Month: May 2005

Denver pit bull terrier ban is reinstated by court & is again enforced

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar’s office on April 20,
2005 announced through spokesperson Kristin Hubbell that his office
will not appeal an April 7 ruling by Judge Martin Engelhoff that the
Colorado state legislature had no right under the state constitution
to usurp the authority of local governments to enact breed-specific
animal control ordinances.
The verdict reinstated the Denver ban on possessing pit bull
terriers, in effect from 1989 until it was overturned by the
legislature in May 2004. In the interim, Denver largely avoided the
eight-fold surge in pit bull terrier attacks and four-fold surge in
animal shelter admissions of pit bulls that has afflicted most of the
rest of the U.S.
Engelhoff previously upheld the Denver ordinance in December
2004, but city officials did not resume enforcing the ordinance
while it was still under state appeal. Denver Animal Control
received six pit bulls as owner surrenders and animal control
officers picked up six on May 9, the first day of resumed
enforcement. The Table Mountain Animal Center in Golden and the
Humane Society of Colorado in Englewood also reported receiving more
pit bulls than usual.

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Human obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

Elmina Brewster Sewall, 93, died on April 7, 2005 in
Kennebunk, Maine. Among the first breeders of Sussex spaniel show
dogs in the U.S., Brewster Sewall “between 1936 and 1940, imported
some of the best stock available in England,” and “went on to breed
seven litters over the next six years,” wrote John Robert Lewis Jr.
in Sussex Spaniel, A Complete and Reliable Handbook (1997). Brewster
Sewall also “bred and raised pugs, and was a familiar figure at the
Westminster Dog Show,” recalled Katie Dolloff, program coordinator
for the Animal Welfare Society of Southern Maine. But she had also
become concerned about pet overpopulation, and in the 1950s allowed
her line of Sussex spaniels to die out. After several years of
informal animal rescue, Brewster Sewall and friends incorporated the
Animal Welfare Society in 1967. A longtime AWS board member,
Brewster Sewall was also active in greyhound rescue, and assisted
other charities including Mainely Girls, Friends of the Sea Otter,
the Student Conservation Association, and the Massachusetts SPCA.
The AWS named the Elmina B. Sewall Animal Shelter after her in 1990.
It finds homes for more than 3,000 animals a year,” Dolloff said.

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Wisconsin hunters, birders vote to shoot cats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

MILWAUKEE–A brown tabby named Junior and three unidentified
cats found shot on a road near a Sheboygan cemetery on April 11 were
apparent early casualties of a Wisconsin Conservation Congress
proposal to allow hunters to shoot feral cats. On April 11 the
statewide Conservation Congress caucuses ratified the proposal,
6,830 (57%) in favor, 5,201 (43%) against.
Junior, normally an indoor cat, escaped on Easter Sunday,
April 3, from the home of Kirk and Liz Obear, and their daughters,
ages 9 and 12. They put up posters and searched for him. A neighbor
found his remains, and the remains of the other cats, while walking
her dog about a mile away.
Before shooting cats becomes legal in Wisconsin, the
proposal must be formally endorsed by the Wisconsin Natural Resources
Board, which was to consider it on May 13. The Wisconsin
Legislature would then have to pass it in the form of a law.
Governor Jim Doyle would have to sign the law.
“I don’t think Wisconsin should become known as a state where
we shoot cats,” Doyle said.

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Jailed because she spoke out for dolphins

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

CANCUN, Mexico–Dolphin defender Araceli
Dominguez, chair of Grupo Ecologista del Mayab
(GEMA), was released from jail without charges on
April 28, 2005, five days after she was
detained on a libel writ filed by Bernardo
Zambrano, owner of the Atlantida dolphinarium
and Parc Nizuc Wet N’ Wild swim-with-dolphins
attraction.
Zambrano, son of CEMEX cement company
chair Lorenzo Zambrano, claimed Dominguez
defamed him by reporting that a dolphin recently
died at one of his facilities.
Dominguez “was released in the early
morning hours, just after a representative of
the Governor of the State of Quintana Roo went
around midnight personally to the prison,”
e-mailed Ntailan Lolkoki of Ecoterra
International.
“Zambrano was forced to drop all criminal
charges against Dominguez [and co-defendants] Sara Rincon, head of the Association to Protect
Animals of Cancun, Cecilia Navarro from
Greenpeace Mexico, Ben White of the Animal
Welfare Institute, five local reporters, and
Yolanda Alaniz from Comarino,” the Ecoterra
announcement continued.

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Weaning zoos from elephants

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

BANGALORE, NAIROBI, SALT LAKE CITY, CHICAGO, DETROIT,
SAN FRANCISCO– “In a jumbo victory for Bangalore animal activists,
Lord Ganesha has showered his benediction on Veda, a 6-year-old baby
elephant at the Bannerghatta Biological Park in Karnataka, India.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decided that Veda will not be sent
as a diplomatic gift to the Yerevan Zoo in Armenia,” announced
Compassion Unlimited Plus Action founder Suparna Ganguly on April 29.
“Karnataka State got their official letter today from the
prime minister’s office that the decision to send the baby elephant
has been cancelled,” Ganguly elaborated to ANIMAL PEOPLE. “We had a
Thanksgiving with the elephants at Bannerghatta.”
Confirmed Govind D. Belgaumkar of The Hindu,
“Bangaloreans–schoolchildren and parents, as well as other animal
lovers–on Friday celebrated the government decision to leave Veda
with her mother Vanita, grandmother Suvarna, brother Gokula, and
little sister Gowri. People distributed sweets, touched Veda, and
prayed for her long life.”
That was one week after the Nairobi newspaper The Nation
hinted that Youth for Conservation might have won a parallel struggle
to block the export of as many as 318 elephants, hippos, lions,
zebras, giraffes, gazelles, and members of about 20 other species
from Kenya to Thailand.

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What happened to the hippos?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

KAMPALA–Did anthrax kill the hippos, or was it poison?
What became of their teeth? Who was responsible?
“We have lost 287 hippos since July 2004,” Uganda Wildlife Authority
veterinary coordinator Patrick Atimnedi told fellow members of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases in March 2005.
“So far, we have lost about 11% of the hippo population.
“August 2004 was the peak of mortality,” Atimnedi continued,
“declining toward December. We were surprised with a resurgence from
January 2005.
“So far the source of infection is unclear,” Atimnedi
admitted. “[Mass] hippo mortalities have occurred in this park in
the last 50 years, usually in 10-year cycles. These, however,
would affect at most not more than 30 hippos, and were mainly
associated with drought.”
Atimnedi is certain that anthrax is the lethal agent. “All
cases are actually being investigated,” Atimnedi emphasized,
mentioning visits by foreign experts and samples sent to laboratories
outside Uganda to confirm his observations.

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Japan looks to South Korea for help in restarting commercial whaling

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

ULSAN, South Korea–Japanese whalers expect a home town edge
when the 57th meeting of the International Whaling Commission
convenes June 20-24 in Ulsan, South Korea.
The IWC meeting will start 10 days after the end of a 12-day
series of preliminary meetings on scientific issues.
“Ulsan is opening a $6-million whale museum this month on an
otherwise dilapidated wharf across from a shabby strip of whale
restaurants,” Los Angeles Times staff writer Barbara Demick reported
on May 2. On an adjacent lot, groundbreaking is expected soon on a
site for a whale research center, which is to include a processing
facility for whale meat.”
“Dozens of speciality restaurants along the waterfront of
South Korea’s self-proclaimed whale capital” sell whale meat, Demick
explained.
Retired whaler Son Nam Su, 69, told Demick that hunting and eating
whales is a cultural legacy of the Japanese occupation of Korea,
1910-1945, and that at peak the South Korean whaling fleet killed
about 1,000 whales per year.

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Sheep export protester Hahnheuser is acquitted

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

GEELONG, Australia–A Geelong County Court jury on May 6,
2005 acquitted Ralph Hahnheuser, 42, of “contaminating feed to
cause economic loss.”
Hahnheuser admitted adding shredded pork to the water and
feed given to sheep at a feedlot in Portland, South Australia, on
November 19, 2003, as he immediately afterward announced to news
media. Hahnheuser pleaded innocent by reason of having committed the
act to prevent cruelty to the sheep, who were to have been shipped
to Kuwait the next day.
Islamic dietary law forbids eating pork or having contact
with it. Hahnheuser hoped that the sheep would not be exported if
they were known to have possibly consumed pork. The shipment of
about 70,000 sheep was delayed for two weeks. Represent-atives of
two sheep exporting firms estimated that the action cost them $1.3
million (Australian funds).

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Judges rap canned hunts

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

The Tennessee Court of Appeals in Nashville on May 3 upheld
the 1991 state ban on private possession of white-tailed deer. Game
ranchers first brought the law before the Tennessee Court of Appeals
in 1997, lost, and tried again with different arguments in 1999 and
2004.

District Judge Dorothy McCarter, of Helena, Montana, on
May 2, 2005 ruled that Initiative 143, which in 2000 outlawed game
farming, was not an illegal “taking” of private property. Her
verdict paralleled the February 12 reasoning of District Judge David
Rice, of Havre, in a parallel case.

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