Month: January 2006

Obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

Tony Banks, 62, died on January 7, 2006 from a stroke
sufferedon vacation at Sanibel Island, Florida. A Member of
Parlia-ment 1983-2004, sports minister 1997-1999, and named to the
House of Lords in mid-2005, Banks was a vegetarian and “a staunch
animal welfarist who played a key role in having hunting with dogs
banned in Britain,” World Society for the Protection of Animals
director general Peter Davies recalled. “He was also a strong
supporter of my separate charity which erected the Memorial to
Animals in War in Park Lane, London,” Davies said. Added League
Against Cruel Sports chair John Cooper, “In his firm belief that
people have a moral responsibility to animals, Banks was not just a
figurehead for millions of animal welfare supporters across Britain,
but a determined street fighter in the corridors of Westminster.”
At his death Banks was League Against Cruel Sports vice president.

Ethel Thurston, 94, died at home in New York City on
January 4, 2006. A longtime professor at Hunter College, Bryn
Mawr, New York University, and the Manhattan College of Music,
Thurston was globally known as a musicologist who recreated the
original sounds of compositions from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
But Thurston was legendary, friend Sara Sohn recalled, as “a
pioneer of the animal rights movement, who devoted the last three
decades of her life to running the two organizations she founded.

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Animal Obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

Angus, 27, believed to be the world’s biggest captive
elephant, was found dead on January 8 by his trainer, Michael
Hackenberger, at the Bowmanville Zoo near Toronto. The star of the
Bowmanville Zoo elephant ride concession for 20 years, Angus died
about 30 hours after a sedative test given in preparation for
retiring him to the Pumba private game reserve near Port Elizabeth,
South Africa. Born in Kruger National Park, Angus was captured at
age two. He toured with the Garden Brothers Circus and briefly
resided at zoos in Quebec and Texas before arriving at Bowmanville
with Hackenberger and his wife, zoo veterinarian Wendy Korver. A
highlight of his life was swimming with beluga whales in the St.
Lawrence River on one occasion while on tour.

Ragtime, 19, a miniature performing horse who was involved
in a landmark 1989 zoning dispute in Thousand Oaks, California,
died on January 2, four days after his trainers, Rich & Patty
Fairchild, moved him and his mate Sassy to Colorado Springs.

Greenpeace, Sea Shepherds chase whalers

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

SOUTHERN OCEANS WHALE SANCTUARY–Neither Australia, New
Zealand, nor the United Nations defends the Antarctic whale
sanctuary declared in 1974 by the International Whaling Commission,
so Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society did it
themselves in December 2005 and January 2006, while the Japanese
whaling fleet sought to kill 935 minke whales and 10 fin whales
within the sanctuary limits –which Japan does not recognize.
Greenpeace pursued the whalers with two ships, the Esperanza
and the Arctic Sunrise, a helicopter, and combined crews of 60
people, including two photographers and two videographers. For
Greenpeace, wrote Geoff Strong of the Melbourne Age, “the most
important weapon is not the water spray designed to confuse the
harpoonists’ aim,” a new tactic used to reported great effect, “but
the new satellite Internet link that allows them to send fresh
broadcast-quality images.
“Sea Shepherd has a different method of disseminating the
message,” Strong continued. Aboard the Farley Mowat were “an
embedded contingent of independent media, including representatives
from Australia’s Seven network, National Geographic, and
documentary filmmakers from the U.S., France, Brazil, and Canada.
“The whalers have a public relations machine too,” Strong
noted. “For the first time they too have been releasing images.”

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So why doesn’t the Belgrade Zoo cage the war criminals & leave the elephant in India?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

BELGRADE, Serbia–Belgrade Zoo director Vukosav Bojovic
sought publicity in mid-January 2006 for his intended acquisition of
an elephant named Djanom from an unnamed zoo in Punjab, India.
The Belgrade Zoo got publicity on January 11, 2006 as scene
of Associated Press file photos showing former Croatian Serb
paramilitary commander Dragan Vasiljkovic kissing a brown bear named
Kninja and her two cubs. Vasiljkovic visited the zoo on Sept-ember
19, 2005 to visit Kninja, formerly mascot of his militia unit.
Croatia on January 11 issued an international warrant seeking
Vasiljkovic’s arrest for alleged 1991 war crimes including torturing,
killing, and expelling Croatian civilians as well as soldiers from
their homes, plus arranging the assassination of Egon Scotland, 43,
who documented some of Vasiljkovic’s actions for the Munich daily
newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Believed to be living in Perth, Australia, Vasiljkovic,
51, “had petty convictions against him and was involved in
Melbourne’s brothel industry in the 1970s,” reported Natasha Robinson
of The Australian.

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1958 slaughter act protects all species, say lawsuits

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

SAN FRANCISCO, WASHINGTON D.C.–Separate
federal lawsuits filed by the Humane Society of
the U.S. and the Humane Farming Association
contend that Congress meant the 1958 Humane
Methods of Slaughter Act to cover all species who
are routinely killed for human consumption.
Filed in San Francisco one month apart,
both lawsuits place jurisdiction for the first
ruling and first two steps of the inevitable
appellate phase before the Ninth U.S. Judicial
Circuit, a court which has historically been
more friendly toward animals than most other
jurisdictions.
USDA enforcement of the Humane Methods of
Slaughter Act, as well as being sporadic and
uneven, has always exempted poultry, rabbits,
and ranched “wildlife” species such as bison,
deer, and elk. In consequence, more than 95%
of all the animals slaughtered for meat in the
U.S. have had no legal protection from cruelty.

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Ghosts of 9/11 & December 7 haunt animal advocacy

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

Then-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that
December 7, 1941 was “A date which shall forever live in infamy,”
because on that morning a Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor
brought the U.S. into World War II.
Unfortunately, as Americans belatedly responded to
totalitarian empire builders, who had already been invading their
neighbors since 1937, some Americans took advantage of the crisis to
behave much like the enemy, aided and augmented by some branches of
the U.S. government itself.
Nothing of note was done to overt Nazi sympathizers, including some
prominent industrialists, but U.S. citizens of Japanese descent were
interned in remote work camps, ostensibly for their own protection.
Conscientious objectors fared little better, including many
of the most prominent ethical vegetarians of their generation.
The excesses on the domestic front during World War II, and
more recent U.S. government abuse of dissidents during the so-called
McCarthy Era and the Vietnam War, resurfaced in public debate
shortly before December 7, 2005.

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