PETA, Friends of Animals clash over future of Primarily Primates

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
AUSTIN, SAN ANTONIO– Longtime Primarily Primates board and
staff member Stephen Tello, elected president of the sanctuary on
October 25, testified and was cross-examined for more than three
hours at an October 30, 2006 hearing in Austin that may determine
Primarily Primates’ future. The hearing, the first opportunity
Primarily Primates has had to respond to PETA allegations of
mismanagement in a legal forum, was to resume on November 7.
Witnesses supporting the PETA position testified on October
27, cross-examined by a Primarily Primates defense team funded by
Friends of Animals. The Primarily Primates board on August 28
accepted the resignation of former president Wally Swett, who headed
the sanctuary for 28 years, and voted to accept an FoA offer of
merger.

Rocky Mountain Wildlife will continue operating

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
The Rocky Mountain Wildlife Conservation Center, in
Keenesburg, Colorado, on October 16, 2006 announced that it had
received enough funding to stay open. “We’re still not out of the
woods,” founder Pat Craig told Denver Post staff writer Christine
Tatum. The 26-year-old sanctuary houses about 150 animals,
including 75 tigers and 30 bears, on 140 acres. Craig warned on
August 15, 2006 that it was out of money and might close, then
closed to public visits on September 2.

What became of the International Network for Religion & Animals?

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
WASHINGTON D.C.–What ever became of the International
Network for Religion & Animals? Realtor Joanna Harkin of Washington
D.C. recently wondered.
The late Virginia Bourquardez, “Ginny Bee” to fellow
activists, founded INRA circa 1981, winning charitable status in
1986. The INRA board included scholars and clerics from a variety of
religions, but the organization disappeared after Bourquardez died
in May 2000, at age 88.
“I was a friend of Ginny’s,” Harkin told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
“She used to say, ‘I’ll be a lot more good to the animals when I’m
dead,'” referring to her estate, which she often said was left to
INRA.

Sea Shepherds don’t get fast ship after all

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
Two months after Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder
Paul Watson announced the $2 million purchase of the former Canadian
patrol boat Lady Chebucto, believed to be as fast as the Japanese
whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru, the deal fell through, reported
Andrew Darby of the Melbourne Age on October 11, 2006. “It was
registered in Antigua,” Watson explained, “and Antigua would not
allow us to sail it as a yacht.”
Registering Sea Shepherd vessels as yachts reduces regulatory
requirements–but registering in Antigua was problematic, Watson
indicated, because Antigua receives foreign aid from Japan, and has
supported Japanese efforts at International Whaling Commission
meetings to reopen commercial whaling.
“I am confident that we will have a second ship for the
[winter] campaign [against Japanese whaling in Antarctic waters],”
Watson said.

Dogs killed on their holiday

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
KATMANDU, Nepal–Street sweepers on October 20 shocked
Narayan Municipality, a suburb of Dailekh, Nepal, by poisoning 23
dogs “on the first day of Tihar and even into Kukur Tihar–the second
day of the second greatest Nepalese festival,” reported Hariharsigh
Rathour of the Katmandu Post, explaining that “On the second day of
Tihar, dogs in Nepal are adorned with flower garlands around the
neck and red tika on the forehead. They are then offered a great meal
and then ritually worshipped.”
Narayan official Nirak Rawal told Rathour that the city had
asked locals to keep dogs indoors, “But we didn’t give any order to
kill stray dogs on Kukur Tihar,” he said.

“Year of the Dog” brings help for dogs in China–and cats

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
BEIJING, SHANGHAI–“The year of the dog has been difficult
for man’s best friend,” South China Morning Post reporter Jane Cai
observed on October 26, 2006. “Tens of thousands of canines have
been culled across the nation in the past few months and more will be
clubbed to death soon by local governments fearing rabies.”
True enough, but the 2006 Year of the Dog appears also to
have been the year that purging dogs began to give way to
vaccination. All year, the Beijing-run state newspapers and news
web sites have been exposing and denouncing dog massacres, always in
the past either praised or ignored.
An October forum on humane rabies control, held in Shanghai,
drew high-profile national coverage.

Philippine crack-down on dog meat

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
Baguio City, Philippines–Embarrassed by reports that
Benguet province might attempt to repeal or circumvent enforcing the
1998 Philippine national ban on selling dog meat, officials of the
National Meat Inspection Service, Baguio police, and
representatives of the Animal Kingdom Foundation in early October
seized 104 kilos of dog meat from the public market stalls of vendors
Lita Dizon and Victorino
Montano, “who are reportedly known as dog meat vendors,” wrote Jane
Cadalig of the Baguio City Sun Star.

Letters [Nov 2006]

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

As ANIMAL PEOPLE reported in your September edition, many
people and animals were killed in Ethiopia in severe summer floods.
A man who lives in the city of Diredawa gave witness to the Ethiopian
news agency that when flood waters swept over his house and took him
away, he shouted for his family, telling them that he was already
gone, but his dog immediately took action, tightly holding and
pulling him away from the flood. After 30 minutes of all this
struggle he managed to save the man’s life.
The person said sadly, “I am finally rescued and taken to
the refugee camp because I am a human being, but my dog whom I took
from the street and raised, who saved my life, is left alone.”

Letters

CITES suspends ivory trade permits

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
GENEVA–The Secretariat of the United Nations-administered
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species on October 5,
2006 suspended the permission granted in 2002 to allow South Africa,
Botswana, and Namibia to export elephant ivory.
South Africa was to have been permitted to sell 30 metric
tons of ivory, Botswana 20 metric tons, and Namibia 10 metric tons,
“on condition,” the U.N. News Service explained, “that the
Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) system establish
up-to-date and comprehensive baseline data on poaching and population
levels. Today’s meeting of the CITES Standing Committee determined
that this condition has not yet been satisfied.”
Requests from these and other African nations for annual
ivory quotes were rejected by the triennial CITES Conference of
Parties in 2004.

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