Video law holds up in first test against animal fighter

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2005:

PITTSBURGH–Reaching a unanimous verdict in only 45 minutes,
a federal jury on January 13, 2005 convicted video distributor
Robert Stevens of three counts of selling depictions of illegal
cruelty to animals across state lines.
The case was the first court test of 1999 legislation
introduced by Representative Elton Gallegly (R-California).
U.S. Senior District Judge Alan N. Bloch rejected federal
public defender Michael Novara’s contentions that the law violated
Stevens’ First Amendment right to freedom of expression, and that it
was misapplied because the law was introduced to address “wanton
cruelty to animals designed to appeal to a prurient interest in sex.”
The law prohibits the interstate distribution of videos or
films depicting illegal cruelty to animals, if they are without
“serious religious, political, scientific, educational,
journalistic, historical, or art value.”
Stevens, 64, of Pittsville, Virginia, in 2003 sold two
videotapes of dogfights and one video of a “hog/dog rodeo” to
investigators for the Pennsylvania State Police and USDA Office of
the Inspector General. Stevens advertised the videos for sale in the
Sporting Dog Journal, whose publisher James Fricchione, 34, was
convicted in March 2004 of six felonies and five misdemeanors for
allegedly promoting dogfights.

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Greyhound racing ends on U.S. west coast

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2005:

PORTLAND, Oregon–Grey-hound racing
appeared to be finished on the west coast of the
U.S. on December 23, 2004, when Magna
Entertainment Corporation announced that it will
not reopen the Multnomah Greyhound Park in Wood
Village, a Portland suburb.
Multnomah Greyhound Park animal welfare
coordinator Patti Lehnert told Eric Mortenson of
the Portland Oregonian that the 46 dogs left in
the kennels at the end of the 2004 racing season
would be kept until rehomed.
“It’s business as usual for the adoption
kennel, Lehnert said. “We will find homes; we
will place them.”
Betting at the Multnomah Grey-hound Park
fell from $25 million in 1995 to $11 million in
2002, reported Mortenson. Magna attributed the
decline to the rise of online gaming and Native
American casinos.

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Poultry issues

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2005:

The Knesset, the Israeli parliament, on January 3, 2005
banned force-feeding ducks and geese to produce foie gras, effective
at the end of the month, one day after the Knesset Education
Committee refused a request from the Agriculture Ministry to delay
the ban until the end of March. Israel ranked fourth globally in
foie gras exports, the Israeli foie gras industry was worth $16.5
million per year, it employed 500 people, and it killed about
700,000 ducks and geese per year as of August 11, 2003. Then the
Israeli Supreme Court ruled that force-feeding ducks and geese
violated Israeli law, but allowed the industry an 18-month phase-out.

A California Court of Appeals panel in San Francisco on
January 11, 2005 upheld San Francisco Superior Court Judge David
Garcia’s March 2003 dismissal of a lawsuit filed by PETA in December
2002 against the California Milk Producers Advisory Board for alleged
false advertising. PETA argued that the slogan “Great cheese comes
from happy cows. Happy cows come from California” misrepresents the
reality of how dairy cattle are raised. Garcia ruled that the laws
against false advertising and unfair competition laws cited by PETA
exempt government agencies.

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Hunting, brucellosis, and the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction 10 years after

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2005:

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK–Ten years after the January 1995
reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park, elk near
Gardiner, Montana, are getting a reprieve from seasonal human
hunting pressure. A planned resumption of bison hunting along the
northern park boundary has been postponed–not directly because of
wolves, but because of increased local sensitivity toward the views
of non-hunters.
Growing numbers of wolves are killed attacking livestock,
however, and wildlife managers in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming are
already anticipating the opportunity to sell wolf hunting permits
when wolves come off the federal Endangered Species List.
The role of wolves in regulating Yellowstone elk and bison
numbers is still disputed, but biologists increasingly credit the
return of wolves with increasing the health of the herds by devouring
sick animals, including those who carry brucellosis and chronic
wasting disease.

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New treatment saves rabies victim

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

MILWAUKEE–Jeanna Giese, 15, of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin,
is the sixth person on medical record to survive rabies. After
extensive rehabilitative therapy she may become the first to resume a
normal life.
Bitten by a bat she was trying to take outside on September
12, 2004, Giese did not seek medical care. She began exhibiting
rabies symptoms on October 13, and was admitted to the Children’s
Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa on October 18.
Pediatric infectious disease specialist Rodney Willoughby,
M.D., on October 19 asked her parents, John and Ann Giese, for
permission to put her into an induced coma, which might protect her
against brain damage while he attempted treatment with an
experimental four-drug combination.
“No one had really done this before, even in animals,”
Willoughby told Juliet Williams of Associated Press. “None of the
drugs are fancy. If this works, it can be done in a lot of
countries.” Willoughby did not disclose the names of the drugs,
pending publication of the data in a peer-reviewed journal.
Kept comatose for a week, Giese became the first rabies
patient ever to survive despite having never been vaccinated, either
before or after she was bitten by a rabid animal, Centers for
Disease Control & Prevent-ion rabies expert Dr. Charles Rupprecht
told Elisabeth Rosenthal of The New York Times. Her exposure was
detected much too late for the five-dose, month-long post-exposure
vaccination sequence to have been effective.

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Rodeo commissioner quits under fire

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

LAS VEGAS–Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association
commissioner Steven Hatchell resigned on December 10 during the 2004
National Rodeo Finals to become head of the National Football
Foundation and College Hall of Fame.
Hatchell was credited with expanding national TV coverage of
PRCA events from 48 hours in 1998 to 300 hours in 2004, boosting
live attendance to 24 million. That made rodeo the seventh leading
spectator activity in the U.S.–but Hatchell was seen by some PRCA
members as a threat to participant control of rodeo. Hatchell had
reportedly recently formed a separate investor group to promote rodeo
events.
With rising visibility came rising controversy, amplified at
the National Rodeo Finals by Steve Hindi of SHARK, whose TV truck
prowled Las Vegas airing undercover video of other recent PRCA
rodeos, challenging Hatchell to a public debate.
“Much of the footage shows violations of the PRCA guidelines
on animal welfare,” reported Ian Mylcreest of the Las Vegas Business
Press. “Horses were repeatedly teased and goaded. One horse had his
head repeatedly slammed against a gate. Others had their tails and
ears twisted. Handlers routinely shocked animals with a 5,000-volt
prod, including applying it to their faces.”

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Felony Sentencing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

Circuit Judge Wyatt Saunders of Charleston County, South
Carolina, on November 23, 2004 sentenced David Ray Tant, 57, to
serve 40 years in prison, after Tant pleaded guilty to 41 counts of
dogfighting and assault and battery. Tant could get 10 years off if
he pays the estimated $150,000 cost of impounding 49 pit bull
terriers seized in the case, pays court costs, and covers the
medical care of a surveyor who in April 2004 tripped over a
booby-trap near Tant’s premises and was hit by a shotgun blast. The
dogs, held since April 2004 at the John Ancrum SPCA, were killed on
November 24. Their presence had reportedly obliged the SPCA to kill
many other impounded dogs, due to lack of kennel space. Prosecutor
Jennifer Evans told Sammy Fretwell of Associated Press that Tant must
serve most of 30 years in prison before winning parole, but
Charleston Post & Courier staff reporter Herb Frazier wrote that
“Tant could be eligible for release in about eight years.”

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Elephant retirement progress

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

SAN FRANCISCO, DETROIT–The former San Francisco Zoo
elephant Tinkerbelle, 38, was moved on November 28, 2004 to the
Performing Animal Welfare Society refuge near San Andreas. Her
companion Lulu, also 38, slower to learn the transport procedure,
is to be moved in December.
The American Zoo Association is to decide in March whether to
penalize the San Francisco Zoo for retiring the elephants outside of
the AZA-accredited system, but on December 2 withdrew a similar
objection to the planned retirement to PAWS of the Detroit Zoo
elephants Wanda, 46, and Winky, 51.
The AZA had threatened both the Detroit and San Francisco
zoos with loss of accreditation for not keeping the elephants in
captive breeding programs, but agreed to retiring the Detroit pair
after a test showed that Wanda might have been exposed to a viral
disease which can kill young elephant calves.

Poacher Tauzin III loses in Louisiana

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

NEW ORLEANS–Louisiana election officials on December 9
certified that Democrat Charlie Melancon of Napoleonville won by 569
votes in the race to succeed 12-term Republican incumbent U.S.
Representative Billy Tauzin Jr.
An avid blood sports enthusiast, Tauzin Jr. retired
expecting son Billy Tauzin III to succeed him–but on February 29,
2004, Tauzin III and companion Anthony Giardina were fined for
trapping 46 nutria without a permit and trespassing, just two months
after Tauzin finished probation for drunk driving. Backers joked
that Tauzin III had established credentials as a “good old boy,” but
more than 57,000 voters didn’t think that was reason enough to vote
for him.

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