ANIMAL HEALTH

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

Zoonosis

Tests by the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit have

concluded that the only sure way to prevent allergic reactions

to cats is “to remove the cat from the home,” Dr. Charles

Klucka recently told the American Academy of Allergy and

Immunology. “The next best thing is keeping the cat out of

the bedroom,” while the cat owner takes allergy drugs or

shots. Bathing cats in distilled water, applying a topical

spray 60 times per week, and giving them low-dose tranquil-

izers, all touted as antiallergen treatments, did not reduce the

dander of the 24 cats included in the Ford Hospital study.

Ten thousand volunteers in Connecticut, New

Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin are field-

testing a Lyme disease vaccine developed by Connaught

Laboratories, following up on a 1992-1993 test that included

300 people. Preliminary data published in the June 8 edition

of the Journal of the American Medical Association showed

that levels of Lyme antibodies increased fourfold in 23 of 24

volunteers who participated in a limited test in Albuquerque,

none of whom suffered serious side effects. A rival firm,

SmithKline Beecham PLC, is reportedly also close to testing

a vaccine for Lyme disease, which afflicts about 10,000

Americans a year, and has been found in 44 of the 50 states.

Jogger’s death starts puma panic

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

COOL, California––Trail runner Barbara

Schoener, 40, a Placerville mother of two, on April 23

became the first human to be killed by a puma in

California since 1909, when Morgan Hill school teacher

Isola Kennedy, 38, and pupil Earl Wilson, 8, were

mauled by a rabid mountain lion. They survived their

wounds, but died of the rabies some weeks later.

Schoener, running alone in the Auburn State

Recreation Area, apparently unwittingly approached the

puma’s den. Wildlife officials killed the puma on May 1,

after several days of tracking, discovered she was a lac-

tating female, and rescued a male cub on May 4, who

will be donated to a zoo or wildlife park.

Agricultural veterinary medicine

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

The trade journal Beef Today and the

Colorado Cattlemen’s Association have urged the beef

industry to join animal protection groups in urging the

USDA to abolish face-branding cattle imported from

Mexico. The cattle are painfully face-branded––and cows

are spayed without anesthesia––as part of an anti-bovine

tuberculosis program. Of 438 cases of bovine TB found in

1993, 427 were in cattle of Mexican origin. Exposed in an

ongoing series of newspaper ads by the Coalition for Non-

Violent Food, face-branding was also discussed recently by

the Animal Welfare Committee of the AVMA. AVMA

policy presently supports face-branding, but related pro-

posed policy amendments are up for review by the AVMA

executive board.

ANIMAL HEALTH

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Zoonosis

The politics of rabies took a twist

on April 1 when in all seriousness Patricia

Munoz, public health director for

Washington County, New York, told the

county public health committee that she need-

ed an infectious disease control nurse on her

staff to handle the growing rabies-related

caseload. The Washington County public

health department handled about 500 more

cases of all types during the first three months

of 1994, including 16 cases of possible expo-

sure to rabid animals. Munoz got the com-

mittee to recommend the hiring, then dis-

closed that the nurse would also handle

hepatitis and salmonella cases, both of which

are far more numerous.

Nuisance wildlife: swans as goose control

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Nuisance wildlife control

experts in the upper midwest

report that mute swans may be the

best brake on the proliferation of

giant nonmigratory Canada geese.

Wildlife agencies in Atlantic coast

states from Rhode Island to Georgia

have practiced aggressive mute swan

“control” via egg-addling for about a

decade, after mute swan sightings

during the annual National Audubon

Society Christmas bird counts dou-

bled. Not noting that the number of

people out counting birds had also

doubled, the agencies warned that

the Atlantic coast was on the verge

of a mute swan population explo-

sion, 150 years after they were first

imported from England; blamed

swans for causing the decline of

heavily hunted migratory waterfowl;

ANIMAL HEALTH

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Epidemiology

New York and Rhode Island

health officials said February 24 that a mys-

terious hantavirus caused the January 20

death of Rhode Island School of Design stu-

dent David Rosenberg, 22, who may have

become infected via rodent droppings while

sweeping out a warehouse in Queens. The

case is among the first known human cases in

the U.S. that apparently does not involve deer

mice. Four days earlier, the Centers for

Disease Control confirmed that the hantavirus

afflicts Florida cotton rats, and announced

the death of three Kansans from suspected

hantavirus infections. Of the 60 known U.S.

human victims, 27 have died; 23 have

recovered after suffering debilitating illness.

Coyote-killing “like calling a girl”

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

GILLETTE, Wyoming––Coyote, fox,

and rabbit-killing contests and bounty programs

popped up around the west in midwinter––in

response, organizers said, to a year-old moratori-

um on coyote-killing by the federal Animal

Damage Control Program, won through a lawsuit

filed by the Humane Society of the U.S. Ranchers

argued that nonlethal coyote control hasn’t worked,

citing an American Sheep Industry Association

report that coyotes in Wyoming and Colorado have

learned to run sheep dogs to exhaustion, attack

them in packs, and split up so that some can divert

the dogs while others kill sheep. They claimed huge

livestock losses to an alleged overpopulation of coy-

otes and foxes, although killing contest participants

averaged only two dead coyotes and one dead fox

per 18 days of hunting. ASIA and other ranch lob-

bies are trying to lift the ADC moratorium––along

with a ban on the use of spring-fired traps called M-

44s that shoot poison into coyotes’ mouths. The

traps are banned to protect eagles, who likewise

may snatch the bait with fatal consequences.

ANIMAL HEALTH

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Rabies update

New Hampshire state veterinarian

Clifford McGinniss warned January

15––after a rabid kitten was found in a

Merrimack College dormitory––that feral cats

must be exterminated to protect Hampton

Beach visitors. Disagreeing, Hampton Beach

is pursung a $24,000 cat control plan combin-

ing catch-and-kill with selective neuter/

release. The plan is also opposed by New

Hampshire SPCA executive director Bonnie

Roberts, who told the Boston Globe that the

feral cats “are going to tangle with rabid ani-

mals and spread the disease.” In fact, rabies

vaccination is a prerequisite of the Hampton

Beach plan, and of all properly managed

neuter/release programs. There are no reports

on record of any cat in any recognized

neuter/release program anywhere ever con-

tracting rabies, while several neuter/release

programs including one coordinated in 1991-

1992 by ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim

Bartlett have been credited by public safety

officials with creating an immunized barrier

between rabid wildlife and family pets.

Animal Control & Rescue

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

The Canadian SPCA

was stunned February 3 when it

lost the Montreal pound contract

to a private bidder, Berger Blanc,

for at least a two-month trial period.

Berger Blanc handles animal control

for several Montreal suburbs, but

has been accused of selling animals

to biomedical research. The

Montreal contract forbids such sales.

The CSPCA was nearly bankrupted

under its previous two-year pound

contract, loosely modeled after the

contract New York City has long

had with the ASPCA, under which

it was expected to provide pound

service at a substantial loss––

$450,000 in 1993––in exchange for

the proceeds from all dog licenses

sold after the first 10,000.

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