Saskatoon gopher derby may go into the hole

June 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

SASKATOON, Saslatchewan–Started on April 1, the Ken Turcot
Memorial Gopher Derby was touted by Saskatoon Wildlife Federation
business manager Len Jabush as perhaps the biggest killing contest in
Canadian history.
Jabush told Karen Morrison of The Western Producer that he
distributed 10,000 entry forms, expecting 2,000 contestants to pay
$20 each to have their “gopher” tails counted, and was “scrambling”
to print more. He did not say, “April fool!”

Rats, mice, birds, dogs and bears all lose in weakened U.S. Farm Bill

June 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

WASHINGTON D.C.–U.S. President George W. Bush on May 13
signed a Farm Bill that The New York Times editorially called “a
regrettable reversion to some of the worst polices of the past.”
The New York Times referred in specific to “a $50 billion
increase in subsidies to big producers of row crops such as feed corn
over the next 10 years–a 50% jump over present levels and a complete
reversal of promising attempts to wean farmers off all subsidies.”
The chief effect of the higher row crop subsidies will be to continue
artificially suppressing the cost of feeding poultry, hogs, and
cattle in intensive confinement.

Fewer hunters, more brain disease

June 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

ANNAPOLIS, DENVER, HARRISBURG, MADISON, WASHINGTON
D.C.–Maryland Governor Parris Glendening on May 15 vetoed a bill
which would have increased the state deer hunting season from 13 days
to at least 21 days, including the first Sunday of the season.
Vetoing a bill overwhelmingly favored by the hunting lobby
was political suicide not long ago, especially in a southern state,
and even in the name of keeping the sanctity of the Sabbath.

Puppy mills

June 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

Sixty surviving dogs, among 75 seized in January from
breeder Inocente Dominguez Morales of Harlingen, Texas, were to be
auctioned on May 25, “as ordered by Cameron County Justice of the
Peace David A. Wise, much to the dismay of the Harlingen Humane
Society,” said South Texas Animal Sanctuary president Bob Sobel.
“The ruling to sell the abused animals and award half the proceeds to
the abuser is a blemish on the enforcement of anti-cruelty laws,”
Sobel continued. “There was no penalty, no fine, no admonition to
compel future observance.” Wise invoked an old law which pertained
originally to the sale of strayed cattle. The Wise verdict did not
apply to about 25 dogs held by the South Texas Animal Sanctuary in a
related case, seized a day after the Harlingen raid from the Puppies
“R” Us franchise owned by Patrick Scott Kingsbury in Weslaco,
Hidalgo County.

Good dogs, bad dogs, and a dog who was framed for murder

June 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

SAN FRANCISCO– California public agencies in early May 2002
continued a recent trend of favoring good dogs’ right to live in
public housing and emphasizing the culpability of owners for bad dog
behavior–especially owners who could be expected to know better than
to allow it.
The California Fair Employment and Housing Commis-sion
assessed penalties of $18,000 against the Auburn Woods I Home-owners’
Association for allegedly discriminating against former tenants Ed
and Jayne Elebiari by barring their dog Pookie, who was adopted from
a shelter in 1999 and helped them cope with severe depression.

Canadians may kill most seals since 1951

June 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

OTTAWA–Admitting that Atlantic Canadian sealers had already
killed 295,000 harp seals this spring when the original 2002 quota
was 275,000 and the “total allowable catch” was only 257,000, the
Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans on May 2 raised the quota
to 320,000 and extended the sealing season to May 15.
Then on May 15 the DFO further extended the season, to the end of May.
The “total allowable catch” is the number of seals who can be
killed without causing a population decline. It is likely that the
Atlantic Canada seal population will now crash, as ice failed to
form or melted early in much of the Gulf of St. Lawrence this year,
almost wiping out the whelping season west of Newfoundland.

Fewer fighters, more dogs

May 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

PUEBLO, Colorado–Issuing one of the stiffest sentences yet
given to a convicted dogfighter, District Judge Scott Epstein of
Pueblo, Colorado, on April 15, 2002 sent Brian Keith Speer to
state prison for six years.
Speer, 32, of Colorado Springs, is to serve 18 concurrent
three-year sentences for 18 felony counts of animal fighting, plus
three more years for his felonious mistreatment of one especially
badly injured pit bull terrier found in his possession during a June
2000 raid on his trailer home near Boone.

Editorial: “Rescue” should not perpetuate the problem

May 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

Nine years ago, in April 1993, ANIMAL PEOPLE first brought
the plight of the Premarin mares and their foals to the attention of
the humane community.
Citing a previously unpublicized investigation by Tom Hughes
of the Canadian Farm Animal Care Trust, we pointed out that the
farms that gather the pregnant mares’ urine from which the estrogen
supplement Premarin is made typically keep the mares stabled and
connected to collection tubes from September to April each year.
Rarely were the PMU mares released for outdoor exercise then, and
their holding conditions now seem little different.

Wildlife/human conflict–U.S., Canada, France, Australia, Uganda

May 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

Where did all the coyotes go?

A complaint to the Better Busi-ness Bureau filed in March
2002 by Laura Nirenberg, executive director of the Wildlife
Orphanage rehabilitation center in LaPorte, Indiana, alleges that
Guardian Pest Control, with offices in two Indiana cities plus
Illinois, defrauds customers by promising to relocate nuisance
animals and then kills them instead. According to the report forms
which all nuisance wildlife trappers are required to file with the
Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Guardian Pest Control in
2001 released 124 squirrels and 10 bats, but killed 80 chipmunks,
49 feral cats, 40 groundhogs, 126 moles, 10 muskrats, 43
opossums, 363 raccoons, and six skunks.

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