Companion animal welfare notes

December 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2008:
The 950-store PETCO chain on November 17, 2008 announced
that it is “phasing out rabbit sales in favor of adoptions.” Said
PETCO spokesperson Lisa Epstein, “PETCO already has strong
relationships with about 70 rabbit adoption groups, including the
Minnesota Companion Rabbit Society, the Oregon Humane Society, the
Animal Rescue League of Boston, the San Diego House Rabbit Society
and the Escondido Humane Society. PETCO is also communicating with
the national House Rabbit Society to build additional relationships
with local chapters and affiliates.”

The BBC, televising the Crufts dog exhibition since 1966,
“is considering ending its coverage of the Kennel Club’s showpiece
event,” reported Stephen Moss of The Guardian on December 5. In
August 2008, Moss explained, “BBC1 broadcast Jemima Harrison’s
disturbing film Pedigree Dogs Exposed, which argued that highly
selective breeding was damaging the health of many pedigree dogs and
undermining their genetic diversity. The Royal SPCA, the People’s
Dispensary for Sick Animals, and Dogs Trust responded by pulling out
of Crufts.” Sponsor Pedigree also withdrew, citing commercial
concerns. The Kennel Club announced in October 2008 that it is
redrafting the show standards for 209 breeds to eliminate rules that
favor dogs with extreme and unnatural characteristics which might
impair their he

The American SPCA has added former Louisiana SPCA chief
executive Laura Maloney as senior vice president for anti-cruelty
initiatives and has promoted attorney Stacy Wolf, with the ASPCA
since 1998, to vice president and chief legal counsel for humane law
enforcement.

RSPCA & Dogs Trust convince the Kennel Club to revise breed norms

October 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2008:
(Actual publication date 11-5-08.)
LONDON The Kennel Club, the world s first and oldest purebred dog registry, is redrafting the show standards for 209 breeds to eliminate rules that favor dogs with extreme and unnatural characteristics which might impair their health.
The Kennel Club, founded in 1873 and regarded in the show dog world as the most prestigious guardian of pedigrees, quietly disclosed the revisions of rules barely six weeks after complaining to the Office of Communication, the British television regulatory agency, that it was unfairly treated by the producers of the British Broadcasting Corporation exposé Pedigree Dogs Exposed, aired in August 2008.
Among the dogs featured in the documentary were boxers with epilepsy, pugs with breathing problems, and bulldogs who were unable to mate or give birth unassisted, reported Associated Press writer Jill Lawless. After the show was broadcast, Lawless added, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Dogs Trust withdrew their support for Crufts, the annual Kennel Club show, begun in 1891.

Bovine TB, badgers, dogs, cats & cattle politics

October 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2008:
(Actual publication date 11-5-08.)
LONDON Unable to persuade the public and environment secretary Hilary Benn to cull badgers to control bovine tuberculosis in cattle, the British Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs is touting findings that bovine TB is also now occurring in cats and dogs, who may pass the disease on to humans.
Bovine TB was confirmed in forty-two British cats in 2005-2007, up from 15 in the preceding seven years, according to DEFRA data released in October 2008.
Given that these cases were only identified through post mortems or clinical intervention, the data suggests far greater levels of transmission than we have previously seen, said National Farmers Union animal health and welfare advisor Catherine McLaughlin.
Until one knows with some certainty how these cats got infected, it is scary but not meaningful, responded Martin Hugh Jones, livestock moderator for the ProMed electronic bulletin board maintained by the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

RSPCA asks EC to publish new lab regs

September 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2008:
LONDON, BRUSSELS–Royal SPCA of Britain
chief executive Mark Watts on September 11, 2008
asked European Commission president José Manuel
Barroso to expedite publication of proposed
changes to the European Union rules governing
animal experimentation, now long overdue.
“We are repeatedly told that publication
of the proposals is imminent, only to find it
has been put back–and put back again,” said
RSPCA senior European campaign manager Peter
Craske. “Legislation needs to be debated fully,
but this debate seems to have gone on forever.”
EU nations use about 12 million animals
per year in experiments; Britain uses about
three million of the total.

Austrian activists freed after 104 days, still face charges

September 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2008:
VIENNA–Association Against Animal
Factories founder Martin Balluch, Vier Pfoten
campaign director Jürgen Faulmann, and eight
other Austrian animal advocates were released
from jail on September 2, 2008, 104 days after
they were arrested in a series of dawn raids on
May 21.
Three other activists who were arrested
at the same time were released earlier.
The ten who were released on September 2
were arraigned in July for alleged involvement in
a variety of “direct action” offenses between
2002 and 2007. All have pleaded innocent.

Does the Balluch arrest have anything to do with the price of free-range eggs in Austria?

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:

VIENNA–Arrested on May 21, 2008,
Association Against Animal Factories founder
Martin Balluch and nine other Austrian activists
remained in jail three months later, on charges
described by Balluch in a July 7, 2008
arraignment statement as “seven butanoic acid
stinkbombs, seven cases of broken windows,
three cases of sprayed graffiti or
paint-daubing, two cases of damage to hunting
platforms and to an empty, deserted pheasant
enclosure; two rescues of pigs and pheasants
without any damage to property; and one
threatening letter.”
The incidents occurred from 2002 through
2007. Fifteen of the 22 incidents targeted a
single furrier. Balluch and supporters have
alleged that the arrests, originally detaining
13 activists linked to seven organizations, were
timed to prevent the launch of an initiative
campaign seeking passage of an amendment to the
Austrian constitution that would incorporate a
guarantee of animal welfare.

European Commission proposes a seal product import ban–maybe

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
BRUSSELS–The European Commission on July
23, 2008 adopted a proposal “for a regulation
banning the trading of seal products within,
into, and from the European Union,” said the EC
press agency, “to ensure that products derived
from seals killed and skinned in ways that cause
pain, distress and suffering are not found on
the European market. Trade in seal products
would only be allowed,” the EC announcement
continued, “where guarantees can be provided
that hunting techniques consistent with high
animal welfare standards were used and that the
animals did not suffer unnecessarily.”
The caveats may set animal advocates up
for another disappointment like the one that
followed a 1991 proposed European ban on imports
of leghold-trapped furs. Enforcement,
originally to start in 1995, was repeatedly
delayed by U.S., Canadian, and Russian
diplomatic pressure. In July 1997 the ban was
amended by the European Union General Affairs
Council into a mere agreement to establish
“humane” trapping standards.
“After certain leghold traps and even
drowning sets, illegal in many countries, were
included in the standard” that was eventually
adopted by the International Standards
Organization, “the whole exercise lost impetus
and credibility,” summarized World Animal Net
founder Wim de Kok.

Austrian activists on hunger strike after arrests

June 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:
VIENNA–Association Against Animal Factories founder Martin
Balluch and 13 other Austrian activists associated with at least
seven organizations–and the Animal Conference 2006 held in
Vienna–were reportedly arrested without charges on May 21, 2008,
in dawn raids on as many as 24 homes and offices. The raids were
noteworthy for the lack of information disclosed by Austrian
authorities about the reasons for them and the findings of the police
investigators.
“Ten people are being held in pre-trial detention, which
could last for months, accused of ‘forming a criminal organization,'”
said the Farm Animal Reform Movement in a supporting statement.
“Seven, including President of the Austrian Association Against
Animal Factories Professor Martin Balluch, are on a hunger strike
and becoming very weak,” FARM added. Balluch, hunger striking
for 20 days as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, was said to have been
hospitalized.

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.

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