Dairies win two cases

May 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Ruling that government agencies are exempt from the
prohibitions on false advertising that apply to private citizens,
San Francisco Superior Court Judge David Garcia on March 25 dismissed
a lawsuit by PETA against a “Happy cows” ad campaign sponsored by the
California Milk Advisory Board. Arguing that scenes of cows in green
pastures used in the ads misrepresent the reality of how California
dairy cattle are kept, PETA previously complained to the Federal
Trade Commission. The FTC declined to take action in October 2002.

The Pennsylvania State Superior Court on April 8 upheld a
$96,000 verdict against the Fayette County SPCA for alleged invasion
of privacy in April 1993 while investigating the purported theft of a
dog and cruelty to a heifer reported by dairy farmer John Tabaj’s
former son-in-law during a messy divorce case. Tabaj was charged
with five counts of cruelty, but the charges were later dropped.
The incident caused the Pennsyl-vania legislature to mandate in
December 1994 that humane officers must be appointed by a judge. A
Fayette County jury in January 1992 ordered the $96,000 penalty
against the Fayette County SPCA, and ordered Tri-County Humane
Protection Inc., also involved in the raid, to pay Tabaj $105,000.
Tri-County Humane Protection is now defunct. The Fayette County SPCA
has indicated that the size of the award will force it to close,
too, leaving the county without an animal shelter.

Following the money

May 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Philanthropic Research Inc., the
subcontractor to the U.S. Internal Revenue
Service responsible for posting the IRS Form 990
filings of U.S. charities in downloadable PDF
format at <www.Guidestar.com>, on April 3
announced that it has received a grant of £2.9
million from the British Treasury to produce a
similar web site for the British Charity
Commission. “Annual filings made by charities to
the Charity Commission will constitute the core
data for the GuideStar UK database, and the
charities themselves will provide additional
narrative information about their missions,
programs, objectives, and accomplishments.

Uncategorized

Hong Kong & WHO seek SARS host

May 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

HONG KONG–Severe Acute Respirat-ory
Syndrome, the latest flu-like disease among many
to cross from animals to humans in southern
China, had been diagnosed in 3,947 people in
five months as the May edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE
went to press, killing 229 while 1,935 were
fully recovered, according to the latest daily
data summary from the World Health Organization.
As epidemics go, SARS was not especially
serious. The global toll from all forms of flu
ranges from 250,000 to 500,000 deaths per year.
Dengue fever afflicts 50 million people per year.
AIDS is diagnosed at the rate of five million new
cases per year, killing 3.1 million people in
2002.
But few diseases have ever terrified a
city as SARS has terrified Hong Kong–and as
cases turned up in other nations, almost
entirely among recent visitors to Hong Kong, the
panic spread.

Breeders blast dog transfers for adoption as alleged biohazard

May 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

HARTFORD, Connecticut; PORTLAND, Oregon–Rachel
With-erspoon, 40, of Litchfield, Connecticut, only wanted to help
the Kentucky Humane Society find homes for nine puppies. Her
misadventures in early March 2003, however, may have become Exhibit
A for introducing federal and state regulation governing what the
National Animal Interest Alliance decries as, “The mushrooming
practice of moving dogs around from one region to another and from
one shelter to another within regions,” also known as “humane
relocation.”
Founded in 1992 by Oregon dog breeder Patty Strand, the NAIA
represents many animal use industries, but most vigorously defends
the interests of dog breeders. The NAIA sees in humane relocation a
direct threat to breeders’ share of dog acquisitions.
As of 1994, three separate studies published by the American
Veterinary Medical Association and the National Pet Alliance found
that breeders and pet stores had about a third of the “new dog”
market. Shelters and rescuers had from 10% to 14%.

Chronology of humane progress

May 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Chronology of humane progress
(Part 2 of two parts: Mohandas to Maneka)
by Merritt Clifton

1947 — At request of Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharal Nehru wrote
into the constitution of India as Article 51-A[g] that “It shall be
the fundamental duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve
the Natural Environment including forests, lakes, rivers and
wildlife, and to have compassion for all living creatures.” This
was reinforced by the 1960 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

1947 — Defenders of Wildlife formed as an anti-trapping
organization, but was taken over by hunters in 1957 and became a
mainstream hunter/conservationist front.

1948 — Minnesota adopted the first law requiring public
shelters to make dogs and cats available to laboratories for
biomedical research, testing, and teaching. Similar laws were
passed by 1960 in Wisconsin, New York, South Dakota, Oklahoma,
Connect-icut, Ohio, Utah, and Iowa. The New York law was repealed
in 1977. Thirteen states, including Connecticut among nine
contiguous northeastern states, outlawed selling shelter animals for
lab use between 1977 and 1985.

Big cats caught in a war zone

May 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

BAGHDAD, SAN ANTONIO, ASHEBORO, N.C.–Anxious U.S. Marines
under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schwartz during the
nights of April 15 and April 17 unhappily shot three of seven
starving African lions found at the Baghdad Zoo after first one and
then two more broke out of their bomb-damaged enclosures.
On the loose, they could easily have found their way into
densely populated parts of the city.
“We fought our way from Kuwait to Najaf to Kerbala to
Baghdad, but the hardest thing I’ve had to do in Iraq was kill those
lions,” Schwartz told London Sunday Telegraph correspondent Philip
Sherwell.
Wrote Sherwell, “Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 3rd
Infantry Division–the troops who first fought their way into
Baghdad–have been feeding the caged animals with slaughtered donkeys
and bringing them water from an artificial lake,” with the help of
zoo veterinarian Hashim Mohamed Hussein, who was among the few staff
who remained on duty after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Added Sherwell, “The zoo’s birds, fish, and reptiles were
stolen by looters, but they thought better of tackling the lions,
who were donated by Saddam’s son Uday.”

Middle East

A video that never mentions Heifer Project International shows why their premise is wrong

May 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Saving Baby Ubuntu
Video from Compassion In World Farming (South Africa)
c/o Humane Education Trust
P.O. Box 825, Somerset West, 7129, South Africa; <avoice@yebo.co.za>
15 minutes. Free on request; donation recommended.

Saving Baby Ubuntu is the gently narrated story of how
several African animal advocates rescued just one newborn calf from
the traffic in calves between the factory dairy farms of South Africa
and the shantytowns where poor people struggle mostly unsuccessfully
to raise livestock of their own, on inadequate land and improper
diets. Most of the animals die miserably.
Among all the illusions afflicting poor people around the
world, among the most insidious is the notion that anyone can build
wealth by trading upon the fecundity of animals. Surplus dairy
calves, “spent” hens, and other cast-off factory farmed livestock
are indeed dirt-cheap, because to the factory farms these animals
are merely waste products, whose continued life is an
inconvenience–and healthier animals can sometimes be obtained free,
or almost free, from do-gooder organizations like Heifer Project
International.

BOOKS: Please Help Stop The Illegal Dog Meat Trade In The Philippines

May 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Please Help Stop The Illegal Dog Meat Trade In The Philippines
by Freddie J. Farres, executive director of Linis Gobyerno, and associates
Linis Gobyerno [Clean Government], P.O. Box
1588, 2600 Baguio City, The Philippines;
<www.linisgobyerno.org>), 2002. 46 pages,
stapled.
No price listed; donation recommended.

Long aware of dog-and-cat-eating in the
Philippines, but unaware of any Philippine group
fighting it with the vigor shown by Korean
anti-dog-and-cat-eating activists in recent
years, we were surprised on Christmas Eve 2002
to learn from an article by Vincent Cabreza of
the Philippine Inquirer that seven people had
been arrested in Baguio City during the previous
weekend for inhumane treatment of more than 120
dogs who either died or were found dead in
transit from local dogcatchers to restaurants.
On April 9, 2003 Mike Guimbatan Jr. of
the Philippine Times reported that 20 dead dogs
were found and 40 live dogs were rescued from
illegal dog meat traders in Baguio City during
the preceding week.

BOOKS: Animal Abuse: Why Cops Can & Need To Stop It

May 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Animal Abuse: Why Cops Can & Need To Stop It
Video from In The Line of Duty (P.O. Box 6798, Brentwood Station,
St. Louis, MO 63144), 2002. 35 minutes. $95.00.

Matthew Kaczorowski, 21, pleaded guilty to mischief on
April 9, 2003 in Toronto. The last of three participants to face
justice for making a purported “art video” of the torture killing of
a cat, Kaczorowski was arrested in Vancouver and flown back to
Toronto for trial approximately one year after Jesse Power, 22, was
sentenced to serve 90 days in jail on weekends followed by 18 months
of house arrest (which he has appealed), and Anthony Wennekers, 25,
was sentenced to the 11 months he spent in jail awaiting trial.
Ironically, the cat-killers’ video may now receive a much
wider audience than they could ever have found for it on their own.
Long clips from it are incorporated into Animal Abuse: Why Cops Can
& Need To Stop It, along with portions of videos taken by many other
convicted cruelty perpetrators.
“Tragically, we felt the only way we could reach veteran cops was to
make the program visually overwhelming,” In The Line of Duty company
president Ron Barber told ANIMAL PEOPLE, adding that In The Line of
Duty “is the world leader in law enforcement video and internet
training,”

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