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Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Author, activist talks animals during Book Week By Jordan Baker editor@estevanmercury.ca
Though reading may be a physically sedentary pastime, the message on the page may inspire a new active leap. As part of TD Canadian Children’s Book Week, a national tour that sends children’s authors to schools and libraries across the country, author and activist Rob Laidlaw appeared in the Energy City to discuss with Estevan students his work and his experience with animals. Laidlaw visited schools in the morning before his afternoon presentation at the library. Laidlaw had been politically active in the world of animal rights since the 1980s through the web organization he founded called Zoocheck. Much of what he has focused on is animals in captivity. Though he didn’t have any plans to write anything, he has now written seven books about dogs, cats, elephants and more. It was a publisher that first approached him, pitching a book about zoos. “That’s an area I had done a lot of work in,” he said. “I didn’t think anybody would read the book. I thought it would be in the remainder bin a month
As part of the national Children’s Book Week, author and activist Rob Laidlaw was in Estevan speaking to students about writing, being aware of animal rights and the long history shared by people and cats. later. I didn’t know anyone read children’s books other than Harry Potter. Quite to my surprise, it did very well.” His books have been popular with youth and others who are concerned about how many animals are poorly treated so regularly. He is now working on his eighth book. Laidlaw said writing wasn’t something he really wanted to do until he was doing it. At one time he was
a humane society inspector, but has also done dog control work with First Nations communities and abroad in Asia and India. “It runs the gamut from animal welfare to more wildlife protection, wildlife conservation,” said Laidlaw. “A lot work, even if it seems like rescuing one animal, what I do, personally, is try to look at … what is the broader applicability? It’s the precedent of other things that affect
the bigger picture.” In order to further that, his books are advocacy tools, a word-spreading avenue he didn’t know was available to him. Laidlaw spoke about his own challenges, wrestling with his love of animals, which led him as a child to keep lizards in aquariums. Though in his youthful innocence he was fascinated by the animals, he told the students, in hindsight, he was imprisoning them.
He said people tend to view reptiles as “biological robots” living without desires and emotions, but there is a growing understanding of their maternal behaviours and social webs that is overthrowing the previously held understanding of these creatures. The data may not be concrete, but Laidlaw has found kids who read his books have become active on various levels. “It’s all anecdotal,
but certainly I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from kids. There have been whole schools that have started projects based on the books. For some of the readers, there are behaviour changes. They’re out there. They’re motivated by them or inspired by them, and they actually do things. That’s kind of neat,” he said. F o r L a i d l a w, h e wants to make sure everyone is informed. In his experience, those who have the information tend to make good decisions. “(Kids) are very interested. They have a higher level of what’s going on in the world, in terms of a lot of issues, environment and animals for sure, more so than their parents, probably because of the Internet and Animal Planet, things like that,” Laidlaw said. “I don’t want to tell them what to think, I just want to give full disclosure of information. I don’t want to be preachy. When you give people, kids or adults, full disclosure, if they know what’s going on and understand it, then nine times out of 10, they’ll choose the thing that benefits the environment or animals or people who are in poverty.”
Auxiliary presents money at annual event The St. Joseph’s Health Care Auxiliary has made the first payment on their latest purchase for St. Joseph’s Hospital in Estevan, even though they have been fundraising for only a few months. Auxiliary members presented a cheque for $15,000 to hospital executive director Greg Hoffort during the auxiliary’s annual spring tea and bake sale on May 6. The auxiliary announced late last year that they would fundraise to purchase equipment to refurbish one of the operating room (OR) units at the hospital. Their commitment includes a new OR table, a radiant infant warmer for babies born by Csection and an equipment cart used for dental surgeries that require anesthesia. “The first piece of equipment they bought was to replace an operating room table that was old when we moved here from the hospital 25 years ago,” said
Hoffort. “So it was very much needed.” The infant care centre will be vital, Hoffort said, because they have 80 to 100 babies delivered via C-section at the hospital’s OR each year. The equipment cart will allow the hospital to provide a service that currently isn’t available in Estevan, he said. “Right now those folks are going to Brandon (Manitoba), Regina or other places to have that surgery,” said Hoffort. “So a lot of them will be able to have that right here in Estevan, thanks to the generosity of these ladies.” The auxiliary raised the $15,000 through events such as their tea and bake sale and their raffles. They also received memorial donations, and allocations through their status as a United Way Estevan member agency. The projected cost for the OR upgrades is $90,000 to $100,000.
Lenora Wanner poured tea during the St. Joseph’s Health Care Auxiliary’s spring tea and bake sale on May 6.
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