Month: October 2002

Dog laws tested

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

 

The Manhattan Supreme Court on July 15 upheld the right of
the New York City Center for Animal Care and Control to sterilize
dogs and cats found at large or seized for cause, regardless of the
wishes of owners who later reclaim them. The verdict followed a June
21 Manhattan Supreme Court ruling that the New York City Board of
Health has the authority to enforce a 1999 ban on keeping ferrets
within city limits.

U.S. District Judge Ralph Tyson on June 25 ordered the town
of Walker, Louisiana, to stop enforcing an anti-barking ordinance
that he found “flagrantly and patently” unconstitutional because,
“It fails to put the average person on notice as to what conduct
might violate it.” Tyson ruled on a case brought by Wallace Connerly
and Meg Casper, who sued Walker over fines imposed in response to
barking complaints about their two Belgian Malinois.

Nevada, Hong Kong shelter planners learn to see like dogs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

INCLINE VILLAGE, Nevada– The Pet Network of North Lake
Tahoe had a lot to show off on August 25, as host of the 2002
Conference on Homeless Animal Management and Policy shelter tour,
beginning with the two-year-old shelter itself.
The talking points–except for one –were neatly set forth on
fact sheets inside a folder given to each of the 25 CHAMP visitors.
The point omitted, the most remarkable of all, is that
approximately 250 residents of Incline Village and nearby communities
volunteer for the Pet Network, contributing 400 to 600 service hours
per month.

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Dog trainer Stephen King convicted

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

LONDON, U.K.–“Yesterday, August 14, [dog trainer] Stephen
Barry King was found guilty” of two counts of animal abuse, with
separate trials on two similar sets of charges scheduled for
September and October, his former girlfriend Sarah Boat e-mailed to
ANIMAL PEOPLE from London.
Boat and the British online animal advocacy publication Ooze
both reported that British news media were barred from publishing
details of the first verdict, pending completion of the second and
third trials. The cases were heavily publicized earlier.

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Free Willy/Keiko swims to Norway

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

OSLO–Swimming up to 100 miles a day with pods of 40 to 80
wild orcas, spending 41 consecutive days at sea, Keiko in August
2002 seemed to be a free whale at last –or so said the Humane
Society of the U.S., which took over his care in June 2002, about
six months after the top funder of the former Free Willy/Keiko
Foundation quit the project.
Then Keiko on September 1 swam into Skaalvik Fjord, Norway,
250 miles northwest of Oslo.
“The orca surprised and delighted Norwegians, who petted and
swam with him, and climbed on his back,” reported Doug Mellgren of
Associated Press.

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HSUS takes over Genesis Awards

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

 

HOLLYWOOD–Seeking since 1954 to challenge the pre-eminence
of the American Humane Association in monitoring the U.S. film
industry under union contracts which date to 1939, the Humane
Society of the U.S. on August 27, 2002 gained a prominent and
influential Hollywood presence by absorbing the financially
struggling Ark Trust, coordinators of the 17-year-old Genesis Awards
program to honor animal advocacy in the mass media.
The Ark Trust, whose losses since 1995 significantly
exceeded remaining assets, will now be known as the HSUS Hollywood
office. The Genesis Awards will continue to be produced and directed
by actress Gretchen Wyler, who began the program in 1985 as a
project of the Fund for Animals, and then took it independent in
1990.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Wyler told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
“This will give the Genesis Awards the operating funds they
need, and allow Gretchen to focus on encouraging media attention to
animal issues,” said former Ark Trust executive director Vernon
Weir, now executive director of the American Sanctuary Association.

PETA fights for First Amendment rights

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

SALT LAKE CITY, WASHINGTON D.C.–People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals on August 7, 2002 won rulings that supporters’
First Amendment rights to freedom of expression were violated in both
Taylorsville, Utah, in 1999, and in Washington D.C. earlier in
2002.
In Taylorsville, police stopped a series of protests against
the display of a McDonald’s Restaurants banner on the flagpole at
Eisenhower Junior High School, in recognition of McDonald’s
donations to school activities. PETA sued, but in June 2001 U.S.
District Judge Dee Benson ruled that the police action was in accord
with state law. That ruling was overturned by the 10th Circuit Court
of Appeals, which found that the law Benson cited is inapplicable.
The appellate court said that PETA may sue for financial damages,
but may not seek to overturn the law itself because, “There is no
credible threat of prosecution under the statute for any future
protests at Eisenhower.”

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Farm animals in court

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

Hogs in court

The U.S. 8th Circuit of Appeals ruled in St. Louis on August
14 that Bell Farms Inc. lacks standing to challenge the 1999
revocation of a land lease which would have allowed Bell to build one
of the world’s largest factory hog farms on the Rosebud Sioux
Reservation in South Dakota. The new ruling confirmed an April 2002
verdict by the same court. Bell on August 15 said it will petition
next to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Humane Farming Association and
local activists have been fighting the Bell project at Rosebud since
1998.

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Judges & prosecutors weigh dog attacks

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

Civil law

Issuing one of the first court verdicts to weigh a conflict
between the right of a legally disabled person to keep a companion
animal and the duty of landlords to protect tenants from dangerous
dogs, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled on August 8, 2002
that the San Francisco landlord of Guy Lowe, 38, met the
requirements of federal law and the California Fair Employment and
Housing Commission by allowing legally disabled persons to keep small
dogs, and that Lowe, whose claimed disability is severe depression,
acted unreasonably in demanding to keep a pit bull terrier. “The
potentially catastrophic consequences of a pit bull attack must be
considered, even if the risk of that attack is remote,” Judge Alsup
wrote.

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Refuge for former dancing bears allows Bulgaria to enforce bear protection law

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

BELITSA, Bulgaria–Nine years after Bulgaria first tried to
ban training and exhibiting so-called dancing bears, bears are still
shuffling in chains to music on street corners. But the show is
almost over, officials say, because new legislation adopted in July
2002 substantially reinforces the 1993 law –and, as important, the
not-quite-two-year-old Belitsa Dancing Bear Park in the woodland
reserves of the Rila mountains at last gives police a place to take
bears they confiscate.
Like many other animal protection laws hastily adopted within
the former Eastern Bloc after the collapse of Communism, the
original law protecting bears went unenforced because there was no
way to make it work.

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