COURT CALENDAR
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:
Rodeo protester Marla Rose was arrested for alleged felonious possession of a deadly weapon on October 4 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on the complaint of an as yet unidentified rodeo person, Chicago Animal Rights Coalition founder Steve Hindi report- ed. The “deadly weapon,” Hindi said, “was an electrical shocking device identical to those used by some of the stock handlers at the rodeo to jolt bulls as they exited the chutes during the bullriding events. So let’s see if I understand this, ” Hindi continued. “A prod used on defenseless animals by phony cowboys does not hurt, is not a weapon, and is not the same as a stun-gun. Conversely, the same prod in the hands of an activist who is merely display- ing it does hurt, is a weapon, and magically becomes a stun-gun? ” Rose was held overnight, then released on a signature bond.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina , of Washington, D.C., on October 30 granted a preliminary injunction sought by the Fund for Animals to stop a bison hunt at the National Elk Refuge , near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which was to start on Halloween. Promoted by the Wyoming Game and Fish D e p a r t m e n t , the hunt had attracted 1,982 applications for permits to kill about 35 bison. The state contended that the hunt was a neces- sary cull; the Fund argued that halting winter feeding programs for both bison and elk could stabilize the population without culling. The National Elk Refuge, southeast of Yellow- stone National Park, has reportedly fed bison each winter since 1980.
Rejecting arguments from Earthjustice and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition , U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell of Helena, Montana, on November 5 upheld the temporary Yellowstone bison management plan which is in effect until such time as a per- manent plan is adopted. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a draft permanent plan, calling for culling bison, on June 1. The Fund for Animals has offered an alternative plan which would not require culling. The Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care , an unsuccessful bidder on 111 former NASA chimpanzees, on October 11 sued the U.S. Air Force for awarding the chimps instead to the Coulston Foundation, their contractual custodian since 1993. Another 30 former NASA chimps are en route to Primarily Primates .
Texas district judge John Marshall on October 13 made permanent the temporary injunction he issued on August 23 against live pigeon shoots at the Dallas Gun Club , which is actually located in nearby Carrollton. “To characterize this event as a sport is an insult to every true sportsman, ” Marshall stated. “Sport implies that the animal has a chance to escape.” Dallas Gun Club lawyer Rick Illmer said he would advise the club to appeal. Marshall ’s permanent injunction came in response to Illmer’s appeal of the initial ruling, issued on behalf of the Flower Mound Humane Society and the Nature Coalition .
Overturning a lower court deci- sion, the New York Court of Appeals on October 22 unanimously ruled that the State University of New York violated the state Freedom Of Information Law by withhold- ing information about the sources of animals used in experiments at the SUNY Health Science Center in Brooklyn from Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Labs . The latter requested the information in 1994 on behalf of the Brooklyn Heights Dog Owners Association , whose members suspected stolen dogs might be going to SUNY laboratories. The case was argued for CAAL by E l i n o r Molbegott , who since 1989 has won a series of similar cases against SUNY without per- suading SUNY officials to drop the stonewall.
Ruling that killing a healthy dog to fulfill terms of a will would contradict pub- lic policy , St. Louis associate circuit judge Randall Bono on October 15 overturned a provision of the will of the late Mary Hack , of Alton, Missouri, which required that her mixed breed dog named Sassy Marie be killed after her own death. Bono instead awarded Sassy Marie to Catherine Middleton , Hack’s niece and executor. Heirs Robert and Armeda Voss , who will reportedly inherit about two-thirds of the Hack estate, petitioned in August to have Sassy Marie killed immedi- ately, alleging that Middleton was improperly spending funds from the estate on the dog’s upkeep. Middleton testified that she had spent about $800 on Sassy Marie, who now is her own responsibility. The case paralled the Sido case in San Francisco sixteen years earlier, in which the San Francisco SPCA successfully challenged a similar clause in a will to save the life of a small mixed breed dog of remarkably similar appearance.
