Judges overturn Bush sonar waiver

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
LOS ANGELES, HONOLULU–U.S. President George W. Bush on
January 15, 2008 exempted the U.S. Navy from a preliminary
injunction creating a 12-nautical-mile no-sonar off Southern
California, meant to protect marine mammals, but the Navy is not
“exempted from compliance with the National Environmental Policy
Act,” U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ruled on February 4
in Los Angeles.
Three days later, on February 7, U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth
Laporte of San Francisco found that the Navy failed to take adequate
precautions to protect marine mammals before using low-frequency
sonar in submarine detection exercises. Laporte directed the Navy to
establish sonar-free zones around eight locations worldwide that
attract sound-sensitive species.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
then ruled on February 29 in Los Angeles that the Navy must observe
Cooper’s February 4 ruling.

U.S. Supreme Court upholds breed-specific legislation

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. Supreme Court on February 19, 2008
upheld the constitutionality of breed-specific dog regulation by
refusing to hear an appeal of Toledo vs. Tellings, a challenge to
the Toledo ordinance limiting possession of pit bull terriers to one
per person, and requiring that pit bulls be muzzled when off their
home property.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in favor of Toledo in August
2007. The Ohio Supreme Court verdict followed other court decisions
upholding breed-specific legislation in Arkansas, Colorado,
Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, Utah, Washington,
and Wisconsin.

Another bloody winter for the hungry Yellowstone National Park bison herd

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
WEST YELLOWSTONE–Bison defenders fear that the winter of
2007/2008 will become one of the bloodiest in decades of trying to
protect Yellowstone National Park bison who stray into Montana,
seeking forage.
“With heavy snow falling, and the end of winter weather possibly
months away, the death toll this year is fast approaching the 1,016
bison killed during the winter of 2004/2005,” Associated Press
writer Matthew Brown observed on February 26, 2008.

Atlantic Canada sealing starts off Nova Scotia

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
The 2008 Atlantic Canadian sealing season started with a
mid-February cull on Hay Island, off Nova Scotia, demanded by
fishers who blame seals for the failure of cod to recover despite 16
years of fishing limits.
“Nova Scotia already has a yearly quota of 12,000 grey seals,
but in recent years hunters have rarely taken more than a few hundred
annually,” reported John Lewandowski of Canadian Press.
Acknowledging that the primary purpose of the Hay Island cull
was to try to stimulate commercial sealing, Nova Scotia fisheries
minister Ron Chisholm authorized participants to kill up to 2,500
seals. They actually killed about half that many.

Slaughterhouse cruelty leads to biggest beef recall in U.S. ever

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
CHINO, Calif.; WASHINGTON D.C.–Animal advocates are hoping
that the biggest meat recall in U.S. history will finally bring
enforcement of federal slaughter standards, 50 years after Congress
passed the Humane Slaughter Act, 30 years after making compliance
“mandatory”–on paper.
Responding to videotape produced by an undercover
investigator for the Humane Society of the U.S., the USDA on
February 3, 2008 withdrew inspection of the Hallmark/ Westland Meat
Company in Chino, Calif-ornia, forcing the slaughterhouse to close.
The video showed downed cows being forced to their feet to
walk to slaughter by means including electroshock, tail-yanking,
kicking, lifting them with a forklift, and ramming them with the
forklift tines.

U.S. to phase out animal testing

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:

BETHESDA, Maryland–Animal testing to meet U.S. federal
regulatory requirements is officially on the way out at last.
“The Environmental Protection Agency, the National Toxicology
Program and the National Institutes of Health have signed a
memorandum of understanding to begin developing the new methods,”
reported Elizabeth Weise of USA Today on February 14, 2008,
scooping most other media by about 24 hours. “The collaboration is
described in a paper in the February 15 edition of the journal
Science.”
“We propose a shift from primarily in vivo animal studies to
in vitro assays, in vivo assays with lower organisms, and
computational modeling for toxicity assessments,” wrote National
Humane Genome Research Institute director Francis S. Collins, EPA
research and development director George M. Gray, and National
Toxicology Program associate director John R. Bucher.

“Right to rescue” cases in Michigan, Texas, and Ontario, Canada

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
The nationally publicized prosecution and sentencing of Dogs
Deserve Better founder Tammy Grimes was only the most prominent of
several similar cases attracting significant regional attention at
almost the same time.
“Two dogs chained for five frigid weeks outside an abandoned
home in Eaton County [Michigan] are now in compassionate hands at the
Capital Area Humane Society,” reported John Schneider of the Lansing
State Journal on February 23, 2008. “After arguing with concerned
neighbors for more than a month that he had no legal right to
intervene, Eaton County Animal Control Director Larry Green seized
the dogs Friday morning and delivered them to the humane society.
“Green had been telling residents urging him to act on behalf
of the abandoned animals–and who, out of pity, had been giving
them food and water–that as long as they were being fed and watered,
Animal Control couldn’t use ‘neglect’ as grounds for intervention,”
Schneider recounted.

Dogs Deserve Better founder to be sentenced after Have A Heart for Chained Dogs Week

January 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:

HOLIDAYSBURG, Pa.–Tammy Grimes, 43, who founded the
anti-chaining organization Dogs Deserve Better in 2002, will
celebrate Valentine’s Day 2008 by coordinating her 6th annual “Have A
Heart for Chained Dogs Week,” which annually delivers valentines and
treats to as many as 8,000 dogs who live their lives on chains.
Grimes will then be sentenced on February 22 for theft and receiving
stolen property.
Grimes on September 11, 2006 removed an elderly and
apparently painfully dying dog from the yard of Steve and Lori Arnold
of East Freedom, Pennsylvania, after the Central Pennsylvania SPCA
failed to respond to repeated calls about the dog from neighbor Kim
Eichner. Grimes took the dog to the office of Altoona veterinarian
Noureldin Hassane, who testified that he found the dog was in
extremis. Later Grimes took the dog from the clinic and placed him
in a foster home for the remainder of his life. He died on March 1,
2007.

API wildlife director Camilla Fox returns to school to help coyotes

January 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
PRESCOTT, Arizona–Camilla Fox, the 10-year director of
wildlife programs for the Animal Protection Institute, is now
pursuing a master’s degree at Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona
as recipient of the first Christine Stevens Wildlife Award,
presented by the Animal Welfare Institute. AWI founder Stevens
headed the AWI from 1951 until her death in 2002.
The $10,000 award “aims to advance research in the
often-overlooked area of non-lethal wildlife management,” explains
the AWI web site.
Fox at API waged prominent campaigns on behalf of many
species, but coyotes were of special concern to her. Her father
Michael W. Fox is a prominent researcher of canine history, a
longtime syndicated veterinary columnist, and a former vice
president of the Humane Society of the U.S., “who did field
research studying the behavior of wild canids, so I always had them
around me while I was growing up,” Fox recalls.

« 1 … 58 59 60 61 62 … 321 »