Category: Activists & Organizations

Austrian activists freed after 104 days, still face charges

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2008:
VIENNA–Association Against Animal
Factories founder Martin Balluch, Vier Pfoten
campaign director Jürgen Faulmann, and eight
other Austrian animal advocates were released
from jail on September 2, 2008, 104 days after
they were arrested in a series of dawn raids on
May 21.
Three other activists who were arrested
at the same time were released earlier.
The ten who were released on September 2
were arraigned in July for alleged involvement in
a variety of “direct action” offenses between
2002 and 2007. All have pleaded innocent.

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Shelters discontinue killing animals for other agencies, gassing, & drop-off cages

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2008:

 

TULSA, CLOVIS, MACON, LAKE CITY, HAYWARD–Beginning a
“new era” in animal care and control, according to Tulsa, Okalahoma
mayor Kathy Taylor, the Tulsa animal shelter on September 8, 2008
quit killing animals for surrounding communities’ animal control
agencies.
“For at least three decades, the city has charged suburbs
$1.00 per animal destroyed at Tulsa’s shelter. Last year, an
estimated 4,000 animals from outside the city were killed in the
shelter’s gas chamber,” recalled Tulsa World staff writer P.J.
Lassek.

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What does leadership transition mean for WSPA?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
LONDON, MONTREAL–Whatever future
direction the World Society for the Protection of
Animals takes, it will not be for much longer
under Peter Davies, the WSPA director general
since September 2002.
ANIMAL PEOPLE on July 17, 2008 obtained
a copy of a WSPA document entitled “Chief
Executive Search,” which WSPA board members have
apparently distributed to prospective applicants.
Stating that “The current Director General is due
to retire from office in June 2009,” the
document outlines the qualifications that the
WSPA board hopes to find in potential successors.
Among 15 enumerated attributes of “an
ideal chief executive,” according to the “Chief
Executive Search” criteria, only two even
mention animal advocacy.
Point #9 is that the “ideal chief
executive” will “have a developed belief in
animal advocacy and citizen involvement in the
public arena as a force for change.”

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Arsons boost bill that would inhibit access to info about animal research

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
SACRAMENTO–Firebombs detonated on a porch and in a home
belonging to University of California at Santa Cruz researchers in
the early morning of August 2, 2008 are believed to have given a big
late-in-session boost to AB 2296, a bill which would allow
universities to withhold the names of animal researchers from public
documents.
Introduced in February 2008 by state assembly member Gene
Mullin (D-San Mateo) at request of the University of California
system, AB 2296 “would make it a misdemeanor to harm or intimidate a
researcher who works with animals, including publicly posting the
names, photographs, home addresses and home telephone numbers of
researchers online or elsewhere. Anyone convicted under the
legislation could face up to a year in county jail and fines up to
$25,000. The bill also allows researchers or their employers to seek
an injunction against animal rights advocates or web sites publishing
their photos or personal information,” summarized Santa Cruz
Sentinel staff writer J.M. Brown.

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Why the RSPCA and Compassion In World Farming push rose veal

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
LONDON–Animal rights groups worldwide on August 17, 2008
abruptly found themselves explaining that they do not endorse veal,
the Royal SPCA of Britain and Compassion In World Farming had to
explain that they are not animal rights groups, and the public was
probably just downright confused after Rachel Shields, a food writer
for The Independent, wrote that “Animal-rights groups have been
campaigning to get it off the menu for decades, but now, in an
abrupt U-turn, they are clamouring for veal to come back to British
dining tables.
“The RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming are trying to
redeem the meat in the eyes of U.K. consumers,” Shields continued,
“most of whom now view veal as the ultimate ethical no-no.”

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WSPA board role of Danish wildlife researcher Bjarne Clausen raises questions

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
World Society for the Protection of Animals board president
Dominique Bellemare is not the only WSPA board member whose history
of associations with prominent defenders of the Canadian fur and
sealing industries has caused ANIMAL PEOPLE to ask questions. Board
member Bjarne Clausen, a Danish biologist, spoke in 1981–the same
year that WSPA was founded–as part of the Northwest Territories
Department of Renewable Resources’ “Fish, Fur, & Game for the
Future” program.
Like Bellemare, Clausen appears to have no public record of
speaking or writing against the fur trade, either in Canada or
Greenland, a Danish protectorate where Clausen formerly did studies
of otters and other wild furbearing mammals.

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Infiltrator Sapone exposed again

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
WASHINGTON D.C.– New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg on
August 7, 2008 asked the National Rifle Association to disclose full
details of the alleged espionage activities within gun control
organizations of Mary McFate, 62, also known as Mary Lou Sapone.
McFate/Sapone was exposed a week earlier by James Ridgeway,
Daniel Schulman, and David Corn of Mother Jones magazine.
“According to Mother Jones,” summarized Lautenberg to NRA
president John C. Sigler, “Mary McFate spent more than a decade
rising through the ranks at several gun violence prevention
organizations, including CeaseFire PA, Freedom States Alliance, and
States United to Prevent Gun Violence. At the same time,
McFate-going by the name Mary Lou Sapone-reportedly was a paid
‘research consultant’ for the NRA. As a result, McFate/Sapone was in
a position to learn about, and to report back to the NRA on, the
concerns, plans and strategies of various gun violence prevention
groups.

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WSPA president objects to coverage

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
World Society for the Protection of
Animals president Dominique Bellemare responded
as shown at left to the print edition of the June
2008 ANIMAL PEOPLE article “Rise of Quebec
politician to WSPA board presidency raises
questions.”
ANIMAL PEOPLE of course regrets that we
did not learn earlier that Bellemare’s former
legal partner Harry Bloomfield was eventually
acquitted on appeal of the alleged offenses for
which he was convicted four years earlier.
Bellemare could have provided that information
before the press date in response to our
questions, but he did not do so.

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SHARK wins a round in court re use rodeo videos

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
CHEYENNE–U.S. District Judge William Downes on July 29, 2008
dismissed a lawsuit filed by Romeo Entertainment Group Inc. against
Show-ing Animals Respect & Kindness, better known as SHARK.
The case alleged that SHARK used “false and misleading
information” and “threats of negative publicity” to influence singer
Carrie Underwood and the band Matchbox 20 to cancel shows at the
Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo in 2006 and 2008.
Downes ruled that while the case could not be pursued in
Wyoming, due to lack of jurisdiction, it could be refiled in either
Illinois or Oklahoma. Romeo Entertainment attorney J. Kent Rutledge
told Associated Press writer Bob Moen that either the ruling would be
appealed or the case would be refiled in another state.

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