Category: Bloodsports

2006 saw biggest fighting dog seizure ever

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:

HOUSTON–Among the grimmest jobs in the 71 years that the
Houston Humane Society has operated an animal shelter was
euthanizing 258 pit bull terriers in August 2006, seized from the
property of murder victim and fighting dog breeder Thomas F. Weigner,
Jr.
Investigators impounded 285 pit bulls in all from the Liberty
County site. Twenty-seven puppies were initially to have been
auctioned, without being sterilized first, by order of Liberty
County justice of the peace Phil Fitzgerald, but the Houston Humane
Society pointed out that Texas state law requires impounded dogs to
be sterilized prior to adoption or sale. Most of the pups were later
found to be ill with either parvovirus or the tick-borne disease
babeosis.

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Streaking Pamplona

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

PAMPLONA, Spain– “More than 1,000” nude or semi-nude
protesters, according to PETA, “several hundred” according to
Associated Press, on July 5, 2006 streaked the 825-meter route of
the “Running of the Bulls” that has preceded the nine-day Festival of
San Fermin bullfighting orgy for more than 500 years.
The PETA-sponsored “Running of the Nudes” debuted in 2003,
held each year one day before the official San Fermin events begin.
The 2005 edition attracted 700 participants, Associated Press said.
The Pamplona bull run and similar events in which often
inebriated runners try to stay ahead of panicked bovines appear to be
more popular than ever, worldwide, but bullfighting itself is in
general decline, especially in Spain.

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Court kills Massachusetts “Dog Protection Act” fall 2006 ballot initiative

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2006:

BOSTON–The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on July
13, 2006 barred a proposed ballot initiative called the Dog
Protection Act from the November 2006 Massachusetts ballot. If
approved by the voters, the Dog Protection Act would have prohibited
greyhound racing, and would have provided stiffer sentences for
dogfighting and assaulting police dogs.
The court upheld the contention of Raynham-Taunton Greyhound
Park owner George Carney that the initiative improperly combined
unrelated issues.
Massachusetts secretary of state William Galvin Jr. in
December 2005 certified that Dog Protection Act backers had gathered
83,431 bona fide signatures from voters in support of the initiative,
about 18,000 more than were needed in the first step of the two-step
petitioning process, but after the Massachusetts legislature failed
to enact the Dog Protection Act itself, the act supporters were
required to gather at least 10,971 new signatures to put the
initiative before the voters.
Grey 2K cofounder Christine Dorchak told ANIMAL PEOPLE that
the goal was reached on June 16, five days ahead of the deadline.

Blue Cross of India wins case vs. bullock cart racing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2006:

CHENNAI– Justice R. Banumathi of the Madurai Bench of the
Madras High Court in Chennai, India, on March 29 directed the Tamil
Nadu state government to prevent cruelty to animals in connection
with bullock cart racing and Indian-style bullfighting, which
masquerades as a way of “honoring” cattle.
“It is high time the government shouldered the responsibility
of taking up the cause of animals,” Banumathi said. “Equally, it
is high time the police shared responsibility in boldly declining
permission” for public events involving illegal cruelty, she added.
“Though animal fights are expressly banned under the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960,” Blue Cross of India
chief executive Chinny Krishna told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “these sad
spectacles go on year after year. Scores of spectators and animals
are badly injured and killed each year. The bulls are driven crazy
with fear, are force fed alcohol and ganja (opium), have their
tails bitten, and are then let loose before a drunken crowd to find
a person who can ‘tame the bull.’ The largest of these bullfights,”
Krishna said, “is organised by the Government of Tamil Nadu in
Alanganallur, near Madurai, in January each year.

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Tasmanians bedevil muttonbirds

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2006:

The Atlantic Canada seal hunt started on the same day in 2006
as the annual muttonbird hunt in Tasmania, a similar event, with a
2006 quota of 300,000, not counting the toll taken by indigenous
Tasmanians.
“It’s horrific,” Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania
spokesperson Suzanne Cass told Tim Jeanes of the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation. “The chick is hauled out of the burrow
either by hand or with a sharp hook. The bird’s neck is broken. It
could take any length of time, with people swinging them around
their heads and throwing them. These birds travel 30,000 kilometres
round-trip each year, and there are 209 breeding colonies around
Tasmania and the islands,” Cass added. “Often they’re not killed
for eating–just recreation.”
Responded Tasmanian West Coast Mayor Darryl Gerrity, “We
don’t have a lot of things to do on the west coast, so we look
forward to the muttonbirds season.”

Lousiana Supreme Court allows local cockfighting ban

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2006:

NEW ORLEANS–Cockfighting is legal in Louisiana because no
state law says it isn’t. However, since no law expressly authorizes
it either, Caddo Parish has the right to ban it, the Louisiana
Supreme Court ruled on January 19.
“The decision overturned a district court order which kept
Sheriff Steve Prator from enforcing the parish animal cruelty
ordinance,” wrote Janet McConnaughey of Associated Press. “The
parish ban was passed in 1987, but Prator said it had never been
enforced until numerous complaints about cockfights at the Piney
Woods Game Club and the Ark-La-Tex Game Club Inc. prompted him to
look into the parish laws.”
The clubs sued, arguing that parrots and canaries are the
only birds covered by the state anti-cruelty law. Ark-La-Tex
secretary Drena Nix told McConnaughey that she expects to sue again,
since her club was given a business license when opened in 1997.

Falcons, chickens, & avian flu

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2006:

Falconing, along with factory farming, cockfighting,
bird-shooting, wild bird trafficking, and keeping caged songbirds,
has emerged as a factor in the increasingly rapid global spread of
the deadly H5N1 avian influenza.
As the March 2006 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, 92
humans in seven nations had died from H5N1. More than 30 nations had
experienced H5N1 outbreaks since 2003, 14 of them since February 1,
2006. Hit, in chronological order, were Iraq, Nigeria,
Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Iran, Austria,
Germany, Egypt, India, France, and Hungary.
More than 200 million domestic fowl have been killed in
mostly futile efforts to contain H5N1, according to the United
Nations Food & Agriculture Organization–almost entirely because of
the persistence of practices long opposed by the humane community.
Falconing became implicated when five trained hunting birds
died from H5N1 at a veterinary clinic in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Saudi agriculture ministry officials confiscated and killed 37
falcons who were kept at the clinic.

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Flu threat spreads opposition to cockfighting, postal bird shipment

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

RALEIGH, MADISON, HONG KONG, HANOI–With the H5N1 strain
of avian influenza, potentially deadly to humans, striking
throughout Asia and threatening to hit Europe, North Carolina
Department of Agriculture food and drug safety administrator Joe
Reardon on August 18, 2005 warned a gathering of state and federal
officials that U.S. Postal Service regulations governing transport of
live birds “are inadequate and present great potential for
contamination of the poultry industry.”
Reardon estimated that each day between 1,000 and 3,000 game
birds, fighting cocks, and other fowl enter North Carolina via the
Postal Service. More than 70%, Reardon said, have not undergone
health inspection. The uninspected birds are often in proximity to
birds in transit to and from the 4,500 North Carolina poultry farms.
Birds involved in human food production are inspected, but may then
be exposed to disease before reaching their destination.
North Carolina agriculture commissioner Steve Troxler and
U.S. Representative Walter Jones (R-Farmville) pledged to pursue
legislation which would require all birds sent by mail to have a
health certificate.

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