From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

CAREW–Animal Rights Action Network campaigns coordinator
John Carmody, 23, may be the most often exposed activist in
Ireland, but ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartlett did manage to
photograph him–twice–with all his clothes on.
A more typical portrayal would show Carmody hunched over his
laptop computer wherever he can connect, e-mailing the
effervescently upbeat ARAN newsletter around the world, coordinating
countless events and demonstrations on behalf of half a dozen
international advocacy groups, and answering his cell telephone
every five minutes.
Effectively a fulltime animal rights activist since age 16,
Carmody takes clerical and sales jobs when he must to make ends meet.
The laptop is ARAN’s only “office,” other than Carmody’s bedroom,
at his parents’ home in Carew, a Limerick suburb where goats and
horses graze in green strips, and where, he insists, some
neighbors at times drag horses indoors.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

KEENAGH, County Longford–When man bites dog, that’s news,
so when Irish SPCA chief executive Helen Dolan hit and killed a stray
dog with her sport utility vehicle on October 21, 2005, the
incident swiftly became tabloid and television news all over Ireland.
Dolan did not discourage the publicity. Instead Dolan took
the occasion to warn pet keepers to keep their animals secure during
the Halloween season, when the Irish traditionally detonate
fireworks to scare ghosts, mostly scaring dogs and cats instead.
Dolan also dispensed tips about avoiding roadkills and finding lost
dogs.
Hired in January 2005, Dolan brought to the Irish SPCA a
global background in hotel management and fundraising for education,
a lifelong love of dogs and horses, and no formal experience in
humane work.
In less than a year, Dolan’s flair for fundraising and
publicity has rattled quite a few cages. Some elder Irish animal
advocates grumble about Dolan’s rapid rise to national prominence.
Others say she is just what animal welfare in Ireland needed–a
charismatic young leader who isn’t afraid to spend money in order to
attract it, seizing the opportunity for humane work in Ireland to
grow with the fast-rising Irish economy.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

DUBROVNIK–The Austrian-based Vier Pfoten mobile veterinary
teams often seemingly drive back into time in formerly Communist
central Europe, but usually just decades, not centuries.
In Dubrovnik to sterilize dogs and cats for two weeks
overlapping the October 2005 International Companion Animal Welfare
Conference, Vier Pfoten international project manager Amir Khalil,
DVM, and surgical team headed by Katica Kovacev, DVM set up outside
the building that was the city quarantine station during the Black
Death in the 14th century.
The marble walled central city just beyond, little changed
since the 13th century, reputedly inspired the Minas Tirith “white
city” scenes in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Among the oldest
ports on the Dalmatian coast, Dubrovnik has had a breakwater since
pre-Roman times.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

Scottish Natural Heritage, trying to extirpate feral
hedgehogs from the Uist Islands off the west coast of Scotland since
2003, announced in March 2005 that it would augment trapping and
killing them by lethal injection and gas with training dogs to flush
them out to be shotgunned. Scottish Natural Heritage had killed
about 500 hedgehogs, going into the fall 2005 campaign, while Uist
Hedgehog Rescue has live-captured and relocated to the mainland circa
600. Scottish Nature Heritage withdrew the dogs-and-shotguns scheme
on September 20. “These healthy animals simply do not need to be
killed,” responded Uist Hedgehog Rescue. “Hedgehogs on the mainland
are actually in decline.”

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