Guest column: Breeding regulation, not moratoriums by Petra Murray

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

A moratorium on the breeding of

dogs and cats may initially seem to be an

easy and effective solution for companion

animal overpopulation. However, if we

think beyond a moratorium we will come up

with an even more precise and effective

solution––albeit not the only solution.

A moratorium refers to a tempo-

rary cessation of activity, and therein lies

part of the reason that a moratorium will not

be the answer to pet overpopulation.

To be sure, good breeders should

pause for a week or two or a month or more

to become educated about overpopulation.

They should visit their local pounds and

shelters and look at the homeless animals.

Editorial: No place for a saint

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

Almost every day we hear from an animal rescuer in desperate trouble. Today it

was an elderly woman who had to relocate, and couldn’t take 50 feral cats she’d been feed-

ing with her. Only a handful of the females had been neutered; she lacked the funds to fix

the rest. She wanted us to recommend a shelter that could take them all in, guarantee they

would be socialized, and see to it that they were adopted into good homes.

“I don’t believe in euthanasia,” she warned us.

A few days ago there was the woman who’d purchased a farm and kennel with the

idea that the kenneling operation would support an all-species no-kill sanctuary. She got as

far as obtaining nonprofit status and acquiring a menagerie of 15 dogs, 14 cats, and 150

chickens, ducks, geese, and guinea hens before discovering that her income couldn’t come

close to meeting the mortgage payments. “All I need is $150,000,” she begged. “But it’s

coming down to where I have no choice but to put the animals down, and I know that when

I do, I will have a stroke and die.”

Editorial: You get more flies with honey than vinegar

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

“We appeal once again for stronger ordinances for companion animals,” the

address to the city council began. “It looks as if more will be killed this year than last year.”

So far, so good: a succinct statement of the problem by a humane group with an estab-

lished record of accomplishment. The councillors were at attention, awaiting the statistics

and the proposed solution. But instead the humane society director mounted a figurative

pulpit, her voice rising to fill the room.

“Deciding that death for other beings is preferable to a risk-filled life is not

euthanasia in its traditional form,” she lectured, “but rather a lethal manifestation of

speciesism that projects our own fears and values onto another species.” As the perplexed

council members glanced at each other and scratched their heads, she raised her voice

another decibel and continued. “Mass killing manages an animal control problem for soci-

ety, but only a morally bankrupt community would continue to participate in such institu-

tionalized slaughter. Humane euthanasia may be indeed the lesser of evils facing aban-

doned animals in a hostile world, but it is still an evil. Instead of confronting the sources of

injustice, as represented by public ignorance, apathy, and cruelty, we have chosen to

punish the victims. Our city shelter is not much more than a killing machine.”

And then, as her supporters climbed up on their chairs to cheer, she asked for

$30,000.

Alaska resumes wolf killing; SUES FRIENDS OF ANIMALS FOR CALLING TOURISM BOYCOTT

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

FAIRBANKS, Alaska––As

many as 450 Alaskan wolves will be

trapped, snared, and shot during the next

three winters to make more moose and

caribou available to hunters, under pro-

posals adopted July 1 by the Alaska

Board of Game.

ANIMAL PEOPLE waited to

go to press until the Board of Game deci-

sion became final—a week after the nor-

mal deadline––because of the signal

importance of the wolf issue in the ongo-

ing clash between ecology-based and

hunter-driven philosophies of conserva-

tion. The board was expected to revive

the wolf control strategy scrapped last

winter under threat of a tourism boycott,

but the details were obscured in a blizzard

of 92 wolf management proposals on the

summer meeting agenda, two of them

from the Alaska Department of Fish and

Game and many others from influential

hunting associations.

Help stop roadkills

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

DERRY, N.H., CHARLOTTE, Vt., and

SHUSHAN, N.Y.––You too can help prevent roadkills, by

taking a copy of the survey form on page 7 of this issue with

you the next time you go walking.

Every roadkill you record will help in a concerted

effort to identify the characteristics of “killing zones” that

attract multiple roadkills, and help as well to develop a

defensive defensive driving curriculum that could save mil-

lions of animal lives.

Two parallel but cooperating teams are collecting

roadkill observations: a nationwide network of middle

school students assembled by environmental science teacher

Brewster Bartlett of Pinkerton Academy in Derry, New

Hampshire, and the readers of Country Life magazine and

ANIMAL PEOPLE.

NEW DIRECTION FOR AMERICANS FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS ––OR MORE OF THE SAME?

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Americans for Medical Progress has posted a reward of $5,000 for information leading to the arrest

and conviction of whoever vandalized the homes and cars of five federally funded researchers on April 28. Although the names of the researchers were not officially disclosed, one is believed to be Sharon Juliano, whose experiments on cats have been subject of numerous protests held in front of her home and elsewhere in her neighborhood.

AMP was founded by three executives of U.S. Surgical Corporation, specifically to attack the animal

rights movement––and U.S. Surgical, whose laboratory use of dogs has been target of annual demonstrations by Friends of Animals for 13 years, donated $980,000 of the $985,000 AMP raised in 1991. (1992 financial data isn’t yet available.) However, AMP refrained from any mention of animal issues in a May 14 full-page ad in The New York Times, which depicted Marie Curie and suggested that the purpose of the organization is to “bring the story of medical science––and medical heroes––to young Americans.”

CHILDREN AND ANIMALS

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Shakira Hemphill, Michael Mims, Robert Ronnell Jones, and LaTroy Eugene Murphy, all of

Abram Simon Elementary School in Washington D.C., on April 29 shared the American Humane Association’s first-

ever Be Kind To Animals Kid Award for their part in bringing to justice an off-duty police officer whom they witnessed in

the act of severely beating a dog. All four witnessed the beating on May 2, 1992. Jones, a third grader at the time,

approached the man and demanded an explanation. As the abuse continued, he ran up and down the street to keep an

eye on the dog, whom the man eventually dragged into an alley, while the others called the Washington Humane

Society. All four then pointed the abuser out to the WHS cruelty officer who responded to their call. The dog was

impounded, but was returned to the owner on June 15, who claimed to have given her away one week later. A grand

jury declined to indict, leaving any punitive action up to the Washington D.C. police department division of internal

affairs. As the nominating shelter for the AHA award winners, WHS received $1,000 worth of dog food from Advanced

Nutrition Cycle.

COURT CALENDAR

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Dog Crimes

The Cuyahoga County, Ohio

grand jury on April 23 indicted Jeffrey

Mann, 36, for murder, alleging that he

ordered his pit bull terrier to fatally maul his

common-law wife, Angela Kaplan, 28, on

September 2, 1992. The indictment came

as result of an eight-month probe by

Cleveland homicide detective Michaelene

Taliano, and extensive observation of the

dog’s nature by animal behaviorist Karen

Arnoff. Taliano suspected the attack was a

murder, not an accident, because the dog

bit Kaplan more than 100 times, but never

around the neck and throat, the usual sites

of fatal bite wounds. Mann pleaded inno-

cent and was freed on $25,000 bail.

“Wear the badge and the uniform.” How a small Alabama shelter wins big in court

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA––On March 12,

the Montgomery County Humane Society took a man

named Tom Green to court. His offense, testified executive

director Mary Stanley Mansour, was keeping seven

Weimeraners in “complete darkness and filth in a large

warehouse for several months.”

It was the sort of case anti-cruelty officers often

hesitate to recommend for prosecution, a case of neglect

rather than overt physical abuse, involving conditions that

in many poor communities aren’t demonstrably far from

“normal,” no matter how undesirable. Mansour was not

eager to prosecute Green, either. She gave him repeated

warnings.

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