Month: October 1997

Counterattacks

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

U.S. District Judge Henry
Morgan, of Norfolk, Virginia, on
September 3 threw out an industrial espionage
charge that was part of a 21-count
lawsuit filed by Huntingdon Life Sciences
Inc. against PETA and undercover investig-
ator Michele Rokke. Huntingdon on
August 21 dropped four similar complaints
pertaining to alleged theft of trade secrets
and disruption of business. PETA and
Rokke still face 16 allegations that they
engaged in racketeering, trespassing, conspiracy,
and illegal wiretapping. Procter &
Gamble cancelled testing that had been
jobbed out to Huntingdon in June, soon
after Rokke and PETA displayed some of
the material at a press conference. Huntingdon
holds that the damaging information was
obtained under false pretenses, since Rokke
did not disclose her PETA affiliation when
she was hired to clean cages. Morgan ruled
in July that PETA had obtained information
about Huntingdon illegally, and enjoined
further release of the materials Rokke gathered
until after the case is decided.

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COURT CALENDAR

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

WILLS BANKRUPT
Former Humane Society of the
U.S. vice president David Wills on August
22 filed for personal bankruptcy. Among his
17 listed creditors were H S U S, which in
October 1995 fired Wills and later sued him
for allegedly misappropriating $93,000; John
H o y t, president of HSUS and Humane
Society International from 1970 until last year,
who is believed to have personally loaned
Wills money; Sandra LeBost, of Royal Oak,
Michigan, to whom Wills agreed in June
1995 to pay $42,500 in restitution and damages
for nonrepayment of loans; and
William and Judith McBride, also of Royal
Oak, Michigan, who are believed to have
reached an out-of-court settlement with Wills
in a similar case involving alleged failure to
repay a loan of $20,000.

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ANIMAL EDUCATION

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

PHILADELPHIA––Aligned on
opposite sides of the school dissection issue,
the American Anti-Vivisection Society and the
American Physiological Society are taking
fundamentally different approaches to presentation
this school year, too.
American AV, building for the
future, has formed what it terms “the first
humane education certification program in the
U.S.,” described as “a one-to-two-year, offcampus
independent study program for both
teachers and activists.” Study modules cover
education, communication, and presentation;
environmental issues; animal issues; human
rights issues; and cultural issues.
American AV is also distributing the
AnimaLearn Frog Fact Kit, “designed to
encourage children to have empathy and
respect for frogs,” according to AnimalLearn
director Kat Lewis.

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LAB ANIMAL UPDATES

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

The American Humane Association on September
16 took custody of 40 beagles who were scheduled for use in
osteoporsosis research at Huntingdon Life Sciences Inc. in
Franklin, New Jersey, but became surplus instead when the
firm that hired the study, Yamanouchi Inc. of Japan, cancelled
it in response to a May public appeal by actress Kim
Basinger. Basinger tried to collect the beagles in person in
July, but Huntingdon would only release them to an accredited
sheltering organization. AHA arranged for them to be
accepted for socialization and eventual adoption through nine
local shelters.
Responding to a Humane Society of New York
petition asking that the USDA require research facilities to
scan incoming dogs and cats for identification microchips,
USDA assistant secretary for marketing and regulatory programs
Michael Dunn announced in August that Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service officials “are launching a
pilot program to use microchip scanners in inspections to
determine their effectiveness, accuracy, and the frequency of
the use of microchips in cats and dogs.”

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Berkeley langurs go to Primarily Primates

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

SAN ANTONIO––After 25 years in the hills above
Berkeley, California, at a quiet facility overlooking Tilden
Regional Park, the University of California’s 14 Hanuman langur
monkeys are to go to Primarily Primates, of Leon Springs,
Texas, by January 1, 1998. The langurs, native to India and
Pakistan, have been used in non-invasive behavioral study.
University funding for the Berkeley site ended this
fiscal year, raising activist concern––despite repeated university
denials––that the langurs might be killed. All captive-born,
and all neutered, they could not be returned to the wild.
While the Coalition to Free the Langur Monkeys
demonstrated and petitioned to “save” the colony, led by In
Defense of Animals staffer Josh Trenter, a U.C. Berkeley team
headed by Roy Henrickson, DVM, former campus head of
animal care, reviewed the roster of zoos, sanctuaries, and
wildlife parks willing to take the langurs. The team decided the
two best choices were Primarily Primates and another San
Antonio-area sanctuary, Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation.

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Animal /child abuse

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

Northeastern University sociologist Arnold Arluke and
Carter Luke of the Massachusetts SPCA on August 28 reported
that of 153 violent animal abusers involved in 401 cases whose
behavior they tracked for 10 years, 70% committed other crimes,
and 38% committed crimes of violence––but only 15% of the
alleged animal abuse went to court, and only 8% of the alleged perpetrators
drew any jail time for their crimes against animals, which
usually preceded the crimes against humans. The point, said
MSPCA president Gus Thornton, is that “People who burn the
neighbor’s cat are not otherwise well-adjusted adults.”
The association of animal abuse with human abuse was
demonstrated to national media but little remarked in that context on
August 20, when 30 young women joined 428 men on the freshman
“rat line,” to endure six months of mandatory hazing as their initiation
to the Virginia Military Academy. The arrival of the women,
the first admitted to VMI, was anonymously protested by someone
who left 30 dead lab rats and a sign reading “Save the Males” on the
parade ground where the hazing commenced. “Somebody has a
really sick mind,” observed VMI superintendent Josiah Bunting to
David Reed of Associated Press.

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Dioxin. E-coli. It’s what’s for lunch.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

LOS ANGELES––As many as 650 cases of fried
chicken possibly containing trace amounts of dioxin were
divided among 77 Los Angeles Unified School District
cafeterias, an internal memo revealed in mid-August––of
which 649 cases and part of the last case were served to
children before the contamination was detected. The dioxin
came from a kind of clay, mined in Mississippi, that was
mixed into the chickens’ feed to absorb moisture that might
have clogged automatic feeders.
Some of the dioxin-tainted chicken was also
believed to have been sent to schools in Georgia during
January and February 1997, and October 1996.
The dioxin flap shortly preceded the Hudson
Foods recall of more than 25 million pounds of hamburger
that might have become contaminated with e-coli, but
whether it will actually presage any drop in school-promoted
hamburger consumption is yet to be seen.

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GOOD THINGS KIDS DID

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

As students settle into the 1997-
1998 school year, we hope recognition of
some of the many outstanding youth accom –
plishments during the past school year and
over the summer might inspire more:
Sarika Sancheti, 17, of New Delhi,
India, won a precedent-setting verdict on May
19 when the federal Ministry of Human
Resources Development made classroom animal
dissection optional, after Delhi High
Court justices V.K. Sabharwal and D.K.
Jain agreed with her attorney, R a m
Panjwani, that the 1960 Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals Act had intended that dissection
should be banned.
Five weeks earlier, Gina Raynor,
14, and Heather Sauders, 15, of
Hagerstown, Maryland, lost a two-year legal
battle when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected
without comment their contention that they
should be compensated for the confiscation
and killing of their pet ferret in a rabies test,
after he bit Christina Lee Heitt, also of
Hagerstown, at a December 1994 slumber
party. The ferret was killed for testing because
Heitt’s mother objected to obliging her to
undergo post-exposure rabies vaccination.

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Caras says gays are key to no-kill city

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

NEW YORK CITY–– ”Spay
/neuter and responsible pet ownership are
the ways to reduce the numbers” of animals
killed in shelters due to pet overpopulation,
American SPCA president Roger
Caras wrote on August 21, declining an
invitation to attend the 1997 No Kill
Conference as a guest of the Humane
Coalition of Massachusetts.
“Running on about no-kill as the
answer is maybe okay in San Francisco,
with a population of 70,000, one third
who are gay,” Caras continued, as “the
gay community is traditionally the most
animal-friendly,” but in New York City,
he went on, where the ASPCA is the primary
humane agency, “The numbers do
not work.”

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