Month: April 2003

Supreme Court affirms HFA Rosebud win

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. Supreme Court on February 24 handed
the Humane Farming Association a hard-won victory over factory hog
farming on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, declining
to review an April 2002 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals verdict
that Bell Farms and Sun Prairie Inc. had no legal standing to seek a
1999 injunction that allowed them to build and run the first two of
13 planned hog facilities.
“We can now plan an orderly shutdown,” attorney Jim
Dougherty told Associated Press. Dougherty represents HFA, the
Concerned Rosebud Area Citizens, and other hog farm opponents.

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Hong Kong SPCA Changes Leaders

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

HONG KONG–Scots-born veterinarian Pauline Taylor is acting
executive director of the Hong Kong SPCA, following the March 14
resignation of Chris Hanselman at the request, Hanselman said, of
the executive committee.
Previously assistant director, Taylor has done extensive
rural veterinary outreach on the Chinese mainland.
Hanselman, a former financial crimes investigator for the Hong Kong
police, and co-holder of a world record for endurance on a two-man
rowing machine, engineered the HK/SPCA plan to achieve no-kill
animal control in Hong Kong, following the San Francisco model of
dropping animal control work to focus on dog and cat sterilization.

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Chickens, pigeons & sea lions go to war; Brooke Hospital hopes to help Iraq zoos

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

BAGHDAD–Sentinel chickens deployed to detect poison gas
attacks were among the first casualties of the March 2003 U.S.
invasion of Iraq–but they were not gassed, and they never left the
Kuwait staging area, where they were distributed to the U.S. Marines
in February.
Exactly what killed 42 of the 43 chickens was unclear. Avian
influenza and heat stress were among the theorized possibilities.
Contrary to some reports, the birds were in the care of experienced
chicken handlers.

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Lab victories

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

“Hokkaido, Iwate, and Yamagata prefectures have voted to
end the transfer of homeless dogs and cats from local pounds to
research institutions by March 31, 2003,” World Association for
Voice of Animals president Stephanie A. Nakata told ANIMAL PEOPLE on
March 10. The three Japanese prefectures together sold 1,003 animals
to labs in 2000, but the total fell to 378 in 2001, Nakata said.
Fukushima, Tochigi, and Hiroshima quit selling animals to labs
earlier. “WAVA is now stepping up our campaign to end this archaic
practice in other parts of Japan such as Kagoshima, Okayama,
Aomorim and Gunma,” Nakata concluded.

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R.I.P. Vancouver crested mynas

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

VANCOUVER, B.C.–The usual fate of introduced species, even
if they thrive for a time, is to die out eventually from inability
to cope with the climate changes, predators, diseases, and food
competition in their new habitat.
Vancouver Sun reporter Larry Pynn on March 1 eulogized such a
species failure.
“A native of China and Indochina,” Pynn wrote, “the crested
myna was introduced to Vancouver in the 1890s, perhaps arriving as
stowaways aboard a ship or as pets released by Chinese immigrants.
By the 1920s they numbered in the thousands, living as far afield as
Ladner and New Westminster.”

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Would you buy a used car from this man?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

HARTFORD–Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal “is
investigating whether the Animal Health Care Fund is just a clever
vehicle for a used car dealership to help itself,” reported Alan
Cohn of WTNH-News 8 on February 18.
Explained Cohn, “Some charitable organizations use donated
vehicles as a way to raise money. Donors receive a tax decution for
the fair market value of their car. The charity then re-sells the
vehicle and uses the money.”
The IRS in two mid-2002 rulings authorized charities to use
outside firms–such as used car dealers–to manage vehicle donation
programs.

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Civil disobedience comes to farm country

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

ITHACA, TOLEDO, SALT LAKE CITY, TEXAS
CITY, TWIN FALLS–Purported anti-terrorism bills
pushed in recent legislative sessions by
lawmakers in Texas, Oregon, Utah, and
Pennsylvania, among other states, have sought
to criminalize almost any unauthorized exposure
of anything done in the name of agriculture.
Factory farmers are finding that even
when they win convictions of activists who enter
their property to rescue animals and document
suffering, they lose in the court of public
opinion. Prosecuting rescuers, moreover,
appears to increase the public perception that
the farmers are cruel–even when the farms are
traditional family operations.

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Meat avoidance and what it means

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

“In terms of nonreligious literature handed out to
pedestrians, Why Vegan? may be the most widely distributed brochure
in recent years. Hundreds of people and organizations distribute
hundreds of thousands of copies annually–more than 500,000 in 2002,”
Vegan Outreach cofounder Jack Norris recently wrote to ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Norris listed ways in which the most recent updated edition
of Why Vegan? differs from previous versions, including the addition
of “a spread depicting real experiences on factory farms, described
by people who have been there.”
Yet the new Why Vegan? includes less descriptive text about
animal suffering, overall, than in the recent past, and is
actually quite different from the original edition issued in 1999.

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Hedgehog rescuers face a prickly situation off the Scottish coast

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

EDINBURGH–Operation Tiggywinkle was to
commence at dawn on March 27, 2003 in the
Western Isles off Scotland.
Ross Minott, campaign director for the
Scots group Advocates for Animals, was to lead a
20-member volunteer team ashore to try to rescue
an estimated 5,000 hedgehogs from the islands of
North Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist, ahead
of death squads to be sent in April by Scottish
National Heritage.
The hedgehogs were introduced to the Western
Isles in 1974 as an attempted biological control
for garden slugs and snails who annoyed the 6,000
human residents of the islands. Eventually the
hedgehogs came to be considered pests themselves.

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