Israeli Rescuers remove about 400 animals from Gaza & Northern Samaria

September 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

JERUSALEM–Tension accompanying the Israeli withdrawal from
Northern Samaria and Gaza spilled over into the animal rescue work
that followed in the 24 vacated Jewish settlements.
About half the reports reaching animal people descr-ibed
animal rescues. The rest accused other rescuers of performing
publicity stunts and acts of sabotage.
Settlers resisting the withdrawal were often removed forcibly
by Israeli soldiers and police, leaving pets, livestock, and feral
cat colonies behind.
If the 15,000 former residents of the evacuated villages kept
pets and fed feral cats at European rates per household, up to 3,000
pets and 600 feral cats might have been affected. The Israeli Army
and Israeli Veterinary Services allowed some rescuers to enter Gaza
and Northern Samaria on August 16. Accounts forwarded to ANIMAL
PEOPLE indicate that the rescuers evacuated about 400 animals,
mostly cats, but also some dogs, parakeets, lizards, and goats.
Concern for Helping Animals in Israel and Hakol Chai, an
affiliate, worked in Gaza with representatives of the Tel Aviv,
Beersheva, and Jerusalem SPCAs, CHAI founder Nina Natelson told
ANIMAL PEOPLE. “We had veterinarians Sarah Levine and Tsachi Nevo
spelling each other, plus one more who helped as needed,” Natelson
added. “Two drivers took turns, day after day. Hakol Chai staff
worked 15 hour days. We had no lack of volunteers.”

Flu threat spreads opposition to cockfighting, postal bird shipment

September 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

RALEIGH, MADISON, HONG KONG, HANOI–With the H5N1 strain
of avian influenza, potentially deadly to humans, striking
throughout Asia and threatening to hit Europe, North Carolina
Department of Agriculture food and drug safety administrator Joe
Reardon on August 18, 2005 warned a gathering of state and federal
officials that U.S. Postal Service regulations governing transport of
live birds “are inadequate and present great potential for
contamination of the poultry industry.”
Reardon estimated that each day between 1,000 and 3,000 game
birds, fighting cocks, and other fowl enter North Carolina via the
Postal Service. More than 70%, Reardon said, have not undergone
health inspection. The uninspected birds are often in proximity to
birds in transit to and from the 4,500 North Carolina poultry farms.
Birds involved in human food production are inspected, but may then
be exposed to disease before reaching their destination.
North Carolina agriculture commissioner Steve Troxler and
U.S. Representative Walter Jones (R-Farmville) pledged to pursue
legislation which would require all birds sent by mail to have a
health certificate.

Indo-Canadian low-cost vets accuse British Columbia Vet Med Association of discrimination

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

VANCOUVER–Alleging that they have been targeted for doing
low-cost dog and cat sterilizations, 18 Indo-Canadian veterinarians,
16 of them members of the British Columbia Veterinary Medical
Association, are pursuing discrimination claims against BCVMA
registrar Valerie Osborne.
Led by Atlas Animal Hospital owner Hakam Bhullar, the vets
have registered a lawsuit with the British Columbia Supreme Court,
seeking to remove Osborne from office, and have petitioned the
British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal requesting that an unusually
strict language proficiency test required by the BCVMA be repealed.
Osborne and other BCVMA representatives have said little on
the record about the Indo-Canadian veterinarians’ complaints, except
to deny that the intent of the language proficiency test is
discriminatory.
Under Osborne, Bhullar told Richard Chu of the Vancouver
Sun, the BCVMA requires vets to score 92% on a standard test of
spoken English. Lawyers, medical doctors, dentists, nurses, and
firefighters are required to score only 83%, Bhullar said.

Pound electrocutions stopped in Manila

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

MANILA–Seeking a cheaper, faster way to kill dogs than
either lethal injection or use of an antiquated carbon monoxide
chamber, Manila Veterinary Inspection Board members Manuel Socorro
and Condenio Panogan reportedly electrocuted approximately 100 dogs
from mid-May 2005 to mid-July before word of their work leaked out.
“Socorro “said they were given a one-year permit by the
Bureau of Animal Industry to conduct a study of electrocution as a
tool to put down dogs,” wrote Evelyn Macairan of The Philippine Star.
“This involved conducting a series of tests wherein the voltage would
be set starting at 100 volts and be slowly raised to 500 volts.”
Four days after Philippine Animal Welfare Society volunteer
and veterinary student Emil Reban witnessed some of the
electrocutions and described what he saw, the Bureau of Animal
Industries’ Committee on Animal Welfare revoked the permit
“immediately and indefinitely upon hearing PAWS president Nita
Lichauco’s petition to cancel it,” e-mailed PAWS member Ramona
Eliza T. Consunji on July 11.

Elephants source of Marburg & Ebola?

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

LUANDA–The World Health Organization and Angola Ministry of
Health are optimistic that the worst outbreak on record of the
Ebola-like Marburg hemorrhagic fever may be close to burning itself
out, after 423 known cases through June 5, 357 of them fatal,
including 346 of the 412 cases that occurred in the city of Uige,
where the outbreak was first recognized.
The Uige outbreak may never be clearly traced to a source,
since the first persons exposed apparently all died before sharing
details about how they fell ill. Once either Marburg or Ebola
occurs among humans, it spreads chiefly through human contact.
Investigators are more optimistic about finding the origin of
an Ebola outbreak that struck the Cuvette-Ouest region of the
Republic of Congo in April, killing at least 10 people. The first
victims were “five hunters who became ill after emerging from the
forest,” Wildlife Conservation Society field veterinary program
director William Karesh posted to the International Society for
Infectious Diseases’ ProMed newsgroup.

“Madness” in Karachi rabies response

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

KARACHI, Pakistan–“Karachi mayor
Niamatul-lah Khan is about to go on a rampage,
poisoning 500,000 stray dogs in total disregard
of alternatives presented by the Pakistan Animal
Welfare Society, along with a large number of
doctors, health officials, and Karachi
citizens,” Engineers and Scientists for Animal
Rights founder Syed Rizvi warned on Friday, May
13, 2005, in an e-mail quickly distributed
worldwide by pro-animal newsgroups.
Born and raised in Karachi, Rizvi now
lives in San Jose, California, but maintains
close contact with Pakistani animal advocates.
“The City of Karachi is preparing 500,000
strychnine capsules,” Rizvi charged. “I have
been in constant touch with Mahera Omar of the
Pakistan Animal Welfare Society, who is asking
that e-mails and letters from the international
community be sent to the authorities, asking
them to refrain from this barbaric practice.
“Please e-mail to General Parvez
Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, who is a
dog lover himself,” Rizvi asked. “Some might
have seen his picture in Newsweek recently,
holding his two little dogs close to his heart.”

What happened to the hippos?

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

KAMPALA–Did anthrax kill the hippos, or was it poison?
What became of their teeth? Who was responsible?
“We have lost 287 hippos since July 2004,” Uganda Wildlife Authority
veterinary coordinator Patrick Atimnedi told fellow members of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases in March 2005.
“So far, we have lost about 11% of the hippo population.
“August 2004 was the peak of mortality,” Atimnedi continued,
“declining toward December. We were surprised with a resurgence from
January 2005.
“So far the source of infection is unclear,” Atimnedi
admitted. “[Mass] hippo mortalities have occurred in this park in
the last 50 years, usually in 10-year cycles. These, however,
would affect at most not more than 30 hippos, and were mainly
associated with drought.”
Atimnedi is certain that anthrax is the lethal agent. “All
cases are actually being investigated,” Atimnedi emphasized,
mentioning visits by foreign experts and samples sent to laboratories
outside Uganda to confirm his observations.

Petting zoos can make children sick

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

PLANT CITY, Florida–At least six lawsuits filed against
Ag-Venture Farms and the Florida Strawberry Festival, both of Plant
City, may hasten the demise of petting zoos. Two sheep, two cows,
and a goat exhibited by Ag-Venture Farms at the Florida Strawberry
Festival, the Florida State Fair near Tampa, and the Central
Florida fair in Orlando allegedly infected 30 to 80 visitors with an
often disabling and sometimes deadly form of e-coli bacteria during
March and April 2005, said the Florida Health Department.
The bacterium attacks the kidneys of victims, causing
hemolytic uremic syndrome, a severely painful condition that in
early stages is often mistaken for a stomach flu. Many victims are
incapacitated for life.
About 90% of the ill petting zoo patrons were children. How
many will suffer longterm effects is uncertain. There were no
verified fatalities. Tests failed to confirm a suspected link to the
March 2005 death of Kayla Nicole Sutter, 12, of Wesley Chapel, who
visited the Florida Strawberry Festival.
All 37 Ag-Venture Animals “will be quarantined for the rest
of their lives,” health officials told Saundra Amrhein of the St.
Petersburg Times.

H5N1 & Marburg outbreaks

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

HANOI, LUANDA–If an epidemiologist’s worst nightmare isn’t
the avian influenza strain called H5N1, it might be Marburg
hemorrhagic fever, a virulent close cousin to the better known Ebola
virus. Both are zoonotic diseases, meaning that they spread to
humans from animals. With a quirk or two of virus evolution, both
could depopulate continents. The worst-ever outbreaks of each are
raging right now in Southeast Asia and Central Africa.
H5N1, discovered after it killed three people in Hong Kong in 1997,
apparently crossed from migratory wild birds to ducks and geese
reared in huge outdoor pens and paddies in southern China, crossed
to indoor-raised chickens, then raced throughout Southeast Asia with
the mostly illegal but lightly prosecuted commerce in gamecocks.
Killing about 70% of the humans who contract it from birds,
H5N1 has not killed millions chiefly because it has not evolved into
a form that spreads easily from human to human, and does not spread
easily from bird to human. Only the estimated 25 to 40 million
Southeast Asians who raise poultry are believed to be at risk of
becoming infected by the bird-to-human route.

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