Author: Archivist

Will the European Union phase out animal testing–or export it?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

BRUSSELS–Trade associations representing
the animal health, bio tech, chemical,
cosmetic, pesticide, pharmaceutical, and soap
and detergent sectors on November 11, 2005
signed a pledge to jointly seek alternatives to
animal testing. The agreement was brokered by
European commissioners for enterprise and
research Günter Verheugen and Janez Potoènik.
“We do not only wish to reduce animal
testing, but also want to bring it to an end in
the long run,” declared Verheugen.
The signatories committed themselves to
producing an action plan early in 2006,
Sebastian Marx of the cosmetics trade group
COLIPA told Stephen Pincock of The Scientist.
European Union laboratories currently use about
10.7 million animals per year.
“More than half of these are used in
research, human medicine, dentistry, and
fundamental biological studies,” wrote Pincock.

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U.S. Supreme Court refuses to overturn right to sue police who shoot dogs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

WASHINGTON D.C. –The United States Supreme Court on December
5, 2005 refused to review an April 2005 ruling by the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals that law enforcement officers have a duty to
consider alternatives to shooting dogs.
The appellate court refused to block a lawsuit brought by
seven Hell’s Angels motorcycle club members against seven San Jose
police officers and a Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputy.
The Hell’s Angels contend that their civil rights were
violated when the police officers and sheriff’s deputy in January
1998 shot a Rottweiler and two other dogs while raiding two homes in
search of evidence pertaining to the 1997 fatal beating of a man at
the Pink Poodle nightclub in San Jose.
The appellate verdict noted that the raid was planned in
advance. Though the investigators “had a week to consider the
options and tactics available for an encounter with the dogs,” the
verdict pointed out, they “failed to develop a realistic plan for
incapacitating the dogs other than shooting them.”
The original case will now proceed to trial.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling followed a 1994
decision by the same court that reversed a lower court verdict and
held that killing a pet without urgent necessity violates the Fourth
Amendment, protecting citizens against unreasonable search and
seizure.

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If only the baboon ploy helped with elephants

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

JOHANNESBURG, CAPE TOWN–Baboons are a
traditional head-ache for South African wildlife
officials, but environment and tourism minister
Marthinus van Schalkwyk probably wishes elephant
issues could as easily be handled.
Failing to achieve broad-based agreement
in favor of culling the Kruger National Park
elephant population at a series of consultatation
meetings in November and December 2005, South
African environment and tourism minister
Marthinus van Schalkwyk scheduled another
consultation meeting for early 2006.
Van Schalkwyk is believed to favor
culling, but only with political cover
sufficient to prevent harm to the South African
tourist industry.
Van Schalkwyk’s Cape Province counterpart avoided
a similar confrontation over baboons when
CapeNature acting chief executive Fanie Bekker
appropriated 3.5 million rand, worth about
$530,000 U.S., to hire baboon monitors.

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Editorial feature: Putting a practical face on breed-specific legislation

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

On Sunday, November 27, 2005, surgeons Jean-Michel
Dubernard of the Hopital Edouard-Herriot in Lyon, France, Benoit
Lengele of Belgium, and Universite de Amiens chief of face and jaw
surgery Bernard Devauchelle collabaorated to perform the first-ever
partial face transplant. Taking the nose, lips, and chin of
brain-dead organ donor Maryline St. Aubert, 46, of Cambrai, the
team restored the most prominent features of Isabelle Dinoire, 38,
who in May 2005 was severely mauled by a Labrador retriever she had
recently adopted from a pound near her home in Valenciennes.
The pound dog involved in that case was neither a pit bull
terrier nor a Rottweiler, both breeds continuing to glut U.S.
shelters at a rate exceeding by more than fivefold their proportion
in the pet population. Nonetheless, the French face transplant
helped to focus attention on the increasingly vexing question of what
to about dogs who are easily capable of killing or maiming someone
with their first-ever bite.
ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton has since September 1982
maintained a breed-specific log of life-threatening and fatal attacks
by dogs kept as pets. Guard dogs, fighting dogs, and police dogs
are excluded. As of December 6, 2005, 2,048 attacks had qualified
for listing, including 318 since the January/February 2004 edition
of ANIMAL PEOPLE editorially called on lawmakers to “Bring breeders
of high-risk dogs to heel.”

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Wild horses & cattle at risk in the Danube Delta

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

Wild horses & cattle at risk in the Danube Delta
by Andreea Plescan with further research by ANIMAL PEOPLE

Untamed and undiscovered by tourism and
development, the Danube Delta is home to more
than 300 bird species, 160 fish species, and
more than 800 plant families.
Protected as a wetlands biosphere
reserve, the Romanian portion of the Danube
Delta occupies 2,622 square miles of channels and
canals, widening into tree-fringed lakes, reed
islands, marshes, some oak forest intertwined
with lianas and creepers, desert dunes, and
some traditional fishing villages.
The Danube Delta is also home to the
largest population of wild horses and cattle in
Europe. Their combined population is officially
estimated at about 7,500. Some escaped from
farms to join wild herds during the 2005 floods.
Some escaped earlier, or their ancestors did.
Many were released to graze on the biosphere
reserve by farmers who hoped to recapture them
later, but abandoned them when horse flesh and
beef prices dropped.

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Letters [Dec 2005]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

Irish greyhounds

I am concerned that people reading your November 2005 article
“How Irish dog racers muzzle humane critics” will think that Limerick
Animal Welfare takes money from the Irish Greyhound Racing Board, or
that we in some way support the greyhound racing industry. Limerick
Animal Welfare is opposed to greyhound racing, as it encourages the
overbreeding and abuse of greyhounds. Indeed I have just bought
some greyhound coats for our next protest which state “Race Cars not
Dogs.”
We cannot speak for other welfare organizations, and it is
unfortunate that some have decided to accept money from the Greyhound
Racing Board. This gives the board the opportunity to say that they
are working with welfare groups and saving many greyhounds.
Unfortunately, the amount expended on greyhound welfare by the Board
is a pittance despite the huge government subsidies they receive.
Limerick Animal Welfare has been rescuing greyhounds and
lurchers from dog pounds and other sites for 12 years. Avalon, the
greyhound sanctuary, of which I am a director, has done this work
for at least eight years. Avalon usually shelters 75 greyhounds and
lurchers.

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Elephant Sanctuary to get last Cuneo eles

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

CHICAGO–The Elephant Sanctuary at Hohenwald, Tennessee, in
late December 2005 expects to receive nine female elephants from the
Hawthorn Corporation of Richmond, Illinois. The move will put John
Cuneo, 74, out of the elephant training and rental business after
48 years.
Cuneo started the Hawthorn Corporation as a traveling circus
in 1957. Later Cuneo found a more profitable business niche in
leasing animals to other circuses and boarding exotic animals.
Cuneo agreed in March 2004 to settle 47 alleged Animal Welfare Act
violations by divesting of his 16 elephants by August 2004. The
divestiture was repeatedly delayed by disputes over where to send
them.

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Trafficking brings H5N1 threat home

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

NEW HAVEN–Pickled “jellyfish” could bring the potentially
deadly H5N1 avian flu virus to the U.S., a courtroom learned on
December 15 in New Haven, Connecticut. Food King Inc. owner
Vichittra “Vicky” Aramwatananont pleaded guilty to smuggling more
than 27,600 pounds of chicken feet into the U.S. from Thailand,
mislabeled “jellyfish” to evade inspection. The chicken feet were
sold in 11 states.
“Aramwatananont faces up to six months in prison, but is not
expected to receive jail time when she is sentenced on March 24,”
reported Associated Press writer Matt Apuzzo. “Food King will pay
$170,000 as part of a plea agreement.”
Still passing mostly from bird to bird, rarely crossing into
humans and even more rarely into other mammals, H5N1 has killed 71
people in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Cambodia since
2003: just over half the total number of people known to have become
infected. Most victims were poultry workers, cockfighters, or
members of the families of poultry workers and cockfighters, who
shared their homes with sick birds.

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