CRIME & PUNISHMENT

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

Crimes Against Humans
* The FBI and local police are seeking a
serial killer who is believed responsible for
shooting a bowhunter, a deer hunter, two
fishermen, and a jogger since 1989 in rural
eastern Ohio. An anonymous letter to a local
newspaper from the purported killer indicates
he himself is a hunter; he demonstrates a
hunter’s knowledge of firearms. The man
boasted that these are not his only murders.
* Imperial Food Products owner Emmett
Roe pleaded guilty Sept. 14 to 25 counts of
manslaughter in connection with a Sept. 3,
1991 blaze at the company’s chicken process-
ing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. Similar
charges against Roe’s son and another plant
official were dropped as part of a plea bar-
gain. Roe was setenced to 20 years in prison
for locking exits and neglecting fire precau-
tions. Roe was earlier fined $808,150 for fire
code violations, and still faces 19 civil suits
from bereaved survivors.

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DOGS & CATS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

* Wildlife officer Ric Nattrass of the Queensland (Australia) National Parks
and Wildlife Service has concluded that, “Based on data collected by wildlife staff
at the Moggill Centre (in Brisbane), there is no evidence to date that the domestic
cat is a major threat to the long term survival of the city’s native fauna. From a
purely conservation point of view, neither the numbers nor the species taken by cats
are cause for alarm when compared with the losses to urbanization, industrializa-
tion, motor traffic, and the creation of the horse paddock.” Nattrass’ report is
based on the experience of a single metropolitan area, as critics are quick to note,
and flies in the face of conventional belief; but it is worth pointing out that the only
other major study of domestic cat predation to date, by John Lawton and Peter
Churcher, was also based on the experience of a single location, a village in thesub-
urbs of London, England, and also concluded that while cats kill significant num-
bers of animals, the overwhelming majority are common mice, voles, and birds
(principally sparrows).

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Animal Health

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

* Over a year and a half after the mid-
Atlantic raccoon rabies pandemic hit south-
eastern Connecticut and was expected to
spread throughout New England, confirmed
outbreaks have yet to hit Massachusetts,
Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. All
four states have had only the usual handful of
rabies cases, mostly involving bats and foxes.
Bat rabies has been endemic in parts of New
England for decades, while outbreaks of fox
rabies have been sporadic along the Canadian
border at least since the 1950s. While some
rabid raccoons have been found in northern
New England during the past year, they are
not known to have carried the mid-Atlantic
strain of the disease, and there is no evidence
that the forms they appeared to have are wide-
ly distributed in the raccoon population.

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ANIMAL CONTROL & RESCUE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

* The Sprint telephone service and the
American Humane Association have set up a
nationwide hotline to help reunite lost pets
with their keepers. Reporting a stray is free:
call 1-800-755-8111. To report a lost pet, call
1-900-535-1515. The cost for lost pet calls is
$1.95 per minute, a portion of which is donat-
ed to AHA. The average lost pet report takes
four minutes to complete, according to Sprint.
* Paige Powell and Tama Janowitz of
New York City produce a TV show in cooper-
ation with the animal rescue groups Being
Kind and the Animal Project to promote pet
adoptions. Called It’s A Dog’s Life, the show
airs on channels 16 and 17.

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Religion & Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

Pope John Paul II was scheduled to
issue “A solemn appeal for animal welfare” on
eptember 30, from the Vatican. The appeal
will not have the force of ecclesiastic law, and
is expected to be quite conservative.
A San Francisco Board of
Supervisors subcommittee on August 18
approved an ordinance to ban animal sacrifice,
modeled after similar ordinances now in effect
in various Florida and southern California
cities. Supervisor Carole Migden introduced
the ordinance after the city Department of
Animal Care and Control reported having
found evidence of at least 1,000 animal sacri-
fices during the past year. The ordinance now
goes before the full Board of Supervisors for
enactment. Migden meanwhile withdrew a
proposed to ban the sale or ownership of wolf
hybrids, since so many are already in San
Francisco that enforcement might prove
impossible.

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Shelter bashing wasn’t planned

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

A late summer wave of shelter-bashing by
animal rights groups took humane workers by
surprise, including some of the most outspo-
ken critics of shelter administrations. Protests
outside numerous shelters on Homeless
Animals Day, August 22, coincided with
campaigns against the management of the
Primarily Primates shelter in San Antonio,
Texas, and the Defenders of Animal Rights
shelter in Phoenix, Maryland. (See separate
items.)

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Hurricane Andrew: Noah was there! Disaster spotlights preparation

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

MIAMI, FLORIDA Thousands of
animals drowned, were swept to their deaths
by winds reaching 200 miles an hour, or were
crushed by falling trees and collapsing build-
ings. Fragile habitat was harmed from southern
Florida to coastal Louisiana. But while
Hurricane Andrew hit too suddenly for anyone
to build an ark, thousands more animals were
saved from the August 24 disaster through the
prompt efforts of volunteer rescuers. As the
human relief response came under critical
scrutiny from victims and the media, observers
had only praise for the contributions of animal
control and humane workers.

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