Animal Planet pulls White Lions video

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
The December 2006 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE mentioned that the
Animal Planet cable television channel had come under criticism from
canned hunt opponents for airing a documentary called White Lions:
King of Kings.
The documentary, said ANIMAL PEOPLE book reviewer and
Cannedlion.com founder Chris Mercer, “presented Marius Prinsloo, a
notorious canned lion breeder in South Africa, as a paragon of
conservation working to preserve the white lion gene.”

Horse slaughterhouse closes after verdict

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
DALLAS–Horse slaughter in the U.S. for human consumption
appeared to be closer to an end on March 23, 2007, when the Dallas
Crown slaughterhouse in Kaufman, Texas, temporarily laid off staff.
“We have decided temporarily not to process, because we have
some changes to make here,” Dallas Crown spokesperson Chris Soenen
told Michael Gresham of the Kaufman Herald. Soenen said that “just
about everyone other than administration” had been sent home, but
said this did not mean Dallas Crown would be going out of business.
“This is just temporary as we restructure,” Soenen said.

People & positions

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
The Mohawk & Hudson River Humane Society, serving Albany,
New York, since 1887, on March 19, 2007 introduced new executive
director Brad Shear. Shear was previously shelter manager and animal
care and control director for the Humane Society of Boulder Valley in
Colorado, managed the Brooklyn shelter for the New York City Center
for Animal Care & Control, and was director of operations for the
Atlanta Humane Society. Shear succeeds interim director Warren Cox,
who has headed 24 humane societies and animal control agencies in 55
years. His seventh post was as founding director of the Animal
Rescue League in Marshalltown, Iowa, whose director since 1976,
Wendy Fields, in March 2007 announced her retirement. Fields began
working at the Animal Rescue League at age 16 to pay off her dog’s
impoundment fees. She succeeded then-director Bob Brandau, recalled
Greg Pierquet of the Marshalltown Times-Republican, after showing
her dedication by bottle-feeding two orphaned skunk babies. The
skunks remained her pets for eight years.

Activists & Organizations

South Africa, Zimbabwe claim need to cull elephants

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
ADDO NATIONAL PARK– South African environmental affairs and
tourism minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk on February 28, 2007
announced that culling elephants may resume soon after a 12-year
suspension, under a draft policy open for public comment until May 4.
“If culling is allowed after the process of public comment,
and if it is included in the final draft,” van Schalkwyk said,
speaking cautiously to media at Addo National Park on the Eastern
Cape, “it would really depend on the management plans and
management objectives of each of the parks” where elephants might be
killed.
Addo and Kruger National Park, South Africa’s oldest and
largest, are most often mentioned as sites of alleged elephant
overpopulation.
“We have about 20,000 elephants in South Africa,” van
Schalkwyk said, of whom “more or less 14,000 are in Kruger National
Park. In 1995, when we stopped culling we had around 8,000
elephants. The population growth of elephants is six to seven
percent [per year]. This is the hard reality,” Van Schalkwyk
explained.

Editorial: Media relations & the Bangalore dog crisis

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:

The Bangalore dog crisis, extensively covered in both this
and the previous edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE, has underlying meaning
for almost every reader.
Heavily publicized dog attacks, in Bangalore and elsewhere,
may cause India to rescind or weaken the decade-old policy mandating
civic participation in the national Animal Birth Control program,
and forbidding indiscriminate massacres of street dogs.
This would be a reversal of momentum toward achieving no-kill
animal control of global influence–and would come even though ABC
has cut the street dog population of India by as much as 75% in 10
years, according to the most recent World Health Organization
estimate. Dog attacks are down proportionately, including in
Bangalore, which has 74% fewer dog attacks per 1,000 citizens than
the national average.

BOOKS: The Plight of Pakistani Animals

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:

The Plight of Pakistani Animals
by Khalid Mahmood Qurashi
President, Animal Save Movement, Pakistan

In Pakistan even human beings are not accorded fundamental
rights. But the condition of animals is worse and miserable.
Both birds and land animals are so frequently hunted as if
they were an enemy army, including by some of the persons and
organizations whose jobs are to protect animals. and their lives.
Members of our wildlife and forestry departments often aid the
hunters, and even participate in the killing.
Bankers, industrialists, and politicians invite their
foreign business partners, including Arabian princes, to come hunt
even our rarest species–and to capture our vanishing wild falcons,
to turn them into hunting weapons. Local leaders and merchants
show their influence by hosting cockfights, bear-baiting, and other
kinds of animal fight.

Wolves, grizzlies lose protection– and Alaska resumes wolf bounty

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:

WASHINGTON D.C.–Wolves and grizzly bears, the iconic
predators of the North American frontier, lost their Endangered
Species Act protection within the continental U.S. within days of
each other in March 2007, opening the possibility that both may soon
be legally hunted.
Demonstrating how wolves and grizzlies became endangered in
the first place–and what has historically always happened when rural
states are allowed jurisdiction over large predators–Alaska Governor
Sarah Palin’s office on March 20 introduced a $150 bounty on wolves.
The bounty is open only to the 180 pilots and aerial gunners who are
registered volunteer participants in the state’s predator control
program.

New Mexico bans cockfighting

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:

SANTA FE–New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson on March 12,
2007 signed into law a bill banning cockfighting, leaving Louisiana
as the last U.S. state that allows it.
“Today, New Mexico joins 48 other states in affirming that
deliberately killing animals for entertainment and profit is no
longer acceptable,” said State Senator Mary Jane Garcia (D-Dona Ana),
who pushed prohibiting cockfights for 18 years.
Thirteen New Mexico counties had already individually banned
cockfighting.
Taking effect on June 15, “The bill makes participating in
cockfights a petty misdemeanor on first offense, a misdemeanor on
second offense, and a fourth-degree felony– punishable by up to 18
months in prison–for a third or subsequent offense. Spectators
could not be charged,” summarized Deborah Baker of Associated Press.
“The push for change was homegrown,” reported Los Angeles
Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi. “When Garcia took office in
1989, a male colleague suggested she try to ban cockfighting. Her
bill was easily defeated” Riccardi recalled, “and Garcia soon
learned that the ban suggestion was a sort of hazing to which veteran
legislators subjected young female colleagues.”

South Africa regulates–but does not ban–killing captive lions

April 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
CAPE TOWN–“We are putting an end, once
and for all, to the reprehensible practice of
canned hunting,” insisted South African
environment minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk at a
February 20, 2007 press conference in Cape Town.
“South Africa has a long standing
reputation as a global leader on conservation
issues. We cannot allow our achievements to be
undermined by rogue practices such as canned lion
hunting,” van Schalkwyk continued.
Effective on June 1, 2007, van Schalwyk
said, the new regulations will prohibit “hunting
large predators and rhinoceros who are ‘put and
take’ animals–in other words, a captive-bred
animal who is released on a property for the
purpose of hunting within twenty-four months.
Hunting should be about fair chase,” van
Schalkwyk said. “Over the years that got eroded
and now we are trying to re-establish that
principal.”

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