Ted Nugent pleads “no contest” to poaching

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

SACRAMENTO–Rock star and Outdoor Channel hunting show host
Ted Nugent on August 17, 2010 pleaded “no contest” in Yuba County
Superior Court to misdemeanor charges of illegally baiting a deer and
failing to have a properly signed hunting tag. Nugent was fined
$1,175.
The violations came to light when Nugent broadcast videotape
of his actions on the February 9, 2010 edition of his Spirit of the
Wild television program.
Hunting guide Ross Albert Patterson was fined $1,125 after
pleading “no contest” in connection with the same incidents, which
occurred in September 2009 in El Dorado County, California, near
the town of Somerset.

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German zoo staff convicted of cruelty for killing hybrid tigers

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:
MAGDEBURG, Germany–Magdeburg Zoo
director Kai Parret and three members of the zoo
staff were on June 17, 2010 convicted of cruelty
for killing three tiger cubs at birth in May 2008
because their father was found to be a hybrid of
the Siberian and Sumatran tiger subspecies. A
fine of 8,100 euros was suspended on condition
that the offense not be repeated.
The charges were brought at request of
the German pro-animal organizations Animal Public
and People for Animal Rights/ Germany.
The Magdeburg Zoo bought the tigers’
parents with the intention of breeding them,
believing them both to be purebred Siberian, but
found Sumatran genes in the father in February
2008, after the mother was already in advanced
pregnancy.

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Catalan bans bullfighting Lawmakers reject cultural defense

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

 

BARCELONA–Voting 68-55 to ban
bullfighting after January 1, 2012, the Catalan
parliament on July 28, 2010 resoundingly and
deliberately rejected defenses of bullfighting as
central to Catalonian culture.
“Let us create a more humane, more
responsible society. This could be our
contribution to the next generation,” urged
Catalan separatist party leader Joan Puigcercos
in a speech to the assembly members just before
the vote.
The bullfighting ban took the form of a
motion removing from the Catalan animal
protection law an exemption for bullfighting and
similar “cultural” exhibitions.

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Showdown expected in Ohio over farm standards evolves into a deal

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:
COLUMBUS–Instead of shaking hands and
coming out fighting on the November 2010 Ohio
state ballot, representatives of the Ohioans for
Humane Farms coalition and the Ohio Farm Bureau
Federation on June 30, 2010 shook hands with
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland over a truce that
leaves the proposed ballot issues to be arbited
by the newly formed Ohio Livestock Care Standards
Board.
That the industry-controlled Ohio
Livestock Care Standards Board rather than voters
should control farm animal conditions was a goal
sought by agribusiness for more than two years.

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BOOKS: Animals As Persons: Essays on the abolition of animal exploitation

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

Animals As Persons: Essays on the abolition
of animal exploitation by Gary L. Francione
Columbia University Press, (61 West 62nd St., New York, NY 10023), 2008.
235 pages, paperback.

Animals As Persons anthologizes seven of legal scholar Gary
Francione’s best known examinations of the intersection of law and
animal rights philosophy.
Francione rarely directly addresses the legal and
philosophical rationales for animal exploitation. He does, however,
speak toward them through extensive critiques of the arguments of
Peter Singer and Tom Regan, whose Animal Liberation (1976) and The
Case for Animal Rights (1983) introduced animal rights theory to
mainstream academic discourse; Josephine Donovan, who as co-editor
of Beyond Animal Rights (1996) made the most ambitious of many
attempts to meld animal rights philosophy with feminism; and Cass
Sunstein, who co-edited the 2004 textbook anthology Animal Rights:
Current Debates & New Directions, before becoming director of the
Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs for U.S. President Barack
Obama.

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SHARK files charges against Philadelphia Gun Club & exposes National College Rodeo Finals horse shocking

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

 

CASPER, PHILADELPHIA– Seeming to be in two distant places
at the same time, Showing Animals Respect & Kindness (SHARK) founder
Steve Hindi on June 17, 2010 pressed a criminal case against the
Philadelphia Gun Club in Bensalem, Pennsyl-vania, for alleged
cruelty to a pigeon during a February 2010 pigeon shoot, and posted
video clips to YouTube showing bucking horses being shocked that very
day at the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyoming.
Both Hindi’s case against the Philadelphia Gun Club and the
College National Finals rodeo video received extensive local news
coverage–and upstaged his unveiling, two days earlier, of a drone
helicopter capable of documenting events such as pigeon shoots and
rodeos that exclude cameras from the spectator areas. (See page 12.)

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Defective search & seizure warrants typically keep cases from going to trial

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

Cases involving defective warrants, or none, are usually
dismissed before actually going to trial. The most commonly cited
error is that the investigators overstep legal limits in seeking
probable cause to obtain warrants.
For example, Justice Robin Clute of Ravalli County, Montana
on June 8, 2010 dismissed three counts of cruelty filed in 2008
against Paula Fisher, of Victor, Montana, after Ravalli County
sheriff’s deputies impounded 10 horses, 17 goats, and two cats from
her property. All but three of the horses were later returned to
Fisher, said Perry Backus of the Ravalli Republic. In the Fisher
case, the deputies obtained a search warrant, but only after
entering her property to inspect the animals more closely, having
seen them first from a road. The deputies passed a “No trespassing”
sign.

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Irish Supreme Court in 2009 rejected attempt to use a “no warrant” defense

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

DUBLIN–Globally, defenses based on alleged warrantless
search and seizure are usually considered a quirk of U.S. law, since
the U.S. Fourth Amendment protection against warrantless entry is
uniquely strong. The Irish Supreme Court on May 1, 2009 rejected a
rare non-U.S. attempt to use lack of a warrant as a defense.
Barrister and customs officer Donba Sfar, of St.
Bronagh’s, Lisdoo, Dundalk, contended that Irish SPCA inspector
Paul Mellon and the Louth SPCA improperly seized 17 dogs from the
yard and outbuildings of a house she owned in Oaklawns, Dundalk, in
December 1998. The dogs were allegedly starving and had cannibalized
another dog.
Sfar conducted her own defense and appeals. The Irish
Supreme Court ruled that while her home was on the Oaklawns property,
the places from which the dogs were seized were not part of her
actual dwelling, and were therefore not subject to a warrant
requirement.
U.S. law holds that all properties are subject to warrant
requirements, except under “exigent circumstances.”

Petco to pay $1.75 million to settle case alleging neglect

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:
SAN DIEGO–Petco Animal Supplies Inc. on June 2, 2010 agreed
to pay $1.75 million to settle a lawsuit alleging a persistent
pattern of animal neglect and overcharging customers, brought by the
city of San Diego and the counties of San Mateo, Marin, San Diego,
Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.
Petco is a 1,000-store national chain, but all of the
plaintiffs are on California.

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