Month: June 2004

Animal Balance in the Galapagos

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

SAN FRANCISCO–Violent confrontations between fishers
hellbent on exploiting the marine life of Galapagos National Park and
Marine Reserve reignited repeatedly in the first half of 2004–except
when Animal Balance was there.
For six weeks, from mid-April to late May, Animal Balance
sterilized, vaccinated, and gave parasite treatment to dogs and
cats, both pets and ferals, on Isabela Island, the largest and
most populated of the Galapagos chain.
The work seemed to bring the warring factions together. The
trouble stopped just as Animal Balance arrived, and again erupted
almost as soon as the Animal Balance volunteers went home.
Former San Francisco SPCA feral cat program coordinator Emma
Clifford conceived and directed the Animal Balance project, with
veterinary help led by Operation Catnip founder Julie Levy of the
University of Florida at Gainesville.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society provided transportation
to the remote islands. Patrolling the Galapagos Marine Reserve since
2001 at invitation of the Galapagos National Park Service, the Sea
Shepherds have often been between the embattled Galapagos National
Park Service conservation staff and the irate fishers–and at odds
with the Ecuadoran Navy, whose senior officers tend to see their
mission as defending the fishing industry, not marine life.

Read more

How to save sea turtles–and why the species conservation approach is failing

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

VISAKHAPATNAM–The Malaysian cargo ship MV Genius Star-VI,
carrying 17 crew members and a load of timber, on April 13, 2004
sank in rough seas 180 miles southeast of Haldia, West Bengal.
Chinese crew members Gao Fuling, Wuxun Yuan, and Zhu Yuan
went overboard together, Gao and Wuxun with life jackets while Zhu
clutched a plank, wrote Jatindra Dash of Indo-Asian News Services.
For the next 34 hours they swam for their lives.
“Gao and Zhu described how two turtles met with them and
tried to help them,” Indian Coast Guard Commander P.K. Mishra told
Dash.
Soon after the sinking, the first turtle tried to help Gao
lift a floating box that he thought might be used to wave in the air
as a signal to aircraft or other vessels.
“When the turtle failed, he pushed me up to the box so that
I could latch on to it,” Mishra said Gao told him. Later, when Zhu
lost his plank, “Zhu said a turtle swam with him for hours and
brought the wood plank back to him,” Mishra added.
All three men were eventually rescued by Mishra’s vessel.
Twelve other men were picked up by other merchant ships. Two were
never found.

Read more

Dope on dog racing

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

TALLAHASSEE–Florida attorney general Charlie Christ does not
have the authority to probe why 117 dogs who raced on Florida tracks
in 2000-2003 tested positive for cocaine, deputy attorney general
George LeMieux told GREY2K USA and the Humane Society of the U.S. in
an early June written opinion.
The 117 positive tests were among moe than 104,000 tests on
dogs for drugging done during the three years in question. During
that time Palm Beach Kennel Club trainers Bernie McClella, Joy
Mayne, and Mark St. Pierre were suspended because their dogs tested
positive, but have continued to claim the tests were in error.
In May, Florida Division of Parimutuel Wagering chief David
Roberts said his office has “found no evidence that anyone has given
cocaine to a dog.”
Greyhound advocates otherwise enjoyed a successful first half of 2004.
New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson in May 2004 vetoed a bill
to require greyhound trainers to track injuries to dogs,
euthanasias, interstate transfers, adoptions, and sales of
dogs–but on June 16 the state legislature overrode the veto, 290-52
in the house and 18-6 in the senate.
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell on May 24 signed into law a
pre-emptive statewide ban on greyhound racing.
The New Hampshire and Pennsyl-vania legislative victories
followed the defeat of bills to authorize the use of other forms of
gambling and tax cuts to subsidize greyhound racing in Alabama,
Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Texas.

Egg & meat ad tactics reviewed

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

The Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Review
Board on May 9, 2004 upheld a November 2003 ruling by a lower panel
that the United Egg Producers “animal care certified” labeling is
misleading, and should either be dropped or be significantly
altered. On May 10 the United Egg Producers board voted to revamp
their web site to provide further information to consumers about what
the label means. The complaint was brought by Compassion Over
Killing, which has filed similar complaints with the Federal Trade
Commission and the Food & Drug Administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on May 23 to review the
constitutionality of the 1985 federal law that requires beef ranchers
to pay into a collective marketing fund. In July 2003 the U.S. Court
of Appeals in St. Louis held that the law violates the First
Amendment right of free speech, by forcing cattlemen to deliver a
message that they may not choose to deliver. Soon afterward the U.S.
Court of Appeals in Cincinnati issued a similar ruling pertaining to
collective pork marketing, and the U.S. Court of Appeals in
Philadelphia issued a parallel opinion about the constitutionality of
collective milk marketing. The marketing plans are best known for
promoting the phrases “Beef: It’s What’s For Dinner,” “Pork: The
Other White Meat,” and “Got Milk?”

Letters [June 2004]

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

Anti-veggie ad?

The following ad ran this morning of WBIG/FM in Washing-ton D.C.:
“I’m a hypocrite. No, I’m not a vegetarian who wears
leather shoes. You see, I used to smoke pot, and when I found pot
in my kid’s room I confronted him about it.”
Why is the Office of National Drug Control Policy singling
out vegetarians for criticism?
I am an animal protection advocate, and a vegetarian, and I
don’t wear leather shoes. But I suspect that if everyone in the U.S.
stopped wearing leather, it wouldn’t save the life of a single
animal, given that millions of animals are slaughtered every year
for food production.
Picking a fight with vegetarians is a really poor method of
discouraging drug use.
–Frank Branchini
Edgewater, Maryland

Read more

Petco settles neglect & overcharge cases

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

SAN DIEGO–The 655-store Petco Animal Supplies Inc. chain on
May 27, 2004 agreed to pay $661,754 in fines and investigative costs
for allegedly neglecting animal care and overcharging customers.
“The company also will spend $202,500 to install better
equipment in its California stores to eliminate overcharging,”
reported San Diego Union-Tribune staff writer Mike Freeman of the
settlement reached with district attorneys in San Diego, Los
Angeles, Marin, and San Mateo counties. Petco also agreed to pay
$50,000, formally train staff in animal care, and allow inspection
by independent veterinarians to settle a separate case brought by the
city of San Francisco.
A PETA boycott of Petco will continue, said spokesperson
Christy Griffin, until Petco quits selling birds, reptiles, fish,
and small mammals. Petco, like larger rival PETsMART, does not
sell dogs and cats.

BOOKS: The State of the Animals II

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

The State of the Animals II: 2003 edited by
Deborah J. Salem & Andrew N. Rowan
Humane Society Press (c/o Humane Society of the
U.S., 2100 L. St. NW, Washington, DC 20037),
2004. 253 pages, paperback. $38.95.

Having arrived in early February 2004,
The State of the Animals II: 2003 has already
had ample time to demonstrate strong utility as a
desk reference, including at two major
conferences to which I took it while reading it.
Thus, while The State of the Animals II
is discussed in ANIMAL PEOPLE much later than it
deserved, it is praised from a perspective of
certainty.
The opening chapter, by soon-to-retire
Humane Society of the U.S. president Paul G.
Irwin, is “A Strategic Review of International
Animal Protection.”
An accompanying table shows that the U.S.
and Canada now have 21 animal protection
organizations per million humans. Australia,
New Zealand, Scandinavia, Britain, and Germany
have 9-10. India, misleadingly lumped together
with several other Asian nations, should be in
the same category. The U.S. and Canada may have
twice as many organizations per million people
chiefly because the U.S. and Canadian human
population is much more broadly distributed.

Read more

Haiti says no to dolphin captivity

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

PORT AU PRINCE–Six dolphins caught for exhibition in mid-May
by a Haitian firm with Spanish backing swam free on June 3 through
the intercession of Haitian environment minister Yves Andre
Wainwright and agriculture minister Philippe Mathieu.
Wainwright and Mathieu intervened at request of Dolphin
Project founder Ric O’Barry, whose 35-year-old effort to liberate
captive dolphins has operated since the beginning of 2004 under the
auspices of the French organization One Voice.
With a U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat maintaining security,
O’Barry and Guillermo Lopez, DVM, of the Dominican Republic Academy
of the Sciences dismantled the sea pen holding the dolphins.
Wife Helene O’Barry and Jane Regan of Associated Press snapped
digital photos from the beach.
The liberation marked the rejection of dolphin capturing as a
commercial enterprise in one of the poorest nations in the world,
even as entrepreneurs from other island nations rush to cash in on
the boom in marketing swim-with-dolphins tourist attractions.
The liberation also demonstrated the resolve of the present
Haitian government to start enforcing conservation laws that long
went ignored by their predecessors, as a succession of shaky regimes
have struggled to uphold any law and order at all.

Read more

BOOKS: Canine Courage: The Heroism of Dogs

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

Canine Courage: The Heroism of Dogs by Tiffin Shewmake
PageFree Publishing, Inc. (109 S. Farmer St., Otsego, MI 49078),
2002. 199 pages, paperback. $15.00.

Since the January/February 1999 introduction of the Lewyt
Award for Heroic & Compassionate Animals, sponsored by the North
Shore Animal League America, the inside back covers of ANIMAL PEOPLE
editions announcing the awards have become the pages probably most
often clipped and posted on the walls of humane societies.
Although the awards occasionally honor heroic cats, most of
the winners are dogs.
But is there really such a thing as canine heroism,
involving dogs who consciously choose to go “above and beyond the
call of duty,” or are heroic dog incidents explicable by ordinary
canine behavior such as instinct, pack cohesion, or a desire for a
person’s approval?
Tiffin Shewmake seeks traits to explain the origin of canine
heroism, and speculates that although the extent of heroic potential
may vary from one dog to another and one breed to another, it
probably grew out of a number of allied traits such as altruism,
empathy and helpfulness, all traits selected through long
interaction with humans. As people favored the puppies of dogs who
were loyal, helpful, selfless, or brave, over time the traits
producing these qualities came to become in effect a genetic
predisposition toward heroism.

Read more

1 2 3