Animal Control & Rescue
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:
The North Shore Animal League
on May 13 became official sponsor of Spay
USA. NSAL sponsorship is expected to
result in a major expansion of the program,
a hotline to help pet owners locate afford-
able neutering (1-800-248-SPAY; 375-
6627 in Connecticut).
The New York State Humane
Association is supporting 13 bills to
strengthen state humane laws, including
measures to set up a state Animal
Population Control Fund similar to those in
New Jersey and Connecticut, and to give
judges the authority to take animals away
from convicted abusers. New York resi-
dents may get details from 914-255-7099.
The Louisiana House Agricult-
ure Committee recently killed bills to per-
mit judges to order the seizure of allegedly
abused animals during investigations, and
to start a state animal population task force.
Legislation In Support of
Animals on May 13 won an appeal of a dis-
trict court ruling that because the local dis-
trict attorney found no violations of law
himself, LISA could not prosecute the
Vermilion Parish Police Jury in Vermilion,
Louisiana, for allegedly neglecting
impounded animals. The prosecution will
now proceed, LISA executive Jeff Dorson
said, unless the pound cleans up its act.
The Louisiana SPCA on April 23
used a 1987 vaccination tag to reunite a
Doberman named Tasha with owner Chris
Altobello of Metairie, who searched for her
for six months after she jumped his fence
during a 1988 electrical storm.
Because behavioral problems are the
leading cause of failed adoptions, the
San Francisco SPCA now requires adopters
of dogs to leave a deposit refundable upon
completion of an obedience course (for both
dog and owner).
Marksmen hired by the federal
Animal Damage Control program
resumed killing laughing gulls at New
York’s Kennedy International Airport on
May 20, after the Federal Aviation
Administration declared them a safety haz-
ard. The gunners killed 30,000 gulls at the
airport during the past two years, an estimat-
ed 25% of the population, but planes con-
tinue to hit gulls, including an Avianca jet
with 96 people aboard that made an emer-
gency landing February 25 on just one
engine, after a gull strike knocked out a
second engine. That gull was probably a
black-backed gull or herring gull, according
to Sierra Club board member Jack Hoyt,
since laughing gulls don’t frequent the air-
port in February.
The Daishowa Inc. pulp mill near
Quebec City, Quebec, rated the seventh
worst industrial polluter on the St. Lawrence
River by Environment Canada, plans to
destroy thousands of gulls’ eggs under gov-
ernment supervision because the birds
allegedly make too much mess.
The Houston SPCA is building a
46,000-square-foot shelter, 2.5 times as big
as the present facility, to be completed early
next year. The current shelter will be sold
when the new one opens.
Police in Easton, Massachusetts
on May 1 discovered a headless African jun-
gle cat called a serval near the Raynham-
Taunton Greyhound Park. Callers from
three nearby towns had reported seeing a
jungle cat––but the remains did not match a
videotape of the cat.
TV personality Dick Cavett
reportedly hopes to make a documentary on
the abuse of exotic cats kept as pets, based
on the experiences of the Cedar Hill
Sanctuary in Caledonia, Mississippi.
Louisiana State University veteri-
nary students are helping cat rescuers Merle
Suhayda and Joy McCool to neuter the cam-
pus feral cat colony. About 35 of the 90 cats
treated so far have been adopted out; the
rest are in a neuter/release program.
Law librarian Katherine Foster,
31, of Garland, Texas, says she plans to
build an animal shelter with the $1 million
she won in the May 13 state lottery.
Acting on instructions from the
Illinois Department of Conservation,
Dupage County Animal Control arrested
volunteer state trapping instructor Ron
Erickson on February 10 for setting
unmarked traps without the landowner’s per-
mission. However, when Erickson argued
that animal control officers don’t have the
authority to enforce wildlife laws, the
charges were dropped and the DOC, at
deadline, was refusing to reopen the case.
Earlier, Erickson led a successful lobbying
effort to amend state law to bar communities
from independently banning leghold trap-
ping––as Dupage County had.
Fire possibly caused by a leaking
gas line razed the Seminole County Humane
Society in Sanford, Florida on April 14,
killing 63 of 103 kenneled dogs and causing
$157,000 worth of damage. An adjacent cat
shelter was unharmed.
Humane Society of Greater
Akron director Dee Durst resigned May
1 , after a members’ meeting convened by
court order required the board to hire a vet-
erinarian who would report to the board, not
to the director. Supported by most of the
board, Durst had been criticized by several
former board members and volunteers for
allegedly failing to provide veterinary care.
When the dissidents tried to call a special
membership meeting to address the matter,
the pro-Durst faction withheld the member-
ship list until the court stepped in.
Calls to the Pet Assistance
Foundation seeking help with neutering
increased 41% this spring, after the San
Diego Water district enclosed a notice about
the group’s neuter subsidy program with
water bills.
