A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
DOVER, U.K.––Protests failed to stop the May 3, 2013 resumption of live animal exports from Dover. Currently just one ship, the MV Jolie, hauls animals once a week from Dover to Calais, France. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
Exposing a bloody business
CANBERRA––The latest Animals Australia undercover videos of slaughter at the two Egyptian slaughterhouses authorized to kill Australian cattle showed “outrageous cruelty” that “left me and my industry colleagues disgusted and horrified,” Australian Livestock Exporters Council spokesperson Alison Penfold told media. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
DENVER––Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper on May 13, 2013 signed into law bills designating shelter animals the official state pet and requiring Colorado police and sheriff’s departments to provide personnel with three hours of online training on dog behavior recognition and the use of nonlethal dog control methods. The training must be made available by September 1, 2014. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
HOUSTON––U.S. federal prosecutors on May 16, 2013 dropped the last two of seven obscenity charges filed in October 2012 against alleged “crush video” producers Ashley Nicole Richards, 22, and Brent Wayne Justice, 51, and filed a notice of appeal on five counts that were dismissed on April 17, 2013 by U.S. District Judge Sim Lake. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
Anna Merz, 83, died on April 4, 2013 at a hospital in Melkriver, South Africa, her home since 1996. Born in England, Merz was among the many London children who were relocated to Cornwall during the Nazi bombing attacks of early World War II. Studying politics and economics at Nottingham University, she read for the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, but instead of practicing law, she relocated to Ghana with her first husband. There, recalled The Times of London, she “owned a crankshaft grinding workshop, developed a love of riding, worked as honorary warden in the game department and took off on expeditions across the Sahara and around Uganda and northern Kenya.” Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
MILWAUKEE, LONDON, JOHANNESBURG––As the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service sees it, the critical issue in rhinoceros conservation is not rhinos are being killed in record numbers, but rather, who gets the money from killing them. Anyhow, this was the reasoning that emerged from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service explanations of why trophy hunter David K. Reinke, 52, of Madison, Wisconsin, was recently allowed to become the first American to legally import the remains of a black rhino since the species was federally listed as endangered in 1980. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
WASHINGTON D.C.––”A recent unexpected delay” has indefinitely postponed the anticipated removal of gray wolves in the Lower 48 states from U.S. endangered species list protection, Associated Press reported on May 21, 2013, citing only “a court filing” by “government attorneys.” Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
BOSTON––The New England Primate Research Center is to close by 2015, the Harvard Medical School announced on April 24, 2013. The center houses about 2,000 monkeys, among them about 1,500 rhesus macaques and colonies of cotton-top tamarins and squirrel monkeys, and hosts about 130 current studies, employing 200 scientists and primate caretakers. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
Obituaries
“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.” ––William Shakespeare
Bowatte Indrathana Thera, a Buddhist monk of the Porambe temple in Pelmadulla, Sri Lanka, died on May 26, 2013 at the Colombo National Hospital, two days after setting himself on fire outside the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. “The monk had been heard making a statement saying his effort was not to take his life, but to sacrifice it, in a bid to end cattle slaughter. Indraratana Thera had been an active campaigner against cattle slaughter, and had launched a number of animal rights campaigns,” Ceylon Today reported. Added the news portal Ada Derana, “Certain media aired videos of the monk issuing demands such as putting an end to the killing of cattle for meat and Buddhists being converted to other religions. Indrarathana Thera informed those media of his intentions before committing self-immolation, while they recorded the incident.” The fiery suicide, apparently the first on record by a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk, was followed by conflict among Buddhist factions over which would perform last rites for Indrarathana Thera. Read more