Gulfarium fails to report marine mammal deaths for more than 18 years

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

FORT LAUDERDALE–Dolphin Freedom Foundation founder Russ
Rector, 58, is betting he’ll outlive the Gulfarium, the Miami
Seaquarium, and many of the other first-generation marine mammal
parks still operating along the Florida coast.
“We’re all about the same age,” Rector told ANIMAL PEOPLE,
“and I’m showing mine, but so are they, and I don’t have to pass
building inspections.”
Marineland of Florida, opened in 1938, still exists in name
as a swim-with-dolphins facility, but no longer stages dolphin
shows. The original circular tank and the slightly larger
rectangular tank have been demolished. Most of the property is now a
condominium development.

Read more

BOOKS: Chosen By A Horse: How a broken horse fixed a broken heart

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

Chosen By A Horse:
How a broken horse fixed a broken heart
by Susan Richards
Harvest Books
(c/o Harcourt Inc., 15 E. 26th St., New York, NY 10010), 2007.
248 pages, paperback. $13.00.

Never before interested in adopting sick or injured animals,
Susan surprised herself by responding to an appeal for help from her
local SPCA.
Having lost her mother at a very early age, moving from one
unhappy relative to yet another one during her childhood, and having
then endured an abusive marriage, Susan was too concerned with her
own problems to take care of sick or abused animals.
The SPCA had confiscated 40 horses, all starving and in poor
health. Among them was Lay Me Down, an ex-racing mare who, after a
few defeats, had been used for breeding. Susan chose to adopt her,
along with her frisky foal, for no better reason than that she was
the only horse willing to walk up the ramp and go into the trailer
for Susan, with her foal at her side.

Read more

Sofia street dog population is also down by half

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
SOFIA–A 10-month municipal sterilization drive has cut the
street dog population of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital city, from
more than 20,000 to just over 11,000, mayor Boyko Borissov and
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences chair Ivan Yuhnovski told the Focus
news agency on July 12, 2007.
The Sofia municipal company Ekoravnovesie sterilized 3862
dogs and euthanized 852 due to illness, injury, or dangerous
temperament, said company director Miroslav Naidenov.
The number of dogs killed was approximately 10% of the totals
killed in 2003 and 2004, according to data sent to ANIMAL PEOPLE by
Sofia activist Alina Lilova in January 2005. “From 1999 though
2002, 45,000 dogs were killed,” Lilova added.
The rapidity of the street dog decline may reflect a marked
increase in traffic. While the human population of Bulgaria is among
the fastest falling in Europe, the population of Sofia has increased
since 2002 from 1.2 million to 1.4 million. Car ownership and use
have increased even faster.

Read more

Seeking killer of dolphin advocate

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
The St. Lucia government has hired nine British detectives to
try to solve the August 2006 murder of dolphin advocate Patricia Lee,
60, London Daily Telegraph writers Paul Henderson and Richard Savill
reported on May 14, 2007.
Lee, from Devon, England, moved to St. Lucia in 1994 to
run a yacht charter business and restaurant with her boyfriend
Bernard Haddican, who died in 2003.
“Lee’s body was found after she failed to turn up at a
memorial service for the husband of a close friend,” Henderson and
Savill wrote. “Two weeks after Lee’s disappearance an anonymous
caller told police where to look for her. Within 24 hours her
remains were found in a shallow grave.”
“Lee was a volunteer for the St. Lucia Animal Protection
Society, an organisation that had a member murdered three years
ago,” Henderson and Savill noted. “Jane Tipson, found slumped over
the wheel of her car after being shot in the neck, had feared for
her life because she was protesting against the establishment of
‘swim with dolphins’ centers on the island. Her murder has never been
solved.” ANIMAL PEOPLE reported in detail on the Tipson case in
October 2003.
At least 74 people have been murdered on St. Lucia within the
past two years, many of them believed to be victims of contract
killings.

Obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
Dietrich von Haugwitz, 79, died on June 26, 2007 at his
home in Durham, North Carolina. Von Haugwitz, credited by Peter
Muller of Wildlife Watch as “the originator of computer-based animal
rights e-mail lists,” was “born into a German aristocratic family in
Silesia,” Muller wrote, “a region that became part of Poland after
the shift of borders at the end of World War II.” Drafted into the
Germany army at age 17, near the end of World War II, von Haugwitz
“saw little action, but once almost got killed” by a British air
attack, recalled Muller. Post-war, von Haugwitz studied music. A
church in Minnesota sponsored his emigration to the U.S. in 1956.
Moving to Hollywood, Calif-ornia, in 1957, he worked as a pianist,
gave piano lessons, and met his wife Eva while acting in a German
theater. They married in 1960. Turning from piano-playing to
computer programming, they relocated to North Carolina in 1971.
Witnessing a bullfight in Mexico and attending a lecture by The Case
for Animal Rights author Tom Regan led von Haugwitz to join the North
Carolina Network for Animals in 1983, and to found a Durham chapter,
which he headed for about seven years. Recalled von Haugwitz to
Eternal Trebinka author Charles Patterson, “I have always been upset
about so many Germans I knew who, at the end of the war, said, in
effect, ‘But we had no idea! We really didn’t know anything about
Auschwitz and what happened to the Jews.'” Von Haugwitz paralleled
their denial to the denial that allows people to eat meat. His last
campaign was against dog-chaining, and included winning custody of
Bessie, a neglected dog who had lived her whole life on a six-foot
chain until von Haughwitz adopted her. Eva von Haugwitz died in
2003. Von Haugwitz is survived by their daughter Joanne Erznoznik,
of North Carolina. As she works for much of the year abroad, In
Defense of Animals was at the ANIMAL PEOPLE deadline trying to help
her find a new home for Bessie.

Read more

BOOKS: Animal Laws of India

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

Animal Laws of India
edited by Maneka Gandhi, Ozair Husain, & Raj Panjwani
Third Edition
Universal Law Publishing Co. (c/o <sales@unilawbooks.com> or
<www.unilawbooks.com>), 2006.
1,236 pages, hardcover. 995 rupees (about $22.00) plus shipping.

Indian animal advocates often claim that India has the laws
most favorable to animals of any nation, and the most favorable
courts at the upper appellate levels.
Thus Indian animal advocacy tends to emphasize improving
enforcement and trying to move as expeditiously as possible through
often incompetent and corrupt local courts to reach the upper levels.
This distinctly contrasts with the emphasis of activism in the U.S.,
where seeking passage of new laws generates many times as many
appeals and e-mails as seeking enforcement–although activity on
behalf of stronger humane law enforcement has increased exponentially
since the advent of Alison Gianotto’s enforcement-oriented web site
<www.Pet-Abuse.com>.

Read more

BOOKS: Animal Welfare In Islam

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

Animal Welfare In Islam
by Al-Hafiz Basheer Ahmad Masri
The Islamic Foundation & Compassion In World Farming, 2007.
(The Islamic Foundation: Markfield Conf. Centre,
Ratby Lane, Markfield, Leiscestershire, LE67
9SY, U.K.; <www.islamic-foundation.org.uk>;
CIWF: 5-A Charles St., Petersfield, Hampshire
GU32 3EH, U.K.; <www.ciwf.org.uk/>.)
164 pages, paperback £9.95, hardback £15.95.

Animal Welfare In Islam is an updated and
corrected edition of Islamic Concern for Animals,
originally issued in 1987 by the Athene Trust,
the original name of Compassion In World Farming.
Considered the definitive work so far on the
obligations that religious Muslims should observe
toward animals, the first edition included both
English and Arabic texts. The new edition is
only in English.

Read more

Michigan Supreme Court upholds city hunting ban

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
LANSING–The Michigan Supreme Court on June 20, 2007 ruled 4-3
that cities have the right to ban the use of firearms and archery
equipment within their limits.
“While the Department of Natural Resources enjoys exclusive
authority to regulate taking game,” the majority held, “there is no
indication that the legislative grant of authority to regulate taking
game is superior to or supersedes the authority to regulate the
discharge of weapons.”
Saginaw resident Michael Czymbor brought the case, backed by
the Michigan United Conservation Clubs.

BOOKS: Schaller & Bekoff

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

A Naturalist & Other Beasts: Tales From A Life In The Field
by George B. Schaller
Sierra Club Books (85 2nd St., San Francisco, CA 94105), 2007.
272 pages, hardcover. $24.95.

The Emotional Lives of Animals
by Marc Bekoff
New World Library (14 Pamaron Way, Novato, CA 94949), 2007.
214 pages, hardcover. $23.95.

“I was fortunate to have been part of the golden age of
wildlife studies, from the 1950s to the end of the 20th century,
when many large mammals–even such familiar and spectacular ones as
the elephant and jaguar–for the first time became the focus of
intensive research,” writes George Schaller.
Schaller also had the good fortune to be hired in 1956 as a
field biologist for the New York Zoological Society, and to work his
way up as it grew into the Wildlife Conservation Society, for which
he is now vice president and director of field operations.

Read more

1 2 3 4