LETTERS [Nov 2000]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000:

Rochester
On page 8 of the September
200 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE,
you erroneously attributed to
me the statement, “When you look
for donations, you look for the most
politically correct way to go. And
it’s not politically correct to kill animals.”
That was actually said by
Tom Shannon of Rochester Animal
Control, when he was asked by
Alan Morrell of the Rochester
Democrat & Chronicle about the
decision of the Humane Society of
Rochester & Monroe County not to
renew our long-term contract with
the city to do animal control.
Shannon was among the few Rochester
Animal Services staff kept by
the city when they began operating
animal control on July 1, 2000.

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Editorial: When Noah has to sail or sink

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000:

Superior Court Judge Floyd V. Baxter on September 21 appointed American
Humane Association western regional office director Gini Barrett special master to supervise
the ongoing strained relationship between Wildlife Waystation, one of the biggest, oldest,
and best-respected sanctuaries for captive wild animals in the U.S., and a cluster of hostile
regulatory agencies––particularly the California Department of Fish and Game.
A special master is a person of expertise designated by a court to insure that an institution
meets conditions of law. A special master may be likened to a parole officer, a social
worker, or in this case an ombudsman, whose most important job may be finding her way
around deep mutual mistrust and failures of communication.
According to the regulators, especially the California DFG, Wildlife Waystation is
a perennial scofflaw. But Waystation defenders, including the founders and directors of many
of the other best-known and best regarded sanctuaries of similar kind, praise Waystation
founder Martine Colette for daring to innovate on behalf of the many special-needs animals in
her care, for standing up against senseless and capricious applications of rules written to govern
very different kinds of institutions, and for withstanding a DFG publicity offensive that
included an April 7 raid by personnel wearing quasi-space suits from fear that purportedly
HIV-infected chimpanzees might fling feces.

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Million hens killed in Ohio–– twister hits like forced molt

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000

COLUMBUS, Ohio––An estimated
one million battery-caged laying hens died
slowly from thirst, exposure, and starvation
or were reportedly crushed by bulldozers on
October 2 and 3 after two weeks of suffering,
following a September 20 tornado which
destroyed the water-and-feed systems serving
twelve 85,000-hen barns at the Buckeye Egg
Farm complex in Croton, Ohio.
The Croton complex is the biggest
of four owned by Buckeye, the fourth largest
egg producer in the U.S., formerly known as
AgriGeneral LP.
Ohio Department of Agriculture
spokesperson Mark Anthony told Mike
Lafferty of the Columbus Dispatch o n
September 21 that the trapped hens would
have to be killed and buried, burned, or rendered
as promptly as possible.
“And the process has to be done
humanely, too,” Anthony insisted. “These
chickens are not going to die of thirst.”

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What RU-486 means for animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000

WASHINGTON D.C.––The pharmacological
race to be first to market a safe,
affordable, easily administered contraceptive
drug for dogs, cats, and nuisance wildlife may
have heated up with the September 28, 2000
decision of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
to allow Danco Laboratories, of New
York City, to market the RU-486 abortion pill.
The Danco formulation, called
Mifeprex, includes five separate tablets, to be
taken in a two-step sequence. The first three
tablets, taken at once, contain mifepristone.
Better known by the chemical index number
RU-486, mifepristone is an androgen steroid
which blocks the production of progesterone, a
hormone required to sustain pregnancy. Two
days after taking the mifepristone tablets, the
user takes two more tablets containing misoprostol,
another hormonal drug which causes
her body to expell the aborted fetal tissue.

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Dogfight on the western front

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000

BRUSSELS––Germany, France, Italy, and
Britain are battling again in Belgium, and invading
bloody Americans are again ensnarled in the thick of it.
That’s American pit bull terriers this time.
Like the doughboys of World War I and the G.I.s of
World War II, they are said to be over-large, overdosed
on testosterone, and over here, looking for a fight.
This time they are seen as allies of neo-Nazis
and Huns––Attila’s Huns, who ravaged Europe from
434 to 453, when the notoriously reactive Attila’s brain
burst as he celebrated his honeymoon.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council of the
European Union on September 29 heard a German proposal
to ban throughout Europe the breeding or import of
any kind of “fighting dog,” defined as any member of
14 breeds with American pit bull traits. As well as the
American pit bull and Japanese tosa, who have been
banned in Britain and The Netherlands since 1991, the
German proposal would ban Rhodesian ridgebacks,
Neopolitan bulldogs, Staffordshire terriers, English bull
terriers, and bull mastiffs.

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HUMAN OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000:

Mary Warner, almost 90, died
recently at her home in Berryville, Virginia.
Originally from Minnesota, Warner won her
first reputation in animal protection by tracking
down horse thieves. She began investigating
dog and cat theft, she recalled in 1992,
only after she and her husband retired to
Virginia in 1974. “We finally got away from
the horse thieves,” she said, “and then our
dog was stolen, right out of our yard.”
Warner responded by founding Action-81, an
anti-pet theft advocacy group named for I-81,
the truck route used by Appalachian bunchers
to haul dogs to laboratories along the
Atlantic seaboard. For the rest of her life
Warner gathered pet theft reports, lobbied
animal protection groups to act on pet theft,
and hounded her elected representatives.

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ANIMAL OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000:

Misty II, 14, last grandfilly of
Misty of Chincoteague, and the only one with
the same color and markings, died from cancer
on August 24 at the farm of Keith and
Kendy Allen in Manheim, Pennsylvania. Her
remains were returned to Chincoteague Island,
Virginia, to be buried at the newly opened
Chincoteague Pony Center. The first Misty
rode to fame with the success of the children’s
book Misty of Chincoteague, by the late
Marguerite Henry. Misty of Chincoteague
made her one of the most successful writers of
horse stories ever, having already sold more
than a million copies by 1961, when it became
a hit film. Henry produced two sequels:
Stormy, Misty’s Foal (1963), about the mother
of Misty II, and Misty’s Twilight ( 1992 ) ,
about the last days of Misty, who died in
1972. But Misty II did not inherit an easy life.

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BOOKS: LOSING PARADISE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000:

LOSING PARADISE by Paul G. Irwin
Square One Publishers (16 1st St., Garden City Park, NY 11040), 2000.
224 pages, paperback. $14.95

Humane Society of the U.S. president
emeritus John A. Hoyt was a Baptist
minister who became a Presbyterian minister,
took over HSUS in 1970, and took home
more money in each of the next 25 years than
the total budgets of most humane societies
that actually save animals.
Hoyt in 1975 hired Methodist minister
Paul G. Irwin as his sidekick.

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BOOKS: Elephants, Foxes, Frogs, Salmon & Whales

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000:

Elephants: Majestic Creatures of the Wild
Edited by Jeheskel Shoshani, Elephant Research Foundation
Checkmark Books (c/o Facts On File Inc., 11 Penn Plaza, NY 10001), 1992,
updated 2000. 240 pages, hardcover, illustrated. $39.95.
Foxes by David Macdonald
Frogs by David Badger, photos by John Netherton
Salmon by John M. Baxter
(Each 72 pages, paperback, illustrated. $16.95.)
Minke Whales by Rus Hoelzel & Jonathan Stern
(48 pages, paperback, illustrated. $12.95.)
All from WorldLife Library
(c/o Voyageur Press, 123 N. 2nd St., Stillwater, MN 55082), 2000.

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