Animals Australia seeks to bring livestock transporters to justice

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

MELBOURNE, SYDNEY–Ob-taining Australian Quarantine &
Inspection Service reports on five 2006 shipments of live sheep and
cattle to the Middle East through the national Freedom of Information
Act, Animals Australia on August 22 charged two shippers with
violating the Western Australia Animal Welfare Act.
Animals Australia executive director Glynis Oogjes warned
that live exports from Tasmania might “be a potential breach of the
Tasmanian Animal Welfare Act,” and asked the Australian Government
to prosecute live exporters for “numerous examples of breaches of the
Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock,” documented by the
AQIS reports.
“We provided the material to the Melbourne Age, and it is in
the paper,” Oogjes e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE. “Full details of the
high mortality shipments are now available on the Animals Australia
website,” Oogjes added.
“The AQIS reports on the two worst incidents–the deaths of
1,683 sheep during a shipment from Tasmania to the Middle East in
February 2006, and 247 cattle enroute to the Middle East in October
2006–reveal non-compliance with live export standards,” Oogjes
alleged.

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Letters [Sep 2007]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:
Trying to stop net-&-bolt deer killing

About a year ago, I became informed about net-and-bolt deer
killing, which is now going on in several cities here in New Jersey,
and is extensively practiced around the U.S.
In net-and-bolt deer culls, deer are baited and trapped in
nets (usually more than one at a time), and held to await execution
by an “authorized agent,” who usually has no veterinary experience
or other experience in killing animals with minimal pain and
distress. The deer are killed by firing a steel bolt into their
heads.
Killing hooved animals with a captive bolt gun is approved by
the American Veterinary Medical Association for use in
slaughterhouses and other situations in which the bolting can be done
quickly and accurately, with minimal awareness by the victim animal
that something bad is about to happen. However, netting and bolting
deer causes great pain and distress. The deer often do not die
instantly. Instead, they may receive several boltings before death,
because in order to cause instant death, the bolt must hit a certain
part of the brain. This is almost impossible because the netted deer
are flailing and throwing themselves around, making it impossible to
target one particular spot, which is much smaller for a deer than
for cattle, pigs, horses, and sheep, the species for whom the
AVMA recommendation was developed. Netted and bolted deer suffer a
slow, excruciating death, not to mention broken limbs resulting
from their struggles to escape from the nets.
Several of us are banding together to fight this, but we
need more support, more help. Please, if there is anything that
you can do, contact me.
–Jessica Ross
Princeton, N.J.
<ross.jessie@gmail.com>
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Supreme Court of India upholds bullfight ban

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

NEW DELHI–A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India
on July 27, 2007 overturned a March 9, 2007 Madras High Court
judgment dismissing a petition seeking enforcement of the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals Act to prohibit harvest festival bullfights and
bullock cart races.
Called jallikattu, the bullfights and bullock cart races as
practiced mostly in rural Tamil Nadu somewhat resemble the mob
attacks on bulls practiced at festivals in parts of Spain, Latin
America, and South Africa.
Participants beat the bulls and throw chili powder in their
eyes, ears and mouths to enrage them, Animal Welfare Board of India
witnesses testified. Spectators and participants are often gored or
trampled to death, “and the number of injured fighters has often run
into the hundreds,” noted Reuters.

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Dogs symbolize the west in Iran

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

TEHRAN–Radio Free Europe on September 14, 2007 amplified
and elaborated upon accounts circulating for more than six weeks that
Iran has embarked upon an intensified campaign of harassment against
dog keepers.
“Since the creation of the Islamic republic in Iran in 1979,”
Radio Free Europe said, “the acceptability of dog ownership has been
debated by the authorities. Friday prayer leader Hojatoleslam
Gholamreza Hassani, known for his hard-line stances, was quoted a
few years ago as saying that all dog owners and their dogs should be
arrested.
“In the past,” Radio Free Europe recounted, “dog owners
have received warnings or were forced to pay fines for having a pet
dog. Despite such harassment, dog ownership has increased,
especially among young people in Tehran.

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Norwegian whaler scuttled at dock

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:
OSLO–Sabotage was suspected in the August 30, 2007 dockside
sinking of the whaling vessel Willassen Senior in the northern
Norwegian port city of Svolvaer. No injuries were reported.
“On the night of August 30th we decided to celebrate the end
of commercial whaling in Iceland by removing a large section of
cooling pipe in the engine room of the Norweigan whaler Willassen
Senior,” said an anonymous e-mail forwarded on September 11, 2007
from Norwegian activist Daniel Rolke to Dolphin Project founder Ric
O’Barry, who shared it with ANIMAL PEOPLE.
The e-mail was signed “Agenda 21,” the name of a United
Nations Environmental Program protocol.
“This is the fifth Norwegian whaler that has come under
attack for illegal whaling activities since 1992,” e-mailed Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson from Friday Harbor,
Washington. “The others were the Nybraena, scuttled at dockside in
December 1992; the Senet, scuttled at dockside in January 1994;
the Elin-Toril, severely damaged in 1997; and the Morild, sunk in
1998.”
All were refloated and repaired.

Michael Vick case blows whistle on dogfighting

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:
RICHMOND, Virginia–Pleading guilty on
August 24, 2007 to felony conspiracy, Atlanta
Falcons quarterback Michael Vick will face a
maximum sentence of five years in prison and a
fine of $250,000 when he appears before U.S.
District Judge Henry E. Hudson for sentencing on
December 10.
By then the 50 surviving pit bull
terriers who were seized in April 2007 from the
dogfighting kennel that Vick confessed to
financing for seven years may have already
received the death penalty.
Vick agreed to plead guilty after
co-defendants Quanis L. Phillips, 28, Purnell
Peace, 35, and Tony Taylor, 34, pleaded
guilty to the same conspiracy charge. Each had
agreed to testify against Vick if his case went
to trial.
Vick admitted in a signed statement that
he was present twice when his co-defendants
killed losing dogs after test fights at the Surry
County property where his kennels and a fighting
arena were maintained. The statement said the
dogs “were killed by various methods, including
hanging and drowning.”
Following Vick’s guilty plea, National
Football League commissioner Roger Goodell
suspended Vick for “cruel and reprehensible”
conduct and “significant involvement in illegal
gambling,” an offense often punished in
professional sports by lifetime expulsion.

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Obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

 

Marjorie Goodness Kelley, 59, on August 4, 2007 was on her
Harley motorcycle, turning into her driveway, when a car struck and
killed her, e-mailed White Mountain Animal League president Mickey de
Rham, who credited Kelley with naming the League. Marge was a board
member and co-founder of WMAL in 1989, de Rham wrote. For someone
who promotes spay/neuter, I greatly admired Marge as a dog breeder.
She had started a book about Apple, a red Doberman bitch, who was
really something. I wish that book could have been finished. I just
found out, de Rham added, that Marge was writing a tribute to
Bossie, our Old Man of the Mountain cow, spokescow for the WMAL,
,who was euthanized shortly before she herself died. De Rham acquired
Bossie, noted for markings resembling the Old Man of the Mountain
rock formation that is the New Hampshire state symbol, at about the
same time the White Mountain Animal League was formed. She was subject
of a children s book, Hey Bossie, You re A Spokescow, by de Rham,
illustrated by Leigh Gusterson, published in 2004 to benefit WMAL.

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European Parliament moves to halt monkey use in labs

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:
STRASBOURG–Four hundred thirty-five of
the 785 members of the European Parliament on
September 6, 2007 endorsed a two-part written
declaration asking the European Commission to
“make ending the use of apes and wild-caught
monkeys in scientific experiments an urgent
priority,” and to “establish a timetable for
replacing the use of all primates in scientific
experiments.”
The declaration against primate use drew
more support than any previous European
Parliament animal welfare measure, “and the
third highest number of signatures on any
declaration since 2000,” said Animal Defenders
International press officer Allison Tuffrey Jones.
European Parliament animal welfare panel
chair Neil Parish enlarged the topic to other
species, telling news media that the declaration
“sends a clear message to the Commission that
animal experimentation should be phased out.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

Get Political for Animals and win the laws they need
by Julie E. Lewin
National Institute for Animal Advocacy
(6 Long Hill Farm, Guilford, CT 06437), 2007.
276 pages, paperback. $29.00.

“Becoming a power player in the lawmaking
arena requires learning to think and function as
a lawmaker does–politically and
strategically–with the arithmetic of elections
foremost,” Julie Lewin emphasizes in Get
Political for Animals. “Ignorance of political
dynamics leads to repeated, avoidable failures
–and to thinking small.
“When voting on legislation,” Lewin
elaborates, “a lawmaker cares only about his
constituents who vote. He doesn’t care about his
constituents who don’t vote or what the broader
public thinks. Hearing from advocates who live
outside his district wastes his time, which he
doesn’t appreciate. It also shows him we’re
politically naïve.

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