Guest opinion: Just killing isn’t humane work

October 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

by Lynda Foro
(founder, Doing Things For Animals)

In the four years since Doing Things for
Animals began publishing the annual No-Kill
Directory, the number of self-identified no-kill
shelters and sanctuaries known to us has more
than tripled. More than 700 no-kill organizations
are on our mailing list, and those that returned the
directory questionaire will be listed in our soonto-be-published
fourth edition.
In the three years since our first annual
No-Kill Conference, participation has quadrupled
to more than 300.
Within the past month, features on nokill
sheltering have been distributed internationally
by USA Today, the Los Angeles Times syndicate,
and Associated Press.

Animal control & rescue

October 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

Potbellied pigs
A study by Linda Lord and Thomas Wittum,
published in the September 1 edition of the Journal of the
American Veterinary Medical Association, found that 802
U.S. humane societies reported receiving 4,380 requests to
accept owner surrenders of Vietnamese potbellied pigs in an
18-month period, taking in 3,149, including 615 found running
at large. The major reasons for owner surrenders of pigs
were large size (58%), zoning restrictions (34%), and
aggressive behavior (19%). Of 485 hog slaughtering plants
surveyed, 255 had been asked to kill potbellied pigs, and
had among them slaughtered 2,640, refusing to slaughter
another 1,407. Commented Jim Brewer of PIGS: A
Sanctuary, “It’s even worse than that. We’re actually
receiving more distress calls these days from would-be pig
rescuers who are in over their heads than from individual
owners––and we’re still getting plenty of those calls, too.”

Rarely caught

October 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

Just a handful of alleged bird thieves have ever been
caught, including a woman who was charged on September
17 with stealing a Goffin cockatoo from the Village Pet
Center in Midvale, Utah, by stuffing the bird into a diaper
bag. She reportedly admitted to police that she resold the
cockatoo three weeks later to another pet store for $600, 60%
of the estimated retail value.
Akron police officer Tom Miksch in March 1995
made the first pinch of a parrot thief that ANIMAL PEOPLE
has on record. Miksch recovered a Moluccan cockatoo valued
at $2,499 in the first animal-related crime he said he had
handled in 25 years on the force. One of the two alleged perpetrators,
Gary L. Peavler, 39, had 90 previous adult arrests
and 42 prior convictions, the Akron Beacon-Journal reported,
on charges including mutiple counts of intoxication, plus
cases of assault, petty theft, and gross sexual imposition.

Speculative prices send parrot theft soaring

October 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

MIAMI– –Bill Gates, 50, not the
Microsoft baron but the manager of Animalia
Exotics in Miami, crawled out of a pool of his
own blood on August 20, dialed store owner
Joe Ferrero on his beeper, and when Ferrero
immediately called back, croaked “Joe, get
over here. I’m dying.”
Gates didn’t die, but he had been
badly pistol-whipped by two men who had just
cased the store with a seven-year-old girl and a
220-pound woman. The four left. The men then
returned to nab $200, an umbrella cockatoo,
and a Milian Amazon parrot. The birds were
worth an estimated $3,500, near the low end of
the parrot price scale.

Animal control & rescue abroad

September 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1997:

The Royal SPCA of New South
Wales, Australia, on June 28 won State
Parliament passage of a new cruelty law
which bars steeplechasing and hurdling
with horses, steel-jawed traps, the serving
of live food in restaurants, grinding sheep’s
teeth, attending cockfights, docking dogs’
tails after five days of age, clitoridectomizing
greyhounds to prevent detection of doping,
and dogs riding untethered in open
vehicles. The law also renews a clause
from the previous legislation that allows
private parties to bring cruelty cases.
The Czech Union of Nature
Conservation magazine NIKA recently
published an English edition to familiarize
the rest of the world with Czech environmental
efforts. Copies are available c/o
NIKA, Slezaka 9, 120 29 Prague 2,
Czechoslovakia. Generous gifts to cover
printing and postage will be appreciated.

SHELTERS

September 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1997:

Anchorage, Alaska, has adopted a
new animal control law as of July 1, and turned
the $1.4 million animal control contract over to a
new contractor, Allvest Inc., replacing TLC Inc.,
which had held the contract for 13 years. Allvest,
unlike TLC, will have a full-time veterinarian, a
fleet of six heated 4-wheel-drive animal pickup
vehicles, a lost-and-found web site, and will
encourage volunteers to work directly with animals.
Allvest also operates rehabilitation halfway
houses for humans.
The U.S. military support service contracting
firm Brown & Root, of Houston,
Texas, in early summer sent Galveston County
Animal Shelter director Shirley Tinnin a n d
Rosenberg animal control officer Nora Angstead
to Bosnia for 11 days, to train 60 Bosnians in
humane rabies control. Tinnin and Angstead fulfilled
the job on unpaid administrative leave.

Roger Rabbit redoux

September 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1997:

According to the July edition
of Paw Prints, newsletter of Volunteer
Services for Animals in Providence,
Rhode Island, American SPCA president
Roger Caras told the group’s
recent fundraising banquet about “the
detrimental effect so-called no-kill shelters
have had on the efforts of humane
organizations, as many people now
erroneously believe that unwanted animals
are no longer euthanized so it’s
okay to not neuter their pets.”
One could also erroneously
believe from Caras’ 1996 book A
Perfect Harmony that neutering rabbits,
the third most popular house pet
species, is pointless, since he seriously
asserted there that they are capable of
asexual reproduction.

REVIEWS: Shiloh

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

Shiloh
Starring Michael Moriarty,
Rod Steiger, and Scott Wilson
Warner Brothers Family Entertainment
video. 93 minutes.

Based on the Newberry Award-winning
novel of the same title by Phyllis
Reynolds Naylor, the live-action Shiloh also
resembles the Walt Disney animated classic
The Fox & The Hound. In each film, a hardedged
hillbilly recluse demonstrates the more
obviously despicable aspects of hunting, trapping,
and poaching; kicks and threatens to
kill a dog who doesn’t hunt; and eventually
commits at least one kind act, inspired by the
bond between the dog and in the former, a
boy, in the latter, a fox.

Grisly crimes spotlight control, keeping, and the missing link

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

TRENTON, N.J.––The May 30
conviction of Jesse Timmendequas in Trenton,
New Jersey, for the July 1994 molestation
murder of Megan Kanka, 7, brought new
attention to the association of animal abuse
with child abuse. Defense lawyers testified
that Timmendequas, 36, twice before convicted
of sexually assaulting children, grew up
watching his father torture pets. His mother
broke his arm, they claimed, and his father
sodomized him.
Timmendequas’ father, Edward
James Howard, of Smoketree Valley,
California, denied the allegations in an exclusive
interview with Evelyn Nieves of The New
York Times, pointing to his present 11 dogs,
five cats, 12 chickens, two guinea hens, and
two cockatiels, along with elaborate graves
for two deceased dogs.

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