Month: March 2003

“Animal rights” vs. “wise-users”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

DENVER–Colorado state representative
Mark Cloer (R-Colorado Springs) on Valentine’s
Day 2002 withdrew a bill which would have
redefined pets as companion animals rather than
property, by way of enabling petkeepers to seek
punitive damages rather than just the replacement
value of an animal in cases of abuse and
veterinary malpractice.
The intent of the Cloer bill was to
extend the definition of veterinary malpractice
to include unnecessarily frequent vaccination.
Although modern anti-rabies vaccines provide
protection for three years or more, many vets
still “remind” petkeepers to get annual
vaccinations as a way to get the pets into their
clinics for the general examinations that often
discover health conditions in need of treatment.
The redefinition of pets as companion
animals coincided with the goal of In Defense of
Animals’ effort to get legislative bodies to
replace the term “owners” in pet-related
statutes with “guardian.”

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Farm Sanctuary fined $50,000 in Florida

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

TALLAHASSEE, Florida–The Florida Elections Commission has
fined Farm Sanctuary $50,000 for 210 alleged willful violations of
campaign fundraising laws in connection with the passage of Amendment
10, a November 2002 initiative which banned the use of farrowing
crates to raise pigs in a state which had only two working pig farms.
One of those farms was already going out of business, and
state and federal water quality regulations virtually ensure that no
others can be started in Florida.
“Farm Sanctuary raised nearly half a million dollars from
people coast to coast for the Florida ballot measure, in large part,
I assert by falsely promising tax deductions” for campaign
contributions, attorney Allan D. Teplinsky of Northridge,
California, told the Florida Elections Commission in requesting the
strictest possible penalty.
Teplinsky, who filed the complaint that initiated the
prosecution, has not responded to an ANIMAL PEOPLE inquiry as to why
he pursued the case. He has no known prior history involving animal
issues.

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Dogs and gamecocks take their revenge

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

 

For 40 years dogcatcher Manuel Pascual, 61, of Bulacan city
in Bulacan province, The Philippines, caught stray dogs and
reputedly sometimes stole freeroaming pets, selling them to
restaurants in Malolos, Marilao, Bocaue, and Baliuag, the
Philippine Inquirer reported on February 1, 2003. Eventually,
however, a dog caught Pascual, who died from rabies on January 26.
His was the second turnabout death in the Philippines in just
two weeks. On January 12 gamecock handler Elmer Mariano of Zamboanga
had just strapped spurs to the legs of a cock in preparation for a
fight when the cock wrested one leg free and fatally stabbed him in
the groin.
A similar incident occurred at Kampung Murni, Nabawan
district, Malay-sia, on January 29. According to The Star of
Malaysia, cockfighter Tungkaling Ratu had also just strapped the
spurs to a cock when the bird escaped, fatally slashing the thigh of
his 12-year-old son Henrysius, who had crowded close to the ring to
watch the fight.

Progress at the Kabul Zoo

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

KABUL, Afghanistan–“The bear Donatella’s nose is looking
much better,” Whipsnade Wild Animal Park senior curator Nick Lindsay
reported to Kabul Zoo relief effort coordinator David M. Jones on
December 20, 2002.
That is not the latest information ANIMAL PEOPLE has from the
Kabul Zoo by far, nor the most important in terms of the future of
Afghan animal welfare, but it answers the question most asked about
the war-torn zoo and the resident animals, who became familiar to TV
viewers worldwide during the military campaign that ousted the former
Taliban government of Afghanistan in December 2001, then dropped out
of sight after the fighting mostly ended and most of the visiting
news media returned to the U.S. and Europe.
Marjan the lion, who survived 20 years of nearby combat and
deprivation, died in January 2002, but Donatella, the Asiatic
brown bear with the pitifully inflamed and infected nose from
frequent torture by stick-wielding Taliban and militia visitors, now
has two smaller bears for company. All three bears have newly
re-excavated dens, into which they can retreat to avoid visitors,
and within which they may hibernate for part of the winter.

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Cockfighters spread Asian killer bird flu

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2004:

BANGKOK, BEIJING–Cockfighters, cock
breeders, and public officials kow-towing to
them tried to pass the blame for spreading the
deadly H5N1 avian flu virus throughout Southeast
Asia to pigeons, sparrows, and even open-billed
storks.
Bad vaccines took some of the rap, too.
An attempt was even made, as the death
toll increased on factory farms, to attribute
the epidemic to free range poultry producers.
But as the H5N1 “red zones” expanded in
at least eight nations, the evidence pointed
ever more directly at commerce in gamecocks–and
at the efforts of cockfighters and cock breeders
to protect their birds from the culls and disease
outbreaks that had already killed more than 100
million chickens who were raised to lay eggs and
be eaten, as well as 22 people, most of them
children.
The pattern of the H5N1 outbreak
paralleled the spread of exotic Newcastle disease
through southern California and into Arizona
between November 2002 and May 2003.
Approximately 3.7 million laying hens were killed
to contain the Newcastle epidemic, but USDA
investigators believe it began among backyard
fighting bird flocks, advancing as gamecocks
were transported between fights. It apparently
invaded commercial layer flocks through
contaminated clothing worn by workers who
participated in cockfighting.

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G.I. pets banned as “biosecurity risk”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2004:

BOSTON–Dogs and cats who help U.S. military personnel endure
the stress of serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are the latest urgent
biosecurity risk to the United States, according to some
bureaucrats, who are now trying to keep the troops from bringing
their companions home.
Comparisons are in order. Published accounts indicate that
U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past two
years have brought home fewer than 100 dogs and cats in total. None
are known to have carried any serious disease.
Just a handful of dogs and cats are believed to have been
imported from Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. None of them
carried any serious disease, either.
Illegal imports of wildlife and wildlife parts into U.S.,
worth about $1 billion in 1991, are now worth $3 billion, estimates
the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal and state agencies have yet
to even visibly slow the clandestine wildlife traffic, every item of
which is an uninspected, untested potential biosecurity hazard.

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Cockfighting notes

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2004:

Louisiana District Judge Charles Scott on February 3 ruled
that Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator may not enforce a local
ordinance to halt cockfights at the ArkLaTex Game Club near Ida and
the Piney Woods Game Club near Vivian because cockfighting is legal
in Louisiana, one of only two states that allow it, and a local
ordinance may not supersede state law.

Alleged cockfighter Efrain Aguilar and a land owner not named
by police were arrested on February 2 after a brawl at an illegal
cockpit in Tepeyac, Mexico. One man was beaten to death and six
were shot dead, including three men from one family and three
brothers from another.

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