Day: October 2, 2004

Four hurricanes in six weeks stretch rescue efforts from the Caribbean islands to Texas

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

ORLANDO–Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne
ripped through the Caribbean, Florida, and parts of other southern
states in August and September 2004 like the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse, scything down whatever they met.
In between, tropical storm Alex, Bonnie, and Gaston hit hard too.
More than 3,000 people were killed in Haiti, mainly by mud slides,
and at least 31,000 people lost their homes. The magnitude of the
human disaster tended to obscure the parallel animal disaster.
“An estimated 40,000 animals, including dogs, cats, and
farm animals, are in urgent need of help,” e-mailed Anne Ostberg of
the Pegasus Foundation, who helped to fund and coordinate Caribbean
relief efforts.
“The World Society for the Protection of Animals is working
with the Argentine army and ambassador to get veterinary supples to
Haiti,” Ostberg added, “with an immediate focus on disease control
and treating surviving farm animals. WSPA is also working with two
contacts in Port au Prince.”
Ostberg said WSPA was assisting as well in Cuba, the Dominican
Republic, Venezuela, and Panama.

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New concept draft of Korean animal protection law eliminates potential exemptions for “meat” dogs & cats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

SEOUL–More than a year of acrimony over
animal definitions in a 2003 draft update of the
1991 South Korean animal protection law appeared
to be resolved on October 5, 2004 when the
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry presented a
new draft of recommendations for legislation
called Comprehensive Measures for Animal
Protection.
Comprehensive Measures appears to
eliminate loopholes in the 2003 draft update that
might have exempted dogs and cats raised for meat
from coverage.

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Anti- foie gras activists swallow a promise instead of action in California “victory”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

SACRAMENTO–Farm Sanctuary, In Defense
of Animals, PETA, and the Humane Society of the
U.S. declared victory on September 29, 2004 when
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed
a bill that will purportedly ban force-feeding
ducks and geese to produce foie gras, effective
in 2012. But as the San Francisco Chronicle
reported, “The state’s lone farm engaged in the
practice, Sonoma Foie Gras, also hailed it as a
victory.”
“We supported this bill and thank the
governor and the legislature,” Sonoma Foie Gras
owner Guillermo Gonzalez e-mailed to Andrew
Gumbel and John Lichfield of The Independent, a
London newspaper that covered the issue for
British readers.
The British-based organization Compassion
In World Farming initially applauded the
California bill, but CIWF European Coalition for
Farm Animals campaign coordinator Barbara Dias
Pais on October 7 acknowledged to ANIMAL PEOPLE
that “the news was indeed badly misinterpreted by
many of us here in Europe.”

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Greyhound exports to Southeast Asia

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

KIDDERMINSTER, U.K.– Greyhound Action International
announced on September 16 that newly obtained 2003 statistics show “a
drop in the number of greyhounds exported from Australia to South
Korea, but an increase in the number sent to Macau.” Greyhound
racing has recently been introduced into Macau, Vietnam, and
Cambodia, and has expanded in the Phillipines.
Greyhound Action International notes that dogs are eaten in
all of these places, and alleges that the exported greyhounds “are
ending their days being butchered in the dog meat industry.”
Australian activist Lyn White inspected the Vietnamese
greyhound racing facilities and dog meat markets for the Animals Asia
Foundation in late 2002 and found no evidence that greyhounds were
being sold for human consumption, or could be, since Vietnamese
consumers prefer fat puppies rather than hard-muscled older dogs.
However, greyhounds were at the time still scarce in
Vietnam. If intensive breeding for competition produced a perennial
surplus, as exists in nations with an established greyhound racing
industry, it is not inconceivable that an entrepreneur might find a
way to sell their remains, perhaps as a pre-cooked canned stew.

Hunting bears with bait, dogs, traps, & loaded ballot language

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

JUNEAU, AUGUSTA–Alaska and Maine voters will decide on
November 2, 2004 whether to ban baiting bears into shooting range,
but as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press the exact wording of the Alaska
ballot proposition remained in doubt.
Alaska Lieutenant Governor Loren Leman reworded descriptions
of the anti-bear baiting measure and two unrelated propositions after
they had already won enough petition signatures to qualify for the
ballot. The petition language was approved in June 2003 by Alaska
assistant attorney general Marjorie Vandor. Leman did not seek
approval of his rewrites from the organizations promoting the ballot
measures, and is known to oppose all three.
Half a million ballots were printed before Anchorage Superior
Court Judge Morgan Christen ruled on September 29 that Leman’s
rewrite of one proposition was illegal.
“Christen said that destroying the old ballots was the only
way to correct the misleading, biased, and factually inaccurate
working of the Trust the People initiative to strip the governor’s
authority to fill a vacated U.S. Senate seat by appointment,” wrote
Richard Mauer and Joel Gay of the Anchorage Daily News. Mauer and
Gay anticipated that Leman would appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court.

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Dog meat trafficking

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

Thai police on October 1, 2004 seized 1,070 dogs from three
trucks and arrested four men who were allegedly about to cross into
Laos from Sakon Nakon province, en route to dog meat markets in
Vietnam. The dogs were impounded under quarantine. The men would be
fined if found guilty of illegal trading, said police colonel
Sunthorn Kongkraphan, but would not be jailed.

Philippine police on August 10, 2004 seized 80 trussed-up
street dogs from a truck taking them from Cavite province, south of
Manila, to a slaughterhouse in Baguio City, the reputed dog meat
capital of the Philippines. The truck was intercepted following an
11-mile hot pursuit after trying to evade a police checkpoint. The
driver was charged with violating the national animal welfare act.

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U.S. Senators make USDA subpoena for Siegfried & Roy video disappear

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

LAS VEGAS–The USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service
in mid-September agreed to settle for viewing a Feld Entertainment
Inc. videotape of the October 3, 2003 mauling of tiger trainer Roy
Horn at the Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas, without actually
obtaining a copy of the tape.
USDA/APHIS in April 2004 subpoenaed the videotape while investigating
whether Horn and his performing partner, Siegfried Fishbacher,
broke the Animal Welfare Act. Feld Entertainment, owners of both
the Mirage and the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus, offered to
show the video to USDA/APHIS inspectors, but refused to give them a
copy lest it be obtained by animal rights activists or TV magazine
shows via the Freedom of Information Act.
When the USDA/APHIS continued to seek a copy, U.S. Senators Harry
Reid (D-Nevada) and John Ensign (R-Nevada) threatened to introduce an
amendment to the USDA budget which would have prevented use of any
funding to obtain the video.

Big winners & losers at CITES 2004

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

BANGKOK–Minke whales, Irriwaddy dolphins, and great white
sharks were among the big winners at the 13th meeting of the 166
nations belonging to the United Nations Convention on International
Trade In Endangered Species, held October 2-14 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Black rhinos and crocodiles were among the big losers.
Whether elephants won or lost varied with the perspectives of
the participants. A Kenyan proposal to extend the 1989 global
moratorium on ivory trading failed, but the delegates approved a
resolution committing every African nation with a domestic ivory
trade to either strictly control it or halt it.
“Unregulated domestic markets across Africa are fueling a
significant part of the poaching we are seeing in central Africa,”
explained Tom Milliken, eastern and southern Africa director for the
wildlife trade monitoring organization TRAFFIC. “These markets
consume up to 12,000 elephants annually,” Milliken continued, “so
it’s time we close this huge loophole in the global effort to save
elephants.”
Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, and
Nigeria have the most open domestic ivory markets, according to
TRAFFIC.

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No cultural defense for cockfighting in Hawaii, judge rules; federal case pending

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

NEW ORLEANS–Eighteen months after filing a “cultural
defense” lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Lafayette, Louisiana,
which has yet to be heard by Judge Rebecca F. Doherty, the United
Gamefowl Breeders Association still hopes a claim of discrimination
will overturn the two-year-old U.S. law prohibiting interstate
transport of gamecocks.
The anti-gamecock transport law appears to be untested in
court. There have been no prominent prosecutions.
But the legal theory behind the case against it was on August
31, 2004 rejected by Hawaii 2nd Circuit Court Judge Joel August.
August ruled in an 11-page verdict that even though the Hawaii
constitution protects native customs and traditions, and native
Hawaiians practiced a form of cockfighting called haka moa before
Hawaii was annexed by the U.S., cockfighting does not fit the
definitions of protected activity.
The plaintiffs did not make a case or even press a claim that
haka moa was demonstrably integral to practicing the native Hawaiian
religion, August pointed out. Neither could the practice of haka
moa be called a subsistence right.

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