Month: January 2010

Boxing Day brings confrontation over U.K. Hunting Act enforcement

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

 

LONDON–The British ban on pack hunting is at risk if the
Conservative slate led by David Cameron wins a majority in the 2010
Parliamentary elections, but Labour environment secretary Hilary
Benn served notice in a Boxing Day op-ed column for The Independent
that the Hunting Act, passed in 2004, will not go down without a
fight fully backed by Labour leadership.
Along with Christmas, Benn wrote, “We should also celebrate
the fifth Boxing Day without the sight of foxes being torn to pieces.
In years to come I think we will look back with horror at a time when
hunting wild animals with dogs was viewed as respectable
entertainment. Like badger-baiting and cock-fighting, ripping
animals to shreds with dogs will become a relic of history.”

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Editorial feature: 21st century began with 10 years of hard-won gains

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
Most ANIMAL PEOPLE readers are probably buried lately in a
blizzard of appeals reviewing the deeds of animal charities during
the past year and decade. Recipients will be cheered by recaps of
“victories,” no matter how transient. Some may notice, though,
that “defeats” are seldom mentioned.
Comprehensive assessments of progress tend to be fewer–and
can be discouraging, in view of frequent contradictory indicators.
But the animal cause does not advance primarily through obvious
“victories,” or fail through the unmentioned defeats, which most
often result when legislation is proposed before sufficient
groundwork is done to pass it, or when resources are inadequate to
achieve an ambitious goal.
Fundraisers and campaigners like to evoke imagery suggesting
that at some point a cause will “triumph,” perhaps after someone
blows the right horn to bring all obstacles tumbling down. This is a
tried-and-true appeal format, but reality is that if any “war”
metaphor is appropriate to advancing the cause of animals, it is
that of trench warfare.

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Letters [Jan/Feb 2010]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
 
Priorities

I believe the animal welfare movement has lost its compass.
In its quest to “save” individual animals, the movement has lost
sight of what’s best for dogs and cats as a whole. What used to be
called animal shelters now offer no shelter unless there is room or
the animal is especially adoptable. The quest to become “no kill”
has created untold cruelty and suffering for animals turned away by
organizations who proclaim that their mission is to protect those who
cannot protect themselves. All too often, animal care and control
facilities, both private and public, no longer accept animals
surrendered by their owners, with the inevitable result that the
refused animal winds up dumped on the street or comes back to that
same facility, this time as a “stray”.
In the early 1970s I wrote an allegory about endless dogs and
cats floating down a river. Let’s get out of the river, stop
trying to save one in a thousand, I opined, and instead go upstream
to find out how and where they are falling in. We did that, and to
a great extent pet sterilization has reduced that flow to a
comparative trickle. But rather than see this strategy through to
conclusion, the movement is now back in the river saving one while a
hundred suffer. The movement has gotten misdirected on adoptions,
often to the exclusion of spaying and neutering.
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Pregnant mares’ urine biz wins case after big losses

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

NEW YORK, N.Y.– New York State Supreme Court Justice Martin
Shulman on December 16, 2009 threw out 23 lawsuits brought by breast
cancer victims against the makers of hormone supplements synthesized
from pregnant mare’s urine.
“While plaintiffs’ proffered evidence is extensive, a review
of the material and the record as a whole contain no evidence of
fraud, misrepresentation or deception,” Shulman wrote in dismissing
the cases before any of them went to trial.
The verdict appeared to blunt the economic impact of recent
jury awards totaling more than $165 million against the PMU
industry–and appeared to vindicate the Pfizer Inc. strategy of
consolidating and defending the industry, even as new scientific
findings strengthened the association of PMU-based hormone
supplements with an elevated risk of breast cancer.

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U.N. members agree to study livestock role in global warming

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

 

COPENHAGEN–A draft agreement creating an international
working group under United Nations auspices to reduce global warming
emissions from agriculture may become a turning point in the
international struggle to reduce and mitigate climate change.
Though called “greenhouse gases,” because they trap heat,
the emissions at issue are produced chiefly by livestock, by the use
of fossil fuels in raising fodder for livestock, and by clearing
woodlands for grazing and fodder cultivation.
“Current agricultural production is estimated to contribute
30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than double that of its
nearest rival, transport, at 13.5%,” explained Ed Hamer, reporting
for The Ecologist.

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