Category: Companion Animals

COURT CALENDAR

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Crimes vs. humans
The “Lords of Chaos,”
charged May 4 with the April 30
thrill-killing of music teacher Mark
Schwebes at his home in Pine Manor,
Florida, began a two-week spree of
arson, robbery and mayhem by burning
two large macaws alive in their
cage at The Hut, a local restaurant.
Facing murder charges are K e v i n
Foster, 18; Christopher Black, 18;
Derek Shields, 18; and P e t e r
Magnotti, 17. A fifth gang member,
Christopher Burnett, 17, is
charged only with conspiracy to commit
armed robbery.

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BOOKS: Tools for humane work

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Many useful and interesting publications don’t come from
major publishers––because their topics are considered “too special –
ized,” or their authors are too obscure to attract commercial atten –
tion. These low-budget, do-it-yourself books could never become
bestsellers, but ANIMAL PEOPLE readers may wear them to tatters
with repeated reference:

Fishing: An Activist’s Guide. Price: “a small donation”
to the Animal Rights Coalition, POB 862, Chanhassen, MN
55317. 20 pages, 1996.
Chicago Animal Rights Coalition cofounder Steve
Hindi––whose similarly named group is not the same as the publisher
of Fishing: An Activist’s Guide––shocked ANIMAL PEOPLE readers
in May with his guest column outlining, as a former fisher, the
inhumanity of fishing. The shock for too many was not that Hindi had
done things he now finds appalling, but that he now finds appalling
things routinely done to fish, that even most people who care about
animals haven’t thought about deeply.

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Twiss again, like she did in Mississippi

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

HARRISON, Arkansas––The already tangled case of alleged
exotic cat collector Catherine Graham Twiss, 48, twisted again on May
15 when Boone County sheriff’s deputy Jim Clement found 10 big cats in
tiny cages without food or water at Twiss’ rented home in Hill Top,
Gaither Mountain. A dead leopard was found in the same cage as a starving
lion. Twiss was charged with 11 counts of cruelty to animals and
jailed for lack of a bond variously reported as either $2,500 or $25,000.
Twiss and her husband Lawrence Twiss were already involved in
the bankruptcy of an Arkansas tire store, and were facing cruelty charges
filed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by Doll Stanley-Branscum of In
Defense of Animals over the treatment of 46 lions, 21 tigers, six
lion/tiger hybrids, five pumas, five bears and a variety of other animals on
an 800-acre rented farm. Landowner Manuel Goforth ordered the animals
removed about a month later. IDA bid on the animals at the Twiss’ bankruptcy
proceeding, but was outbid by Jim Cook, of Oxford, Mississippi,
whom Stanley then offered to assist. Twiss meanwhile fled on May 5
with apparently as many of the big cats as she could pack into her vehicle.

What need has a cat for silver? Last living argyria victim challenges claims

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

DERBY LINE, Vermont– –
Celeste Yarnell, author of Cat Care Naturally,
is aggressively marketing colloidal silver
preparations for cats. Longtime humane
activist Rosemary Jacobs takes that personally.
“Since colloidal silver is being sold
as a dietary supplement,” not as a drug,
Jacobs warns, “these preparations are unregulated
and untested by the FDA.”
Disfigured by colloidal silver since
1956, when she was just 13, Jacobs knows
first-hand that it can be dangerous indeed, to
both animals and humans.
“I may have more silver in my body
than anyone else alive today,” Jacobs affirms.
“I am one of the few people, including physicians
and veterinarians, who knows about the
condition argyria and the dangers of colloidal
silver preparations. Ms. Yarnall claims that
‘colloidal silver has been used for thousands of
years, apparently with no harmful effects on
the body.’ This is not true. Colloidal silver
causes a r g y r i a, a slate-grey discoloration of
the skin. The condition is irreversible and cannot
be colored with makeup. I know because I
have it. I got argyria from nose drops a doctor
gave me over 40 years ago. Any serious
research on colloidal silver would find the connection.
It’s in the literature.”

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News from abroad

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

A ferocious spring battered central Asia into May––and got
worse when Mongolia officials seeded clouds to produce unseasonable snow,
hoping would help quell at least 288 simultaneous grassfires that killed 17
people, injured 62, burned 31,000 square miles of forest and pasture, forcing
the immediate relocation of more than 1,600 families and 436,000 cattle,
with the evacuation of another 1,600 people and 588,000 cattle anticipated.
The snow––almost the first to hit Mongolia in more than a year––put out only
a few of the fires, but froze or drowned at least 4,900 cattle, along with two
shepherd boys and their 150 sheep. Just to the south, in China, 700,000 cattle
and yaks reportedly froze to death in February during a natural cold snap.
Cyprus SPCA president Toula Poyiadjis on May 18 led 100
CSPCA members and their dogs, donkeys, and a chicken to the palace of
Glafcos Clerides, president of Cyprus, demanding enforcement of humane
laws. “Cyprus lags behind other countries in its treatment of animals,”
Poyiadjis explained. “There is prejudice, fear, and an inexplicable mania for
killing animals.”

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Strange but true tales of attitude

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Nearly a year after refusing to
pay the Humane Society of Greater Akron
$150,000 annually for animal control service,
the Akron city council is reportedly moving
to set up a municipal animal control
agency––spurred by public outrage over an
April 12 incident in which health officials
boarded up the home of Bill Woolridge, 77,
with 27 dogs inside. The home was sealed
due to alleged unsanitary conditions discovered
by paramedics who responded to an
emergency call when Woolridge’s wife died.
Volunteers rescued the dogs the next day.
Akron city service director Joseph Kidder
called the HSGA request for $150,000
“exhorbitant,” but at 67¢ per capita, it would
have come to 43% less than the U.S. average
of $1.18 per capita paid for basic animal pickup
and impoundment. Akron had been paying
just $19,600 a year, less than 10% of the
cost of running the HSGA shelter.

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Animal control & rescue

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

“The Progressive Animal Animal Welfare Society is
attempting to reduce the population of homeless cats with a
specific campaign reaching out to low-income families,”
reports companion animal services director Scott Van
Valkenburg. “First, PAWS is offering neutering surgery for any
puppy or kitten under four months of age for $5.00––or we’ll fix
a whole litter for $10.00. On April 20, PAWS volunteers distributed
500 door hangers in low-income neighborhoods identified
by animal control officers as having many homeless cats. PAWS
is now asking social service agencies to promote our low-cost
neutering campaign, and is posting information about it in social
service offices.”
The Los Angeles SPCA and Ventura County Animal
Control reported on April 29 that “over 500 birds from private
sanctuaries and dozens of horses from residences” had been
evacuated from the path of a local brushfire.

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HEROIC CAT HONORED

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

The Illinois Senate and village of Wheeling, a
Chicago suburb, on May 6 commended Brat the Cat,
age one, for “ingenuity and persistence” in saving the
life of Jose Ybarra, 15, early on March 15, when
Ybarra suffered a seizure in his sleep from a sudden
attack of meningitis. Brat, a foundling kitten adopted
by the Ybarra family last July, heard Jose thrashing in
his bed and became alarmed, but couldn’t get through
the bedroom door. Shethen ran to wake Jose’s mother,
Karen Ybarra Hummerich.
“She was licking my mom’s eyelids, scratching
and meowing, doing anything she could,” Jose told
media. Hummerich shooed Brat away, but rose to
investigate when the cat tried to claw her way through
Jose’s door. Jose was by then in a coma.
“Our family physician said that if the cat had
not woken us up, we probably would have found him
dead in the morning,” said Hummerich. For five days it
was uncertain whether Jose would ever awaken––but he
then recovered quickly, and has resumed a normal life.

New anti-pet theft bills introduced in House

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Two bills
to crack down further on pet theft for laboratory
supply were introduced into the House of
Representatives in early May.
The pair are among the first of an
anticipated series of proposed amendments to
the Animal Welfare Act sections pertaining to
pets and the pet trade, discussed in April during
four days of hearings that were held in St.
Louis and Kansas City.
The Family Pet Protection Act of
1996, introduced on May 6 by Representatives
John Fox (R-Pa.) and Tom Lantos (DCalif.),
was reportedly drafted by In Defense
of Animals. It would abolish all Class B animal
dealers, an Animal Welfare Act permit
category which currently includes about 1,600
pet dealers as well as about 75 suppliers of
random-source animals to laboratories.

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