A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
Tipton, Pennsylvania–The anti-dog chaining organization Dogs
Deserve Better on May 27, 2011 closed a deal to buy the site of
football player and convicted dogfighter Michael Vick’s Bad Newz
Kennels, on Moonlight Road in rural Surrey County, Virginia.
The property is to become the new Dogs Deserve Better head
office and rescue center, called the Good Newz Rehab Center for
Chained & Penned Dogs.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
SACRAMENTO, SALT LAKE CITY, ST. LOUIS–Three court cases
with implications for animal shelters and adoption agencies that hold
and rehome dogs who subsequently attack a person recently split with
one verdict for the defendant, two for the plaintiffs.
In the one case actually involving an animal shelter, the
Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District on April 26, 2011 upheld
a previous circuit court ruling that the Humane Society of Missouri
should not share liability with adopter Linda D. Rich of St. Louis
for a dog attack that occurred more than a year after Rich adopted
the dog.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
VIENNA–Austrian federal judge Sonja Arleth on May 2, 2011
dismissed all charges against Association Against Animal Factories
(VGT) founder Martin Balluch and co-defendants, just three weeks
short of three years after Balluch and 11 others representing seven
animal advocacy organizations were arrested in dawn raids on at least
two dozen homes and offices on May 21, 2008.
Three of the arrestees were released without charges soon
afterward. Balluch and nine others were released on bail 104 days
later, charged with alleged involvement in a variety of “direct
action” offenses that occurred between 2002 and 2007.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
SEOUL–Fur will be exhibited after all at a June 2, 2011
show by the Italian fashion house Fendi on a new artificial “floating
island” in the Han River in downtown Seoul. But there will be less
fur, city officials said on May 23, after announcing on May 16 that
fur would be banned to avoid confrontation with protesters organized
by the local group Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth.
Fendi “originally planned to present 20 fur items,” reported
Agence France-Presse. “A Seoul city official said Fendi pledged to
‘redesign’ the lineup to reduce the number of fur items displayed.”
In response, Coexist-ence of Animal Rights on Earth “called for
protesters to picket the show,” AFP added.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
YUNCHENG–“If cats could talk, perhaps the matter could be
much simpler,” observed the Qianjiang Evening News on May 3,
2011–and that was before the latest mass rescue of cats being
trucked to slaughter in Guangzhou became much more complicated.
The incident began on the evening of May 1, the Qianjiang
Evening News reported, when Hangzhou Public Security officials
spot-checking vehicles at a busy intersection intercepted a
conspicuously stinky truck. The truck was found to be hauling 2,000
cats and kittens, both alive and dead. Some kittens appeared to
have been born in the transport cages. The five men in the cab had
papers indicating that they acquired the cats in Anhui province.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
LUBBOCK–Castro County, Texas district
attorney James Horton on May 26, 2011 issued
felony warrants for five former employees of the
E6 Cattle Company, in Hart, and Class A
misdemeanor warrants for E6 owner Kirt Espenson
and foreman Arturo Olmos. All seven defendants
could receive jail time. The charges resulted
from undercover video collected by the Chicago
organization Mercy for Animals, disclosed to
media on April 20, 2011.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
VISAKHAPATNAM–Rabies is reportedly raging again in northern
Andhra Pradesh state, India, a year after a newly elected Greater
Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation government took responsibility
for operating the local Animal Birth Control program away from the
Visakha SPCA.
The action in effect dismantled what was by far the largest
anti-rabies campaign in the region, and led to the Visakhapatnam
street dog population reportedly increasing from about 7,000 to as
many as 10,000.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
EL CERRITO, California– Alleging “unfair and deceptive
fundraising practices which harm local humane societies and SPCAs,”
the State Humane Association of California on May 3, 2011 filed a
complaint against the American SPCA with the California Office of the
Attorney General.
Explained State Humane Association of California executive
director Erica Gaudet Hughes, “The complaint alleges that ASPCA
capitalizes on, and intentionally reinforces, the widely held
mistaken belief that it is a parent or umbrella organization to the
thousands of humane societies and SPCAs across the country.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
TOKYO, ST. LOUIS–Six thousand miles
from the earthquake, tsunami, and triple
nuclear meltdown that hit northeastern Japan on
March 11, 2011, and six weeks after the crisis
began, Kinship Circle executive director Brenda
Shoss and Best Friends Animal Society community
relations specialist Troy Lea remained on
post-disaster overload in late May, even though
they never left their home offices near St.
Louis, Missouri.
Shoss, of University City, used Skype
telephone calls, Facebook, and e-mail to
coordinate animal rescue efforts involving 10
Kinship Circle volunteers and about 30 volunteers
from other organizations in the vicinity of the
stricken Fukushima nuclear reactor complex.