Court Calendar

June 2, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

Humane work

New York State Supreme Court Justice Bruce Allen on May 28
upheld the constitutionality of the state anti-cruelty law under
which barber Darrel Nelson, 56, was convicted in December 2003 for
amputating a three-month-old Rottweiler’s tail in October 2002.
Nelson used a rubber band to stop the blood supply to the tail, then
cut the tail off with a sharp instrument. Nelson was convicted only
days before the New York Court of Appeals ruled 6-0 against a case
brought by Manhattan lawyer Jon H. Hammer that sought to overturn the
tail-docking requirements in the breed standards of the American
Kennel Club and American Brittany Club. Hammer argued that the
anti-cruelty law language under which Nelson was convicted should
apply to the breed standards. The court held that Hammer had no
standing to sue, and that the statute applies only to deeds, not to
recommendations for procedures not actually performed by the AKC and
ABC.

Cat fight at API Primate Sanctuary

May 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

SACRAMENTO–The Animal Protection Institute took an online
beating from feral cat advocates, other sanctuary operators, and
supporters of former API Primate Sanctuary director Lou Griffin in
late April 2004 after an intern at the sanctuary in Dilley, Texas,
circulated an e-mail asking for help in sterilizing 60 to 80 feral
cats who dwell among the resident Japanese macaques.
Griffin and Aesop Project founder Linda Howard, a
Griffin-era volunteer, agreed that the sanctuary had 19 cats when
API fired Griffin in March 2002, and that all of those cats were
sterilized. API contends that some cats there then were not
sterilized, and that their offspring formed the present colony.
Griffin sued API after she was fired by former executive
director Alan Berger, who left API himself in April 2003 and now
heads the John Ancrum SPCA in South Carolina. The case is still in
court.
An alternate hypothesis is that the cat population grew from
abandonees between Griffin’s exit, after 22 years, and the arrival
of current sanctuary director Nedim Buyukmihci, VMD, about 18
months later.

North America

Court Calendar

May 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

A two-judge panel from the Supreme Court of India on March
11, 2004 upheld the right of civil authorities to ban the sale of
meat, fish, and eggs within the pilgrimage city of Rishikesh. The
ban was first formally proclaimed in 1956, and was extended in 1976.

The U.S. Department of Justice and FBI in April 2004 agreed
to pay $2 million to Earth First! activist Darryl Cherney and the
estate of the late Judi Bari in settlement of a civil suit resulting
from the FBI response to a bomb that detonated in their car in
Oakland, California on May 24, 1990. Bari, who never fully
recovered from her injuries, died of cancer in 1997. The FBI
investigated Cherney and Bari as suspects in making and transporting
the bomb, but never charged them, while allegedly ignoring evidence
that the bomb may have been planted by opponents of Earth First!
After a two-month trial in 2002, a federal jury ordered the FBI and
Oakland police to pay $4.4 million to Cherney and the Bari estate.
The city of Oakland agreed to pay $2 million in four annual
installments, but the FBI appealed.

House bill opens fire on mute swans

May 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

WASHINGTON D.C.–The House of Representatives Resources
Committee on May 5 sent to the full House the so-called Migratory
Bird Treaty Reform Act (H.R. 4114) and the less controversial Marine
Turtle Conservation Act (H.R. 3378). Both bills were introduced by
Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans Subcommittee chair Wayne
Gilchrest (R-MD).
Both bills are expected to advance rapidly through Congress
as two of the major election year Republican gestures toward
environmentalists.
The Marine Turtle Conservation Act provides funding for foreign
conservation programs.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Reform Act would exempt
“non-native” species from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918,
reversing recent court rulings and consent decrees signed by the U.S.
Fish & Wildlife Service in settlement of activist lawsuits which
stipulate that the act covers all migratory waterfowl–including mute
swans and the giant Canada geese introduced across the U.S. by the
Fish & Wildlife Service during the 1950s through the 1970s.
The giant Canada geese do not actually migrate, and for that
reason have been exempted from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act since
1994 by decree, but they are hybrid look-alikes for the migratory
variety, bred and released by the Fish & Wildlife Service in hopes
of rebuilding the migratory flocks so that more geese could be hunted.

Storm over dogs & cats in the Carolinas

May 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.–Hurricanes
often hit the Carolinas, raining dogs and cats.
But they rarely blow so far inland and never rage
so long as the storms over animal control policy
underway for almost a year now, driven by fatal
maulings, dogfighting incidents, and rising
awareness that the region has one of the highest
rates of shelter killing in the U.S.–and the
world, since despite recent progress in reducing
the numbers, the U.S. stills kills more dogs and
cats per 1,000 residents than most other nations.
A federal grand jury on April 27, 2004
indicted pit bull terrier owner Roddie Philip
Dumas, 29, of Charlotte, North Carolina, for
possessing crack cocaine with intent to sell,
using and carrying a firearm during a drug
trafficking offense, being a convicted felon in
possession of firearms and ammunition, and
intimidating and interfering with a U.S. mail
carrier, reported Charlotte Observer staff
writer Gary L. Wright.

Gopher derby halted

May 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, Canada –The Ken Turcot Memorial
Gopher Derby was not held in 2004, after participants reportedly
killed as many as 100,000 Richardson’s ground squirrels and prairie
dogs in 2002 and 2003. The first edition of the killing contest
attracted 211 hunters. The 2003 edition drew just 120.
Saskatoon Wildlife Federation business manager Len Jabush
indicated to Sean Pratt of the Western Producer that the gopher derby
might be revived in 2005, “just to annoy” protesters and critics.
Sponsored by the Saskatoon Wildlife Federation, an affiliate
of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation and Canadian Wildlife
Federation, the gopher derby was opposed by the U.S.-based National
Wildlife Federation. The NWF has no authority over the Canadian
groups, but they distribute NWF publications and sponsor classroom
use of the NWF’s Project Wild lesson plans.
NWF membership recruitment mailings have for at least eight
years emphasized NWF efforts to list prairie dogs as a threatened
species in the U.S.
“I can tell you that NWF was clear and unequivocal in
opposition to such killing sprees as this gopher derby,” former NWF
vice chair Edward Clark told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “but that position was
expressed behind the scenes. I would have preferred a stronger
public position,” Clark said.

How to tell the Best Friends Animal Society from the cult who built Kanab

May 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

KANAB, Utah–The Best Friends Animal
Society main entrance at the mouth of Angel
Canyon now has a National Park-sized reception
center and gift shop, newly expanded to include
a 50-seat orientation room.
Shelter director Faith Maloney and
reception center manager Anne Mejia already
wonder how long it will be big enough. Best
Friends now attracts more than 20,000 visitors
per year. At least half a dozen other major
animal shelters and sanctuaries around the U.S.
attract more, but they all occupy central
locations in cities of several million people.
Best Friends attracts more than three times the
total population of Kane County. The closest big
city is Las Vegas, three hours away by car.
Visitors to other major U.S. shelters and
sanctuaries come mostly to adopt or surrender
animals. They usually enter, transact their
business, and leave within an hour. Visitors to
Best Friends come as a pilgrimage. They spend
the day, or become temporary volunteers,
contributing several days.

North America

Canadian sealers kill at record speed

May 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

MONTREAL–Authorized by Ottawa to kill 350,000 harp seals in
2004, Atlantic Canadian offshore sealers killed so aggressively that
the Department of Fisheries & Oceans on April 14 closed the
large-vessel hunt only 48 hours after it started, suspecting that
the large-vessel quota of 246,900 had already been reached.
Again this year, as in each of the past five years,
International Fund for Animal Welfare observers led by Newfoundland
native Rebecca Aldworth obtained extensive video of sealers skinning
seal pups who were still thrashing and dragging live seals on hooks.
Again this year DFO denied that the writhing seals were still alive.
Sealers and DFO spokespersons boasted of rising global demand
for seal pelts, reportedly wholesaling at about $50 Canadian apiece.
But the evidence was ambiguous–and $50 in Canadian money has only
about half the buying power today that it had more than 20 years ago,
when seal pelt prices last were in that range.
“The landed value of last year’s seal hunt accounted for less
than one tenth of 1% of Newfoundland economy, nowhere near the
figures claimed by the sealing industry,” IFAW president Fred
O’Regan wrote to The New York Times. “Lasting solutions to the
economic challenges facing Atlantic Canada require more than
subsidizing the slaughter of nearly a million seals in the next three
years.”

Neuter/return works for Alaskan wolves

May 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

FAIRBANKS–Animal advocates who sterilize and release feral
cats and street dogs had the right prescription for wolf predation
control all along, Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists are
discovering.
Clamoring to shoot and trap wolves to reduce predatory pressure on
the depleted Fortymile caribou herd, the Alaska DFG in 1997
grudgingly agreed to sterilize the alpha pairs in 15 wolf packs under
pressure led by Friends of Animals.
“The idea was that the sterilized pairs would defend their
territories against other packs, which they have done quite
successfully,” wrote Fairbanks Daily News-Miner staff writer Tim
Mowry on March 28.
As with feral cats and street dogs, sterile wolves hunt much
less than animals with young to feed. Therefore the caribou herd
would increase.
DFG biologists performed the sterilizations amid prophecies by
hunters and politicians that the experiment would neither work nor
shut up the opponents of wolf-culling, and therefore should never
have been started.

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