Pet big cat buyers buy trouble the world over

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

HOUSTON, CALCUTTA–– The growing proliferation of poorly housed, understimulated, and often underfed big cats in private hands was spotlighted yet again at a child’s expense on March 15 in the Channelview district of Houston.

Jayton Tidwell, 4, wandered outdoors unseen during a family reunion and apparently tried to pet his uncle Larry Tidwell’s pet tiger. The tiger bit young Tidwell’s arm off at the elbow. Neurosurgeon Mark Henry reattached the arm and waived his fees, but the medical costs are still expected to exceed $500,000.

The tiger remained on the premises, haphazardly “quarantined” under a blue plastic tarpaulin.

The incident was heavily publicized for several days, but went unmentioned in national coverage of a March 29 press conference in Washington D.C. called by actresses Bo Derek, Melanie Griffith, and Tippi Hedren to promote “The Shambala Wild Animal Protection Act of 2000.”

Dolphin-safe, takings, prairie dog verdicts

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

Thelton E. Henderson, chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, on April 11 ruled that Commerce Secretary William Daley “acted contrary to the law and abused his discretion when he triggered a change in the ‘dolphin safe’ label standard.” Daley, despite the verdict, on April 12 lifted the U.S. ban on tuna imports from Mexico which had stood since 1991, imposed because Mexican fishing methods were not “dolphin safe.” New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade judge Judith Barzilay on April 14 refused to reimpose the ban. “We could start exporting like crazy now, but nobody is going to buy tuna that doesn’t have the ‘dolphin safe’ label,” said Mexican fisheries secretariat spokesperson Dalia de la Pena Wing. Since 1990, “dolphin safe” labels have designated tuna caught by means not killing any dolphins. In 1995 a General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs panel held that the U.S. law which began “dolphin safe” labeling unduly inhibited trade by excluding imports of non-“dolphin safe” tuna. The GATT decree led to extensive revision of the 1990 law, via the 1997 International Dolphin Conservation Program Act. Daley then tried to administratively extend eligibility to use “dolphin safe” labeling to all legally imported tuna, but Henderson held that Daley had not documented any need to do so. Henderson in May 1990 banned imports of yellowfin tuna from Mexico, Venezuela, and V a n u a t u, under the 1988 amendments to the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, and in January 1992 invoked the same law to ban $266 million worth of tuna imports from 30 nations. Appeals of the 1992 verdict led to the 1995 GATT ruling.

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.

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.”

Great gray beasts win in Kenya

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

NAIROBI, Kenya––Elephants and whales are safer, if still far from saved, as outcome of the April 10-20 eleventh triennial meeting of the 151 member nations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The CITES triennial was still underway as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press. On April 15, however, the delegates rejected a Japanese proposal to reopen legal traffic in gray whale products, 63-44 with 16 abstentions.

On April 17, Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa cut a five-way deal which restored the 1989-1997 moratorium on international ivory sales, at least until 2002, when it is again to be reviewed.

Hunters kill predators, squelch voters’ rights

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

“I read in our local newspaper about the shocking and barbaric third annual Midwestern Coyote Calling Championship, held in January in St. Francis, Kansas,” wrote Nancy Lee, of Boulder, Colorado.

“As I know how committed you are to the welfare of animals, I’m hoping you’ll want to publicize this atrocity,” Lee continued. “If we let the powers that be in St. Francis know that decent citizens won’t put up with this kind of slaughter, maybe they’ll reconsider holding it next year.”

Added Louise Wilson Davis, in the letter to the Boulder Daily Camera that alerted Lee, “Perhaps St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, would like the name of this town to be changed.”

Legislators define “cruelty”

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

CHRISTCHURCH, TOKYO, OTTAWA; State Capitols, U.S.– – New Zealand, since January 1, 2000, has had reputedly the broadest-ranging and most up-to-date anti-cruelty act in the world, replacing an act dating to 1960.

Japan on December 14, 1999 updated its 1973 anti-cruelty act, enabling judges to imprison as well as fine animal abusers.

As spring legislative sessions rushed to a close, improved anti-cruelty bills appeared likely to pass in Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, and Wyoming. Bills before the Canadian Parliament and the legislatures of Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia seemed to have less chance.

DRAGGING ESCALATES

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

Jail time takes criminals off the streets, but publicizing crimes against animals in hopes that elevated public outrage will put an alleged offender in jail can backfire if other warped and hostile people emulate the offense.

The escalating incidence of young men dragging animals and humans to death behind vehicles offers an apparent example. Most offenders subsequently claim their actions were either accidental or at least unplanned, but in every case known to ANIMAL PEOPLE the circumstances suggest that the likelihood of dragging the victim completely unawares was slight.

Once a common form of lynching, dragging humans to death had seemingly receded into history by 1992, when ANIMAL PEOPLE began tracking crimes against animals and crimes against humans with possible antecedents in animal abuse. The only dragging case of which we had recent record involved a man who “trained” a racehorse by making the horse run behind his truck. The man was obliged to stop by a horseloving police officer before the horse was seriously injured.

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