ANIMAL CONTROL & RESCUE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

Alley Cat Allies invites cat rescuers
to participate in the sixth of an annual
series of surveys of techniques and observations
similar to those ANIMAL PEOPLE
did in 1992 and 1995. For a survey form,
send SASE to POB 397, Mt. Rainier, MD
20712, or call 301-229-7890.
Among the encouraging data
reported in a new National Pet Alliance
paper, Do free spay/neuter vouchers work,
“Newborn kittens entering the H u m a n e
Society of the Santa Clara Valley shelter
have decreased 44%” since a voucher program
began there in 1994, “while kittens in
general have decreased 10%. The total
number of cats handled has dropped slightly,
even though the service area has been
increasing and the human population has
been increasing,” author Karen Johnson
wrote. Among the other evident results of a
lower feline birth rate, the number of cats
surrendered at the shelter because the owners
claimed to have too many cats dropped
from 51% to 35% over the same interval.
The paper is available c/o NPA, POB
53385, San Jose, CA 95153.

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Roger Rabbit and the facts of life

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

NEW YORK––Seriously asserting in
his 1996 book A Perfect Harmony that rabbits are
capable of immaculate conception, American
SPCA president Roger Caras reached for another
miracle of harmony as regards pet reproduction in
the summer edition ofASPCA Animal Watch.
At issue: the clash between advocates
of traditional “full service” shelters, which do
dog and cat population control killing, and converts
to the separation of animal control from
other humane services, as in San Francisco.
Inspired by the success of San Francisco
in becoming the first “no-kill” city in 1994, Caras
himself in 1995 led the ASPCA in breaking from
a century-long tradition of serving as the New
York City animal control agency.

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CAMPAIGNS, ORGANIZATIONS, LEADERS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

Animal control
Dave Flagler, 44, director of animal control in
Fairfax, Virginia for just one year, quit in June to head animal
services in Salt Lake County, Utah. Flagler said he was frustrated
by tight resources in Fairfax0.3, and concerned about a
possible move toward privatization. Previously director of animal
control in Multnomah County, Oregon, Flagler in Fairfax
replaced Daniel P. Boyle, DVM, longtime animal control
chief in DuPage County, Illinois, who after moving to Fairfax
was fired for alleged maladministration just four months later.
Attacked by hunters and trappers in Illinois for pursuing a local
leghold trap ban, Boyle ran afoul of animal rights activists in
Fairfax for using a once standard animal disposition test, now
considered obsolete, in which a dog and a cat are held face to
face. Animals who respond aggressively are killed. Flagler, in
Oregon, was targeted by activists for introducing a tough antivicious
dog law. He drew flak in Fairfax when the county
Board of Supervisors asked him to reduce deer numbers.
Flagler favored hiring a sharpshooter, but the Fairfax Animal
Shelter Advisory Commisson convinced the board to say no.

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Kaimanawa horse shooting commences

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

WELLINGTON, N.Z.––A five-year struggle to save the wild
horses of Kaimanawa, New Zealand, apparently ended in gunfire on May
25, equine behaviorist Sharon Cregier told ANIMAL PEOPLE. Cregier,
of Prince Edward Island, Canada, relayed a faxed report from former New
Zealand Horse & Pony editor Peg Harvey that, “Reporters and photographers
are being kept from the slaughter area. Horses are being driven into
trucks bound for slaughter. Others are being shot and the carcasses left to
rot. Twelve hundred horses are expected to be shot. The roundup, slaughter
transport, and killings are under the auspices of the Department of
Conservation. The New Zealand Wild Horse Protection Association and
International League for the Protection of Horses have protested the killings,
some protesters chaining themselves to the trucks and being sent to jail.”
The Kaimanawa herd, descended from military horses released
during the 1860s and deliberately supplemented with Exmoor ponies and
Welsh stallions in 1877, is to be reduced to 500 of the healthiest horses,
who will be confined to an area less than half the size of their present range.
Only 200 of the horses survived as of 1981, when they were protected by
cabinet order.

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Sheltering

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

Animal shelters are exempted from a new
Arizona law that makes pet stores financially liable
for veterinary costs if they sell sick dogs and cats. One
side effect of the bill, which resembles legislation
already in effect in many other states, will be to
encourage more pet stores to emulate the PetsMart
Luv-A-Pet program, which allows humane societies to
do adoptions through store facilities. The 300–plusstore
PetsMart chain, based in Phoenix, may cumulatively
place more animals now than any other organization,
but is not beloved of all humane societies: a
brochure on Spaying and Neutering distributed by the
in-house VetsSmart clinics, forwarded to A N I M A L
PEOPLE by Animal Issues Movement co-director
Phyllis M. Daugherty, of Los Angeles, seemingly
encourages breeding with a passage reading, “Many
people who welcome the birth of puppies or kittens
believe the experience and the comitment involved are
among the most rewarding experiences of their entire
lives. Being a ‘grandparent’ to a bunch of new pets
can be fun for everyone in your family––and highly
educational for your children.”

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Feral cats

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

The British-based Mammal
Society on April 2 published findings that
a rising population of free-roaming cats
seems to coincide with a decline in the
numbers of barn owls, stoats, and
weasels, but which event is cause and
which effect remains hazy. Trying to
quantify feline killing habits, the authors
reported that Siamese cats hunt most
aggressively, while the white cats in the
study apparently didn’t hunt at all.
The East Bay Regional Park
District board, managing numerous
semi-wild recreation areas in the hills to
the eastern side of San Francisco Bay,
agreed on April 2 to study their feral cat
situation for 18 months before proceeding
with further lethal removal. When cats
are removed, Rick DelVecchio of the San
Francisco Chronicle reported, “park
rangers will work with animal rescue

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Animal control & rescue

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

The Commiossioners Court of Harris
County, Texas, voted 3-2 on March 31 to stop
selling animals to biomedical research, on a
motion by Commissioner Steve Radack.
Commissioner Jerry Eversole and County
Judge Robert Eckels also favored the resolution,
ending a 25-year-plus history of rejecting such
motions, as offered from the floor, 5-0.
Euthanizing as many as 80,000 animals a year,
Harris County sold 791 animals in 1996, less than
half as many as it 1994, earning $32,000.
The trustees of the Bernice Barbour
Foundation, a major funder of humane society
special projects, voted in March “to fund only
programs of organizations which spay/neuter animals
before adopting them out. We feel it is most
important that animals being recycled by shelters
and humane groups,” sccretary/treasurer E v e
Lloyd Thompson told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “or
being shipped into eastern humane societies to fill
requests by the public for puppies for adoption,
do not have the opportunity to reproduce.”

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WHAT’S IN A NAME? NO-KILLS AND THE HEART OF DARKNESS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

PHOENIX––Fast losing public support
for the traditional “full service shelter”
concept, which it has advanced without significant
modification since forming in 1954, the
Humane Society of the U.S. at its Animal Care
Expo in mid-February unveiled a campaign to
persuade no-kill shelters to relabel themselves
“limited access shelters.”
HSUS central/south regional office
director Phil Snyder and Cat Care Society
executive director Kathy Macklem introduced
the “limited access” term in panel discussion,
after which Macklem tried to enlist the
endorsement of No-Kill Directory publisher,
No-Kill Conference founder, and Doing
Things For Animals president Lynda Foro.

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Public demands an end to old-style animal control

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

A series of early 1997 small-city clashes
over animal shelter management suggest that the cultural
transformation hitting big city shelters for more
than a decade is now universal: the public sees
more, expects more, and business-as-usual won’t
hack it.
Retiring sheriff Lee Vasquez of Yamhill
County, Oregon, said so in almost as many words
in January, when as his last official act he ordered a
halt to the 30-year practice of selling pound animals
to Oregon Health Sciences University and the
Oregon State University college of veterinary medicine.
“It is clear to me,” Vasquez concluded, “that
the sale of live animals is no longer a practice which
our county should tolerate.”

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