Month: March 2008

Shocked, shocked by rodeo tactics

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
TUCSON, DENVER, LAS VEGAS–Exposing three major rodeos in
as many months for electro-shocking so-called bucking horses, SHARK
founder Steve Hindi and investigators Janet Enoch and Mike Kobliska
are wondering just what it will take to persuade prosecutors to put
their videotaped evidence in front of a jury.
To Hindi, the SHARK videos unequivocally demonstrate
intentional cruelty. Time and again rodeo stock contractors
furtively press a black two-pronged device against the flank, rump,
or sometimes the face of a horse, and the horse bolts, then erupts
into spasmodic jumping.

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Heparin crisis rekindles concern about disease from pig transplants

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
DEERFIELD, Ill.; chang-zhau–Concern
about the possibility of pig diseases crossing
into humans through medical procedures using pig
byproducts rose worldwide after the drug maker
Baxter International on February 25, 2008
suspended sales of the blood-thinning product
heparin.
Baxter International, of Deerfield,
Illinois, reportedly distributes more than a
million doses of heparin annually, amounting to
about half of the U.S. supply.

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What empty cages and night killing mean at animal control shelters

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:

LOS ANGELES, NEW YORK CITY–Why do animal control shelters
claim they lack space to hold dogs and cats longer before killing
them, yet have empty kennels and cages when rescuers visit?
Why are animals killed at night, if not to conceal the
numbers being killed?
The Los Angeles County Depart-ment of Animal Care & Control
and the New York City Center for Animal Care & Control are each
killing fewer dogs and cats per 1,000 human residents than ever
before in their histories–under seven in Los Angeles, under three
in New York. Each city is well below the current national average of
12.5.

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Cockfighting remains implicated in spread of H5N1 avian flu

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
SAN JUAN, Bhubaneswar –Avian influenza may bring the demise
of cockfighting faster than animal advocacy in cockfighting
strongholds from Puerto Rico to rural Orissa state, India–but only
if governments hold cockfighters to the same restrictions as other
poultry farmers.
More than 100 New Year’s Day 2008 cockfights were cancelled
in Puerto Rico after bird imports were suspended due to an outbreak
of the avian flu H5N2 in the Dominican Republic. H5N2 is a milder
cousin of H5N1, which has killed more than 225 people worldwide
since 2003.

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Letters [March 2008]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:

 
First cruelty conviction in Cairo

In November 2007 some people here in Cairo complained that a
bad smell was coming from a neighbouring flat. The police were
called, and when the flat was opened, it was found to contain many
dead and dying animals.
The Egyptian Society of Animal Friends rescued several birds
and dogs, plus a female monkey and her baby, but the baby died
that evening. A male monkey had already died.
ESAF filed a complaint accusing the flat owner of neglect and
willful cruelty. The case was presented to the court by the district
attorney under the agriculture law as neglecting to report sick
animals. Read more

Pew Charitable Trust symposium favors coastal whaling

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
TOKYO–Chairing a “Whale Symposium” sponsored by the
environmentally oriented Pew Charitable Trusts, former Samoan
ambassador to the United Nations and International Criminal Court
judge Tuiloma Neroni Slade on February 20, 2008 said, according to
the Pew web site, that “the most promising compromise” to resolve
conflict with Japan over the 22-year-old International Whaling
Commission moratorium on commercial whaling “would be a combination
of actions which would recognize potentially legitimate claims by
coastal whaling communities; suspend scientific whaling in its
current form and respect sanctuaries; and define a finite number of
whales that can be taken by all of the world’s nations.”

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Atlantic Canada sealing starts off Nova Scotia

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
The 2008 Atlantic Canadian sealing season started with a
mid-February cull on Hay Island, off Nova Scotia, demanded by
fishers who blame seals for the failure of cod to recover despite 16
years of fishing limits.
“Nova Scotia already has a yearly quota of 12,000 grey seals,
but in recent years hunters have rarely taken more than a few hundred
annually,” reported John Lewandowski of Canadian Press.
Acknowledging that the primary purpose of the Hay Island cull
was to try to stimulate commercial sealing, Nova Scotia fisheries
minister Ron Chisholm authorized participants to kill up to 2,500
seals. They actually killed about half that many.

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Slaughterhouse cruelty leads to biggest beef recall in U.S. ever

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
CHINO, Calif.; WASHINGTON D.C.–Animal advocates are hoping
that the biggest meat recall in U.S. history will finally bring
enforcement of federal slaughter standards, 50 years after Congress
passed the Humane Slaughter Act, 30 years after making compliance
“mandatory”–on paper.
Responding to videotape produced by an undercover
investigator for the Humane Society of the U.S., the USDA on
February 3, 2008 withdrew inspection of the Hallmark/ Westland Meat
Company in Chino, Calif-ornia, forcing the slaughterhouse to close.
The video showed downed cows being forced to their feet to
walk to slaughter by means including electroshock, tail-yanking,
kicking, lifting them with a forklift, and ramming them with the
forklift tines.

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Editorial: The late Tom Lantos: a Wilburforce for our time

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:

 

Outspokenly critical of the policies of U.S. President George
W. Bush, the late House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Tom Lantos
was nonetheless praised by Bush after his February 11, 2008 death
from esophageal cancer as “a man of character and a champion of human
rights. As the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress,” Bush
added, “Tom was a living reminder that we must never turn a blind
eye to the suffering of the innocent at the hands of evil men.”
Bush, like most other Washington D.C. eulogists and
obituarists for national news media, omitted that the “suffering of
the innocent” of deep concern to Lantos included the suffering of
animals, and that Lantos championed animal rights as well as human
rights for most of the 27 years he served in the House of
Representatives.

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