ARK Photo Exhibition at Fujimamas in Harajuku
April 20 – May 6 ARK Photo Exhibition at Fujimamas in Harajuku.
Eat, relax with friends…..and help save lives!
Why not avoid the crowds of Golden Week and enjoy the spring weather in open air café Fujimamas in Harajuku. From April 20 to May 6 Fujimamas is holding a photo exhibition of ARK animals by professional photographer Kyoko Harada. For the duration of the exhibition, Fujimamas will donate 100 yen to ARK for every guest that visits the café! Come and see ARK through beautiful photos, eat good food with friends, and at the same time help to save the lives of stray and abandoned animals.
Dogs welcome in café area!
フジママズにてARK写真展開催
食べて飲んで一緒に楽しみましょう、そして命を救いましょう！
混雑するゴールデンウィークを避け、原宿のオープンカフェ「フジママズ」で春の陽気を楽しみませんか？4月20日（月）から5月6日（水）までプロカメラマン原田京子氏撮影によるアーク写真展が開催されます。期間中、フジママズではゲスト1人につき１００円をアークに寄付してくださいます。美しい写真と共においしいお食事を楽しむことによって、見捨てられた動物たちを救うことができるのです。
カフェエリアはワンちゃんも歓迎です。
Animal Shelter ARK Celebrates Publication
Every week, the photos of cats and dogs seeking homes are presented in the Japan Times in collaboration with and in support of the nonprofit organization Animal Refuge Kansai. This week, ARK is anticipating the publication of its full-color photo collection “Rescue! Elizabeth Oliver’s Animal Refuge.” (Japanese title: エリザベス・オリバーの動物シェルター)
Book-signings with shelter founder Elizabeth Oliver will be held in Tokyo on Nov. 16 and in Osaka’s Umeda Kinokuniya on Nov. 22.
A full-color, 128-page, B5-size photo collection, “Rescue!” features photos by professional photographer Kyoko Harada and includes the history of ARK, an interview with Oliver and, most of all, beautiful photographs and introductions of many of the animals that live or have lived at the shelter.
“All the animals pictured in this book have come to ARK from sad backgrounds; abandoned, stray, thrown away, given up, abused,” a passage from the book reads. “But look at these animals now; relaxed, healthy and loving. They are the lucky ones.”
In addition to its rehoming activities ARK seeks to raise awareness of animal welfare in Japan and promote what it calls the “Five Freedoms” for animals: freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury and disease, freedom to express normal behavior and freedom from fear and distress.
Though founded by a non-Japanese and the first Japanese organization to become an International Associate of the RSPCA (England’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), ARK strives to work hand in hand with Japanese and Japan’s authorities to bring about change. Oliver, in an excerpt from the book, says, “Rather than criticizing local governments, individuals, and organziations, ARK hopes that they will, by seeing ARK’s methods and facilities, change to treat animals more humanely.”
“Rescue!” will be available in bookstores from Nov. 7 and through Amazon the following day. However, ARK is asking supporters to further help the animals’ cause and hold off purchases until the week of Nov. 16 or to reserve a copy of the book through ARK’s Tokyo branch. The reason for the at-first-seemingly unusual request is that, if 300 books are sold at Tokyo’s Kinokuniya bookstore that week, the book has a good chance of being put on the store’s “Best-selling List”. This list is picked up by stores around Japan, meaning “Rescue!” will go to local stores nationwide, a huge boon to the
organization’s work.
‘‘Rescue!’’ a photo collection to be published on November 7 by Animal Refuge Kansai, features one of the shelter’s former animals, Yuu, an abused dog who is now preparing for a new life in England. The shelter’s founder, Elizabeth Oliver, and friends are seen on the book’s promotional sleeve.
This article was originally published in the Japan Times on Saturday, November 1, 2008.
Briar Simpson: Offering Shelter from Life’s Storms
Tokyo ARK’s Briar Simpson (who is also a member of Angels with Fur) was recently featured in a huge article by the Japan Times.
It’s the single most stressful job I’ve ever had. It’s also the best job,” says Briar Simpson of Tokyo’s Animal Refuge Kansai.
“Just sending out one more e-mail can make the difference. It can mean 15 more years.” And in Simpson’s work, those 15 years represent a lifetime, the lives that she, as the Tokyo representative of Japan’s most active animal shelter, helps save.
The New Zealand native, a resident of Japan for 16 years, has worked with ARK at its Tokyo office since shortly after it began in 2005. She has been directly or indirectly involved in helping find homes for some 120 animals.
The youngest of three sisters, Simpson was born in Auckland and grew up in Wellington. “Animals were always a huge comfort for me,” she says, describing how, from the age of 10, she volunteered at the local SPCA where, too young to be entrusted with walking dogs, she spent most of her time cleaning cages. She also fostered kittens and puppies and the adult dogs who would jump the shelter fence. Her experience from these early days serves her well today.
Also, her desire to work with animals was there from the very beginning. On a recent trip back to New Zealand, she found, looking through old papers and notebooks, reference after reference to this dream. “Written across one page was the simple statement ‘I want to help animals,’ ” she says.
Though her current work with animals comes as no surprise, working for an NPO in Tokyo is not the form Simpson initially envisioned her lifework would take. “I went into business with the idea that I would become wealthy and then be in a position to help animals,” she says with a chuckle. After receiving a business degree in finance in her homeland, she came to Japan and completed her master’s in international trade at Waseda University. Wanting to volunteer at a shelter, she heard of ARK, contacted them and was offered a job at its then new Tokyo branch.
Simpson’s current role at ARK, a shelter founded by Elizabeth Oliver of England, is simply put, “to coordinate the whole thing,” from finding foster homes and permanent homes for animals, to PR, fund-raising and educational programs for children. “Basically, I do everything from cleaning the toilets,” Simpson, 37, says, again with her easy laugh. Somewhat ironic is the fact that “90 percent of my work is helping people. We bring together those who need help with those who want to help and the result is we help an animal.”
Though a long way from home, Simpson was perfect for the job in Tokyo. In addition to excellent Japanese, her experience with animals is something often found lacking here. “I think I bring a lot to the job,” she says with amicable confidence. “I’ve been a volunteer, a foster parent, I know what it’s like to want to help but not be able to help. I know what it’s like to want to help a kitten but not know what to do, where to go,” she says.
The job is stressful to be sure, though Simpson says the worst of the work, coming into frustrating contact with the snarl of red tape and bureaucratic thinking at Japan’s pounds or trying to shut down a hellish breeding factory or other such cases of cruelty and neglect is more the realm of the group’s founder, Elizabeth Oliver.
Simpson admits that if she were called on to try to deal with the horror cases, “I think I would lose my objectivity.” Still, her present work with an endless stream of unwanted, neglected, abused, homeless, often traumatized cats and dogs, kittens and puppies, all desperate for homes, is no walk in the park.
Cases where animals are mismatched with new owners only to have to return to the shelter or cases where animals remain in the shelter for years Simpson sees as “failures” on her part. Why the harsh criticism? “Because,” she says, “our animals are perfect.”
Low points, Simpson says, are an everyday occurrence in her work. She claims she has come to terms with them and that nagging voice that asks “are we doing enough?”
“I’ve accepted that the work is never-ending” and tries not to burden other members of the staff with any personal emotional roller-coasters. Describing herself as “easy to get along with, not moody” she is definitely even-keeled, but does admit to having a constant “certain level of tension.” Being able to switch off is her biggest challenge. “I try to allow myself a bit of time to feel good about each success story.”
Switching off is hard when you can never forget that for every animal you save there are hundreds you didn’t save, that you work in a country where 1,200 cats and dogs are killed every day, where shelters at which the animals are safe and cared for are rare, little-known and even less understood. Working with animals and in animal welfare in general has a very negative image in Japan,” says Simpson. “It’s surprising. I don’t really understand it,” she says. “When people learn I work with abandoned animals they look at me like I’m nuts or like I don’t have enough to do. It’s an image I want to change.”
A natural diplomat, Simpson will try to explain the many cases of neglect by saying they arise from “a different understanding of animals” in Japan and a “lack of experience” with animals that can lead to unfortunate situations.
By any definition, there is a general lack of meaningful support. “Many people are afraid to get involved. They’re afraid to initiate the process of rescue if they personally can’t care for an animal.” A dearth of legislation and enforcement of existing laws frustrates attempts to help animals. In many other countries, animal welfare agents could easily take an abused or neglected animal into protective custody. Not so in Japan.
“It’s not all heartbreak,” Simpson says, “and more people are getting involved.” The change Simpson hopes for, she believes will come from Tokyo. Awareness of the animal-welfare situation is growing. More shelters or grassroots initiatives are sprouting up, many of them started by non-Japanese. An increasing number of corporations donating to shelters such as ARK is making it easier for others to follow suit. These budding trends ARK hopes will also help expedite its bid for NPO certification. Though the shelter has been a registered NPO since 1999, certification would add the attraction of tax-deductible donations.
And, of course, sometimes it’s the animals that bring the greatest joy, as with the seemingly bleakest cases, when those thought “unhomable” find new homes and new hope and become Simpson’s personal touchstones reminding her, above all, to hang in there.
Tetta and Bolo were two such gems. Tetta, a stray found in appalling condition (“there was nothing cute about him”), diagnosed with permanent neural damage to his eyes, was in very real danger of becoming one of the rare cases where the ARK veterinarians make the decision many Japanese cringe from and the majority of Japanese vets refuse to make, the decision to euthanize. With a last desperate plea, however, not only Tetta, but his sister as well, were able to find a home — a home together — with a loving and caring family in Kanagawa Prefecture.
Bolo was another high point. The golden retriever had a “pretty awful past but the sweetest nature ever.” He also was an older dog and had a skin problem in need of regular treatment. Despite his lovable nature, Bolo spent long, lonely years at the shelter. In the end though, he too was able to find a home with an older couple from Niigata. “The older animals are so often looked over but they make wonderful companions,” Simpson points out. “And they are so grateful to be out of the shelter.”
Simpson herself adopted an 11-year-old dog from another shelter and spent several happy years together until his death this past January at the age of 17. It was obviously love.
In the end, being able to weather the heady mix of the best and the baddest against a backdrop of emotionally and often physically exhausting work, comes down to remembering who she really serves — the animals. And they, in turn, serve time and time again, as Simpson’s raison d’etre.
“Whenever we’re having an exceptionally bad day,” she says, “we look at a particular animal’s face, a picture in the office, maybe of an animal who was going to be gassed. And, it doesn’t matter how rude someone is or how bad your day is going, how wrong something has gone, you know you’re
working for an animal that can’t help itself. It’s a very strong motivator.”
ARK will be publishing its book ‘‘Rescue: Elizabeth Oliver’s Animal Refuge,’’ a photo collection and bilingual history and introduction to the shelter and its animals, on Nov. 6. A book signing by Elizabeth Oliver will be held on Sunday, Nov. 16 in the main (old) Kinokuniya bookstore in Tokyo’s Shinjuku. For more information see the Animal Refuge Kansai web site.
Originally published in the Japan Times on Saturday, October 11, 2008. Photo by Takayuki Osumi. (Read the article on the Japan Times site.)
Nathan Winograd and No-Kill Shelters
Nathan Winograd is an advocate of no-kill shelters who is spearheading a revolution in the way that pet advocacy groups think and operate.
If you think of animal-rights activists as rabid, Nathan Winograd disappoints. A cat person in fact, he’s also a cat person in personal style: unobtrusive in appearance, measured in his gestures, fastidious in his quotes. Make no mistake, however: he wants a revolution, and he wants it now.
His cause is pets—“companion animals,” to give them the dignified title he feels they deserve. Winograd, JD ’95, believes that if the public knew that the leading killer of healthy dogs and cats in this country is the system of shelters charged with protecting them, the public would be horrified. And he believes that if people understood that these deaths were unnecessary, he would have his revolution tomorrow.
Through his No Kill Advocacy Center and his recent book, Redemption: The Myth of Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America (Almaden Books), Winograd works to redirect animal shelters to ensure that animals are adopted, not killed. The cornerstone of his approach: stop blaming the public for abandoning and mistreating animals, and make it easy for people to do the right thing.
Japanese Macaques in Peril
The following is a message from Masako Miyaji of All Life In a Viable Environment (ALIVE).
Capture of wild monkeys and their use for animal experiments planned
Japan is the only habitat of Japanese Macaques, also known as Snow Monkeys, in the natural environment. However, about 10, 000 monkeys are killed every year under the name of vermin control and now those captured alive might be sent to laboratory facilities.
Japanese Macaques (Photo by Yosemite, click to see original)
Damage to food crops caused by Japanese monkeys has been worsening in recent years in Japan and the government has been promoting vermin control program as the controlling measures.
But humans are to be blamed for the worsening damage to food crops because:
- We have been cutting down natural forests that were their habitats and artificially planting trees that bear no fruits.
- Farmers have been discarding unsold or unsalable food crops in the farmland and, although inadvertently, attracting monkeys.
- Tourists have been feeding wild monkeys snacks and having them acquire a taste for human food.
- Populations in farming villages have been declining and it is getting harder to chase off monkeys.
- Blind and ignorant capturing policies which did not take the ecology and behaviour of monkeys into consideration have caused monkey populations to break up and disperse.
These are obviously the reasons for worsening damage of food crops caused by monkeys.
However, in the past years, experts on behaviour of Japanese monkeys and animal damage control have collaborated and developed various techniques of damage control, which have proven to be effective in many areas.
In spite of all those efforts and accomplishments, the Wildlife Division of the Ministry of the Environment is now planning to promote the capture of monkeys and reopen the way to send captured individuals to laboratory facilities.
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The Ministry of the Environment is planning to include in the “Technical Manual of Conservation and Management of Japanese Monkeys”, which is a part of “Specified Wildlife Conservation and Management Plan”, the following:
- Promoting aggressive capture
- Allowing the use of captured animals for research
- Deleting the “aim to conserve local populations” clause from the Manual.
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Members of the Primate Society of Japan and wildlife protection organizations are criticizing this for the following reasons.
- There is no regulation on the management of capture; once the capture starts, the entire local populations could be wiped out.
- Conservation of local populations is completely ignored.
- No results or accomplishments of research or technical developments for the prevention or control of animal damage have been taken into consideration.
- The number of animals captured has been increasing while the damaged areas have been reducing in size. There is no justifiable reason for promoting capture.
- Supplying animals to laboratory facilities will create new demand for laboratory animals and further promote unnecessary culling.
- Since there is no law with any sort of binding force concerning animal experimentation in Japan, there is no way for us to know what will become of monkeys once they are sent to laboratory facilities for experiments.
- The protection of wild primates is actively pursued internationally and it is considered ethically unacceptable to use them for experiments.
- The Ministry of Environment fails to take the responsibility as Japan’s wildlife conservation agency to ensure the protection of welfare of Japanese Macaques.
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Please write a letter to the Minister of the Environment asking him to reconsider the plan to promote the capture of monkeys and work the alternative solutions with experts.
Minister of the Environment
Mr. Ichiro KAMOSHITA
Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan
Godochosha No. 5, 1-2-2 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8975, Japan.
Tel: +81-3-3581-3351
Fax: +81-3-3581-3003
You can also send a mail from:
https://www.env.go.jp/en/moemail/
(Please select “Nature & Parks” as the category)
Thank you in advance for your help.
Masako Miyaji
All Life In a Viable Environment (ALIVE)
5-18-10-102, Honkomagome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0021 Japan
Tel.+81-3-5978-6272 Fax..+81-3-5978-6273
Help the Hirakata Project: Japan Cat Network
The following article is from the Japan Times. David and Susan are members of Angels with Fur. I hope that our group can help them with this important work.
The Japan Cat Network, a grassroots animal welfare group in Shiga Prefecture organized and run by David Wybenga and his wife, Susan Roberts, has put out a plea for help with its Hirakata City Project. Initially featured in The Japan Times on Jan. 26 of this year, the network was asked in March to check out a park near the city of Hirakata, located between Osaka and Kyoto.
The situation at Yamada-Ike Koen was dire, utterly shocking. More than 50 cats, in various stages of health and disease, were found roaming the park. There were no signs of a TNR (trap, neuter, release)
program such as Japan Cat Network promotes, and none of the males appeared to be neutered. Two of the park cats were so ill that they had to be taken to a vet immediately.In April, the group trapped 28 cats, most of them female, and had them neutered. More trapping is scheduled for this weekend and the following week. Wybenga calls the project “amazing”, one that he believes has the power “to change public perception in Kansai”. “Of all the projects I’ve been involved
in, this is the one to get behind.”In the meantime, five kittens, then 2 weeks old, were found abandoned in a cardboard box in a park restroom. Two were already dead. Three survived and are thriving and being fed every four hours. This past Monday, four more kittens were found abandoned. One had already died. These kittens and others were all taken in.
“Busy and sleepy,” the Wybengas have their hands full. “Once we finish one round of feeding it’s almost time for the next.” And, with presently 11 kittens on the bottle, the network is out of money and in desperate need of help, but determined to keep the project going.
The group is in need of experienced kitten fosterers, loving adoptive homes, money and milk replacement powder (Esbilac for cats). Also, Wybenga says, “if someone is in the area and wants to
participate more directly, contact me.”Contact info[AT]japancatnet.com by e-mail or check out the group’s homepage at http://www.japancatnet.com.
Esbilac can be sent to:
David Wybenga,
173 Inae,
Hikone, Shiga,
521-1125
Inbreeding Problem in Japan’s Pet Industry
Is there any way to stop this insanity?
Care for a Chihuahua with a blue hue?
Or how about a teacup poodle so tiny it will fit into a purse — the canine equivalent of a bonsai?
The Japanese sure do.
Rare dogs are highly prized here, and can set buyers back more than $10,000. But the real problem is what often arrives in the same litter: genetically defective sister and brother puppies born with missing paws or faces lacking eyes and a nose.
Read the full article: Japan, Home of the Cute and Inbred Dog (New York Times)
I find it highly offensive when I hear about animals being sold for thousands of dollars, especially in a country that kills an average of 438 dogs and 658 cats PER DAY. Why is there not better advertising done by the authorities to find homes for these deserving animals? I think this is a serious problem with public education. How could anyone spend $10,000 on a pet when there are millions crying out for homes, and they can be had for free? Is it because they are free that they are not valued? Do people need to spend huge amounts of money in order to distance themselves from the stray animals that they see on the streets? I confess I will never understand this trend. I wish I could find a way to make a positive change in this regard in Japan. The language and cultural barriers make it tricky.
What we need is a Japanese version of “Bob Barker” to come forth and be the voice of animals in Japan. Bob Barker is a famous American game show host who ended every show with a reminder to have pets spayed or neutered to help control the pet population. If we could get a major Japanese artist to speak out regularly on behalf of pets in Japan, perhaps we could start to effect some change in this regard. Does anyone have any connections with major stars in Japan? (Someone like Tamori with a regular show and a big following would be perfect.) Or any better ideas?
Anan Dog Rescue Progress
Susan Mercer from Heart Tokushima wrote to us to let us know that they are making slow but steady progress with rescuing the dogs in Anan. She sent us pictures of three of the dogs that they have successfully rescued since we published the last post.
Aki
Natsu
Pichin
Please consider helping Heart Tokushima in any way that you can. See the original post for details on how to donate money or items.
Japan Cat Network Article in Japan Times
The Japan Times has done a great feature on Japan Cat Network, one of AwF’s greatest supporters.
For anyone who has wandered the streets of Japan, the sight of a woman carrying her designer-clad lapdog will be a familiar one.
Also familiar will be the sight of a dirty, scrawny cat, perhaps covered in bloody sores and missing clumps of fur, running for cover in the nearest nook or cranny.
It doesn’t take an animal lover to realize that cats are widely neglected in Japan, and foreigners here often wonder why that is and what is being done about it.
Nice Kitty. No Jumping!
One of the Angels with Fur members pointed out a new device that is supposed to deter your cat from jumping.
Backyard Cat is a simple, safe & effective training system to teach your cat acceptable jumping behavior.
[...]
Backyard Cat works by disturbing your cat’s balance when attempting to jump. Backyard Cat takes the recreation out of jumping. The entire Backyard Cat device, including the cable, weighs about one pound.
This device is certain to be controversial. Cats don’t generally weigh that much, so forcing them to carry around a one-pound weight seems rather cruel. But others insist that it is better than the alternative of pet cats escaping their backyards and becoming lost or impounded.
The Wired Blog weighs in heavily against this method, but the comments show that not everyone agrees with their take. What do you think?
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Pets for Adoption
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