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Defining Human-Animal Studies Video Series Season 2
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We are excited to release our two latest videos as part of Season 2 of ASI’s Defining Human-Animal Studies video series. First, Julie Urbanik, Ph.D. is an independent scholar and a legal consultant. She is the co-founder of the Animal Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. She is the author of Placing Animals: An Introduction to the Geography of Human-Animal Relations (Rowman and Littlefield, 2012) and co-editor of Humans and Animals: A Geography of Co-Existence (ABC-CLIO, 2017), among others. She is also the producer of the first animal geography-focused documentary Kansas City: An American Zoopolis.
The second video highlights Dr. Allison Sealey who has published extensively on a wide range of subjects, with an emphasis on the role of discourse in representations of the social world. She was co-investigator on the project ‘”People”, “products”, “pests” and “pets”: the discursive representation of animals’, funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2013-2017), and among her recent publications are ‘Translation: a biosemiotic/more-than-human perspective (Target. International Journal of Translation Studies), ‘Animals, animacy and anthropocentrism’ (International Journal of Language and Culture 5/2); ‘”What do animals mean to you?”: naming and relating to non-human animals’ (with Nickie Charles, Anthrozoos 26/4); ‘The Discursive Representation of Animals’ (with Guy Cook, The Routledge Handbook of Ecolinguistics). She continues to research the implications of the ways we talk about the non-humans with whom we share the planet.
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Work is Underway to Help Open Shelter Doors
for Homeless People and Their Pets
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Earlier this year we announced receipt of a grant from Maddie's Fund®
to identify best practices in “co-sheltering” of people and their companion animals. In collaboration with My Dog is My Home, work is underway and we wanted to share an update.
Despite growing recognition of the importance of the human-animal bond, there is little documentation of co-sheltering strategies and even less information about their effectiveness. This project aims to address this important gap in our knowledge of co-sheltering policies and practices.
To date we have identified more than 30 organizations nationwide that offer some type of co-sheltering. We are doing phone interviews with them to better understand the scope and variety of co-sheltering models currently being offered.
We are also working on recruiting organizations to participate in site visits this fall. Thus far, three organizations have agreed to host visits. Fred Victor is a charitable organization that serves homeless and low-income people living in Toronto, Canada. They have two emergency shelters that are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and manage the only long-term shelter in Toronto that allows pets to accompany their people.
Two organizations in Los Angeles, CA, The People Concern and LA Family Housing, have also agreed to participate. The People Concern is one of Los Angeles County’s largest social service agencies and a leading advocate for people experiencing homelessness and domestic violence. Included among their broad array of services is accommodation of emotional support animals and pets. LA Family Housing uses outreach and engagement to connect homeless clients with housing and supportive services, has a vet clinic on site, and is currently building a new facility that includes an outdoor area specifically for pets and pet-friendly living spaces.
Each site visit will include interviews with program directors and other staff responsible for day-to-day operation of the co-sheltering program. In order to understand clients’ experiences at the shelters, we’ll be doing focus groups with people receiving shelter services with and without companion animals. Project findings will inform development of animal-friendly policies and practices in homeless shelters nationwide, reducing the likelihood that animals will be relinquished simply because their caregivers are experiencing a period of homelessness.
We’re looking to recruit two more sites. If your organization offers co-sheltering or you would like to nominate another organization, please contact us at
info@animalsandsociety.org
. This is a great opportunity to contribute to this growing field and help people and animals alike.
Maddie’s Fund
Maddie's Fund® is a family foundation created in 1994 by Workday® co-founder Dave Duffield and his wife, Cheryl, who have endowed the Foundation with more than $300 million. Since then, the Foundation has awarded more than $225.7 million in grants toward increased community lifesaving, shelter management leadership, shelter medicine education, and foster care across the U.S. #ThanksToMaddie.
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ASI is celebrating rhinos on World Rhino Day! SavetheRhino.org estimates that there were 500,000 rhinos across Africa and Asia at the beginning of the 20th century. Today the group says there are 29,000 rhinos left in the wild. Although poaching has declined since 2015, action is still needed to help the rhinos that remain. Take a moment to enjoy some interesting facts about rhinos and see how you can help.
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See the whole Did You Know? series on Facebook
here!
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THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT
Reflection by Ken Shapiro, ASI Board President and Secretary
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In our last newsletter we reported on the current administration’s attempt to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act of 1973 at a time when reports from various scientific studies provide ample evidence that an effective ESA is needed now more than ever. In future newsletters, we will examine more closely the three major prongs of their efforts – reducing protection for “threatened” wildlife, using economic factors to decide on listings, and opening critical habitat to extractive industries.
In this newsletter, we feature an article showing that governmental efforts can produce impressive gains for wildlife species, particularly those that are threatened or endangered “Bears, elk, sharks crown landmark wildlife surge,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 17, 2019.
Click here to read
The article provides data on populations of several species that have made, in some cases, dramatic gains in population levels in the past 2-4 decades. For example, down to a single breeding pair in 1977, the tule elk population is now estimated to about 5,800; down to 100 individuals in the 90s, Sierra big-horn sheep now are up to 600.
In those cases where government intervention was undertaken, these gains in California involved modest and relatively low-cost government interventions. California has a population of over 39 million and, if it were a country, would have the 5
th
biggest economy in the world. These facts give the lie to two claims of those who argue against government intervention for the sake of wildlife: that it is too costly and that large government intervention cannot be effective.
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Kenneth Shapiro is cofounder of the Animals & Society Institute. He is founder and editor of Society and Animals: Journal of Human-Animal Studies; cofounder and coeditor of Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science; and editor of the Human-Animal Studies book series.
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ASI memberships include special discounts, access to Society & Animals and Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science and more...
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Did you know you can shop on Amazon and support ASI?
Visit
smile.amazon.com
, choose Animals and Society as your charity, and shop. The AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price from your eligible AmazonSmile purchases.
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