Category: North America

Feds funding egg industry effort to defeat California anti-caging initiative, suit alleges

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:

 

SAN FRANCISCO–U.S. Agricul-ture
Secretary Ed Schaefer personally approved giving
$3 million collected from egg producers for
co-promotions by the American Egg Board to the
agribusiness campaign against the California
Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, alleges a
lawsuit filed on August 13, 2008 by Californians
for Humane Farms.
The California Prevention of Farm Animal
Cruelty Act, Proposition Two on the 2008
California state ballot, would reduce the
stocking density for caged laying hens by 2015,
and after 2015 would prohibit raising pigs and
veal calves in crates that prevent them from
turning around and extending their limbs.
The American Egg Board money would more
than double the campaign fund in opposition to
Proposition Two, which had raised $2.16 million
as of August 12, 2008, according to the
California Secretary of State’s office.

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Gains in most regions against cat & dog surplus, but no sudden miracles

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  July/August 2008:



           Animals killed  YEAR  1,000s    Animals
         per 1,000 people       of people  killed
---------------------------------------------------------
New York City        2.0  2007  8,143    16,489
CONNECTICUT          0.6  2007  3,502     2,282
NEW HAMPSHIRE        2.3  2007  1,316     2,696
---------------------------------------------------------
NORTHEAST (39%)      1.6       33,562    54,972

NEW JERSEY           4.4  2007  8,866    38,742
Pr. George Cty, MD   7.1  2007    841     6,000
DELAWARE            15.8  2005    854    13,500
Philadelphia        19.9  2006  1,448    28,774
---------------------------------------------------------
MID-ATLANTIC (40%)   7.8       27,782   217,540


Mission Viejo, CA    1.0  2005    166       113
San Juan Capistrano  1.3  2007     37        48
San Francisco        1.6  2007    744     1,411
Huntington Beach     2.5  2006    194       485
Los Angeles city     3.7  2007  4,018    15,009
Orange County, CA    4.3  2007  3,002    13,000
San Diego            4.0  2007  2,942    11,700
WASHINGTON           6.6  2006  6,132    40,722
Los Angeles total    6.8  2007  9,503    64,457
Tehama County, CA    6.8  2006     62       421
Portland/Multnomah   7.8  2007    682     5,332
OREGON               8.4  2006  3,641    30,528
Los Angeles County   8.5  2007  5,082    43,373
Santa Clara County   8.5  2005  1,668    14,097
Anchorage            9.1  2007    275     2,490
San Bernardino Cty  11.3  2007  2,028    22,900
Merced Cty, CA      12.2  2006    246     3,011
Long Beach          13.0  2007    469     6,075
Lodi, CA            13.9  2005     57       788
Monterey County, CA 14.4  2006    412     5,912
Lindsay/Porterville 14.6  2005     56       817
Visalia, CA         16.4  2006    420     6,896
Santa Cruz Cty, CA  20.0  2005    251     5,000
Kern County, CA     23.3  2006    802    18,669
Spokane             22.1  2006    447     8,991
Stanislaus Cty, CA  23.4  2007    512    12,000
Douglas County      24.0  2005    104     2,519
Valley Oak,  CA     25.4  2005    210     5,336
Bakersfield, CA     26.2  2005    644    16,904
Clovis, CA          28.0  2006     90     2,524
Madera County, CA   35.2  2005    144     5,071
Kings County, CA    27.2  2005    147     4,013
Tulare Cty, CA      40.3  2005    154     6,203
Fresno, CA          40.9  2006    787    32,147
---------------------------------------------------------
PACIFIC (73%)        9.3       48,736   453,340

Broward County       7.3  2006  1,788    13,000
Richmond, VA         7.9  2007    193     1,516
West Palm Beach      9.5  2007  1,351    12,820
VIRGINIA            12.7  2007  7,643    97,011
St. Johns Cnty, FL  13.0  2007    169     2,201
Atlanta area        16.9  2005  5,138    87,000
Alachua Cty, FL     18.2  2006    224     4,071
Orlando/Orange Cty  18.6  2005  1,023    19,000
Lee County, FL      19.1  2007    571    10,907
Tampa area          19.9  2006  2,489    49,557
Buncombe Cnty, NC   21.6  2007    222     4,800
Duval County, FL    23.5  2007    838    19,662
Columbia, SC        23.5  2007    468    11,000
Charleston, SC      24.1  2007    332     8,000
NORTH CAROLINA      25.5  2006  8,856   226,000
York county, SC     37.7  2006    199     7,500
Polk County,  FL    40.3  2005    511    20,566
Rome/Floyd Cty, GA  42.3  2006     95     4,034
Macon, GA           42.3  2007     94     3,970
Volusia County, FL  42.3  2007    497    21,000
Alamance Cty, NC    42.4  2007    143     6,067
Clay County, FL     44.7  2007    179     8,000
Orangeburg Cty, SC  49.5  2006     91     4,500
Stokes County, NC   60.9  2007     46     2,792
---------------------------------------------------------
SO. ATLANTIC (67%)  19.6       48,976   957,262

Dallas              10.8  2005  2,306    25,000
Dallas/FtWorth rgn  14.2  2005  5,753    82,000
Austin/Travis Cty.  15.2  2007    921    14,000
Shelby County, AL   16.9  2007    178     3,000
Houston             18.4  2007  3,886    71,395
San Antonio         23.1  2006  1,300    30,000
Birmingham          23.8  2005    818    19,438
Fort Worth          24.9  2005    603    15,000
Conroe area, TX     26.8  2006    378    10,120
Baldwin County, AL  28.7  2007    129     3,700
Mobile              30.1  2005    401    12,071
Tuskaloosa, AL      30.1  2006    169     4,982
Gulfport            31.8  2006    194     6,160
Baldwin County, AL  33.3  2006    163     5,432
Blount County, AL   38.6  2006     56     2,153
LOUISIANA           38.6  2005  4,288   157,070
Shreveport/Caddo    48.0  2005    250    12,000
Longview, TX        70.8  2005    114     8,070
Tupelo, MS          55.4  2006     78     4,320
---------------------------------------------------------
GULF COAST (52%)    23.0       35,744   822,598

Mason County, MI     3.9  2007     30       116
Terre Haute          4.6  2005    169       780
Milwaukee            4.8  2005  1,700     8,162
Chicago              6.7  2006  2,833    19,000
Porter Cty, IN       6.8  2007    160     1,081
Macomb County, MI    7.2  2007    833     6,000
Oakland County, MI   8.2  2006  1,214    10,000
MICHIGAN            11.7  2006 10,096   117,919
Sangamon Cty, IL    14.4  2007    194     2,800
Columbus/Frnkln Cty 14.6  2006  1,096    16,000
OHIO                14.9  2004 11,467   170,638
St. Clair Cty, MI   15.3  2007    170     2,600
Indianapolis        16.7  2007    866    14,470
Oklahoma City       28.0  2007    691    19,365
Independence, MO    29.7  2006    113     3,361
Tulsa               39.2  2006    383    15,000
River Rouge, MI    129.4  2007      9     1,165
---------------------------------------------------------
MIDWEST (41%)       13.0       70,006   910,078

Salt Lake City       6.0  2005  1,016     6,094
Reno                 6.6  2007    396     2,622
COLORADO             9.1  2007  4,753    43,000
UTAH                14.4  2005  2,352    33,854
Phoenix/Maricopa    15.5  2007  3,768    58,531
Cascade County, MT  18.3  2005     79     1,446
Las Vegas/Clark Cty 22.1  2007  1,997    26,500
Albuquerque         23.8  2007    505    12,029
NEW MEXICO          33.7  2007  1,978    66,709
Santa Fe, NM        38.2  2005    130     5,000
---------------------------------------------------------
WEST (72%)          16.0       21,361   341,111

TENNESSEE (prjctd)  25.1  2006  6,039   151,329
Knoxville           29.9  2006    405    12,090
Kanawha/Charleston  34.1  2007    192     6,553
Louisville          42.9  2005    700    30,000
---------------------------------------------------------
APPALACHIA (46%)    27.1       15,045   408,439

U.S. TOTAL          13.8      301,212 4,165,340

	The regional and national totals appearing in bold are not 
tallies of the data used to produce them,  but are rather estimates 
proportionately weighted to reflect demography.  The percentage 
figure in parenthesis is the percentage of the regional human 
population encompassed within the shelter service areas from which 
the totals were derived.

 

Rise of Quebec politician to WSPA board presidency raises questions

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:
LONDON–The World Society for the
Protection of Animals board on June 5, 2008
elected Montreal attorney and 20-year WSPA board
member Dominique Bellemare to serve as board
president. This might have occasioned little
notice, except that Bellemare is a prominent
Canadian politician, who has no visible record
on such prominent Canadian political topics as
the Atlantic Canada seal hunt and efforts to
update the 1893 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Act.
Bellemare’s web site,
<dominiquebellemare.com>, as of his ascent to
the WSPA board presidency made no mention of
either animal issues or WSPA, but his 2004
campaign biography, distributed as part of an
unsuccessful run for Parliament, mentioned
involvement with the pro-hunting organization
Ducks Unlimited, as well as with WSPA and the
Humane Society of Canada.

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Three-day eventing confronts rising toll on riders & horses

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:

LEXINGTON, Kentucky– Widely regarded as an appropriate
horse sport for young women, three-day eventing has in recent years
suffered an injury and fatality rate among both horses and riders
that rivals British steeplechase racing and appears to far exceed
that of American-style track racing.
Public attention to safety in horse competitions as of June
7, 2008 remained focused on the parallel foreleg fractures suffered
on May 3 by the filly Eight Belles, moments after she placed second
to Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby.
In Lexington, however, leaders of the U.S. Equestrian
Federation and U.S. Eventing Association met to try to figure out how
to stop the little-noticed toll of eventing, which many eventing
veterans believe was once much less than it is today.

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Addenda to Swinging Canadian elections keeps the sealers swinging clubs: Animal Alliance of Canada pursues electoral strategy

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:
Addenda to Swinging Canadian elections keeps the sealers swinging clubs:
Animal Alliance of Canada pursues electoral strategy

Commentary by Merritt Clifton
Long before University of Texas at El Paso philosophy
department chair Steven Best became a popular speaker at animal
rights conferences, noted for fiery defenses of “direct action”
vandalism, film maker Stephen Best of Shelburne, Ontario became
quietly known to animal advocacy insiders–and the political
opposition–as one of the most astute strategists in the cause. When
defenders of the seal hunt produced strategy papers, obtained
eventually by news media, Best was repeatedly identified as one of
the voices most essential to isolate and neutralize, even though few
grassroots activists had ever heard his name.
Grassroots activists knew his work. Best’s 1973 documentary
Seal Song, commissioned by the International Fund for Animal
Welfare, “became part of the long-running British television series
Survival,” he remembers. More than that, Seal Song put the annual
Atlantic Canada seal hunt into living rooms worldwide. Eighteen
years earlier, film maker Harry Lillie brought back the first film
of the seal hunt, inspiring an informed few to revive anti-sealing
campaigns that had previously been waged in the early 1900s, late
1920s, and late 1930s, but it was Seal Song that turned the cause
into a cultural phenomenon.

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Texas horse slaughter ban applies to hauling too, says A.G.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:
AUSTIN–Texas attorney general Greg Abbott during the first
week of May 2008 issued a legal opinion that the state law against
slaughtering horses for human consumption also prohibits transporting
horsemeat from Mexican slaughterhouses to Texas ports for foreign
consumers.
“State representive Warren Chisum (R-Pampa), who supports
horse slaughter, said he requested the attorney general’s opinion
after being approached last year by an attorney for a slaughterhouse
in Mexico,” reported Lisa Sandberg of the San Antonio Express-News.
“Mexico kills horses, whether we like it or not, and people
in France eat them. And sometimes the slaughterhouses like to ship
the meat out of Corpus Christi or Houston,” Chisum told Sandberg.

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USDA to reinstate ban on slaughtering downed cattle for human consumption

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:

WASHINGTON D.C.–U.S. Agri-culture
Secretary Ed Schafer on May 20, 2008 concluded a
60-day review of U.S. slaughtering procedures by
announcing a total ban on killing for human
consumption any cattle “who are too weak to rise
or walk.”
“The planned change would shut down an
exception that allows a small number of so-called
‘downer’ cattle into the food supply if they pass
veterinary inspection,” explained Associated
Press writer Erica Werner. “Downer cows pose
increased risk for mad cow disease, E. coli and
other infections, partly because they typically
wallow in feces. They are already mostly banned
from slaughter [for human consumption], but
under current rules can be allowed if they fall
down after passing an initial veterinary
inspection, and then are re-inspected and pass
that second inspection, too. ”

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SPCA International controversy heats up after New York Times exposé

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:
MONTREAL, NEW YORK– Run an online
search for the web coordinates of the Montreal
SPCA, also known as the Canadian SPCA, and one
is likely to find www.SPCA.com.
This was the Montreal SPCA web address
for years, but somehow it was claimed by Pierre
Barnoti, executive director of the Montreal SPCA
from 1995 to March 2008.
Barnoti transferred www.SPCA.com to SPCA
International, an entity he incorporated in
Delaware, initially using a New Hampshire
mailing address and now using an address in
Washington D.C.
Now, reported Brad Stone of The New York
Times on May 18, 2008, “The new board members
at the Montreal SPCA,” having ousted Barnoti in
March 2008, “are looking at how to get their
domain name back.

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Fish & Wildlife Service seeks to leghold trap & shoot feral cats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:
VENTURA–“The U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service is proposing to use padded leg traps and
hunters to eradicate 100 to 200 feral cats now
living on U.S. Navy-owned San Nicolas Island to
protect endangered species,” Ventura County Star
reporter Scott Hadly revealed on June 6, 2008.
“Dogs also would be used to flush out some of the
harder-to-catch cats, according to the plan.
The cats would be shot or given a lethal
injection on the spot,” Hadly wrote.
14,000-acre San Nicholas Island, 60
miles off the California coast, is part of a
U.S. Navy sea test range. The only human
residents are Navy personnel. The Fish &
Wildlife Service contends that the habitat is too
rugged and inaccessible for neuter/return cat
control to be practicable, and that the cats are
much too wild to be tamed for possible adoption.

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