Animal control & rescue
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:
Flooding
Mid-May flooding stranded and
killed livestock and pets in rural areas of
Louisiana and Missisippi, but populated
areas, protected by levees and drainage sys-
tems, were only lightly hit, Jeff Dorson of
the New Orleans activist group Legislation
In Support of Animals told ANIMAL PEO-
P L E. LISA and the Louisiana SPCA did
some pet rescue in Jefferson Parish, while
Mary Hoffman and Doll Stanley-Branscum
of In Defense of Animals organized a rescue
effort around Grenada, Mississippi. “Even if
the waters recede rapidly, injured and home-
less wildlife and domestic animals will need
assistance,” Stanley-Branscum predicted.
Projects
Cindy Schultz, founder of The
Animal Lobby, and a longtime critic of the
Wisconsin Humane Society, has formed a
new organization, the Wisconsin SPCA,
which is “raising funds to establish five ani-
mal shelters in the Milwaukee County area,”
she says, hoping to open the first circa
January 1, 1996. Not strictly no-kill, the
Wisconsin SPCA is to depart from WHS
policy in that it it won’t euthanize on owner
demand, euthanize puppies and kittens,
euthanize dogs due to breed, or euthanize
animals for treatable conditions, and will
stress high-volume adoption, including
working “extensively with reputable breed
clubs and other groups to place animals.”
The Saratoga County Animal
Welfare League, of upstate New York, “is
renovating property in Gansevoort to open a
no-kill shelter for our abuse cases and
injured and pregnant strays,” writes presi-
dent Phyllis Shulman. “We are an all-volun-
teer organization, in its 22nd year, that gets
a small amount of funding from the City of
Saratoga Springs and Saratoga County.”
Citing USDA statistics that indi-
cate each rat in a barn costs the farmer
$ 3 0, Second Chance Pet Adoptions, of
Cary, North Carolina, is seeking farmers to
participate in a neuter/release program.
Second Chance will either neuter colonies
already on farms or deliver ready-made
colonies of three to seven cats rescued from
unsuitable sites elsewhere.
Low-cost rabies vaccination clin-
ics held by the Long Island Veterinary
Medical Association, using donated time
and vaccine, raised $10,000 toward the cost
of a new van for the Town of Hempstead
Animal Shelter. The van arrived April 10.
Progress
The latest Progressive Animal
Welfare Society survey of Washington
state animal shelters shows that while cat
intakes leveled off in 1994, dog intakes and
euthanasias of all animals fell for the fifth
year in a row, now down 46% since 1990.
The statewide euthanasia rate was 53%.
Trouble
Founded in January 1993, and
already influential in urging Taiwan
toward more enlightened wildlife policies,
the all-volunteer Life Conservationist
Association on March 19 rescued more
than 100 dogs from three cages at the
Taipai County Environmental Protection
Bureau compound in Juifang, whom a
member discovered while bird-watching.
Starved since January, the surviving dogs
had cannibalized others, yet remained so
tightly packed in the most crowded cages
that some had to stand on top of others.
Unable to open the fourth cage, LCA
pledged to protest to the Taipai County
Council and sue the EPB for malfeasance
on behalf of the dogs left behind. “Those
dogs who had the strength escaped to the
relative shelter of a garbage shed and a
nearby temple, where the priest offered
them the sacrificial cakes and food left at
the altar,” Christopher Bodeen of the China
P o s t reported. The EPB apparently began
starving dogs after catching heat last
November for drowning dogs and burying
them alive at the county dump in Shulin
Township. “We will demand to end inhu-
mane conditions immediately, starting with
registration and identification of dogs,”
said Wu Hung, the Buddhist monk who
cofounded LCA, together with president
Sakya Chao-Fai and others. (Contact LCA
at POB 112565, Taipai, Taiwan.)
ANIMAL PEOPLE in May
published the address of the Colorado
Animal Refuge, a no-kill shelter run by
Mary Port that was swept by fire on April 3,
killing 50 animals. Denver veterinarian Jeff
Young of Planned Pethood Plus called to
warn that sending donations would be a
mistake. Young said he and colleagues
Mike Chamberlain and Erin Russell
neutered 102 animals at CAR at their own
expense several years ago. While there,
Young said, they saw dogs cannibalizing
each other, very badly housed wildlife, and
“hundreds of sick cats in an old trailer.” He
further alleged that Port for a time hosted
Vicki Kittles––convicted of 42 cruelty
counts in Clatsop County, Oregon, on
February 3, after running into collecting
trouble in at least three other states, and
also the only suspect in the 1988 disappear-
ance of her mother.
Bunny Hill, a rabbit rescue
shelter run by Tom and Gail Gangale of
San Rafael, California, had to May 12 to
place 40 rabbits and close, after running
afoul of Marin County zoning. The county
learned of the shelter, which had placed 90
rabbits since 1992, when the Gangales
went on TV at Easter to discuss rabbit care.
Legislation
The National Senior Citizen Pet
Ownership Act, to extend the right of pet
ownership to all senior citizens and disabled
people living in public housing and other
federally assisted developments, was intro-
duced on May 11 by Rep. Susan Molinari
(R-N.Y.) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-
N.Y.) Currently, senior citizens and the dis-
abled who live in federally assisted housing
may have pets, but only if the site is specifi-
cally designated for the elderly and handi-
capped. “Because senior designated housing
is not available to all seniors everywhere,
many seniors are forced to give up their com-
panion animals,” a supporting statement
explains. “Just last November, the New
York City Housing Authority sent letters to
tenants ordering them to give up their pets or
face eviction,” an edict soon retracted under
public pressure. The act is endorsed by the
American Humane Association, the
American Kennel Club, the American
SPCA, the American Veterinary Medical
Association, the Massachusetts SPCA, and
the Pet Food Institute.
An omnibus update of Maine
humane law, LD 1356, was being rewritten
as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press to
include language allowing owners to shoot
their pets if the animals are immobilized and
are dispatched with one shot. The rewrite
originated out of a 1994 case in which a
Gardiner man shot his 10-month-old
Labrador twice in the head. The dog
lived––and the man escaped cruelty prosecu-
tion because the district attorney there held
that current Maine law doesn’t bar owners
from killing their pets any way they wish.
Countered Aroostook County deputy D.A.
John Pluto, “I don’t think the law could be
any clearer. Lethal injection is the only
method permitted, except that in an emer-
gency an animal may be shot.” But it wasn’t
his jurisdiction. Attorney and Kennebec
Valley Humane Society board member Jim
Bivens then drafted a bill to ban pet-shoot-
ing, but the state Animal Welfare Advisory
Committee forced him to conditionally allow
it when Maine Department of Agriculture
representative Peter Curra said an outright
ban on pet-shooting couldn’t win passage. A
second controversial aspect of the pending
update is a stipulation that anyone who feeds
a feral domesticated animal other than a
horse or a dog for 10 days becomes the ani-
mal’s legal owner, responsible for licensing
and vaccination. The bill contains no provi-
sion for feral cat rescuers, who may have to
feed a colony for longer than 10 days in order
to catch all the cats.
Letters in support of a bill to
introduce a felony cruelty statute in
Alabama may be sent to the State House,
Montgomery, AL 36130. The bill is called
the “Gucci bill,” after the dog whose torture
prompted the introduction of the measure.
Already requiring cat licensing
and sterilization of outdoor cats, the city
of Novato, California, on April 27 became
the first in the U.S. to require microchip I.D.
too, with a fine of $45 for failure to comply.
The North Shore Animal League almost set
a weekend adoption record, placing 525 animals
during its first Adopt-a-thon, May 7-8––but the
Michigan Humane Society placed 572 during the
same two days at an outdoor event hosted by the
Detroit Zoo. “We ran out of pets both days,” said
NSAL shelter director Mike Arms. “Four hundred
qualified families came too late. There was a two-
hour line to get to the puppy room.” Screening was
tight, as 190 would-be adopters were rejected.
MHS did not run out of animals because 12 other
humane organizations helped keep the Detroit cages
full. Both shelters plan to do it again next year.
