A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
Trust funds
Your April 2009 editorial “Trust funds lost when most needed”
points out some issues vitally important to any non-profit, and for
that matter, for any individual hoping to provide sustenance for a
charity.
–Ruth Gobeille
Executive Director
Animal Rescue League
of Southern Rhode Island
P.O. Box 458
Wakefield, RI 02880
Phone: 401-792-2233
Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
INDIANAPOLIS–Indianapolis city/county council member Mike
Speedy on April 24, 2009 introduced an ordinance to make
Indianapolis the biggest city in the U.S. to mandate sterilizing pit
bull terriers.
The introduction comes three years after a breed-specific
ordinance proposed by another Indianapolis councillor met intense
opposition. Her ordinance was watered down into a conventional
dangerous dog law, providing penalities of only $50 for the first
violation and $100 for the second, with impoundment coming only on
third offense.
“An Indianapolis Star review of dog bite data for 2008
revealed that pit bull bites soared 33% from the previous year and
were three times higher than in 2006. Pit bulls also account for
more bites and more severe bites than any other breed,” reported
Heather Gillers of the Star.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
LITTLE ROCK, TALLAHASSEE–The Florida Fish & Wildlife
Conserv-ation Commission on April 15, 2009 unanimously voted to ban
capturing or killing freshwater turtles. The proposal–if ratified
in June 2009–would bring into effect the strongest restriction on
turtle hunting in the U.S.
But the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission on March 29, 2009
rejected a proposal to stop “commercial harvest, sales and export”
of turtles.
Commission director Scott Hender-son acknowledged that, “We
have seen a lot of pressure on turtles in the last three years.”
The most recent available data indicates that Arkansas turtle
hunters are exporting about 200,000 turtles per year. However,
Henderson told the Conway Log Cabin Democrat, “Our staff
recommendation is that it is not an emergency and should be included
in our regular fishing regulations process.”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
MEXICO CITY–Rumors swept the world
during the last week of April 2009 that a newly
detected H1N1 flu virus variant suspected of
killing as many as 149 Mexicans might have
evolved at a factory-style pig farm at Perote,
in Vera Cruz state on the Gulf of Mexico. As
ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press on the night of April
28, however, little medical or veterinary
evidence supported the hypothesis that the
disease is of factory farm origin, and some
evidence seemed to refute it.
Among the first 1,995 suspected Mexican
cases of the new flu strain, only 27 were
laboratory-confirmed. Lab-confirmed human cases
had occurred in 19 other nations, including 64
cases in the U.S., but no deaths were reported
outside of Mexico.
Bloggers and news media usually called
the virus “swine flu,” but although it contained
genetic material of swine origin, nothing linked
it to recent swine infections.
The Perote farm belongs to the Mexican
firm Granjas Carroll, a half-owned subsidiary of
Smithfield Inc., the world’s largest pork
producer. Smithfield spokesperson Keira Ullrich
told media that an internal investigation had
found no clinical signs or symptoms of swine
influenza in animals and employees at any of its
Mexican facilities. A United Nations’ Food &
Agriculture Organiz-ation team reportedly reached
Pecote on April 28 to seek independent
confirmation.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
ANIMAL PEOPLE is headquartered at the top of a steep hill
rising above Glendale Creek. Formed from 5,000 to 9,000 years ago by
runoff from a melting glacier, Glendale Creek cut a deep ravine
through which it flows for about three miles before draining into
Puget Sound at the 10-house village of Glendale.
Glendale a century ago was the chief link between South
Whidbey Island and the mainland. Steam-powered ferries stopped
there. The first car dealership on the island perched precariously
beside Glendale Creek. A narrow gauge railway, built in 1900, ran
from the water’s edge at low tide into the interior of the island.
Eventually about 10 miles long, it hauled huge cedar logs down to
the Sound, where they were floated off of flat cars and tied into
rafts to be tugged to Seattle.
The logging predictably created soil erosion. Loss of
topsoil led to loss of ground covering vegetation and flash floods,
but the loggers, the farmers who followed them to work the land,
and the hunters and fishers who came from the mainland for holidays
of recreational mayhem were all preoccupied with killing most of the
wildlife who survived the tree-cutting.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
WASHINGTON D.C.– Massa-chusetts Senator Ted Kennedy and his
wife Victoria in early April 2009 ended months of speculation that
President Barack Obama and family would adopt a shelter dog for
daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, by giving the Obamas a
purebred Portuguese water dog– not a shelter dog, but a “second
chance” dog, who was returned to the breeder after reportedly
failing in at least one previous home.
Originally named Charlie, according to the anonymous
FirstDogCharlie web site that leaked the news on April 10, 2009,
the dog was renamed Bo by the Obamas.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
BELFAST–Hermit crabs feel pain when
injured and change their behavior to avoid the
source of pain, reported Robert Elwood of the
School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s
University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on
March 27, 2009.
“With vertebrates we are asked to err on
the side of caution and I believe this is the
approach to take with crustaceans,” concluded
Elwood.
“Ripping the legs off live crabs and
crowding lobsters into seafood market tanks are
just two of the many practices that may warrant
reassessment,” warned Jennifer Viegas of the
Discovery Channel.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
HANOI–People who prepare dog and cat meat for human
consumption are at risk of contracting rabies, warned medical
researcher Heiman Wertheim, M.D. in the March 18, 2009 edition of
PLoS Medicine
PLoS Medicine is a peer-reviewed open-accesss online
scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science. With
offices in San Francisco and Cambridge, England, PLoS Medicine
“gives the highest priority to papers on the conditions and risk
factors that cause the greatest losses in years of healthy life
worldwide,” state the editors.
Wertheim and colleagues from the National Institute of
Infectious & Tropical Diseases and the National Institute of Hygiene
& Epidemiology in Hanoi, Vietnam, researched the association of dog
meat with rabies after encountering two cases.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
BRUSSELS, NEW DELHI–The government of
Indian prime minister Man-mohan Singh reportedly
objects to the inclusion of the phrase “animal
welfare” in the provisional edition of a recently
formalized protocol for negotiating a free trade
agreement between India and the European Union.
The European Parliament approved the
draft protocol for completing the EU-India Free
Trade Agreement on March 26, 2009, more than
five years after negotiations began with India in
November 2003.
The text that reportedly offends the
Singh government is scarcely provocative. Listed
tenth among 62 enumerated “General Issues,” the
sentence in question “Considers it important that
the Free Trade Agreement confirms the provisions
of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade
and the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement;
calls on the Commission in this regard to address
outstanding issues such as animal welfare.”
This would appear to be consistent with
Article 51-A[g] of the Constitution of India,
authored by Jawaharal Nehru, the first prime
minister of India, which states that “It shall
be the fundamental duty of every citizen of India
to protect and improve the Natural Environment
including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife,
and to have compassion for all living creatures.”
However, reported the Financial Express
from New Delhi on April 15, 2009, “India has
opposed a reported move by the European Union to
include animal welfare issues in the World Trade
Organisation negotiations. Reacting to reports
of EU pitching for the inclusion of animal rights
in the WTO talks, official sources said these
were attempts by developed countries to block
exports from developing countries using these
standards.”
An unnamed Indian official told the
Financial Express, “These are non-tariff
barriers to curb exports,” which the official
projected would “throw many people out of jobs in
developing countries.”
Of most apparent concern to the Singh
cabinet are movement within the European
Parliament to strengthen standards for animal use
in laboratories and for livestock transport and
slaughter.
The European Parliament Agriculture
Committee on March 31, 2009 approved amended
rules governing animal experimentation which,
while much weaker than animal advocates had hoped
for, will be much stronger than a new Indian
regulatory regime introduced by the Singh
administration on March 5, 2009.
Explained online commentator Smita Joshi,
listed as information contact for Vivada
Chemicals PLtd., of Mumbai, “A proposal from
the department of pharmaceuticals now being
considered by Manmohan Singh seeks to make
comprehensive changes in the laws governing
research funding, drug discovery, clinical
trials, and approvals at different stages, so
that Indian drug makers can re-orient themselves
from being successful copiers of costly
multinational brands to owners of scientific
breakthroughs.