FIGHTING FOR FACTORY-FARMED HENS AND HOGS

September 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

The German Supreme Court in
Karlsruhe ruled on July 6 that laws already on the
books require poultry farmers to give egg-laying
hens much more space than either the minimum set
by regulation in 1987 or the enlarged
minimum––about twice as big––which is to be phased
into effect by 2003 under a June directive from the
European Union. The EU directive would also end
battery caging entirely by 2012; the German verdict
says, in effect, “Do it now.” Wrote the judges, “It is
generally the case that no one may inflict pain, suffering,
or damage on an animal without good reason”––and,
by implication, they held the mere maintenance
of profitability to be not good reason.

LEGAL PRECEDENTS

July 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

A June 23 U.S. Supreme
Court ruling in an unrelated case that
states hold sovereign immunity against
suits filed by individuals under federal
law in state courts appears to reverse, by
implication, a verdict favorable to animals
rendered by the Mississippi State
Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.
Overturning a 1997 ruling by
the Chancery Court of Oktibbeha
County, the Mississippi Supreme Court
and Court of Appeals on April 22 reinstated
a case filed by In Defense of
A n i m a l s and the National Greyhound
Adoption Network, seeking custody of
12 ex-racing greyhounds who were
acquired by Mississippi State Univers
i t y from the Greenetrack raceway in
Eutaw, Alabama. IDA and NGAN held
that the deal violated the federal Animal
Welfare Act. The USDA Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service reportedly
cited MSU for neglecting Animal
Welfare Act recordkeeping requirements.

Hard times for Queen of the Desert

July 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

CASSELBERRY, Florida––Cat Fanciers Association
board members conferred on June 30 to discuss penalties
they might impose against Sheila Gitlin Dye, 52, breeder of
Queen of the Desert, the brown tabby exotic who was the 1997
CFA “Best kitten.”
Casselberry Animal Control supervisor Vicky
Hilburn and staff, with local police, on May 18 removed
Queen of the Desert and 13 other cats from Dye’s allegedly
feces-and-trash-filled home. Three dead cats were reportedly
found among the debris. Dye was charged with cruelty.
CFA president Don Williams, of Ocala, Florida,
told Orlando Sentinel reporter Doris Bloodworth that he knew
Dye as a fastidious housekeeper who pampered her pets.
Williams’ daughter lived with Dye circa 1992, while attending
the University of Central Florida, Bloodworth wrote.

Election may have brought good news for the Kiev SPA

July 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

KIEV, Ukraine––Kiev Society for the Protection
of Animals president Tamara Tarnawska is taking as good
news the May 28 re-election of three-year incumbent Kiev
mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko.
“Shortly after being re-elected,” Tarnawska told
ANIMAL PEOPLE on July 6, “Omelchenko called a meeting
to review the work of the Animals In The City center,”
the animal control department he formed in September 1997,
five months after closing the dog-and-cat pelting plant which
had killed strays since Czarist times, and giving the site to the
Kiev SPA for use as the first humane shelter in the Ukraine.

Some good news, for a change

July 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

While the Makah tribe of western
Washington killed a whale on May 17, as
described on page one of the June edition of
ANIMAL PEOPLE, the Blackfeet tribe of
Montana dedicated a corner of their reservation
to a private effort to reintroduce the swift
fox, described by predator expert Todd
Wilkinson in the May 22 edition of The
Christian Science Monitor. Sacred to at least
six Great Plains tribes, swift foxes were
trapped to declared extinction in Montana by
1970, but isolated subpopulations survived in
Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming. Winning
tribal approval of the reintroduction in August
1998, Blackfeet wildlife manager Ira
Newbreast obtained 30 captive-bred swift
foxes from the Cochrane Ecological Institute,
which is supervising swift fox recovery
in Canada, and released them last fall.

Sea Shepherds fight World Wildlife Fund

July 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

Between vigils against Makah whaling in fall 1998 and spring 1999
aboard The Sirenian off Neah Bay, Washington, Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society international director Lisa Distefano spent part of the winter helping to
save sea birds after the wreck of the tanker Pallas near the Shallows nature
reserve off the coast of Germany. The Sea Shepherds mustered 60 volunteers,
who eventually rescued more than 1,000 birds, Distefano wrote in the first 1999
edition of The Sea Shepherd Log.
The hardest part of the job, Distefano said, was that “In Germany the
conservation ethic tends to be a hunter’s ethic. The park staff at the Shallows
reserve is steeped in the mentality that if an animal is injured, you kill it. The
reserve workers are basically hunters. They, like staff from Greenpeace and the
World Wildlife Fund, came to the scene with the belief that if a bird had any
contact with oil, the bird is beyond help and must be killed.

RSPCA barely holds off hunters

July 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

LONDON––Struggling to retain control
of the Royal SPCA, the pro-animal rights board
faction led by Animal Revolution author Richard
Ryder kept off the June 26 annual meeting agenda a
proposed resolution by Countryside Alliance member
Ian Alexander which would have asked RSPCA
members to agree that it is “a matter of serious public
concern and detrimental to the interests of the
society, the growing influence within the society of
persons with extreme views of animal rights.”
The resolution would further have asked
the RSPCA membership to “cease expenditure upon
politically motivated lobbying and advertising,”
and would have invited the British Charity
Commissions to address the “growing evidence of
intrusion by animal rights activists into the society.”

EC warns France re hunting

July 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

BRUSSELS––The European Commission on June 24 asked
the European Court to fine France more than $100,000 per day for
exempting itself from a 1979 EC directive which limits hunting seasons
to protect migratory birds.
The coalition-led French parliament on June 19 defied
French environment minister and Green Party leader Dominique
Voynet by voting 92-20 to extend the current five-month bird shooting
season––already the longest in Europe––to seven months. Of the 577-
member parliament, 465 did not vote, but no quorum was needed.

Eastern Europe and Southern U.S. cities share animal control crisis

June 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

WARSAW, Poland; Southern
states, U.S.––“A series of articles in the
nationally circulated newspaper Zycie
Warszawy about the Paluch animal shelter
[recently] shocked the public” with allegations
of “horrible sanitary conditions, lack of care
and rigid treatment of animals, widespread
disease, and extensive animal killing,”
Warsaw Committee in Defense of Animals
members Aniela Roehr and Anna Chodakowska
charged in a globally distributed May
17 e-mail, seeking help from the international
animal protection community.
Managed by a foundation set up in
January 1997, subsidized by Warsaw and surrounding
suburbs, the Paluch shelter reportedly
has the same conflicts of history, mission,
and public expectation as the animal care-andcontrol
apparatus in Kiev, Ukraine (page
13)––and as do the animal care-and-control
agencies in much of the U.S., as well.

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