Luck runs out but racing goes on

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

    SANTA ANITA,  CHELTENHAM–Home Box Office cancelled the made-for-TV Dustin Hoffman/Nick Nolte drama series Luck on March 14, 2012 after three on-set horse fatalities in three years of videotaping at the Santa Anita race track in Arcadia,  California. At Cheltenham,  Glou-cestershire,  United Kingdom,  however,  the annual four-day Festival jumps meet continued before 220,000 spectators despite the deaths of three horses on opening day,  the same day that Luck ended,  and two horse deaths more the next day. Read more

Chicago mayor Emanuel replaces pit bull-friendly animal control director Cherie Travis

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

    CHICAGO–Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel on March 21,  2012 abruptly appointed two-time Chicago Animal Care & Control acting director Sandra Alfred to replace incumbent executive director Cherie Travis,  effective immediately.
Travis,  appointed by previous mayor Richard Daley,  had headed Chicago Animal Care & Control since November 2009.  Alfred had been deputy director of Chicago Animal Care & Control since 2001,  after spending 12 years with the Chicago Department of Health.  Emanuel,  formerly chief of staff for U.S. President Barack Obama, praised Alfred as “a champion for animal rights and advocate for animal care,”  who “knows every facet of the department and is a natural choice to lead the department’s efforts.”  Emanuel did not explain why the change was made.  “We simply decided to go in another direction with the leadership,”  mayor’s office spokesperson Sarah Hamilton told media. Read more

FoA wins 15-year-old wrongful dismissal case

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

    WASHINGTON D.C.–The District of Columbia Commission on Human Rights on March 20,  2012 ruled that former Friends of Animals special investigator Carroll Cox “failed to establish Respondent (FoA) terminated him based on his race or retaliated against him in the exercise of rights protected under the D.C. Human Rights Act.”
The ruling appears to end nearly 15 years of litigation resulting from about 140 days of employment.  FoA hired Cox,  a former special investigator for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and, earlier,  for the California Department of Fish & Game,   on a consulting basis on March 31,  1997.  FoA relocated Cox from Hawaii and put him on salary on July 7,  1997.  FoA terminated Cox on August 20,  1997. Read more

Sealing on thin ice

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

 

CAP-AUX-MEULES, Quebec— Seal clubbing and shooting started on March 22,  2012 for Iles-de-la-Madeleine vessels,  five days ahead of schedule,  because ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence were receding so rapidly that Quebec sealers were at risk of finding no seals to kill.
Canadian Fisheries Department area director Vincent Malouin told Canadian Press that only two to five boats from Iles-de-la-Madeleine were expected to hunt seals in 2012. Iles-de-la-Madeleine was allocated a sealing quota of 25,000,  from a total Canadian quota of 400,000,  the same as in 2011,  despite a lack of evident markets for seal pelts since 2010, when the European Union banned seal pelt imports. Read more

Iowa & Utah are first states to pass ag-gag laws

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

    DES MOINES,  SALT LAKE CITY –-Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and Utah Governor Gary Herbert on March 2,  2012 and March 20,  2012 signed into law the first two U.S. state “ag-gag” bills,  written to suppress undercover video exposés of animal handling.
Following a template introduced into at least eight state legislatures since 2010,  the Utah law creates a criminal offense called “agricultural operation interference,”  committed if a person,  “without consent from the owner of the operation,  or the owner’s agent,  knowingly or intentionally records an image of,  or sound from,  the operation, while the person is on the property where the agricultural operation is located,  or by leaving a recording device on the property where the agricultural operation is located.” Read more

Public may vote on Miami pit bull ordinance

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

Public may vote on Miami pit bull ordinance

MIAMI,  Florida–The Miami-Dade County public safety and health care administration committee on February 14,  2012 recommended to the county commission that voters should be asked on the August 2012 county ballot whether a 23-year-old ban on possession of pit bulls should be repealed.  This would apparently be the first time anywhere for a pit bull ban to be put before voters. Read more

SHARK wins "2nd Battle of Broxton Bridge"

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

SHARK wins “2nd Battle of Broxton Bridge”

EHRHARDT,  S.C.–Showing Animals Respect & Kindness on February 12,  2012 routed fewer than two dozen pigeon shooters at the second Battle of Broxton Bridge–but the shooters,  in retreat, allegedly gunned down a SHARK drone helicopter camera platform moments after takeoff. Read more

St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center to sell Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge art collection

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center to sell Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge art collection

MADISON,  New Jersey–Hoping to raise $500,000 toward the estimated $2.3 million cost of completing a shelter that has already cost $10 million and taken more than three years to build,  St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center president Heather Cammisa on January 22,  2012 announced the forthcoming sale of 150 works from founder Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge’s extensive art collection.  “It was an emotional decision to sell the art-bittersweet,” Cammisa told Daily Record of Parsippany staff writer Cara Townsend. Read more

Another Chicken Activist’s Perspective on Federal Legal Protection for Hens

ISSUES

by Paul Shapiro
Senior director of farm animal protection, Humane Society of the U.S.

In 1999, United Poultry Concerns rightly lauded the passage of the European Union’s law requiring a phase-in of better treatment of egg-laying hens by 2012, including a switch from barren battery cages to enriched colony cages.

“Europe Bans Battery Hen Cages” was the UPC newsletter’s headline,  with the article continuing that caging systems will be improved by reducing stocking density,  but that cage-free would have been better.  “Historic Day for Hens,”  continued another UPC headline about the EU announcement.  The article asserted,  “It is time for the United States and Canada to climb aboard,”   adding “The vote is a victory for the birds and for our struggle on their behalf in a country that,  to date,  accords to birds and to farmed animals no federal protection at all.” Read more

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