Reintroducing red kites despite hunter opposition

November 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2007:
DUBLIN, ULSTER– The Golden Eagle Trust, Welsh Kite Trust,
and Irish National Parks & Wildlife Service in July 2007 released 15
pairs of red kites in the Wicklow mountains, in an attempt to
rebuild the long extinct native kite population–but someone shot one
of the kites just six weeks later, during National Heritage Week.
The shooting followed a series of killings of birds of prey
in County Down, Northern Ireland, including a peregrine falcon who
was hatched in County Antrim in early 2006 and found dead near
Sprucefield in October, and a buzzard who was found poisoned in the
Drumbanagher area, near Newry.
“There was a case of alleged persecution of peregrines in the
Mourne Mountains earlier,” recalled Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds conservation officer Claire Ferry.

First conviction in Scotland for badger-baiting

October 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2007:
EDINBURGH–Craig Morrison, 22, on
October 9, 2007 became the first person to be
convicted of badger baiting in Scotland under the
Protection of Badgers and Protection of Wild
Mammals acts, passed in 2004 and 2002.
Charged with nine offenses on March 29,
2007, Morrison pleaded guilty to three of them
in the Kilmamock Sheriff Court. Sheriff Seith
Ireland deferred sentencing, pending receipt of
witness statements that he said “could make the
difference between a custodial sentence or
community service.”
“Prosecutors requested Morrison’s dogs be
taken from him permanently and an order be made
to ban Morrison from keeping animals. They also
asked the court for Morrison to be liable for the
£3,000 costs of housing the dogs since they were
seized from him in March,” wrote Robert McAulay
of The Scotsman.

Fourteen of 26 defendants are sentenced & lectured in British dogfighting case

September 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

BIRMINGHAM–Four-teen of 26 defendants in
one of the biggest dogfighting cases brought to
British courts in decades pleaded guilty on
September 3, 2007, and were fined from £500 to
£1,300, plus £80 court costs.
The case is unusual in that all 26 men
arrested at the February 2006 dogfight are
Muslims –as is Birmingham Magistrates Court
district judge Kal Qureshi, who lectured the men
about their “sadistic and cruel” behavior.
“The event itself is best described as
sadistic,” Qureshi said. “In my view it
involved inflicting unimaginable pain without any
pity for the animals.”
Qureshi fined them less than the maximum
£2,500 because they were first-time offenders.
Dogfighting in Britain has historically
not involved immigrants and ethnic minorities,
and in recent years has often been a pursuit of
so-called skinheads espousing anti-minority
attitudes.
Twelve defendants elected to go to trial,
including the two men who allegedly organized the
fight. Both dogs involved were killed.

A dogfighting case rocks Gaelic football

September 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

BELFAST–A 17-month undercover
investigation of dogfighting by BBC Northern
Ireland’s Spotlight program, aired on August
30, caught County Tyrone Gaelic football star
Gerald Cavlan, 31, boasting in front of a
hidden camera about a dogfighting club he
cofounded called Bulldog Sanctuary Kennels.
Cavlan’s alleged use of the “sanctuary”
ruse appeared to be a first in the British Isles,
but U.S. dogfighters have often been caught in
recent years operating behind false front
“sanctuaries” and “rescues.” Some have
collected pit bull terriers and “bait” dogs and
cats from unwitting members of the public.
“The BBC program deployed an undercover
specialist from England who duped organizers of
two dog-fighting clubs in Northern Ireland and
two breeders of American pit bulls in Finland who
supplied dogs to Cavlan and other Northern
Ireland-based dog fighters,” reported Shawn
Pogatchnik of Associated Press. “All were filmed
discussing the tricks of their trade and methods
of evading detection.”
The two BBC crew confronted Finland-based
breeders Robert Gonzales and Paul Dunkel with
evidence of their activities before police
arrested them.

Iceland halts commercial whaling

September 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

REYKJAVIK–Iceland fisheries minister Einar K Guofinnsson on
September 3, 2007 announced that Iceland will not issue new
commercial whaling quotas.
Iceland in 2006 joined Norway in unilaterally defying the
21-year-old Inter-national Whaling Commission moratorium on
commercial whaling by issuing itself permits to kill 30 minke whales
and nine endangered fin whales. Anticipating a market in Japan for
whale meat, Icelandic fishers killed seven minke whales and seven
fin whales, but were unable to get permission to export the meat.
“There is no reason to continue commercial whaling if there
is no demand for the product,” Guofinnsson said.
Iceland, like Japan, has sustained a remnant whaling
industry despite the IWC moratorium by authorizing whalers to hunt in
the name of research. Iceland issued “scientific whaling” permits to
kill 38 minke whales in 2003, 25 in 2004, 39 in 2005, and 60 in
2006–far below the Japanese toll of 6,795 whales killed in research
whaling since 1987.

Spain turns against bullfighting

September 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:
MADRID–“Pursued across open countryside,
jabbed at with spears and finally fatally stabbed
by a man wielding a lance, a bull called
Enrejado suffered a long, frightening and
sadistic death in front of an eager crowd at
Tordesillas, Castilla y León, northern Spain,”
recounted Guardian correspondent Gilles Tremlett
from Madrid on September 13, 2007, but unlike
British correspondents of a generation ago, his
subject was not perceived Spanish indifference
toward animal suffering.
Rather, it was Spanish outrage against
such events, which are increasingly viewed as
rural anachronisms.
“Pictures of the wounded, blood-drenched animal
being stabbed with the lance were published on
the front page of El País, Spain’s
biggest-selling daily newspaper, as it denounced
the survival of this primitive, medieval
spectacle,” Tremlett wrote.
“The regional government of Castilla y
León, run by the conservative People’s party,
has formally declared the festival to be ‘of
interest to tourists.’ Local people, however,
shooed photographers and journalists away so they
could not witness or capture the final moment of
death.”

Norwegian whaler scuttled at dock

September 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:
OSLO–Sabotage was suspected in the August 30, 2007 dockside
sinking of the whaling vessel Willassen Senior in the northern
Norwegian port city of Svolvaer. No injuries were reported.
“On the night of August 30th we decided to celebrate the end
of commercial whaling in Iceland by removing a large section of
cooling pipe in the engine room of the Norweigan whaler Willassen
Senior,” said an anonymous e-mail forwarded on September 11, 2007
from Norwegian activist Daniel Rolke to Dolphin Project founder Ric
O’Barry, who shared it with ANIMAL PEOPLE.
The e-mail was signed “Agenda 21,” the name of a United
Nations Environmental Program protocol.
“This is the fifth Norwegian whaler that has come under
attack for illegal whaling activities since 1992,” e-mailed Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson from Friday Harbor,
Washington. “The others were the Nybraena, scuttled at dockside in
December 1992; the Senet, scuttled at dockside in January 1994;
the Elin-Toril, severely damaged in 1997; and the Morild, sunk in
1998.”
All were refloated and repaired.

European Parliament moves to halt monkey use in labs

September 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:
STRASBOURG–Four hundred thirty-five of
the 785 members of the European Parliament on
September 6, 2007 endorsed a two-part written
declaration asking the European Commission to
“make ending the use of apes and wild-caught
monkeys in scientific experiments an urgent
priority,” and to “establish a timetable for
replacing the use of all primates in scientific
experiments.”
The declaration against primate use drew
more support than any previous European
Parliament animal welfare measure, “and the
third highest number of signatures on any
declaration since 2000,” said Animal Defenders
International press officer Allison Tuffrey Jones.
European Parliament animal welfare panel
chair Neil Parish enlarged the topic to other
species, telling news media that the declaration
“sends a clear message to the Commission that
animal experimentation should be phased out.”

Sofia street dog population is also down by half

July 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
SOFIA–A 10-month municipal sterilization drive has cut the
street dog population of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital city, from
more than 20,000 to just over 11,000, mayor Boyko Borissov and
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences chair Ivan Yuhnovski told the Focus
news agency on July 12, 2007.
The Sofia municipal company Ekoravnovesie sterilized 3862
dogs and euthanized 852 due to illness, injury, or dangerous
temperament, said company director Miroslav Naidenov.
The number of dogs killed was approximately 10% of the totals
killed in 2003 and 2004, according to data sent to ANIMAL PEOPLE by
Sofia activist Alina Lilova in January 2005. “From 1999 though
2002, 45,000 dogs were killed,” Lilova added.
The rapidity of the street dog decline may reflect a marked
increase in traffic. While the human population of Bulgaria is among
the fastest falling in Europe, the population of Sofia has increased
since 2002 from 1.2 million to 1.4 million. Car ownership and use
have increased even faster.

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