Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor:
Reading the latest
edition of NewsSmith, "Showing
Smith’s Global Reach,"
I noticed some Fulbright winners are going to the near and Far East and Africa.
This reminded me of the letter I wrote the New York
Times Travel Section last fall, which was published 11/05/06, on overburdened donkeys
carrying heavy luggage in Morocco.
According to the World Society for the Protection
of Animals, WSPA, "equines
in the developing world work extremely hard, carrying loads at the limit of their
physical ability, working despite poor health, and often dying at a very young
age."
The traveler to Morocco stated she felt a "slight twinge of guilt" because
all her luggage had been carried up a mountainous trail by one donkey...I suggested
that she might at least have paid for two donkeys to share the burden.
I wonder
if any of the Smith students have seen these overworked animals, and have tried
to help.
For any students going to Jordan, there is for the first
time now a humane center for animal welfare called HCAW, and Jordan also has a new
mobile clinic that can travel to help sick or injured donkeys or burros.
Tanzania
had a desperate situation of donkeys collapsing under their heavy loads, being beaten,
and then if they could not stand again, just being left there in the blazing sun...Now
with help from WSPA and the ASPA, there is a communal fodder and water point at Usa
River market...and a mobile clinic...
Carriage horses and donkeys
in Afghanistan had little help of getting any veterinary care or even water.
In Jalalabad
in 2002 carriage horses were working 13 hours a day without rest and in temps of
122 degrees...Not one of the five carriage stations had any fresh water available.
I write all of this in the hopes students abroad who
see overworked or cruelly treated transport animals, who might even carry their luggage,
will do something about it...
For more information about how to help transport
animals abroad, please go to www.wspa-usa.org.
Thank you, for the equines.
Virginia
Lamarche ’47 |
