More bites

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

Norman Schachter, 50, on May 19 drew 15 years in prison and
accomplice Derrick Moultrie, 34, drew 10 years, for trying to hire
undercover police officers to beat up author Shaun Considine, 65,
after trying to frame Considine for possessing illegal drugs and
child pornography. Considine’s “only offense was to be virtually
devoured by Mr. Schachter’s dogs” in Central Park in 1998, New York
State Supreme Court Justice William Wetzel said. Considine then sued
Schachter and his wife Debbie Gamiel, 45. Gamiel pleaded guilty in
July 2001 to a misdemeanor charge for allowing the three-dog attack
to occur, and was sentenced to probation.

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BOOKS: Best Friends For Life

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

Best Friends for Life: Humane housing for animals and people
Doris Day Animal League (227 Mass. Ave. NE, Suite 100, Washington,
DC 20002), 2002. 40 pages, paperback. $2.95.

The price of Best Friends for Life is certainly right:
individual copies are free. Ordering is quick and easy: call
202-546-1761, or send an e-mail to <info@ddal.org>.
Jointly published by the Doris Day Animal League and the
Massachusetts SPCA, Best Friends for Life updates and greatly
expands a manual originally issued in 1996. The first edition
covered only the right of disabled people to keep pets in federally
assisted housing. The first half of this edition revisits that
subject, adding discussion of recent relevant court cases. The
second half presents information useful to any tenant, any landlord,
and any organization which deals with the problems associated with
keeping pets in rental housing.

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San Francisco murder-by-dog defendant gets new trial

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

SAN FRANCISCO–San Francisco Superior Court Judge James
Warren on April 12, 2002 granted a new trial to attorney Marjorie
Knoller, who was convicted by a Los Angeles jury on March 21 of
second degree murder for the dog mauling death of her former neighbor
Diane Whipple.
Knoller, 46, was also convicted of manslaughter and keeping
a dangerous animal, as was her husband, fellow attorney Robert
Noel. Noel indicated that he would also appeal the jury verdict.

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New Mexico pound worker breeds pit bulls

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

AZTEC, New Mexico–Among the more incongruous personal
histories of which ANIMAL PEOPLE has lately heard in the animal
control field is that of Aztec Animal Shelter employee Kristen
Valencia.
On October 10, 2001, Valencia was reportedly one of two
witnesses who affirmed an anonymous written allegaton to Animal
Protection of New Mexico cruelty inspector Michele Rokke that Aztec
Animal Shelter personnel improperly killed animals with
inanesthetized intracardiac injections.

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Lawmakers warm to freeing dogs from chain gangs

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2002–
HARTFORD, Connecticut– Connecticut legislature judiciary
co-chair Michael Lawler (D-East Haven) on February 27 told news media
that he expects to see a “fair amount of support” for a newly
introduced state bill to limit the amount of time that dogs can be
kept outdoors on chains.
Some U.S. and Canadian municipalities have ordinances against
prolonged chaining, but no state is known to have explicit
legislation against it, despite a growing body of evidence that
chaining tends to make dogs more territorial and more dangerous,
especially toward small children.

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Knoller & Noel convicted as murder-by-dog cases become trend

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2002:

LOS ANGELES–Convicted of second degree murder on March 21,
2002, for the dog mauling death of her former neighbor Diane
Whipple, San Francisco attorney Marjorie Knoller immediately
declared her intent to appeal. Knoller, 46, was also convicted of
manslaughter, along with her husband and fellow attorney Robert
Noel, 60. Both Knoller and Noel were additionally found guilty of
keeping a dangerous animal.
Sentencing was set for May 10. Knoller could draw 15 years
to life in prison; Noel could get four years.

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BOOKS: A Feathered Family

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2002:

A Feathered Family: Nature Notes from a Woodland Studio by Linda Johns
Sierra Club Books (85 Second St., San Francisco, CA 94105), 1999.
272 pages, hardcover. $25.00.

Linda Johns is a painter, a sculptor, an author and an
apparently self-taught (she would say bird-taught) rehabilitator of
wild birds. All these elements come together in A Feathered Family.
The book is a series of verbal snapshots of one period in her 25
years of living in an isolated wooded area in Nova Scotia, just
before and after her partner Mack came to share her home.
It is a most unusual home, with an indoor garden for birds
to forage in, complete with two tall dead trees chosen for their
horizontal branches. There are mealworm cultures in an upstairs
closet and more perches than chairs. There is a hospice room for
isolating birds as occasionally needed, and an art studio, but most
of the house is an open design which has become a series of
interconnecting flyways. I found myself wanting to move in, despite
knowing the screen porch tub is occasionally stocked with ants.

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Dog & cat licensing compliance, costs, and effects

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:

Regulations of any kind seldom succeed unless a large
majority of the people or institutions to be regulated are already
voluntarily in compliance or willing to become compliant with
relatively little nudging at the time that the regulations start to
be enforced. If more than a small percentage object to a regulation
enough to become scofflaws, the enforcement burden becomes
overwhelming, and the regulation eventually tends to be ignored or
repealed.

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From drunk hunters to a Republican who wants to ban elephants: State Legislative roundup, 2002

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:

Hunting
Frustrated that North Carolina law forbids hunting on state
land while under the influence of alcohol, but not on private
property, the Orange County commissioners sent a message to the
statehouse on January 15 by passing their own anti-drunk hunting
ordinance, and asked the three biggest cities within the
county–Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough–to do the same.
Neighboring Caswell County passed a similar ordinance in 2001.
Hunters typically get whatever they want from state
legislatures, however, due to the disproportionate influence of
rural representatives with long tenures as committee chairs, and
2002 started out the usual way, when the Maine legislature on
January 6 ratified a plan by the Department of Inland Fisheries and
Wildlife to expand coyote snaring in order to increase the deer herd.
Maine legislators solicited the plan in late 2001 after
hunters in several areas complained that coyotes were killing more
deer than the hunters were–although many of the deer coyotes kill
have previously been wounded by hunters who failed to dispatch them,
have been hit by cars, or are debilitated by starvation after an
over-abundant herd consumes all the accessible browse too early in
the winter.

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