ANIMAL SPECTACLES

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

Reporter Tom Lyden, 34, of KMSP-TV, Channel 9, in Minneapolis, was on May 15 charged with theft, unauthorized borrowing, and tampering with a motor vehicle, all misdemeanors, for taking a videotape of dogfighting from a car which was parked outside the home of junior flyweight boxer William Grigsby during an April 27 police raid. The car turned out later be Grigsby’s. Police and humane officers seized 13 pit bull terriers and other evidence that Grigsby may have been involved in dogfighting, but missed the video, which according to those who have seen it appears to depict Grigsby at a dogfight. Lyden called taking the video “aggressive reporting.” The Minnesota chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists called it a major breech of reporting ethics.

Municipal court judge Thomas F.X. Foley of Freehold Township, New Jersey, in early April dismissed due to lack of evidence a case brought by M o n m o u t h County SPCA chief cruelty investigator Stuart Goldman against the Clyde BeattyCole Brothers Circus, of Deland, Florida, for allegedly overworking an elephant named Helen during a series of performances in August 1999. Goldman previously tried to prosecute the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus in 1996 for allegedly violating an ordinance by exhibiting elephants in a parking lot.

An attempted prosecution of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus for allegedly abusing seven elephants before an appearance in San Jose, California, on August 23, 1999 also failed due to lack of evidence, San Jose Mercury News r e p o r t e r Linda Goldson disclosed on May 9. Santa Clara County deputy district attorney R o b i n W a k s h u l l told Goldston that although the Humane Society of the Santa Clara Valley could establish that some of the elephants were injured, it was never able to identify exactly who injured them. Since criminal offenses must be charged to a particular person, no case could be brought.

U.S. District Court Judge Earl Britt of Wilmington, North Carolina on May 8 dismissed a claim by Oregon Trail Films coproducers Eric Epperson and Alan James that veteran movie animal handler A l i c i a Rudd misrepresented her ability to direct a trained mule named El Berta. Epperson and James held that delays caused by El Berta balking cost eight hours and $111,111––about a fourth of their total cost overrun in making the soon-to-be-released film, called Morgan’s C r e e k. Rudd told the judge that James had tried to overwork El Berta. Britt reportedly ruled that to be stubborn is a mule’s time-hon

Editorial: Small primates on a limb

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

“Culture,” says the National Geographic Desk Reference, “provides the identity that links members of one society together and can also divide those members from other cultures.” In other words, culture is the learned behavior that separates the sheep from the goats, and also determines in which order the sheep and goats march. Culture could be defined as a collective term for the variety of social, economic, and political methods that humans use to form and maintain what we would recognize in other species as a dominance hierarchy.

Culturally entrenched cruelties resist abolition because the evolution of culture itself is often driven by the motives underlying the cruelty, so much so that the whole cultural selfidentification of some societies becomes preoccupied with establishing who may abuse whom. The more basic the society, meaning the most absorbed in constant struggle for both personal and collective survival, the more likely it is to be organized around “might makes right,” like a tribe of chimpanzees––and the more likely the culture of the society will consist chiefly of activities meant to remind members of their rank. The hazing practiced by social clubs and athletic teams serves such a purpose, for example, and is seldom far removed from cruelty because it is central to a culture whose whole purpose is defining the dominance of the incrowd or the winners, and excluding others from the exhalted inner circle.

Anti-cockfighting bills

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Federal legislation to ban the transport of fighting cocks from states where cockfighting is illegal to the three remaining states where it is still permitted advanced in the House of Representatives during April, but was stalled in the Senate by Tim Hutchinson (R-Arkansas), who put a “private hold” on S-345, the Senate version of the bill, introduced by Wayne Allard (R-Colorado.)

The House version, introduced by Representative Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota), on April 12 cleared the Agriculture Committee subcommittee on livestock and horticulture over aggressive opposition from cockfighting lobbyists J. Bennett Johnson, formerly a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, and Steve Symms, formerly a U.S. Senator from New Mexico.

A similar bill applying only to Florida, introduced by state senator Ron Klein (D-Boca Raton), unanimously cleared the state senate criminal justice committee on April 11. A companion bill introduced by representative Eleanor Sobel (D-Hollywood) was apparently dead in the state house, however, after agriculture committee chair Adam Putnam refused to add it to the agenda.

Hunters kill predators, squelch voters’ rights

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

“I read in our local newspaper about the shocking and barbaric third annual Midwestern Coyote Calling Championship, held in January in St. Francis, Kansas,” wrote Nancy Lee, of Boulder, Colorado.

“As I know how committed you are to the welfare of animals, I’m hoping you’ll want to publicize this atrocity,” Lee continued. “If we let the powers that be in St. Francis know that decent citizens won’t put up with this kind of slaughter, maybe they’ll reconsider holding it next year.”

Added Louise Wilson Davis, in the letter to the Boulder Daily Camera that alerted Lee, “Perhaps St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, would like the name of this town to be changed.”

RETURN OF THE PET THIEVES

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

NASHVILLE, MUNCIE, KALAMAZOO, FLINT––Missing dog reports reminiscent of the bad old days of roundups for laboratory use flooded animal shelter telephone lines and Internet chat boards between Thanksgiving 1999 and mid-January 2000 in at least three midwestern and southern regions linked by Interstate Highways 64, 65, and 69.

The first burst of theft reports fitting the pattern came in Maury County, Tennessee, south of Nashville. Almost all of the missing animals were reportedly purebreds.

After Christmas came 30 alleged thefts in southwestern Indiana.

“Red flags started going up,” said Evansville Courier & Press staff writer Judy Davis, when Gibson County Animal Services director Cindy Hyneman realized that, ‘All of the dogs’ descriptions matched––large, shorthaired, friendly dogs.’”

Editorial: Pepsi Gets the Point

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

The statement Pepsi-Cola gave to Garo Alexanian of the Companion Animal Network in late November 1999 was terse, to the point, and just what Steve Hindi of SHARK had demanded from Pepsi since June 1998:

“Pepsi-Cola Company does not sponsor or support bullfighting, nor do we endorse any kind of animal cruelty. Our Mexico City office has told us that Pepsi advertising is in the process of being removed from arenas in Mexico. And in the next few weeks, we will be sending officials from Pepsi headquarters to verify their progress.”

Hindi and SHARK are already verifying Pepsi progress. They verified first that Pepsi signs were removed from the Puebla bull ring, where Hindi took much of his graphic undercover video footage of bulls being tortured in front of Pepsi logos. Vendors in Pepsi aprons are still prominent, selling drinks of all sorts in Pepsi cups, but the signs––visible in every televised bullfight––have disappeared.

BULLFEATHERS

November 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1999:

Matador Cristina Sanchez,
27, retired on October 11 after
killing two bulls at the Las Ventas
ring in Madrid, fulfilling a threat she
issued in May after having difficulty
getting prestigious bookings. Male
chauvinism drove her out, she said:
male bullfighters would not appear in
the same ring with her. Sanchez
fought bulls professionally for four
years, after six years as a novice.

PIGEON SHOOTING, COCKFIGHTING, AND GREYHOUND RACING

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

The Hegins pigeon shoot and
Omak Suicide Race each drew about 5,000
people just to watch animals get hurt and heckle
protesters, suggest attendance figures from
the village events they were part of. The
Hegins Labor Day festival in recent years drew
about 10,000 people; only 5,000 came this
year, the first since 1935 that pigeons were
not shot. The Omak Stampede rodeo drew up
to 22,000 people; just over 17,000 came this
year, the first since 1936 that horses were not
galloped down a steep embankment into the
Okanogan River. Even without the Suicide
Race, however, the Stampede still included
traditional rodeo events featuring violent treatment
of animals. Hegins without the pigeon
shoot apparently had no violent attraction.

BULLFEATHERS AND THE MONTREAL SPCA

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

MONTREAL––The first
“bloodless” bullfight in Montreal since
1973 was held as scheduled on August
21. Montreal SPCA president Pierre
Banoti initially allowed the SPCA’s
name to be used in promoting the fight
in exchange for 25¢ per ticket sold.
After an e-mail and fax campaign
by the Global Animal Network
and the July/August ANIMAL PEOP
L E editorial made the deal known to
the worldwide humane community,
Banoti claimed Quebec law did not
allow the Montreal SPCA to prevent the
fight. Therefore, he said, he cut a deal
with the bullfight promoter to raise
$7,500 to send the bulls to retirement
post-fight at the hobby farm of a former
Montreal SPCA board member, instead
of to slaughter. But the former board
member withdrew her offer to take the
bulls after the deal became controversial––and
after activists told media that
they would monitor the bulls to ensure
they were not sold to slaughter later.
The Montreal SPCA, under
Banoti, claimed credit for preventing
ing another scheduled “bloodless” bullfight
as recently as August 1998.
U.S. anti-bullfighting campaigner
Steve Hindi joined Montreal
activists for several days of protest.

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