Month: September 2005

News from the Islamic world war zones

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

The World Wildlife Fund, which usually supports trophy
hunting as a conservation strategy, is opposing a scheme advanced by
Mumtaz Malik, chief conservator of Northwestern Frontier Province,
Pakistan, to introduce trophy hunting for leopards. Officially,
about 40 snow leopards survive in Pakistan, but hunters and herders
claim there are 150-250. Two were shot in June after one snow
leopard allegedly killed six women in two weeks by pouncing down on
them from trees as they gathered firewood near Abbottabad. Malik
claims to have saved markhor mountain goats, a prey species for snow
leopards, by introducing markhor trophy hunting.

Thirty-five small herds totaling 155 markor, a mountain goat
standing six feet tall at the shoulder, have recently been
rediscovered near the Line of Control dividing Kashmir, India, from
Pakistan. “As recently as 1970 there were 25,000 on the Indian
side,” reported Justin Huggler, Delhi correspondent for The
Independent, “but by 1997 they had been poached to near extinction,”
as troops and guerillas often turned their guns from fighting over
the boundary to profiteering on the sale of the markors’ spectacular
spiral horns.

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BOOKS: Animal Rights In South Africa

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

Animal Rights In South Africa by Michele Pickover
Double Storey Books (Mercury Crescent, Wetton, Cape Town 7880,
South Africa), 2005. 209 pages, paperback. 154 rand (about $22.00
U.S. .)

Pickover is a well-known and respected member of the
pitifully small South African animal rights community. In a country
where hunting cage-reared lions has become a significant rural
industry, her book is an important contribution to the causes of
both animal welfare and animal rights, between which she draws a
sharp distinction.
Early chapters describe the harm done to wild animals by
hunters, and analyse the so-called game industry, which facilitates
the slaughter. Pickover then summarizes the 1998-1999 Tuli elephant
scandal, involving the illegal capture of baby elephants in Botswana
whose subsequent abuse in South Africa was finally brought to a
semblance of courtroom justice in 2003.
Chapter 4 is a shocking expose of commercial exploitation of
wildlife in Kruger National Park. Pickover exposes the South African
National Parks Board as in essence a game farming operation, using
the national wildlife heritage as a private stock-in-trade.

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Wool industry & live transport developments

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

“If animals have been subjected to cruelties in their
breeding, transport, slaughter, or in their general welfare, meat
from them is considered impure and unlawful to eat,” taught the late
imam B.A. Hafiz al-Masri of the Shah Jehan Mosque in England,
quoting parts of the Q’ran and Hadiths (sayings) of the Prophet which
forbid cruelty to animals.
Exposing crulety in the shipment of animals to the Middle
East for slaughter, and mulesing, the practice of cutting away
skin flaps from the anal region of sheep to prevent flystrike, PETA
in June 2005 tried to air a paid ad depicting mulesing and quoting
al-Masri on Al Jazeera, the Qatar TV network known for gruesome war
coverage, but the ad was refused.
The Australian Wool Growers Association in August 2005 broke
with the rest of the Australian sheep industry and agreed to end
mulesing by 2010 if PETA would lift a boycott of Australian wool
exports. Australian agriculture minister Peter McGauran and the
Australian Sheep & Wool Industry Taskforce rejected the deal. ASWIT
is a coalition including the National Farmers Federation and
WoolProducers, the largest organization representing the sheep trade.

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International legislation

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

National People’s Congress agriculture and rural affairs
committee vice chair Shu Huiguo on August 24 submitted a draft animal
welfare bill to the congress, which if approved would become the
first Chinese federal anti-cruelty legislation. The bill “refers to
the animals’ right to be free from hunger, misery, disease, and
fear,” explained the Xinhua News Agency. “The draft law also
stipulates that farmers should provide a proper environment for
animals to live and reproduce.”

Switzerland, Japan, and Tasmania state, Australia, are
all reportedly close to adopting new legislation governing various
aspects of raising and selling livestock and pets. In Canada,
however, where the national anti-cruelty law has not been updated in
109 years despite seven years of attempts, New Brunswick Senator
John Bryden warned in mid-August that he has enough support from
farmers, hunters, fishers, and animal researchers to block passage
of C-50, the current version of the proposed update. This caused
Conservative party justice critic Vic Toews to back away from
endorsing the bill, which is unlikely to pass without support from
all major parties.

Changing of the animal guard at Fort Mason, San Francisco

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

SAN FRANCISCO–A July 31 grand opening marked the transfer of
the former Fund for Animals office in San Francisco to Animal
Switchboard, still under direction of Virginia Handley and her
assistant Elizabeth Keller.
The office was closed on May 1, after the Fund merged into
the Humane Society of the U.S. at the beginning of 2005, but was
retained by Animal Switchboard with the encouragement of PawPAC,
Action for Animals, Vigil for Animals, and the Animal Welfare
Association.
Animal Switchboard was begun in 1970 by Handley’s mother,
Grace Handley, assisted by Virginia and longtime Animal Welfare
Association volunteer Gloria Chavarria. Together they shared advice
about animal-related problems and referred callers to appropriate
veterinary and humane services. While Virginia Handley went on to
work for the Fund, Grace Handley continued Animal Switchboard for
more than 20 years. Chavarria kept it going after she died.
Contact: Animal Switchboard, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA
94123; 415-474-4021; <www.animalswitchboard.org>.

UW seeks to block opening of antivivisection museum

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

MADISON–The Primate Freedom Project and Alliance for Animals
on July 4, 2005 announced plans to create a National Primate
Research Exhibition Hall in a complex of dilapidated buildings
presently used as a bicycle warehouse, located between the Wisconsin
National Primate Research Center and the Harry H. Harlow Primate
Psychology Building.
Owned by the University of Wiscon-sin, the two primate labs
have housed some of the most infamous experiments ever.
Harlow from 1930 to 1970 drove generations of baby macaques
mad there, plunging them into stainless steel “pits of despair,”
subjecting them to deliberately cruel robotic “mothers,” and
allowing mothers driven insane by his experiments to abuse and kill
them.
Primate Freedom founder Rick Bogle likened the proposed
National Primate Research Center to “having the Holocaust Memorial at
the gates of Auschwitz in 1944.” He had a nine-month purchase option
on the site, he said, which he hoped would be time enough to raise
the $675,000 purchase price of the warehouse site, assessed at only
$150,000 for tax purposes.
But there was a catch.

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AVMA refuses to condemn foie gras, amends sow crate policy, excludes critics from hall

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

MINNEAPOLIS–The American Veterinary Medical Association
House of Delegates on July 16, 2005 unanimously defeated a
resolution asking the AVMA to formally find inhumane the practice of
force-feeding ducks and geese to produce foie gras.
The resolution was rejected, AVMA publicist Sharon Granskog
said, “because limited peer-reviewed scientific information dealing
with the animal welfare concerns associated with foie gras is
available, and because the observations and practical experience of
members indicate a minimum of adverse effects on the birds involved.”
Charged Farm Sanctuary in a membership alert, “The AVMA
House of Delegates rejected the 1998 Report of the Scientific
Committee on Welfare Aspects of the Production of Foie Gras in Ducks
and Geese as being out-dated.”
The resolution was squelched, Farm Sanctuary alleged, “due
to opposition by the American Association of Avian Veterinarians,
the American Association of Avian Pathologists, and the New York
State Veterinary Medical Association. These organizations claimed
that their recent visits to foie gras farms in New York revealed
proper care of birds. However, in previous unannounced visits to
the same farm, ducks were videotaped in diseased and filthy
conditions.”

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Hired & promoted

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

Joyce D’Silva, heading Compassion In
World Farming since 1991, retired on August 8,
2004, succeeded by former World Society for the
Protection of Animals communications director
Philip Lymbery. D’Silva continues with CIWF in
the newly created position of ambassador,
representing CIWF in foreign affairs.
WSPA has promoted two-year staffer Leah
Garcés to director of campaigns, hired former
advertising executive Emma Hall as public
relations director, and added ex-British Army
Air-borne Forces officer Nigel Wilson as disaster
relief director.
The Escondido Humane Society has hired
Sally Costello, 46, to succeed former executive
director Phil Morgan, who now heads the Northern
Arizona Second Chance Center for Animals in
Flagstaff. Costello, reported San Diego
Union-Tribune staff writer Craig Gustafson, “is
a former health and safety manager for Air
Products & Chemicals Inc.,” who cofounded a
local nonprofit organization called San Diego
Community Awareness & Emergency Response.

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New state legislation

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

The North Carolina legislature on August 17, 2005
incorporated into the state budget a set of standards for animal
shelters, to take effect on October 1, which will require that
euthanasia technicians be properly trained and forbid use of any
methods to kill animals other than lethal injection and carbon
monoxide. “The majority of counties in the Carolinas and in the
Charlotte region use gas to kill most animals, even though the
method is banned by at least two states,” wrote Michelle Crouch of
the Charlotte Observer. “Most use lethal injection to put down sick
and young animals, but say they can’t afford to use it every time.”
Earlier, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley signed a bill
requiring petting zoos to be licensed and inspected. The bill was
introduced after 108 children suffered e- coli infections after
visiting petting zoos at the North Carolina State Fair in 2004.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on August 12, 2005 vetoed
a bill which would have allowed fur trappers to use cable snares,
banned in the state for more than 50 years. Blagojevich on August
22 endorsed into law a bill establishing a fund for subsidized dog
and cat sterilization, supported by a surcharge of $3.00 on rabies
vaccinations. American SPCA senior director of legal training and
legislation Ledy VanKavage predicted that the surcharge would
“generate around $2.5 million a year.”

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