Judge tells the USDA to sit out California Proposition Two fight– Feds barred from using promo funds on ads backing agribusiness

September 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2008:

SAN FRANCISCO–U.S. District Judge
Marilyn Hall Patel on September 22, 2008 ordered
the USDA to stay out of the agribusiness effort
to defeat the California Prevention of Farm
Animal Cruelty Act, Proposition Two on the state
ballot. Judge Patel ruled that the USDA may not
legally spend funds collected from egg producers
by the American Egg Board to promote the egg
industry on television ads that may affect the
election outcome.
The American Egg Board is a an 18-member
panel appointed by the U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture. The two ads at issue suggest buying
locally raised eggs. They feature the same
spokesperson who appears in ads directly funded
by the egg industry which assert that Proposition
Two will drive egg producers out of California.
“A government lawyer described the ads as
‘neutral and educational’ and said they were
unrelated to Proposition Two,” wrote San
Francisco Chronicle staff writer Bob Egelko.

Arsons boost bill that would inhibit access to info about animal research

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
SACRAMENTO–Firebombs detonated on a porch and in a home
belonging to University of California at Santa Cruz researchers in
the early morning of August 2, 2008 are believed to have given a big
late-in-session boost to AB 2296, a bill which would allow
universities to withhold the names of animal researchers from public
documents.
Introduced in February 2008 by state assembly member Gene
Mullin (D-San Mateo) at request of the University of California
system, AB 2296 “would make it a misdemeanor to harm or intimidate a
researcher who works with animals, including publicly posting the
names, photographs, home addresses and home telephone numbers of
researchers online or elsewhere. Anyone convicted under the
legislation could face up to a year in county jail and fines up to
$25,000. The bill also allows researchers or their employers to seek
an injunction against animal rights advocates or web sites publishing
their photos or personal information,” summarized Santa Cruz
Sentinel staff writer J.M. Brown.

SHARK wins a round in court re use rodeo videos

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
CHEYENNE–U.S. District Judge William Downes on July 29, 2008
dismissed a lawsuit filed by Romeo Entertainment Group Inc. against
Show-ing Animals Respect & Kindness, better known as SHARK.
The case alleged that SHARK used “false and misleading
information” and “threats of negative publicity” to influence singer
Carrie Underwood and the band Matchbox 20 to cancel shows at the
Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo in 2006 and 2008.
Downes ruled that while the case could not be pursued in
Wyoming, due to lack of jurisdiction, it could be refiled in either
Illinois or Oklahoma. Romeo Entertainment attorney J. Kent Rutledge
told Associated Press writer Bob Moen that either the ruling would be
appealed or the case would be refiled in another state.

Dog racing ban on Massachusetts ballot

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
BOSTON–The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on July
16, 2008 allowed the Committee to Protect Dogs, co-chaired by Grey
2K cofounder Christine Dorchak, to place on the November 2008 state
ballot an initiative that would ban greyhound racing and would put
the last two tracks in Massachusetts out of business by January 2010.
The first Grey 2K effort to ban greyhound racing in
Massachusetts failed by 1% of the vote in 2000. In July 2006 the
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts rejected as overbroad a
proposed ballot initiative that would have prohibited greyhound
racing and would have provided stiffer sentences for dogfighting and
harming police dogs.
The greyhound industry may have less money this year for
campaigning. The city of Revere, Massachusetts in July 2008
foreclosed on the Wonderland Greyhound Park over $789,293 in unpaid
taxes, and is owed $16,674 in water and sewage bills, reported
Katheleen Conti of the Boston Globe on August 1. “Wonderland is the
city’s eighth-largest taxpayer, and now its largest tax delinquent,”
Conti wrote. “In 1994, Wonderland paid $1.6 million in back taxes.
The city placed a lien on the property in June 2007.”

South Korea begins regulating dogs as livestock under new pollution law

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
SEOUL–The South Korean Minis-try of Food, Agriculture,
Forestry and Fish-eries in mid-August 2008 announced that it will
start regulating dogs as livestock for the purpose of enforcing a
newly revised Livestock Night Soil Disposal Act, effective on
September 28.
The South Korean dog meat industry has long sought to add
dogs to the list of designated meat animals, to overturn the
unenforced 1991 law that was promoted to the world as a ban on
selling dog meat, but only prohibits the public sale of “disgusting
foods.”

“Crush video” law overturned

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
PHILADELPHIA–The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
on July 18, 2008 held unconstitutional the 1999 federal law that
forbids selling videos of cruelty to animals. Passed in response to
videos depicting women and transvestites crushing small animals with
their feet, the law was used just once, to convict Robert J.
Stevens of Pittsville, Virginia, for selling videos of dogfighting
and “hog/dog rodeo.” His conviction was reversed by the 10-3
verdict.
“Usually, videos and photographs are protected as free
speech, even if they show illegal or abhorrent conduct,” explained
Los Angeles Times staff writer David G. Savage. “But in 1982, the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sexual depictions of children could be
prosecuted as a crime despite the 1st Amendment. Government lawyers
said the animal cruelty law should be upheld on the same basis.
However, wrote Judge Brooks Smith for the majority,
“Preventing cruelty to animals, although an exceedingly worthy goal,
simply does not implicate interests of the same magnitude as
protecting children from physical and psychological harm.”

Does the Balluch arrest have anything to do with the price of free-range eggs in Austria?

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:

VIENNA–Arrested on May 21, 2008,
Association Against Animal Factories founder
Martin Balluch and nine other Austrian activists
remained in jail three months later, on charges
described by Balluch in a July 7, 2008
arraignment statement as “seven butanoic acid
stinkbombs, seven cases of broken windows,
three cases of sprayed graffiti or
paint-daubing, two cases of damage to hunting
platforms and to an empty, deserted pheasant
enclosure; two rescues of pigs and pheasants
without any damage to property; and one
threatening letter.”
The incidents occurred from 2002 through
2007. Fifteen of the 22 incidents targeted a
single furrier. Balluch and supporters have
alleged that the arrests, originally detaining
13 activists linked to seven organizations, were
timed to prevent the launch of an initiative
campaign seeking passage of an amendment to the
Austrian constitution that would incorporate a
guarantee of animal welfare.

Feds funding egg industry effort to defeat California anti-caging initiative, suit alleges

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:

SAN FRANCISCO–U.S. Agricul-ture
Secretary Ed Schaefer personally approved giving
$3 million collected from egg producers for
co-promotions by the American Egg Board to the
agribusiness campaign against the California
Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, alleges a
lawsuit filed on August 13, 2008 by Californians
for Humane Farms.
The California Prevention of Farm Animal
Cruelty Act, Proposition Two on the 2008
California state ballot, would reduce the
stocking density for caged laying hens by 2015,
and after 2015 would prohibit raising pigs and
veal calves in crates that prevent them from
turning around and extending their limbs.
The American Egg Board money would more
than double the campaign fund in opposition to
Proposition Two, which had raised $2.16 million
as of August 12, 2008, according to the
California Secretary of State’s office.

European Commission proposes a seal product import ban–maybe

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
BRUSSELS–The European Commission on July
23, 2008 adopted a proposal “for a regulation
banning the trading of seal products within,
into, and from the European Union,” said the EC
press agency, “to ensure that products derived
from seals killed and skinned in ways that cause
pain, distress and suffering are not found on
the European market. Trade in seal products
would only be allowed,” the EC announcement
continued, “where guarantees can be provided
that hunting techniques consistent with high
animal welfare standards were used and that the
animals did not suffer unnecessarily.”
The caveats may set animal advocates up
for another disappointment like the one that
followed a 1991 proposed European ban on imports
of leghold-trapped furs. Enforcement,
originally to start in 1995, was repeatedly
delayed by U.S., Canadian, and Russian
diplomatic pressure. In July 1997 the ban was
amended by the European Union General Affairs
Council into a mere agreement to establish
“humane” trapping standards.
“After certain leghold traps and even
drowning sets, illegal in many countries, were
included in the standard” that was eventually
adopted by the International Standards
Organization, “the whole exercise lost impetus
and credibility,” summarized World Animal Net
founder Wim de Kok.

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