Appeals failed, Ferdin jailed

September 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

LOS ANGELES–Actress Pam Ferdin, 41, on July 16 began
serving a 30-day jail sentence in Los Angeles, California, after
exhausting her appeals of a January 2000 conviction for allegedly
possessing a weapon while on a picket line.
What Ferdin actually had, everyone on either side of the
case agreed, was an ankus, or “bull hook,” used by elephant
handlers. Ferdin displayed it as a prop during an August 1999
demonstration against a San Fernando Valley performance of the Circus
Vargas–and ran afoul of a 1978 ordinance that was passed to curtail
violence during labor disputes. Ferdin fought the charge as an
alleged infringement of her right to free speech.
Ferdin’s husband, surgeon and noted animal advocate Jerry
Vlasek, M.D., on July 18 said she had begun a hunger strike. Both
Ferdin and Vlasek have conducted previous hunger strikes after
arrests in connection with protest.
Ferdin debuted as a child actress in 1964 and worked steadily
in both screen and voice roles through 1979. She continues to do
occasional voice roles, but has focused on a nursing career and
animal advocacy since circa 1990.
A brief but influential Ferdin performance was her 1973 role
in the animated feature Charlotte’s Web as the farm girl Fern, who
pleads with her father to spare the life of the runt piglet she has
raised by hand.

Mascots: Avian disease mycoplasma galliseptum grounds Auburn University eagles

September 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

AUBURN, Alabama–A deadly outbreak of the avian bacterial
disease mycoplasma galliseptum is expected to end ceremonial eagle
flights at Auburn University home football games this fall, just
three years after the short-lived “tradition” started.
The use of live animals as football mascots has come under
intensifying protest from PETA, SHARK, and other animal rights
groups at colleges, universities, and even some high schools in
recent years. Auburn Univeristy appeared to have successfully
addressed the controversy back in 2000, however, by transferring
responsibility for the care of the caged eagles who symbolically
represent the War Eagles football team from the Alpha Phi Omega
fraternity to the Southeastern Raptor Rehabilitation Center.
Alpha Phi Omega had looked after a succession of four “War
Eagles” since 1960.
Southeastern Raptor Rehabilitation Center director Joe
Shelnutt taught a 24-year-old golden eagle named Tiger to circle
Jordan-Hare stadium on cue.

AVMA dithers on farm animal welfare

September 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

DENVER–Distributing photographs of sows in gestation stalls,
Massachusetts delegate Peter Theran, VMD, on July 20, 2003 warned
the American Veterinary Medical Association House of Delegates that
if it continues to endorse the stalls, it might as well cease
pretending to advocate for animal welfare.
Theran, vice president of the Massachusetts SPCA hospital
division, urged support of a resolution submitted by Farm Sanctuary
asking the AVMA House of Delegates to withdraw a pro-gestation stall
position statement approved in 2002 at request of the American
Association of Swine Veterinarians.
Instead, the House of Delegates defeated that resolution,
then passed a resolution calling for more study of the issue.
Also, for the fifth consecutive year, the AVMA House of
Delegates rejected a resolution against starving laying hens to
induce a forced molt.
“Meanwhile, within the past three years, fast food giants
McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s, under pressure from animal
welfare advocates, have all banned forced molting through new
regulations for their egg suppliers. The practice is also banned in
Europe and the United Kingdom, and the Canadian Veterinary Medical
Association has taken a stand against it,” pointed out Association
of Veterinarians for Animal Rights representative Holly Cheever, DVM.

Five pilot whales regain freedom off Florida

September 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

MIAMI–The Florida Keys Marine Mammal Rescue Team on August
10 returned five pilot whales to the edge of the continental shelf,
12 miles offshore, where they frequently swim and feed. The four
adult female pilot whales and one yearling male were among a pod of
28 who became stranded on April 28. Eight died, six were
euthanized, and nine eventually were able to swim away, Florida
Keys Marine Mammal Rescue Team director Becky Arnold told Associated
Press. Approximately 1,000 volunteers helped to nurse back to health
the five who were judged capable of recovering in temporary
captivity. Tracking tags will allow researchers to follow them by
satellite for about eight months.

Wildlife Court Calendar

September 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

U.S. District Judge for the D.C. Circuit Gladys Kessler on
July 31 rejected a Fund for Animals lawsuit challenging the authority
of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue import permits for
Argali sheep trophies imported from Mongolia, Tajikistan, and
Kyrgyzstan. The Fund argued that hunting the Argali put the species
in peril. Responded Kessler, in granting a motion for summary
judgement solicited by Safari Club International on behalf of USFWS
and the Department of the Interior, “Because U.S. hunters generally
pay the highest prices for hunting permits issued by the Tajikistan
government, the absence of legal U.S. hunting substantially
decreased the permit revenues received by the Tajikistan government.
Because permit revenues were used in part for conservation and to
‘convince the local population not to poach,’ the decreased revenues
actually resulted in increasing the amount of poaching in the
region.” In short, Kessler reaffirmed the paradigm prevailing in
wildlife law since the Middle Ages that because hunters fund wildlife
management, wildlife management should favor hunting.

Editorial: Shelter killing & regional values

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

On page 17 of this edition ANIMAL PEOPLE presents our tenth
annual casualty count in the 131-year-old battle by humane societies
against dog and cat overpopulation.
For the first 100 years after the Women’s Humane Society of
Philadelphia became the first U.S. humane organization to take an
animal control contract, there was no visible progress. Even after
the numbers of dogs and cats killed in U.S. shelters and pounds began
to fall in the early 1970s, there was little recognition of
improvement. The numbers everywhere were still higher than almost
anyone could bear to study in any kind of depth.
As recently as 1993, the American Humane Association,
Humane Society of the U.S., and PETA still erroneously asserted that
the shelter killing toll was going up.

Prairie dogs with monkeypox blow the whistle on the exotic pet trade

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

CHICAGO, ATLANTA– With sentries ever
vigilant atop burrows, uttering different
whistles to denote flying, four-footed, and
two-footed gun-toting predators, what prairie
dogs do best is alert their whole habitat to the
approach of any danger.
In recent weeks prairie dogs alerted the
U.S. to the risk of little known lethal diseases
arriving from abroad through the exotic pet trade.
The triggering event was the arrival of
monkeypox, a milder cousin of smallpox, with 18
Gambian giant pouched rats and a number of
Ghanian dormice received on April 21 by Phillip
Moberly of Phil’s Pocket Pets in Villa Park,
Illinois.

Dog chaining bill signed in Connecticut

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

HARTFORD–Animal Advocacy Connecticut founder Julie Lewin
announced on July 10, 2003 that Connecticut Governor John G. Rowland
had signed the Confinement and Tethering of Dogs Act and three other
bills endorsed by AACT. To take effect on October 1, the
Confinement and Tethering of Dogs Act is the first state law in the
U.S. to limit how long a dog can be tethered outdoors.
Rowland vetoed a similar bill in 2002 that included specific
restrictions on tethering, but approved this one, spokes-person John
Wiltse told Associated Press, because it requires only that
tethering may not be for an “unreasonable period.” What is
“unreasonable” may vary with the weather and the breed and age of the
dog.

Neutersol hits the market; Third World seeks a price break

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

COLUMBIA, Missouri–Globally anticipated for more than 12
years, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March
2003, and officially introduced to the U.S. veterinary drug market
in May 2003, the injectible sterilant Neuterol is finally here–but
not there yet, overseas, in the impoverished nations where
uncontrolled reproduction of street dogs is most problematic.
As marketed so far by Addison Biolog-ical Laboratories,
Neutersol is only for American puppies, and then only for those
puppies whose caretakers are willing to pay almost as much for
sterilization by injection as for a conventional surgical castration
or vasectomy.
“Work is continuing with the FDA toward a clearance for cats
and older dogs,” Addison president Bruce Addison told Vet Practice
News.

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