Animal Control & Rescue

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

Animal shelters, public or private, must hold
animals at least five days including a Saturday before
releasing them to Class B dealers or researchers, under an
amendment to Animal Welfare Act enforcement regulations
that took effect August 23. Written certification that the
holding period has been met must accompany each animal.
The Bronx SPCA, recently incorporated by
American SPCA officers Stephen Zawistowski, Eugene
Underwood, and Harold Finkelstein, exists “to make sure
we would have consistent law enforcement authority” with-
in the whole of New York City, Zawistowski told ANI-
MAL PEOPLE. The ASPCA was incorporated before the
Bronx was, and therefore the charter granted to the ASPCA
by the state of New York does not specifically authorize it
as the sole animal protection law enforcement agency for
the Bronx, as it does for the other New York City boroughs.

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Animal Control & Rescue

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

New Hampshire has followed
New Jersey and Connecticut in establish-
ing a statewide low-cost neutering pro-
gram. The New Hampshire program, man-
aged by the state department of agriculture
and funded by a $2.00 surcharge on dog
licenses, will subsidize neutering animals
adopted from shelters and those belonging
to people of low income.
The percentage of purebreds
among dogs received by pounds and shel-
ters appears to be edging up, e.g. from 22%
in 1991 to 25% in 1992 at the SPCA of
Monterey County, California, which keeps
some of the most comprehensive records on
purebreds. Other shelters claim to be
receiving as many as 30% purebreds. The
percentage may be up simply because total
admissions are generally down while the
number of dogs surrendered by owners is
holding even, and owned dogs are more
likely to be purebred.

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HUNTING & FISHING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

The Illinois Department of Agriculture in June
banned captive pigeon shoots on advice of the state attor-
ney general, bringing its policy into line with the state
Humane Care for Animals Act of 1973 and a January 1992
amendment to the state Conservation Code. The ban was a
major victory for anti-pigeon shoot activist Steve Hindi, of
Plano, Illinois, who has struggled since 1990 to get
enforcement of the laws against pigeon shooting.
The Fund for Animals has announced that it
will not protest against the annual Fred Coleman Memorial
Labor Day Pigeon Shoot in Hegins, Pennsylvania, this
year. Major protests orchestrated by the Fund and PETA in
1991 and 1992 backfired when they became confrontational.
Nearly twice as many shooters and shoot supporters attend-
ed the Hegins shoot last year as before the Fund got
involved, possibly attracted by the chance an activist might
get killed in the act of rescuing a bird. The Coalition
Against Live Bird Shoots in Pennsylvania will hold a small-
er protest this year; details have not yet been announced.

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Hunting & Fishing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Fed up with poachers, the Plaquemines Parish,
Lousiana district attorney’s office two years ago began
offering people convicted of hunting and fishing offenses
the option of contributing to an equipment fund to help
game wardens in lieu of paying higher fines. The 1991
receipts bought walkie-talkies and a video camera.
Receipts rose to $5,125 in 1992, and were mostly spent on
a $4,000 night vision scope, to detect jacklighters.
The Lousiana House of Representatives on
May 14 killed a bill to require hunters under 16 to pass a
gun safety class.
Allen Sarratt, of Camden, Tennessee, killed
his son Brent, 12, and daughter Kelly, 15, with a single
shot on May 17 when he slung his loaded deer rifle over his
shoulder as he started down the steps of their home and it
discharged.

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Performing Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The Louisiana state senate on
May 12 passed a bill to make attending an
illegal dogfight a crime, 33-0, but reduced
the offense from a felony to a misdemeanor,
and cut the maximum penalty from three
years in jail and a fine of $3,000 to one year
in jail and a fine of $1,000. A bill to ban
cockfighting meanwhile remained stalled in
a legislative committee headed by cock-
fighting fan Rep. Raymond Lalonde.

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COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Humane Enforcement

Miami primate trafficker
Matthew Block abruptly withdrew his
guilty plea March 16 in connection with
arranging the 1990 Bangkok Six orang-
utan smuggling incident, in which three
orangutans of a shipment of six died en
route from Borneo to Yugoslavia. The
shipment was intercepted in Thailand.
Block pulled out, apparently, because of
the likelihood he would draw jail time.

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WSPA battles bear-baiting

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

The World Society for the
Protection of Animals asks that letters
protesting bear-baiting be sent to the
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
2315 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington,
DC 20008-2802. Videotapes recently
obtained by WSPCA staff show how, as a
WSPCA press release explains, “the trained
bear is led to the center of a field and tied by
a 15-foot-rope to a peg in the ground. At the
judge’s signal, two dogs are unleashed to
attack. If the dogs can grasp the bear’s nose
in their teeth and flatten the bear in three min-

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COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

Humane Enforcement
Houston police and animal con-
trol officers on January 2 seized 16 pit bulls
at the scene of a dogfight––the fourth big
dogfighting bust in the U.S. in two months.
Simultaneous raids on January
1 7 netted 35 spectators at a cockfight in
Mossy, West Virginia, and five alleged
cockfight organizers in Gilroy, California,
where more than 500 fighting cocks were
seized. About 20 to 25 people evaded the
police in West Virginia, and an estimated 60
got away in California.

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COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

Humane Enforcement
The U.S. Supreme Court is be-
lieved likely to overturn the city of Hialeah,
Florida’s five-year-old ban on animal sacri-
fice. The Supreme Court heard arguments
in the case of Church of Lukuki Babalu Aye
vs. Hialeah on November 3. The church
practices the Santeria religon, popular
among Caribbean immigrants, in which ani-
mal sacrifice is central to many rituals. The
Santerians’ argument that the ban violates
their freedom of religion is backed by the
Presbyterian Church, the American Jewish
Committee, the Catholic League for
Religious and Civil Rights, and other groups
representing Mormons, Mennonites, and
Seventh Day Adventists. The latter church
includes vegetarianism and kindness to ani-
mals as central tenets, but like the others
fears legal precedents that could open the
way for other laws proscribing worship. If
the Hialeah ban is overturned, similar bans
in San Francisco and Los Angeles will also
fall.

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