A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
ANIMAL PEOPLE has learned, 11 years after publication, that the November 2000 article “Million hens killed in Ohio-twister hits like forced molt” conflated the identities of two sons of Anton Pohlmann, who built battery egg production complexes in both Lower Saxony, Germany, and Ohio.
Both complexes have been in frequent legal difficulty for decades over a variety of labor, occupational safety, and environmental quality issues. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2011:
The release of 56 large exotic and dangerous animals from the
Muskingum County Animal Farm and subsequent killing of 48 of the
animals on October 19, 2011 was not unprecedented.
Fifteen lion/tiger hybrids called ligers were on September
21, 1995 shot by a neighboring landowner and a 50-member sheriff’s
posse after breaking out of the Ligertown Game Farm in Lava Hot
Springs, Idaho. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2011:
How many large carnivores are in private hands in the U.S.?
There are no comprehensive lists of most species. Guesstimates
commonly hold that there are more tigers alone, just in Texas, than
the 3,200 tigers remaining in the wild, or at least more than the
1,400 tigers still in the wild in India. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2011:
ZANESVILLE–After Terry W. Thompson released 56 tigers, lions, bears, and other dangerous animals on October 19, 2011, and then shot himself, and after Muskingum County sheriff’s deputies shot 48 of the animals, practically everyone agreed that Thompson should never have had his animal collection in the first place. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2011:
MEMPHIS--A report to Memphis mayor A.C. Wharton, Jr. by the
Memphis Rotary Club Animal Shelter Evaluation Committee on October
26, 2011 affirmed longtime activist suspicion that dogfighters are
operating with impunity within the city animal control department.
Opened the report, “A review of the labor contract would
show no articles that would interfere with or hinder the appropriate
and efficient operation of the facility. The interpretation of the
contract, and more important, the interference of city hall in this
interpretation, is a different matter. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2011:
HONOLULU--New Honolulu mayor and former city prosecutor Peter
Carlisle is expected to end a city contract which since 2005 has paid
cockbreeders Pat and Jose Royos of Royos Farm in the Waiahole Valley
$480,000 to field complaints about feral chickens and roosters
crowing. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2011:
WASHINGTON D.C.--A Congressional conference committee
scrapped House-approved language prohibiting the use of USDA funds
for horse slaughter inspections while reconciling differing House and
Senate versions of the “mini-bus” Agriculture,
Commerce/Justice/Science appropriations bill signed into law on
November 18, 2011 by U.S. President Barrack Obama. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2011:
SPRINGFIELD, N.J.--A three-alarm fire killed two giraffes,
three dogs, four cats, and 15 parrots at the Animal Kingdom Pet
Store & Zoo on October 31, 2011 in Springfield Township, New
Jersey. About 20 puppies were reportedly rescued. Owner Burton K.
Sipp, 67, told George Mast of the Cherry Hill Courier Post that he
was in Arizona on horse racing business at the time of the fire. The
fire started at about 8:45 p.m., about half an hour after Sipp’s
brother George said a Halloween party in the store had ended.
“Some kind of explosion must have ignited it,” George Sipp
told Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Darran Simon. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2011:
ZANESVILLE–Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz on the evening of October 18, 2011 ordered his deputies to kill 18 tigers, 17 African lions, six black bears, two grizzly bears, two wolves, and a baboon because he believed that the circumstances under which they were running loose–including a failed attempt to shut some of them back in their breached cages–left no other options.
Reported Zanesville Times Recorder staff writer Hannah Sparling, “Sam Kopchak, 64, owns about four acres on Kopchak Road,” next door to Terrry Thompson’s 73-acre Muskingum County Animal Farm. Kopchak was walking his horse Red back to his barn when he noticed a group of about 30 horses on Thompson’s property acting
strange, he said. He looked a little closer and saw they were running from a bear. Then, Kopchak turned around and saw a male African lion standing about 30 feet from him and Red. The only thing separating them was a 4- or 5-foot wire fence, he said.”
“I don’t know how I controlled myself,” Kopchak told Sparling. “We made a beeline toward my barn.” Read more