Month: March 2003

Jordan hero dog dies for love and freedom

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

ZARGA, Jordan–A teaching of strict fundamentalist Islam is
that it is the duty of brothers to keep their sisters “pure” by
isolating them from contact with unrelated men prior to arranged
marriage. A three-year-old German shepherd named Big Joe recently
defeated that custom by carrying secret correspondence several blocks
back and forth between a man identified only as “Thamer” and a woman
whose identity news media concealed. Big Joe on January 11 carried
the man’s marriage proposal to the woman and fought off her brother
when he tried to intercept it, but the brother fatally beat him with
a large stone. The father of both the woman and her brother approved
of the marriage, perhaps in appreciation of what the loyalty,
bravery, and resourcefulness of Big Joe implied about him.

Stegman strikes out at Tony LaRussa’s ARF

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

CONTRA COSTA, Calif.– David Stegman, executive director of
Tony LaRussa’s Animal Rescue Foundation since May 1997, resigned for
undisclosed reasons on January 17, 2003.
Stegman ended a six-year career as a major league outfielder
playing for LaRussa with the Chicago White Sox in 1983-1984. His
successor at ARF has not yet been named.
LaRussa and Stegman in 1999 contracted with Maddie’s Fund,
of Alameda, California, for ARF to become the lead agency in
administering a planned five-year program to take Contra Costa County
to no-kill animal control. It was to have been the first of many
such programs sponsored by Maddie’s Fund–but ARF withdrew after
failing to meet some of the first-year goals.
Under Stegman, 36% of the 1999 ARF program budget and 15% of
the 2000 program budget went to operate a driving school headed by
Art Lee-Drews, who formerly worked with Stegman at the San Ramon
Valley Community Services Group.
ANIMAL PEOPLE consulted two leading nonprofit attorneys who
confirmed that this project should not have been construed as a
charitable program of an animal shelter. Stegman and LaRussa claimed
it was intended to make money to support animal rescue, but since it
was originally independently incorporated on a nonprofit basis, it
should not have been operated as an unrelated for-profit business
activity either.

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ESPN drops weekly rodeo broadcasts

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

CHICAGO–“Ever heard of the Outdoor Life Network? I
haven’t,” SHARK founder and longtime anti-rodeo campaigner Steve
Hindi e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE at deadline. “Nevertheless, that is
where most of the televised rodeos for the 2003 Professional Rodeo
Cowboys Association season will be aired. The love affair between
the ESPN and the PRCA seems to be over.
“We don’t know the sordid details of the apparent breakup,”
Hindi added, “but we have some clues. A few weeks ago, I was
called by a producer for an ESPN show called ‘Outside the Lines.’
This program, I was told, delves behind hype and headlines in
examining sports issues. Incredibly, ‘Outside the Lines’ was
interested in looking at rodeo. I told the producer that if ‘Outside
the Lines’ did a story on rodeos, ESPN would never be able to air
another rodeo, as the truth would be known and admitted to by the
network. The producer said he wanted to go forward nonetheless.
“After that, I didn’t hear from the producer again. I left
messages, but got no response. Now perhaps we know why.
“I told the producer that the PRCA would hit the roof when
they found out that they were going to be investigated,” Hindi said.
“I strongly suspect that the PRCA not only hit the roof but left the
building.
“There are still a few rodeos scheduled to air on the major
networks this year,” Hindi concluded. “But the weekly coverage on
ESPN is at least for now over.”

Coin-can conflicts in New Jersey: who is collecting all that spare change?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

TRENTON, New Jersey– The Associated Humane Societies of New
Jersey in early February 2003 updated a “phony organizations” alert
originally issued in September 2002 about coin-can fund-raising by an
entity calling itself “The National Animal Welfare Foundation.”
The alert was soon amplified with more information by other
animal welfare organizations in the Hudson River region.
A “National Animal Welfare Foundation” was incorporated as an
IRS 501(c)(3) charity in 1998 by Patrick G. Jemas and Gus C. Jemas of
Metchuchen, New Jersey, and William E. Helwig of Holmdel, New
Jersey. The one IRS Form 990 it filed, in January 1999, was mostly
blank, with the identification data supplied in hard-to-read Old
English or German “black letter” type.
Investigations by Associated Humane assistant director Rosann
Trezza, Sara Whelan of Pets Alive in Middletown, New York, and
ANIMAL PEOPLE have found little trace of NAWF program activity. A
NAWF web site active on February 18, 2002 could no longer be found
on February 18, 2003. Addresses in Union, New Jersey, and
Washington D.C. turned out to be mail drops.
The Union address “does not have any name on the door except
‘Intelligence, Inc.'” Trezza said.

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WWF splits over links to corporations

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

GENEVA, Switzerland–World Wildlife Fund U.S. president
Kathryn Fuller has reportedly refused to resign at request of WWF
International president Claude Martin.
Martin asked Fuller to quit after she abstained from voting
in her capacity as a board member of Alcoa, rather than oppose a
company plan to build a dam complex that will flood 22 square miles
near Karahnjukar, Iceland, submerging nesting and feeding areas for
barnacle and greylag geese who migrate from Greenland to Britain.
The dam project is opposed by the Royal Society for the Protection of
Birds and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, as well as by WWF
International.
Fuller joined the Alcoa board after Alcoa donated $1 million
to WWF-U.S., wrote Severin Carrell of the London Independent.
Martin and WWF International were meanwhile ripped in an open
letter from Kevin Dunion, former director of the Friends of the
Earth chapter in Scotland, for failing to oppose a plan by the
French mining, quarrying, and cement-making firm Lafarge to open a
“super quarry” on Harris Island in the Hebrides. Lafarge and WWF
also have a “very close” relationship, Dunion said.
WWF-Britain came under criticism at the same time for its
ties to the HSBC banking empire, a major financier of rainforest
logging in Indonesia and dam-building in fragile areas including the
Three Gorges region of China.

People & projects

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

British Columbia activists Anthony Marr, Brenda Davis, and
her son Cory Davis have rescheduled their HOPE-GEO “Compassion for
Animals Road Expedition” across the U.S. and Canada “due to U.S.
Immigration temporary visa requirements.” The new scheduled starting
date is September 1, 2003. The 25-week tour of 40 states and four
provinces in a van equipped to display pro-animal videos to the
public was to have begun on January 8, but the HOPE-GEO team “were
not permitted to enter the U.S.,” they told supporters. Marr is
widely known for his investigations of wildlife trafficking, both in
British Columbia and abroad. Davis, a registered
dietician/nutritionist, is author of four books on vegetarian and
vegan nutrition and health. More HOPE-GEO/CARE information is posted
at <www.hope-care.org>.

The Massachusetts SPCA on January 31, 2003 announced that
Ameri-can SPCA president Larry Hawk will in February begin
transitioning from his present post to succeed Gus Thornton, who is
retiring, as president of the MSPCA. Formerly director of
veterinary marketing for Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Hawk in 1995 became
president of PETsMART Veter-inary Services and was founding president
of PETsMART Charities, now headed by Joyce Briggs. He succeeded the
late Roger Caras at the ASPCA in 1999.

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Sweeping pro-animal bill in Turkey

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

ANKARA, Turkey–The Parliamentary Domestic Affairs
Commission on January 15, 2003, adopted a draft national animal
protection bill which would provide prison terms for animal torture,
allowing animals to starve, and bestiality; would prohibit all
forms of animal fighting; would prohibit killing animals by
electrocution, cervical dislocation, drowning, burning, and
boiling; would forbid training animals by methods that cause
avoidable injury or distress; and would prohibit killing animals for
population control unless necessary to halt the spread of an epidemic.
The draft bill would require drivers to make every reasonable
effort to avoid injuring animals on the road, and to take any
animals they hit to a veterinarian and pay for the necessary
treatment.
Only licensed veterinarians would be permitted to perform euthanasia.
Vets would be directed to use the least painful method available of
killing an animal.
The draft bill would form a national animal protection
foundation, and would create animal protection boards in each
province, under the deputy governors.
As drafted, the bill would be perhaps the most comprehensive and
progressive animal protection statute on the books of any nation.
Whether it can gain enough support to pass into law without
substantial amendment remains to be seen.

Niger activists oppose Arab hunting

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

NIAMEY, Niger–“Animal rights campaigners in Niger are
protesting against the Niger government’s decision to allow visitors
from the Persian Gulf to hunt protected animals and birds,” Idy
Baroau of BBC reported on January 9. Barou said the activists, led
by environmentalist politician Ibrahim Sani, had filed a formal
complaint against the issuance of permits to kill gazelles and
capture birds of prey.
“The Gulf princes have been using big-caliber guns and cargo
planes to carry their booty,” Baroau added. “In response to the
criticism, Abdou Mamane, a spokesman for the Ministry of Animal
Resources and the Environment, said that the Arab guests had paid
$300,000 to get carte blanche to hunt in Niger.”

What happened to Algerian cats?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

HOUSTON–Members of the Houston Animal Rights team and PETA
picketed the Houston headquarters of the oil exploration firm
Halliburton on January 12 to protest the alleged poisoning of 200
feral cats at a remote work site in Algeria.
Former Halliburton employees said that the Halliburton
construction subsidiary KBR, Andarko Petroleum, and an Algerian
subcontractor brought cats to the site to control rats, but failed
to sterilize the cats before releasing them. The cats were poisoned
after Halliburton withdrew from the project. The demonstrators
argued that Halliburton had a moral obligation to ensure that the
cats were treated humanely.
Reported KTRK Channel 13, of Houston: “Halliburton issued a
statement saying its company left the work site before the cats were
killed. Andarko said the Algerian company brought in the cats and is
working with the Algerian government to remove the animals in a
humane manner.”
Halliburton employed U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney
immediately before he agreed to become running mate of President
George W. Bush in 2000.

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