Month: July 2005

82% of caged broilers are burned by urine

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

LONDON–Examining the carcasses of 384 broiler hens raised
according to the British Farm Standard and offered for sale on
supermarket shelves, an investigation commissioned by the Royal SPCA
and directed by Cambridge University professor Donald Broom reported
in July 2005 that 82% had been burned on their legs or bodies by
prolonged contact with ammonia from feces.
“Lack of space and fast-growing bodies that can become too
heavy to be supported by their legs increases the likelihood of birds
receiving painful burns, as the birds spend more time in contact
with floor litter,” said RSPCA scientific officer Marc Cooper.
Among 25 organically raised free range chickens whose
carcasses were inspected, 42% had burns, the researchers found.
The RSPCA findings were released five weeks after the BBC
Programme Com-plaints Unit upheld a British Poultry Council complaint
that the BBC “Food Police Programme” showed bias against the poultry
industry in a 2004 expose of ammonia burns.
“The use of surreptitiously filmed material and reference to
Compassion In World Farming campaign efforts did not of themselves
give rise to bias” the Complaints Unit said, “but, together with
other features of the item, they implied criticisms of the
poultry-rearing industry which there should have been an opportunity
to address.

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Obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

Ed Piukowsky, 52, died of a heart attack on July 9, 2005,
at home in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The son of a police dog
handler, Piukowsky and his wife Bonnie Lanzen-dorfer Piukowsky
founded the Jollyman Animal Sanctuary in 2002. Blairsville Dispatch
reporter Jeff Himler in April 2005 listed the residents as “16 dogs,
50 cats, six chickens, three goats, a dozen each of geese and
ducks, two peafowl, a rabbit and a parrot.” Recalled Dogs Deserve
Better anti-chaining group founder Tammy Grimes, “Ed was very
supportive of me and my work, and had me speak at their fundraisers
each of the past three years. The first time was my first time ever
speaking, and I was so nervous I thought I’d die. I spoke for a
whole 30 seconds, but it was enough to get me past the point of
trying. He told me each year, ‘See, I knew you were going to go
far, didn’t I tell you that?’ He was so proud of me and the
progress we have made.”

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Compromise & the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

Editorially favoring hunting, trapping,
fishing, ranching, logging, rodeo, and animal
use in biomedical research, the Spokane
Spokesman-Review has probably never in recent
decades been mistaken for an exponent of animal
rights.
Yet on September 15, 1952 the
Spokesman-Review became perhaps the first and
only daily newspaper in the U.S. to editorially
endorse “A Charter of Rights for Animals,”
drafted by the World Federation for the
Protection of Animals.
The oldest of the three organizations
whose mergers eventually produced today’s World
Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA),
the Dutch-based World Federation then represented
“humane societies in 25 countries,” the
Spokesman-Review editors noted.
“Most civilized countries already have
laws to cover most of the protection for animals
that the federation asks,” the Spokesman-Review
continued. “Beating animals, forcing them to do
work beyond their strength, transporting them in
a manner to cause pain or without adequate food,
all are punishable now in the U.S., for example.”

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PETA staffers face 62 felony cruelty counts in North Carolina

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

WINTON, N.C.–The scheduled first court appearance of PETA
staffers Adria Joy Hinkle and Andrew Benjamin Cook on multiple
cruelty charges was on July 19, 2005 postponed until August 16.
Hinkle, 27, and Cook, 24, are charged with a combined 62
counts of felony cruelty to animals and 16 counts of illegal disposal
of animal remains.
Police sources have indicated that other persons associated
with PETA may be charged as result of ongoing investigation.
The court date was delayed, reported Darren Freeman of the
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, because the prosecution was “waiting for
lab results on chemicals found in a van the two suspects were using
when they were arrested, and the results to determine the cause of
death of one of the animals.”
Ahoskie, North Carolina police detective Jeremy Roberts told Freeman
that the van was registered to PETA.
Roberts announced the next day that the tests had confirmed
that the chemicals were ketamine and pentobarbital. Ketamine is
commonly used to immobilize animals before surgical procedures or
lethal injection. Pentobarbital is the standard drug used for lethal
injection. Both drugs are regulated by the federal Drug Enforcement
Agency, and in North Carolina may only be purchased and used by a
licensed veterinarian.

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White tigers, green polar bears, & maintaining a world-class zoo

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

SINGAPORE–When the tigers are white and the polar bears are
a blotchy dark green, a zoo has problems.
Opened in June 1973, the Singapore Zoo and adjacent Night
Safari are together reputedly the best zoo complex within half a
global orbit, together setting the Asian zoo design and management
standard.
More than 1.2 million visitors per year view about 3,200
animals of 330 mostly tropical species at the Singapore Zoo and Night
Safari.
The animals are chiefly housed in semi-natural surroundings.
The equatorial Singapore climate is good for reptiles year-round,
including some of the largest tortoises, most active monitors, and
largest gharials and salt water crocodiles on exhibit anywhere.
Pygmy hippos thrive. Both Old World and New World monkeys
and big cats are uncommonly lively.
But there are jarring notes.
The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore banned
traveling wild animal shows in 2002, yet the Singapore Zoo and Night
Safari still feature circus-like orangutan and marine mammal acts,
opportunities to hold and be photographed with young animals, and
elephant rides.

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Study confirms chicken cognition

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

SILSOE, U.K.–Hens pecking buttons to
earn food rewards may have a better awareness of
passing time and be better able to assess the
prospects of future gain than human slot machine
gamblers, a new British study suggests.
Silsoe Research Institute Bio-physics
Group animal welfare scientist Siobhan
Abeyesinghe varied the “payout” for pecking so
that her hens would get only a small amount of
food if they pecked quickly, but would receive a
large amount if they delayed their pecks for 22
seconds, long enough to demonstrate the ability
to mentally clock their own behavior and show
deliberate self-restraint.
Researching poultry welfare since 1996,
Abeyesinghe emphasized the welfare implications
of her findings in describing them for the
journal Animal Behavior.

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