overpopulation crisis in our City.
Looking Forward
In 1997, a ballot initiative was written which proposed to amend the City Charter by creating a new City department with authority over all animal matters. Such a proposed Department of Animal Affairs would be mandated to protect animals and humanely solve the pet overpopulation problem through aggressive public education, low-cost spay/neuter and adoption programs. It would be following a successful precedent set in other American municipalities, whose year-to-year kill numbers are in dramatic decline.
More than 75,000 signatures were collected to put this initiative to the voters, but the City wouldn't allow it on the ballot. A lawsuit ensued. The initiative ultimately failed when the court ruled that the initiative would supersede the power of the mayor to designate Animal Control (the power granted by the century-old State law). When a bill was introduced in Albany to amend the old State law and eliminate the mayor's exclusive power from its language, thus paving the way for the City Council to amend the City Charter with the creation of a new department for animal affairs, the Giuliani Administration opposed the legislation and lobbied aggressively against it. The bill died in committee.
New York City's animals need advocates, not bureaucrats, to make life and death decisions on their behalf. Our injured, lost and stray animals are no better off today than they were 50 years ago. New Yorkers want a resolution. It is overdue.
2. Will you support a move to eliminate the mayor's exclusive authority to designate Animal Control duties, allowing the City Council to create a new department?
3. Will you support the creation of a City Department of Animal Affairs to have authority over the City's animal shelters and ancillary field services, dog licensing, carriage horses, and all other issues pertaining to municipal animal management?
HUMANE LAW ENFORCEMENT
New York, we have a problem.
When Henry Bergh (18131888) founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ("ASPCA") in New York City in 1866, he stated its original purpose thusly: "The objects of the society are to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States." [Putting it in perspective, post-Civil War America barely existed west of the Mississippi River, and in 1866 many of the southern Confederate states had not yet rejoined the Union; i.e., the United States was not then what it is today.] For all intents and purposes, the ASPCA's Humane Law Enforcement jurisdiction was and is the State ofNew York - a jurisdiction that includes, by special State law going back more than a century, an exclusive s.p.c.a. (i.e., humane law enforcement) monopoly in the City of New York.
Henry Bergh, with his unique state charter in hand, employed a force of hundreds of Humane Law Enforcement agents in the City to carry out the society's mission. He was dedicated to enforcing the new anti-cruelty law and prosecuting its violators, and he did so for the rest of his life. [Resource: "Angel in Top Hat," Zulma Steele; 1942, Harper & Brothers, New York]
Within six years of Henry Bergh's death, the ASPCA ventured beyond the scope of its original purpose, expanding into areas such as animal control (1895), a veterinary hospital (1912), and sheltering and pet adoption. In the process, Humane Law Enforcement took on a less prominent and, over the years, diminishing role. In recent times, the ASPCA's Humane Law Enforcement division has had a force of agents (who are trained and designated as peace officers) numbering no more than a dozen or so at any given time. They are simply unable to respond to all the cruelty complaints they receive. As at April of this year, their roster had shrunk to a new low of eight Humane Law Enforcement agents. This, in a City of 8 million people, at a time when incidents of animal abuse - including dog fighting and aggravated cruelty - are on the rise.
The Law
Whatever the reason, or reasons, for the degradation of the ASPCA's original Humane Law Enforcement mission, we have ended up with one huge problem here in New York City. These are some of our anti-cruelty laws that are only minimally enforced:
New York State Agriculture and Markets Law, Article 26.
Sec. 351. Felony animal fighting. Up to 4 years in jail and a $25,000 fine. Misdemeanor animal fighting. Up to 1 year in jail and fines between $1,000 and $15,000.
Sec. 353 and 355. Misdemeanor cruelty and abandonment. Up to 1 year in jail and/or a maximum $1,000 fine.
Sec. 353-a. Felony cruelty. Up to 2 years in jail and/or a $5,000 fine.
Animal advocates have long known something that lawmakers, law enforcement, and the judiciary are only lately coming to understand: There is an indisputable connection between childhood/adolescent cruelty to animals and adult criminality, and between domestic violence, child abuse, and animal abuse. We refer to these interlocking elements as "The Link."
There has always been plenty of anecdotal evidence to support The Link in theory - like the astounding coincidence of animal torture and mutilations earlier in the lives of serial killers (like Jeffrey Dahmer), mass murderers (like the killer of 21 people in a California McDonald's), and adolescent "school shooters" (like the recent spate in Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oregon and Colorado).
We certainly weren't trying to keep The Link a secret. It's just taken time to work its way into the mainstream consciousness. Over the past 25 years, a (still-expanding) body of studies in psychology, sociology and criminology have slowly but surely demonstrated beyond a doubt that violent offenders frequently have childhood and adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty. One renowned study, "Childhood Cruelty Toward Animals Among Criminals and Noncriminals" (Kellert and Felthous), found that 25% of aggressive criminals confessed to five or more acts of childhood animal torture, compared to under 6% for non-aggressive criminals. Of non-criminals interviewed for the report, zero had brutalized animals. [Resource: "Cruelty to Animals and Interpersonal Violence," Lockwood and Ascione, editors; 1997, Purdue University Press. And see more on The Link in the Humane Education section of this questionnaire.]
The FBI has recognized The Link since the 1970s, when its analysis of the lives of serial killers suggested that most had, as children, killed or tortured animals. The FBI's standard diagnostic and treatment manual for psychiatric and emotional disorders now lists cruelty to animals as a diagnostic criterion for conduct disorders.
Local law enforcement authorities have been slower to catch on. While some police departments do include animal-cruelty awareness in their guidelines for officers handling domestic violence cases, and others invite their local humane society's investigator to be part of a cross-disciplinary task force*, most local law enforcement authorities typically ignore cruelty cases or treat them as secondary offenses. (*New York City has a joint task force, created a few years ago, comprising the five district attorneys, the NYPD, the Center for Animal Care and Control ("CACC") and the ASPCA. We anticipate learning what benefit has come of it.)
Although 45 state legislatures have now passed felony cruelty laws (New York State got its in 1999), prosecutors seldom utilize the felony option. And in felony and misdemeanor cruelty cases alike, sentencing often hinges upon the subjective view of the judge.
Cruelty and violence run wide and deep in our City, but the departing Administration has never shown any interest in protecting our animals. To the contrary, the current City Hall, very early on, low-prioritized animalprotection right off the radar screen.
Because the ASPCA's Humane Law Enforcement division is so ill-equipped to respond to all the cruelty complaints it receives, enforcement of most animal-protection laws naturally falls to the NYPD. In fact, the New York State Agriculture and Markets Law provides that police officers must arrest or issue a desk appearance ticket or summons to any person who violates fighting, cruelty or related laws. The NYPD's track record here is a decidedly mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
A Quick Fix . . .
Alas, New York will never have another Henry Bergh. But we can hope. We wistfully recall not so long ago when animal-advocate Bill Bratton was Police Commissioner and took some strong, pro-animal actions in his brief tenure at the department's helm, including firing two police officers who brutalized a pet dog in their precinct stationhouse. We would like to see a formal, department-wide NYPD policy for the humane handling of animals and all animal issues that fall within the department's purview. And we would like to see the NYPD assign a few of its 40,000-member force - e.g,, two pro-animal officers in every police precinct (about 150 total) - who would be dedicated to animal-cruelty cases and all other animal-related police matters in their respective jurisdictions.
4. What official anti-cruelty and pro-animal policies will you institute in the NYPD?
. . . and a Long-term Solution
The Police Academy does not offer (and to our knowledge has never offered) training in Humane Law Enforce-ment for its cadets. All candidates to wear the uniform, and the public, could benefit from its inclusion.
5. Will you include mandatory training in Humane Law Enforcement in the Police Academy's standard training program?
John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) does not have a Humane Law Enforcement course of study in either its undergraduate or graduate curriculum. It should. John Jay is a natural training ground for candidates for both the NYPD and Humane Law Enforcement.
6. Will you add a course of study in Humane Law Enforcement to the graduate and undergraduate curricula of John Jay College of Criminal Justice?
CARRIAGE HORSES
Walk the length of Central Park South, past the dozens of idle horse-drawn carriages lined up in the street waiting for fares. The horses are often kept standing there on the asphalt for extended periods, in summer's oppressive heat and humidity without benefit of shade and in winter's subfreezing cold with no respite from the elements. Eavesdrop on the passersby: "The shame of the city". . ."A third-world nightmare in our world-class city". . ."Disgraceful!"
Ever since the expiration nearly eight years ago of Local Law 89 (11/21/8912/31/93), which afforded them some protection, New York City's carriage horses are permitted to work in 90-degree heat and 18-degree cold, no fewer than 9 hours a day, 7 days a week, carrying heavier passenger loads than before. And they're no longer restricted to the relative safety of Central Park. Despite the near-unanimous opposition of the City's leading civic and business associations as well as the Fire Department's Emergency Medical Service and of course the local humane community, carriage drivers now cruise in midtown traffic as far south as 42nd Street and in the theatre district, their horses breathing in exhaust fumes, competing for space in congested, chaotic rush-hour traffic [an estimated 870,000 vehicles per weekday].
New York City has the highest horse-carriage accident rate of any city in the U.S. In the years following the demise of Local Law 89, it has become commonplace for New Yorkers to read about yet another carriage horse bolting or collapsing or dying in work-related circumstances. [Compare: The average working life of a New York Police Department horse is more than 15 years. The average working life of a New York Citycarriage horse is less than four years.]
When their workday is done, the horses go "home" to six carriage stables in Manhattan. The indoor air is fetid, stagnant, unventilated - hot in summer, cold in winter, reflecting the day's outdoor temperature. Provision of drinking water is optional. Most horses' nonworking hours are spent in cramped 4 ft. x 10 ft. standing stalls, with no room to turn around or lie down. Tied by their halters, they are unable to move more than a few inches.
Five of the six stables are fire traps. Each, typically, is an aged building with a single steep, narrow entrance/exit ramp leading to several levels housing rows of standing stalls. And despite the City's fire codes, there are dangerously inadequate sprinkler systems in these old, flammable structures. Each stable is a tragedy waiting to happen.
7. To what extent will you support legislation to improve the living and working conditions of New York City's carriage horses?
Wherefore this state of disgrace? In a word, politics.
In 1935, only 15 horse-drawn carriages operated in New York City. The cause of today's problem likely took root in the late 40'searly 50's (official records from that period are "lost"). It was during that time-period that the City deemed to sell 68 carriage medallions (licenses) with no laws in place to regulate the carriages or protect the horses. An industry was born. Two stable owners purchased all 68 medallions for $100$200 each and began selling their excess medallions to new carriage operators at profits so handsome that by 1985 licenses were being transferred for $40,000 and more. (In 1989, a single carriage medallion changed hands for $180,000!)
By the 1960's, the industry's unregulated expansion was responsible for a sharp, steady rise in deadly accidents and the noticeable abuse of the horses. The public was growing increasingly alarmed, and in the 1970's, the fledgling humane community attempted to address the problem via legislation. Enter the most high-powered lobbyists that industry-money could buy. Any and all legislative attempts to address the problem were thwarted by obstructionists from both sides of City Hall. Accidents and abuses continued unabated.
By mid-1981, public outcry had grown too loud to be ignored, so, over the raucous objections of an industry whose operators now totaled 141, the pitifully weak Local Law 4 (the "Horse Licensing & Protection" law) was enacted, [A year later, in mid-1982, a cosmetic Advisory Board was hurriedly formed after three carriage horses dropped dead on the city streets in a single day. The Board met only once, to no effect, to no one's surprise.] Accidents and abuses continued unabated.
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Who are the carriage industry's lobbyists? They are a succession of extremely well-connected political operatives. In the 80's, he was a county boss/councilman/future congressman who served the mayor and the industry simultaneously. In the 90's, he was a high-powered political consultant who acted as adviser to the City Council leadership and was on the payroll of the chairman of the Council committee having industry oversight, even as he lobbied for the industry (with assists from his predecessor). In the new millennium, he is a second-generation white-haired gentleman with familial ties to a former mayor and a City Council president.
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By 1989, the combined voice of an outraged public, the international news media and the burgeoning humane community could no longer be dismissed. So, on May 31, the City Council began hearings on a year-old bill (the Dryfoos compromise bill). The hearings were marked by carriage-driver riots, damage to City Hall property, and physical threats to the bill's advocates, which resulted in further compromise of the bill - one especially unsatisfactory compromise being its four-year expiration date. Finally, on November 21, after six months of political machinations, Local Law 89 was enacted via the Council's override of the then lame-duck Mayor's veto - the Council's first such override in 20 years. While far from perfect, the new law would give New York City's carriage horses at least some protection (though its enforcement would prove to be lacking). Immediately upon passage of Local Law 89, the carriage operators sued the City for its repeal.
It isn't known exactly when the industry became an immigration conduit; that may have been one of its original intents. What is known is that nine years ago (at a May 29, 1992 City Council hearing), the Emerald Isle Immigration Center of Woodside, Queens, publicly revealed its interest in the carriage industry for the first time.
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Upon Local Law 89's passage, the carriage operators didn't just sue the City. A few weeks later, in January 1990, they sued several humane advocates to thwart planned legislation that would have mandated humane stables and horse-care. (The lawsuits were dismissed in November '91 and March '92, respectively, but the industry continued fighting for repeal or emasculation of the new law and against any additional protection for the horses.)
For the next four years, the City Council played host to many a contentious hearing, with testimony heard from all sides. (At one especially memorable Transportation Committee hearing (February 13, 1992), described by witnesses as an Alice-in-Wonderland kangaroo court, a Health Department functionary presented the committee's newly installed chairman with a glowing - and transparently bogus - "stable inspection" report.) The carriage drivers' chorus of threats to do bodily harm were routinely directed at their adversaries, the horse advocates, in a lilting but hardly charming brogue that resounded inside and outside the Council's chambers.
The industry prevailed. On February 28, 1994 - despite 11th-hour theatrics during a 40-day extension of the expiring law plus two months with no law at all, with all sides debating the worthiness/unworthiness of various alternate bills - the backroom quid pro quo was validated. The City Council passed Local Law 2, public opinion be damned, and the new Mayor signed it into law two weeks later, public opinion be doubly damned. The rollback of protection for the carriage horses was a fait accompli. The concrete canyons awaited hooves that would never know grass.
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The industry's math does not compute. There are currently more than 400 drivers for 68 carriages licensed to a handful of owners. The ratio of drivers to horses is 3-to-1. And the drivers' numbers keep increasing even as they complain that they can't make a living.
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Local Law 2 has been called a monument to greed, its sole purpose the enhancement of carriage operators' income. The law is roundly condemned by civic, business and good-government leaders and by the public at large. There is no rationality for such blatant political giveaways to a tiny, greedy industry. [Resources: The New York Times; ASPCA; Carriage Horse Action Committee archives]
8. What action(s) will you take to depoliticize the horse-carriage industry?
HUMANE EDUCATION
Humane Education is defined as "a process that encourages an understanding of the need for compassion and respect for people, animals and the environment and recognizes the interdependence of all living things." At its most basic level, Humane Education is about learning to care for the animals in our homes and communities. It is about fostering kindness, respect and empathy for both human and nonhuman animals, and looking after the environment and its diverse habitats. Unlike science and other academic disciplines, Humane Education has a philosophical component that strives to establish a sense of responsibility and make the world a better, more humane place. Humane educators believe that children who learn to care about animals and develop a respect for all life will be more respectful of each other and grow up to be more compassionate adults.
Section 809, NYS Education Law
In 1947, the New York State legislature enacted §809 of the Education Law mandating that "instruction . . . be given in every elementary school under state control . . . in the humane treatment and protection of animals," thereby acknowledging the potential value of Humane Education. The law further states: "A school district shall not be entitled to participate in the public school money on account of any school . . . subject to the provisions of this section, if the instruction required hereby is not given." Nevertheless, in practice, §809 of the State Education Law has never been fully implemented, and in fact it is largely ignored.
It can be argued that Humane Education is even more urgent today than it was in 1947. While New York City has so far been spared a Columbine-type school massacre, we are dealing here with 5- and 6-year-olds bringing lethal weapons into the classroom . . . a fatal fistfight in a school bathroom between two 9-year-olds . . . nearly a third of New York City's high school students routinely witnessing threats of violence and gang fights in their schools. The brand-new "Schools Against Violence in Education" Act, intended to build students' character, and the Board of Education's hiring of 200 NYPD officers, to act as "school safety agents" in an effort to curb in-school sex attacks, are belated afterthoughts. Conversely, the prioritization of Humane Education in the classroom could be the single greatest preventive measure against violence of all kinds, both in and outside of school. [Resource: Survey, Citizens' Committee for Children of New York]
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Famed anthropologist Margaret Mead noted: "One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or torture an animal and get away with it." Most of the research indicates that the first instances of cruelty to animals take place early in the abusers' lives. A high percentage of the nation's teenage and preteen "school shooters" have histories of torturing and killing animals, including their own family pets. FBI studies have linked childhood cruelty to animals with later criminality, including child abuse. Abused children are themselves more likely than non-abused children to "act out" by abusing animals. Humane Education helps break this vicious cycle of abuse. [See more on "The Link" in the Humane Law Enforcement section of this questionnaire.] Humane Education is a sound investment, working on the prevention of criminality and antisocial behavior, which can have a massive societal cost, both in terms of reduction in quality of life and in financial costs incurred through criminal damage, maintenance of law enforcement systems, court costs, prison systems, and juvenile work.
In 1985, in an effort to implement §809, the City Board of Education developed a 90-page Humane Education Resource Guide, which was disseminated free of charge to several thousand public school teachers over a period of 45 years. [In 1989, the United Federation of Teachers created the extracurricular UFT Humane Education Committee to help support interested teachers with program development. The committee, however, does not do extensive outreach; its membership fluctuates between 800 and 2,000 teachers, who can attend the committee's workshops, access the committee's website and receive an assortment of imported teaching materials.]
Today's teachers need, first and foremost, to be educated about the existence of §809 and given the training and materials necessary to help them implement the law. The 1985 Guide, while still available from the Board of Ed for a nominal fee, has never been updated and is in need of major revision. Once revised, the Guide should be put in the hands of every teacher in every one of the City's 650+ elementary schools. The cost of revising and disseminating the Guide is estimated at $250,000, a very modest amount in the $12 billion school budget for the new fiscal year. The value of Humane Education cannot be overstated. It creates a culture of empathy and caring by stimulating the moral development of children to form a compassionate, responsible and just society. We believe that, along with their ABC's and the 3R's, our children need to be taught the values inherent in Humane Education.
9. Will you prioritize Humane Education in the City's public schools?
Vivisection / Dissection / Animal Experimentation in the Classroom
Vivisection is defined as "the cutting of or operation on a living animal" and dissection as "the cutting and separating of an animal into pieces and exposing the several parts for scientific examination." Animal experimentation, under the guise of scientific study but often practiced for its own sake (e.g., the non-educational classroom activity of chick-hatching), has no legitimacy in our public schools. Indeed, it is the antithesis of the Humane Education philosophy. This is especially true today when, increasingly, American schools of higher learning - including medical colleges - are phasing out animal testing in favor of non-invasive alternatives (one leader in the field being the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing). Many of the non-animal testing methods now available (e.g., in vitro and computerized "virtual organ" technologies, cell cultures, and artificial and mathematical models) as well as observational studies of animals in their local, natural habitats (e.g., bird-watching) are viable alternatives to vivisection/dissection/animal experimentation for New York City's public-school students.
10. Will you support the banning of vivisection, dissection and all animal experimentation from the public schools?
Vegetarian Options in the Cafeteria
Today, more than 20 million Americans are vegetarians and millions more have greatly reduced their consumption of meat. This major shift toward a vegetarian diet is largely because people are discovering
(1) the link between meat-eating and human disease; (2) the cruelties inflicted on food animals by intensive
meat-production methods ("factory farming"); and (3) the extreme adverse effects that such intensive meat-production methods have on the environment. [Resources: Friends of Animals, Inc.; Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine]
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Every year billions of food animals are routinely fed antibiotics to combat diseases inherent in factory farming, they are sprayed with pesticides to kill parasites, and they are fed growth hormones to increase productivity. These substances enter the food chain, becoming part of the hamburgers and chicken nuggets served in the school cafeteria. Meat is also high in cholesterol and saturated fat, which contribute to problems later in life, such as heart disease and cancer. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has said that almost 70% of American deaths are from ailments associated with diet. Scientific evidence shows that the best diet for preventing chronic diseases and obesity consists of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes - the components of a vegetarian diet.
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In just the past year there have been national recalls of meat tainted with salmonella and the deadly E. coli bacteria, including a recall from the biggest supplier of hamburger meat to America's public schools. Here in New York City, widespread corruption in the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service was recently exposed in headline-making news accounts, calling into question the safety of all "USDA approved" meat.
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Not only are meatless meals good for human health, animal welfare and the planet, but new studies, like the one reported in the June 4, 2001 Miami (Fla.) Herald, reveal a correlation between students' switching to a vegetarian diet and a marked increase in their grade point average!
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As increasing numbers of adults opt for a vegetarian diet, parents want their children to have that option as well.
11. Will you support the inclusion of a vegetarian menu in all public school cafeterias?
The Congress of the National Parent-Teacher Association, in 1993, proclaimed: "Children trained to extend justice, kindness, and mercy to animals become more just, kind and considerate in their relations to one another. Character training along these lines in youths will result in men and women of broader sympathies; more humane, more law-abiding - in every respect more valuable - citizens. Humane education is the teaching in schools and colleges of [all] nations the principles of justice, goodwill, and humanity towards all life. The cultivation of the spirit of kindness to animals is but the starting point toward that larger humanity that includes one's fellows of every race and clime. A generation of people trained in these principles will solve their international difficulties as neighbors and not as enemies." [Resource: www.worldanimal.net]
Charter School
Charter schools, with their experimental curricula and freedom from traditional Board of Ed and union red tape, are enjoying citywide popularity. There are currently 14 SUNY- and state Board of Regents-approved charter schools in New York City, with more to come. Given adequate funding, an elementary level (grades K5) charter school using the Humane Education standard could become a model for mainstream public schools.
12. Will you support the creation of a Humane Education-based charter school?
Specialized High School
New York City's diversity is reflected in its dozens of specialized and alternative public high schools, some of them offering fairly esoteric courses of study - Aviation, Fashion Industries, International Business & Finance, Performing Arts, Automotive, and Art & Design among them. A high school whose studies are based on the principles of Humane Education and which specializes in animals and the environment, would prepare students for careers in a broad spectrum of professions in the public and private, for-profit and nonprofit sectors.
13. Will you support the creation of a specialized Humane Education-based high school?
PETS IN HOUSING
In New York City, the standard residential lease contains a "No Pets" clause. Landlords routinely invoke the No Pets clause as a pretext to evict tenants (especially long-term tenants) or to keep them in check - for reasons including monetary gain and personal animosity arising from tenants' complaints about needed repairs or the lack of essential services. In 1983, New York City enacted what is known as the "Pet Law" to protect tenants from having their pets used as a form of retaliatory eviction or an excuse for eviction. The Pet Law states that, if a landlord has knowledge for three months that a tenant is openly harboring a pet but the landlord fails to commence an eviction proceeding within that three-month period, then the No Pets clause in the lease is deemed waived.
However, as with any legislation, the Pet Law is subject to different interpretations. And as interpreted by the courts, the Pet Law is not protecting tenants to the extent intended. For example: (i) elderly and disabled tenants, often housebound, have pets that are their primary if not sole form of companionship, often filling a therapeutic need; and (ii) many tenants have lived in the same rent-controlled or rent-stabilized apartments for 2030 years or longer and have always kept a pet. The Pet Law, misinterpreted by the courts, has the cruel consequence of allowing the elderly, the disabled, and the long-term tenant to be evicted for replacing a pet that has died. This cruelty has no basis in law and does not comport with the intent of the Pet Law.
14. Will you support amending the Pet Law to clarify that its original language, stating "the lease clause is deemed waived," unequivocally entitles any tenant to replace a deceased pet that had been protected under the Pet Law?
A recent judicial interpretation of the Pet Law has created a safe haven for landlords to avoid the Pet Law completely. This loophole can be rectified with the clarification that a landlord will be held to have knowledge of a tenant's pet if any on-site employee at the building, whether or not directly employed by the landlord, is aware of the pet.
15. Will you support amending the Pet Law so that knowledge of a tenant's pet by an on-site employee at the building, whether or not directly employed by the landlord, will be deemed knowledge of the pet by the landlord?
The conversion of rental units to co-ops and condominiums continues even as the dwindling supply of existing and new rental properties increasingly adopt a "no pets" policy. This, in a city with an estimated one million pet dogs! According to the Appellate Division of the Second Department, the purpose and intent of the Pet Law is no less applicable to the owner of a condominium than to a co-operative unit owner.
16. Will you support amending the Pet Law to apply to condominiums as well as to co-operatives and rentals?
URBAN WILDLIFE
Ecosystems
Within the 320 square miles that comprise New York City's five boroughs there are tens of thousands of acres of natural habitat that are home to a variety of little-known ecosystems, each sustaining a unique collection of plant and animal life. Salt marshes in Inwood Hill Park (Manhattan), Udall's Cove (Queens), Pelham Bay Park (Bronx), Old Place Creek Marsh (Staten Island), Marine Park (Brooklyn). Forests in Staten Island's Greenbelt, the Northwest Forest in the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park, The Ramble and North Woods in Manhattan's Central Park, The Ravine in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, the Upper Alley in Queens' Alley Pond Park. Grasslands, of which only 10 acres remain in Van Cortlandt Park and 25 acres in Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, only 140 acres at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, and just 1,200 acres in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens (in and around the runways at JFK Airport). Plus numerous bodies of fresh water and 578 miles of waterfront.
All told, an estimated 330 different species of birds, 30 mammals, 32 reptiles and amphibians, and more than 200 kinds of fish inhabit our City's skies, trees, buildings, parks, and waterways. (And those are just the vertebrates!) The numbers do not include headline-grabbing "exotic pets" abandoned by their owners or the occasional coyote visitor from the suburbs, but they do include a tiny flock of wild turkeys in Upper Manhattan and the famous pair of peregrine falcons nesting on the 59th floor ledge of the Met Life building in Midtown Manhattan members of the largest urban peregrine falcon population in the world. [Resource: "Wild New York,"Mittelback & Crewdson; 1997, Three Rivers Press, New York]
None of our ecosystems or their inhabitants exist in a vacuum. All are vulnerable. For example: 38 acres of wetlands in the 139-acre Bloomingdale Park (southern Staten Island) are currently threatened with destruction to make way for ball fields. And about a third of Jamaica Bay's 9,000 acres are losing marsh grass at a rate that threatens to disrupt the entire bay ecosystem; activities connected to airport expansion and nearby sewage plants are among the suspected causes.
17. What is your policy for protecting our City's diverse ecosystems?
Injured Wildlife
Currently, the Center for Animal Care and Control ("CACC"), which is New York City's contracted animal-control agent, is responsible for picking up injured wildlife (in addition to injured and stray domestic animals).The injured wildlife, mostly species protected under federal and/or state statutes, are transported to a CACC facility where, instead of receiving proper care, they are almost always euthanized. Most injured wildlife could be saved and eventually released back into the wild if the CACC would make a reasonable effort to utilize the services of some of the many state-licensed wildlife rehabilitators living in the City. Some have suggested that the City sponsor a wildlife rehabilitation center where injured wildlife could be properly treated and cared for.
18. How will you remedy the unnecessary killing of our City's injured wildlife by the CACC?
Pesticides - General
New York City leads the state in the amounts of pesticides used, often indiscriminately.
19. Do you support legislation that mandates the City identify ways to reduce municipal use of pesticides and implement alternatives?
New York State recently enacted the "Pesticide Neighbor Notification" law, which requires commercial pesticide applicators to give advance notice to the neighbors immediately adjacent to either residential or commercial premises prior to the application of a pesticide at the premises.
20. Will you support the City's adoption of the new state "Pesticide Neighbor Notification" law?
Birds have regularly been poisoned in the City purely for cosmetic reasons, most often with Avitrol. Rock doves (pigeons), which are one of only three bird species not federally protected, are Avitrol's primary target. Last year the Governor signed a bill banning the use of Avitrol in cities with a population of one million or more.
21. Do you support the ban on Avitrol?
22. Will you support further legislation to ban the poisoning of all bird species with any poisonous substance?
The extensive use of pesticides throughout Central Park in areas enjoyed by adults, children and their pets (i.e., the spraying of fungicides, herbicides and insecticides as well as the use of rodenticides) by the Central Park Conservancy/Parks Department is suspected in the deaths of several wildlife species including federally protected blue jays, cardinals and woodpeckers and the secondary poisoning death of at least one federally protected red-tailed hawk; and it is the suspected cause of death of at least two pet dogs. City residents in general and park-goers in particular are increasingly concerned about the risk to their own health from continued exposure to pesticides.
23. What is your position on the use of pesticides in all public parks?
Pesticides - West Nile
The general consensus is that the City's anti-West Nile virus mosquito-spraying campaign - begun in 1999 with Malathion, continuing in 2000 with Anvil, and extending into 2001 with Naled - has been an unmitigated disaster for people and animals alike.
The Mayor's own Chem-Bio Handbook describes Malathion as a toxic nerve gas related to one used by the Nazis in WWII (i.e., the highly toxic nerve gas Sarin, a chemical cousin of Malathion); and Anvil is described as a nerve gas known to cause asthma and other respiratory and reproductive problems in humans.
Thousands of fish, lobsters, birds and beneficial insects like butterflies and bees have been killed by the spraying. In late summer 1999, Central Park was sprayed just as the monarch butterfly's annual mass migration (the Atlantic Flyway) was under way. Thousands of monarchs fell to the ground dead at the feet of horrified park-goers. In Staten Island, 2,000 fish died in a lake sprayed with Malathion, and colonies of bees disappeared from their sprayed habitat. A lawsuit is pending against the City for causing the die-off of crabs and lobsters in Long Island Sound. This year, a misguided attempt by the City's Department of Environmental Protection to rid a Highland Park Brooklyn marsh of the West Nile mosquito succeeded only in ridding the marsh of the mosquito's natural predators.
The pesticide company hired by the City last year to spray Anvil has just been fined $1 million by the State Department of Environmental Conservation ("DEC") for using untrained and unsupervised workers, some of whom have complained of ailments ranging from breathing difficulty to sexual dysfunction after being exposed to the pesticide. Private citizens who, with no advance warning, were sprayed on the street have filed lawsuits against the City.
Researchers with the DEC recently announced their surprise finding that more birds were killed last year by pesticides than by the West Nile virus. Post-mortems on up to 250 birds a day revealed that in the year ended March 31st, 1,263 birds were identified as carrying the West Nile virus versus 1,953 birds that died of pesticides, with many cases the result of birds eating smaller prey with high levels of poisons. So far this year, 1,200 dead birds from across the City have been reported to the City Health Department. About a third (400) were picked up for testing, and 30 were actually tested. None were infected with the West Nile virus. The human toll to date (mostly the elderly and ill) is seven in 1999, two in 2000 and none so far this year - far fewer victims than have died in the City from the flu during a typical flu season. [Resource: www.nospray.org]
24. In view of the debacle that our City's West Nile virus mosquito-spraying campaign has created thus far, what is your strategy for dealing with West Nile?
CONSUMER ISSUES AND PUBLIC POLICY
The State of the City's Animal Care and Control System
If New York City had properly functioning animal-control and shelter services with appropriate governmental oversight, there would be no need to raise many of the following pet-related issues. [See more on the Center for Animal Care and Control ("CACC") and the Department of Health ("DoH") in the Animal Control and Shelter Reform section of this questionnaire and elsewhere in this section.]
A growing number of progressive American municipalities are creating dedicated, departmental-level agencies that address and give equal weight to all matters of animal care and animal control ("animal affairs"). These municipalities work hand-in-hand with their local humane communities to maximize their goals: increased shelter adoptions, decreased shelter killings, improved field services, public awareness campaigns. Their shared ideal is to become a no-kill city, based on the San Francisco model. [Resource: www.shelterreform.org]
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We need to talk money. The City's current animal control budget is $8.5 million. Based on the 2000 U.S. Census, that's $1.06 per capita, or just about 50% below the national per capita average, and is clearly in-sufficient for New York City's needs. What to do? The City has a large, untapped source of revenue that could and should be used to improve its animal care and control services. The revenue source: dog license fees.
There are an estimated one million owned dogs in New York City. Only 90,000 of them are licensed (which is mandatory under State and local laws). That means 910,000 owned dogs are unlicensed. Allowing for a $3 State surcharge and deducting the $1 tag cost, the City nets $7.50 per license. $7.50 x 910,000 = $6.825 million in revenues not collected because the DoH doesn't bother enforcing the dog license law. If a real effort were made to license the City's owned dogs and the revenue earmarked for animal affairs (instead of going into the City's general fund as it now does), then New York City's per capita spending would jump to $1.92 and we'd be back in the ball game. Maybe even in a brand-new ballpark - a Department of Animal Affairs.
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Until New York City follows the lead of other, progressive municipalities and creates a dedicated agency for animal affairs, in effect removing oversight from that most cumbersome of City bureaucracies, the DoH, there is a need for an interim solution to our current dysfunctional animal care and control system.
25. Will you establish a Mayor's Office for Animal Affairs, to liaise with New York City's private-sector humane community, as an interim measure at least until the City creates a dedicated, departmental-level municipal agency for animal affairs?
Pet Adoption
In its 6-year history, the CACC has persistently failed to do effective adoption outreach, a contributing factor in the annual kill rate in its facilities of more than 40,000 mostly young, healthy, highly adoptable dogs and cats and puppies and kittens. For decades, the City's contracted animal-control agencies have quietly relied on the work of local grassroots groups and individuals who rescue stray dogs and cats and do private-placement pet adoptions, to keep the agencies' numbers from being even more abysmal than they were and are. More recently, the CACC allows some of the City's better-known and respected nonprofit grassroots rescue/adoption groups to take animals from the CACC for private-placement adoptions.
26. Will you support a citywide public awareness campaign promoting pet adoptions from local kill shelters (i.e., the CACC) and local nonprofit grassroots rescue groups?
With very few exceptions, these nonprofit grassroots rescue/adoption groups have nowhere to show their rescued animals and must rely on scarce foster homes or costly boarding facilities until adoptions have been arranged. Rescue/adoption groups from the five boroughs agree that a self-managed co-operative-type adoption facility, accessibly located in Manhattan, would allow them to showcase and adopt out many thousands of pets annually that would otherwise roam the streets as strays or be killed at the CACC. The City of New York owns property throughout the City, including fallow properties in Manhattan, any number of which could be zoned to accommodate such a privately run adoption facility.
27. Will you procure, for New York City's private, nonprofit grassroots animal-rescue/adoption sector, a suitable City-owned Manhattan property, to be managed and used by them, free of charge or at very low cost, as a not-for-profit pet adoption facility?
Spay/Neuter
Spaying (female) and neutering (male) is the single most effective means of reducing dog and cat overpopulation, which in turn reduces shelter kill rates and eliminates certain behavioral problems that often lead to owners surrendering their pets to a shelter or dumping them on the street, where they propagate and add exponentially to the overpopulation problem in an endless, vicious cycle. Strays are generally regarded as a nuisance, and in the case of roaming dog packs, may pose a real danger to the public. Because there are too few homes for all the stray and abandoned pets, other options are employed. For example, dog packs and colonies of stray and feral cats can often be managed by a process called TNR - trap, neuter, return, with human caretakers feeding and overseeing the now non-breeding homeless animals in as protected an outdoor environment as possible.
Public education is critical to reducing pet overpopulation, as are easily accessible, low-cost spay/neuter facilities. New York City is in short supply of both. Some municipalities subsidize mobile spay/neuter vans that go into the neighborhoods; others subsidize private veterinarians who serve as "satellite" municipal spay/neuter clinics. New York City has yet to get a handle on its pet overpopulation crisis.
28. Will you support a citywide public awareness campaign about spay/neuter?
29. Will you support publicly funded, privately run accessible low-cost spay/neuter facilities (mobile vans and/or satellite clinics) in all the boroughs?
Pet Theft
Pet theft is big business in the U.S. In New York City it is epidemic. People nonchalantly leave their dogs unattended, tied to a curbside parking meter, while they go off to shop. A leash can be cut and a non-aggressive 60-pound dog tossed into the back of a van in less than 4 seconds. Even dogs left in the relative safety of their own backyards are easy prey for professional pet thieves. There are two major markets for stolen pets: research laboratories and dog fighters. Of the former: The going rate is $150 to $500 per dog (depending on its size) and $100 per cat sold to research facilities, which prefer the docility of friendly pets and are notorious for turning a blind eye to ID tags and other indications that the animals they buy on the black market are lost and stolen pets. Of the latter: Depending on the thief and who his customer is, the going rate is $0 to $50 for small dogs, cats, puppies and kittens stolen for use as live bait to train fighting dogs. [Resource: "Stolen for Profit: How the Medical Establishment Is Funding a National Pet-Theft Conspiracy," Judith Reitman; 1992, Pharos Books, New York] Neither the CACC nor the DoH has a pet-theft public awareness campaign.
30. Will you support a citywide public awareness campaign about pet theft?
Emergency Pet Rescue
New York is a city of pet-owners - of an estimated one million dogs, even more cats, and innumerable birds, fish, reptiles, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, bunny rabbits and other small mammals.
New York is also a city of aging buildings. It is not uncommon for a century-old building to collapse or be deemed, sometimes arbitrarily and erroneously, by the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management, to be in imminent danger of collapse. In many such instances, as well as instances of nearby construction-site accidents, the tenants of affected (usually residential) buildings are ordered to evacuate and may be forced to leave their pets behind, trapped inside their homes, awaiting the fate of the wrecker's ball or condemned to days or weeks of neglect while the alleged danger is studied and/or remedied. [Ref. 172 Stanton St., Manhattan, Jan. 1998; Times Square, July 1998; 14 and 16 Second Ave. at Houston St., Manhattan, July 2000; 13 and 15 West 29th St., Manhattan, June 2001.]
The CACC has shown no interest in developing an emergency rescue plan or dispatching a rescue vehicle to the scene of such building collapses, real and imagined imminent collapses, and construction accidents (with the exception of the high-profile Times Square crane incident in '98); nor has the CACC shown any interest in sending a rescue vehicle to the scene of residential fires and explosions and offering emergency shelter for the pets of newly displaced tenants; nor does the CACC make widely known its mandate to provide such emergency shelter for the pets of newly displaced tenants.
31. Will you establish an emergency animal-rescue policy that includes (i) sending an animal-rescue vehicle to the scene of residential building collapses, forcibly evacuated residential buildings deemed in imminent danger of collapse, and construction accidents, fires and explosions involving residential buildings, and (ii) offering, on-the-scene, temporary emergency shelter for displaced tenants' pets?
"Animal Handlers"
The Department of Health's Office of Veterinary Services (a k a Bureau of Veterinary Public Health Services) is the authority charged with issuing permits to and inspecting New York City's "animal handlers," a designation given to retail pet stores, animal shelters, boarding kennels and pet grooming facilities. The DoH's Office of Veterinary Services currently has two inspectors* and one staff veterinarian* to ensure that the City's 318* animal handlers are in compliance with applicable City Health Code regulations. (*DoH statistics may be inaccurate because information, even when FOIL-requested, is not always forthcoming from the DoH.)
The DoH is mandated to protect people from animals (e.g., dog bites, rats, mosquitoes, rabies), which raises a legitimate question as to its ability to effectively enforce laws and code regulations intended to protect animals.
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One especially problematic pet store in the Bronx epitomizes our doubts about the DoH effectively enforcing laws and regulations protective of animals. There have been multiple complaints against the store going back at least to 1993 for, among other things, insanitary conditions, sickly animals, foul odors, overcrowding of animals in their cages, and inadequate ventilation. Nevertheless, despite the numerous complaints and repeat-edviolations of the Health Code, the DoH has routinely renewed this little shop of horror's permit every year.
Last year, on May 24, the DoH received a complaint about a dead puppy in the window of the Bronx store; however, the DoH inspector did not find a dead puppy in the window when he went to investigate - 23 daysafter receiving the complaint! A couple of months later, at least one of three outstanding complaints against the store was dismissed simply because a DoH employee misaddressed the summons and, undeliverable, it was returned to sender DoH. An intensive letter-writing campaign during the latter part of 2000, directed to the DoH Commissioner, imploring him to shut the store down, fell on deaf ears. The store's DoH permit was renewed, as usual, at year's end. The store remains in business today, its pattern of violations undisturbed.
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Our concerns about the DoH are based on, among other things, its history of bumbling oversight of the contracted animal control agency; its mishandling in 1993 of a corrupted RFP process that resulted, in 1994, in the creation of the CACC out of DoH whole cloth; and its habitual understaffing of Veterinary Services inspectors and veterinarians, which is indicative of its apparent indifference to enforcing Health Code regulations such as the dog-license and leash laws and its absolute failure to enforce Health Code regulations protective of animals in the custody of animal handlers. (Our concerns were redoubled 1_ years ago when the DoH reorganized itself and consolidated into a single office its Veterinary and Pest Control Services!)
32. Will you ensure that New York City's animal handlers comply with all applicable laws and regulations of the City Health Code?
"Pet Dealers"
Last year New York State passed the Pet Dealer Consumer Protection and Animal Care Standards law (the "new Pet Dealer law") in response to the exponential growth in recent years of consumer complaints about the poor quality of puppies and kittens sold in retail pet stores. (The State's 1993 "Pet Lemon" law has proven to be almost worthless.) About 90% of the puppies sold by pet stores are mass-produced in commercial kennels (concentrated in the Midwest and Pennsylvania) commonly known as "puppy mills"; the rest are supplied by unlicensed individuals commonly called "backyard breeders," whose primary sales are direct to the consumer via classified newspaper ads. (The statistics for kittens are similar.) Together, these commercial breeders flood the already overcrowded pet market with well over half a million poorly-bred puppies a year. There are an estimated 300 pet stores in New York City, untold thousands of backyard breeders in and around the City, and an increasing number of puppy mills in the State (with a concentration in Yates County in central-westernNew York). The common denominator of puppy mills, backyard breeders and pet stores is greed - maximizing their profit at the expense of the health and well-being of pets and customers alike. Conversely, reputable dog- and cat-breeders breed for quality, and always deal directly with and screen their buyers before selling. Their golden rule is: Never use pet stores as a middleman. New York State's General Business Law definition of "pet dealer" encompasses puppy mills, backyard breeders and retail pet stores but excludes reputable breeders.
[Resources (partial list): "Scandal of America's Puppy Mills," Readers Digest, Feb. 1999; "Breeding Dogs and Disease: Puppy Mills Ruin the Family Pet," The Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 10, 1995; "To the Dogs: The Shame of Overbreeding," Time magazine, Dec. 12, 1994; "$4.4M Puppy Mill Scandal," New York Post, Sept. 22, 1996; "Cops Find 140 Pomerani-ans in L.I. House," Newsday, May 17, 1999; "Owners Have a Pet Peeve: Shops Sell Sick Cats, Dogs to Area Animal Lovers," Daily News, Mar. 19, 1999; "Dateline NBC," television exposé of puppy mills and their pet-store connection, Apr. 26, 2000; "The Puppy Pipeline: Breeding for ProfitPuppy Mills, Backyard Breeders and Pet Shops" fact sheet, The Caring Corps, Inc.]
33. Will you support a citywide public awareness campaign about the pet store / puppy mill / backyard breeder connection?
The new Pet Dealer law makes state licensing and inspection a prerequisite for doing business as a pet dealer in New York State. The consumer portions of the new Pet Dealer law, which deal mainly with record-keeping and administrative matters, became effective on February 12, 2001. The licensing and inspection provisions of the new Pet Dealer law will take effect on April 1, 2002. This law, like most others, is only as good as its enforce-ment, which may be done by the State Department of Agriculture and Markets and/or the City DoH.
34. Will you ensure that the new Pet Dealer law is fully enforced with respect to licensing and inspection of New York City's pet dealers?
Neighborhood Slaughterhouses
"Live poultry market" is a misnomer for most of the 73 shops in the City that sell fresh-killed birds of many a feather but also rabbits, lambs, goats and the occasional illegal cow. That's what got Astoria Live Poultry into b-i-g trouble last year. (Who can forget "Queenie," the cow that made a high-profile break for freedom, running through the streets of Long Island City, Queens, before being corralled by the NYPD - which led to a high-profile reprieve from the knife by her would-be butcher.*) Actually, it wasn't the illegal cow that finally shut down Astoria Live Poultry - it was the Buildings Department, which showed up a few days after the great escape and found enough building code violations to padlock the place. Neighbors of Astoria Live Poultry were ecstatic, though they did wonder what took the City so long - they'd been complaining for years about foul odors, animals' screams, pools of blood and guts on the public sidewalk. . . . It was the end of a long nightmare for one neighborhood - but similar nightmares continue throughout the City. The State Dept. of Agriculture and Markets is supposed to inspect our neighborhood slaughterhouses. It's obvious they're not doing their job.
35. Will you ensure that all of the City's neighborhood slaughterhouses ("live poultry markets") are regularly inspected?
*Queenie is living out her life with other rescued food animals at a sanctuary upstate.
Exotic and Performing Animals
Pasadena, Calif., and Boulder, Colo., are the latest U.S. cities to ban rodeos, circuses and carnivals that use animals from entering their city limits. Other cities - even entire nations - have enacted similar all-out bans. Still other localities have lesser bans, restricting such exotic and performing animals from government-owned property. Not only are these forms of "entertainment" inherently cruel to the animals, they also pose a real risk to public safety. Here in New York City, for example, in just the past few years, there have been incidents where a bull broke loose from an illegal rodeo in Astoria, Queens, charged through a populous neighborhood, and was shot dead in the street, in a hail of NYPD bullets; and another where a horse bolted from a Bronx carnival pony-ride and ran frenzied through the crowds; and yet another where a circus elephant went on a rampage in Forest Park, Queens.
Despite growing protests by local residents, the Department of Parks and Recreation continues to grant permits for animal-circuses to perform in our City parks each summer. Let us focus on just one: The Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus has been charged with multiple violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act for abusing its animals. Four of its performing elephants, crippled and disabled, have died prematurely in the past four years, most recently one in May of this year. It is responsible for five separate incidents in which elephants killed two members of the public, injured more than a dozen others, and rampaged during performances (including the above-mentioned Forest Park, Queens, rampage in 1995). And still the Parks Department invites this circus back to our parks year after year (this summer in Brooklyn and Staten Island). Meanwhile, there are no fewer than 19 animal-free circuses that are available to entertain us. [Resources: In Defense of Animals; ASPCA]
36. Will you place a ban on the use of animals in performances and entertain-ment, such as circuses, rodeos and carnivals, in all City parks and all other City-owned property?
City Contracts and Pension Funds
There is a precedent for local governments refusing to do official business with certain entities based on socio-political and environmental concerns (e.g., boycotting South Africa during apartheid, and not purchasing wood and wood products from endangered rain forests).
37. Will you deny City contracts to entities whose business involves the exploitation of animals?
There is also a precedent for governments' divestiture, from their pension funds and other investments, of stock in companies that fail to meet certain socio-political and environmental criteria.
38. Will you divest the City's pension funds and all its other investments in businesses that exploit animals, including divestiture of their banks and financial institutions?
Mayoral Proclamations
We appreciate that Mayoral Proclamations are discretionary. Here are three suggestions we hope you'll appreciate!
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Just as we prefer the term "companion animal" to "pet," we prefer the word "guardian" to "owner" with respect to the caretakers of companion animals. The concept of guardianship is being embraced by more and more Americans. The reason that municipalities are passing "guardian ordinances" (e.g., Boulder, Colo., Berkeley, Calif., and West Hollywood, Calif.) is to prompt public awareness of animals as sentient beings and to encourage more human responsibility in their care and welfare. We would like to see the language in the City Charter and the Municipal Code changed accordingly. Such a shift in the official language of the City would have no bearing, legal or otherwise, on the rights and responsibilities of animal guardians but would confer on animals a higher regard than that of mere property.
39. Will you proclaim New York City to be an animal guardianship city?
Previously we referred to the San Francisco model of a no-kill city with respect to municipal animal control agencies phasing out the need to kill their homeless pets via increased shelter adoptions, accessible low-cost spay/neuter facilities, and ongoing public education campaigns.
40. Will you proclaim New York City to be a no-kill city?
Some cities and states have special days set aside each year to honor companion animals, their guardians and advocates. For example, San Francisco has an annual "Pet Pride Day," and Jefferson City (Missouri) hosts an annual "Humane Day" when animal advocates are welcomed at the State Capitol.
41. Will you proclaim an annual Humane Day, when you will welcome animal advocates to City Hall?
This questionnaire was compiled by Animals Vote NYC with assistance from the following individuals: (alphabetically) Cathy Gottschalk, Esq,; Gary Kaskel, Shelter Reform Action Committee; Sheila Schwartz, Ph.D., UFT Humane Education Committee; Barbara Stagno, In Defense of Animals; Audrey Thier, Environmental Advocates; Lisa Weisberg, Esq., ASPCA.
Animals Vote NYC
Box 319 Gracie Sta., New York, NY 10028
e-mail: AnimalsVoteNYC@juno.com tel.212.737.9358
July 17, 2001
Dear 2001 Mayoral Candidate,
"Animal people" have long had a reputation as zealous advocates for the furry and the feathered - the sentient species that can't speak for themselves. In fact, the majority of animal people are ordinary folks with jobs and families and bills to pay. They just happen to take notice of the inexcusable suffering of animals at the hands of certain insentient humans and the desensitizing effect that such cruelty has on us all.
Much of New York City's animal advocacy has been, and remains, in the grass roots. And, how the grass roots have evolved! The proverbial Little Old Ladies Who Feed Strays have given way to today's politically astute activists whose passion for the well-being of animals is joined in Animals Vote NYC, a database of 75,000 animal-loving residents of the city's five boroughs who are bona fide registered voters*.
For the most part, our primary concerns parallel those of the mainstream: schools . . . crime . . . housing . . . the environment . . . consumer affairs . . . public policy. But our perspective on these mainstream issues comes from a unique point of view, as evidenced in the enclosed questionnaire.
The Animals Vote NYC questionnaire addresses our specific concerns: humane education . . . animal control and shelter reform . . . humane law enforcement . . . pets in housing . . . urban wildlife . . . carriage horses . . . public policy and consumer issues that impact New York City's animals. Our objective is to determine - from among all the viable candidates for the office of Mayor of the City of New York - whose policies will be best for the animals. This year, for the first time, our votes will be cast on the animals' behalf.
We ask you to take the time necessary to consider the issues raised in our questionnaire and to respond by the requested reply date of August 15. We shall make our endorsements prior to the September 11 primaries and, if necessary, a September 25 runoff, and again prior to the November general election, based on the entirety of each candidate's response.
Thank you for replying - and may the most humane candidate win!
Livi French, Coordinator
ANIMALS VOTE NYC
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* Comprises 62,000 registered voters who petitioned for the 1997 NYC Shelter Reform ballot initiative and 13,000 registered voters on the membership rolls of various local animal-protection organizations, including the Activism Center at Wetlands Preserve, Shelter Reform Action Committee, and The Caring Corps, Inc. (Breakdown of party registration reflects the whole of New York City.)
Animals Vote NYC * The voice of 75,000 New York City animal lovers who vote.
Mayoral Candidates QuestionnaireThank you for responding. There are a total of 41 questions in this 26-page questionnaire. Background information and source references are included.
The areas covered are:
- Animal Control and Shelter Reform
- Humane Law Enforcement
- Carriage Horses
- Humane Education
- Pets in Housing
- Urban Wildlife
- Consumer Issues and Public Policy
Wherever a reference is made to the respondent's support of a program, policy or legislation, "support" implies active, not passive, support as well as respondent's commitment to work for the effectuation of such program, policy or legislation to the maximum extent afforded the office of Mayor of the City of New York.
Please respond by the requested reply date of August 15 so that we may evaluate your answers and make timely endorsements for the September 11 primaries. Following the primaries, and a possible September 25 runoff, we will make a single endorsement prior to the November general election.
Thank you again for your participation and your timely response. A pre-addressed return envelope is enclosed for your convenience.
Animals Vote NYC
Livi French, Coordinator
ANIMAL CONTROL AND SHELTER REFORM
A Brief History
In the mid-nineteenth century, an influential New Yorker named Henry Bergh was so appalled by the mistreatment that animals were subjected to, he founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ("ASPCA"). Being a gentleman of influence, Mr. Bergh was able to finesse from the State Legislature a unique charter that legalized the protection of animals and gave the society the unheard of power to enforce the new anti-cruelty law and prosecute its violators. [Resource: "Angel in Top Hat," Zulma Steele; 1942, Harper & Brothers, New York]
The same State Legislature granted power to the mayor of New York City to determine who would perform the City's Animal Control duties. The then-mayor designated the Department of Health ("DoH"), which in turn wanted the ASPCA. But Mr. Bergh would have none of it. The society would stick to its singular purpose, and Mr. Bergh would devote the rest of his life to the brand-new field of Humane Law Enforcement. [Note: It's a common mistake to confuse Animal Control and Humane Law Enforcement. The two are distinct and separate functions - though sometimes their activities do overlap, hence the confusion.]
Henry Bergh died in 1888. Six years later, the DoH designated the ASPCA to be the City's Animal Control agency, which, back then and over the years, has mostly meant collecting and destroying stray and unwanted dogs and cats. And so it was for the next 100 years.
During all those years, the City never funded Animal Control sufficiently enough to do much more than pick up and kill stray dogs and cats. Pick them up, hold them for the legally required 48 hours - and hope that at least some will get adopted - and then kill them. Take in owner-relinquished pets and kill them, too, without having to wait the 48 hours. And, lacking a functional lost and found system, kill lost pets along with the strays and unwanted ones.
Even after the ASPCA started using some of its own funds to supplement the City's miserly Animal Control budget, it still wasn't enough to get a handle on pet overpopulation. It was never enough to do much more than pick up and kill. No adoption outreach. No spay/neuter program. No public education campaigns. Just pick up, hold for 48 hours, and kill. One year, the City killed a record 80,000+ dogs, cats, puppies and kittens - while achieving a less-than 15 percent adoption rate. [See the Pet Adoption and Spay/Neuter entries in the Public Policy section of this questionnaire.]
Because there was never enough money for population control, the strays and throwaway pets propagated faster than they could be collected and killed. So instead of Animal Control controlling the problem, the problem overwhelmed Animal Control, and New York City's pet overpopulation problem spiraled still farther away from a humane solution.
At a time when more and more progressive municipalities had begun to tackle their pet overpopulations with innovative spay/neuter, adoption and public education programs, some with budgets 3 and 4 times the modest national per-capita average, at a time when an enlightened new concept out of San Francisco called "no kill" was in the air, New York City was spending half the national per-capita average to pick up and kill. [One possible solution - a potential annual windfall of $6.8 million - is not even being looked at. See more on this in the State of the City's Animal Care and Control System entry in the Public Policy section of this questionnaire.]
The Status Quo
When the ASPCA finally announced it would not renew its Animal Control contract beyond 1994, the City was forced to search for a replacement. An RFP produced no candidates deemed qualified, so Corporation Counsel quietly (some would argue, secretly) contrived the Center for Animal Care and Control ("CACC"), incorpor-ating it in 1994 as a private not-for-profit charity, and installed, ex officio, on its 7-seat board of directors, the Health and Sanitation Commissioners and a Deputy Police Commissioner. The DoH had, in effect, awarded itself the Animal Control contract. [See more on the CACC and the DoH in the Public Policy section and throughout this questionnaire.]
After still another dubious "search" for an executive director for its spawn, the DoH installed one of its own career bureaucrats with no prior relevant experience to manage what is the largest Animal Control and shelter system in the U.S. (After said bureaucrat's inevitable removal, despite expressions of interest from nationally prominent humane professionals, the top job was filled by a mayoral crony likewise lacking any prior relevant experience.)
The by-laws of this quasi-private charity/quasi-public bureaucracy allow the mayor to hire and fire the other four board members at will and on whim. That's exactly what happened on June 16, 1997, during a City Council Contracts Committee hearing on the CACC, when two qualified and respected CACC board members dared to give sworn testimony critical of City Hall's interference. Within minutes of their testimony, the two were fired, and before the dust had settled, they were replaced with two election-year paybacks, neither with any relevant experience. (That action earned the mayor the sobriquet "Crueliani.") Instead of firing members of the humane community, City Hall should be welcoming their expertise.
The CACC is a two-headed hydra with no accountability, crippled in its ability to raise charitable donations because of its ties to City Hall, unable to meet its corporate mission, and frequently the subject of lawsuits and bad press. In its controversial 6-year history, it has managed to garner the mistrust of just about everyone who has dealt with it. [Resource: www.shelterreform.org]
1. Will you support a truly independent charitable organization to contract for Animal Control by, first, naming humane professionals to manage the CACCand then relinquishing City Hall's control of its board of directors?
Historically, the DoH has paid so little attention to its responsibility for animal management that for years its Bureau of Veterinary Public Health Services (a k a Office of Veterinary Services) was omitted from the DoH'spublished organizational chart. Many New Yorkers believe that the DoH is entirely the wrong entity to oversee animal issues because of its mandate to protect human health and its bureaucratic perception that animals exist only as a threat to humans (e.g., dog bites and rabies). The DoH essentially confirmed that belief when it recently combined its Veterinary Services and its Pest Control Services into a single office.
The DoH is roundly, and rightly, criticized for its mishandling of local animal issues and its antiquated approach - collecting and killing tens of thousands of dogs, cats, puppies and kittens every year - as a solution to the pet overpopulation crisis in our City.
Looking Forward
In 1997, a ballot initiative was written which proposed to amend the City Charter by creating a new City department with authority over all animal matters. Such a proposed Department of Animal Affairs would be mandated to protect animals and humanely solve the pet overpopulation problem through aggressive public education, low-cost spay/neuter and adoption programs. It would be following a successful precedent set in other American municipalities, whose year-to-year kill numbers are in dramatic decline.
More than 75,000 signatures were collected to put this initiative to the voters, but the City wouldn't allow it on the ballot. A lawsuit ensued. The initiative ultimately failed when the court ruled that the initiative would supersede the power of the mayor to designate Animal Control (the power granted by the century-old State law). When a bill was introduced in Albany to amend the old State law and eliminate the mayor's exclusive power from its language, thus paving the way for the City Council to amend the City Charter with the creation of a new department for animal affairs, the Giuliani Administration opposed the legislation and lobbied aggressively against it. The bill died in committee.
New York City's animals need advocates, not bureaucrats, to make life and death decisions on their behalf. Our injured, lost and stray animals are no better off today than they were 50 years ago. New Yorkers want a resolution. It is overdue.
2. Will you support a move to eliminate the mayor's exclusive authority to designate Animal Control duties, allowing the City Council to create a new department?
3. Will you support the creation of a City Department of Animal Affairs to have authority over the City's animal shelters and ancillary field services, dog licensing, carriage horses, and all other issues pertaining to municipal animal management?
HUMANE LAW ENFORCEMENT
New York, we have a problem.
When Henry Bergh (18131888) founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ("ASPCA") in New York City in 1866, he stated its original purpose thusly: "The objects of the society are to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States." [Putting it in perspective, post-Civil War America barely existed west of the Mississippi River, and in 1866 many of the southern Confederate states had not yet rejoined the Union; i.e., the United States was not then what it is today.] For all intents and purposes, the ASPCA's Humane Law Enforcement jurisdiction was and is the State ofNew York - a jurisdiction that includes, by special State law going back more than a century, an exclusive s.p.c.a. (i.e., humane law enforcement) monopoly in the City of New York.
Henry Bergh, with his unique state charter in hand, employed a force of hundreds of Humane Law Enforcement agents in the City to carry out the society's mission. He was dedicated to enforcing the new anti-cruelty law and prosecuting its violators, and he did so for the rest of his life. [Resource: "Angel in Top Hat," Zulma Steele; 1942, Harper & Brothers, New York]
Within six years of Henry Bergh's death, the ASPCA ventured beyond the scope of its original purpose, expanding into areas such as animal control (1895), a veterinary hospital (1912), and sheltering and pet adoption. In the process, Humane Law Enforcement took on a less prominent and, over the years, diminishing role. In recent times, the ASPCA's Humane Law Enforcement division has had a force of agents (who are trained and designated as peace officers) numbering no more than a dozen or so at any given time. They are simply unable to respond to all the cruelty complaints they receive. As at April of this year, their roster had shrunk to a new low of eight Humane Law Enforcement agents. This, in a City of 8 million people, at a time when incidents of animal abuse - including dog fighting and aggravated cruelty - are on the rise.
The Law
Whatever the reason, or reasons, for the degradation of the ASPCA's original Humane Law Enforcement mission, we have ended up with one huge problem here in New York City. These are some of our anti-cruelty laws that are only minimally enforced:
New York State Agriculture and Markets Law, Article 26.
Sec. 351. Felony animal fighting. Up to 4 years in jail and a $25,000 fine. Misdemeanor animal fighting. Up to 1 year in jail and fines between $1,000 and $15,000.
Sec. 353 and 355. Misdemeanor cruelty and abandonment. Up to 1 year in jail and/or a maximum $1,000 fine.
Sec. 353-a. Felony cruelty. Up to 2 years in jail and/or a $5,000 fine.
Animal advocates have long known something that lawmakers, law enforcement, and the judiciary are only lately coming to understand: There is an indisputable connection between childhood/adolescent cruelty to animals and adult criminality, and between domestic violence, child abuse, and animal abuse. We refer to these interlocking elements as "The Link."
There has always been plenty of anecdotal evidence to support The Link in theory - like the astounding coincidence of animal torture and mutilations earlier in the lives of serial killers (like Jeffrey Dahmer), mass murderers (like the killer of 21 people in a California McDonald's), and adolescent "school shooters" (like the recent spate in Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oregon and Colorado).
We certainly weren't trying to keep The Link a secret. It's just taken time to work its way into the mainstream consciousness. Over the past 25 years, a (still-expanding) body of studies in psychology, sociology and criminology have slowly but surely demonstrated beyond a doubt that violent offenders frequently have childhood and adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty. One renowned study, "Childhood Cruelty Toward Animals Among Criminals and Noncriminals" (Kellert and Felthous), found that 25% of aggressive criminals confessed to five or more acts of childhood animal torture, compared to under 6% for non-aggressive criminals. Of non-criminals interviewed for the report, zero had brutalized animals. [Resource: "Cruelty to Animals and Interpersonal Violence," Lockwood and Ascione, editors; 1997, Purdue University Press. And see more on The Link in the Humane Education section of this questionnaire.]
The FBI has recognized The Link since the 1970s, when its analysis of the lives of serial killers suggested that most had, as children, killed or tortured animals. The FBI's standard diagnostic and treatment manual for psychiatric and emotional disorders now lists cruelty to animals as a diagnostic criterion for conduct disorders.
Local law enforcement authorities have been slower to catch on. While some police departments do include animal-cruelty awareness in their guidelines for officers handling domestic violence cases, and others invite their local humane society's investigator to be part of a cross-disciplinary task force*, most local law enforcement authorities typically ignore cruelty cases or treat them as secondary offenses. (*New York City has a joint task force, created a few years ago, comprising the five district attorneys, the NYPD, the Center for Animal Care and Control ("CACC") and the ASPCA. We anticipate learning what benefit has come of it.)
Although 45 state legislatures have now passed felony cruelty laws (New York State got its in 1999), prosecutors seldom utilize the felony option. And in felony and misdemeanor cruelty cases alike, sentencing often hinges upon the subjective view of the judge.
Cruelty and violence run wide and deep in our City, but the departing Administration has never shown any interest in protecting our animals. To the contrary, the current City Hall, very early on, low-prioritized animalprotection right off the radar screen.
Because the ASPCA's Humane Law Enforcement division is so ill-equipped to respond to all the cruelty complaints it receives, enforcement of most animal-protection laws naturally falls to the NYPD. In fact, the New York State Agriculture and Markets Law provides that police officers must arrest or issue a desk appearance ticket or summons to any person who violates fighting, cruelty or related laws. The NYPD's track record here is a decidedly mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
A Quick Fix . . .
Alas, New York will never have another Henry Bergh. But we can hope. We wistfully recall not so long ago when animal-advocate Bill Bratton was Police Commissioner and took some strong, pro-animal actions in his brief tenure at the department's helm, including firing two police officers who brutalized a pet dog in their precinct stationhouse. We would like to see a formal, department-wide NYPD policy for the humane handling of animals and all animal issues that fall within the department's purview. And we would like to see the NYPD assign a few of its 40,000-member force - e.g,, two pro-animal officers in every police precinct (about 150 total) - who would be dedicated to animal-cruelty cases and all other animal-related police matters in their respective jurisdictions.
4. What official anti-cruelty and pro-animal policies will you institute in the NYPD?
. . . and a Long-term Solution
The Police Academy does not offer (and to our knowledge has never offered) training in Humane Law Enforce-ment for its cadets. All candidates to wear the uniform, and the public, could benefit from its inclusion.
5. Will you include mandatory training in Humane Law Enforcement in the Police Academy's standard training program?
John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) does not have a Humane Law Enforcement course of study in either its undergraduate or graduate curriculum. It should. John Jay is a natural training ground for candidates for both the NYPD and Humane Law Enforcement.
6. Will you add a course of study in Humane Law Enforcement to the graduate and undergraduate curricula of John Jay College of Criminal Justice?
CARRIAGE HORSES
Walk the length of Central Park South, past the dozens of idle horse-drawn carriages lined up in the street waiting for fares. The horses are often kept standing there on the asphalt for extended periods, in summer's oppressive heat and humidity without benefit of shade and in winter's subfreezing cold with no respite from the elements. Eavesdrop on the passersby: "The shame of the city". . ."A third-world nightmare in our world-class city". . ."Disgraceful!"
Ever since the expiration nearly eight years ago of Local Law 89 (11/21/8912/31/93), which afforded them some protection, New York City's carriage horses are permitted to work in 90-degree heat and 18-degree cold, no fewer than 9 hours a day, 7 days a week, carrying heavier passenger loads than before. And they're no longer restricted to the relative safety of Central Park. Despite the near-unanimous opposition of the City's leading civic and business associations as well as the Fire Department's Emergency Medical Service and of course the local humane community, carriage drivers now cruise in midtown traffic as far south as 42nd Street and in the theatre district, their horses breathing in exhaust fumes, competing for space in congested, chaotic rush-hour traffic [an estimated 870,000 vehicles per weekday].
New York City has the highest horse-carriage accident rate of any city in the U.S. In the years following the demise of Local Law 89, it has become commonplace for New Yorkers to read about yet another carriage horse bolting or collapsing or dying in work-related circumstances. [Compare: The average working life of a New York Police Department horse is more than 15 years. The average working life of a New York Citycarriage horse is less than four years.]
When their workday is done, the horses go "home" to six carriage stables in Manhattan. The indoor air is fetid, stagnant, unventilated - hot in summer, cold in winter, reflecting the day's outdoor temperature. Provision of drinking water is optional. Most horses' nonworking hours are spent in cramped 4 ft. x 10 ft. standing stalls, with no room to turn around or lie down. Tied by their halters, they are unable to move more than a few inches.
Five of the six stables are fire traps. Each, typically, is an aged building with a single steep, narrow entrance/exit ramp leading to several levels housing rows of standing stalls. And despite the City's fire codes, there are dangerously inadequate sprinkler systems in these old, flammable structures. Each stable is a tragedy waiting to happen.
7. To what extent will you support legislation to improve the living and working conditions of New York City's carriage horses?
Wherefore this state of disgrace? In a word, politics.
In 1935, only 15 horse-drawn carriages operated in New York City. The cause of today's problem likely took root in the late 40'searly 50's (official records from that period are "lost"). It was during that time-period that the City deemed to sell 68 carriage medallions (licenses) with no laws in place to regulate the carriages or protect the horses. An industry was born. Two stable owners purchased all 68 medallions for $100$200 each and began selling their excess medallions to new carriage operators at profits so handsome that by 1985 licenses were being transferred for $40,000 and more. (In 1989, a single carriage medallion changed hands for $180,000!)
By the 1960's, the industry's unregulated expansion was responsible for a sharp, steady rise in deadly accidents and the noticeable abuse of the horses. The public was growing increasingly alarmed, and in the 1970's, the fledgling humane community attempted to address the problem via legislation. Enter the most high-powered lobbyists that industry-money could buy. Any and all legislative attempts to address the problem were thwarted by obstructionists from both sides of City Hall. Accidents and abuses continued unabated.
By mid-1981, public outcry had grown too loud to be ignored, so, over the raucous objections of an industry whose operators now totaled 141, the pitifully weak Local Law 4 (the "Horse Licensing & Protection" law) was enacted, [A year later, in mid-1982, a cosmetic Advisory Board was hurriedly formed after three carriage horses dropped dead on the city streets in a single day. The Board met only once, to no effect, to no one's surprise.] Accidents and abuses continued unabated.
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Who are the carriage industry's lobbyists? They are a succession of extremely well-connected political operatives. In the 80's, he was a county boss/councilman/future congressman who served the mayor and the industry simultaneously. In the 90's, he was a high-powered political consultant who acted as adviser to the City Council leadership and was on the payroll of the chairman of the Council committee having industry oversight, even as he lobbied for the industry (with assists from his predecessor). In the new millennium, he is a second-generation white-haired gentleman with familial ties to a former mayor and a City Council president.
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By 1989, the combined voice of an outraged public, the international news media and the burgeoning humane community could no longer be dismissed. So, on May 31, the City Council began hearings on a year-old bill (the Dryfoos compromise bill). The hearings were marked by carriage-driver riots, damage to City Hall property, and physical threats to the bill's advocates, which resulted in further compromise of the bill - one especially unsatisfactory compromise being its four-year expiration date. Finally, on November 21, after six months of political machinations, Local Law 89 was enacted via the Council's override of the then lame-duck Mayor's veto - the Council's first such override in 20 years. While far from perfect, the new law would give New York City's carriage horses at least some protection (though its enforcement would prove to be lacking). Immediately upon passage of Local Law 89, the carriage operators sued the City for its repeal.
It isn't known exactly when the industry became an immigration conduit; that may have been one of its original intents. What is known is that nine years ago (at a May 29, 1992 City Council hearing), the Emerald Isle Immigration Center of Woodside, Queens, publicly revealed its interest in the carriage industry for the first time.
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Upon Local Law 89's passage, the carriage operators didn't just sue the City. A few weeks later, in January 1990, they sued several humane advocates to thwart planned legislation that would have mandated humane stables and horse-care. (The lawsuits were dismissed in November '91 and March '92, respectively, but the industry continued fighting for repeal or emasculation of the new law and against any additional protection for the horses.)
For the next four years, the City Council played host to many a contentious hearing, with testimony heard from all sides. (At one especially memorable Transportation Committee hearing (February 13, 1992), described by witnesses as an Alice-in-Wonderland kangaroo court, a Health Department functionary presented the committee's newly installed chairman with a glowing - and transparently bogus - "stable inspection" report.) The carriage drivers' chorus of threats to do bodily harm were routinely directed at their adversaries, the horse advocates, in a lilting but hardly charming brogue that resounded inside and outside the Council's chambers.
The industry prevailed. On February 28, 1994 - despite 11th-hour theatrics during a 40-day extension of the expiring law plus two months with no law at all, with all sides debating the worthiness/unworthiness of various alternate bills - the backroom quid pro quo was validated. The City Council passed Local Law 2, public opinion be damned, and the new Mayor signed it into law two weeks later, public opinion be doubly damned. The rollback of protection for the carriage horses was a fait accompli. The concrete canyons awaited hooves that would never know grass.
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The industry's math does not compute. There are currently more than 400 drivers for 68 carriages licensed to a handful of owners. The ratio of drivers to horses is 3-to-1. And the drivers' numbers keep increasing even as they complain that they can't make a living.
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Local Law 2 has been called a monument to greed, its sole purpose the enhancement of carriage operators' income. The law is roundly condemned by civic, business and good-government leaders and by the public at large. There is no rationality for such blatant political giveaways to a tiny, greedy industry. [Resources: The New York Times; ASPCA; Carriage Horse Action Committee archives]
8. What action(s) will you take to depoliticize the horse-carriage industry?
HUMANE EDUCATION
Humane Education is defined as "a process that encourages an understanding of the need for compassion and respect for people, animals and the environment and recognizes the interdependence of all living things." At its most basic level, Humane Education is about learning to care for the animals in our homes and communities. It is about fostering kindness, respect and empathy for both human and nonhuman animals, and looking after the environment and its diverse habitats. Unlike science and other academic disciplines, Humane Education has a philosophical component that strives to establish a sense of responsibility and make the world a better, more humane place. Humane educators believe that children who learn to care about animals and develop a respect for all life will be more respectful of each other and grow up to be more compassionate adults.
Section 809, NYS Education Law
In 1947, the New York State legislature enacted §809 of the Education Law mandating that "instruction . . . be given in every elementary school under state control . . . in the humane treatment and protection of animals," thereby acknowledging the potential value of Humane Education. The law further states: "A school district shall not be entitled to participate in the public school money on account of any school . . . subject to the provisions of this section, if the instruction required hereby is not given." Nevertheless, in practice, §809 of the State Education Law has never been fully implemented, and in fact it is largely ignored.
It can be argued that Humane Education is even more urgent today than it was in 1947. While New York City has so far been spared a Columbine-type school massacre, we are dealing here with 5- and 6-year-olds bringing lethal weapons into the classroom . . . a fatal fistfight in a school bathroom between two 9-year-olds . . . nearly a third of New York City's high school students routinely witnessing threats of violence and gang fights in their schools. The brand-new "Schools Against Violence in Education" Act, intended to build students' character, and the Board of Education's hiring of 200 NYPD officers, to act as "school safety agents" in an effort to curb in-school sex attacks, are belated afterthoughts. Conversely, the prioritization of Humane Education in the classroom could be the single greatest preventive measure against violence of all kinds, both in and outside of school. [Resource: Survey, Citizens' Committee for Children of New York]
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Famed anthropologist Margaret Mead noted: "One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or torture an animal and get away with it." Most of the research indicates that the first instances of cruelty to animals take place early in the abusers' lives. A high percentage of the nation's teenage and preteen "school shooters" have histories of torturing and killing animals, including their own family pets. FBI studies have linked childhood cruelty to animals with later criminality, including child abuse. Abused children are themselves more likely than non-abused children to "act out" by abusing animals. Humane Education helps break this vicious cycle of abuse. [See more on "The Link" in the Humane Law Enforcement section of this questionnaire.] Humane Education is a sound investment, working on the prevention of criminality and antisocial behavior, which can have a massive societal cost, both in terms of reduction in quality of life and in financial costs incurred through criminal damage, maintenance of law enforcement systems, court costs, prison systems, and juvenile work.
In 1985, in an effort to implement §809, the City Board of Education developed a 90-page Humane Education Resource Guide, which was disseminated free of charge to several thousand public school teachers over a period of 45 years. [In 1989, the United Federation of Teachers created the extracurricular UFT Humane Education Committee to help support interested teachers with program development. The committee, however, does not do extensive outreach; its membership fluctuates between 800 and 2,000 teachers, who can attend the committee's workshops, access the committee's website and receive an assortment of imported teaching materials.]
Today's teachers need, first and foremost, to be educated about the existence of §809 and given the training and materials necessary to help them implement the law. The 1985 Guide, while still available from the Board of Ed for a nominal fee, has never been updated and is in need of major revision. Once revised, the Guide should be put in the hands of every teacher in every one of the City's 650+ elementary schools. The cost of revising and disseminating the Guide is estimated at $250,000, a very modest amount in the $12 billion school budget for the new fiscal year. The value of Humane Education cannot be overstated. It creates a culture of empathy and caring by stimulating the moral development of children to form a compassionate, responsible and just society. We believe that, along with their ABC's and the 3R's, our children need to be taught the values inherent in Humane Education.
9. Will you prioritize Humane Education in the City's public schools?
Vivisection / Dissection / Animal Experimentation in the Classroom
Vivisection is defined as "the cutting of or operation on a living animal" and dissection as "the cutting and separating of an animal into pieces and exposing the several parts for scientific examination." Animal experimentation, under the guise of scientific study but often practiced for its own sake (e.g., the non-educational classroom activity of chick-hatching), has no legitimacy in our public schools. Indeed, it is the antithesis of the Humane Education philosophy. This is especially true today when, increasingly, American schools of higher learning - including medical colleges - are phasing out animal testing in favor of non-invasive alternatives (one leader in the field being the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing). Many of the non-animal testing methods now available (e.g., in vitro and computerized "virtual organ" technologies, cell cultures, and artificial and mathematical models) as well as observational studies of animals in their local, natural habitats (e.g., bird-watching) are viable alternatives to vivisection/dissection/animal experimentation for New York City's public-school students.
10. Will you support the banning of vivisection, dissection and all animal experimentation from the public schools?
Vegetarian Options in the Cafeteria
Today, more than 20 million Americans are vegetarians and millions more have greatly reduced their consumption of meat. This major shift toward a vegetarian diet is largely because people are discovering
(1) the link between meat-eating and human disease; (2) the cruelties inflicted on food animals by intensive
meat-production methods ("factory farming"); and (3) the extreme adverse effects that such intensive meat-production methods have on the environment. [Resources: Friends of Animals, Inc.; Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine]
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Every year billions of food animals are routinely fed antibiotics to combat diseases inherent in factory farming, they are sprayed with pesticides to kill parasites, and they are fed growth hormones to increase productivity. These substances enter the food chain, becoming part of the hamburgers and chicken nuggets served in the school cafeteria. Meat is also high in cholesterol and saturated fat, which contribute to problems later in life, such as heart disease and cancer. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has said that almost 70% of American deaths are from ailments associated with diet. Scientific evidence shows that the best diet for preventing chronic diseases and obesity consists of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes - the components of a vegetarian diet.
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In just the past year there have been national recalls of meat tainted with salmonella and the deadly E. coli bacteria, including a recall from the biggest supplier of hamburger meat to America's public schools. Here in New York City, widespread corruption in the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service was recently exposed in headline-making news accounts, calling into question the safety of all "USDA approved" meat.
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Not only are meatless meals good for human health, animal welfare and the planet, but new studies, like the one reported in the June 4, 2001 Miami (Fla.) Herald, reveal a correlation between students' switching to a vegetarian diet and a marked increase in their grade point average!
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As increasing numbers of adults opt for a vegetarian diet, parents want their children to have that option as well.
11. Will you support the inclusion of a vegetarian menu in all public school cafeterias?
The Congress of the National Parent-Teacher Association, in 1993, proclaimed: "Children trained to extend justice, kindness, and mercy to animals become more just, kind and considerate in their relations to one another. Character training along these lines in youths will result in men and women of broader sympathies; more humane, more law-abiding - in every respect more valuable - citizens. Humane education is the teaching in schools and colleges of [all] nations the principles of justice, goodwill, and humanity towards all life. The cultivation of the spirit of kindness to animals is but the starting point toward that larger humanity that includes one's fellows of every race and clime. A generation of people trained in these principles will solve their international difficulties as neighbors and not as enemies." [Resource: www.worldanimal.net]
Charter School
Charter schools, with their experimental curricula and freedom from traditional Board of Ed and union red tape, are enjoying citywide popularity. There are currently 14 SUNY- and state Board of Regents-approved charter schools in New York City, with more to come. Given adequate funding, an elementary level (grades K5) charter school using the Humane Education standard could become a model for mainstream public schools.
12. Will you support the creation of a Humane Education-based charter school?
Specialized High School
New York City's diversity is reflected in its dozens of specialized and alternative public high schools, some of them offering fairly esoteric courses of study - Aviation, Fashion Industries, International Business & Finance, Performing Arts, Automotive, and Art & Design among them. A high school whose studies are based on the principles of Humane Education and which specializes in animals and the environment, would prepare students for careers in a broad spectrum of professions in the public and private, for-profit and nonprofit sectors.
13. Will you support the creation of a specialized Humane Education-based high school?
PETS IN HOUSING
In New York City, the standard residential lease contains a "No Pets" clause. Landlords routinely invoke the No Pets clause as a pretext to evict tenants (especially long-term tenants) or to keep them in check - for reasons including monetary gain and personal animosity arising from tenants' complaints about needed repairs or the lack of essential services. In 1983, New York City enacted what is known as the "Pet Law" to protect tenants from having their pets used as a form of retaliatory eviction or an excuse for eviction. The Pet Law states that, if a landlord has knowledge for three months that a tenant is openly harboring a pet but the landlord fails to commence an eviction proceeding within that three-month period, then the No Pets clause in the lease is deemed waived.
However, as with any legislation, the Pet Law is subject to different interpretations. And as interpreted by the courts, the Pet Law is not protecting tenants to the extent intended. For example: (i) elderly and disabled tenants, often housebound, have pets that are their primary if not sole form of companionship, often filling a therapeutic need; and (ii) many tenants have lived in the same rent-controlled or rent-stabilized apartments for 2030 years or longer and have always kept a pet. The Pet Law, misinterpreted by the courts, has the cruel consequence of allowing the elderly, the disabled, and the long-term tenant to be evicted for replacing a pet that has died. This cruelty has no basis in law and does not comport with the intent of the Pet Law.
14. Will you support amending the Pet Law to clarify that its original language, stating "the lease clause is deemed waived," unequivocally entitles any tenant to replace a deceased pet that had been protected under the Pet Law?
A recent judicial interpretation of the Pet Law has created a safe haven for landlords to avoid the Pet Law completely. This loophole can be rectified with the clarification that a landlord will be held to have knowledge of a tenant's pet if any on-site employee at the building, whether or not directly employed by the landlord, is aware of the pet.
15. Will you support amending the Pet Law so that knowledge of a tenant's pet by an on-site employee at the building, whether or not directly employed by the landlord, will be deemed knowledge of the pet by the landlord?
The conversion of rental units to co-ops and condominiums continues even as the dwindling supply of existing and new rental properties increasingly adopt a "no pets" policy. This, in a city with an estimated one million pet dogs! According to the Appellate Division of the Second Department, the purpose and intent of the Pet Law is no less applicable to the owner of a condominium than to a co-operative unit owner.
16. Will you support amending the Pet Law to apply to condominiums as well as to co-operatives and rentals?
URBAN WILDLIFE
Ecosystems
Within the 320 square miles that comprise New York City's five boroughs there are tens of thousands of acres of natural habitat that are home to a variety of little-known ecosystems, each sustaining a unique collection of plant and animal life. Salt marshes in Inwood Hill Park (Manhattan), Udall's Cove (Queens), Pelham Bay Park (Bronx), Old Place Creek Marsh (Staten Island), Marine Park (Brooklyn). Forests in Staten Island's Greenbelt, the Northwest Forest in the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park, The Ramble and North Woods in Manhattan's Central Park, The Ravine in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, the Upper Alley in Queens' Alley Pond Park. Grasslands, of which only 10 acres remain in Van Cortlandt Park and 25 acres in Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, only 140 acres at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, and just 1,200 acres in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens (in and around the runways at JFK Airport). Plus numerous bodies of fresh water and 578 miles of waterfront.
All told, an estimated 330 different species of birds, 30 mammals, 32 reptiles and amphibians, and more than 200 kinds of fish inhabit our City's skies, trees, buildings, parks, and waterways. (And those are just the vertebrates!) The numbers do not include headline-grabbing "exotic pets" abandoned by their owners or the occasional coyote visitor from the suburbs, but they do include a tiny flock of wild turkeys in Upper Manhattan and the famous pair of peregrine falcons nesting on the 59th floor ledge of the Met Life building in Midtown Manhattan members of the largest urban peregrine falcon population in the world. [Resource: "Wild New York,"Mittelback & Crewdson; 1997, Three Rivers Press, New York]
None of our ecosystems or their inhabitants exist in a vacuum. All are vulnerable. For example: 38 acres of wetlands in the 139-acre Bloomingdale Park (southern Staten Island) are currently threatened with destruction to make way for ball fields. And about a third of Jamaica Bay's 9,000 acres are losing marsh grass at a rate that threatens to disrupt the entire bay ecosystem; activities connected to airport expansion and nearby sewage plants are among the suspected causes.
17. What is your policy for protecting our City's diverse ecosystems?
Injured Wildlife
Currently, the Center for Animal Care and Control ("CACC"), which is New York City's contracted animal-control agent, is responsible for picking up injured wildlife (in addition to injured and stray domestic animals).The injured wildlife, mostly species protected under federal and/or state statutes, are transported to a CACC facility where, instead of receiving proper care, they are almost always euthanized. Most injured wildlife could be saved and eventually released back into the wild if the CACC would make a reasonable effort to utilize the services of some of the many state-licensed wildlife rehabilitators living in the City. Some have suggested that the City sponsor a wildlife rehabilitation center where injured wildlife could be properly treated and cared for.
18. How will you remedy the unnecessary killing of our City's injured wildlife by the CACC?
Pesticides - General
New York City leads the state in the amounts of pesticides used, often indiscriminately.
19. Do you support legislation that mandates the City identify ways to reduce municipal use of pesticides and implement alternatives?
New York State recently enacted the "Pesticide Neighbor Notification" law, which requires commercial pesticide applicators to give advance notice to the neighbors immediately adjacent to either residential or commercial premises prior to the application of a pesticide at the premises.
20. Will you support the City's adoption of the new state "Pesticide Neighbor Notification" law?
Birds have regularly been poisoned in the City purely for cosmetic reasons, most often with Avitrol. Rock doves (pigeons), which are one of only three bird species not federally protected, are Avitrol's primary target. Last year the Governor signed a bill banning the use of Avitrol in cities with a population of one million or more.
21. Do you support the ban on Avitrol?
22. Will you support further legislation to ban the poisoning of all bird species with any poisonous substance?
The extensive use of pesticides throughout Central Park in areas enjoyed by adults, children and their pets (i.e., the spraying of fungicides, herbicides and insecticides as well as the use of rodenticides) by the Central Park Conservancy/Parks Department is suspected in the deaths of several wildlife species including federally protected blue jays, cardinals and woodpeckers and the secondary poisoning death of at least one federally protected red-tailed hawk; and it is the suspected cause of death of at least two pet dogs. City residents in general and park-goers in particular are increasingly concerned about the risk to their own health from continued exposure to pesticides.
23. What is your position on the use of pesticides in all public parks?
Pesticides - West Nile
The general consensus is that the City's anti-West Nile virus mosquito-spraying campaign - begun in 1999 with Malathion, continuing in 2000 with Anvil, and extending into 2001 with Naled - has been an unmitigated disaster for people and animals alike.
The Mayor's own Chem-Bio Handbook describes Malathion as a toxic nerve gas related to one used by the Nazis in WWII (i.e., the highly toxic nerve gas Sarin, a chemical cousin of Malathion); and Anvil is described as a nerve gas known to cause asthma and other respiratory and reproductive problems in humans.
Thousands of fish, lobsters, birds and beneficial insects like butterflies and bees have been killed by the spraying. In late summer 1999, Central Park was sprayed just as the monarch butterfly's annual mass migration (the Atlantic Flyway) was under way. Thousands of monarchs fell to the ground dead at the feet of horrified park-goers. In Staten Island, 2,000 fish died in a lake sprayed with Malathion, and colonies of bees disappeared from their sprayed habitat. A lawsuit is pending against the City for causing the die-off of crabs and lobsters in Long Island Sound. This year, a misguided attempt by the City's Department of Environmental Protection to rid a Highland Park Brooklyn marsh of the West Nile mosquito succeeded only in ridding the marsh of the mosquito's natural predators.
The pesticide company hired by the City last year to spray Anvil has just been fined $1 million by the State Department of Environmental Conservation ("DEC") for using untrained and unsupervised workers, some of whom have complained of ailments ranging from breathing difficulty to sexual dysfunction after being exposed to the pesticide. Private citizens who, with no advance warning, were sprayed on the street have filed lawsuits against the City.
Researchers with the DEC recently announced their surprise finding that more birds were killed last year by pesticides than by the West Nile virus. Post-mortems on up to 250 birds a day revealed that in the year ended March 31st, 1,263 birds were identified as carrying the West Nile virus versus 1,953 birds that died of pesticides, with many cases the result of birds eating smaller prey with high levels of poisons. So far this year, 1,200 dead birds from across the City have been reported to the City Health Department. About a third (400) were picked up for testing, and 30 were actually tested. None were infected with the West Nile virus. The human toll to date (mostly the elderly and ill) is seven in 1999, two in 2000 and none so far this year - far fewer victims than have died in the City from the flu during a typical flu season. [Resource: www.nospray.org]
24. In view of the debacle that our City's West Nile virus mosquito-spraying campaign has created thus far, what is your strategy for dealing with West Nile?
CONSUMER ISSUES AND PUBLIC POLICY
The State of the City's Animal Care and Control System
If New York City had properly functioning animal-control and shelter services with appropriate governmental oversight, there would be no need to raise many of the following pet-related issues. [See more on the Center for Animal Care and Control ("CACC") and the Department of Health ("DoH") in the Animal Control and Shelter Reform section of this questionnaire and elsewhere in this section.]
A growing number of progressive American municipalities are creating dedicated, departmental-level agencies that address and give equal weight to all matters of animal care and animal control ("animal affairs"). These municipalities work hand-in-hand with their local humane communities to maximize their goals: increased shelter adoptions, decreased shelter killings, improved field services, public awareness campaigns. Their shared ideal is to become a no-kill city, based on the San Francisco model. [Resource: www.shelterreform.org]
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We need to talk money. The City's current animal control budget is $8.5 million. Based on the 2000 U.S. Census, that's $1.06 per capita, or just about 50% below the national per capita average, and is clearly in-sufficient for New York City's needs. What to do? The City has a large, untapped source of revenue that could and should be used to improve its animal care and control services. The revenue source: dog license fees.
There are an estimated one million owned dogs in New York City. Only 90,000 of them are licensed (which is mandatory under State and local laws). That means 910,000 owned dogs are unlicensed. Allowing for a $3 State surcharge and deducting the $1 tag cost, the City nets $7.50 per license. $7.50 x 910,000 = $6.825 million in revenues not collected because the DoH doesn't bother enforcing the dog license law. If a real effort were made to license the City's owned dogs and the revenue earmarked for animal affairs (instead of going into the City's general fund as it now does), then New York City's per capita spending would jump to $1.92 and we'd be back in the ball game. Maybe even in a brand-new ballpark - a Department of Animal Affairs.
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Until New York City follows the lead of other, progressive municipalities and creates a dedicated agency for animal affairs, in effect removing oversight from that most cumbersome of City bureaucracies, the DoH, there is a need for an interim solution to our current dysfunctional animal care and control system.
25. Will you establish a Mayor's Office for Animal Affairs, to liaise with New York City's private-sector humane community, as an interim measure at least until the City creates a dedicated, departmental-level municipal agency for animal affairs?
Pet Adoption
In its 6-year history, the CACC has persistently failed to do effective adoption outreach, a contributing factor in the annual kill rate in its facilities of more than 40,000 mostly young, healthy, highly adoptable dogs and cats and puppies and kittens. For decades, the City's contracted animal-control agencies have quietly relied on the work of local grassroots groups and individuals who rescue stray dogs and cats and do private-placement pet adoptions, to keep the agencies' numbers from being even more abysmal than they were and are. More recently, the CACC allows some of the City's better-known and respected nonprofit grassroots rescue/adoption groups to take animals from the CACC for private-placement adoptions.
26. Will you support a citywide public awareness campaign promoting pet adoptions from local kill shelters (i.e., the CACC) and local nonprofit grassroots rescue groups?
With very few exceptions, these nonprofit grassroots rescue/adoption groups have nowhere to show their rescued animals and must rely on scarce foster homes or costly boarding facilities until adoptions have been arranged. Rescue/adoption groups from the five boroughs agree that a self-managed co-operative-type adoption facility, accessibly located in Manhattan, would allow them to showcase and adopt out many thousands of pets annually that would otherwise roam the streets as strays or be killed at the CACC. The City of New York owns property throughout the City, including fallow properties in Manhattan, any number of which could be zoned to accommodate such a privately run adoption facility.
27. Will you procure, for New York City's private, nonprofit grassroots animal-rescue/adoption sector, a suitable City-owned Manhattan property, to be managed and used by them, free of charge or at very low cost, as a not-for-profit pet adoption facility?
Spay/Neuter
Spaying (female) and neutering (male) is the single most effective means of reducing dog and cat overpopulation, which in turn reduces shelter kill rates and eliminates certain behavioral problems that often lead to owners surrendering their pets to a shelter or dumping them on the street, where they propagate and add exponentially to the overpopulation problem in an endless, vicious cycle. Strays are generally regarded as a nuisance, and in the case of roaming dog packs, may pose a real danger to the public. Because there are too few homes for all the stray and abandoned pets, other options are employed. For example, dog packs and colonies of stray and feral cats can often be managed by a process called TNR - trap, neuter, return, with human caretakers feeding and overseeing the now non-breeding homeless animals in as protected an outdoor environment as possible.
Public education is critical to reducing pet overpopulation, as are easily accessible, low-cost spay/neuter facilities. New York City is in short supply of both. Some municipalities subsidize mobile spay/neuter vans that go into the neighborhoods; others subsidize private veterinarians who serve as "satellite" municipal spay/neuter clinics. New York City has yet to get a handle on its pet overpopulation crisis.
28. Will you support a citywide public awareness campaign about spay/neuter?
29. Will you support publicly funded, privately run accessible low-cost spay/neuter facilities (mobile vans and/or satellite clinics) in all the boroughs?
Pet Theft
Pet theft is big business in the U.S. In New York City it is epidemic. People nonchalantly leave their dogs unattended, tied to a curbside parking meter, while they go off to shop. A leash can be cut and a non-aggressive 60-pound dog tossed into the back of a van in less than 4 seconds. Even dogs left in the relative safety of their own backyards are easy prey for professional pet thieves. There are two major markets for stolen pets: research laboratories and dog fighters. Of the former: The going rate is $150 to $500 per dog (depending on its size) and $100 per cat sold to research facilities, which prefer the docility of friendly pets and are notorious for turning a blind eye to ID tags and other indications that the animals they buy on the black market are lost and stolen pets. Of the latter: Depending on the thief and who his customer is, the going rate is $0 to $50 for small dogs, cats, puppies and kittens stolen for use as live bait to train fighting dogs. [Resource: "Stolen for Profit: How the Medical Establishment Is Funding a National Pet-Theft Conspiracy," Judith Reitman; 1992, Pharos Books, New York] Neither the CACC nor the DoH has a pet-theft public awareness campaign.
30. Will you support a citywide public awareness campaign about pet theft?
Emergency Pet Rescue
New York is a city of pet-owners - of an estimated one million dogs, even more cats, and innumerable birds, fish, reptiles, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, bunny rabbits and other small mammals.
New York is also a city of aging buildings. It is not uncommon for a century-old building to collapse or be deemed, sometimes arbitrarily and erroneously, by the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management, to be in imminent danger of collapse. In many such instances, as well as instances of nearby construction-site accidents, the tenants of affected (usually residential) buildings are ordered to evacuate and may be forced to leave their pets behind, trapped inside their homes, awaiting the fate of the wrecker's ball or condemned to days or weeks of neglect while the alleged danger is studied and/or remedied. [Ref. 172 Stanton St., Manhattan, Jan. 1998; Times Square, July 1998; 14 and 16 Second Ave. at Houston St., Manhattan, July 2000; 13 and 15 West 29th St., Manhattan, June 2001.]
The CACC has shown no interest in developing an emergency rescue plan or dispatching a rescue vehicle to the scene of such building collapses, real and imagined imminent collapses, and construction accidents (with the exception of the high-profile Times Square crane incident in '98); nor has the CACC shown any interest in sending a rescue vehicle to the scene of residential fires and explosions and offering emergency shelter for the pets of newly displaced tenants; nor does the CACC make widely known its mandate to provide such emergency shelter for the pets of newly displaced tenants.
31. Will you establish an emergency animal-rescue policy that includes (i) sending an animal-rescue vehicle to the scene of residential building collapses, forcibly evacuated residential buildings deemed in imminent danger of collapse, and construction accidents, fires and explosions involving residential buildings, and (ii) offering, on-the-scene, temporary emergency shelter for displaced tenants' pets?
"Animal Handlers"
The Department of Health's Office of Veterinary Services (a k a Bureau of Veterinary Public Health Services) is the authority charged with issuing permits to and inspecting New York City's "animal handlers," a designation given to retail pet stores, animal shelters, boarding kennels and pet grooming facilities. The DoH's Office of Veterinary Services currently has two inspectors* and one staff veterinarian* to ensure that the City's 318* animal handlers are in compliance with applicable City Health Code regulations. (*DoH statistics may be inaccurate because information, even when FOIL-requested, is not always forthcoming from the DoH.)
The DoH is mandated to protect people from animals (e.g., dog bites, rats, mosquitoes, rabies), which raises a legitimate question as to its ability to effectively enforce laws and code regulations intended to protect animals.
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One especially problematic pet store in the Bronx epitomizes our doubts about the DoH effectively enforcing laws and regulations protective of animals. There have been multiple complaints against the store going back at least to 1993 for, among other things, insanitary conditions, sickly animals, foul odors, overcrowding of animals in their cages, and inadequate ventilation. Nevertheless, despite the numerous complaints and repeat-edviolations of the Health Code, the DoH has routinely renewed this little shop of horror's permit every year.
Last year, on May 24, the DoH received a complaint about a dead puppy in the window of the Bronx store; however, the DoH inspector did not find a dead puppy in the window when he went to investigate - 23 daysafter receiving the complaint! A couple of months later, at least one of three outstanding complaints against the store was dismissed simply because a DoH employee misaddressed the summons and, undeliverable, it was returned to sender DoH. An intensive letter-writing campaign during the latter part of 2000, directed to the DoH Commissioner, imploring him to shut the store down, fell on deaf ears. The store's DoH permit was renewed, as usual, at year's end. The store remains in business today, its pattern of violations undisturbed.
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Our concerns about the DoH are based on, among other things, its history of bumbling oversight of the contracted animal control agency; its mishandling in 1993 of a corrupted RFP process that resulted, in 1994, in the creation of the CACC out of DoH whole cloth; and its habitual understaffing of Veterinary Services inspectors and veterinarians, which is indicative of its apparent indifference to enforcing Health Code regulations such as the dog-license and leash laws and its absolute failure to enforce Health Code regulations protective of animals in the custody of animal handlers. (Our concerns were redoubled 1_ years ago when the DoH reorganized itself and consolidated into a single office its Veterinary and Pest Control Services!)
32. Will you ensure that New York City's animal handlers comply with all applicable laws and regulations of the City Health Code?
"Pet Dealers"
Last year New York State passed the Pet Dealer Consumer Protection and Animal Care Standards law (the "new Pet Dealer law") in response to the exponential growth in recent years of consumer complaints about the poor quality of puppies and kittens sold in retail pet stores. (The State's 1993 "Pet Lemon" law has proven to be almost worthless.) About 90% of the puppies sold by pet stores are mass-produced in commercial kennels (concentrated in the Midwest and Pennsylvania) commonly known as "puppy mills"; the rest are supplied by unlicensed individuals commonly called "backyard breeders," whose primary sales are direct to the consumer via classified newspaper ads. (The statistics for kittens are similar.) Together, these commercial breeders flood the already overcrowded pet market with well over half a million poorly-bred puppies a year. There are an estimated 300 pet stores in New York City, untold thousands of backyard breeders in and around the City, and an increasing number of puppy mills in the State (with a concentration in Yates County in central-westernNew York). The common denominator of puppy mills, backyard breeders and pet stores is greed - maximizing their profit at the expense of the health and well-being of pets and customers alike. Conversely, reputable dog- and cat-breeders breed for quality, and always deal directly with and screen their buyers before selling. Their golden rule is: Never use pet stores as a middleman. New York State's General Business Law definition of "pet dealer" encompasses puppy mills, backyard breeders and retail pet stores but excludes reputable breeders.
[Resources (partial list): "Scandal of America's Puppy Mills," Readers Digest, Feb. 1999; "Breeding Dogs and Disease: Puppy Mills Ruin the Family Pet," The Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 10, 1995; "To the Dogs: The Shame of Overbreeding," Time magazine, Dec. 12, 1994; "$4.4M Puppy Mill Scandal," New York Post, Sept. 22, 1996; "Cops Find 140 Pomerani-ans in L.I. House," Newsday, May 17, 1999; "Owners Have a Pet Peeve: Shops Sell Sick Cats, Dogs to Area Animal Lovers," Daily News, Mar. 19, 1999; "Dateline NBC," television exposé of puppy mills and their pet-store connection, Apr. 26, 2000; "The Puppy Pipeline: Breeding for ProfitPuppy Mills, Backyard Breeders and Pet Shops" fact sheet, The Caring Corps, Inc.]
33. Will you support a citywide public awareness campaign about the pet store / puppy mill / backyard breeder connection?
The new Pet Dealer law makes state licensing and inspection a prerequisite for doing business as a pet dealer in New York State. The consumer portions of the new Pet Dealer law, which deal mainly with record-keeping and administrative matters, became effective on February 12, 2001. The licensing and inspection provisions of the new Pet Dealer law will take effect on April 1, 2002. This law, like most others, is only as good as its enforce-ment, which may be done by the State Department of Agriculture and Markets and/or the City DoH.
34. Will you ensure that the new Pet Dealer law is fully enforced with respect to licensing and inspection of New York City's pet dealers?
Neighborhood Slaughterhouses
"Live poultry market" is a misnomer for most of the 73 shops in the City that sell fresh-killed birds of many a feather but also rabbits, lambs, goats and the occasional illegal cow. That's what got Astoria Live Poultry into b-i-g trouble last year. (Who can forget "Queenie," the cow that made a high-profile break for freedom, running through the streets of Long Island City, Queens, before being corralled by the NYPD - which led to a high-profile reprieve from the knife by her would-be butcher.*) Actually, it wasn't the illegal cow that finally shut down Astoria Live Poultry - it was the Buildings Department, which showed up a few days after the great escape and found enough building code violations to padlock the place. Neighbors of Astoria Live Poultry were ecstatic, though they did wonder what took the City so long - they'd been complaining for years about foul odors, animals' screams, pools of blood and guts on the public sidewalk. . . . It was the end of a long nightmare for one neighborhood - but similar nightmares continue throughout the City. The State Dept. of Agriculture and Markets is supposed to inspect our neighborhood slaughterhouses. It's obvious they're not doing their job.
35. Will you ensure that all of the City's neighborhood slaughterhouses ("live poultry markets") are regularly inspected?
*Queenie is living out her life with other rescued food animals at a sanctuary upstate.
Exotic and Performing Animals
Pasadena, Calif., and Boulder, Colo., are the latest U.S. cities to ban rodeos, circuses and carnivals that use animals from entering their city limits. Other cities - even entire nations - have enacted similar all-out bans. Still other localities have lesser bans, restricting such exotic and performing animals from government-owned property. Not only are these forms of "entertainment" inherently cruel to the animals, they also pose a real risk to public safety. Here in New York City, for example, in just the past few years, there have been incidents where a bull broke loose from an illegal rodeo in Astoria, Queens, charged through a populous neighborhood, and was shot dead in the street, in a hail of NYPD bullets; and another where a horse bolted from a Bronx carnival pony-ride and ran frenzied through the crowds; and yet another where a circus elephant went on a rampage in Forest Park, Queens.
Despite growing protests by local residents, the Department of Parks and Recreation continues to grant permits for animal-circuses to perform in our City parks each summer. Let us focus on just one: The Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus has been charged with multiple violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act for abusing its animals. Four of its performing elephants, crippled and disabled, have died prematurely in the past four years, most recently one in May of this year. It is responsible for five separate incidents in which elephants killed two members of the public, injured more than a dozen others, and rampaged during performances (including the above-mentioned Forest Park, Queens, rampage in 1995). And still the Parks Department invites this circus back to our parks year after year (this summer in Brooklyn and Staten Island). Meanwhile, there are no fewer than 19 animal-free circuses that are available to entertain us. [Resources: In Defense of Animals; ASPCA]
36. Will you place a ban on the use of animals in performances and entertain-ment, such as circuses, rodeos and carnivals, in all City parks and all other City-owned property?
City Contracts and Pension Funds
There is a precedent for local governments refusing to do official business with certain entities based on socio-political and environmental concerns (e.g., boycotting South Africa during apartheid, and not purchasing wood and wood products from endangered rain forests).
37. Will you deny City contracts to entities whose business involves the exploitation of animals?
There is also a precedent for governments' divestiture, from their pension funds and other investments, of stock in companies that fail to meet certain socio-political and environmental criteria.
38. Will you divest the City's pension funds and all its other investments in businesses that exploit animals, including divestiture of their banks and financial institutions?
Mayoral Proclamations
We appreciate that Mayoral Proclamations are discretionary. Here are three suggestions we hope you'll appreciate!
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Just as we prefer the term "companion animal" to "pet," we prefer the word "guardian" to "owner" with respect to the caretakers of companion animals. The concept of guardianship is being embraced by more and more Americans. The reason that municipalities are passing "guardian ordinances" (e.g., Boulder, Colo., Berkeley, Calif., and West Hollywood, Calif.) is to prompt public awareness of animals as sentient beings and to encourage more human responsibility in their care and welfare. We would like to see the language in the City Charter and the Municipal Code changed accordingly. Such a shift in the official language of the City would have no bearing, legal or otherwise, on the rights and responsibilities of animal guardians but would confer on animals a higher regard than that of mere property.
39. Will you proclaim New York City to be an animal guardianship city?
Previously we referred to the San Francisco model of a no-kill city with respect to municipal animal control agencies phasing out the need to kill their homeless pets via increased shelter adoptions, accessible low-cost spay/neuter facilities, and ongoing public education campaigns.
40. Will you proclaim New York City to be a no-kill city?
Some cities and states have special days set aside each year to honor companion animals, their guardians and advocates. For example, San Francisco has an annual "Pet Pride Day," and Jefferson City (Missouri) hosts an annual "Humane Day" when animal advocates are welcomed at the State Capitol.
41. Will you proclaim an annual Humane Day, when you will welcome animal advocates to City Hall?
This questionnaire was compiled by Animals Vote NYC with assistance from the following individuals: (alphabetically) Cathy Gottschalk, Esq,; Gary Kaskel, Shelter Reform Action Committee; Sheila Schwartz, Ph.D., UFT Humane Education Committee; Barbara Stagno, In Defense of Animals; Audrey Thier, Environmental Advocates; Lisa Weisberg, Esq., ASPCA.
