Mississippi felony cruelty law

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
JACKSON–Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour on April 27,
2011 signed into law possibly the weakest of the 47 state felony
cruelty statues now in effect. The law permits filing felony charges
only if a person previously convicted of intentionally torturing,
burning, starving, or physically disfiguring a cat or dog is
convicted again within five years of the first conviction. “In other
words, they get away with it the first time,” Pearl River SPCA
president Maria Diamond told Jeremy Pittari of the Picayune Item.

London Zoo blunder kills baby gorilla

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
 
LONDON–Tiny, a seven-month-old western gorilla, the first
gorilla born at the London Zoo since 1988, suffered a broken arm and
died of apparent internal injuries on May 12, 2011 in an attack by
the recently acquired silverback male Kesho. Tiny and his mother
Mjukuu had just been introduced to Kesho for the second time.
“Kesho’s arrival was recommended by experts to create a
cohesive social group, after the death of the zoo’s previous male
gorilla,” reported BBC News. “In the wild male gorillas often
attack the offspring of their rivals, so staff were cautious about
introducing Kesho to the baby, who was the offspring of the former
male. Kesho had been introduced to the two other female gorillas at
the zoo, but keepers waited many months for an introduction to the
youngster and his mother.”

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Cattle disease rinderpest, which once killed millions, is declared to be extinct

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:

 

PARIS–The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) on May
25, 2011 formally announced the eradication of rinderpest–the first
time an animal disease has been extinguished through human efforts,
and only the second time that any disease has been eradicated. The
first, smallpox, was last reported in 1977.
“It was rinderpest that led to the formation of the OIE in
1924, following a new incursion of the rinderpest virus in Europe,
via the port of Antwerp,” recalled British Veterinary Medical
Association spokesperson Helena Cotton.

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Donkey Sanctuary founder Elisabeth Svendsen, 81

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:

Elisabeth Svendsen, 81, founder of The Donkey Sanctuary,
died of a stroke on May 11, 2011 in Exeter, England. She appeared
to be “the picture of health” two days earlier, said Donkey
Sanctuary chief executive David Cook, when she gave the closing
speech at Donkey Week, celebrated at the Donkey Sanctuary
headquarters in east Devon.
Born Elisabeth Knowles in York-shire, “She became enamored
of donkeys when she was a girl,” wrote Emma Brown of the Washington
Post. “She worked as a teacher and a secretary before she and her
husband Niels started a family. They devised a dryer for baby
diapers, sold their invention to a manufacturer, and bought the
Salston Hotel at Ottery St. Mary in Devon.”

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Obituaries (June 2011)

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:

“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The
evil that men do lives after them. The good is
oft interred with their bones.” –William
Shakespeare

Nina Leopold Bradley, 93, died on May
25, 2011 at her home in Baraboo, Wisconsin.
The third of five children born to Sand County
Almanac author Aldo Leopold and his wife Estella,
Nina Leopold in 1941 married zoologist William
Elder (1913-2006), who was among her father’s
students. She raised two daughters while
accompanying Elder on field expeditions, and
assisted him in projects including developing an
oral contraceptive for birds. Divorcing Elder,
Nina Leopold married Charles Bradley in 1973.

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Awards & Honors

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
The 37th annual Animal Trans-portation Association
conference, held May 22-25, 2011 in Brussels, Belgium, honored
Sharon Cregier, Ph.D., of Montague, Prince Edward Island, for
lifetime achievement in promoting the welfare of animals in
transport. An ANIMAL PEOPLE charter subscriber, Cregier may be best
known for research demonstrating that the safest way to haul horses
is facing backward–exactly the reverse of the most common
configuration of horse trailers.

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Cartoon keeps seal hunt in the spotlight

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:

TORONTO–Just when Atlantic Canadian sealers
imagined it might be safe to go back in the
water, because maybe no one was watching with
cameras this year, a cartoon seal walked into a
bar and attracted media notice from St. Johns,
Newfoundland, to Vancouver, British Columbia.
“PETA printed clever coasters and distributed
them in bars around Toronto,” explained
Treehugger blogger Lloyd Alter. Drawn by New
Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss, the coasters
showed a sad-eyed seal telling a bartender,
“Anything but a Canadian Club.”

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Proposed compromise on Missouri puppy mill bill pleases few

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
JEFFERSON CITY–For 24 hours Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and
Humane Society of Missouri president Kathryn W. Warnick thought they
had brokered a deal to preserve key provisions of the Puppy Mill
Cruelty Prevention Act, an initiative approved by Missouri voters in
November 2008, but dismantled by the state legislature on April 13,
2011.
Overwhelmingly supported by urban voters, the Puppy Mill
Cruelty Prevention Act did not win approval in rural districts,
whose representatives hold the majority of seats in both the Missouri
House and Senate.

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Vegan World Radio & Lone Star Vegetarian Chili Cook-Off cofounder Shirley Wilkes-Johnson

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
Shirley Wilkes-Johnson, 74, died of a stroke in Houston on
April 9, 2011.
A vegetarian since 1961, Wilkes-Johnson began discussing her
beliefs about diet, health, and the treatment of animals with the
public in January 1974, as co-host of a morning talk show on radio
KTLW in La Marque, Texas. She soon became a frequent speaker to
small gatherings and contributor to newspaper recipe columns.

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