The faithful do sheep

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Traditional celebrations of the Islamic version of the
Feast of Sacrifice were held in more U.S. and European communities
than ever before this year––and apparently provoked
more protest, too.
More as a matter of custom than of religious teaching,
the feast is marked by male heads of households slashing
the throats of sheep, reprising Abraham’s slaughter of a ram
instead of his son Isaac, who is said to have been sire of both
the Hebrew and Arab people. Extra meat is supposed to be
given to the poor, but so many sheep are killed at pilgrimage
sites that most of the meat reportedly goes to waste.
In France, Islamic leaders called Brigitte Bardot
“racist” for her annual criticism of the practice. Responded
Bardot, “If tomorrow Muslims stop slitting sheeps’ throats, I
will find them the most wonderful people in the world.”

Religion & animals

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

The first deed of the shortlived Hindu fundamentalist
government of India, inaugurated May 24 only to
resign five days later, was to introduce a bill to ban cow
slaughter. Killing cows is against the Hindu religion, practiced
by 750 million Indians, but 110 million Moslem citizens
eat beef. Paradoxically, though Moslems are only 14%
of the total Indian population of 930 million, 10% of all the
Moslems in the world live in India; only Pakistan has more.
The Shaolin Temple, in central Henan province,
C h i n a, on June 6 won a lawsuit against the Luohe Canned
Food Factory, which had used actors depicting the Buddhist
monks of Shaolin in a TV plug for ham. Devout vegetarians,
the Shaolin monks devised and still teach the martial art of
kung-fu to avoid using lethal weapons in self-defense.

BSE link to humans

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

PARIS––French government neurologists
Corinne Lasmezas and Jean-Philippe
Deslys on June 13 announced they had discovered
the first experimental evidence of a
link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE), also known as Mad Cow Disease,
and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a similar
brain-destroying ailment that until recently
was considered a rare condition of age. Ten
cases of a new form of BSE occurring in
younger people caused researchers to warn
the European Union and British Parliament in
March that BSE might be the cause of CJD,
touching off a global boycott of British beef.
The French team in 1991 injected
material from the crushed brains of cattle who
died from BSE into the brains of two adult
macaques and a newborn macaque, all of
whom developed identical brain lesions in
1994 and later died.

AGRICULTURE, DIET, & HEALTH

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

The steakhouse chain Sizzler
International on June 3 filed for
bankruptcy and announced plans
to close 136 of its 451 restaurants
as part of reorganization. Thirtytwo
restaurants will be shut in
northern and central California,
along with 25 restaurants in the
Baltimore/Washington D.C. area––
the two regions where the national
trend toward vegetarianism is most
apparent. Ironically, hoping to
appeal more to women, who are
becoming vegetarian at a faster
pace, Sizzler was among the first
steakhouse chains to offer an extensive
salad bar. Unable to break the
steakhouse image, “We’re trying
to get back to the essence of
Sizzler,” said CEO Kevin Perkins.

Salmonella, anyone?

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

NEW ORLEANS––Peter Holt of
the USDA research service station in
Athens, Georgia, on May 20 told the
American Society of Microbiologists
that the standard technique of starving
hens for a week to 10 days to make
them molt and lay more eggs also
drastically increases their susceptibility
to salmonella.
“A normally fed bird required
something around 50,000 salmonella
bacteria to cause an infection,” Holt
said of his findings. “With the molted
birds it was less than 10.” Of the 46.8
billion eggs produced per year on U.S.
farms, the USDA estimates, about 14
million carry salmonella.

Contrary rulings

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Enforcing a 1993 European
Union demand for improved operating
conditions, the Irish Department
of Agriculture on May 13 cancelled
the operating permit of Western
Meat Producers, of Dromad,
Ireland. However, in a parallel case
involving other nations, the
European Court of Justice ruled on
May 23 that Britain may not unilaterally
enforce EU animal welfare
standards. Britain had barred shipments
of sheep to a Spanish slaughterhouse
which does not stun animals
before slaughter.

Chicken king banned––again

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

OLDENBURG, Germany––
Judge Hugo Sponer on June 11 permanently
barred Anton Pohlmann
from owning poultry for keeping
seven million battery-caged hens in
“permanent agony” through use of
nicotine sulphate to disinfect cages.
The illegal chemical treatment
also contaminated the hens’ eggs.
Sponer fined Pohlmann $1.4 million,
and sentenced him to two years in
jail, suspended.
Pohlmann, the biggest egg producer
in Europe, was previously
banned from the poultry business
“for life” in September 1994 by
Lower Saxony food and agriculture
minister Karl-Heinz Funke, after he
killed 60,000 hens who were infected
with salmonella galinarium by
having workers shut off their air
conditioning and their food and
water supply lines.

First veal case drug conviction

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

MILWAUKEE––A Milwaukee
jury on June 10 convicted veal calf
feed dealer Jannes “James”
Doppenberg and his company, Vitek
Supply Corporation, on 12 counts
each of smuggling and illegally distributing
the banned drug Clenbuterol
and other illicit chemicals
intended to expedite calf growth
between 1988 and 1994, at possible
risk to the health of human vealeaters.

Mad cow disease

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

British domestic
beef sales on May 14 were
back to 94% of their premad
cow disease scare
level, and prices were at
92%, said the British Meat
and Livestock Commission.
The scare began on
March 27, when scientists
told Commons that bovine
encephalopathy (BSE) may
be related to a new strain of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,
notable for afflicting young
victims; CJD had been
viewed as a disease of age.
In the interim, fish sales
rose 25%, while pork and
lamb sales were up 9%.
Beef consumption fell 28%
and prices fell 43%.

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