Mother Nature fights the seal hunt

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:
ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland– Climatic
conditions appeared likely to do the annual
Atlantic Canadian seal hunt more economic damage
in 2007 than all the protests and boycotts
worldwide combined.
As ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press on April
25, sealers were still assessing the combined
cost of a sealing season that was almost without
ice in much of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, while
drifting sheet ice trapped and badly damaged
sealing vessels along the Labrador Front,
northeast of Newfoundland. A dozen crews had
abandoned their boats after ice cracked the hulls.
“Two Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers,
the Ann Harvey and the Sir Wilfred Grenfell, are
trapped in the ice along with the sealing
vessels. Helicopters are flying food and fuel to
the stranded crews on the ice,” reported Paul
Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
As many as 90 sealing boats were trapped
in ice, as of April 23, up from 60 ten days
earlier, according to the St. Johns Telegram.
The icebreakers had managed to free only about 10
boats in five days of effort, before becoming
stuck themelves.

How Chinese ingredients contaminated U.S. pet foods

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:

BEIJING–How and why melamine came to contaminate wheat and corn
gluten and rice protein concentrate manufactured in China is still
unknown.
But, as a maker of wheat gluten, MGP Ingredients vice
president Steve Pickman has voiced an idea.
“It is my understanding, but certainly unheard of in our
experience,” Pickman told media, “that melamine could increase the
measurable nitrogen emitted from gluten, and then be mathematically
converted to protein. The effect could create the appearance or
illusion of raising the gluten’s protein level. Understandably, any
acts or practices such as this are barred in the U.S. How the U.S.
can or cannot monitor and prevent these types of situations from
occurring in other parts of the world,” Pickman concluded, “is the
overriding question.”

Liability cases loom over melamine-tainted pet food

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:

EMPORIA, Kansas–“To the extent that we identify that the
cause of any expenses incurred [by pet keepers for veterinary care] are related to the food, Menu will take responsibility,” Menu Foods
chief executive Paul Henderson pledged, after ordering the first of
a flurry of pet food recalls.
But that was just before pet keepers and law firms coast to
coast began alleging in more than two dozen attempted class action
cases that Menu Foods responded too slowly to the crisis, caused by
melamine contamination of pet food ingredients. The contamination
kills dogs and cats–especially cats–by attacking their kidneys.

Cracking the case of the pet food killer

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:

PORTLAND, Oregon–As many as 39,000 American dogs and cats
may have been injured or killed by pet foods contaminated by
melamine, a chemical formerly considered safe, during the three
months or longer that the tainted food was in distribution.
Banfield Pet Hospitals, operating 615 veterinary clinics
around the U.S., produced this preliminary estimate from information
on client visits, from December 2006 through mid-March 2007. During
that time the Banfield hospitals handled more than one million animal
visits, and saw a 30% increase in cases of cats suffering from
kidney failure.
The data suggests that three out of every 10,000 cats and
dogs who ate the contaminated pet food developed kidney failure,
Banfield told Associated Press.
Receiving consumer complaints about pet foods allegedly
poisoning healthy dogs and cats, Menu Foods Inc. ordered test
feedings. After 16 cats and dogs died from kidney failure during the
laboratory test feeding, Menu Foods on March 16, 2007 recalled 60
million cans of dog and cat food. A Canadian firm with U.S. plants
in Emporia, Kansas, and New Jersey, Menu Foods supplied products
to at least seven different companies, who sold Menu-made pet food
under more than 100 brands.

Vier Pfoten buys South African game lodge to turn into sanctuary

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:

BETHLEHEM, South Africa––What will become of lions reared
in captivity by South African ranchers to be shot as trophies, who
after June 1, 2007 may no longer be killed before enjoying two years of
a semi-natural life?
Racing to complete a new sanctuary called Lionsrock by
mid-summer, projected as the world s largest, the Vienna-based
international animal charity Vier Pfoten anticipates taking in at least
some of the lions.
Best known for operating mobile dog and cat sterilization
clinics in Bulgaria, Romania, and other former Communist nations of
eastern Europe, Vier Pfoten has gradually expanded into many other
animal welfare activities, including disaster relief and wildlife
rescue.

Wildlife SOS “franchises” dancing bear sanctuaries

April 2, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
AGRA–Wildlife SOS, operating three sanctuaries for dancing
bears, has made a speciality of helping Kalandar dancing bear
exhibitors into other occupations, in exchange for their bears and a
pledge to stay out of promoting animal acts.
Frequently the price of a dancing bear is the training and
start-up capital to enable a Kalandar family to start a small
business, a sharp break from a tradition so ancient that many of the
oldest circus families worldwide–such as the Chipperfields,
performing in Britain since 1683–appear to have Kalandar origins.
“We have seen a change in attitude amongst the Kalandar
people themselves,” says Wildlife SOS cofounder Kartick
Satyanarayan. “Bear poachers in Uttar Pradesh state recently tried
to sell a young cub to a Kalandar community, but the villagers
refused to buy the cub because they knew this would be against the
law. I truly feel there is an end in sight,” Satyanarayn
emphasizes, “and one day the streets of India will be free of
captive bears being tortured for entertainment.”

Muschel photo caption

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
“As there has been no funding from leading animal rights
groups for a sustained anti-fur campaign in the affluent
neighborhoods of New York City, I decided to put up an anti-fur
mural,” wrote New York City resident Irene Muschel. The mural went
up in March 2007, “recognizing,” Muschel said, “that the best time
for anti-fur murals is when the weather is warmer, so people can
learn before they buy fur.”

Succeeding in Galapagos, Animal Balance takes s/n to the Dominican

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
SAN FRANCISCO– Moving to the Dominican Republic with her
personal pets in February 2007, planning to start surgeries in
March, Animal Balance founder Emma Clifford hopes that lessons
learned in introducing dog and cat sterilization to the Galapagos
Islands off Ecuador, human population 30,000, can be applied in a
Caribbean island nation of more than nine million.
“I think we’ll be the first to do a focused spay/neuter
campaign in the Dominican,” Clifford told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “We are
targeting villages across the northern coast, starting in Cabrera.
We will work with the local vets and the national veterinary school.
As the Dominican Republic is the place for baseball,” where more
people of all ages play than anywhere else in the world, “we have
been collecting used baseball gloves, and will be giving them out as
incentives for people to get their animals sterilized, along with
the collars and leashes. St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa
has joined us and lent his name to the project to help gain
interest,” with credibility on animal issues earned as cofounder
with his wife Elaine of Tony La Russa’s Animal Foundation.

BOOKS: Making Tracks: The Marin Humane Society Celebrates 100 Years

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:

Making Tracks: The Marin Humane Society Celebrates 100 Years
Edited by Elaine Sichel & Pam Williams.
Photos & photo editing by Sumner W. Fowler
Marine Humane Society (171 Bel Marin Keys Blvd., Novato, CA
94949), 2007. 96 pages, hardcover. $24.95.

The most remarkable aspect of the Marin Humane Society
turning 100, as it will on December 14, 2007, is not that it has
endured as long as it has, but rather that it has endured so long
with only three generations of longterm leadership, through repeated
redefinitions of role, in a community changing almost beyond
recognition.
Making Tracks: The Marin Humane Society Celebrates 100 Years
is a souvenir album, including only transient discussion of most of
the controversies that Marin Humane has addressed or been part
of–but a three-page timeline gives hints.
Founder Ethel H. Tompkins lived almost her entire life in the
San Anselmo home where she was born in 1876 and died in 1969. She
briefly attended a New York City boarding school, but was expelled
in 1894 for leaving class to ride a policeman’s horse. She had
obtained the policeman’s permission.

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