CAPITALISTS AND THEIR RUNNING DOGS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

Harry Lee Coe, 68, state attorney
for Hillsborough County, Florida, since 1993,
apparently shot himself to death on July 12
after reportedly running up debts of $157,000
by betting on greyhound races.
The Birmingham Race Course i n
Birmingham, Alabama, is reportedly changing
procedures for unjamming a stuck lure to
avoid repetition of a June 21 incident in which
spectators saw a shrieking dog named Randad
suffer electrocution after jumping onto the
electric rail that propels the lure.
Three months after the allegations
came to light, the USDA and Wisconsin
Attorney General’s Office are reportedly still
investigating charges against Philadelphia
Eagles football team scout and Class B animal
dealer Daniel Shonka, of Cedar Rapids,
Wisconsin, who over three years is believed to
have taken more than 850 retired racing greyhounds
on the pretext of running a greyhound
adoption agency, and instead sold them for
$400 each to Guidant Corp., a Minnesota lab
that tests heart pacemakers.

Read more

Bullfighting, bull-running, and bullfeathers

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

The Portuguese parliament in
June repealed a 1928 law providing up to
three years in prison as penalty for killing a
bull in a public performance, and instead set
a maximum fine for bull-killing of up to
about U.S. $2,000 ––which allows promoters
to hold Spanish-style bullfights if they anticipate
making enough money to pay a fine; and
since no minimum fine was set, a well-connected
promoter might pay nothing. Spanishstyle
bullfights have already been held for
some years in the town of Barrancos, near
the border with Spain. Under the old law,
only the bullfighters themselves could be
prosecuted, and they always managed to
escape threats of arrest. Rallied by the AntiBullfighting
Movement of Portugal, about
600 people marched in protest against the
loophole in the new law on July 28 in Lisbon.

Read more

WILDLIFE WAYSTATION REOPENS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

ANGELES NATL. FOREST– –
Wildlife Waystation on July 26 was allowed to
resume accepting furbearing mammals and
nongame bird species for rehabilitation and lifetime
care, as necessary, on the 110th day after
the 23-year-old sanctuary was closed by the
California Department of Fish and Game.
Acknowledging at a June 29 Newhall
Superior Court hearing that the Waystation had
violated a three-year probation imposed in 1997
for allegedly altering stream beds without a permit,
Waystation founder Martine Colette
accepted an extension of the probation until
June 28, 2001, and agreed to supervision by a
court-appointed special master while work continues
to achieve regulatory compliance.
Colette told ANIMAL PEOPLE that
she expected the designation of the special master
to allow her to proceed with building permanent
housing for 50 chimpanzees received in
1995 from the defunct Laboratory for Experimental
Medicine and Surgery In Primates at
New York University. Construction began in
1996, but was halted when the site turned out to
extend several feet across the sanctuary boundary,
into the Angeles National Forest. Design
problems have delayed the work ever since.

Read more

Court Calendar

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

PREDATORS
A jury in the native village of
Tok, Alaska, population 1,000, on July 22
ordered Friends of Animals to pay
$150,000 and wolf biologist Gordon Haber
to pay nearly $40,000 to local trapper
Eugene Johnson for releasing a wolf from a
snare in March 1997. Investigating rural
Alaskan claims that caribou were scarce due
to wolf predation, Haber found the radiocollared
wolf caught among four caribou
who previously died in snares at the same
site. Instead of releasing the wolf immediately,
Haber videotaped the scene and tried
unsuccessfully to get the Alaska Department
of Fish and Game to charge Johnson
with illegally killing the caribou. Haber
returned later and released the wolf after the
DFG refused to act. The wolf was found
three weeks later, 20 miles away, suffering
from an infected wound from the snare, and
bled to death after state and federal biologists
reportedly used a jackknife to amputate
the injured paw. Haber has worked mainly
under contract to FoA since 1993. FoA
president Priscilla Feral told A N I M A L
P E O P L E that FoA would seek to have the
verdict vacated, since as Haber pointed out,
“Tok is a trapping community, the trial was
held in Tok, and the trapper is from Tok.”
The Animal Protection Institute
on July 12 filed a motion to intervene in a
lawsuit brought in Waco, Texas, by the
Texas Farm Bureau and American Farm
Bureau Federation, seeking to prevent the
USDA from releasing to API the names and
locations of ranches in Texas and New
Mexico where USDA Wildlife Services has
deployed Compound 1080 sheep collars to
kill coyotes. API sued to get the information
in August 1999, and the USDA agreed in an
October 1999 settlement to provide it.

VEGGIE CASES
PETA lost First Amendment
cases in both Utah and New York d u r i n g
mid-July. U.S. District Judge Dee Benson
ruled on July 10 in Salt Lake City that
Eisenhower Junior High School a d m i n i strators
and Salt Lake City sheriff’s deputies
did legally have some discretion “to decide
what activities are disruptive” to school
functions, when on January 20, 1999 they
stopped a PETA protest against the presence
of a M c D o n a l d ’ s restaurant company flag
on the school pole. The flag was flown in
recognition of McDonald’s sponsorship of
classroom materials. Benson did not rule,
however, on the merits of either the decision
to halt the demonstration or PETA contention
that it should have been stopped.
Arguments in the case continue.
In New York City, Judge Victor
Marrero ruled on July 25 that the organizers
of the CowParade sidewalk sculpture exhibition
had the right to reject a design submitted
by PETA for reasons of taste. That
design attacked meat-eating. Another PETA
design, urging viewers to “buy fake
[leather] for the cow’s sake,” was accepted.
In Britain, Scotland Yard o n
July 5 agreed to pay $7,500 each to McLibel
defendants David Morris, 46, and H e l e n
Steel, 34, in settlement of a 1998 case contending
that police officers improperly provided
personal information about them to
McDonald’s Restaurants. McDonald’s
accused Morris and Steel of libeling the firm
in leaflets distributed on Earth Day 1991.
Defending themselves at a 314-day trial,
they won rulings that McDonald’s could
fairly be accused of complicity in animal
abuse, exploiting workers, and promoting a
diet that may contribute to heart disease.
Three Appellate Court judges agreed, however,
that McDonald’s was not fairly
accused of selling “poisonous” food, nor of
contributing to rainforest logging and starvation
in underdeveloped nations.

KILLING BIRDS
Finding opposite to a June 12
ruling by Federal District Judge Marsha
Pechman of Seattle, in a separate but parallel
case, U.S. District Judge Colleen
K o l l a r – K o t e l l y ruled on July 19 in Washington
D.C. that USDA Wildlife Services
may not kill resident Canada geese in
Virginia and other states without a U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service permit. That did not
stop the killing, however, as USDA Wildlife
Services obtained a USFWS permit
while the case, brought by the H u m a n e
Society of the U.S., was stil pending.
The North Carolina Court of
A p p e a l s ruled during the last week in July
that Oxford farmer John Ashton Malloy
may not hold another of the four-day pigeon
shoots he has hosted twice annually since
1987, while suing to overturn a 1999
amendment to the state anti-cruelty law
which banned hunting any vertebrate not
regulated by the state Wildlife Commission.
Each shoot killed 25,000-40,000 pigeons.

DOG LAW
The Wisconsin 3rd District
Court of Appeals on July 25 overturned a
lower court ruling that Society Insurance of
Fond du Lac, insurer of the Old Coach
Tavern in Kennan, need not pay more than
$100,000 in claims for dog-inflicted injuries
suffered on August 31, 1997 by D a k o t a
Litvinoff, then age 2. Litvinoff was mauled
on adjacent property by a German shepherd/Doberman
cross belonging to tavern
owner Phil Linehan, who had described the
dog since 1989 as the tavern mascot.
The ruling followed the February
25 Wisconsin 4th District Court of
Appeals verdict that hound owner Lyle Dix
was responsible for bites suffered by
William Fifer in August 1997, even though
Dix had loaned the dog to bear hunter Dave
Kappel and wasn’t present during the attack.
Both rulings extended dog owner
liability, while a June 7 Wisconsin 2nd
District Court of Appeals verdict upheld
the tradition that dog owners may not recover
damages beyond property value for the
wrongful death of a dog. Julie Rabideau,
of Racine, had sued police officer Thomas
Jacobi, who in March 1999 shot her Rottweiler––while
off duty––for allegedly
attacking his Chesapeake Bay retriever.
The day after the Rabideau verdict,
four Kentucky dog owners asked the
U.S. District Court in Louisville to rule on
the constitutionality of police offers shooting
their dogs, in separate incidents occurring
between July 1997 and October 1999.

FISHING
Responding to a petition filed
jointly by Greenpeace, the American
Oceans Campaign, and the Sierra Club,
U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly ruled on
July 20 in Seattle that the National Marine
Fisheries Service must ban trawling for pollock,
cod, and other bottom fish in waters
within 20 nautical miles of 122 Stellar sea
lion rookeries and haulouts, as well as within
three major foraging areas in the Bering
Sea and Gulf of Alaska. Zilly held that
NMFS improperly ignored evidence associating
trawling for bottom fish with an 80%
to 90% decline in the Stellar sea lion population
since 1970.
The Zilly verdict came two days
after U.S. District Judge David Ezra o f
Honolulu reaffirmed his June 26 order that
NMFS must place an observer on every
longline fishing vessel, to protect endangered
sea turtles, monk seals, and whales.
“Unrestricted longline fishing will never
happen again in the Pacific by U.S.-based
boats,” said Ezra, “not because of this
court, but because that is what the law
requires.” Ezra also rapped the Hawaii
Longline Association for allegedly trying to
sway his verdict with a publicity campaign.

People & deeds

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

Maddie’s Fund president
Richard Avanzino on July
22 was named the 13th winner of
the American Veterinary
Medical Association’s Humane
Award. Avanzino took the
opportunity to praise the 880 vets
participating in the Maddie ’ s
Fund/California Veterinary
Medical Association Feral Cat
Altering Program, who fixed
30,000 cats in the first year of the
three-year project.
Early-age neutering
pioneer Leo Lieberman, DVM,
received the Spay/USA Lifetime
Achievement Award on July 7.

Read more

WOULD YOU BUY AN APPEAL FROM FUNDRAISER BRUCE EBERLE?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

McLEAN, Virginia– – Fundraiser
Bruce W. Eberle may be the most asked-about
person over the past few years in calls to ANIMAL
PEOPLE by anxious animal protection
donors and sanctuary directors––but most of
those asking would not recognize his name.
Neither do they recognize the names
of most of the sanctuaries that Eberle is asking
them to give money to or rent their mailing
lists to, except perhaps from previous appeals
and list requests received from the same outfits:
Tiger Haven, Tiger Creek, Tiger Tracks,
and Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue Ranch,
among those bringing the most inquiries.
ANIMAL PEOPLE didn’t recognize
Eberle’s name or the names of most of the
sanctuaries Eberle represents either, until we
began investigating the unknown sanctuaries
one by one and found Eberle is their common
denominator. Then we investigated him.

Read more

Latest U.S. data shows shelter killing is down to 4.5 million a year––25% of 1985!

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

The U.S. ended the 20th century
killing 4.5 million dogs and cats in animal
shelters, or 16.6 per 1,000 people––just 25%
of the 17.8 million toll estimated by the
American Humane Association in 1985.
Included was an apparent 22% drop
between 1994, when San Francisco became
the first U.S. city to stop killing dogs and cats
for population control, and 1999, when
Maddie’s Fund, created by PeopleSoft magnates
Dave and Cheryl Duffield, dedicated
$200 million to make the U.S. a no-kill nation.
Hundreds of organizations and individuals
have helped us compile the table at
right. It lists the number of dogs and cats
killed per 1,000 humans in the shelters serving
all North American cities, counties, and states
for which we have recent counts.

Read more

DOGCATCHERS GET THE BOOT; EXECS LEARN NEW PRIORITIES OR ELSE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

A L B U Q U E R Q U E––Responding to
Humane Society of the U.S. affirmation of
two years of allegations by activist Marcy
Britton that dogs and cats were roughly handled
and often endured difficult deaths in the
two city shelters, Albuquerque mayor Jim
Baca in late June fired 15-year shelter vet Jan
Thompson, and shifted four other senior
staffers to other city departments.
Baca also suspended Albuquerque
Animal Services general manager Robert
Hillman for two weeks. Hillman, as ANIMAL
PEOPLE reported in July/August 2000,
was hired after the incidents that prompted
Britton’s complaints, and had emphasized
retraining a veteran staff mostly inherited from
predecessors. He had also entirely revised the
15-year-old AAS operating manual, but had
defended the AAS staff in public statements.
At the same time, Hillman had
repeatedly told ANIMAL PEOPLE since
December 1998 that the Albuquerque senority
system and union contracts precluded him
from making personnel changes which were
apparently mostly those that Baca did make.

Read more

In the Faroe Islands…

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society development
director Frank Trinkle and Dutch entertainers Hans Teeuwen
and Theo Maassen were jailed on June 10 for allegedly landing
illegally at Torshavn, capital of the Faroe Islands, after
they went ashore in an inflatable life raft to protest Faroese
“drive hunts” of pilot whales and sometimes other cetaceans.
The whales are herded into shallow bays by fishing vessels
and hacked to death as the tide recedes.
Freed for deportation to the U.S. via Copenhagen
and Germany, Trinkle switched flights en route and held a
July 13 press conference in Amsterdam.

Read more

1 2 3