COURT CALENDAR

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Dog Crimes

The Cuyahoga County, Ohio

grand jury on April 23 indicted Jeffrey

Mann, 36, for murder, alleging that he

ordered his pit bull terrier to fatally maul his

common-law wife, Angela Kaplan, 28, on

September 2, 1992. The indictment came

as result of an eight-month probe by

Cleveland homicide detective Michaelene

Taliano, and extensive observation of the

dog’s nature by animal behaviorist Karen

Arnoff. Taliano suspected the attack was a

murder, not an accident, because the dog

bit Kaplan more than 100 times, but never

around the neck and throat, the usual sites

of fatal bite wounds. Mann pleaded inno-

cent and was freed on $25,000 bail.

“Wear the badge and the uniform.” How a small Alabama shelter wins big in court

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA––On March 12,

the Montgomery County Humane Society took a man

named Tom Green to court. His offense, testified executive

director Mary Stanley Mansour, was keeping seven

Weimeraners in “complete darkness and filth in a large

warehouse for several months.”

It was the sort of case anti-cruelty officers often

hesitate to recommend for prosecution, a case of neglect

rather than overt physical abuse, involving conditions that

in many poor communities aren’t demonstrably far from

“normal,” no matter how undesirable. Mansour was not

eager to prosecute Green, either. She gave him repeated

warnings.

POUND SEIZURE FIGHT RESUMES

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The term “pound seizure” may be

unfamiliar to animal protection people who

have been involved for less than a decade,

but the battle over it is heating up––again.

The most bitterly fought issue in

humane work for decades, “pound seizure”

is the practice of laboratories requisitioning

dogs and cats from shelters for research use,

which is known to discourage many people

from surrendering animals to shelters. After

the National Society for Medical Research

formed in 1945 to promote pound seizure, it

became mandatory in Minnesota (1948),

Wisconsin (1949), and New York (1952).

Animal Control & Rescue

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The North Shore Animal League

on May 13 became official sponsor of Spay

USA. NSAL sponsorship is expected to

result in a major expansion of the program,

a hotline to help pet owners locate afford-

able neutering (1-800-248-SPAY; 375-

6627 in Connecticut).

The New York State Humane

Association is supporting 13 bills to

strengthen state humane laws, including

measures to set up a state Animal

Population Control Fund similar to those in

New Jersey and Connecticut, and to give

judges the authority to take animals away

from convicted abusers. New York resi-

dents may get details from 914-255-7099.

Calif. neutering bill stalled; SEEN AS THREAT TO NEUTER/RELEASE

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

SACRAMENTO, California––

Apparently ready to clear the California

state legislature without opposition, a bill to

require that free-roaming cats be neutered

was stalled at the last minute by unexpected

objections from the San Francisco SPCA.

The bill, AB 302, by assemblyman Paul

Horchner, reads simply, “An owner of a

cat over the age of six months shall have the

cat sterilized if the cat is permitted outdoors

without supervision.” Violators would be

given citations similar to traffic tickets,

with all penalties waived if their cats were

neutered within a 30-day grace period. The

bill had the active support of the California

Veterinary Medical Association, numerous

national organizations, and almost every

humane group in the state, including sever-

al who neuter and release feral cats.

National survey finds both high neutering rate and indifference

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Newly published statistics collected last November by the polling firm Penn &

Schoen Associates shed new light on the human aspects of pet overpopulation.

Interviewing 803 randomly selected Americans who had owned pets within the preceding

five years, Penn & Schoen found that 77% of cat owners and 58% of dog owners had

neutered their animals. Five percent of cat owners and 11% of dog owners were intention-

al breeders, but the data, published in the May 1993 edition of Shelter Sense, did not dis-

tinguish between breed fanciers, who may breed only once in several years, and backyard

commercial breeders, who in effect run small-scale puppy mills and catteries.

Approximately 12% of cat owners and 31% of dog owners would appear to be accidental

breeders, responsible for producing at least one unwanted litter per animal (although with

what frequency the unwanted litters are born was not clear).

The Penn & Schoen telephone poll also asked owners of unaltered pets why they

did not have them neutered. Among this group, 23% percent of dog owners and 31% of

cat owners said neutering is unnecessary; 26% of dog owners and 14% of cat owners

cited interest in breeding; and 4% of dog owners (1.7% of all dog owners) and 11% of cat

owners (2.5% of all cat owners) said neutering is too expensive.

Diet & Health

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The USDA on May 5 announced

that it will begin requiring labels on raw

meat and poultry to include cooking and

handling instructions, explaining how to

prevent health hazards such as the growth of

E:coli bacteria, which in January and

December killed four children who had just

eaten undercooked hamburgers. The label-

ing rules are to be formally proposed by

August 15. The new requirement comes in

settlement of a lawsuit brought by Beyond

Beef and the parents of one of the January

victims. U.S. trade representative Mickey

Kantor meanwhile denied in a series of press

releases and public statements that such

strengthened food labeling laws could be

overturned under that General Agreement on

Trade and Tariffs and/or the North American

Free Trade Agreement, as alleged obstacles

to international commerce. Last year, the

two agreements were invoked to overturn the

use of U.S. dolphin protection legislation to

exclude imports of tuna netted “on dolphin,”

at considerable cost in dolphin lives.

ANIMAL HEALTH & BEHAVIOR

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Chinese authorities have begun

purging officials of Shenqui county in

Henan province for collaborating with

Wang Zhiqiang, an entrepreneur who built

a rural empire around a factory that manu-

factured fake veterinary medicines––among

them “antibiotics” made of talcum powder

and cornstarch, and “intravenous solution”

made of monosodium glutamate dissolved

in water. Wang allegedly bought off police

and politicians, held investigators for ran-

som, and tortured witnesses. Federal

authorities finally arrested Wang and shut

down his No. 1 Veterinarian Medicine

Factory, as he styled it, last

Euthanasias down–– but by how much? ANIMAL PEOPLE PROJECTS ANNUAL TOLL OF CIRCA 6 MILLION

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado––A new

estimate of euthanasia rates produced by Phil Arkow of the

Humane Society of Pike’s Peak indicates the pet overpopu-

lation problem may be only half as bad as the most opti-

mistic previous projections. Factoring in additional infor-

mation apparently unknown to Arkow, ANIMAL PEO-

PLE extrapolates a current annual euthanasia rate of about

six million dogs and cats per year––half again higher than

Arkow’s figures, but still significantly lower than older

estimates, which ranged as high as 20 million per year 20

years ago, and have gradually fallen to below 10 million.

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