Category: Europe

Marsden wins OBE

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

Stella Brewer Marsden, who founded the Chimpanzee
Rehabilitation Association in Gambia in 1969, was on New Year’s Day
2006 awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.
The CRA now looks after 78 formerly captive chimps in Gambia National
Park. Brewer Marsden’s sister Heather Armstrong founded the Horse &
Donkey Association of Gambia in 2002. Their father, conservationist
Edward Brewer, also was awarded the OBE.

Non-enforcement erodes U.K. pack hunting ban

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

LONDON–Almost a year after the Hunting
Act banned most forms of hunting with dogs in
England and Wales, effective on February 19,
2005, pack hunting participation on Boxing Day
was reportedly undiminished.
As many as 250,000 people either rode to hounds
or followed the dogs on foot on December 26,
2005, the traditional peak of the British pack
hunting season.
“Far from consigning hunting to history,”
Times of London countryside editor Valerie Elliot
claimed, “thousands more are in the saddle or on
foot in pursuit of a fox scent, sometimes
accidentally hunting real foxes.”
Entering 2006, there were still 317 active hunt
clubs in Britain, including 184 that hunt foxes
and 100 that hunt hares. The Aldenham Harriers,
of South Hertfordshire, disbanded in
mid-January, but hunting participation overall
is up an average of 33%, asserted Elliot.

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So why doesn’t the Belgrade Zoo cage the war criminals & leave the elephant in India?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

BELGRADE, Serbia–Belgrade Zoo director Vukosav Bojovic
sought publicity in mid-January 2006 for his intended acquisition of
an elephant named Djanom from an unnamed zoo in Punjab, India.
The Belgrade Zoo got publicity on January 11, 2006 as scene
of Associated Press file photos showing former Croatian Serb
paramilitary commander Dragan Vasiljkovic kissing a brown bear named
Kninja and her two cubs. Vasiljkovic visited the zoo on Sept-ember
19, 2005 to visit Kninja, formerly mascot of his militia unit.
Croatia on January 11 issued an international warrant seeking
Vasiljkovic’s arrest for alleged 1991 war crimes including torturing,
killing, and expelling Croatian civilians as well as soldiers from
their homes, plus arranging the assassination of Egon Scotland, 43,
who documented some of Vasiljkovic’s actions for the Munich daily
newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Believed to be living in Perth, Australia, Vasiljkovic,
51, “had petty convictions against him and was involved in
Melbourne’s brothel industry in the 1970s,” reported Natasha Robinson
of The Australian.

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Six months of struggle for Swiss anti-vivisection umbrella culminate in silent march

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

ST. GALLEN, Switzerland–Striving to regain stability after
operating under three presidents and undergoing a complete board
turnover since July 2005, the Swiss antivivisection society
Aktionsgemeinschaft Schweizer Tierversuchsgegner on December 17,
2005 led the silent march against animal experiments in St. Gallen
that has traditionally been the focal AGSTG activity.
The march was to be followed by the AGSTG annual membership meeting.
Formed as an intended collective voice for Swiss
antivivisection organizations, the AGSTG throughout the latter part
of 2005 posted the march and meeting schedule and otherwise asked web
site visitors to come back later.
The 2005 turmoil developed out of a financial crisis worsening for at
least five years. After experiencing investment portfolio losses of
1.5 million francs in 2001, and 1.75 million francs in 2002, the
AGSTG lost 1.74 million francs in just the first quarter of 2003,
according to financial statements obtained by ANIMAL PEOPLE.
In March 2003 the AGSTG hired a new chief executive,
Thorsten Tonjes, 34, on a half-time salary. Tonjes succeeded Peter
Beck, who is also president of Animal Life Germany and remained as
AGSTG vice president. Working from a home office, Tonjes more than
doubled AGSTG spending. This apparently stimulated AGSTG income,
but huge deficits continued.

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Latest U.S., U.K., & Down Under lab stats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

Current lab animal use statistics from the U.S., Britain,
Australia, and New Zealand show mixed trends. The total numbers of
animals involved in experiments are up over the past decade, yet
remain well below the reported peaks, and the numbers of animals
used per experiment are still trending down.
The most recent U.S. figures:

Animal Top yr Peak total 2004
Dogs 1979 211,104 64,932
Cats 1974 74,259 23,640
Monkeys & apes 1987 61,392 54,998
Guinea pigs 1985 598,903 244,104
Hamsters 1976 503,590 175,721
Rabbits 1987 554,385 261,573
Farm animals 1991 214,759 105,678
Other tracked 1992 529,308 171,312
All tracked 1985 2,153,787 1,101,958

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British readers send a gift to bile farm bears

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

CHENGDU–An early Christmas present sent
to the Animals Asia Foundation in October 2005 by
the readers of the Western Daily Press in
Bristol, England, bought the December 6, 2005
delivery of a newly liberated bear family of four
to the China Bear Rescue Center near Chengdu.
“As of 6 p.m. today,” Animals Asia
Foundation founder Jill Robinson e-mailed, “we
have four bears settling down in our hospital,
munching on a fresh fruit supper and slurping
shakes made of condensed milk, sugar, blueberry
jam, apples, and pears. One poor love is
blind. Some have cage-bar and stereotypic
scarring.”
Robinson noted that all had wounds in
their stomachs indicative of having been used for
bile collection by the “free drip” method, in
which shunts are implanted to keep their gall
bladders constantly open. This is the most
common method of collecting bile from caged bears
now, superseding the older method of permanent
catheterization.

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Will the European Union phase out animal testing–or export it?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

BRUSSELS–Trade associations representing
the animal health, bio tech, chemical,
cosmetic, pesticide, pharmaceutical, and soap
and detergent sectors on November 11, 2005
signed a pledge to jointly seek alternatives to
animal testing. The agreement was brokered by
European commissioners for enterprise and
research Günter Verheugen and Janez Potoènik.
“We do not only wish to reduce animal
testing, but also want to bring it to an end in
the long run,” declared Verheugen.
The signatories committed themselves to
producing an action plan early in 2006,
Sebastian Marx of the cosmetics trade group
COLIPA told Stephen Pincock of The Scientist.
European Union laboratories currently use about
10.7 million animals per year.
“More than half of these are used in
research, human medicine, dentistry, and
fundamental biological studies,” wrote Pincock.

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Wild horses & cattle at risk in the Danube Delta

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

Wild horses & cattle at risk in the Danube Delta
by Andreea Plescan with further research by ANIMAL PEOPLE

Untamed and undiscovered by tourism and
development, the Danube Delta is home to more
than 300 bird species, 160 fish species, and
more than 800 plant families.
Protected as a wetlands biosphere
reserve, the Romanian portion of the Danube
Delta occupies 2,622 square miles of channels and
canals, widening into tree-fringed lakes, reed
islands, marshes, some oak forest intertwined
with lianas and creepers, desert dunes, and
some traditional fishing villages.
The Danube Delta is also home to the
largest population of wild horses and cattle in
Europe. Their combined population is officially
estimated at about 7,500. Some escaped from
farms to join wild herds during the 2005 floods.
Some escaped earlier, or their ancestors did.
Many were released to graze on the biosphere
reserve by farmers who hoped to recapture them
later, but abandoned them when horse flesh and
beef prices dropped.

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Animal Friends Croatia

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

Page 1–

“Many citizens were surprised on November 5, 2005 to see
Robert Francizsty’s performance ‘T4-Work in Progress’ in downtown
Zagreb,” writes Animal Friends Croatia. Organized to promote a
seminar on the Charles Patterson book Eternal Treblinka: Our
Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust, the performance coincided
with the arrival of avian flu H4N1 in Croatia and the ensuing
slaughter and incineration of tens of thousands of factory-farmed
poultry in a “stamping out” effort symbolically represented by shoes
and chicken carcasses. Helping Francizsty were fire swallower Senata
Hren, narrator Nina Coric, composer Igor Bogdanic, and video
director Drazen Jeren.

Page 12–

Striding through a poultry market in a gas mask, Robert Francizsty
startled shoppers and butchers in Zagreb, Croatia on November 5 with
a protest against factory farming that coincided with massacres of
factory-farmed fowl to combat the avian flu H5N1.
(Animal Friends Croatia)

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