Category: North America

N.J. coin can fundraiser fined

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2006:

ELIZABETH, N.J.–New Jersey Superior Court Judge Thomas
Lyons on June 14, 2006 barred Patrick G. Jemas of Woodbridge, New
Jersey, from fundraising within the state, fined him $330,804, and
ordered him to help the state Division of Consumer Affairs to locate
and remove hundreds of coin collection canisters that Jemas placed in
businesses throughout New Jersey in the name of the “National Animal
Welfare Foundation.”
Lyons did not have the authority to dissolve the National
Animal Welfare Foundation, or to stop Jemas’ reported fundraising
activities in New York and Pennsylvania.
New Jersey Attorney General Zulima V. Farber and Consumer
Affairs Director Kimberly Ricketts alleged that Jemas “collected
$70,795 in canister donations, but spent $75,891 on fundraising,
payroll, meals, automobiles, printing, and other undefined areas.
In only one fiscal year,” they said, “did reported donations exceed
reported expenses.”

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Foie gras is banned by Chicago council, but subsidized by New York governor

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2006:

ALBANY, N.Y.–While other jurisdictions are moving to end
the foie gras industry, the tax-supported Empire State Development
Corporation in late May 2006 authorized a grant of $420,000 to help
Hudson Valley Foie Gras increase production by about 10% per year
over the next three years.
Hudson Valley Foie Gras, which accounts for about half of
all U.S. foie gras production, would be raising about 325,000 birds
per year at the end of the planned $1 million expansion. The
expansion would add 10 jobs to the present staff of 150.
The Empire State Development Corporation is “a public
authority that answers to Governor George Pataki, but not the
Legislature,” explained Syracuse Post-Standard staff writer Michelle
Breidenbach. The corporation “will borrow $140,000 for the project
and use cash from the state’s general fund for the remaining
$280,000.”

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Foie gras vector for H5N1?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2006:

WASHINGTON D.C.– The U.S. Department of Agriculture on June
29, 2006 released a draft summary of a $91 million battle plan to
combat any U.S. outbreaks of a “highly pathogenic avian influenza,”
such as the H5N1 strain that has killed more than 130 people
worldwide since 1996.
The plan discusses migratory bird surveillance, the
bird-breeding industry, poultry dealers, live-bird markets,
auctions and slaughterhouses, but appears to make no specific
reference to foie gras farming, a $25 million a year branch of
poultry production with just three major U.S. producers, whose farms
are concentrated in upstate New York and northern California.
The odds that H5N1 or any other deadly influenza might hit
the U.S. through foie gras farming may be incalculably low–but if
H5N1 begins killing human poultry workers in Europe, as it has since
2003 in Southeast Asia, experts suspect the lethal crossover might
begin on the sprawling foie gras farms of southwestern France and
parts of Hungary.

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Navy, NRCA settle conflict over sonar use

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2006:

LOS ANGELES–The U.S. Navy and the Natural Resources Defense
Council on July 11, 2006 announced an out-of-court settlement of
cross-filed lawsuits over the use of high intensity mid-frequency
sonar during the “Rim of the Pacific 2006” war games.
“The settlement prevents the Navy from using the sonar within
25 miles of the Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument and
imposes a variety of monitoring methods to watch out for and report
the presence of marine mammals,” said Associated Press writer Eric
Berkowitz.
Involving 35 ships from eight nations, RIMPAC 2006 during
the latter half of July tested the ability of U.S. anti-submarine
defenses to detect ultra-quiet diesel/electric submarines belonging
to Australia, Japan, and South Korea, whose technology is believed
to be similar to that of China, Iran, and North Korea.

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NOAH’s ark on Puget Sound

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

STANWOOD, Washington–A starling swooped
through the last daylight across the northbound
lane of I-5, toward a gap in the young alders on
the inland side. Braking to avoid the starling,
I saw the sunset glinting off a sign through the
trees, saying something about spay/neuter–and
beyond the sign, caught a glimpse of a new animal
shelter.
Just short of the Snohomish/Skagit county
line, as close to the middle of nowhere as I-5
goes between Seattle and British Columbia, the
starling had helped ANIMAL PEOPLE to quite
accidentally discover the three-year-old NOAH
Center.

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New laws on dogs, s/n, bestiality, factory farming

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on May 31 signed three
bills into law which create a felony penalty for allowing dangerous
dogs to run loose or failing to keep them securely enclosed; also
create a felony penalty for failing to sterilize a dog defined as
dangerous by past behavior; add a felony penalty for failing to
follow orders pertaining to keeping a dangerous dog; allow civil
penalties for possession of dangerous dogs; prohibit convicted
felons from keeping dangerous dogs or any unsterilized dog; add
penalties for using dogs in the commission of crimes; increase the
penalties for attending dog fights; add a felony penalty for taking
children to dog fights; and ease the requirements for convicting a
person of illegal dog fighting.

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Alaska steps up predator killing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

The Alaska Board of Game at a three-day mid-May 2006 meeting
expanded predator killing to increase huntable moose and caribou
populations to cover about 9% of the state; eased restrictions on
land-and-shoot bear hunting using aircraft and bait piles; expanded
five areas that are open to land-and-shoot and aerial wolf-killing,
tripling one of them; added incentives for killing grizzly bears in
two areas; and adopted amendments intended to limit the ability of
opponents of predator killing to challenge the changes in court.
Alaska is now persecuting predators more aggressively than at any
time in approximately 30 years.

Animal advocacy court calendar

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

A Utah law requiring a two-thirds majority to pass a
wildlife-related ballot initiative is constitutional, the U.S. 10th
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on May 17, 2006, upholding a 2001
verdict by Utah U.S. District Court Judge Tena Campbell . The law
was itself passed by ballot initiative, gaining 56% of the vote.

U.S. District Judge William Shubb ruled in late May 2006 that
Alfredo Kuba of In Defense of Animals and up to 10 other activists
could protest in front of Six Flags Marine World over the Memorial
Day weekend despite a Six Flags policy against permitting protests on
high-traffic days.

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Two major donations

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

Bob Barker, 83, host of The Price Is Right TV game show
since 1972, on May 5, 2006 donated $1 million to the Georgetown
University Law Center for the study of animal rights law. Barker
previously established $1 million endowments for the study of animal
rights law at Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, Stanford, Northwestern,
and Duke universities. “Barker’s donation will be used to strengthen
and expand the Law Center’s animal rights law curriculum, provide
opportunities for students to work in the field, support
student-initiated animal rights projects, and sponsor conferences
and symposia on subjects related to animal protection,” said Elissa
Free, who made the announcement for the university. Her mother,
the late Ann Cottrell Free, devoted much of her life to advancing
legal protection for animals.

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