Lebanon war animal victims still need help

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
BEIRUT, HAIFA–More than a month after Hezbollah militia
members quit rocketing northern Israel and Israel quit bombing
southern Lebanon to try to stop them, animal rescuers continued
efforts begun under fire to help the many nonhuman victims.
Best Friends Animal Society rapid response manager Richard
Crook, a Chilean veterinarian, and a vet tech flew to Lebanon on
September 7, 2006 with 175 pounds of kitten food, along with
veterinary supplies, en route to help arrange the evacuation of
about 300 dogs and cats to the U.S.
Calling the evacuation “Paws for Peace,” Best Friends
reportedly raised $182,000 of the estimated $300,000 cost of that
project and other rescue work in Lebanon and Israel before Crook’s
departure.

War hurts wildlife

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

Scarce wildlife habitat in both Lebanon and Israel took a big
hit from the July and August 2006 fighting.
“Huge swaths of forests and fields across northern Israel
were scorched by Hezbollah rocket strikes,” reported Associated
Press writer Aron Heller. “Charred branches stick out of the ground
like grave markers at the Mount Naftali Forest overlooking Kiryat
Shemona. In all, rocket fire destroyed 16,500 acres of forests and
grazing fields, said Jewish National Fund forest supervisor Michael
Weinberger, the top administrator of Israel’s forests. About a
million trees were destroyed.

Comparing costs of carbon monoxide v.s. sodium pentobarbital

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
After claims that gassing is safer for employees, the most
persistent argument for killing animals by carbon monoxide instead of
sodium pentobarbital is that carbon monoxide is less expensive–if
only because most of the gas chambers now in use were installed and
paid for decades ago.
“Switching to lethal injection would mean investing in drugs
and training staff,” reported Raleigh News & Observer staff writer
Marti Maguire in February 2006. “That could strap counties that now
spend as little as $20 per animal. The Orange County shelter spends
$150 per animal,” using lethal injection, Maguire wrote.

“Lawrence of the hyenas” talks Lord’s Resistance Army into sparing rhinos

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
“Lawrence Anthony, founder of the South African
environmental group The Earth Organisation, has persuaded the Lord’s
Resistance Army to join with scientists to protect the northern white
rhino, of which only four are thought to remain in the wild,” London
Guardian environment correspondent David Adam reported on September
13, 2006.
“As part of an ongoing peace process,” Adam continued, “the
rebels have pledged not to harm the animals and to tell wildlife
experts if they see one.”
The LRA in 2005 invaded Garamba national park, “a sprawling
and densely forested reserve close to the Ugandan border in the far
northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Adam explained.
“The LRA is notorious for use of child soldiers and has been accused
of atrocities including rapes, mutilations and the mass murder of
civilians. Conservation seemed far from its priorities,
particularly after members shot dead 12 game rangers and eight
Guatemalan UN soldiers sent to the region to keep order.”

Marine mammal exhibitors join protest against Japanese coastal dolphin killing

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

More than 60 organizations demonstrated
outside Japanese embassies and consulates in 32
cities against “traditional” coastal whaling on
September 20, 2006, the second annual Japan
Dolphin Day declared and coordinated by Ric
O’Barry of One Voice. Most notoriously practiced
at Taiji, the coastal whaling method consists of
driving dolphins into shallow bays from which
they cannot escape and then hacking them to death
en massé, after some are selected for live
capture and sale to swim-with-dolphins
attractions and exhibition parks.
The so-called “drive fisheries” have been
protested for more than 30 years by marine mammal
advocates including Sakei Hemmi of the Elsa
Nature Conservancy/Japan, film maker Hardin
Jones, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder
Paul Watson, and Steve Sipman, who invented the
name “Animal Liberation Front” in connection with
releasing two dolphins from a Hawaiian laboratory
in 1976. The Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks &
Aquariums and the American Zoo & Aquarium
Association finally issued statements of
objection to the “drive fisheries” in March 2004,
as did the World Association of Zoos & Aquariums
in June 2006.

Harsh monsoons test rescuers

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
VISAKHAPATNAM–At least 49 people were reported dead in
Bangladesh and 46 in India on September 22, 2006, following the
ninth cyclone to hit the western coast of the Bay of Bengal in as
many weeks. The animal toll was not immediately available.
“We are hoping to get some help to add to our efforts,”
e-mailed Visakha SPCA president Pradeep Kumar Nath. “Help is needed
urgently for feed.”
The Visakha SPCA continued assisting animals elsewhere along
the stricken Bengal coast while rebuilding its own facilities,
destroyed by a cyclone and landslides on August 3, just 11 months
after a typhoon destroyed the previous facilities in September 2005.
“We send our deepest gratitude from the animals and villagers
for the flood relief help we have received from the World Society for
the Protection of Animals and individual donors,” Nath said before
the ninth cyclone hit. “So far we have been able to help more than
27,000 animals with over 66 ton of food, vaccinations, wound
treatment and deworming.”

SHAC leaders sentenced in Britain & New Jersey

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
LONDON, TRENTON–Five alleged
instigators of property damage and threats
directed at facilities, business partners, and
employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences in
mid-September 2006 drew prison terms ranging from
three to six years.
Northampton Crown Court Judge Ian
Alexander on September 20 sentenced molecular
biologist Joseph Harris, 26, to three years as
the first person convicted under a new British
law against economic sabotage.
“Harris, of Bursledon, Hampshire, broke
into premises in Nottingham, Bicester and
Northampton,” summarized Nicola Woolcock of the
London Times, “where he slashed tires, flooded
offices, and poured glue into locks. He caused
more than £25,000 in damage.” Harris apparently
began the attacks in a futile bid to keep a
girlfriend who left him, the court was told,
because of animal experiments he did in
connection with pancreatic cancer research.

Injectible female chemosterilant goes to field trials

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
PORTLAND, Oregon–Among the last actions of the Doris Day
Animal League before it was absorbed on August 31, 2006 by the
Humane Society of the U.S. was funding a grant issued on July 26 by
the Alliance for Contraception for Cats and Dogs to help underwrite
tests of a chemosterilant for female animals called ChemSpay, now
underway on the Navajo Nation.
Headquartered in Windowrock, Arizona, near the junction of
Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah, the Navajo Nation presently
has the highest rate of animal control killing of any incorporated
entity in the U.S., at 135 dogs and cats killed per 1,000 humans per
year, nearly 10 times the U.S. average of 14.5.

How gassing came & went

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
Gassing pound animals with carbon monoxide gained acceptance
across the U.S. after the American SPCA took over the New York City
animal control contract in 1895 and introduced carbide gassing in
lieu of drowning mass-caged strays in the Hudson River.
Carbon monoxide gassing prevailed over many attempts to
introduce other killing methods partly because it was inexpensive and
easily done, but perhaps mostly because it was perceived as painless.
The most successful challenge to carbon monoxide came from
the introduction of decompression chambers to kill animals, after
World War II, when the San Francisco SPCA developed a side business
in purchasing and adapting to shelter use Navy surplus decompression
chambers originally used to help divers who developed “the bends.”

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