A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
HOUSTON––U.S. federal prosecutors on May 16, 2013 dropped the last two of seven obscenity charges filed in October 2012 against alleged “crush video” producers Ashley Nicole Richards, 22, and Brent Wayne Justice, 51, and filed a notice of appeal on five counts that were dismissed on April 17, 2013 by U.S. District Judge Sim Lake. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
BOSTON––The New England Primate Research Center is to close by 2015, the Harvard Medical School announced on April 24, 2013. The center houses about 2,000 monkeys, among them about 1,500 rhesus macaques and colonies of cotton-top tamarins and squirrel monkeys, and hosts about 130 current studies, employing 200 scientists and primate caretakers. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
WASHINGTON D.C.––”A recent unexpected delay” has indefinitely postponed the anticipated removal of gray wolves in the Lower 48 states from U.S. endangered species list protection, Associated Press reported on May 21, 2013, citing only “a court filing” by “government attorneys.” Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
By Merritt Clifton & Kim Bartlett
The American Veterinary Medical Association, 150 years old this year, has from the beginning pitched a broad tent. The AVMA is at once a trade association representing the economic concerns of veterinarians; a professional body setting veterinary standards; an umbrella for ongoing efforts to advance veterinary science; a provider of continuing professional education to vets; a disaster relief agency; a provider of public education about animal issues; and an entity which seeks to influence public policy. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland–– The 2013 Maryland state legislature adjourned on April 8, 2013 without passing a bill meant to “abrogate” an April 2012 state Court of Appeals ruling that “When an attack involves pit bulls, it is no longer necessary to prove that the particular pit bull or pit bulls are dangerous,” for a victim to claim damages from whoever possesses the dog or dogs. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
PHILADELPHIA––Five years into an ongoing campaign to stop pigeon shoots held at the Philadelphia Gun Club for at least 125 years, Showing Animals Respect & Kindness founder Steve Hindi on March 26, 2013 made public his frustration with 101 years of inaction against the gun club by the Bucks County SPCA, founded in 1912, and 97 years of inaction by the Women’s Humane Society, following the 1916 death of founder Carolyn Earle White. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
Walking inside, the unidentified man found the bodies, and a two-month-old baby girl beneath Carter’s arm. “It looked as if she was protecting the baby when she was killed,” Oneida County Sheriff Jeff Semrad told media. Sheriff’s deputies found 64 pit bulls chained in two dog yards. Both dog yards were visible in photographs taken from two county highways intersecting near the scene, and found 38 marijuana plants, with a cumulative street value estimated at $95,000. Bruce Christensen, brother of Brent, told media that Brent had served prison time for drug-related offenses.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
BALTIMORE, RALEIGH––Hunter, trapper, and fisher William Edward Small, 20, who died of an undiagnosed rabies infection in September 2011, transmitted rabies as an organ donor to a Maryland man who died of rabies in early March 2013––the first human rabies death in Maryland since 1976, and one of just a very few cases on record in which rabies was transmitted from human to human. There is only one other known case of rabies being transmitted in the U.S. via organ transplants. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
CLEVELAND––U.S. District Judge Patricia Gaughan in February 2013 released Meredith Marie Lowell, 28, after a year-long mental evaluation at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on March 4. The Federal Bureau of Investigation took Lowell into custody on February 21, 2012, following a four-month investigation of Facebook solicitations in which Lowell allegedly solicited the murder of “someone who is wearing fur.” Read more