HSUS catches major retailers selling dog fur

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
NEW YORK CITY–The Macy’s fashion store chain on December 22,
2006 withdrew from sale two styles of Sean John brand hooded jackets,
after mass spectrometry testing commissioned by the Humane Society of
the U.S. revealed that “imitation rabbit fur” and “faux fur” collars
were made from the fur of tanuki dogs, members of the domestic dog
family with raccoon-like markings, native to China and Korea.
“A Sean John snorkel jacket on sale for $237.99 at Macys.com
specifically identified the materials used as ‘Nylon/faux fur/goose
down,'” HSUS said. “When investigators purchased the coat, they
found that the labels read ‘Made in China’ and ‘genuine raccoon fur.'”

Exterminator called to Primarily Primates

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
SAN ANTONIO–The messy plight of the Primarily Primates
sanctuary reportedly became messier still in early December 2006, to
the point that PETA-backed, state-appointed receiver Lee
Theisen-Watt called in ABC Pest & Lawn Services on December 13 to
kill rats, mice, and cockroaches.
“ABC is proud to be able to take on this project for free as
our holiday gift to the community,” said ABC general manager Mark
Ambrose.
“It was probably the worst roach infestation I’ve ever
seen,” Ambrose later told Chicago Tribune correspondent Howard Witt.
“Cockroaches carpeted the floors and walls of some animals’
sleeping houses.” wrote Witt, “Rats had colonized others.”

Are pit bulls the problem, or their people? Study raises the question

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
CINCINNATI–The view that pit bull terriers get into trouble
chiefly because the wrong people have them was reinforced on November
16, 2006 when a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of
Interpersonal Violence revealed that among a sampling of 355 people
who keep pet dogs, all who keep pit bulls turned out to have had
some sort of trouble with the law.
Thirty percent of the people in the sampling who had been
cited at least once for failing to license a pit bull were found to
have had at least five criminal convictions or traffic citations.
Only 1% of the people who keep dogs with a low risk of being involved
in an attack legally defined by Ohio municipal ordinances as
“vicious” had five or more convictions or traffic citations, the
researchers found.

U.S. shelter killing toll drops to 3.7 million dogs & cats

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

U.S. animal shelters as of mid-2007 are killing fewer dogs
and cats than at any time in at least the past 37 years, according
to the 15th annual ANIMAL PEOPLE evaluation of the most recent
available shelter data.
The rate of shelter killing per 1,000 Americans, now at
12.5, is the lowest since data collected by John Marbanks in
1947-1950 suggested a rate of about 13.5–at a time when animal
control in much of the U.S. was still handled by private contractors,
who often simply killed strays or sold them to laboratories instead
of taking them to shelters, and unwanted puppies and kittens were
frequently drowned.
The ANIMAL PEOPLE projection each year is based on
compilations of the tolls from every open admission shelter handling
significant numbers of animals in specific cities, counties, or
states. The sample base each year is proportionately weighted to
ensure regional balance. Only data from the preceding three fiscal
years is included.

Feral pigs become scapegoats–in the U.S. & around the world

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
SANTA BARBARA, California– Pigs were blamed for people
killing turkeys in the name of defending foxes against eagles.
The Nature Conservancy ended 2006 by hiring professional
hunters to kill about 250 of the estimated 300 wild turkeys on Santa
Cruz Island, within Channel Islands National Park. Nature
Conservancy spokes-person Julie Benson told Associated Press that the
killing was needed to protect endangered Channel Islands foxes,
after an 18-month, $5 million pig purge, also touted as essential
to protect the foxes, ended earlier in the year.
“Scientists said the kills are necessary because turkeys and
pigs provide prey for golden eagles,” summarized Associated Press.
“The eagles are attracted to the island, where they also kill the
endangered foxes. The island pigs kept the turkeys in check by
eating their eggs and competing with them for food. With nearly all
of the pigs gone, the turkey population boomed.”
The problem actually started, retired Channel Islands
National Park superintendent Tim J. Setnicka admitted in a March 2005
denunciation of “systematic biologic genocide” published by the Santa
Barbara News Press, when The Nature Conservancy and National Park
Service decided in 1972 to try to exterminate all non-native species
who inhabited the islands. The turkeys had just been introduced that
year.

Safe Air Travel for Animals Act questioned

December 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2006:
BOSTON–Eighteen months after the Safe Air Travel for Animals
Act took effect, five years after becoming federal law, observers
are beginning to ask whether it serves any useful purpose.
The law requires airlines to report losses or deaths of pet
animals in transit, previously reported voluntarily.
“Since June 2005,” wrote Boston Globe reporter Peter J. Howe
on November 3, 2006, “airlines have reported only 74 pet incidents,
involving roughly just 0.01 percent of all animals carried in cargo
holds during that period, a review of reports filed at the U.S.
Transportation Department found.”

Chimps go from Primarily Primates to Chimp Haven

December 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2006:
SAN ANTONIO–Seven chimpanzees who were at the center of
recent PETA allegations against the Primarily Primates sanctuary were
on November 16 relocated to Chimp Haven, in Keithville, Louisiana,
near Shreveport.
“The move sparked a rush of high emotion outside the
sanctuary,” summarized Jordan Smith of the Austin Chronicle, as
neither Primarily Primates senior staff nor the Primarily Primates
attorneys had been told that the chimps were to be moved.
Opened in October 2005, after 10 years of fundraising and
construction, the $14 million Chimp Haven complex houses 84 former
lab chimps in all, mostly under a contract from the National
Endowments of Health which allows the NIH to reclaim chimps for
further study if at any time they develop a medically interesting
condition or for any other reason are again wanted for lab use.
Not accredited by either the American Sanctuary Association
or the Association of Sanctuaries, Chimp Haven was itself intensely
controversial in January 2002, when ANIMAL PEOPLE explored the
debate about it. But it was Ohio State University researcher Sally
Boysen’s destination of choice for her nine chimps after OSU quit
funding their care–and the destination of choice for PETA, to whom
Boysen appealed for help when OSU sent the chimps to Primarily
Primates instead, along with $324,000 for their housing and $72,000
for their upkeep. The funding is to follow the chimps wherever they
end up, said OSU spokesperson Earle Holland.

Press coverage, “animal rights,” and “terrorism”

December 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

 From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  December 2006:



	Among the 1,216 newspapers archived at News-Library.com, the 
word "terrorism" appeared in under 2% of all  coverage of "animal 
rights" until  after the 2001 Al Qaida attacks on New York City and 
Washington D.C.--but "terrorism" has been mentioned in more than 6% 
of "animal rights" coverage ever since.
	Total coverage of "animal rights"  topped 6,000 articles for 
the first time in 2000,  and has remained higher than in any year 
before 2000.


Year   AR in    AR linked
     articles  to "terror"

1980 -    10    0  0%
1981 -    18    0  0%
1982 -    39    1  2%
1983 -    84    2  2%
1984 -   212    5  2%
1985 -   454    4  1%
1986 -   594    7  1%
1987 - 1,058   12  1%
1988 - 1,604   27  2%
1989 - 2,881   31  1%
1990 - 4,979  102  2%
1991 - 4,691   52  1%
1992 - 4,530   41  1%
1993 - 4,639   46  1%
1994 - 4,133   23  0%
1995 - 3,808   73  2%
1996 - 5,081   46  1%
1997 - 5,385  124  2%
1998 - 5,587   73  1%
1999 - 5,871  145  3%
2000 - 6,450   74  1%
2001 - 5,664  263  5%
2002 - 5,900  342  6%
2003 - 6,691  423  6%
2004 - 6,262  358  6%
2005 - 6,618  483  7%
2006 - 6,629  392  6%

Canadian local & regional humane societies call “national” appeals misleading

December 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2006:
MONTREAL–An old grievance of U.S. local and regional humane
societies has erupted across Canada in response to appeals by the
shelterless Toronto-based Humane Society of Canada and the
Montreal-based Canadian SPCA, which operates a shelter and
sterilization clinic in Montreal.
Both organizations are widely seen as poaching on local turf,
but Canadian SPCA mailings have raised the most visible ire.
“Fundraising appeals sent by the Montreal SPCA list local
postal boxes on the donation pledge form, so that donors in Nova
Scotia would mail to a Halifax address and those in Saskatchewan to a
Moose Jaw address,” wrote Toronto Globe & Mail Montreal
correspondent Tu Thanh Ha.
“We find it quite annoying. We have a hard enough time
fundraising for ourselves,” Moose Jaw Humane Society director Ray
Whitney told Tu Thanh Ha.

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