Prominent alleged rescue neglect cases

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
PITTSBURGH–Linda a.k.a. Lin Marie Bruno, 45, who founded
Tiger Ranch Rescue in 1993, was on May 6, 2008 ordered to stand
trial in Alleghany County, Pennsylvania, for 593 counts of cruelty.
A March 13, 2008 raid by the Alleghany County Sheriff’s
Department and the Pennsylvania SPCA removed 380 live cats and the
remains of 108 others from the 27-acre Tiger Ranch Rescue sanctuary
in Frazer Township, Pennsylvania. Of the live cats, 117 died soon
afterward or were euthanized as irrecoverable. The rest were housed
at a shelter in Clarion County.
Pennsylvania SPCA investigator Rebecca McDonald testified at
an April 28 preliminary hearing that Tiger Ranch records indicate
receipt of 6,482 cats in 2007 and 786 in the first 10 weeks of 2008,
of whom just 23 were adopted out.

Abolition of gas chambers and heart-sticking progresses nationwide

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
RICHMOND–Virginia Governor Tim Kaine on April 13, 2008
signed a bill by Spotsylvania representative Bobby Orrock that
prohibits using a carbon monoxide chamber to kill dogs and cats.
“The bill passed the state senate just as Scott County animal
control officers received final certification in injectable
euthanasia,” Margaret B. Mitchell Spay/ Neuter Clinic chief
operating officer Teresa Dockery told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “Scott County
was the last shelter in Virginia to convert to injectable
euthanasia,” Dockery said.
Dockery, then president of the Virginia Federation of Humane
Societies, and longtime Humane Society of the U.S. staff member Kate
Pullen initiated the drive to abolish gas chambers in Virginia in
November 2000. They obtaining grant funding to provide equipment and
injectible euthanasia training to the 23 shelters then using gas.
But the money ran out before Scott County, Lee County, and the city
of Martinsville were able to make the transition to using sodium
pentabarbital.

Efforts to restrain island nations’ bird massacres

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
LONDON–The Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds and the National Audubon
Society refocused attention on Greenland after
Malta on April 25, 2008 banned spring quail and
turtle dove hunting and trapping.
Malta acted in compliance with a
provisional ruling by the European Court of
Justice that the traditional Maltese spring bird
season violates the 1979 European Bird Directive,
adopted five years before Malta joined the
European Union. The European Court of Justice is
to review the Maltese response to the provisional
ruling in two or three years, reported Agence
France-Presse.

Pet theft-to-eat cases prosecuted in China, Korea, Hawaii

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
ZHENGZHOU–Eating dogs and cats is legal
in China, but stealing them isn’t, a Zhengzhou
judge emphasized recently, fining “a man
surnamed Zhang” $214, about two weeks’ wages,
for “killing and cooking what he thought was a
stray dog,” the Zhengzhou Evening News reported.
The dog was actually a lost pet belonging to a woman surnamed Liu.
Summarized China Daily, distributing the
story nationwide, “Zhang, who likes to eat dogs
and cats, hung the dog’s skin from a fence over
a bridge so that he could dry and sell it. Upon
seeing the skin, Liu tracked down Zhang and
demanded that he pay her for killing her pet.
The woman recognized her pet’s skin because she
had dyed his fur.”
Chinese state-run media have reported
increasingly critically about dog and cat
consumption in recent years. Reportage linking a
disapproved practice to crime is a frequent
prelude in China to regulatory discouragement.
Also seen recently in connection with wildlife
consumption, this trend is more familiar to
westerners in reference to praise of the Dalai
Lama, the practice of Falun Gong, and uses of
Google and Yahoo search engines to research
banned topics.

South Korean capital defines dogs as “livestock”

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
SEOUL–Acknowledging the existence of at least 528 Seoul
restaurants that sell dog meat, plus 70 more that may offer dog meat
as a summer special, Seoul city health officials on April 12, 2008
announced that they would begin inspecting dog carcasses.
“The city will take samples of dog meat from about 530
restaurants and examine them to see if they contain harmful
substances such as heavy metals, antibiotics, and bacteria,” wrote
Korea Times staff reporter Kim Tae-jong.
The unilateral city inspection initiative follows years of
efforts by the dog meat industry to have dogs recognized as a “meat”
animal, on the pretext that traffic in species not so recognized
cannot be regulated under the existing hygiene laws.
Selling dogs’ meat for human consumption has been technically
illegal since 1983, but the law has never been enforced, and
provides no means for it to be enforced.

New legislation addresses violent entertainment

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:

Nebraska governor Dave Heineman on April 16, 2008 endorsed
into law a bill to ban horse tripping, a common event at
charreada-style rodeos. The language that “No person shall
intentionally trip or cause to fall, or lasso or rope the legs of,
any equine by any means for the purpose of entertainment, sport,
practice, or contest” makes the Nebraska law “the strongest such law
in the nation, far better than California’s,” or those of Texas,
New Mexico, Maine, Florida, Oklahoma, and Illinois, said Action
for Animals founder Eric Mills. A bill modeled on the California law
cleared the Arizona house of representatives on March 30.

PETA littering convictions overturned in N.C.

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
RALEIGH–The North Carolina Court of Appeals on April 15,
2008 overturned the February 2007 littering convictions of former
PETA employees Adria J. Hinkle and Andrew B. Cook.
Hinkle and Cook, who then worked for PETA, were arrested in
June 2005, after a police stakeout in Ahoskie, North Carolina,
caught them in the act of disposing of dog and cat carcasses in a
supermarket dumpster.
Judge Rick Elmore wrote for the three-judge appellate panel
that while the defendants’ actions leading to the conviction were
undisputed, the prosecution failed to prove that the supermarket
dumpster where Hinkle and Cook left the remains was an illegal place
to dispose of them.

Columbia River sea lion removals are delayed by HSUS appeal

April 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:

PORTLAND, Oregon– The National Marine Fisheries Service and
the Oregon and Washington state governments on April 1, 2008 agreed
to postpone killing or capturing California sea lions downstream from
the Bonne-ville Dam on the Columbia River, pending a U.S. District
Court ruling on a motion for a preliminary injunction against the
proposed removals, filed on March 28 by the Humane Society of the
U.S.
“State officials have put out the message to zoos, aquariums
and theme parks that they need homes for sea lions,” reported
Michael Milstein of the Oregonian.

U.S. patent ruling just before Easter favors rabbits

April 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:
JENKINTOWN, Pa.– The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office just
before Easter 2008 rejected a patent claim by a Japanese-owned
company called Biochemical and Pharmacological Laboratories, Inc.
which had attempted to patent rabbits whose eyes had been
deliberately damaged.
The claim was challenged by the American Anti-Vivisection
Society, the Alternatives Research & Development Foundation, and
the PatentWatch project of the International Center for Technology
Assessment.

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