Dogs in hot cars

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
At instigation of Animal Issues founder Phyllis Daugherty and
state assembly member Anthony Portantino, the 2011 California Dept.
of Motor Vehicles drivers’ handbook is to include a warning about the
dangers of leaving dogs unattended in vehicles–which can carry a
fine of up to $500 plus six months in jail if harm to the dog
results. The handbook advisory follows a public education campaign
by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Animal advocates debate use of OvoControl to halt massacres of pigeons & geese

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

NEW YORK CITY–Controversy raged in New York City and suburbs
throughout summer 2010–as in most summers–over bird control.
In 2010, however, the disputes expanded from whether or not
birds should be killed to a division of opinion among animal
advocates over the possible introduction of OvoControl, a new avian
contraceptive made by Innolytics LLC, of California, as an
alternative to killing.
New York City Council member James Oddo, of Staten Island,
has pushed for the use of OvoControl against pigeons since 2007. New
York City Council members Brad Lander, Stephen Levin, and Letitia
James and New York state senator Eric Adams on August 11, 2010
joined representatives of In Defense of Animals at a City Hall rally
calling for the use of OvoControl instead of lethal culling against
nonmigratory Canada geese.

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New Mexico governor creates wild horse refuge & proposes chimp sanctuary

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
ALBUQUERQUE–New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson on September
17, 2010 announced a plan to use $2.9 million in federal economic
stimulus money to multiply the size of Cerrillos Hills State Park,
20 miles south of Santa Fe, more than tenfold by adding the former
Ortiz Mountain Ranch to it, turning it into the largest wild horse
sanctuary in the world.
Then, just ahead of a September 21 media conference called
to discuss the wild horse sanctuary, Richardson toured the
Alamogordo Primate Facility on Holloman Air Force Base near
Albuquerque and recommended that it should become a non-invasive
behavioral research lab.

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Fur trade thwarts anti-fur legislation

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
BRUSSELS, TEL AVIV, SACRAMENTO–Fur trade lawyers and
lobbyists three times in less than 40 days kept anti-fur legislation
from taking effect.
The European Union ban on imports of seal products, mostly
pelts, officially took effect on August 20, 2010, more than a year
after final passage in July 2009, but the European Court of Justice
on August 19 stayed enforcement against the plaintiffs in a lawsuit
seeking to overturn the ban, brought by the Canadian Seal Marketing
Group, the Fur Institute of Canada, NuTan Furs, the Inuit
Circumpolar Conference Greenland, and GC Reiber Skinn AS of Norway,
as well as individual hunters and trappers. Among them, the
plaintiffs include most of the sealing industry. The General Court
gave them until September 7 to file arguments against the ban. A
verdict is due before the start of the 2011 Atlantic Canada sealing
season.

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American Humane Association approves decompressing chickens

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
DENVER–Former Pew Charitable Trusts
deputy director of philanthropic services Robin
Ganzert took office on August 31, 2010 as new
chief executive officer of the American Humane
Association with a statement distancing the AHA
from “extreme ideas purported by those who argue
thatŠpeople have no right to raise animals for
food.”
Ganzert in her next sentence mentioned
“the inhumane farming practices that contributed
to the massive egg recall” due to salmonella
contamination of eggs produced primarily by farms
owned by Austin “Jack” DeCoster, whose abusive
methods on some of those same farms were exposed
only weeks earlier by the vegan advocacy group
Mercy for Animals.

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Voting to end Wild Animal Orphanage, board seeks new homes for 297 animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

SAN ANTONIO–Wild Animal Orphanage
directors Suzanne Straw, Michelle Cryer, and
Chris Smith on August 31, 2010 unanimously voted
to dissolve the 17-year-old sanctuary, one of
the largest in the world, with 297 animals–some
at the seven-acre original site just outside San
Antonio, most at a 102-acre site located farther
away.
Founders Carol and Ron Asvestas were
ousted from the Wildife Animal Orphanage
management in an October 2009 coup d’etat led by
their daughter Nicole Garcia, amid financial
stress following years of allegations of
mismanagement by former volunteers and donors.

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EPA agrees to regulate factory farm emissions & effluents

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Thirty-eight years after Congress told
agribusiness to clean up their act, an estimated 20,000 factory
farms may at last have to account for what they do with 500 million
tons per year of cattle, pig, and poultry effluent.
Settling a lawsuit brought in 2009 by the Natural Resources
Defense Council, Sierra Club, and the Waterkeeper Alliance, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on June 1, 2010 agreed to
identify and investigate manure discharges by factory farms.
If the EPA honors the settlement, the outcome could be the
biggest economic blow to the meat industry yet, following three
years of losses attributed to rising feed and fuel costs.

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Ted Nugent pleads “no contest” to poaching

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

SACRAMENTO–Rock star and Outdoor Channel hunting show host
Ted Nugent on August 17, 2010 pleaded “no contest” in Yuba County
Superior Court to misdemeanor charges of illegally baiting a deer and
failing to have a properly signed hunting tag. Nugent was fined
$1,175.
The violations came to light when Nugent broadcast videotape
of his actions on the February 9, 2010 edition of his Spirit of the
Wild television program.
Hunting guide Ross Albert Patterson was fined $1,125 after
pleading “no contest” in connection with the same incidents, which
occurred in September 2009 in El Dorado County, California, near
the town of Somerset.

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People & positions

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:
Peter Davies, previously director general of the Royal SPCA
and then of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, was on
August 16, 2010 named chair of the management committee of the
Marjan Centre for the Study of Conflict & Conservation, a project of
the War Studies department at King’s College, London. The Marjan
Centre is headed by longtime King’s College faculty member Michael
Rainsborough.
Dori Villalon joined the American Humane Association in June
2010 as vice president for animal protection. Villalon was
previously vice president of the San Francisco SPCA, after heading
Sonoma County Animal Care & Control, the Cleveland Animal Protection
League, and the Larimer Humane Society .

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