EXOTICS & WOLF HYBRIDS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

Wolfsong Ranch moving, tests canine chemosterilant

WILLCOX, Az.––Art and Mary Bellis, cofonders of the Wolfsong Ranch sanctuary, intend to meet a January 1, 2001 deadline for disposing of the 160 resident wolf hybrids, set by the Cohise County Planning and Zoning Commission, by moving to a 440-acre site near Rodeo, New Mexico– 11 times larger than their present site outside Wilcox, Arizona.
Art and Mary Bellis began taking in wolf hybrids in 1988, Mary Bellis told ANIMAL PEOPLE. They incorporated the Wolfsong Ranch Sanctuary Foundation and deeded their property to it in 1996, but ran afoul of neighbors whom Mary Bellis describes as “primarily a family of local ranchers and their friends, employees, and members of the local ranchers’ association.

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North Korean dictator hosts dog meat dinner for diplomats

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

SEOUL, Korea––Hosting South Korean diplomats at the Pyongyang Tongogi dog meat restaurant on August 31, North Korean head of state Kim Jong-il on August 31 dashed any hope that his June trade of purebred hunting dogs with South Korean president Kim Dae-jung might elevate the status of ordinary dogs in the street.

Currently, two to three million Korean dogs per year are elevated by slow hanging, are flogged as they strangle, and are dehaired by blowtorch while still alive, to insure that their flesh is suffused with adrenalin before consumption.

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Why Calgary has almost as many off-leash parks as dog bites

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

CALGARY––As an ex-cop, before
becoming director of Calgary Animal Services
back in 1975, soon-to-retire Jerry Aschenbrenner
believes strong laws and consistent
enforcement are the keys to his success.
And Aschenbrenner has been successful.
Since 1984, Calgary Animal Services
and the Calgary Humane Society have
between them never killed more than 12.8
dogs and cats per 1,000 human residents of
their service area––and that peak was reached
15 years ago, when the big-city norm was
more than twice as high. Even now the norm
is 16.6. Calgary comes in at 5.2.
Although the numbers compare well
to those of San Francisco and other no-kill
cities, Aschenbrenner and the Calgary
Humane Society don’t tout Calgary as having
achieved no-kill animal control. CHS, handling
cat impoundment under contract to CAS,
still kills about 4,000 cats per year, some of
whom might be saved with a Feral Cat
Assistance Program as vigorous as the one in
San Francisco. But Aschenbrenner sees that
on the agenda.

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Campaigns & Organizations

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

The Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society, often pursued by law enforcement,
announced on August 21 that on August 19
its Brazilian affiliate, Instituto Sea
S h e p h e r d, had joined with “members of
Brazil’s environmental law enforcement
agency IBAMA and military police” to conduct
“a high-seas raid against four illegal
driftnetting vessels.” The Sea Shepherds
said they spotted the outlaw fishers from an
airplane, kept them under observation from a
helicopter, and used a speedboat to approach
and mark the vessels for identification and
possible confiscation by the Brazilian Navy.

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PEOPLE & DEEDS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

Appointments
Meryl Harrison, formerly general
manager of the Bulawayo Branch SPCA,
was in August named national coordinator for
the Zimbabwe National SPCA. The
Zimbabwe Standard noted that Harrison “rose
to prominence when she successfully challenged
a visiting Egyptian circus whose animals
were in a terrible state.” She was also
prominently involved, said the S t a n d a r d, in
relocating a female chimpanzee from a substandard
zoo to the Chimfunshi sanctuary in
Zambia, improving rail transport conditions
for cattle, and obtaining a Department of
National Parks and Wildlife Management
edict against hunting leopards with coonhounds.

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Mississippi sanctuarian tries to quit “sharecropping” for fundraiser

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

CALEDONIA, Miss.– – Cedarhill
Animal Sanctuary founder Kay McElroy, of
Caledonia, Mississipi, on September 1 notified
Virginia-based fundraiser Bruce Eberle
that she wants nothing more to do with him.
A week later, however, as A N IMAL
PEOPLE went to press, McElroy and
Cedarhill were still ensnarled in a contract
which has already paid huge sums to Eberle
and has him claiming he is owed still more,
while producing little benefit to Cedarhill.
“I haven’t had one comfortable day
since I signed with Eberle,” McElroy told
ANIMAL PEOPLE. “It has been eight
months of misery,” during which Eberle has
identified Cedarhill as Tiger Tracks in mailings
very similar to those he sent in representing
Tiger Haven, of Tennessee, and Tiger
Creek, of Texas.

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SHELTERING AND THE VALUE OF WELCOMING COMPANY

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

WALTHAM, Massachusetts– – ” It
has often been observed,” New Hampshire
state neutering program architect Peter Marsh
told Spay/USA conference attendees recently,
“that people tend to resemble the animals they
choose as companions. I submit,” Marsh
added, “that people who rescue feral or abandoned
or abused animals also tend to resemble
the animals they choose, not in physical
appearance but in the psychological sense.
“Just as feral or abandoned animals
or animals who have been abused tend to be
frightened and furtive,” March continued, “so
we ourselves are often frightened and furtive,
and fear the public will think badly of us
because we have too many animals, or must
euthanize some animals. We don’t invite people
into our shelters because we think they
won’t understand what they see. Therefore
they don’t understand why we can’t give lifetime
care to every animal someone dumps on
us, or why we are always stressed out and
blaming pet keepers for being irresponsible––
and we don’t get the help we need to change
things. I further submit,” Marsh finished,
“that it is time we opened the doors.”

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Disaster relief teams are fired up and burned out by hellish summer

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

HAMILTON, Montana––With at least five national
animal disaster relief teams now on the job, and increasingly
well-prepared local disaster relief plans covering most of the
more populated portions of the U.S., members of the United
Animal Nations’ Emergency Animal Services entered August
feeling a bit like Maytag repairmen: nobody calling, nothing
much to do except hold more seminars to train more help to
assist the 3,400 UAN-trained volunteers already available to
respond when all hell breaks loose.
”There have been no disasters where we were needed
so far,” UAN president Jeanne Westin remarked to ANIMAL
PEOPLE on August 7.
Thirteen western states were gripped by some of the
hottest droughts in years––but neither UAN nor any of the other
national animal rescue outfits do rainmaking.

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“Impossible” rescue saves the penguins of Robben and Dassen islands

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – –
Christina Pretorius of the South African
National Foundation for the Conservation of
Coastal Birds on August 23 quietly closed the
former railway warehouse in Salt River that
for two month was a makeshift hospital for
22,000 oil-soaked penguins, who were aided
by 40,000 volunteers working in teams under
102 experts flown in from around the world.
More than 17,000 now clean and
healthy penguins had already been released to
follow 20,000 uncontaminated penguins home.
Another 2,600 penguins were still in special
care at other locations.
“If we can move 10,000 birds off in
three days, we’ve done as much as we can
do,” Western Cape Nature Conservation penguin
expert told Mike Cohen of Associated
Press back on July 3, 10 days after the
Panamanian bulk ore carrier Treasure sank
and spilled 1,300 tons of oil into the water
surrounding Robben and Dassen Islands.

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