Category: North America

Why can’t we stop the Omak Suicide Race?

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Why can’t we stop the Omak Suicide Race?
by Irene Muschel

The Omak Suicide Race, held each summer in Omak,
Washington, has been openly cruel to horses ever since a rodeo
promoter dreamed it up in 1935. It consists of galloping horses over
a steep cliff and across the Okanogan River as the main event at the
Omak Stampede rodeo–and is staged four times each rodeo week.
Why have horse protection groups not given more attention and
effort to stopping this event?
Four years after the Omak Suicide Race started, a Hollywood
producer chased a horse over a cliff during the making of the film
Jesse James. That happened just once. Public outrage over the death
of the horse led to the American Humane Association monitoring U.S.
screen productions.
Sixteen horses have died at Omak in the past 20 years.
Humans have been severely injured, and in earlier years at least one
rider was killed, but the Suicide Race is still promoted as a
tourist attraction, after a one-year suspension in 1999, and hardly
anyone seems to be doing anything about it.

Read more

Blind “justice” can’t tell chickens from dead wood

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

SAN DIEGO, California–Ward Poultry Farm owners Arie and
Bill Wilgen-burg, of Escondido, California, will not be charged
with cruelty for having employees toss more than 60,000 live hens
into wood chippers, the San Diego County district attorney’s office
announced on April 10, because the Wilgenburgs were told to chip the
chickens alive by a USDA-accredited veterinarian.
The veterinarian was neither working for the USDA nor
representing it, but was advising the Wilgenbergs about killing
their flocks, at two sites, to help halt the spread of the worst
outbreak of Newcastle disease since 12 million chickens and other
domestic birds were killed to control an outbreak in 1971.
San Diego County Animal Services Lieutenant Mary Kay Gagliardo later
told the Wilgenburgs to stop macerating the hens alive.
Live maceration would be prosecutable cruelty almost anywhere
if done to a pet. When done as a routine agricultural practice,
however, it is exempt from prosecution in most states, and is in
fact among the most common means used by egg ranchers to dispose of
unwanted male chicks and spent hens.

Read more

Legal action against ocean fishing

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson on April 10 held for
the fourth time in 13 years that 1988 amendments to the 1972 Marine
Mammal Protection Act oblige the U.S. to exclude imports of tuna
netted “on dolphin,” a method often used by foreign fleets because
dolphins and tuna feed on the same fish species and often swim
together. Surrounding feeding dolphins with nets therefore usually
captures tuna–as well as dolphins who do not escape before the nets
close. Henderson in May 1990 banned imports of yellowfin tuna from
Mexico, Venezuela, and Vanuatu. After Congress reinforced the 1990
verdict by introducing “dolphin-safe” labeling, Henderson in January
1992 banned $266 million worth of tuna imports from 30 nations. A
General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs panel in 1995 ruled that the
U.S. “dolphin safe” law is an improper trade barrier. The law was
eased by the 1997 International Dolphin Conservation Program Act,
but Henderson and U.S. Court of International Trade judge Judith
Barzilay issued conflicting verdicts when then-Commerce Secretary
William Daley tried to admit non-“dolphin-safe” tuna to the U.S. In
December 2002 the Commerce Department moved to allow U.S. firms to
market tuna netted “on dolphin” as “dolphin-safe,” if no dolphins
are known to have been killed during the netting, but Henderson
ruled that the 1990 definition of “dolphin-safe” must stand unless
the law is changed.

Read more

The dogs of war & other animals in liberated Iraq

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

BAGHDAD; CAMP PATRIOT, Kuwait–Mine-detecting dolphins and
war dogs were the nonhuman heroes of the U.S. liberation of Iraq from
Saddam Hussein.
It was an evolutionary homecoming of sorts. Fossils found in
Pakistan indicate that the common ancestors of dogs and dolphins may
have first differentiated in this very region circa 70 million years
ago.
Nine U.S. Navy dolphins were sent to the Persian Gulf from
San Diego. Makai, 33, and Tacoma, 22, performed briefly for news
media before patrolling the port of Umm Qasr, Oman with three
anonymous dolphins. Their team alternated shifts with Kahili, Kona,
Punani, and Jefe. Among them, they reportedly found 22 underwater
mines during their first two weeks of guarding Navy supply ships.
The U.S. Navy previously deployed six dolphins each to Cam
Ranh Bay in 1970 during the Vietnam War and off Bahrain in 1991
during the Persian Gulf War.
The German shepherds Ranny and Brit led the U.S. Army K-9
Corps into Tallil Air Base in Iraq. Handled by Staff Sergeant John
Logie and Sergeant Michael McDonald, their job was guarding Iraqi
prisoners.

Read more

Ed Sayres to head American SPCA

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

NEW YORK CITY, SAN FRANCISCO–Edwin J. Sayres, 54,
president of the San Francisco SPCA since January 1, 1999, was on
April 8 introduced as new president of the American SPCA in New York
City, to succeed Larry Hawk on June 2.
Hawk on February 3 was named to succeed Gus Thornton, who
retired, as president of the Massachusetts SPCA.
Sayres debuted in humane work as successor to his father,
Edwin Sayres Sr., who was longtime executive director of the St.
Hubert’s Giralda shelter founded by Geraldine Dodge Rockefeller on
her estate in New Jersey.
Sayres headed the American Humane Association animal protection
division 1995-1997, and then headed PETsSMART Charities for a year
before succeeding Richard Avanzino at the SF/SPCA, who retired after
24 years to lead Maddie’s Fund.
Succeeding Sayres as acting president of the San Francisco
SPCA will be current vice president Daniel Crain, also hired in
1999, while Jeffrey Proulx, DVM, the SF/SPCA director of
veterinary services since 2000, will take over direction of the
Roberts Medical Center, described as “the community’s first
comprehensive, multidisciplinary specialty veterinary center,
scheduled to begin construction in December 2003.”

Can a third grader identify a third-rate circus? Courts weigh activist rights

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

SCRANTON, Pa.–A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Third Circuit on April 15 unanimously upheld the
dismissal of a lawsuit against the Lacka-wanna Trail School District
in Scranton, Pennsylvania, alleging that Amanda Walker-Serrano,
then a third grader, was denied her First Amendment right to freedom
of expression in February 1999 when her school stopped her from
petitioning against a class trip to the Shriners’ circus in
Wilkes-Barre.
Amanda Walker-Serrano is the daughter of Scranton animal
advocates Lisa Walker and Michael Serrano. Her rights were not
violated, Judge Anthony J. Scirica wrote, because she was allowed
to distribute coloring books and stickers about animal abuse.
“Absent punishment for expression, a significant pattern of
concrete suppression, or some other form of clear suppression of the
expression of elementary school students, a federal First Amendment
action is not an appropriate forum for resolution of disputes over
schools’ control of third graders’ conduct,” opined Scirica.
Circuit Judge Morton I. Greenberg wrote, “I think it is
unlikely that the third-grade children here could have had knowledge
of how a circus treats its animals. After all, I have no such
knowledge myself.”

Read more

McDonald’s lawsuit award still in dispute

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

CHICAGO–Cook County Judge Richard Siebel on March 25
disqualified three of the 26 organizations that were named to share
the $10 million settlement of a class action brought against
McDonald’s Corp. for concealing from vegetarians that its French
fries are seasoned with beef broth.
Dropped due to alleged conflicts of interest involving
attorneys who worked on the case were the National Ramah Commission,
representing Conservative Jews; Arya Pratinidhi Sabha America, a
Hindu group; and the Department of Nutrition at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Whether new organizations will be named to replace these
three is reportedly undecided. Plaintiffs opposed to the settlement
indicated that they would appeal.

Dairies win two cases

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Ruling that government agencies are exempt from the
prohibitions on false advertising that apply to private citizens,
San Francisco Superior Court Judge David Garcia on March 25 dismissed
a lawsuit by PETA against a “Happy cows” ad campaign sponsored by the
California Milk Advisory Board. Arguing that scenes of cows in green
pastures used in the ads misrepresent the reality of how California
dairy cattle are kept, PETA previously complained to the Federal
Trade Commission. The FTC declined to take action in October 2002.

The Pennsylvania State Superior Court on April 8 upheld a
$96,000 verdict against the Fayette County SPCA for alleged invasion
of privacy in April 1993 while investigating the purported theft of a
dog and cruelty to a heifer reported by dairy farmer John Tabaj’s
former son-in-law during a messy divorce case. Tabaj was charged
with five counts of cruelty, but the charges were later dropped.
The incident caused the Pennsyl-vania legislature to mandate in
December 1994 that humane officers must be appointed by a judge. A
Fayette County jury in January 1992 ordered the $96,000 penalty
against the Fayette County SPCA, and ordered Tri-County Humane
Protection Inc., also involved in the raid, to pay Tabaj $105,000.
Tri-County Humane Protection is now defunct. The Fayette County SPCA
has indicated that the size of the award will force it to close,
too, leaving the county without an animal shelter.

Breeders blast dog transfers for adoption as alleged biohazard

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

HARTFORD, Connecticut; PORTLAND, Oregon–Rachel
With-erspoon, 40, of Litchfield, Connecticut, only wanted to help
the Kentucky Humane Society find homes for nine puppies. Her
misadventures in early March 2003, however, may have become Exhibit
A for introducing federal and state regulation governing what the
National Animal Interest Alliance decries as, “The mushrooming
practice of moving dogs around from one region to another and from
one shelter to another within regions,” also known as “humane
relocation.”
Founded in 1992 by Oregon dog breeder Patty Strand, the NAIA
represents many animal use industries, but most vigorously defends
the interests of dog breeders. The NAIA sees in humane relocation a
direct threat to breeders’ share of dog acquisitions.
As of 1994, three separate studies published by the American
Veterinary Medical Association and the National Pet Alliance found
that breeders and pet stores had about a third of the “new dog”
market. Shelters and rescuers had from 10% to 14%.

Read more

1 … 115 116 117 118 119 … 321