ORGANIZATIONS

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Overseas
Royal SPCA members on June 22 voted 432-2 according to the London
T i m e s and 459-2 according to the Daily Telegraph to require members to pledge
that they will not “participate in any activity which is considered by the society to
involve avoidable suffering to animals.” The requirement is subject to the approval
of the Charities Commission, however, which in May obliged the RSPCA to drop
a 19-year-old antivivisection policy on grounds that a charitable organization may
not oppose activities undertaken “for the good of man.” An estimated 3,000 members
of the 88,000-member British Field Sports Society recently joined the 28,000-
member RSPCA in an attempt to reverse the RSPCA position against hunting, but
were not yet eligible to vote. The Irish Masters of Foxhounds Association i s
attempting a similar hostile infiltration and takeover of the Irish SPCA, The Irish
Times reported on June 27. Already five local affiliates have amended their policies
to endorse fox hunting. The ISPCA hopes to thwart the effort by adopting a membership
requirement similar to that adopted by the RSPCA.

ACTIVISTS IN ACTION

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

The trial of Mary Constantine and
Bobbi Rhud of Minnetonkans Against Animal
Cruelty for allegedly interfering in a deer cull by
videotaping it ended June 24 with a hung jury.
Constantine and Rhud were arrested in an apparent
ambush on February 19, along with Steve Hindi,
president of the Chicago Animal Rights Coalition,
after retrieving hidden cameras and returning to
Hindi’s van. Minnetonka police spent several days
checking out Hindi’s electronic equipment before
returning it all to him, under court order, with rundown
batteries. All charges against Hindi were
dropped just before the trial. Hindi attended anyway,
as a defense witness. “The police really
helped,” he said. “One cop described the layout of
the ‘getaway’ van––even the back seats, quite an
accomplishment, since there weren’t any. Police
photographs proved that. The police were caught in
so many lies that the prosecutior repeatedly apologized
to the jury for their ‘mistaken’ testimony in his
final argument. The jury was apparently hung
because one juror, a bow hunter, was bent on conviction
from the beginning, telling other jurors he
‘wasn’t particularly concerned’ that the cops lied.”

Reptiles

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Herp traffic
The 72 Malagasy ploughshare tortoises
stolen from a captive breeding project at
the Amphijoroa Forest Park in Madagascar in
May have turned up “for sale in Prague,”
reports Allen Salzberg of the New York Turtle
and Tortoise Society. But due to corrupt
authorities, herpetologists “have little hope of
getting them or the people selling them,”
Salzberg adds. The Austrian Chelonical
Society warned in June that any members who
buy any of the stolen tortoises will be expelled.
German customs officials on July
8 announced the arrest of a 32-year-old man
caught at Augsburg with 328 tortoises
“stacked up like plates” in his luggage. The
man, who may get up to five years in prison,
reportedly “admitted selling around 3,000 rare
and protected tortoises since 1991,” either
caught or bought cheaply in Serbia.

Editorial: Who got the March money?

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Observers of the June 23 March for the Animals in Washington D.C. and the preceding
World Animal Awareness Week may be reminded of The Producers, the 1968 Zero
Mostel/Gene Wilder film about two schemers who persuade an outlandish number of
investors to fund a deliberate Broadway flop. The idea is to fail so miserably that all
investors assume their money is lost, and don’t ask embarrassing questions. Mostel and
Wilder stage the most tasteless musical script they can find, called Springtime for
Hitler––only to have it succeed as a farce, sending them to Sing-Sing when the investors
ask for their promised cuts of the gate, adding up to far more than 100%.
But the March was no surprise success. And it might embarrass the cause of animal
protection less if it was in fact a fraud instead of just a public failure.

Makah don’t get quota: SEA SHEPHERDS FIND REPUBLICAN FRIENDS

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

ABERDEEN, Scotland– – Striking
another surprise blow for whales, this time
through Congressional politics, the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society on June 26
sunk Japanese and Norwegian hopes for
expanded legal whaling––at least for this year.
Eighteen years after Captain Paul
Watson established the Sea Shepherds’ reputation
as what he calls “good pirates” by ramming
the outlaw Portuguese whaler Sierra, 14
years after the International Whaling
Commission declared a global moratorium on
commercial whaling, the ban held at the 48th
annual meeting of the IWC, as under pressure
from the House Resources Committee the U.S.
delegation on June 26 withdrew an application
to allow members of the Makah tribe, of Neah
Bay, Washington, to kill five grey whales.

COURT CALENDAR

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Pet theft
The Oregon Court of Appeals o n
May 18 overturned a $100,000 defamation
award to former laboratory animal supplier
James Joseph Hickey, issued by a Linn
County Circuit Court jury in July 1994 against
his godmother Merthal Settlemier, over
remarks she made to the ABC television program
2 0 / 2 0 in a 1990 episode about pet theft
called “Pet Bandits.” Hickey lost a similar suit
against ABC, heard in federal court. The
appellate court ruled that Hickey, as a public
figure, had the burden of proving that Settlemier’s
claim that his animal care was “inhumane”
was false, and that he “presented no
evidence that the conditions defendant
described did not exist on the day she visited.”

Dogged pursuit

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

HOPKINTON, Mass.––Louise Coleman, founding
director of Greyhound Friends, is the only alleged dog
thief ever honored with the Peace Abbey’s Courage of
Conscience award, accepted from the multi-faith vegetarian
organization at a commemorative ceremony in Sherborn,
Massachusetts, on February 16.
But Coleman and friends may also be the only
alleged dog thieves who ever did the deed in front of television
cameras, with the full cooperation of law-and-order.
Six months later, related crossfiled lawsuits are
still before the Superior Court in Montreal, Quebec, and
may be far from trial. Dog breeder Richard Valiquette, of
Ste. Sophie, Quebec, contends eight of his dogs were taken
illegally last December 19 by Coleman, Greyhound Friends
volunteer Fred Fontaine, and Linda Miranda of the Frontier
Animal Society, located in Beebe, Quebec.

Animal control & rescue

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

The North Shore Animal League’s second annual May adoptathon
involved more than 700 U.S. shelters, which among them placed
20,000 animals––and all of the National Canine Defense League and Blue
Cross Animal Care shelters in England, which placed up to 60-75% of the
dogs in their care plus 40% of the cats.
The Calcasieu Parish Animal Control and Protection
Department uses local high school career days “to spread the word that
work in animal control makes a major contribution to the community,”
reports director Laura Lanza, who is willing to share a three-page set of
handouts on career opportunities in animal control with other agencies.
Her office address is 210 West Railroad Ave., Lake Charles, LA 70601;
telephone 318-439-8879; fax 318-437-3343.
Knox County Humane Society consulting veterinarian
Stephen Smith, 34, has filed as the only Democrat to oppose
Republican incumbent John J. Duncan Jr. in the race for the Second
District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The wild west

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

HERRO OF THE HOUR
LAS VEGAS––Believing the nonprofit Animal
Foundation International could adopt out more animals and euthanize
fewer than the for-profit Dewey Animal Control Center, AFI
president Mary Herro bid successfully on the Las Vegas animal
control sheltering contract, taking over the job in December.
After five months, AFI had received 3,409 dogs and
cats from animal control, only five fewer than Dewey, and had
returned 652 animals to their owners, 29 more than Dewey.
Adoptions were right at Herro’s target pace of 500 a month:
2,534, up from 686 under Dewey, and the euthanasia percentage
was down to 31%, from 46%, already low compared to the
national norm of about 65%, reflecting the impact of the 75,000
discount neutering surgeries done by AFI since 1989. But
euthanasias were also up, from 1,871 under Dewey to 2,041 under
AFI, because public turn-ins rose from 487 under Dewey to 1,463
under AFI, and owner surrenders jumped from 179 to 1,650.

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