Institutional cases

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

 

Walla Walla, Washington county prosecutor Jim Nagle has “determined that criminal prosecution was not warranted” for alleged violations of humane slaughter and anti-cruelty laws at the Iowa Beef Packing plant in Wallula, the Washington State Department of Agriculture announced in mid-April, 11 months after receiving undercover video from the Humane Farming Association which showed cattle being skinned and dismembered while alive and conscious. The WSDA case summary said that Nagle “concluded there was insufficient admissible evidence to prove criminal corporate liability” because “the acts were not done by employees in the course of employment,” and “unedited video showed that employees took corrective action” when conscious animals were seen. Therefore, the WSDA continued, Nagle “could not conclude that the alleged activity would benefit IBP or that there was evidence of intent to benefit…Neither was there any basis for imputing the alleged acts to” IBP, though the improper stunning allegedly resulted from trying to kill cattle at too fast a pace. Nagle was said to be “particularly concerned that the unedited video demonstrated HFA’s intent to promote a particular agenda through the edited tape, such that all evidence developed by HFA was discredited.” The ruling appeared to contradict the precepts of criminal law that crimes cannot be retracted and that physical evidence is not necessarily negated by observer bias.

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Huntingdon Life Sci strikes back

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

 

HUNTINGDON, U.K.– Citing five years of “physical attacks on individual employees, death threats, bomb threats, destruction of property, burglary, harassment, and intimidation,” Huntingdon Life Sciences Group of England and New Jersey and the Stephens Group investment firm of Little Rock, Arkansas, which is the largest Huntingdon creditor, on April 19 sued Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, Voices for Animals, the Animal Defense League (N.J.), In Defense of Animals, and various individual activists for alleged violation of the U.S. Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organization statute.

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Nine-year-old is victim of first deadly dingo attack in 21 years

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

FRASER ISLAND, Queensland, Australia–Out for an early morning stroll near where their family had camped overnight on Fraser Island, off the Queensland coast, brothers Dylan and Clinton Gage, 7 and 9, along with an unidentified seven-year-old friend, found themselves being stalked by a male and female dingo. First they tried to walk back to the Waddy Point campsite, about half a kilometre away. As the dingos became bolder, they ran for their lives. Clinton fell and was fatally mauled, in the first lethal dingo attack on a human since the death of nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain at Ayer’s Rock in August 1980.

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Cats-and-dogs in Israel

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

 

JERUSALEM–Overshadowed by the ongoing strife between Palestinians and Jewish settlers on the west bank of the Jordan River, two trials now before Israeli courts have excited comparable discord among animal advocates.

In one case, a recent Soviet immigrant and a university lecturer are charged by Jerusalem authorities with illegally feeding feral cats. In the other, euthanasia technician Na’ama Bello has been charged by the no-kill animal sheltering and advocacy organization Let The Animals Live with illegally killing sick and/or severely injured cats–even though she was authorized to do so by both the Israeli health ministry and the veterinary services division of the agriculture ministry, according to Concern for Helping Animals in Israel founder Nina Natelson.

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India bans dissection

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

NEW DELHI–“I have finally had dissections banned in schools
in India,” Indian minister of state for social justice and
empowerment Maneka Gandhi e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on May 1, 2001.
“Three years ago I went to court and made dissection optional. This
month I have had the ban put into effect. This is what can be done
if one is mad enough.”

Human obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:
Warren D. Thomas, DVM, 70, died from a sudden illness on a
March 17 trip to Brunei. Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Thomas
was a junior keeper at the Columbus Zoo when he helped to deliver the
first gorilla known to have been born in captivity, and was profiled
in Life magazine. Thomas became director of the Oklahoma City Zoo in
1951, at age 21, and built it into a major institution by 1965,
when he moved to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. After planning
significant expansion, Thomas in 1970 planned, built, and became
first director of the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas. That
brought a 1974 invitation from then-Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley to
preside over the Griffith Park Zoo, now known as the Los Angeles
Zoo. By 1982 Thomas had expanded the Los Angeles collection to
include more than 500 species. As public attitudes toward zoos
evolved, and the old “menagerie” approach began to yield to an
emphasis on conservation of endangered species, Thomas committed the
Los Angeles Zoo to participation in the California condor recovery
program, and founded the Sumatran Rhinoceros Trust. But his Los
Angeles tenure was marked by running feuds with the fundraising Los
Angeles Zoo Association, the Humane Society of the U.S., and his
boss, city Recreation and Parks director James Hadaway, beginning
when Hadaway suspended him for five days for allegedly mishandling
ivory. Hadaway fired Thomas in June 1986 for reportedly using racial
epithets, neglecting records of animal transfers, and
misappropriating zoo supplies. Thomas won reinstatement and $170,000
in back pay plus legal costs, but resigned in October 1990 during a
dispute with the city over his management of a slush fund and failure
to comply with USDA orders to address a variety of sanitation,
drainage, insect, and rodent problems. In recent years, Thomas
did zoological consulting and lectured aboard cruise ships.

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Animal Obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

#346, 22, reputedly the smartest and most prolific
livestock killer among all Montana male grizzlies, and one of the
oldest wild male grizzlies on record, was killed on April 18 at the
Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks laboratory in
Bozeman. He apparently learned to kill cattle from a female, #316,
circa 1984. They were trapped and tattooed together in 1985. #316
was shot for continued cattle-killing in 1987, but #346 went on to
devour an estimated $200,000 worth of livestock, evading 13 years of
determined efforts to kill him. “This was a smart bear,”
understated biologist Mike Madel. The USDA Wildlife Services
trappers who finally brought him in agreed that they would probably
never have nabbed him if he had not been slowed by conditions of age.

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BOOKS: Animal Rights: A Subject Guide, Bibliography, and Internet Companion

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

Animal Rights: A Subject Guide, Bibliography, and Internet Companion, by John M. Kistler
Greenwood Inc. (88 Post Road West, P.O. Box 5007, Westport, CT 06881), 2000.

248 pages, hardcover. $39.95.
More than five years have elapsed since the most recent
previous publication of a bibliography pertaining to animal rights,
pro and con–and no previous bibliography included web sites as well
as printed material.

Thus John M. Kistler had a timely idea in assembling Animal

Rights: A Subject Guide, Bibliography, and Internet Companion: as
well as telling users what has been written, Kistler proposed to
give web addresses to obtain those writings, or reviews thereof, or
other relevant material.

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