Appellate verdicts: 1st Amendment, trapping, pigs

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

Confining anti-circus and rodeo
protesters to “free expression zones” far from
the entrance to the state-owned Cow Palace arena
in San Francisco violates their First Amend-ment
rights to freedom of speech and assembly, a
three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled on October 20, 2004.
“Cordoning protesters off in a zone the size of a
parking space, located over 200 feet from the
entrance, far from encouraging interaction with
them, is more likely to give the impression to
passers-by that these are people to be avoided,”
wrote Judge Martha Berzon.

The National Trappers Association does
not have legal standing to try to overturn the
1998 California ballot Proposition 4 ban on
leghold traps and the poisons sodium cyanide and
Compound 1080, ruled U.S. District Judge Thelton
Hender-son during the third week of October 2004.

China bans eating civets

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

BEIJING–The Chinese federal health ministry on November 2
banned the slaughter and cooking of civets for human consumption, to
promote “civilized eating habits,” the state-run Beijing Daily
reported.
“The announcement came a week after the government said 70%
of civets tested in the southern province of Guangdong were carrying
the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus,” observed Associated
Press.
The October 23 disclosure hinted that civets were not the
source of SARS, as no civets from northern and eastern China were
infected. The Guangdong civets are believed to have been
captive-raised for slaughter, while the civets from northern and
eastern China, where “wild” animals are rarely eaten, were
apparently trapped.
The Chinese ban on eating civets came just under three months
after U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced
a health embargo on the import of either live or dead civets plus
civet parts, such as civet pelts.

Shooting geese kills Kerry, Voting machines steal greyhound victory in Florida

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

CLEVELAND–Democratic Party presidential
nominee John Kerry either forgot or took for
granted the 40% of Ohio voters who supported a
failed 1998 ballot initiative that sought to
reinstate a ban on dove hunting. The initiative
was heavily supported by young voters and women.
On October 21, 2004, Kerry in the words
of New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd “cooked
his own goose.”
Wrote Dowd, “In yet another attempt to
prove to George W. Bush that he is man enough to
run this country, John Kerry made an animal
sacrifice to the political gods in a cornfield in
eastern OhioŠTromping about in a camouflage
costume and toting a 12-gauge double-barreled
shotgun that shrieked ‘I am not a merlot-loving,
brie-eating, chatelaine-marrying dilettante,’
the Democratic nominee emerged from his shooting
spree with three fellow hunters proclaiming,
‘Everybody got one,’ showing off a hand stained
with goose blood.”

Iditarod, Yukon Quest racers charged with neglect

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

WASILA, Alaska–Animal control officers from Mat-Su Borough,
Alaska, on October 16 removed 28 allegedly starving dogs from the
property of three-time Iditarod musher David Straub near Willow and
charged him with 17 counts of cruelty.
Competing in the 2000, 2001, and 2002 runnings of the
Iditarod, Straub in 2002 recorded the fastest time ever for a
last-place finisher.
The Straub dogs were seized three weeks after former Yukon
Quest contender Sigmund Stormo was charged with neglecting 15 dogs on
Kodiak Island. Stormo turned the dogs over to former Iditarod musher
Tim Osmar for care, pending resolution of the case. The same dogs
were impounded on June 11 by the Alaska SPCA, after they were found
without food at Stormo’s home near Soldotna. State police reportedly
found more than 50 marijuana plants, but did not find Stormo, who
was in Kodiak. The Alaska SPCA returned the dogs to Stormo and did
not charge him, after he averred that the dogs were neglected by
someone else who was to look after them in his absence.
The ANIMAL PEOPLE files indicate that no prominent musher has
ever been convicted of neglect while in good standing with racing
associations.

R.I.P. tahrs of Table Mountain

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

CAPE TOWN–The last 138 of the Himalayan tahr who inhabited
Table Mountain National Park, overlooking Cape Town, “have been
exterminated by South African National Parks,” Cape Town Adopt-A-Pet
founder Cicely Blumberg e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on October 26,
2004.
“Park manager Brett Myrdal said that the tahr killing is all
over,” Blumberg added, “because the rangers cannot find any more.
The fact that a funded capture and relocation package was presented
to SANParks in March 2004, to which they agreed in an e-mail to the
Marchig Animal Welfare Trust on March 18, is never mentioned,”
Blumberg continued. “Instead they say that no proposal was ever
received.
“The big story now,” Blumberg said, “is that SANParks have
released klipspringer antelope into the park. They said that the
tahr had to be removed before the klipspringer could be
reintroduced.” Nine klipspringer were released on October 27, with
18 more to follow, along with nine grey rhebuck, also native to
Table Mountain but long ago poached out.

Chinese live markets feed the fur trade

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

NEW YORK CITY–“Real Fur Is Fun Again,”
headlined the October 11 edition of Newsweek.
“It’s less expensive and more popular than ever.
But as young people snuggle up, where are the
protesters?”
Fur appeared on 36 of the 270 pages in
the “Women’s Fashion Fall 2004” edition of The
New York Times Style Magazine: as many pages as
in all editions from 2001 through 2003 combined.
Fur is more visible now than at any time
in the past 20 years. Furriers are buying more
ad space in The New York Times and other
periodicals known to reach affluent younger
women, anticipating a profitable winter–if the
economy holds up.
But furriers have often misread market
demand. Expecting a boom in the winters of
1993/1994 and 1997/1998, chiefly through
believing their own propaganda, furriers drove
fur pelt prices up at auction with panic buying
to increase inventory, stepped up their
advertising, and experienced busts instead.

Barker gives $1 million for AR law institute

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

LOS ANGELES–Bob Barker, 81, host of The Price Is Right TV
game show since 1972, on November 4 donated $1 million to create the
Bob Barker Endowment Fund for the Study of Animal Rights Law at the
University of California, Los Angeles campus. The fund will be
directed by UCLA professor Taimie Bryant, who currently teaches a
course in animal law, Associated Press reported.

North America

ANIMAL PEOPLE arranges rare show-and-tell–Procter & Gamble meets Best Friends

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

CINCINNATI–Fifteen founders and senior
staff of the Best Friends Animal Society on
October 22 talked shop with three Procter &
Gamble senior scientists and two senior
representatives of pet food maker Iams Inc., a
P&G subsidiary.
Convened by ANIMAL PEOPLE, preceding the
October 22-24 “No More Homeless Pets” conference
in Cincinnati, the meeting introduced key
personnel from one of the fastest-growing and
most increasingly influential animal charities in
the world to counterparts at one of the most
controversial companies engaged in animal
research.
Procter & Gamble since 1984 has invested
more than $190 million in developing alternatives
to animal testing, including $152 million since
1994. Yet P&G has also been continuously under
boycott by PETA and allied animal rights groups.

Basketballers, footballer investigated for pit bull, Rottweiler mayhem

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

PORTLAND–Oregon Humane Society and Clackamas County
Sheriff’s Office investigators found evidence linking basketball
player Qyntel Woods to dogfighting in October 11 and October 15
searches of his Lake Oswego home, reported Emily Tsao of the
Portland Oregonian on November 6, 2004.
Clackamas County Judge Robert Selander unsealed 26 pages of court
documents for Tsao, with names, addresses, and witness statements
blacked out to maintain the security of the investigation.
The Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball
Association on October 11 suspended Woods, 23, without pay.
Woods came under suspicion a week earlier when Multnomah County
Animal Services traced to him an injured female pit bull terrier
found in an alley. Woods claimed he gave the dog away, but KATU-TV,
an ABC affiliate, reported that Woods dumped the dog for losing a
fight.
Clackamas County detective Jim Strovink on October 21 told
Allen Breitman of the Oregonian that his office had received a tip
that more than one Trail Blazer had attended dogfights in Linn County.
Woods’ Trail Blazers teammate Zack Randolph told Geoffrey C. Arnold
of the Oregonian that he has owned and bred pit bulls, but denied
involvement in fighting.

« 1 … 218 219 220 221 222 … 648 »