A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:
DALLAS–Nieman Marcus Inc. in late January 2010 agreed to pay
a $25,000 judgement to settle a lawsuit brought by the Humane Society
of the U.S. over the sale of garments with dog fur trim labeled “faux
fur.”
A Washington D.C. court found that the Dallas firm misled buyers.
Saks earlier settled a similar case brought by HSUS for $6,500.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:
Heritage of Care:
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
by Marion S. Lane & Stephen L. Zawistowki
Praeger Publishers (88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881), 2008.
185 pages, hardcover. $39.95.
“The ASPCA story is one that I’ve been
trying to tell in one way or another for the past
19 years,” writes American SPCA executive vice
president Stephen L. Zawistoski in introducing
Heritage of Care, co-authored with former ASPCA
AnmalWatch editor Marion S. Lane. Working
primarily from the ASPCA’s own archives,
Zawistowski recalls, “We decided that we had
neither the time nor training to write a
scholarly history of the organization. We agreed
that what we wanted to do was spin a yarn,”
covering the first 140 years of the history of
the ASPCA as informatively and honestly as
possible.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
HATTIESBURG–Southern Pines Animal Shelter employee Ricky
Pierce Jr., 24, of Petal, Mississippi, was charged with
commercial burglary and arson on December 23, 2009 for allegedly
stealing a computer hard drive and torching the shelter office. The
fire killed four handicapped cats.
Southern Pines office manager Michelle Bullock told
Hattiesburg American staff writer Erica Sherrill Owens that Pierce
was angry because he was recently transferred from the office to do
kennel work. Hired in the summer to work in the office, Pierce
lived with a female shelter office assistant.
The Southern Pines facilities that burned were built after a
May 1995 fire at the former Forrest County Humane Society killed
about 60 animals. Firefighter Marvin Loftin suffered a severely
burned hand while cutting fences and cage locks to save about 20 dogs.
The organization became the Southern Pines Animal Shelter in 2002.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
Beijing–How close to passage is the
draft Chinese animal welfare bill, completion of
which was announced with a burst of publicity in
July 2009?
“The draft law will be submitted to the
National People’s Congress by the end of the
year,” reported China Central Television on
July 7, 2009.
At year’s end, however, the draft bill
had not yet been introduced as a formal
legislative proposal. Neither were there clear
indications that it would be. But there were
continuing hints from Beijing media that the
Chinese government is encouraging activities that
help to build public opinion in favor of animal
welfare.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
Billy Arjan Singh, 92, died on January 1, 2010 at his
Tiger Haven refuge, 250 kilometers from Lucknow, India. Born into
the Ahluwalia royal family of Kapurthala, Singh shot seven tigers as
a youth, but came to detest hunting as he saw tigers, leopards,
blackbuck, and other Indian “trophy” animals shot to the verge of
extinction. Founding Tiger Haven in 1959, which has never had any
relationship or resemblance to the captive tiger facility by the same
name in Tennessee, Singh created the private preserve that
eventually became Dudhwa National Park. Singh notoriously dragged
poachers to town behind his jeep and expressed unsympathetic views
about the losses of employees and visitors who brought their children
into proximity with the captive tigers and leopards he rehabilitated
for release and bred with former zoo stock, including Tara, a part
Siberian tiger he imported from England in 1976, dismissing
objections that he was “contaminating” the Indian tiger gene pool.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
BEIRUT–Thirty-nine people were rescued, but nine were found
dead, 35 were missing and presumed dead, and 10,224 sheep plus
17,932 cattle died when the livestock transporter Danny F II capsized
and sank on December 17, 2009, 11 nautical miles from Tripoli,
Lebanon, en route from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Tartarus, Syria.
The British captain reportedly went down with the ship.
Launched as the car transporter Don Carlos in 1975, the
Danny F II was renamed when converted to haul livestock in 1994. In
2005 the Danny F II was reportedly detained at Adelaide after
inspectors found holed bulkheads, defective navigation lights and
radio equipment, and defective watertight doors.
The sinking brought the biggest loss of life of any livestock
hauling incident since the sheep transporter Uniceb burned and sank
in September 1996, killing 67,488 sheep who were en route to Jordan
from New Zealand and Australia.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
Cat Be Good:
A Foolproof Guide for the Complete Care and Training of Your Cat
Third Edition
by Annie Bruce
2000, 2003, 2005 — Free online at <www.CatBeGood.com>; 208 pages.
After selling out three printed editions in less than 10
years, Colorado cat advocate Annie Bruce has now made Cat Be Good
available for free online.
While the priceless advice in Cat Be Good is now freely
accessible, a free cat is never free of expenses, Bruce cautions.
Who pays for the food, litter and vet bills? Cats also need
scratching posts and toys to keep them occupied, and usually are
happiest with cat companions, who bring their own expenses. Keeping
a cat–or several–is a lifetime responsibility, Bruce emphasizes.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
Rodney, a one-and-a-half-year-old mule deer buck, was on
December 21, 2009 confiscated and shot by California Department of
Fish & Game wardens. Rodney was picked up on June 3, 2008 by Katie
McFadyen, 16, of Los Molinos. She gave him to neighbor Thora
Adcock after her family moved. “Wardens considered releasing Rodney
onto a refuge,” warden DeWayne Little told Dylan Darling of the
Redding Record-Searchlight, “but opted to kill him because he had
become habituated to humans during his time with Adcock and showed
aggression to people.”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
Rescue Matters:
How to find, foster and rehome companion animals
by Sheila Webster Boneham, Ph.D.
Alpine Publications (38262 Linman Road, Crawford, CO 81415), 2009.
166 pages, paperback. $14.95.
Sheila Boneham recognizes that animal rescue is central to
the volunteers involved. They give up evenings to transport unwanted
animals from shelters to foster homes. Huge chunks of their weekends
are spent at adoption events. They may skip a holiday dinner to pick
up a stray dog who has been hit by a car. Hearts get broken along
the way too, when favorite animals don’t survive.
Rescuing animals can be rewarding, but it can also be
challenging and dangerous. And it’s not for everyone. There is a
lot more than plucking a stray dog from an animal shelter or saving a
cat from a band of hoodlums. Be prepared for hard work.