Our Neighborhood Feud

Our Neighborhood Feud

I gave a little talk at a nearby Rotary Club this week, and I decided to call the talk, "A Cuban Scrapbook." While planning what to say, I felt I couldn't only talk about our work with the animals there. I knew I'd have to give them a little background on Cuban and US history and relations.

This year we mark 50 years since the US and Cuba broke off diplomatic relations. For the first 16 of those years there wasn't even an interests section for the other country in either capital.

With such a long freeze in relations, there's little wonder US citizens know very little about Cuba. And yet, before the current estrangement, the US and Cuba had a huge amount of interaction. At the time of the Castro Revolution (1959), the US owned 71% of all the business in Cuba and 76% of all its arable land. Pre-Castro, there were lots of Americans in Cuba and vice versa. Today it's a fight to travel between the two countries, and most people avoid the fight and don't even go.

So I sketched some of what it was like in the old days when the two countries were on good terms. We moved rapidly from 1492 to 1898, the Spanish Colony years--all except for 1762 when the British occupied a small part of Cuba. Later The Brits traded their Cuban holdings for Spain's part of Florida. (I wonder who got the better of that deal?)

Finally I got around to why I go to Cuba. That is to help Aniplant protect Cuban animals. Our little charity, The Aniplant Project (TAP), raises money to help Aniplant in its projects. TAP really got going in 2007, and the cooperation between TAP and Aniplant has been growing every year since then. Take a look at some then and now comparisons:

Item /Then/ Now
Sterilizations yr /624 / 3077
Headquarters /8th floor, broken elev/ restored 1st fl showplace
Isolation /no visits to US for years /2 visits in 2 years for Nora
Anesthesia meds /hospital cast off- outdated /fresh modern vet drugs
Electrocute strays /frequent /completely ended

We're not bragging, just trying to show how things are changing for Cuba's animals. Also the rapid growth of animal protection work is partly due to pent up demand from earlier years.

And for every dog or cat that is sterilized, the population of street animals is reduced by thousands in a few years.

Les Inglis