Navy agrees to restrict use of SURTASS-LFA sonar

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

SAN FRANCISCO–U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth D. Laporte was at
press time for the October 2003 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE expected to
ratify an agreement by the U.S. Navy that will restrict peacetime
use of Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System-Low Frequency Active
(SURTASS-LFA) to protect whales.
Settling a lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense
Council and the Humane Society of the U.S., the pact follows a
permanent injunction issued by Laporte on August 26 against any use
of the new sonar system within a 14-million-square-mile area,
constituting 40% of the Pacific Ocean.
“Under the injunction,” said Washington Post staff writer
Marc Kaufman, “the Navy can use the new sonar–which emits
low-frequency sound waves that travel for hundreds of miles–only
off the eastern seaboard of Asia, an area of about 1.5 million
square miles. Both sides said they could not discuss the reasons for
that exception. The agreement prohibits the use of SURTASS-LFA
within 30 to 60 miles of the coastlines of the approved area,

Horse farmers lose PMU contracts

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

BRANDON, Manitoba–Five hundred representatives of the 409
farms that produce pregnant mare’s urine for use by Wyeth Organics on
October 10, 2003 were notified in person at the Keystone Center in
Brandon that the PMU industry may be just about finished.
A third of them were told during the following
weekend–Thanksgiving weekend in Canada–that their services will no
longer be required. Leaving 30 seasonal jobs unfilled due to
plummeting demand for PMU products, Wyeth plans to buy only half as
much PMU as last year.
PMU sales fell after publication of a series of studies
during the past year by the U.S. National Institutes of Health which
documented that hormonal therapy harms menopausal women’s health more
than it helps. Sales had already contracted somewhat under boycott
pressure from animal rights groups. The boycotts began about five
months after ANIMAL PEOPLE in April 2003 exposed the close
confinement of the PMU-producing mares and the sale to slaughter of
most of their foals. The ANIMAL PEOPLE report was based on
investigative findings by Canadian Farm Animal Trust founder Tom
Hughes.

SARS kills cat program

October 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

SINGAPORE–SARS seems to have killed the Singapore Stray Cat
Rehabilitation Scheme.
Sponsored by the Agrifood & Veterinary Authority, the Stray
Cat Rehabilitation Scheme has sterilized more than 3,000 homeless
cats since 1998, but a four-month review of the project determined
that barely 10,000 of the estimated 70,000 to 80,000 homeless cats in
Singapore have been sterilized, between public and private efforts.
AVA chief Ngiam Tong Tau said on October 8 that “All but one
of the 16 town councils [in Singapore] wanted the scheme stopped,
and the holdout was halfhearted in support,” wrote Sharmilpal Kaur
of the Straits Times.
“The program was reappraised in the wake of fear that cats
might spread SARS,” Kaur continued. “Though tests found no such
link, culling was stepped up because of a push to clean up public
areas.”

SARS spread from live markets, but when?

October 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

BEIJING–Blood tests indicate that about 1% of the children
in 17 provinces of China were exposed to Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome before the outbreaks of 2002-2003 that hit 24 of the 31
provinces.
Evidently passing from animals sold in filthy live markets to
humans working in food preparation, and then spreading from human to
human, SARS eventually killed 916 people in 32 nations, with about
650 of the deaths occurring in mainland China and Hong Kong.
The blood study was conducted by the Beijing Military Zone
Air Force Logistics Sanitation Unit, using samples taken from
healthy children before SARS appeared.
In a parallel study, the Beijing Capitol Pediatrics Research
Institute found that among 77 children hospitalized for various
reasons in 2001, 42% had antibodies to SARS. Among 92 children
hospitalized during the SARS outbreak, 40% had the antibodies–but
none had SARS symptoms.
Both studies indicate that the coronavirus responsible for
SARS was already widely distributed among the human population–at
least among children–well before it turned deadly. The findings may
explain why relatively few children developed the deadly strain of
SARS, but confounds the mystery of how SARS originated, since
children are also less likely than adults to consume wildlife
products.

Bangladesh tiger killers get hard time

October 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

DHAKA, Bangladesh –Five former Dhaka Zoo employees who
allegedly poisoned four Bengal tigers during a 1996 labor dispute
were on September 10, 2003 sentenced to serve 14 years in prison at
hard labor.
The Pakistan Daily Times heralded “The first-ever verdict on
the killing of animals in Bangladesh,” which from 1948 until 1971
was East Pakistan, separated from the rest of Pakistan by India.
Published from the capital of Bangladesh, the Dhaka Daily
Star did not call the case a first, but gave it prominent coverage
on a day when the second anniversary of the September 11, 2001 al
Qaida terrorist attacks on the U.S. dominated the news.
Metropolitan Sessions Judge Habibur Rahman acquitted nine
co-defendants.
Rahman issued the stiff sentences to the remainder under the
Special Powers Act of 1974, pertaining to crimes allegedly committed
to destabilize the nation.
The tigers were allegedly poisoned between November 9 and 13,
1996, after zoo curator Ashraf Uddin transferred the defendants and
18 other staff members in a crackdown on corruption.
Invoking the Special Powers Act enabled Rahman to impose the
death penalty, but he was lenient, he said, because the “neglect
and indifference” of the prosecution had allowed the case to drag on
for seven years.

Asia
Law

Ferrets for Schwarzenegger

October 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

“Ferret owners are rejoicing,” American Ferret Association
founder Freddie Ann Hoffman said of the October 7, 2003 election of
actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace recalled California Governor
Gray Davis.
Hoffman credited Schwarzenegger with helping to popularize
ferrets in his 1990 film Kindergarten Cop, while blasting Davis for
pledging to veto any bill to legalize the possession of ferrets that
might clear the state legislature.
Ferrets and many other non-native predators have been banned
in California for more than 70 years, initially as alleged threats
to the poultry industry.
The PawPAC political action committee was less enthusiastic
about Schwarzenegger.
“Like everyone else, we know nothing of Schwarzenegger’s
positions on animals,” said a pre-election PawPAC release. “Former
gubernatorial candidate Richard Riordan stated at a recent event that
his friend Arnold ‘loves his dogs.’ Schwarznegger has been endorsed
by the California Farm Bureau, an organization that regularly
opposes animal welfare legislation.”

Organization updates

October 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

NCDL becomes Dogs Trust

LONDON–The National Canine Defence League on October 9
renamed itself Dogs Trust. Founded in 1891 to oppose vivisection of
dogs, NCDL for most of the 20th century focused on providing
veterinary care to pets of the poor. Restructured in 1980, it is
now the British leader in rehoming dogs, and since 1996 has
cosponsored the International Companion Animal Welfare Conference,
partnering with the North Shore Animal League International division.

MSPCA kills Animals magazine

BOSTON–Promising to balance the Massachusetts SPCA budget in
2004, first-year president Larry Hawk in August 2003 terminated the
money-losing Animals magazine, and in September laid off 19
employees.

Uncategorized

Who killed activist Jane Tipson, and why?

October 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

GROS ISLET, St. Lucia– Jane Tipson, 53, cofounder of the
St. Lucia Animal Protection Society, the Eastern Caribbean Coalition
for Environmental Awareness, and the Caribbean Animal Welfare e-mail
newsgroup, was fatally shot at close range at 1:20 a.m. on September
17 just yards from the gate of her home.
Tipson “was following her 50-year-old sister Barbara” in a
separate vehicle, reported the St. Lucia Star, “after they had
been trapping stray dogs and cats along the beach. Barbara had
arrived at their house when she heard a loud noise from the driveway.”
Mistaking the noise for a tire blowout, Barbara Tipson “drove back
to find her sister slumped over the wheel [of her vehicle], dead,
the result of a wound to the neck,” the Star continued.
“This case does not appear to be a robbery,” police
commissioner Ausbert Regis said, “because the person did the act and
left. We are still trying to determine a motive but at this time it
appears that the killing was targeted.”
Nicole McDonald and Chris-tine Larbey of the Star wrote that,
“Close friends of Jane Tipson (who prefer to remain anonymous) said
she had confided in them about receiving threatening phone calls over
the past few weeks. The police were not prepared to confirm the
death threats.

Uncategorized

Hindu nationalists hit animal sacrifice

October 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

NEW DELHI–“There is a great need to cleanse Hinduism” of
animal sacrifice, “and the time is now,” editorialized the October
2003 edition of The Organizer, the official publication of the
hardline Hindu nationalist volunteer corps Rashtriya Swayamsewak
Sangh.
The RSS is often described as the ideological arm of the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Organizer strongly praised former actress Jayalitha
Jayaram, now chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, for ordering
police to halt animal sacrifices on August 28. After three men were
arrested the next day for sacrificing goats and hens at Madurai, no
more sacrifices were reported for a week.
Members of the People’s Art & Literary Association and
Revolutionary Students & Youth Front then defied Jayalitha (usually
called by just her first name) by staging sacrifices in Tirunelveli
and Tiruchirapalli. Police detained but did not charge the suspected
leaders.

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