Organizations & key personnel

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

Stabilizing a year after the death
of founder Henry Spira, Animal Rights
International including the Coalition for
Nonviolent Food has elected Princeton
University professor of bioethics Peter
Singer as president and has hired Pace
University adjunct law faculty member and
animal rights law conference organizer Susan
Porto as coordinator. ARI was directed since
Spira’s death by attorney Elinor Molbegott,
his executor and longtime close friend, who
remains on the ARI board, along with Singer
and Humane Society of the U.S. senior vice
president Andrew Rowan. Singer authored
the philosophical study Animal Liberation
(1974), co-authored Animal Factories w i t h
Jim Mason (1981), and wrote Ethics Into
Action (1998), the definitive Spira biography.
Rowan was among Spira’s most often consulted
advisors on scientific affairs.

Activists & Organizations

Court Calendar

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

San Diego Superior Court Judge
John S. Meyer on August 20 ruled that the
35-page Fashion Valley Mall a p p l i c a t i o n
for permission to engage in “expressive”
activity there is overbroad and unconstitutional.
Meyer lifted a preliminary injunction
the mall owners obtained in December 1998
against Last Chance for Animals, other
activist groups, and dozens of individuals
who had participated in anti-fur demonstrations
there. Earlier, on June 11, Meyer let
the injunction stand, but held unconstitutional
a policy prohibiting protesters from
telling shoppers they should not patronize
merchants at the mall. The Fashion Valley
Mall has now amended their application,
LCA executive director Eric Mindel t o l d
ANIMAL PEOPLE, and is to apply again
for an injunction on October 4. Ironically,
the case is now down to just four defendants,
Mindel noted: LCA, himself personally,
LCA attorney Roland Vincent, and one
other individual. None of them were ever
part of any action involving the mall,
Mindel said, until they were named in the
1998 preliminary injunction, and decided to
fight it as a potential landmark in the evolution
of law pertaining to shopping malls as
venues for public expression.

ALF update

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

Accused of bombing the Fur
Breeders Cooperative at Sandy, Utah, in
1997, Clayton Ellerman, 22, pleaded guilty
to reduced charges on August 19 and turned
federal witness, along with his brother David
Ellerman, 21, who was convicted for his part
in the bombing in 1998, and is now serving a
seven-year prison sentence. Clayton Ellerman,
facing up to 30 years in prison, is to be sentenced
on November 16. The Ellermans testified
against Andrew Bishop, 25, of Ithaca,
New York; Sean Gautschy, 23, of Salt Lake
City; and Adam Troy Peace, 21, of
Huntington Beach, California––but a jury on
September 8 found all three men not guilty of
all charges against them, reportedly due to
lack of physical evidence confirming the
Ellerman testimony. A sixth defendant,
Alexander Slack, killed himself in June 1999.

PIGEON SHOOTING, COCKFIGHTING, AND GREYHOUND RACING

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

The Hegins pigeon shoot and
Omak Suicide Race each drew about 5,000
people just to watch animals get hurt and heckle
protesters, suggest attendance figures from
the village events they were part of. The
Hegins Labor Day festival in recent years drew
about 10,000 people; only 5,000 came this
year, the first since 1935 that pigeons were
not shot. The Omak Stampede rodeo drew up
to 22,000 people; just over 17,000 came this
year, the first since 1936 that horses were not
galloped down a steep embankment into the
Okanogan River. Even without the Suicide
Race, however, the Stampede still included
traditional rodeo events featuring violent treatment
of animals. Hegins without the pigeon
shoot apparently had no violent attraction.

BULLFEATHERS AND THE MONTREAL SPCA

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

MONTREAL––The first
“bloodless” bullfight in Montreal since
1973 was held as scheduled on August
21. Montreal SPCA president Pierre
Banoti initially allowed the SPCA’s
name to be used in promoting the fight
in exchange for 25¢ per ticket sold.
After an e-mail and fax campaign
by the Global Animal Network
and the July/August ANIMAL PEOP
L E editorial made the deal known to
the worldwide humane community,
Banoti claimed Quebec law did not
allow the Montreal SPCA to prevent the
fight. Therefore, he said, he cut a deal
with the bullfight promoter to raise
$7,500 to send the bulls to retirement
post-fight at the hobby farm of a former
Montreal SPCA board member, instead
of to slaughter. But the former board
member withdrew her offer to take the
bulls after the deal became controversial––and
after activists told media that
they would monitor the bulls to ensure
they were not sold to slaughter later.
The Montreal SPCA, under
Banoti, claimed credit for preventing
ing another scheduled “bloodless” bullfight
as recently as August 1998.
U.S. anti-bullfighting campaigner
Steve Hindi joined Montreal
activists for several days of protest.

Freed in India

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

HYDERABAD––Forty-eight monkeys
reportedly bred for use testing an Indian
version of the anti-cancer drug Interferon by
Shantha Biotechnics Private Ltd. reportedly
scampered into the jungles of Sirisailam in
early August, freed by Blue Cross of India
Hyderabad chapter secretary and award-winning
actress Amala Annikeni and friends.
Wrote S.N.M. Abdi of the South
China Morning Post, “Annikenni, 40, arrived
at the National Centre for Laboratory Animal
Sciences with several vans to carry the monkey
cages. She was also armed with a letter from
the Andhra Pradesh state animal welfare board
ordering the lab to hand over the primates,” due
to allegedly poor care conditions. The transfer
was done “after a three-hour tussle with sloganshouting
activists who refused to vacate the
premises until the monkeys were rescued.”

COULSTON IS ORDERED TO GIVE UP 300 CHIMPANZEES

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

WASHINGTON D.C.––USDA undersecretary for marketing
and regulatory programs Michael V. Dunn announced on
September 1 that the Coulston Foundation had agreed to settle 22
charges of violating the Animal Welfare Act by divesting itself of 300
chimpanzees during the next 28 months.
The AWA charges resulted from a USDA investigation into
the deaths of five chimps named Terrance, Muffin, Holly, Echo,
and Jello. Related charges filed in 1994 led to a 1996 consent agreement
under which Coulston paid a fine of $40,000.
“This is an unprecedented consent agreement and a big win
for these magnificent animals,” Dunn said. “By the first of the year,
Coulston will transfer 30 chimps. By January 1, 2001, they will
place 120 more. And, at the start of 2002, Coulston will divest itself
of an additional 150, for a total of 300. This agreement,” Dunn
claimed, “will help to ensure that all of the approximately 650 chimps
currently housed at the Coulston Foundation are provided quality care
well into the next century.”

What 35 bus-riding activists did and didn’t do on their summer vacation

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The 1999
Primate Freedom Tour ended quietly on
September 4, in cold rain resulting from
Hurricane Dennis. About 200 people attended a
rally, and three activists were arrested for
unfurling a banner from scaffolding set up by a
repair crew at the Washington Monument.
Starting from the Washington
Regional Primate Research Center in Seattle on
June 1, the Freedom Tour won more media
attention to primates in laboratories than any
other event or campaign since 1985, when the
Animal Welfare Act was amended to require
labs to provide for the “psychological wellbeing”
of dogs and primates.

Dog labs cancelled

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

Effective with the start of fall
classes, the University of Missouri at
Columbia is no longer holding dog dissection
exercises to teach medical students
about drug effects on the cardiovascular
system, and the University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New
Jersey/Robert Wood Johnson Medical
School at New Brunswick has ceased
using dogs––or any live animals––to
teach physiology.
Both universities said their
much-protested dog labs were abandoned
because using computers was
more cost-efficient.
The UMD-NJ campuses at
Newark and Stratford quit using live animals
to teach physiology some time ago,
said spokesperson Stuart Goldstein.

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