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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Diet & Health

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

* The USDA school lunch subsidy pro-
gram is functioning as a dump for choles-
terol-laden meat and dairy products, the con-
sumer group Public Voice for Food and
Health Policy charged September 16.
Approximately 20% of each of the 4.1 billion
school lunches served in 1991 consisted of
free food supplied by the USDA—but cheese
and butter made up a third of the $10.2 billion
total, almost all of the potatoes had fat added,
and only 3.4% of the fruit and vegetables
were fresh. The Public Voice report was
endorsed by American School Food Service
Association spokesman Kevin Dando, who
agreed, “There’s entirely too much butter
available, and schools would like to have
more fresh fruits and vegetables.” From 1979
through 1991, the USDA spent $7.2 billion to
supply schools with meat and dairy products,
but spent just $2 billion on fruits, vegetables,
and grains.

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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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Agriculture

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

October 2 was the 10th anniver-
sary of World Farm Animals Day, declared
in 1983 by the Farm Animal Reform
Movement to coincide with Gandhi’s birthday
and World Vegetarian Day. Major commemo-
rations were scheduled in New York, the
Washington D.C. metropolitan area, Iowa,
Florida, California, and Hawaii.
The contribution of cattle to global
warming has significantly increased over the
past three years, along with the world cattle
population, International Union of Air
Pollution Prevention Associations director
general John Langston warned the 800-mem-
ber group in early September.

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Horse notes…

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

Horse racing, banned for nearly
60 years, may be revived in China.
Racing dates have recently been held in
Canton, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing,
drawing crowds of up to 3,000. Parimutual
betting is not yet legal, but is likely to be
legalized in the near future. Since gambling
is historically as popular in China as baseball
in the U.S., this may become the impetus to
make racing take off..

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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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Watson & Hughey charities are in trouble again

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. The states
of Connecticut and Pennsylvania are suing the
Cancer Fund of America and three other chari-
ties for alleged fraudulent accounting in
describing the use of donations.
The Cancer Fund of America,
based in Knoxville, Tennessee, solicits con-
tributions by claiming that it does not fund
research using animals. In actuality, it funds
little or no cancer research of any kind, and is
one of eight charities promoted by the Watson
and Hughey direct mail fundraising firm, of
Alexandria, Virginia, which were fined a total
of $2.4 million in 1991 for using misleading
sweepstakes appeals.

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Woofs and growls:

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 11th Circuit on August 18 upheld a lower
court decision that Soldier of Fortune maga-
zine must pay $4.3 million in damages to the
sons of Richard Braun, an Atlanta business-
man who was murdered in 1985 by a contract
killer whose “gun for hire” ad the magazine
published. The killer, Michael Savage, 44,
of Knoxville, Tenn., and eight of his clients
have been convicted of criminal conspiracy in
connection with the Braun case and at least
two others. Soldier of Fortune has recently
amplified a series of National Rifle
Association attacks on the animal rights move-
ment and anti-hunting activists.

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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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