Month: December 2005

BOOKS: Canada Goose Habitat Modification Manual

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

Canada Goose Habitat Modification Manual
by Donald S. Heintzelman
Friends of Animals (777 Post Road, Suite 205, Darien, CT 06820),
2005. 16 pages, illus. $4.00.

“Just as world-renowned ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson
opposed mute swan egg-addling, Friends of Animals opposes addling
Canada goose eggs,” the FoA Canada Goose Habitat Modification Manual
opens. “Addling–destroying eggs by shaking, piercing, or coating
the eggs with oil–is invasive and traumatic for these famously
protective nesters.”
Many humane organizations including GeesePeace reluctantly
promote addling as at least less invasive and traumatic than killing
geese. The moral issue involved is comparable to the question of
whether or not to spay a pregnant cat or dog, when the alternative
is that more homeless cats or dogs may be killed by animal control.
In New Jersey, for instance, with 4.3 non-migratory Canada
geese per square kilometer, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
recommends that as many as 57,000 geese should be killed during the
next 10 years, to try to achieve a 40% population reduction.
Intensive egg-addling is also part of the plan.

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PETA wins a round in lawsuit against Ringling Bros. spies

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

VIENNA, Virginia– Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge David
Stitt on December 7 sanctioned Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey circus
owner Kenneth Feld for failing to provide copies of documents to
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in compliance with the
process of discovery.
PETA sued Ringling and Feld Entertainment Inc. in 2001 for
allegedly funding numerous acts of infiltration and disruption,
beginning more than a decade earlier. The case is scheduled for
trial in February 2006.
Judge Stitt ordered Kenneth Feld to disclose his net worth
and recent tax returns to PETA and to surrender unredacted copies
of documents including a 30-page “Ringling Bros. Long Term Animal
Welfare Plan Draft #5.” Attorney Philip Hirschkop, representing
PETA, testified that a copy previously sent to PETA was mostly
blacked out.
Stitt also ordered Feld to provide copies of any other
documents produced by the Feld “Animal issues department.”
Recalled Associated Press writer Matthew Barakat, “In August
2005, Feld’s lawyers were ordered to pay more than $50,000 in fines
to PETA for contempt of court,” after similar incidents.

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FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries Into PETA; Other Groups Tracked

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; A11

FBI counterterrorism investigators are monitoring domestic U.S. advocacy
groups engaged in antiwar, environmental, civil rights and other causes,
the American Civil Liberties Union charged yesterday as it released new
FBI records that it said detail the extent of the activity.

The documents, disclosed as part of a lawsuit that challenges FBI
treatment of groups that planned demonstrations at last year’s political
conventions, show the bureau has opened a preliminary terrorism
investigation into People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the
well-known animal rights group based in Norfolk.

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Six months of struggle for Swiss anti-vivisection umbrella culminate in silent march

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

ST. GALLEN, Switzerland–Striving to regain stability after
operating under three presidents and undergoing a complete board
turnover since July 2005, the Swiss antivivisection society
Aktionsgemeinschaft Schweizer Tierversuchsgegner on December 17,
2005 led the silent march against animal experiments in St. Gallen
that has traditionally been the focal AGSTG activity.
The march was to be followed by the AGSTG annual membership meeting.
Formed as an intended collective voice for Swiss
antivivisection organizations, the AGSTG throughout the latter part
of 2005 posted the march and meeting schedule and otherwise asked web
site visitors to come back later.
The 2005 turmoil developed out of a financial crisis worsening for at
least five years. After experiencing investment portfolio losses of
1.5 million francs in 2001, and 1.75 million francs in 2002, the
AGSTG lost 1.74 million francs in just the first quarter of 2003,
according to financial statements obtained by ANIMAL PEOPLE.
In March 2003 the AGSTG hired a new chief executive,
Thorsten Tonjes, 34, on a half-time salary. Tonjes succeeded Peter
Beck, who is also president of Animal Life Germany and remained as
AGSTG vice president. Working from a home office, Tonjes more than
doubled AGSTG spending. This apparently stimulated AGSTG income,
but huge deficits continued.

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Marine Mammal Center gets new HQ

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

SAUSALITO, Calif.–The Marine Mammal Center on November 10
broke ground for a new $18 million head office and hospital, to open
in 2007 on the site of the aging original facilities.
Handling marine mammal strandings from Mendocino to San Luis
Obispo, the Marine Mammal Center has treated more than 11,000
California sea lions, sea otters, elephant seals, whales,
dolphins, and porpoises since opening at a former Nike missile base
within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, north of San
Francisco, in 1975.
“Retired founder Lloyd Smalley started out using bathtubs,
children’s wading pools, and chicken wire to create makeshift pens,”
recalled San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Jim Doyle. “Volunteers
and staff have worked out of buildings composed of freight containers
that were welded together. The pens are too small for the animals
and not large enough for volunteers to maneuver safely around them.
The water filtration system constantly breaks down.”
“The center has been patched, added to and cobbled together
over 30 years,” Marine Mammal Center executive director B.J. Griffin
told Doyle. “We have learned what works and what doesn’t.”
The Marine Mammal Center also has facilities in Anchor Bay,
Mont-erey, and San Luis Obispo, plus a gift shop and interpretive
center in San Francisco. Together, the five sites host about
100,000 visitors per year.

Advertising & the AV front

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

The British Advertising Standards Authority on December 6,
2005 upheld complaints against the Europeans for Medical Progress
anti-vivisection pamphlet Our Children’s Health. The Association of
Medical Research Charities and Research Defence Society argued that
Our Children’s Health includes five misleading claims, such as that
“Treatment of childhood leukemia has improved dramatically, thanks
entirely to ingenious research on cell and tissue cultures–not to
animal experiments.” Europeans for Medical Progress “supported its
claim with examples of research from the early 20th century,” wrote
Guardian science correspondent Alok Jha. “The Advertising Standards
Authority considered that ‘Readers are unlikely to regard research
conducted in the 1940s and 1950s to be recent improvements.'”

The American Association of Equine Practitioners and the
Foundation for Biomedical Research on December 6, 2005 announced at
the AAEP annual convention in Seattle that they will jointly mount a
web site to promote awareness of advances in equine and human health
care resulting from experiments on horses. Washington State
University veterinary clinical sciences chair Rick DeBowes told media
about degenerative conditions often shared by horses and humans. FBR
founder and thoroughbred breeder Frankie Trull said the joint
campaign will include “30-second television public service
announcements narrated by cowboy poet and veterinarian Baxter Black,”
along with “trading cards, bookmarks, and a barn poster,” reported
Kimberly S. Herbert, editor of the online magazine
<www.TheHorse.com>.

Gorilla Foundation settles two of three lawsuits

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

WOODSIDE, Calif.–Associated Press reported on December 1,
2005 that former Gorilla Foundation employees Nancy Alperin, 47,
and Kendra Keller, 48, have settled a lawsuit they jointly filed
in February 2005, claiming they were fired for refusing to expose
their breasts to Koko, the signing gorilla whose care is focus of
the foundation program. Alperin and Keller also contended that they
worked unpaid overtime and were obliged to work amid unsanitary
conditions.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Alperin had
asked for $719,830 and Keller for $366,192. A parallel suit filed by
a third ex-employee, Iris Rivera, 39, is still pending,
Associated Press said.
Alperin and Keller said they were fired one day after
California occupational health and safety inspectors fined the
Gorilla Foundation $300 for violations that were later corrected,
San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Patricia Yollin reported.

Congressman calls for Fossey fund audit

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

KIGALI, DULUTH–Responding to concerns expressed in July
2005 by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Representative Jim Oberstar
(D-Minnesota) has asked the U.S. Agency for International Development
to audit the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.
The focal issue appears to be whether the organization has
fulfilled pledges to promote community economic development near the
Karisoke Research Center that the late Dian Fossey founded in Rwanda.
“My office has for two months been heavily investigating the
possible misdirection of federal funds by the Dian Fossey Gorilla
Fund International,” Oberstar in mid-November 2005 told Patrick
Bigabo of the Kigali New Times. Oberstar explained that the terms
of USAid grants to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International require
audits, which have not been presented.
Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International president Clare
Richardson told Bigabo that she had presented audits to both Kagame
and USAid in March 2005.

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Self-starters & special project updates

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

The Humane Research Council, recently formed by longtime
Seattle activist Che Green, has published an analytical overview of
more than 25 studies done between 1943 and 2005 on the vegetarianism,
veganism, and meat avoidance among U.S. adults. Studies done since
2000 indicate that from two to six million Americans are actual
vegans and vegetarians, eight to 13 million call themselves
vegetarians, 25 to 33 million eat meat with less than half of their
meals, 46 to 54 million are actively reducing their meat
consumption, and 73 to 105 million eat meatless meals by choice 2-3
times per week. The complete report is available from
<info@humaneresearch.org>.

Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide, formed
in 1990 by then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III and his wife
Susa, in December 2005 honored U.S. consular volunteer Robert
Blumberg of Colombo, Sri Lanka, for responding “to the needs of
lost dogs, cats, and other animals” after the December 26, 2004
Indian Ocean tsunami. “Robert recognized the danger of rabies that
unvaccinated pets posed to the general population,” the award
announcement summarized. He formed a coalition,” initially funded
by ANIMAL PEOPLE, “to vaccinate as many animals as they could.

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