Dog law updates

November 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:

Dog attacks

Police in Melbourne, Australia, confirmed on September 6
that a charge of reckless conduct would be brought against a
defendant believed to be alleged illegal marijuana grower Debra Susan
Marks, 39, of Moe, for the February 1999 fatal mauling of her
former landlord, Holocaust survivor Leon Tarasinski, 75. Director
of public prosecutions Paul Coghlan recommended the charge in April
2002, after a three-year campaign by Tarsinski’s widow Shelley, 62,
and the Crime Victims Support Association. The prosecution will be
the first attempt in Victoria state to win a criminal conviction for
a fatal dog attack, and the second attempt anywhere in Australia.
Giovanni Pacino, 35, of Western Australia, was convicted of
manslaughter in 1998 after his Rottweilers killed neighbor Perina
Chokolich, 85, but his conviction was reversed on appeal.

Sanctuaries, wildlife feel the heat from global warming

November 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:

Already afflicted by economic drought pushing more than 100
nonprofit animal shelters and sanctuaries into dissolution, the
animal care community was hit during summer 2002 by fires, floods,
and drought too.
Disaster often overtook refuges and sanctuaries with unimagined speed.
Darlene Kobobel, 40, was just barely able to move 12 wolves
and wolf hybrids on short notice from her 8.5-acre Wolf Rescue Center
in Lake George, Colorado, in June, Baltimore Sun correspondent
Stephen Kiehl wrote. Housing the animals temporarily in a barn near
Colorado Springs, Kobobel fed them meat from elk and deer caught by
the flames.

O.J. Simpson among alleged threats to manatees

November 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:

ORLANDO–Florida speedboaters smashed their 1999 record of
killing 82 manatees in one year on September 26, as the 83rd manatee
to be fatally injured in 2002 died under emergency care at Sea World
Orlando.
With three full months of 2002 remaining, manatee experts
expect that the total for this year may exceed 100, after three
years in a row of counts between 78 and 82. The average toll for the
fourth quarter over the past four years was 15.
The number of manatees killed by speedboats has risen ever
since records were first kept in 1974, but did not top 50 in a year
until 1989. Since then, the toll has soared –along with the number
of boats in the water.

Canadians try to revive pro-animal bills

November 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:

VANCOUVER, OTTAWA, TORONTO– British Columbia Supreme Court
Justice James Shabbits on Sept-ember 3 ruled in response to a
petition from the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and
EarthJustice that Cattermole Timber Inc. may log 88 hectares of
old-growth spotted owl habitat because, in Shabbits’ view, the B.C.
Forest Practices Code includes no requirement that species be saved
from extirpation or extinction.
Such a requirement does exist in the U.S., where similar
cases have blocked or delayed logging throughout the Northwest, but
not in Canada, whose national endangered species protection law
still includes no enforcement provisions.

Suit seeks to end pheasant stocking by Park Service

November 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:

BOSTON–The Fund for Animals, Humane Society of the U.S.,
Massachusetts SPCA, and individual Cape Cod residents on September
20 filed suit against the National Park Service for collaborating
with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife to release
hundreds of captive-bred pheasants each year for hunters to shoot at
the ecologically fragile Cape Cod National Seashore.
“The National Park Service is exterminating black rats on
Anacapa Island, California, and evicting wild burros from the
Mojave desert because they are not native,” pointed out Fund for
Animals executive vice president president Mike Markarian, whose
organization has also contested those actions, “but is purposely
introducing exotic species for use as targets,”
Markarian was promoted to the presidency of The Fund on
September 24. Marian Probst, assistant to Fund founder Cleveland
Amory from the 1967 start of the organization until Amory died in
1998, and president since then, became chairperson, continuing as
chief financial officer and administrator.

Grizzly mama mauls deadbeat dad

November 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:

WEST YELLOWSTONE, Montana–Buffalo Field Campaign staff
protesting against round-ups and slaughters of bison who leave
Yellowstone National Park quickly disassociated themselves from
Jeffrey Scheu, 36, who joined the campaign as a volunteer on August
26, identifying himself as “Jesshua Amun,” and suffered a broken
nose, facial cuts, and an injured knee two days later after he and
three other volunteers accidentally approached a grizzly bear sow
with two cubs.
The other volunteers either froze or dropped to the ground to
avoid posing a threatening appearance, but said Scheu tried to run.
Airlifted to Idaho Falls for medical treatment, Scheu turned
out to be wanted in Butler County, Ohio, for nonpayment of child
support. The Buffalo Field Campaign learned his actual identity from
news media.

California blood bank bill helps to relegate pound seizure to history

November 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:

SACRAMENTO, California–The once ubiquitous and unrestrained
biomedical use of homeless dogs and cats acquired from public pounds
receded farther into history on October 3, as California Governor
Gray Davis signed into law SB 1345, by state senator Sheila Kuehl.
“Establishing the first-ever protections for animal blood
donors used by commercial blood banks in California,” according to
United Animal Nations spokesperson Pat Runquist, SB 1345 “was
supported by a broad coalition of veterinary groups, animal
protection organizations, and more than 300 individuals, many of
whom live near blood bank kennels in Butter and Glenn counties in
Northern California,” Runquist continued.

Bear drug rape case

November 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:

RESERVE, New Mexico– Former Hornocker Wildlife Institute
researcher Patrick Ryan, 51, convicted on July 23 of 36 criminal
charges including kidnapping, aggravated battery with a deadly
weapon, and 20 counts of rape, was due for sentencing as ANIMAL
PEOPLE went to press on October 8.
Ryan allegedly kept research assistant Jennifer Cashman (now
Lisignioli) heavily drugged for seven months in 1996-1997 by slipping
the animal tranquilizers ketamine and telazol into her food at a bear
research station in the Gila Wilderness. Both were assigned to the
station as part of a five-year study of the impact of hunting on
bears, commissioned by the New Mexico Dept. of Game and Fish.

Recovery from misuse of funds takes years

October 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

SANTA CRUZ, Calif.; SEVIERVILLE, Tenn.–Catching alleged
misuse of funds by trusted executives can be difficult. Recovering
from the damage may be harder still, the recent experiences of tbe
Santa Cruz SPCA and Sevier County Humane Society seem to
illustrate–while some of the people involved with each organization
maintain that their major problem all along has just been unfriendly
news coverage.
Serving an affluent and picturesque California coastal
community, the Santa Cruz SPCA is just a long but pleasant commute
from either the Silicon Valley–the Santa Clara Valley on maps –or
San Francisco.

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