Another motion by fundraising counsel Bruce Eberle vs. ANIMAL PEOPLE is denied by court

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

FAIRFAX, Va.–Circuit Judge Gaylord L. Finch of Fairfax
County, Virginia, on December 19, 2003 denied the latest in a
series of motions filed against ANIMAL PEOPLE since July 2003 by
fundraising counsel Bruce Eberle and Fund Raising Strategies Inc.,
one of several firms that Eberle owns or controls.
The case is now closed in the Circuit Court and the time for
filing appeals has expired.
The series of motions, each denied, sought injunctions
against distribution of the June 2003 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE and
accused ANIMAL PEOPLE of contempt of court, for causes originating
out of having published a table that disclosed proprietary financial
data about FRS and Eberle’s other companies.
The table accompanied a detailed account of the judicially
encouraged settlement of a libel suit brought by Eberle and FRS
against ANIMAL PEOPLE in July 2002. The settlement required ANIMAL
PEOPLE to correct two statements quoted and paraphrased from Wildlife
Waystation founder Martine Colette, an Eberle client, which were
never presented as anyone’s position other than hers, plus two brief
garbled summaries that never actually appeared in the ANIMAL PEOPLE
newspaper, nor at our web site. ANIMAL PEOPLE had long before
corrected and clarified all of the items at issue.

Perjury charge v.s. Allison Lance-Watson, wife of Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

SEATTLE–Allison Lance-Watson, 45, wife of Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society founder Paul Watson, was on January 14, 2004
arrested, briefly shackled, charged with lying to a federal grand
jury, and released pending a February preliminary hearing without
being required to post a cash bond.
Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent Fernando Gutierrez
alleged in a written complaint that Lance-Watson knew more than she
admitted about events that included a 2:30 a.m. arson at the
headquarters of Holbrook, Inc., a timber firm in Olympia,
Washington, on May 7, 2000, and the unauthorized removal of 228
chickens from 57 cages the same night at the Dai-Zen Egg Farm in
Burlington, Washington, a 30,000-hen complex located about two
hours’ drive to the north. The farm is not far from the intersection
of the primary route from Friday Harbor, home of the Watsons, to
the mainland and Interstate 5, which passes through Olympia.
The hen removals were claimed almost immediately in the name
of the Animal Liberation Front, via ALF press officer David
Barbarash, of Courtenay, British Columbia.

Heart jab illegal in New Mexico

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

ALBUQUERQUE–“You asked whether it is a violation of [New
Mexico] anti-cruelty laws to use intracardiac administration of
euthanasia on a conscious animal in an animal shelter or humane
society facility,” attorney general Patricia Madrid wrote to New
Mexico senate president pro tempore Richard M. Romero on December 8,
2003.
“In my judgement,” Mad-rid said, “this procedure–which
causes immediate trauma and death and which is not preceded by
medication that anesthetizes or puts the animal to sleep first–is
unlawful.”
Madrid quoted the applicable law to Romero, underlining the
phrase “tormenting an animal.”
“I am aware,” Madrid wrote, “that my legal opinion may
economically adversely impact the majority of animal shelters and
humane facilities in our state. It is not my intention to overly
burden these facilities or portray them as inhumane institutions.”
Madrid said she would be pleased to support a bill that
specifically bans the so-called “heart jab” method of killing animals.
“We believe a case could be made under the animal cruelty
statute,” clarified Samantha Thompson, spokesperson for Madrid,
speaking to Isabel Sanchez of the Albuquerque Journal. “However, it
is not explicit under the law, nor is there legal precedent.

Projects

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

The Student Animal Rights Alliance on December 29, 2003
announced a search for an unpaid student intern to coordinate a
campaign “to build racial and ethnic diversity in the animal rights
movement.” Part of the job will involve developing the outreach
strategy. Particulars are available from Patrick Kwan, c/o SARA,
P.O. Box 932, New York, NY 10013; 212-696-7911;
<info@defendanimals.org>.

The ASPCA/Chase Pet Protectors Award 2003 grand prize of
$10,000 for innovative program development went to Georgia Legal
Professionals for Animals, the American SPCA announced at year’s
end. Dogs Deserve Better, of Tipton, Pennsylvania, received
$7,500 for public education against dog-chaining; Rondout Valley
Animals for Adoption, of Acord, New York, developer of the
controversial Sue Sternberg dog behavior screening method, received
$5,000; the San Diego Humane Society received $3,000; and awards of
$1,500 were presented to Cobb County Animal Control of Marietta,
Georgia; the Place-A-Pet Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio; and the
Wisconsin Humane Society, in Milwaukee.

Chinese dog-killer sent to labor camp

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

BEIJING, HONG KONG– “A Wuhan man was sentenced to 18 months
in a labor camp for poisoning more than 80 pet dogs, the Chutian
Metropolis Daily reported circa December 15, 2003. “The man had
been poisoning the dogs and selling them to local restaurants. A
farmer was detained for supplying the rat poison.”
Reprinted by other news media throughout China, the brief
item indicated the fast-rising status of dogs in much of a nation
which remains deeply divided among fear of dogs, love of dogs, and
the belief that dogs are to be eaten.
The significance of the Wuhan case includes acknowledgement
that enough dogs are kept as pets that a criminal can make a business
of stealing them; acknowledgement that killing pet dogs is a crime
warranting punishment as severe as is typically given for poisoning
pets in the U.S.; and the implication that the dog meat business is
not law-abiding and respectable. Also of note is that the offender
was convicted of killing the dogs, not of harming people who might
have eaten their meat.
In some parts of China a citizen might still be officially
praised for killing 80 pet dogs, but not now in Wuhan– and, since
the state-controlled Chinese media tend to publish news to make a
point, maybe not in the future anywhere.

Sterilizing dogs and cats in rural Argentina

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

PARANA, Argentina–A caption on page 6 of the December 2003
edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE misattributed to the Buenos Aires-based
Asociacion para la Defensa de los Derechos del Animal a photo showing
a volunteer using a wheelbarrow to return a spayed dog to her home.
The photo was actually sent by Grupo Platero, of Parana,
300 miles northwest.
Formally founded in 1730, about 200 years after Spanish
explorers first encountered indigenous settlements in the region,
and named after the piranha fish for whom the Rio Parana was also
named, Parana served as the first capitol of the independent nation
of Argentina from 1852 until 1862. Parana is still the capital of
Entre Rios province, but had no municipal animal shelter until the
city health department started one in 1965.
Like most city shelters, the Parana shelter killed most
impounded animals until 1994.
Sisters Lucrecia and Veronica Mors, and a deceased friend,
formed Grupo Platero in 1978. In 1985 the Parana shelter began a pet
sterilization program. From 1993 through 1998 Group Platero
augmented the city program by hiring a veterinarian to visit the
barrios, sterilizing homeless animals and the pets of the poor
without charge. This enabled the Parana shelter to cease killing
strays. The Grupo Platero program ended when the sisters could no
longer afford to pay for surgeries.

Butchers beat Visakha SPCA founder Pradeep K. Nath

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

VISAKHAPATNAM, India–Visakha SPCA founder Pradeep Kumar
Nath was “severely and brutally beaten” on January 19 by “five youths
who are butchers in profession,” Nath e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Nath was accosted, he said, as he “was seeking help from
the police by mobile telepone to stop the illegal slaughtering of
five cows and two calves who were being taken by two laborers to the
slaughterhouse.”
The attack came nine days after Visakhapatnam police raided
two slaughterhouses that had been the subject of frequent Visakha
SPCA complaints.
Nath received hospital treatment for cuts and bruises. Two
of the five assailants, named Siddique and Mastan, were arrested
and criminally charged, Nath said.
Nath has experienced violence before. On April 2, 2000
persons believed to have been prosecuted for illegal slaughter
torched the Visakha SPCA cattle shelter, and on Christmas Eve, 2000
a mob ransacked the Visakha SPCA dog sterilization clinic. The mob
was allegedly led by the former city dog-killers, who lost their
jobs as result of the sterilization program.
Assaults on Indian humane workers, usually by illegal
butchers and cattle traffickers, are frequent, and often deadly.

Asia

New Jersey gets stiffer cruelty law; veal crate ban to be reintroduced

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

TRENTON, N.J.–New Jersey Governor James McGreevey on
January 10, 2004 signed into law a bill raising the maximum penalty
for cruelty to animals to five years in prison and a fine of $15,000
for a criminal conviction, and increasing the civil penalties that
may be collected by state-chartered SPCAs to a maximum of $5,000.
The bill was introduced by state assembly members Doug
Fisher, John Burizichelli, and Robert Smith.
McGreevey signed it one day after activist Barbara Shuts
heckled him at a meeting with about 500 members of the American
Association of Retired Persons. Shuts reminded McGreevey that he
pledged to oppose bear hunting when running for governor, but then
authorized the first bear hunt in New Jersey since 1970. The six-day
hunt last November killed 328 bears.
New Jersey assembly majority leader Joe Roberts meanwhile
killed a bill to ban veal crating by refusing to put it to a vote
during the final days of the 210th legislature.
“The measure, which already passed in the New Jersey senate,
had enough votes to pass in the assembly,” Farm Sanctuary claimed.
The bill was immediately reintroduced in both the assembly
and the senate when the 211th legislature convened.

BOOKS: The Great Ape Project Census

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

The Great Ape Project Census:
Recognition for the Uncounted
The Great Ape Project (917 S.W. Oak St., Suite 412, Portland, OR
97205), 2004.
268 pages, paperback. $14.95.

Nearly 200 years after hazy historical records indicate that
captive great apes may have first come to the U.S. for exhibition
with some of the first captive elephants, the Great Ape Project
Census represents the first known attempt to compile a comprehensive
national roster of all the bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, and
orangutans now kept here.
The inventory includes 3,100 great apes in total, residing
in 37 states, including 1,280 chimpanzees held for biomedical
research use.
As the book lacks precise counts for other species and uses,
it is unfortunately necessary to hand-count to determine that there
are approximately 800 great apes in accredited zoos, among whom the
343 gorillas are the most numerous species; 169 chimps, 20
orangutans,, and three gorillas in non-accredited zoos; about 477
chimps, five orangutans, and one gorilla now in sanctuary care;
151 chimps and 19 orangutans kept by private owners, most of them in
the entertainment industry; and 13 chimpanzees, eight bonobos, and
two gorillas held in connection with communication studies.

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