European Parliament moves against dog & cat fur, seal pelts

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
The European Parliament on October 13, 2006 approved a ban
on importing and selling dog and cat fur in member nations, as part
of the first European Community plan for animal protection.
Earlier, on September 6, 368 European Parliament
legislators signed a declaration asking the European Community to ban
imports of seal products from Canada. Not formally endorsed by the
European Union assembly, the non-binding request sought to reinforce
legislation already in effect in Belgium, Italy, and the
Netherlands, and adopted in October by Germany. Norway, the
largest European buyer of Canadian seal pelts, is not a European
Community member.

Mink farm raids

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
Midnight raiders on October 14, 2006 released 11,000 mink
from a farm in Oza does Rios, Spain, and released as many as 5,000
from two other sites in Galicia. Galician
farmers produced about 80% of the 400,000 mink who are pelted each
year in Spain, the Barcelona-based animal rights group Fundacion
Altarriba told Associated Press.
About 6,500 mink got past the farm perimeter fences,
Galician authorities said. About 4,550 were recovered within 48
hours, 70% of them dead.
Having fast metabolisms and no hunting experience, ranched
mink rarely thrive after release, but mink who survived in Britain
are blamed for hunting water voles to the verge of extinction.
Efforts to extirpate the mink have not succeeded, but reintroducing
otters is working, reported Laura Benesi of the Oxford University
Wildlife Conservation Research Unit in September 2006.
Bonesi and team released 17 otters into the upper Thames.
“When the otters arrived there were 60 or more mink in this small
area,” Bonesi told Sunday Times environment editor Jonathan Leake.
“The mink did not disappear completely, but within a few months they
were doing much less damage.”

Three states are sued over trapping methods

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
The Animal Protection Institute, of Sacramento, California,
on September 20 and October 12, 2006 sued the Minnesota Department
of Natural Resources and Maine Department of Inland Fisheries &
Wildlife for permitting trapping by methods that jeopardize
endangered and threatened species.
In Minnesota, API director of wildlife programs Camilla Fox
told Associated Press, “Between 2002 and 2005, at least 13 Canada
lynx were incidentally trapped in snares and traps set for other
species. In Maine, records show that a minimum of five Canada lynx
were caught in traps in 2005 alone. At least two of the lynx were
kittens.”

Nutria bounty increased

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries has upped
the bounty on nutria to $5.00 a tail, trying to keep trappers active
despite fur prices lagging far behind the rising cost of fueling
boats and off-road vehicles. Paid for by the federal Coastal
Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act, the bounty
program “has removed more than 1.1 million nutria,” reported
Associated Press.

Anti-fur week in London

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
Seventy demonstrators passed out 12,000 anti-fur leaflets in
London between October 9 and October 14, 2006, the Coalition
Against the Fur Trade reported, focusing on Knightsbridge, a
reputed fur sales stronghold.

Greyhounds killed at British sanctuary?

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
MANCHESTER–The Leigh Ani-mal Sanctuary
in Greater Manchester, Britain, on September
17, 2006 began refusing to accept greyhounds,
the same day that Daniel Foggo of the London
Sunday Times recounted that “a reporter posing as
a trainer who wanted two healthy dogs killed” met
“an employee called David [who] accepted £70 in
cash to kill two young greyhounds,” no questions
asked.
“Three greyhound trainers have given
interviews, on condition of anonymity, stating
that the sanctuary has been the killing ground of
choice for the greyhound racing industry in the
northwest for many years,” wrote Foggo.

Wanted: 192 missing greyhounds

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
TUCSON–Greyhound Protection League president Susan Netboy
has offered $10,000 for information leading to the discovery of the
fate of 192 ex-racing greyhounds who vanished in 2005 and early 2006
after they were taken from the Tucson Greyhound Park by Richard
Favreau, 37, of Calhan, Colorado.
“All we can do is pray that someone will respond so that
these dogs don’t become casualties of the greyhound racing industry
like the other 15,000 greyhounds who disappear each year,” Netboy
told Anslee Willett of the Chicago Tribune. “They just disappear.
In our opinion, they are destroyed.”

Who photographed those bunnies, the fox, and the raccoon?

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
WESTON, Ct.–While mainstream humane societies have mostly
left wildlife issues to nature centers and state wildlife agencies,
individual rehabilitators have gradually built a network of
independent institutions dedicated to extending the humane ethic to
wild animals. Often they work almost in the shadows of the
mainstream organizations that didn’t do the job.
Wildlife In Crisis, of Weston, Connecticut, whose photos
appear on pages 1 and 12, operates within the territory served by
the Connecticut Humane Society since 1881 and the Connecticut Audubon
Society since 1898. Not part of the National Audubon Society,
Conn-ecticut Audubon now operates a statewide string of 19 wildlife
sanctuaries and six nature centers, and does rehabilitation of rare
species.

Wildlife is taking over deserted New Orleans

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
new Orleans–Louisiana SPCA executive director Laura Maloney
and Audubon Zoo staff warned in repeated media statements, beginning
on January 23, 2006, that food left by dog and cat rescuers in
communities hit by Hurricane Katrina could help cause an urban
wildlife crisis. And it did.
“In 20 years of trapping animals here, I’ve never seen
anything like it,” nuisance wildlife trapper Greg duTreil told
Associated Press in mid-October 2006.
Alligators, armadillos, coyotes, foxes, nutria, rabbits,
raccoons, and especially rats are reportedly abundant as never
before in the Riverbend and Uptown districts of New Orleans, still
deserted more than a year after the early September 2005 flooding.
“They have more to eat than before the storm. Just look at
the garbage, the stuff lying around, the empty buildings. This is a
rat’s paradise,” Audubon Pest Control owner Erick Kinchke confirmed.
The Humane Society of the U.S. responded to the Associated
Press coverage by recommending removal of food sources from locations
where wild animals are problematic.

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