Move to reinstate tailpipe gassing in the Philippines

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
MANILA–A tambucho, in Philippine slang, is either a
vehicular exhaust pipe or the human rectal orifice.
If dogs impounded by Philippine animal control agencies are
killed by tambucho gassing, the remains of the dogs may be
clandestinely sold for meat. If dogs are killed by pentobarbital
injection, the remains are considered unsafe for consumption.
Though not acknowledged on the record, the common Philippine
practice of dogcatchers doubling as dog meat dealers may underlie
recent action by the misleadingly named national Committee on Animal
Welfare to undo an August 24, 2010 decision to prohibit tambucho
gassing.

Activists block truck to save dogs in China

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:

BEIJING–Driving on the Tongzhou section of the
Beijing-Harbin expressway at 11 a.m. on Friday, April 15, 2011, a
China Small Animal Protection Association volunteer surnamed An saw a
livestock truck hauling between 430 and 580 dogs, according to
various different news accounts.
As dogs are rarely eaten in the Beijing region, and are not
raised in the Beijing region for sale to the parts of China where
dogs are commonly eaten, An suspected that the dogs were stolen.

BAWA achieves Bali rabies turnaround

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:

UBUD, Bali, Indonesia–Vaccinating 210,000 dogs in the six
months ending on March 31, 2011, the Bali Animal Welfare
Association achieved a 48% reduction in human rabies deaths and a 45%
decrease in dog rabies cases. This was the fastest containment of a
rabies outbreak in the history of Indonesia, achieved even as a
13-year-old outbreak continues in Flores, where officials have
fought rabies mainly by culling dogs.
During the six-month vaccination sweep, BAWA established by
counting dogs from house to house in every village that the Bali dog
population is “just over 300,000 dogs, about 1 dog to 12.5 people,”
BAWA founder Janice Girardi told ANIMAL PEOPLE–exactly the ANIMAL
PEOPLE estimate produced in late 2008 when the rabies outbreak was
first recognized. Government estimates were half again to twice as
high.

Hunters seek to exempt lead ammunition & tackle from environmental safety regulation

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:

WASHINGTON D.C.–Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus co-chairs
Senators Jon Tester and John Thune and Representatives Jeff Miller
and Mike Ross, along with 40 co-sponsors, in mid-April 2011
introduced legislation to exempt lead-based ammunition and fishing
tackle from regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The bills were presented only days after two new studies by
researchers at the University of California in Davis confirmed the
detrimental effects of ingested lead shot on wildlife. Associate
professor of veterinary medicine Christine Johnson and epidemiology
doctoral student Terra Kelly, DVM, found that lead levels increase
in the blood of scavenging turkey vultures during deer hunts and in
areas where wild pigs are hunted. Johnson and Kelly also found that
a 2008 ban on lead ammunition ban within the range of endangered
California condors reduced blood lead levels in golden eagles and
turkey vultures within just one year.

Ecuador proposed ban on blood sports is narrowed

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
QUITO–Ecuadorans may vote to ban Spanish-style bullfighting on
May 7, 2011, as part of a 10-point set of constitutional amendments
proposed by President Rafael Correa, but the measure before them
appears to be narrower than the total ban on blood sports that Correa
promised before the ballot language was finalized.
“The question concerns spectacles in which the goal is to kill
the animal. Cockfights are not affected by this problem and will be
allowed,” Correa told Radio Huancavilca in Guayaquil. But Correa
muddled the matter in statements to the government news agency Andes.

Japanese nuclear reactor failure imperils hooved animals even more than pets

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
OSAKA–Difficult as was the plight of dogs and cats in the
no-go zone surrounding the Fukushima nuclear reactor complex, it was
worse for large animals, who are not easily moved, and in most
cases had nowhere to go.
“According to government figures about 3,400 cows, 31,000
pigs and 630,000 chickens were left in the zone, assumed to have died
by now,” reported Animal Refuge Kansai founder Elizabeth Oliver.
“There were around 370 horses in Minami Sohma,” Oliver continued,
“at least 100 of whom died in the disaster. Around 140 horses are
missing.”

Tsunami damage to Pacific atolls seen as harbinger of climate change

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
AIR STATION BARBERS POINT, Hawaii –“This is a problem that
we expect to have again, not because we’re expecting another tsunami
but because of changing climate,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
biologist Elizabeth Flint told Audrey McAvoy of Associated Press.
The March 11, 2011 tsunami that devasted northeastern Japan
did relatively little damage to U.S. territory, but “offered a
preview of what could happen to low-lying atolls,” McAvoy explained,
“as global warming lifts sea levels and causes storms to develop more
frequently. Flint said she expects the high water events such as
these to eat away at seabird habitats.”
The 60-year-old albatross Wisdom survived and returned to her
nesting area on Midway Atoll, Hawaiian & Pacific Islands National
Wildlife Refuge Complex project leader Barry Stieglitz reported.

Throwing ships aground, tsunami left Japanese coastal whaling high & dry

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
AYUKAWAHAMA–“There was Sea Shepherd, and now this,”
retired whaler Shinobu Ankai told Martin Fackler and Makiko Inoue of
The New York Times. “Whaling is finished,” Ankai assessed.
“This could be the final blow to whaling here,” agreed
fellow retired whaler Makoto Takeda.
‘”Whaling is impossible. Reviving it may take 20 to 30
years,” former whaling vessel stoker Yoshiya Endo told Japan Times
earlier.

Editorial feature: Getting wise to “invasive species” rhetoric

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:

In the name of eradicating non-native
“invasive” species, the Texas House of
Representatives on April 4, 2011 voted 137-9 in
favor of a bill to allow landowners to sell
hunters the chance to shoot feral pigs and
coyotes from helicopters.
Feral pigs have only been in Texas for
about 300 years, twice as long as ten-gallon
Stetson hats and Texas-style cowboy boots, but
coyotes have evolved in the vicinity from their
Miacias ancestors for 12 to 15 million years.
Indeed coyotes much resembling those of today had
already inhabited Texas for approximately nine
million years before the first creature even
dimly resembling a Texas legislator evolved
knuckle-walking in what is now Kenya and Ethiopia
and began to stand upright.

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