Not ostriches with heads in the sand

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

PYONGYANG, N. Korea– – Get-rich-quick speculation on ostriches isn’t done yet, the North Korean news agency KCNA disclosed on March 27.

“In recent years the state has taken a series of measures to breed ostriches on a large scale,” KCNA said, touting ostrich-farming in terms now familiar to bankrupted participants in the boom-and-bust industry worldwide.

North Korea, one of the most insular and repressive nations in the world, is desperate to find a quick, easy way to recover from chronic food scarcity and a collapsed economy.

“Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have died of hunger since the mid-1990s,” said the South African Press Association. “North Korea is now relying on outside aid to stave off further starvation among its 22 million people.”

Anti-cockfighting bills

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Federal legislation to ban the transport of fighting cocks from states where cockfighting is illegal to the three remaining states where it is still permitted advanced in the House of Representatives during April, but was stalled in the Senate by Tim Hutchinson (R-Arkansas), who put a “private hold” on S-345, the Senate version of the bill, introduced by Wayne Allard (R-Colorado.)

The House version, introduced by Representative Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota), on April 12 cleared the Agriculture Committee subcommittee on livestock and horticulture over aggressive opposition from cockfighting lobbyists J. Bennett Johnson, formerly a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, and Steve Symms, formerly a U.S. Senator from New Mexico.

A similar bill applying only to Florida, introduced by state senator Ron Klein (D-Boca Raton), unanimously cleared the state senate criminal justice committee on April 11. A companion bill introduced by representative Eleanor Sobel (D-Hollywood) was apparently dead in the state house, however, after agriculture committee chair Adam Putnam refused to add it to the agenda.

SF/SPCA teaches veggie living

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

SAN FRANCISCO––In New York, the American SPCA magazine touts “free range” beef and poultry products. In Minneapolis, activists are begging the Humane Society of Hennepin County to at least offer vegetarian options alongside the hot dogs at an annual “Walk for Animals.”

In San Francisco, however, the San Francisco SPCA hosts regular workshops in vegetarian living: what to eat, how to cook it, and how to cope with any problems.

Each of the three workshops held so far drew just over 50 participants.

Would Charles rather go naked than quit hunting?

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

LONDON––Prince Charles of Britain has reportedly contributed a recipe for artichoke mousse to a cookbook to be published by the Beaufort Hunt.

“The book, called In The Buff, will also contain pictures of hunt members in a state of undress,” said The Daily Telegraph.

The display of support for fox hunting was disclosed on April 8, one day after the death in Parliament of private member Ken Livingstone’s bill to ban fox hunting meant that yet another year will pass before Prime Minister Tony Blair moves––if he ever does––to fulfill a 1996 pledge to implement such a ban.

Canadian sealers on thin ice

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland––An outspoken proponent of killing as many seals as possible in hopes of bringing the overfished cod back, Newfoundland fisheries minister John Effords at a February 7 media conference made no secret of his belief that seal hunt news coverage should be strictly censored.

“If I had my way, photographers wouldn’t be taking pictures of the seal hunt,” Effords told reporters. “There should be no pictures taken of any hunt.”

Agreed Canadian Sealers Association executive director Tina Fagan, “The time has come to stop issung permits” to photographers to be on the ice. Fagan called for a two-year moratorium on publication of visual images of the Canadian seal hunt.

Letters [May 2000]

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

Fixing bitches

Just a short note to say thank you for ANIMAL PEOPLE, which always makes interesting reading. It is good to have a publication that is not attached to any one society and so can criticize as well as praise!

We are still working hard and struggling with the same old problems. We have just sorted out one lady who had eight bitches and three male dogs. Most of the bitches were pregnant. The dogs had attacked her livestock one night and killed eight of her sheep and goats, so at that point she called us in to help. We removed the ring leaders for rehoming where there is no livestock, spayed the bitches, and returned seven to her. This exercise cost us roughly $400. She gave us a donation of $14. She said she could not afford any more. She does have two large cars and a large house. What to do? We did not want 80 new puppies being born to suffer. She did also say that she had given us four dogs to sell, so we are very lucky. She refused to believe that they also would cost us money.

Letters

Editorial: Self-defeat in Los Angeles

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

On March 22, 2000, the Los Angeles City Council at urging of the Coalition to End Pet Overpopulation adopted what In Defense of Animals spokesperson Bill Dyer called “the nation’s strongest spay/neuter ordinance.” It boosts the licensing fee for unaltered animals from $30 to $100. Owners of unlicensed, unaltered dogs found at large––if identified––will get two warnings to license over a 60-day span, before being fined up to $500.

Los Angeles Animal Services Department manager Dan Knapp and local activists celebrated victory. They should have mourned a self-inflicted defeat, not least because the new ordinance killed any chance a local coalition might have had at funding a five-year drive toward no-kill animal control with help from the $200 million Maddie’s Fund.

As Maddie’s Fund executive director Richard Avanzino reminded, on the eve of the L.A. vote, “Maddie’s Fund does not pay for government programs, including state and local animal care and control mandates.”

Starving the hens is “standard”

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

SEATTLE––Rescuing more than 1,000 starving hens from Amberson’s Egg Farm near Lake Stevens, Washington, during the last two days in March, Pasado’s Safe Haven sanctuary cofounders Susan Michaels and Mark Steinway hope farmer Keith Amberson won’t walk this time.

Just 13 months earlier, in February 1999, Michaels and Steinway rescued 250 starving hens from the same facility, where Amberson reportedly was later to gas 20,000 hens with carbon monoxide in order to get manure discharges below legal limits.

Amberson had just been fined $21,000 by the Washington State Department of ecology, and was under orders from the federal Environmental Protection Agency to stop polluting tributaries to Lake Stevens within 10 days.

“But prosecutors refused to bring animal cruelty charges against Amberson,” the Pasado’s Safe Haven web site recounted, “when he claimed that the dead and dying hens” rescued by Michaels and volunteers on that occasion “were a result of forced molting, a standard egg production practice in which chickens are starved for up to 21 days to force them to begin laying eggs again.”

Bush, Gore, and muzzling

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

AUSTIN, NEW YORK, WASHINGTON D.C.––Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush is an unabashed friend of wise-use wiseguys, an avid hunter, and was Safari Club International’s 1999 “governor of the year.”

Vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Albert Gore aided and abetted the 1993 resumption of Norwegian commercial whaling, the May 1999 resumption of Makah whaling after a 72-year hiatus, and the October 1999 resumption of international elephant ivory sales after a 10-year suspension––and is reputedly chief architect of the Invasive Species Council, the cabinet committee named in February 1999 by President Bill Clinton to pursue the extermination of non-native wildlife.

But Bush and Gore have distinctly different levels of tolerance for criticism.

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