Month: March 2005

Why animal advocates’ “war on terror” must be nonviolent

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

Why animal advocates’ “war on terror” must be nonviolent
by Steve Hindi, founder, SHARK

It has happened again. Thugs misappropriating the name of
“animal rights activism” have struck another blow against all animal
advocates and the animals for whom we toil. This time the crime
occurred in Villa Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, where during
the first weekend in February 2003 someone reportedly cut the brake
lines of as many as 40 trucks owned by a company that sells live
lobsters.
The people responsible for this act have again allowed those
who abuse animals to paint all who care about animals as terrorists.
I hope these criminals, whoever they are, are caught and convicted.
And I hope they were not actually involved in animal defense.
Fourteen years ago my rage over the use of captive live
pigeons as targets at the annual Labor Day shoot in Hegins,
Pennsyl-vania completely transformed my life.
Since then I have watched, documented and exposed more
animal abuse then I want to think about. I live with horror at what
I have witnessed, with the knowledge that my past as a former hunter
embraced a world of abuse for which I was personally responsible.

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Birders, cat people team in California “Project Bay Cat”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

FOSTER CITY, California–Project Bay Cat on February 1
announced that it had achieved 77% sterilization of the estimated 170
feral cats living along the scenic Bay Trail during 2004, and had
socialized and adopted out 31 cats and kitters, reducing the cat
population to 130.
“Working together in a precedent-setting partnership, the
Homeless Cat Network, Sequoia Audubon Society, and Foster City
municipal government joined forces to humanely address the feral cat
population,” said Project Bay Cat representative Cimeron Morrisey.
“The Foster City shoreline is an integral part of the Pacific
Flyway,” a major migratory bird route,” Morrisey continued. The
Bay Trail also wanders through artificial marshes that are attracting
growing year-round bird populations, and the endangered California
clapper rail inhabits the area surrounding the north end of the trail.
More than 15 years of bitter politics and sometimes lawsuits
over efforts to protect clapper rails by killing feral cats and foxes
preceded the formation of Project Bay Cat, which came together ,
Morrissey said, when local animal advocates began talking to each
other instead of pushing the agendas of national organizations.
“We are collaborating in this project for the protection of
bird habitat, a better life for the cats, and a more pleasant levee
path for all users,” said Sequoia Audubon Society conservation
committee chair Robin Smith.
“The collaborators of Project Bay Cat have created a tool kit
for others who wish to take similar action,” Morrisey said, “free
from<info@homelesscatnetwork.org>, or from 650-286-9013.”

Human obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

Miriam Rothschild, 96, died on January
20 in Northamptonshire, England, recalled by
The Times of London as “Beatrix Potter on
amphetamines.” Like Potter, Rothschild
performed dissections and vivisection early in
life, but became a strong animal advocate later
in life. The daughter of banker Charles
Rothschild, who as a hobby identified more than
500 flea species, Miriam Rothschild catalogued
more than 30,000 flea species between 1953 and
1973. Her uncle Lionel Walter Rothschild also
encouraged her interest in biology, collecting
more than 2.3 million butterflies, 300,000 bird
skins, 300,000 birds’ eggs, several pet
cassowaries, and 144 giant tortoises. Miriam
Rothschild followed them into entomology,
working with Nobel Prize-winning chemist Tadeus
Reichstein to decode the relationship between
insects’ consumption of toxins to deter predators
and their protective coloration. She also became
a leading expert on parasitic flatworms. After a
World War II air raid destroyed her seven years’
worth of flatworm research, she broke codes for
British military intelligence, while housing 49
Jewish children who had escaped from Nazi
Germany. Eventually she began to think about the
ethics of her scientific work. “I was once taken
aback,” she wrote in her 1986 book Animals and
Man, “by an unusually able assistant of mine
suddenly deciding to quit zoology. Apparently
she had been given a live, instead of a dead
mouse, to feed to a stoat. Not having the
courage to kill the mouse herself, she hurriedly
pushed it into the cage. She watched fascinated
while the animal crouched terrified in a corner,
facing the tense, bright-eyed stoat preparing
for the kill. To the girl’s consternation she
then experienced a violent orgasmŠ Looking back
at the first half of my life as a zoologist,”
she continued, “I am particularly impressed by
one fact: none of my teachers, lecturers, or
professors, none of the directors of
laboratories were I worked, and none of my
co-workers, ever discussed with me, or each
other in my presence, the ethics of zoology. I
know several zoologists,” she added, “who have
admitted that they suffered from the fear of
being dubbed ‘unmanly,’ and struggled to
overcome their dislike of causing animals pain,
or killing them.”

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Promoting peace for pigs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

STANWOOD, Washington– The very name of the Pigs Peace
sanctuary seems to express an impossible dream.
Founder Judy Woods, 50, admits that. She works small, on
34 acres, but dreams big, understanding that her first mission is
not rescue but education. Saving the lives of the 100-odd resident
animals enables her to teach appreciation of their species. Most
common domestic species are represented, but the emphasis is on
pigs– though Woods is also quick to introduce and discuss the
virtues of chickens, turkeys, dogs, horses, goats, and feral
cats, among many others who often as not wander up and compete for
her attention.
Pigs are by nature a peaceable lot, content to eat garbage
and sleep in mud on warm days. But few pigs enjoy much peace.
Globally, 864 million pigs per year are killed for human
consumption, 133 million of them in the U.S. Most are raised in
stress-inducing close confinement.
Harold Gonyou of the Prairie Swine Center in Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, Canada, in late January 2005 told the Manitoba Swine
Seminar in Winnipeg about progress toward improving factory-farmed
pigs’ quality of life.

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Post-tsunami anti-rabies drive shifts gears to sterilization

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka–Fear that a rabies panic might fuel a
dog massacre subsided in coastal Sri Lanka as January 2005 rolled
into February, allowing the emergency vaccination drive initiated on
December 31, 2004 by volunteer disaster relief coordinator Robert
Blumberg to roll over into a mobile sterilization campaign.
“Sterilization is becoming a crucial issue, with many
animals coming into heat soon and, especially on the east coast,
crowded into refugee camps,” Blumberg said.
“The vaccination campaign put 12,000 red ‘I’ve been
vaccinated’ collars out into the field to calm any hysteria over
rabies that could have led to mass killings, and allowed us to
observe first-hand the conditions for the animals after the December
26 tsunami,” Blumberg explained. “We are now going back to a number
of those initial areas and doing the saturation vaccinating necessary
to ensure having done the 70-75% required for effective rabies
prevention.
“Animal People was our first sponsor, only days after the
waves struck, making it possible to quickly field initial assessment,
vaccination, and treatment teams,” Blumberg acknowledged. Blumberg
also thanked the Best Friends Animal Society, Noah’s Wish, Marchig
Animal Welfare Trust, and the Association of Veterinarians for
Animal Rights for substantial contributions.

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Fox hunters vow to “keep buggering on”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

LONDON–A reported 300,000 people rode to hounds on February
20, a record number for one day of fox hunting in Britain, on the
first hunting date after traditional fox hunting was ostensibly
banned.
But the most publicized estimates of hunter numbers may have
been much too high. Twenty-four hours after Daniel Foggo, Karyn
Miller and Tony Freinberg of the pro-hunting Daily Telegraph put the
number of hunts in the field at 184, the most widely cited estimate
was 270. The discrepancy might have resulted from small hunting
clubs holding combined hunts, so as to boost the turnout.
The Scotsman political correspondent Jamie Lyons observed
“little discernible difference” between traditional hounding and
“flushing foxes out of a wood [with not more than two dogs] and
shooting them, before their scent is left as a trail for the
hounds,” as those who ride to hounds now must do in order to hunt
legally.
“The Countryside Alliance said 91 foxes were killed,” Lyons
continued, “most shot within the law. But there were four
‘accidents,’ and one stag was killed in the West Country,” Lyons
added.

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Why hunting can’t save African wildlife

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

NAIROBI–Used to fighting heavily armed Somali poachers who
strike Tsavo National Park from the northeast, Kenya Wildlife
Service wardens found themselves under fire from a different
direction near Lake Jipe on January 21 when they ordered a battered
blue Toyota pickup truck to stop.
Hauling two eland carcasses, the truck appeared to be
engaged in routine bush meat trafficking. Bush meat traffickers
rarely risk their lives in shootouts. They tend to try bribery
first, then pay a small fine and perhaps spend a few days in jail.
But this time the wardens’ vehicle was quickly disabled by a
.404 slug from an elephant gun. The wardens shot back.
“Two middle-aged poachers died on the spot. Three made a
hasty escape through the scrubland, leaving their bloody cargo and a
shotgun behind,” Kenya Wildlife Service deputy director for wildlife
security Peter Leitoro told Edward Indakwa and Evelyne Ogutu of the
East African Standard.

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Editorial: The missing link in murder

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

Voting Republican by a two-to-one margin in each election of
this decade, Frankfort, Indiana, will never be mistaken for a
bastion of bleeding-heart liberalism. The phrase “animal rights” has
appeared in the hometown newspaper, the Frankfort Times, on only
three occasions since 1997, according to an electronic search–and
has never been used in a positive context.
Yet no one in Frankfort seemed even mildly surprised on
December 21, 2004, when Clinton Superior Court Judge Kathy Smith
jailed convicted dog shooter William Pierce, 55, for nine months.
Pierce on Halloween 2004 shot his own Basset hound puppy. The police
said Pierce did it because the puppy defecated on the floor. Pierce
said he did it because the pup was barking. Either way, Pierce then
wrapped the wounded puppy in plastic and tossed him into a trash can.
“Studies show that a person who tortures an animal is likely
to hurt a human being. We want to make sure we get a handle on
this,” said Judge Smith.
Following his jail time, Pierce is to serve 21 months on
probation, during which he must refrain from all contact with
alcohol, pets, firearms, and three persons including his estranged
wife.

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Noah’s Wish disaster training dates

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

Just back from helping with post-tsunami animal relief work
in Sri Lanka, Noah’s Wish founder Terri Crisp has announced her 2005
disaster relief training schedule.
Eleven regional three-day workshops will offer interactive
training in animal intake, reclaim, and lost-and-found; shelter
management; emergency management; safety; search and rescue, the
emotional aspects of disaster response; and disaster preparedness.
“Participants will stay on-site the entire three days,”
spokes-person Shari Thompson said, “to give them a realistic
experience of the physical challenges of responding to a disaster.”
Workshop dates and locations include March 4-6 in
Charles-ton, South Carolina; March 18-20 in Tulsa, Oklahoma;
April 1-3 in Nashville, Tennessee; April 22-24 in Columbus, Ohio;
May 6-8 in Boston; May 20-22 in Flagstaff, Arizona; May 27-29 in
Prince George, British Columbia; June 3-5 in Cheyenne, Wyoming;
June 24-26 in Seattle; July 8-10 in Monterey, California; July
22-24 in Edmonton, Alberta; and August in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Contact Noah’s Wish c/o P.O. Box 997, Placerville, CA 95667;
530-622-9313; fax 530-622-9317; <info@noahswish.org>;
<www.noahswish.org>.

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