Where horse rescue gets hot by Sharon Cregier

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

AMMAN, Jordan –– The sound of a stick on

hide summons Chris Larter to her second-story balcony.

“It’s the donkey-beaters,” Larter explains. Below, a

mare, foal at foot, plows a stony verge. Sheep and shep-

herd dodge four-lane traffic to graze the edges of con-

struction projects. And of course there are boys driving

donkeys. “Last time they were trying to cut a donkey’s

ears off,” Larter continues. She recalls braving a hail of

stones to take photos, locating the parents of the donkey-

boys, and pleading for the donkey’s welfare.

Today, courage requires police reinforcement.

Obtaining backup, Larter partially unloads a staggering

donkey, obliging the donkey-boys to make multiple trips

to finish moving their cargo.

Larter is field supervisor, publicity officer, and

photographer for the Jordanian Society for the Protection

of Animals, sponsored by the 70-year-old Society for the

Protection of Animals in North Africa. Based in England,

SPANA is among the last and most popular remnants of

the British occupation of Jordan, 1920-1946.

Gene and Diana Chontos: Helping the tough and stubborn

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

“Talking to someone about myself beyond my life

with burros seems abstract to me now,” Diana Chontos told

ANIMAL PEOPLE, “since my life has become burros and

their continued survival. I am a daughter of the pioneers of

Washington, and continue to live by many of the same val-

ues as my great-grandparents, except that during my child-

hood I found the practice of slaughtering and eating animals

abhorent. As soon as I possibly could, I became a vegetari-

an.” Her first animal rescue may have been at age 13,

when, “I rode my horse, galloping bareback, between a

gun-happy bounty hunter and a beautiful coyote I had been

watching as she caught and ate grasshoppers.”

Gene Chontos, Diana’s partner of 18 years, came

to animal rescue later in life, but no less dramatically. “I

was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1937,” he

remembers, “son to Hungarian immigrants. My father and

all his kin served the Bethlehem Steel Company as cheap

labor and resided in lower class poverty, replete with ethnic

prejudice, hatred, and violence. I escaped at age 17

through a four-year enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps.”

Guest column: Stop the war on wild horses! by Anna Charlton

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

A modern-day range war is underway on the vast

prairies of Nevada. Unless there is drastic and immediate

action, the casualty of this war will be the wild horse,

whom ranchers and bureaucrats seem determined to exter-

minate.

The wild horse is an enduring symbol of the

American west. The sight of a herd of these magnificent,

proud animals thundering across the open range evokes the

image of freedom. Responding to public outrage over the

slaughter of wild horses, Congress in 1971 passed the Free

and Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act, which calls for

the protection, management, and control of all wild horses

and burros on public land. But despite this legislative pro-

tection, wild horses are still shot, poisoned, and rustled.

The greatest threat to their survival, however, comes from

the Bureau of Land Management––the agency Congress

entrusted as their guardian. The BLM appears intent upon

“managing” wild horses out of existence, to increase the

profits of cattle and sheep ranchers.

Editorial: Surviving the long, cold winter

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

We knew this would be a long, cold, difficult winter. Here at the confluence of

the Berkshires, the Adirondacks, and the Green Mountains, winters are always long and

always cold. Bears stay in their dens. Deer and rabbits nibble bark. Coyotes prowl farther,

venturing into daylight to drag away half-frozen roadkills. Even the crows look lean,

reserving their caws for real occasions. Though free to come and go through a special kitty

door, the feral cats we’ve rescued huddle close to the basement heater. Several have even

moved into the house, sleeping with humans for apparently the first time.

Despite the length of the winter here, in the shadows of tall mountains that make

days short even in midsummer, despite the bitter Arctic blasts that turn our little hollow

into a wind tunnel, snapping off trees and driving our dogs inside within minutes no matter

how much they crave exercise, we felt six weeks ago as if spring was just around the cor-

ner. ANIMAL PEOPLE, we thought, was in great shape for such a young and risky ven-

ture. As indeed it is. Starting with only our own good names as collateral, we’ve built up a

respectable international circulation; distinguished ourselves for prompt, thorough, broad-

ranging coverage; become the periodical of record in the animal protection field.

When a horse needs help

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – –

Held the weekend of February 6-7, the First

International Conference on Equine Rescue

could have run days longer, in Rich Meyer’s

estimation. As horse expert for the

American Humane Association, Meyer

knows horse rescue ranks among most shel-

ter directors’ and animal control officers’

worst nightmares. First, there’s the sheer

size and strength of the animal to contend

with. Second, where there’s one starving or

abused horse, there are usually several.

Third, shelters set up to handle dogs and

cats usually don’t have facilities for live-

stock: big trailers, paddocks, pastures.

Their regular veterinarians tend to be small

animal specialists. And their budgets aren’t

easily stretched to accommodate the special

needs and appetites of equines.

Reprieve for Alaskan wolves, But the Yukon opens fire; Tourist boycott of Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta underway

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

WHITEHORSE, Yukon, Canada –– Dispatched in near-secrecy circa

February 5 by the Yukon territorial government, a helicopter attack team will have killed

150 of the estimated 200 wolves in the Aishihik Lake region, and be heading home again

as ANIMAL PEOPLEgoes to press.

The scheduled 20-day mission was undertaken in direct defiance of international

appeals and threats of a tourism boycott. Protests held at various points in Canada and the

U.S. on February 8 were ignored by Yukon minister of renewable resources Bill Brewster.

Cutting euthanasia rates and choking puppy mills: THE CONTROVERSIAL CASE FOR THE NORTH SHORE ANIMAL LEAGUE’S UNCONVENTIONAL METHODS

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

PORT WASHINGTON, New York ––

According to the most recent tax records available from

New York state and the Internal Revenue Service, the

North Shore Animal League in 1991 contributed more than

$3.5 million toward the cost of neutering more than 220,000

cats and dogs; donated $2.4 million to 21 other animal shel-

ters and two veterinary schools; adopted out more than

43,000 animals; issued more than 41,000 free 30-day health

insurance policies to guarantee the well-being of animals

adopted out; vaccinated more than 41,000 animals; treated

more than 17,000 animals at an in-house veterinary clinic

(open 16 hours a day, seven days a week); and made

71,000 post-adoption contacts to insure that the animals

were neutered, well cared for, and well-adjusted in their

adoptive homes.

Vivisection

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

Physicians for Human Rights on February 6 asked the American Medical

Association to lead a probe of how German medical doctor Hans Joachim Sewering, 76,

became president elect of the World Medical Association. Sewering,a member of the Nazi SS

from 1933 until 1945, is accused of complicity in sending 203 people, including children, to

their deaths at Eglfing-Haar, a

euthanasia site for the disabled.

Ironically, the WMA was formed in

1947 in response to Nazi medical

abuses.

HUNTING

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

The 1992-1993 hunting season

closed with a spate of killings by hunters

apparently desperate to shoot anything.

Victims included three rare trumpeter swans,

shotgunned January 1 on the Winterthur

Museum grounds in Wilmington, Delaware; a

tame deer slain at the St. Clair County

Humane Society in Port Huron, Michigan,

January 4; 13 cows killed in Clay County,

Missouri, between Christmas and New Year’s

Day; and three dairy cows killed near

Warsaw, Ohio, on January 16. Michael

Adamson, 20, of Barberton, Ohio, and a 17-

year-old companion face charges in the latter

case. Ronald Smith, 30, and his infant

daughter escaped injury December 30 when

hunters trying to jacklight rabbits––after mid-

night–– sprayed the baby’s bedroom with gun-

fire. Charles W. Tipton, 44, of Lorain,

« 1 … 240 241 242 243 244 … 250 »