Editorial: Compromise & the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1995:

Editorially favoring hunting, trapping, fishing, ranching, logging, rodeo, and ani-
mal use in biomedical research, the Spokane Spokesman-Review has probably never in recent
decades been mistaken for an exponent of animal rights.
Yet on September 15, 1952 the SpokesmanReview became perhaps the first and
only daily newspaper in the U.S. to editorially endorse “A Charter of Rights for Animals,”
drafted by the World Federation for the Protection of Animals.
The oldest of the three organizations whose mergers eventually produced today’s
World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), the Dutch-based World Federation then
represented “humane societies in 25 countries,” the Spokesman-Review editors noted.
“Most civilized countries already have laws to cover most of the protection for ani-
mals that the federation asks,” the Spokesman-Review continued. “Beating animals, forcing
them to do work beyond their strength, transporting them in a manner to cause pain or without
adequate food, all are punishable now in the U.S., for example.”

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White tigers, green polar bears, & maintaining a world-class zoo

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1995:

SINGAPORE––When the tigers
are white and the polar bears are a blotchy
dark green, a zoo has problems.
Opened in June 1973, the
Singapore Zoo and adjacent Night Safari are
together reputedly the best zoo complex with-
in half a global orbit, together setting the
Asian zoo design and management standard.
More than 1.2 million visitors per
year view about 3,200 animals of 330 mostly
tropical species at the Singapore Zoo and
Night Safari.
The animals are chiefly housed in
semi-natural surroundings. The equatorial
Singapore climate is good for reptiles year-
round, including some of the largest tortoises,
most active monitors, and largest gharials and
salt water crocodiles on exhibit anywhere.

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PETA staffers face 62 felony cruelty counts in North Carolina

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1995:

WINTON, N.C.––The scheduled
first court appearance of PETA staffers Adria
Joy Hinkle and Andrew Benjamin Cook on
multiple cruelty charges was on July 19, 2005
postponed until August 16.
Hinkle, 27, and Cook, 24, are
charged with a combined 62 counts of felony
cruelty to animals and 16 counts of illegal dis-
posal of animal remains.
Police sources have indicated that
other persons associated with PETA may be
charged as result of ongoing investigation.
The court date was delayed, report-
ed Darren Freeman of the Norfolk Virginian
Pilot, because the prosecution was “waiting
for lab results on chemicals found in a van the
two suspects were using when they were
arrested, and the results to determine the
cause of death of one of the animals.”
Ahoskie, North Carolina police
detective Jeremy Roberts told Freeman that the
van was registered to PETA.

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Study confirms chicken cognition

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1995:

SILSOE, U.K.––Hens pecking
buttons to earn food rewards may have a
better awareness of passing time and be bet-
ter able to assess the prospects of future
gain than human slot machine gamblers, a
new British study suggests.
Silsoe Research Institute Bio-
physics Group animal welfare scientist
Siobhan Abeyesinghe varied the “payout”
for pecking so that her hens would get only
a small amount of food if they pecked
quickly, but would receive a large amount
if they delayed their pecks for 22 seconds,
long enough to demonstrate the ability to
mentally clock their own behavior and show
deliberate self-restraint.

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Transforming Phuket animal conditions post-tsunami

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1995:

PHUKET, Thailand––Urbanization
is hitting Phuket much harder than the tsunami
of December 26, 2004.
What that may mean for animals on
the 400-square-mile resort island near the
extreme south of Thailand is anyone’s guess.
The Soi Dog Foundation and Gibbon
Rehabilitation Project, among Phuket’s most
prominent pro-animal organizations, are guard-
edly optimistic.
More development may mean more
homes for dogs and cats, and more donors to
support animal charities.

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University of Nevada fined

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

RENO––Substantiating complaints filed by
University of Nevada at Reno associate professor
Hussein S. Hussein, the USDA Animal & Plant Health
Inspection Service in May 2005 cited the university for
46 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act
allegedly committed between May 25, 2004 and March
21, 2005.
The university agreed to pay fines totaling
$11,400 to avoid going to court.
“The violations included repeatedly leaving
10 research pigs without adequate water between May
and September and improperly housing the same pigs,
frequent poor sanitation of animal care facilities, lack
of veterinary care, improper oversight of research
activities, failing to investigate complaints of animal
neglect and poor record keeping, and failing to proper-
ly train university farm employees,” wrote Frank X.

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Korean animal researcher clones human stem cells

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

SEOUL––“I never destroy any life
during my process,” Seoul National University
stem cell research laboratory director Woo Suk
Hwang recently told New York Times corre-
spondent James Brooke.
Woo Suk Hwang on May 20, 2005
announced that he had become the first scientist
to successfully clone human stem cells––“a
major leap,” wrote Brooke, “toward the dream
of growing replacement tissues for conditions
like spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes, and
congenital immune deficiencies.”
Said Woo Suk Hwang, “We use only
a vacant [unfertilized] egg, with no genetic
materials” from which to form an embryo.
Trained as a veterinarian, Woo Suk
Hwang, 52, was raised by a widowed mother
who supported six children as a dairy hand.
“I could communicate with cows eye
to eye,” Woo Suk Hwang told Brooke.
Woo Suk Hwang is a devout practic-
ing Buddhist, wrote Apoorva Mandavilli in a
profile for the journal Nature Medicine.
But in conversing with Brooke, Woo
Suk Hwang appeared to refer only to never
destroying any human life. His past achieve-
ments have included producing the first cow
conceived in South Korea through in vitro fer-

BOOKS: Endangered Parrots

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:
Endangered Parrots
Revised edition, by Rosemary Low.
Blandford (distributed in the U.S. by Sterling Publishing Co.,
387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-8810), 1984 and 1994.
200 pages; 21 color and 77 black-and-white photos; $24.95 paperback.
Extinction in the wild is inevitable
for many species of parrot. In this revised
edition of her 1984 original, Rosemary Low
paints somber scenes of fading beauty. From
the last Spix macaw left in Brazil to the
unique flightless kakapo of New Zealand,
the beautiful parrots enjoy few safe havens.

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BOOKS: A Practical Guide to Ferret Care

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

A Practical Guide to Ferret Care
by Deborah Jeans, with medical editor Susan A. Brown, DVM.
Ferrets Inc. (POB 450099, Miami, FL 33245-0099), 1994.
146 pages, hardbound, illustrated, $22.95.
Michigan and Minnesota recently
legalized ferret ownership, while as A N I-
MAL PEOPLE goes to press, a bill to lift
the ferret ban California imposed in 1987 is
expected to clear the state legislature any day
now. That would leave Hawaii as the last
state with a ferret ban still in place. For bet-
ter or worse, ferrets have become part of the
American pet menagerie, and animal shel-
ters must learn to cope with them––as many
already have. Thirty-three states now have
their own ferret rescue networks, loosely
linked by Shelters That Adopt and Rescue
Ferrets, 7402 Joseph Court, Annandale,
VA 22003; 703-354-5073.
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