Month: June 2004

Spring 2004 state legislation

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco on June 3 signed a bill
banning so-called hog/dog rodeo, in which dogs attack penned pigs,
to take effect on August 15, but efforts to ban cockfighting failed
to clear the state house agriculture committee. Louisiana and New
Mexico are the last two states to allow cockfighting.
Vermont Governor James Douglas and Tennessee Governor Phil
Bredesen have signed 2004 bills creating felony penalties for cruelty.
The Tennessee bill, however, only allows a felony penalty
for a second offense, exempts animals who are injured while being
“trained,” and exempts animals who are being used for work or
hunting. Further, the cost of jailing convicted offenders is to be
taken from the Tennessee pet overpopulation fund, raised by license
plate sales. Jailing just a few offenders could drain the fund. The
original purpose of the Tennessee bill, retained in the final
version, was to require peace officers who may encounter dangerous
dogs to be trained about dog behavior.
The Alaska legislature passed a felony cruelty bill on May 9,
but it had not been signed by Governor Frank Murkowski. as of June 23
The Humane Society of the U.S. reported on June 15 that more
than 90% of animal cruelty prosecutions involve neglect. Seven
neglect cases were prosecuted as felonies in 2002; 23 in 2003, only
seven of which brought convictions; and eight in 2004 through May 1.

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Israeli Supreme Court rules on feral cats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

TEL AVIV–Recently retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice
Dalia Dorner, still ruling on cases she heard earlier, on June 3
ordered that the Israeli Agriculture Ministry Veterinary Service
“must establish more restrictive rules concerning the authority to
exterminate street cats,” reported Haaretz correspondent Yuval Yoaz
“The killing of street cats…must be the last step, taken
only when the public cannot be protected by other reasonable means,”
Dorner wrote, according to the Haaretz translation of the verdict,
rendered in Hebrew.
The verdict was affirmed by active Justices Aharon Barak and
Asher Grunis, but was promptly appealed. Concern for Helping
Animals in Israel founder Nina Natelson told ANIMAL PEOPLE that a
seven-judge panel would review the appeal within 30 days.
ANIMAL PEOPLE received widely varying interpretations of the
verdict from observers of the case and participants.
The case originated out of the four-year-old attempt of the
no-kill organizations Let The Animals Live and Cat Welfare Society of
Israel to prosecute veterinary technician Na’ama Adler-Blu and her
husband Eyal Blu for killing feral cats. The couple own a firm
called Magen Lahatul that captures and kills feral cats under
contract with the Agriculture Ministry Veterinary Service. The Tel
Aviv SPCA was also a defendant.

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Court Calendar

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

Humane work

New York State Supreme Court Justice Bruce Allen on May 28
upheld the constitutionality of the state anti-cruelty law under
which barber Darrel Nelson, 56, was convicted in December 2003 for
amputating a three-month-old Rottweiler’s tail in October 2002.
Nelson used a rubber band to stop the blood supply to the tail, then
cut the tail off with a sharp instrument. Nelson was convicted only
days before the New York Court of Appeals ruled 6-0 against a case
brought by Manhattan lawyer Jon H. Hammer that sought to overturn the
tail-docking requirements in the breed standards of the American
Kennel Club and American Brittany Club. Hammer argued that the
anti-cruelty law language under which Nelson was convicted should
apply to the breed standards. The court held that Hammer had no
standing to sue, and that the statute applies only to deeds, not to
recommendations for procedures not actually performed by the AKC and
ABC.

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South Africa purges “95%” of Table Mountain tahr

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

CAPE TOWN–South Africa National Parks on June 9, 2004
suspended efforts to exterminate feral Himalyan tahrs on Table
Mountain, after 25 days of shooting.
SANParks claimed to have killed 109 tahrs, estimated to be
95% of the descendents of a pair who escaped from the long defunct
Groote Schnur Zoo in 1935.
Officially, the killing stopped due to the onset of winter
weather. But SANParks chief executive David Mabunda had come under
increasing public criticism for claiming to have no alternative to
killing the tahr.
In fact The Marchig Animal Welfare Trust had proposed in
March 2004 to pay for either sterilizing and relocating the tahrs to
the Sanbona Wildlife Reserve near Barrydale, operated by private
conservationist Adrian Gardiner, or returning them to their native
India if the logistics could be arranged.
The tahrs are an endangered species in India. The Indian
government has asked several times for the tahrs to be repatriated,
but has lacked funding for their capture and transportation. A
coalition called Friends of the Tahr pursued repatriation from 1999
until earlier this year, but disbanded, without remaining assets,
after unsuccessfully pursuing legal action on the tahrs’ behalf.

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