Court Calendar

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

Initiative victories upheld

The U.S. Supreme Court on November 15 rejected without
comment a petition seeking to overturn the initiative ban on
cockfighting approved by Oklahoma voters in 2002. Spokespersons for
the United Gamefowl Breeders Association indicated that since the ban
has withstood all appeals, they will lobby to reduce the penalties.
Louisiana and New Mexico are the last states to allow cockfighting.

A three-judge panel of the Washington state Court of Appeals
in Tacoma on December 7 upheld initiative laws I-655, which in 1996
banned baiting bears and restricted hunting bears, pumas, and
bobcats with dogs, and I-713, which in 2000 banned body-gripping
traps and use of Compound 1080 and sodium cyanide to poison wildlife.
The pro-hunting and trapping front Citizens for Responsible Wildlife
Management contended that both measures illegally violated the public
trust by transferring control of wildlife management away from the
state government.

Dog-cooking conviction

November 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

HONG KONG–Eastern Court Magistrate Julia Livesay on October
19, 2004 fined Chan Yuk-sim, 44, the equivalent of $220 U.S. for
killing and cooking a dog on February 8 on Mount Davis.
Seeing her and two unidentified men butchering the dog,
nearby resident Leung Chui-wa called police officer Lee Pak-kuen,
who caught the suspect and seized the dog carcass. The men were not
found. It was the first dog-eating case in Hong Kong since 1999,
reported Felix Lo of the South China Morning Post.

Asia
Law

Marine mammals

November 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

Whaling

Humane Society International, a division of the Humane
Society of the U.S., on October 18 sued the Japanese whaling firm
Kyodo Sepaku Kaisha for allegedly illegally killing 428 whales since
2000 in the name of scientific research within the Australian Whale
Sanctuary. The sanctuary was created, on paper, by the Environment
Protection & Biodiversity Conservation Act of 2000, and adjoins the
Southern Oceans Whale Sanctuary declared in 1994 by the International
Whaling Commission. Japan does not recognize either sanctuary. The
suit against Kyodo Sepaku Kaisha is reportedly preliminary to seeking
an injunction asking the Australian government to enforce the
sanctuary bounds.
The suit was filed on the same day that Mali, landlocked in
the Sahara desert, joined the IWC, apparently with Japanese
support. Japan has acknowledged using development aid to persuade
small nations to join the IWC and support the Japanese position.
The HSI lawsuit was also filed one week after a trawling crew
doing research for the Tasmanian Aquaculture & Fisheries Institute
accidentally netted and drowned 14 dolphins, raising suspicion,
because of the ease with which the accident happened, that the
Australian Fisheries Management Authority and Department of the
Environment may be overlooking much greater numbers of dolphins
killed accidentally by commercial fishers.

Appellate verdicts: 1st Amendment, trapping, pigs

November 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

Confining anti-circus and rodeo
protesters to “free expression zones” far from
the entrance to the state-owned Cow Palace arena
in San Francisco violates their First Amend-ment
rights to freedom of speech and assembly, a
three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled on October 20, 2004.
“Cordoning protesters off in a zone the size of a
parking space, located over 200 feet from the
entrance, far from encouraging interaction with
them, is more likely to give the impression to
passers-by that these are people to be avoided,”
wrote Judge Martha Berzon.

The National Trappers Association does
not have legal standing to try to overturn the
1998 California ballot Proposition 4 ban on
leghold traps and the poisons sodium cyanide and
Compound 1080, ruled U.S. District Judge Thelton
Hender-son during the third week of October 2004.

China bans eating civets

November 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

BEIJING–The Chinese federal health ministry on November 2
banned the slaughter and cooking of civets for human consumption, to
promote “civilized eating habits,” the state-run Beijing Daily
reported.
“The announcement came a week after the government said 70%
of civets tested in the southern province of Guangdong were carrying
the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus,” observed Associated
Press.
The October 23 disclosure hinted that civets were not the
source of SARS, as no civets from northern and eastern China were
infected. The Guangdong civets are believed to have been
captive-raised for slaughter, while the civets from northern and
eastern China, where “wild” animals are rarely eaten, were
apparently trapped.
The Chinese ban on eating civets came just under three months
after U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced
a health embargo on the import of either live or dead civets plus
civet parts, such as civet pelts.

Right-to-pet verdicts

November 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

The California State Court of Appeal on September 3 made
binding on all trial courts in California an August 25 ruling that a
homeowners’ association “no pets” rule may be overridden by a
resident’s documented need for a companion animal. The Court of
Appeal held that an animal need not have special skills or training
to be a therapeutic helper to the clinically depressed, and
reinstated an award of $18,000 in damages made in 2002 to Ed and
Jayne Elebiari by the California Fair Employment & Housing
Commission. Both clinically depressed, they adopted a shelter dog
in April 1999 at the recommendation of their therapists. The dog
helped them, but the Auburn Woods I Condominium Association obliged
them to give him to a friend in June 1999. The Elebiaris relapsed
into depression and relocated to Rochester, New York, where they
adopted another dog. The California Department of Fair Employment &
Housing sued the condo association on their behalf in February 2001.

Sentencing

November 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

“For the first time ever, an animal
abuser in New Orleans has been sentenced to
serious jail time,” Louisiana SPCA executive
director Laura Maloney e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE
on November 5, 2004. Convicted of severely
neglecting four chained pit bulls, Dwight Petit,
28, of New Orleans was on November 5 sentenced
to serve 18 months in jail, of which he had
already served six, with an additional 30 months
suspended, plus four years of active probation,
to include drug testing, counseling and
treatment, 100 hours of community service, and
restitution of court costs plus $1,000 to the
Louisiana SPCA for recovery of medical costs. The
Louisiana SPCA adopts out healthy pit bulls of
non-aggressive behavior, but euthanized Petit’s,
as medically beyond likelihood of recovery.

Ontario introduces pit bull ban bill

November 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

TORONTO–Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant on October
26, 2004 introduced an amendment to the Dog Owners’ Liability Act
which would ban breeding, selling, and importing pit bull terriers
into the province.
The amendment also doubles to $10,000 the top fine and
provides a possible sentence of up to six months in jail for
possession of “any dangerous dog who bites, attacks, or otherwise
poses a menace to public safety.”
Explained Bryant, “Those who currently own pit bulls will be
able to keep their dogs. However, these dogs will have to be
muzzled and on leashes while in public, and spayed or neutered.
Municipalities can also add further restrictions.”
Kitchener banned pit bulls in 1997. “Since our ban,
Kitchener has sen a dramatic decline in the number of pit bull
attacks from 18 to about one per year,” mayor Carl Zehr told
Canadian Press.

Ohio Supreme Court partially dumps dog law

November 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

COLUMBUS–The Ohio Supreme Court on September 22 ruled 4-3
that the part of the Ohio law requiring restraint of “dangerous and
vicious” dogs is unconstitutional because it does not allow the
owners to contest the “dangerous and vicious” designation before they
are criminally charged.
“We find it inherently unfair that a dog owner must defy the
statutory regulations and become a criminal defendant, thereby
risking going to jail and losing her property, in order to challenge
a dog warden’s unilateral decision to classify her property,” wrote
Justice Francis Sweeney for the majority.
Janice Cowan, 50, of Mogadore, argued that her German
shepherd and two of the dog’s mixed-breed offspring were unjustly
killed after the two mixed-breed dogs mauled neighbor Margaret
Maurer, on Maurer’s property. The dogs were chained, but the
chains apparently allowed them to range beyond Cowan’s property.
Cowan was subsequently convicted of four misdemeanors for failing to
properly confine the dogs. A three-judge panel from the Ohio 11th
District Court of Appeals rejected two of Cowan’s three claims of
unjust treatment, but agreed 2-1 that Portage County violated her
right of due process.

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