Animal Birth Control gains speed

July 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2009:
CHENNAI, DELHI, MUMBAI –Indian minister of state for
environment and forests Jairam Ramesh served notice in July and
August 2009 speaking appearances that he means to put wheels under
the Indian national Animal Birth Control program.
Now Chinny Krishna, who engin-eered the ABC program, needs
to put new wheels under the Blue Cross of India surgical team to keep
up with increasing demands for service. “We have been inundated with
requests from municipalities asking us to undertake ABC,” Krishna
told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “In addition to the cost of doing more
operations, we are handicapped for want of enough vehicles, since
all these new areas are some distance from Chennai,” where the Blue
Cross of India is based.

Egypt uses H1N1 flu as pretext to massacre pigs

July 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:

CAIRO, PARIS–After condemning the pointless massacre of
pigs in Egypt in response to a “swine flu” that swine rarely get and
have yet to verifiably pass to any other species, the 2009 meeting
of the Organization for Animal Health (OIE) on May 24 elected Nihat
Pakdil of Turkey to become OIE European region secretary general.
Pakdil, as Turkish deputy undersecretary for agriculture,
in 2005 ordered a pointless massacre of dogs in response to the avian
flu H5N1, even though dogs have never been infected by H5N1.
Despite Pakdil’s ascent, Africa Network for Animal Welfare
founder Josphat Ngonyo was hopeful, he told ANIMAL PEOPLE, that the
OIE conference discussion would prevent anything like the Egyptian
pig killing “from ever occurring again, through the concerted effort
of OIE, the World Society for the Protection of Animals, and the
international animal welfare community.”

Castaway dogs trouble Malaysian conscience

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
PULAU KETAM, Malaysia– Striving to rescue more than 150
dogs who survived being deliberately marooned on a remote swampy
island in the Straits of Malacca, the Malaysian animal charities
Furry Friends Farm, Selangor SPCA, and Save A Stray had among them
caught just a few dozen in a month of effort as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to
press–but they had stimulated awareness of surgically sterilizing
dogs wherever television, radio, and online media reach in the
Malay language, including Singa-pore and Indonesia as well as
Malaysia.
The Pulau Ketam dog rescue showed promise of expanding into
the beginnings of a regional Animal Birth Control program, modeled
after ABC successes in India. Malaysian Department of Veterinary
Services director general Abd Aziz Jamaluddin told Lestor Kong of The
Star that the department will send 10 veterinarians to Palau Ketam to
sterilize dogs on June 27-28.

Finch fighting busted in Connecticut

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2009:
DERBY, Connecticut–All 19 defendants in the first
finch-fighting case in the U.S. that anyone could remember on August
11, 2009 surrendered title to 150 saffron finches who were seized in
a July 26 raid on the home of Jurames Goulart, 42, of Shelton,
Connecticut. Goulart, Sebastian Andrade, 37, and Nonato Raimundo,
51, both of Danbury, were charged with organizing a finch-fighting
ring that drew gamblers from as far as Massachusetts, New York, and
New Jersey. The other arrestees were charged as spectators.

Border fighting over elephants & tigers

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2009:
KATHMANDU, Nepal; Jalpaiguri, India–For the second time
in two years elephant incursions across the Nepalese/Indian border
have inflamed tensions in Jhapa, a Nepalese district north of West
Bengal.
“With the Brahmaputra plains in India’s Assam state flooded
by the monsoons, the elephants began migrating,” said the
Indo-Asian News Service. Nepalese police wounded six elephants who
forded the Mechi river to enter Nepal circa June 11, 2009, and
allegedly also shot at Indian forest guards who followed the
elephants into Nepal and tried to stop the shooting.

Dog bite prevention weak

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:

ALBANY, CHICAGO, DENVER,
INDIANAPOLIS, NEW YORK CITY, WASHINGTON
D.C.–Dog Bite Prevention Week 2009 opened with
opponents of breed-specific legislation claiming
victories in Indianapolis and Highland Park, a
Chicago suburb, but closed with a 13-page
verdict against pit bull terrier advocates in
Loudoun County, Virginia.
The Indianapolis city/county council on
May 12, 2009 voted to table an At Risk Dogs bill
introduced by councillor Mike Speedy. The bill
will not be discussed again until after a new
community budget is approved, probably not
before October, Speedy told ANIMAL PEOPLE. But
Speedy vowed that the At Risk Dogs proposal will
be brought back at the first opportunity.
The At Risk Dogs proposal would have
required that pit bull terriers be sterilized,
in a community where more than 30% of the dogs
arriving at shelters are pit bulls. It
paralleled legislation in effect in San Francisco
since January 2006, credited with achieving a
23% reduction in shelter intakes of pit bulls,
and a 33% reduction in the number of pit bulls
killed by animal control in only two years,
after more than a decade of non-mandatory
programs made little difference. Similar
ordinances are in effect in smaller cities in at
least 10 states. Yet another took effect on
April 16, 2009 in Moses Lake, Washington.
The Highland Park city council on May 14,
2009 deferred until after a June 22 public
workshop any further action on a pit bull ban
proposed by mayor Michael Belsky after a newly
acquired pit bull belonging to a 17-year-old boy
inflicted severe facial bites on a 14-year-old
girl.

Obituaries [June 2009]

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
Princess Elizabeth de Croy, 88, died on
May 18, 2009 at the Refuge de Thiernay she
founded in 1968, three miles from the Chateau
d’Azy, her birthplace and the de Croy ancestral
home. The Princess worked as a flight attendant
in the early years of commercial aviation,
traveled with actor Rex Harrison, and knew
General Charles DeGaulle. She did humanitarian
relief work in Biafra, and with her six sisters,
helped to raise funds for Mother Teresa. Her
first experience in humane work included
introducing the use of captive bolt guns to
French slaughterhouses in 1962, as a member of
the French organization ‘uvre d’Assistance aux
Bêtes d’Abattoirs. She demonstrated stun guns
donated by the International Society for the
Protection of Animals, a subsidiary of the
Massachusetts SPCA which was in 1981 merged with
a subsidiary of the Royal SPCA of Britain to form
the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

Obituaries

Horse racing casualties

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
MELBOURNE, Australia–The Racing Victoria Limited Board
suspended jumps racing for 11 days in May 2009, after seven horses
in two weeks were euthanized due to injuries suffered in jumps
competition of training, including three in two days at the
Warrnambool May Racing Carnival.
Racing minister Rob Hulls lifted the suspension on May 18,
after intensive lobbying by the Victorian Jumps Racing Association.
However, Racing Victoria Ltd. on May 11 suspended four-time Grand
Annual Steeplechase winning rider David “Butch” Londregan, now a
trainer, for threatening in a radio interview to shoot his horses
and send their heads to Hulls.

BOOKS: Watching Giants

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:

Watching Giants: The Secret Lives of Whales by Elin Kelsey
U. of Calif. Press (2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704), 2008.
216 pages, paperback, illustrated. $17.95.

“Whales inspire me to contemplate connections,” says Elin
Kelsey, author and faculty member at Royal Roads University in
Canada. “They inspire me to act more generously. They inspire me to
experience life in whale scale.” Kelsey’s book Watching Giants takes
us into the fascinating world of all 32 species of the mammoth yet
graceful creatures.

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