Korean animal advocacy after the soccer World Cup–and looking toward China

October 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

SEOUL–What came out of four years of
escalating protest against South Korean
torture-killing of dogs and cats for human
consumption, focused on the 2002 World Cup
soccer tournament?
Exactly as predicted by International Aid
for Korean Animals founder Kyenan Kum and her
sister Sunnan Kum, founder of the Korean Animal
Protection Society, pro-dog meat legislators
waited until after the World Cup was over and
most western visitors and news media left Korea.
Then the legislators dusted off and again began
touting a bill promoted several times previously,
which seeks to repeal the weak 1991 South Korean
ban on the sale of dog meat and cat meat. The
bill would authorize the establishment of
commercial dog-slaughtering plants, on the
pretext that such facilities could be inspected
by the agriculture ministry, and would therefore
be “humane.”

Legislative Calendar

October 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

U.S. President George W. Bush on August 12 vetoed a $17.9
million Congressional appropriation of emergency funding to combat
Chronic Wasting Disease. Similar to “mad cow disease,” CWD attacks
deer and elk. Identified among captive deer and elk herds in
Colorado as far back as 1966, it was long regarded as an isolated
curiosity –but within the past year it has been detected as far east
as Wisconsin, as far north as Alberta and Manitoba, and as far
south as the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Suspicions are
growing, meanwhile, that like “mad cow disease,” it has begun
attacking and killing humans who eat the diseased portions of
infected animals. Part of a $5.1 billion anti-terrorism package,
the appropriation would have allocated $14.9 million to the USDA
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, $2 million to the
Agricultural Research Service, and $1 million to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. The federal agencies were in turn to
grant the money to their state counterpart agencies. Bush said he
vetoed the appropriation because the $5.1 billion bill included too
many other unrelated riders, such as funding for AIDS prevention and
aid to Israel and Palestine.

Farm animals in court

October 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

Hogs in court

The U.S. 8th Circuit of Appeals ruled in St. Louis on August
14 that Bell Farms Inc. lacks standing to challenge the 1999
revocation of a land lease which would have allowed Bell to build one
of the world’s largest factory hog farms on the Rosebud Sioux
Reservation in South Dakota. The new ruling confirmed an April 2002
verdict by the same court. Bell on August 15 said it will petition
next to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Humane Farming Association and
local activists have been fighting the Bell project at Rosebud since
1998.

Women’s Health Initiative warning on estrogen therapy may help horses

September 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

ATLANTA, WASHINGTON D.C., WINNIPEG–The beginning of the
end of keeping pregnant mares standing from October to March of each
year on urine production lines, and auctioning their foals to
slaughter, may have come with a July 9 scientific warning that, on
balance, estrogen supplements made from pregnant mare’s urine do
menopausal women more harm than good.
The Women’s Health Initiative, an unprecedentedly large
scientific investigation of the effects of taking hormonal
supplements, monitored the health of 16,000 women for nine years,
beginning in 1993.

Maneka Gandhi of India loses animal welfare ministry, keeps lab oversight

September 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

NEW DELHI–“What I expected has finally happened. I have
lost the MInistry today,” People for Animals founder Maneka Gandhi
e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on July 2, nearly four years after
becoming the first Minister for Animal Welfare in the cabinet of any
nation.
Elected as an independent member of the parliament of India,
Mrs. Gandhi asked Prime Minister A.P. Vajpayee to create the animal
welfare ministry for her in 1998 as the price of her joining the
ruling coalition led by the Hindu nationalist Bharitya Janata Party.
Vajpayee complied by making animal welfare part of the mandate of the
Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, the portfolio Mrs.
Gandhi held from August 1998 until early 2001.

New laws abroad

September 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

The Bulgarian Parliament on July 10 declared brown bears a
protected species, who may no longer be hunted, bought, sold, or
displayed to a paying audience. About 800 bears inhabit the
Bulgarian mountains, 30 bears are in zoos, 21 are kept by gypsy
exhibitors of “dancing bears,” 11 are in breeding colonies set up to
maintain the zoo population, and four belong to circuses, according
to the International Bear Foundation. The Dutch-based IBF in 2000
paid for microchipping all 66 captive bears, while the Fondation
Brigitte Bardot and the Austrian group Vier Pfoten founded a 2.7-acre
bear sanctuary near the Rila monastary, founded in the 13th century
at the reputed site of the grotto of the 10th century animal-loving
vegetarian saint John of Rila.

“Hog producers are greater threat to U.S. than Osama bin Laden,” says RFK Jr.

July 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August, 2002:

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.–Four months after telling an April 5
rally in Clear Lake, Iowa, that “Large-scale hog producers are a
greater threat to the U.S. and U.S. democracy than Osama bin Laden
and his terrorist network,” Waterkeeper Alliance president Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. shows no sign of backing away from his remarks–and has
posted not just one but two denunciations of factory-style hog
farming originally issued in April at the <www.keeper.org> web site.
The conservation-oriented Water-keeper Alliance is only
peripherally involved with animal issues other than protection of
habitat from pollution, and Kennedy himself has rarely said much
about animals, but after other Waterkeeper Alliance spokespersons
tried to tone down his Clear Lake statements or claim they were taken
out of context, Kennedy spoke equally forcefully on April 18 at
Briar Cliff University, a Catholic institution in Sioux City, Iowa.

Seeking a safer way for farm animals–safest would be out of the supermarket

July 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August, 2002:

NORFOLK, Va.; DAVIS, Calif. –McDonald’s, Burger King,
and other fast-food restaurant chains are international symbols of
the meat-heavy American diet, but the 1,750 U.S. Safeway
supermarkets and 17 meat and dairy processing plants generates three
times as much U.S. revenue, reminds PETA vegan outreach coordinator
Bruce Friedrich.
The Kroger chain is even bigger, and Albertson’s is also a
major competitor.

Donkey heaven by Bonny Shah

July 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August, 2002:

SIDMOUTH, DEVON, U.K.– Fifteen minutes from Exeter, ten
minutes from Sidmouth, a seaside resort town, The Donkey Sanctuary
is approached along winding roads arched with massive trees, with
lush green fields rolling into the hills beyond. The effect is of
entering an enchanted storybook land.
We had seen and heard much about The Donkey Sanctuary during
our own years of looking after donkeys and other animals at the
Ahimsa of Texas sanctuary we founded in Bartonville, Texas, and the
Dharma Donkey Sanctuary we recently started in India, but our first
visit, actually almost a pilgrimage, came in June 2002.

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