Category: Law

New concept draft of Korean animal protection law eliminates potential exemptions for “meat” dogs & cats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

SEOUL–More than a year of acrimony over
animal definitions in a 2003 draft update of the
1991 South Korean animal protection law appeared
to be resolved on October 5, 2004 when the
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry presented a
new draft of recommendations for legislation
called Comprehensive Measures for Animal
Protection.
Comprehensive Measures appears to
eliminate loopholes in the 2003 draft update that
might have exempted dogs and cats raised for meat
from coverage.

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Anti- foie gras activists swallow a promise instead of action in California “victory”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

SACRAMENTO–Farm Sanctuary, In Defense
of Animals, PETA, and the Humane Society of the
U.S. declared victory on September 29, 2004 when
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed
a bill that will purportedly ban force-feeding
ducks and geese to produce foie gras, effective
in 2012. But as the San Francisco Chronicle
reported, “The state’s lone farm engaged in the
practice, Sonoma Foie Gras, also hailed it as a
victory.”
“We supported this bill and thank the
governor and the legislature,” Sonoma Foie Gras
owner Guillermo Gonzalez e-mailed to Andrew
Gumbel and John Lichfield of The Independent, a
London newspaper that covered the issue for
British readers.
The British-based organization Compassion
In World Farming initially applauded the
California bill, but CIWF European Coalition for
Farm Animals campaign coordinator Barbara Dias
Pais on October 7 acknowledged to ANIMAL PEOPLE
that “the news was indeed badly misinterpreted by
many of us here in Europe.”

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Hunting bears with bait, dogs, traps, & loaded ballot language

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

JUNEAU, AUGUSTA–Alaska and Maine voters will decide on
November 2, 2004 whether to ban baiting bears into shooting range,
but as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press the exact wording of the Alaska
ballot proposition remained in doubt.
Alaska Lieutenant Governor Loren Leman reworded descriptions
of the anti-bear baiting measure and two unrelated propositions after
they had already won enough petition signatures to qualify for the
ballot. The petition language was approved in June 2003 by Alaska
assistant attorney general Marjorie Vandor. Leman did not seek
approval of his rewrites from the organizations promoting the ballot
measures, and is known to oppose all three.
Half a million ballots were printed before Anchorage Superior
Court Judge Morgan Christen ruled on September 29 that Leman’s
rewrite of one proposition was illegal.
“Christen said that destroying the old ballots was the only
way to correct the misleading, biased, and factually inaccurate
working of the Trust the People initiative to strip the governor’s
authority to fill a vacated U.S. Senate seat by appointment,” wrote
Richard Mauer and Joel Gay of the Anchorage Daily News. Mauer and
Gay anticipated that Leman would appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court.

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U.S. Senators make USDA subpoena for Siegfried & Roy video disappear

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

LAS VEGAS–The USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service
in mid-September agreed to settle for viewing a Feld Entertainment
Inc. videotape of the October 3, 2003 mauling of tiger trainer Roy
Horn at the Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas, without actually
obtaining a copy of the tape.
USDA/APHIS in April 2004 subpoenaed the videotape while investigating
whether Horn and his performing partner, Siegfried Fishbacher,
broke the Animal Welfare Act. Feld Entertainment, owners of both
the Mirage and the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus, offered to
show the video to USDA/APHIS inspectors, but refused to give them a
copy lest it be obtained by animal rights activists or TV magazine
shows via the Freedom of Information Act.
When the USDA/APHIS continued to seek a copy, U.S. Senators Harry
Reid (D-Nevada) and John Ensign (R-Nevada) threatened to introduce an
amendment to the USDA budget which would have prevented use of any
funding to obtain the video.

No cultural defense for cockfighting in Hawaii, judge rules; federal case pending

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

NEW ORLEANS–Eighteen months after filing a “cultural
defense” lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Lafayette, Louisiana,
which has yet to be heard by Judge Rebecca F. Doherty, the United
Gamefowl Breeders Association still hopes a claim of discrimination
will overturn the two-year-old U.S. law prohibiting interstate
transport of gamecocks.
The anti-gamecock transport law appears to be untested in
court. There have been no prominent prosecutions.
But the legal theory behind the case against it was on August
31, 2004 rejected by Hawaii 2nd Circuit Court Judge Joel August.
August ruled in an 11-page verdict that even though the Hawaii
constitution protects native customs and traditions, and native
Hawaiians practiced a form of cockfighting called haka moa before
Hawaii was annexed by the U.S., cockfighting does not fit the
definitions of protected activity.
The plaintiffs did not make a case or even press a claim that
haka moa was demonstrably integral to practicing the native Hawaiian
religion, August pointed out. Neither could the practice of haka
moa be called a subsistence right.

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International Legal Precedents

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

 

Justice Richard C. Gates of Ontario Superior Court on
September 7, 2004 struck down a 2002 city of Windsor bylaw barring
exotic animal acts, on grounds that it violates circus performers’
right to freedom of expression, as defined by the Canadian Charter
of Rights & Freedoms. While the bylaw was written as a public
safety measure, Gates explained, and as such could have overridden
the relevant degree of concern for freedom of expression, “because
it was passed for the ulterior purpose of animal welfare, the
Respondent City failed to provide at least a reasonable degree of
evidence to causally link exotic animal performances to public
safety. There was insufficient examination of any evidence to
rationally support the secondary purpose of protection of the
public.” Issued on behalf of the Shriners Circuses, the Ontario
ruling may be cited as a precedent in an anticipated follow-up
lawsuit against animal act bans passed in 1999 by the Town of Mount
Royal and Ville St. Laurent, then independent cities and now
boroughs of Montreal.

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Bogus charges filed against snake-charming foes prove to be their lucky charm

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

AHMEDABAD–Being arrested on bogus charges as an alleged
dangerous criminal proved to be a blessing in disguise for Animal
Help Foundation founder Rahul Sehgal, his associates, and the
snakes they were trying to rescue, Sehgal told ANIMAL PEOPLE
afterward.
When it happened, though, it sounded bad.
“Twelve activists of the Animal Help Foundation were booked
for kidnapping, wrongful confinement, and unlawful assembly,” the
Indian Express reported from Mumbai on September 16, “after snake
charmers from Ganeshpura village in Ganghinagar district filed a
police complaint accusing the activists of abducting them from the
village on September 3.
“Snake charmer Babulal Madari said he and six others were
returning home when they were intercepted by the activists on the
highway and beaten up,” the Indian Express continued.
More than 30 years after the 1973 Wildlife Protection Act
outlawed capturing snakes from the wild, and 14 years after the
Supreme Court of India upheld the portions of the act banning
commerce in snake products and wild animal fur, Indian
snake-charmers still capture more than 400,000 snakes per year,
Wildlife Trust of India researcher Bahar Dutt reported in June 2004.

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Australia bans animal to human transplants

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

PERTH–The Australian National Health & Medical Research
Council in mid-September 2004 imposed a five-year moratorium on
animal-to-human transplants, called xenographs.
“There were ethical concerns, there were social concerns,
but the major area of concern were the risks,” NHMRC chair Alan
Pettigrew told news media. “There were risks to health, not only of
the individual but to their immediate family, and from there to the
wider population.”
In July 2002 the NHMRC issued draft guidelines that allowed
researchers to exprimentally transplant parts from genetically
modified pigs into humans. These guidelines have now been narrowed.
Pettigrew said that the NHMRC had decided the organs from
nonhuman primates should not be transplanted into humans in any
future clinical trials. Therapies involving use of animal cells but
not entire organs are still under review, he said.

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Hunting dog neglect cases overshadowed by dogfighting

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

CHARLESTON, S.C.–Broad exemptions in humane laws for
standard hunting practices have historically tended to exempt hunting
packs from scrutiny.
Parallel neglect cases in North and South Carolina might now be
challenging lawmakers and public officials to rethink the presumption
that an investment in breeding and training ensures that dogs will be
cared for–but that aspect of at least one case is overshadowed by
crowded shelter conditions resulting from an unrelated case involving
dogfighting.
Responding to an anonymous tip that starving dogs were eating
each other, Citizens for Animal Protection of Warren County
investigator William Roberts on September 10, 2004 visited the
Parktown Hunting Club near Warrenton, North Carolina, and soon
called for help from animal control officer James Solomon,
veterinarian Chris O’Malley, and a sheriff’s detective.
Acting on the erroneous advice of Solomon and Warren
magistrate W.T. Hardy that suffering dogs could be seized without a
warrant, Roberts took 24 of the 60 dogs they found to his home.
O’Malley took the two in the weakest condition to his clinic.

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