Dogfighting resurfaces in Iran

October 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2008:
(Actual publication date 11-5-08.)
TEHRAN A fluffy white lap dog displayed at the Farzi web site Meydan Dog might hint that Iranian hostility toward dogs is lifting. But multiple muzzle views of fighting dogs send a different message.
Meydan Dog belongs to someone who sells puppies and fighting dogs in Iran, Center for Animal Lovers founder Fatehmah Motamedi told ANIMAL PEOPLE. There were people in Iran who arranged dog fights in secret, but now they are advertising.

SHARK wins a round in court re use rodeo videos

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

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.

Rodeo cowboys sued

June 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:
CHICAGO–The Electronic Frontiers Foundation, founded in
1990 to protect freedom of speech and press in cyberspace, on June
14, 2008 sued the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association on behalf
of Showing Animals Respect & Kindness (SHARK), of Geneva, Illinois.
“SHARK videotapes and photographs rodeos to expose animal
abuse, injuries, and deaths,” EFF explained. “SHARK posted more
than two dozen videos to YouTube to publicize animal mistreatment.
But the PRCA filed takedown demands for 13 videos under the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act. YouTube removed the videos and canceled
SHARK’s YouTube account, even though the PRCA has no copyright claim
in live rodeo events.”
Said EFF Intellectual Property Fellow Emily Berger, “Those
bringing meritless copyright claims must be held accountable.”

Victories over Portuguese-style bullfighting

June 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:

LISBON–A Lisbon court on May 30, 2008 granted the
Portu-guese organization ANIMAL an injunction prohibiting the
state-owned television station RTP from broadcasting bullfights
“before 10.30 p.m. and without displaying a sign indentifying the
program as violent and capable of negatively influencing the
personality development of children and teen-agers,” e-mailed ANIMAL
president Miguel Moutinho.
Presenting as witnesses two clinical psychologists, a
biologist, and a university professor of ethology, ANIMAL convinced
the court that bullfighting broadcasts in prime time violate
Portuguese law governing what may be aired when young people are
likely to be watching.

Booking agency sues SHARK for dissuading entertainers from performing at rodeo

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
CHEYENNE–Romeo Entertainment, incorporated in Omaha but
based in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, on April 16, 2008 sued the
animal advocacy organization SHARK, of Geneva, Illinois, for
allegedly using “false and misleading information” and “threats of
negative publicity” in successful efforts to dissuade singer Carrie
Underwood and the band Matchbox 20 from performing at the Cheyenne
Frontier Days rodeo in July 2006 and July 2008, respectively.
SHARK founder Steve Hindi sent video of alleged animal abuse
at past Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo performances to both Underwood
and Matchbox 20, he acknowledged. Romeo Entertainment, headed by
Bob Romeo, “has arranged for night show entertainers for Cheyenne
Frontier Days at times over the last 20 years,” says the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed nine days before Cheyenne Frontier Days
animal care committee chair Bob Budd announced a ban on “the use of
hand-held electric shock devices at the rodeo except in emergency
situations where they are needed to prevent injuries,” according to
Cary Snyder of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle.

New legislation addresses violent entertainment

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:

Nebraska governor Dave Heineman on April 16, 2008 endorsed
into law a bill to ban horse tripping, a common event at
charreada-style rodeos. The language that “No person shall
intentionally trip or cause to fall, or lasso or rope the legs of,
any equine by any means for the purpose of entertainment, sport,
practice, or contest” makes the Nebraska law “the strongest such law
in the nation, far better than California’s,” or those of Texas,
New Mexico, Maine, Florida, Oklahoma, and Illinois, said Action
for Animals founder Eric Mills. A bill modeled on the California law
cleared the Arizona house of representatives on March 30.

U.S. cockfighting busts reveal Philippine connection

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
HONOLULU–Alleged cockfighter Joseph Marty Toralba, 39, on
February 21, 2008 became one of the first persons indicted under the
May 2007 U.S. federal Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act,
prosecutor Ed Kubo told reporters. The act added felony provisions
to existing federal law against transporting animals for fighting or
animal fighting paraphernalia across state or U.S. national
boundaries.
U.S. Customs agents at the Honolulu airport on February 2,
2008 found 263 cockfighting gaffs in boxes imported from the
Philippines that Toralba said held gas stoves, prosecutor Ed Kubo
alleged. Toralba, of Colfax, Louisiana, keeps 650 gamecocks and
breeding hens, Kuba noted.

Shocked, shocked by rodeo tactics

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
TUCSON, DENVER, LAS VEGAS–Exposing three major rodeos in
as many months for electro-shocking so-called bucking horses, SHARK
founder Steve Hindi and investigators Janet Enoch and Mike Kobliska
are wondering just what it will take to persuade prosecutors to put
their videotaped evidence in front of a jury.
To Hindi, the SHARK videos unequivocally demonstrate
intentional cruelty. Time and again rodeo stock contractors
furtively press a black two-pronged device against the flank, rump,
or sometimes the face of a horse, and the horse bolts, then erupts
into spasmodic jumping.

Cockfighting remains implicated in spread of H5N1 avian flu

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
SAN JUAN, Bhubaneswar –Avian influenza may bring the demise
of cockfighting faster than animal advocacy in cockfighting
strongholds from Puerto Rico to rural Orissa state, India–but only
if governments hold cockfighters to the same restrictions as other
poultry farmers.
More than 100 New Year’s Day 2008 cockfights were cancelled
in Puerto Rico after bird imports were suspended due to an outbreak
of the avian flu H5N2 in the Dominican Republic. H5N2 is a milder
cousin of H5N1, which has killed more than 225 people worldwide
since 2003.

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