Animal control & rescue
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:
Sara Lohnes, 11, and Necia Crucetti, 10, of Hoosick
Falls, New York, dashed down an overgrown railway embank-
ment the morning of February 20 to free Sport, a husky/shepherd
mix belonging to neighbor Tim Stratton, 10, whom vandals had
tied to the tracks in front of an oncoming train. Police chief Royal
Howard said suspects would be questioned. The dog was reported
missing 20 minutes before the girls found him. Another dog was
killed the same way in the same vicinity several months earlier.
The Animal Regulation Department in Sonoma
County, California, received a record 202 reports of neglected
and starving animals in January, three times as many as in January
1994, supervising officer Bob Garcia reported on February 26.
Most of the cases involved harsh weather, including flooding.
“Zero Tolerance for Cruelty,” a program announced
on February 22 by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, is to provide
pro bono assistance to local prosecutors of cruelty cases, anywhere
in California. Call 415-459-0885 for details.
Oregon animal shelter intakes fell from 116,490 in
1991 to 88,898 in 1993, according to the Oregon Animal Welfare
Alliance’s just published third annual survey of all shelters in the
state. Euthanasias dropped from 79,713 to 53,577, while adop-
tions were up from 19,105 to 25,866.
Workers removing debris from the January 17 earth-
quake that devastated Kobe, Japan, on March 4 found a 10-year-
old dog alive in the buried remains of her doghouse. Owners
Kazuko and Yutaka Inui, both 63, had failed several times to find
her. The 44-day survival eclipsed the record of a dog found alive
on February 6, 19 days after the quake. With temperatures below
freezing, no human survived in the rubble more than two days.
At deadline the Pets Alive no-kill shelter i n
Middletown, New York, had raised $80,000 of the $300,000 it
needed by March 28 to avoid foreclosure. Founded by Sara
Whalen in 1986, with proceeds from a divorce settlement, the
shelter has been financially struggling since 1989. It houses 80
dogs, 30 cats, and a variety of livestock.
Senior animal control officer Robert Cure, of
Guilderland, New York, retired rather than face a February 22
hearing on charges of improperly ordering a dog destroyed. In
New York, only a judge can issue such an order. Already on pro-
bation for allegedly neglecting animals in his custody, Cure was
reportedly also accused of harassing Debbie Ciufo, his assistant
since early 1993, who became his successor. Cure was honored
by the state Department of Environmental Conservation last year
for outstanding rabies control work during 1993, when he submit-
ted 298 animal heads for testing, of which 146 proved rabid.
Ciufo submitted 154 heads, of which 96 proved rabid. No other
officer in Albany County submitted more than 102 heads.
HUMANE LEGISLATION
Billy Clemons, a Democratic representative from
east Texas, is pushing a bill in the Texas legislature that would
amend state cruelty law to allow aggressive animals to be housed
together––and redefine “shelter” to include cockpits and dogfight-
ing arenas. Cockfighting, a felony in 16 states, is illegal in 45.
Dogfighting is illegal in all 50 states.
Following the recommendation of the PIGS sanctu-
ary in West Virginia, the largest U.S. refuge for cast-off potbel-
lied pigs, the Illinois legislature on March 7 killed a bill approved
February 8 by the state house agriculture committee which would
have barred communities from regulating pet pig ownership more
strictly than they regulate dog ownership.
SB 5779 and HB 1836, now before the Washington
l e g i s l a t u r e, would create a statewide neutering fund, modeled
after the 12-year-old New Jersey Pet Population Control Fund.
Oklahoma state representative Laura Boyd got a
strengthened anti-cruelty bill through the state house on March 6,
51-49, after an earlier version was rejected on February 27 by 17
votes––but at deadline the bill still had to run a gauntlet of state
senate committees before becoming law.
Maryland and Connecticut are reportedly considering
more stringent pet store regulation. The Maryland bill would set
up a “lemon law.” The Connecticut bll would bar pet stores from
selling puppies and kitttens.
