COURT CALENDAR

December 1, 1992 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

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.

Wildlife

December 1, 1992 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

The World Wildlife Fund and

the National Wildlife Federation on

November 13 asked Interior Secretary

Manuel Lujan to impose trade sanctions on

China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Yemen

for permitting traffic in rhinocerous horns.

The wild black rhino population has plunged

from 65,000 to 2,000 since 1970.

The California condor who was

found dead October 8 suffered kidney fail-

ure from drinking antifreeze, the U.S. Fish

and Wildlife Service has determined. The

condor was one of the first two to be

released into the wild after an intensive cap-

tive breeding program. Sixty-two California

condors remain in captivity, six of whom

are scheduled for release this month.

Fur

December 1, 1992 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

The Dutch Advertising

Standards Authority has upheld allega-

tions of misleading advertising leveled

against the fur trade by the anti-fur group

Bont Voor Diren [Fur For Animals.] The

Standards Authority ruled that,

“Considering the way fur is being produced,

by means of unnatural catch in the wild

often by means of a leghold trap, fur farms,

and as byproduct of factory farming for the

production of meat, it cannot be maintained

that fur is ‘ecological’…According to the

judgement of the authority, the production

of fur has nothing to do with the natural

relations that exist between animals and the

environment they live in. Nor can the pro-

cessing of fur be called ecological or envi-

ronmentally friendly, since materials are

used that damage the environment.” Earlier,

the Standards Authority ruled that the fur

trade couldn’t describe the welfare of ani-

mals on fur farms as “excellent.”

Hunting

December 1, 1992 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

HUNTER CHARGED WITH HOMOSEXUAL RAPE

Fourteen million Americans hunted

in 1991, according to newly released U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service statistics; 34.5

million fished; and more than 76 million

watched, photographed, or fed wildlife

without feeling the need to kill.

Or rape.

Hunting critics who equate the

lethal pursuit with perversely sublimated

sexuality got an apparent case in point

November 4 when police charged hunter

Antone Mendes Jr., 40, of Plymouth,

Massachusetts, with open and gross lewd-

ness, lewd and lascivious speech or behav-

ior, assault and battery, assault with a dead-

ly weapon, attempted kidnapping, and leav-

ing a firearm in a motor vehicle unattended.

The charges allege that Mendes

sexually assaulted his hunting partner, an

unidentified 23-year-old man.

Performing Animals

December 1, 1992 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

Greyhound racing profits in New England

are sharply down, hurt in part by publicity surrounding

abuse cases at the Lakes Region, Green Mountain, and

Raynham raceways. Betting at Raynham was off 9%

this year from last, and down 26% from the peak

reached in 1989. Receipts at the Plainfield raceway

were down 22% from last year. Some New England

trainers have begun sending their dogs to Brazil, where

greyhound racing is just catching on.

The American Humane Association has given

the Warner Brothers film Pure Country a “questionable”

rating because of rodeo scenes. The film stars George

Strait and Leslie Ann Warren.

An occasional novelty since the 1930s,

female bullfighters are now the rage in Spanish rings.

One, 20-year-old Cristina Sanchez, is expected to

become the first Spanish woman to achieve the rank of

matador.

Horses

December 1, 1992 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

The November 16 edition of Sports Illustrated

shocked the horse world with an expose of horse murders

committed to collect insurance money, based on the con-

fessions of convicted horse-killer Tommy Burns, nick-

named the Sandman for his ability to “put horses to sleep”

in deliberate “accidents” with electric current. Burns is to

be sentenced for interstate insurance fraud and cruelty to

animals in December. He got caught when instead of elec-

trocuting one horse, he broke the animal’s leg with a crow-

bar. He had allegedly been hired to kill the horse by Donna

Brown, wife of former U.S. Equestrian Team member

Buddy Brown. The FBI is reportedly investigating numer-

ous cases to which Brown made reference, possibly includ-

ing the death of renowned stallion Alydar at Calumet Farms

in November 1990. Alydar was put down after suffering an

extremely unusual leg fracture. Calumet Farms was $120

million in debt; Alydar was insured for $36.5 million, but

projected revenues from the horse for 1991 were only $7

million because most of his breeding rights had already

been sold.

CHILDREN & ANIMALS

December 1, 1992 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

Serbian soldier Borislav Herak, 21, who may

become the first person executed for war crimes since 1945,

told New York Times reporter John Burns in November that

senior personnel taught him to kill by having him assist in

cutting pigs’ throats. Herak is charged with murdering 29

Moslem civilians between July and late October, and has

confessed to participating in more than 220 murders––most

of the victims women and children, many of them killed in

connection with rape. Herak, captured in mid-November

by Bosnian troops, goes to trial this month.

The first known controlled clinical trial of thera-

py and education involving animals, conducted by the

University of Pennsylvania, has confirmed what pet therapy

and classroom pet advocates have insisted all along: that

children learn more readily in the presence of other species.

Agriculture

December 1, 1992 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

“If the livestock industry demonstrates good

faith toward animal advocacy, it should suffer little eco-

nomic impact from increased regulation to enhance animal

contentment,” Ohio State University agricultural economists

Carl Zulauf and Matthew Krause recently told Feedstuffs

readers. Zulauf and Krause assumed that consumers would

be willing to pay marginally higher prices for animal prod-

ucts to be assured that they were not obtained by cruel meth-

ods. Some individual farmers would be hurt by obligatory

changes of method, they said, but others would prosper,

and the overall net effect would be nil. Much of the cost of

replacing equipment and facilities would be absorbed into

the ongoing cost of upkeep. Zulauf and Krause did not con-

sider the possibility that consumers might continue to move

toward vegetarianism at the unprecedented pace of the past

decade––a trend that could encourage many farmers to

abandon animal production.

Animal Health

December 1, 1992 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons on

November 10 announced that it would ask the British

Parliament to ban routine docking of dogs’ tails as, “an

unjustified mutilation and unethical,” over the objections

of Buckingham Palace. Under the RCVS proposal, vet-

erinarians who perform medically unjustified tail-dock-

ing could lose their licenses. Princess Anne vehemently

defended tail-docking at a recent meeting of the British

Veterinary Medical Association. Of the 7.5 million dogs

in Britain, about 1.3 million have been tail-docked,

mostly by breeders. Among the 185 breeds registered by

the Royal Kennel Club, about 50 are traditionally tail-

docked, including corgis (a royal favorite), boxers,

Dobermans, old English sheep dogs, poodles, and

Rottweilers.

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