FPJ Interview: 'We Are Impoverishing Ourselves If We Remove Animals From Our Streets,' Says PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk

Mumbai: India is in a dire need of a compassionate approach towards voiceless animals as its two biggest metro cities, Delhi and Mumbai, have been entangled in heated debates about the safety of humans, one because of dogs and the second because of pigeons.

Amid these situations, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)’s founder and president Ingrid Newkirk spoke to The Free Press Journal’s Dhairya Gajara in a telephonic interview during her visit to India.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: How do you look at this scenario of mass movement against animals and birds in India?

A: It’s so heartbreaking that I can barely believe that it is happening here in India. There has always been so much respect for all living beings in Indian culture and its great religions. It is astounding that there is so much selfishness and so much attention on human species alone. I think it is a vociferous minority that has managed to make a crisis that doesn’t exist. I know from my own professional career that you have more chances of getting a disease by getting on a bus or sending a child to school or sitting in a yoga group, than you do from feeding pigeons. The dogs, on the other hand, are so welcoming, humble and kind. They're not bothering anybody. People love them to pieces. You go to Delhi’s Khan market, they are asleep in the air conditioned stores and the chowkidars in Mumbai are helped by the dogs who are the neighborhood watch committee.

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk during her visit to Mumbai, urging compassion for animals and birds

Q: How practical is the idea of relocating all of a city’s stray dogs to a shelter home to make a safe space for humans?

A: It's totally impractical and impossible. The few shelters that exist are overcrowded to the point of bursting at the seams. The dogs have no real life in most of them because they have to sometimes fight for food and the weak ones or the pregnant ones or the sick ones don't get it. It's a prison. These dogs aren’t strays. Most of these dogs are community dogs. They would be dead if somebody didn't feed them. There is nowhere to put these dogs. And you can't just create wonderful or comfortable places in the matter of a few months. You certainly can't do it in a matter of weeks. Where is the land and the money? Who is going to feed them? It’s crackers.

Q: Just like how dogs are used to living around humans, even humans are used to living around dogs. How will a relocation of such a scale affect humans?

A: You are creating a barren society of only your own species with no interaction with others. What a terribly dull and affectionless situation! How wonderful it is to see animals and birds living happily, not in chains or cages. When you see birds flying freely, you can appreciate their culture and it enriches your life. There's a great affection for animals, especially the dogs in the neighborhood and people who want to come out and feed the pigeons, it's a sort of puja that is also an enrichment for them. They know they're helping, they're preventing starvation, they're bringing joy and that the animals give joy back. We are impoverishing ourselves if we remove animal life from our streets.

Q: You have served as the chief of zoonotic disease control for the department of health Washington DC, how scientific is the argument that pigeon feathers or their droppings lead to some respiratory diseases?

A: Pigeons can have a pneumonia-like virus. However, in order for you to to contract this, there have to be certain conditions. The first is the pigeons have to have it, then it needs to be in their droppings, which has to dry at the same place for a long time and then you have to put your nose down near the droppings and inhale. The droppings are being washed away by the rain or blown away by the wind. It is 0.0 something per cent chance [to contract the virus]. Where you can get the pneumonia-like virus from avians, is in chicken sheds and factory farms. Humans are the biggest risk of passing a disease to you. So if they are worried about respiratory viruses, you would have to stop having people meet in groups of two or more.

Q: Mumbai is known for its beautiful and heritage kabutar khanas where people come daily just to feed pigeons. What do you feel about the shutting down of these feeding spots which facilitate a beautiful interaction between humans and birds?

A: Pigeons are wonderful mothers and wonderful fathers. They both make milk for their children and share parenting. I see people arriving with sacks of food when I'm in India, and they are doing some beautiful deeds, some good charitable acts and it makes them feel good. It's a part of many people's religion so this is an insult to religious belief too, of being kind and compassionate to other forms of life, of recognising that we are all part of this great cycle of life. I think it will be devastating to people not to be able to feed at such locations. It's just awful to contemplate that this would end.

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Q: How is PETA planning to spread awareness among people about these issues?

A: There's probably nothing more important than to have children understand that we are all part of one world. Through our initiative ‘compassionate citizen’, we are spreading awareness among school students across Maharashtra and the country. We are teaching them the worth of a good deed, the worst of a kind word, and that if they could look with awe at animals, instead of looking down their noses at animals, they would learn that they are not inferior, they are just different and our differences are our strengths. If you can teach a child to be kind to a caterpillar, you do as much for the child as you do for the caterpillar.