Category: Politics

U.S. Supreme Court strikes down law that banned cruelty videos

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. Supreme Court
on April 20, 2010 by a vote of 8-1 struck down
18 U.S.C. § 48, the 1998 federal law that
prohibited interstate sales of video depictions
of illegal cruelty to animals.
The law was written to ban “crush
videos,” a form of pornography in which the
participants trample small animals, but the only
case brought to court under 18 U.S.C. § 48 was
U.S. v. Stevens, a 2004 federal prosecution in
Pennsylvania of Virginia resident Robert G.
Stevens for selling videotapes of Japanese
dogfighting and “hog/dog rodeo.”

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Viet pol asks South Korea to help stop bear bile trade

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

SEOUL–Vietnamese National Assembly member Nguyen Dinh Xuan
on October 28, 2009 confirmed to Moon Gwang-lip of the South Korean
newspaper Joong Ang Daily that he has asked the South Korean
government to cooperate with Viet efforts to halt bear bile farming.
“Nyuyen Dinh Xuan said that Korean visitors are involved in
illegal bear bile sales in Vietnam,” South Korean environment
ministry senior deputy director Kim Won-tae told Gwang-lip. “He
requested that we instruct Koreans to refrain from these illegal acts
when they travel to Vietnam.”

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Efforts continue to ban the “elephant hook”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

 

BOSTON–“All ears to the plight of the
GOP symbol,” according to Boston Herald reporter
Jessica Van Sack, Massachusetts state senator
Robert Hedlund has tried since 2004 to ban
keeping elephants in chains and striking them
with the ankus, or bullhook. The 2006 edition
cleared the Massachusetts senate, but not the
house of delegates. The 2009 edition reached a
legislative hearing on November 16.
A Republican representing Weymouth,
Plymouth and Norfolk, Hedlund distances himself
from those he calls “politically correct
left-wing do-gooders,” but concerning chaining
and the ankus, “”The more I got involved in the
issue, the more I became passionate about it and
emotionally tied to it, knowing the abusive
conditions these animals have to endure,” he
told Van Sack.

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Shooters Party tries to force hunting in parks of NSW, Australia

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:

 

SYDNEY–“We won’t be looking at hunting in national parks,”
New South Wales environment minister John Robertson told reporters on
October 28, 2009, but pledged to “do more to deal with feral
animals in our national parks.”
Robertson’s statement came a week after NSW prime minister
Nathan Rees suggested that the nominally governing Labor Party might
cut a deal with the two-seat Shooters Party to allow hunters to cull
“vermin and feral animals.”

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Pro-animal White House appointee is at last confirmed

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. Senate on September 10, 2009
confirmed the appointment of legal scholar Cass Sunstein to head the
Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs, one of the most
influential non-cabinet positions in the Barack Obama
administration. Repeatedly denounced as a would-be
“czar” by Fox network commentator Glenn Beck, Sunstein had become
one of Obama’s most controversial appointees, largely for views
about animal rights. Sunstein has argued for expanding the ability
of humans to file lawsuits on behalf of animals, and has called
sport hunting morally unjustifiable.

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Clouds gathering over BLM horse program by Willis Lamm

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

 

Most wild horse advocates recognize that the wild horses roaming our public lands require some degree of management. Herd population growth, loss of predators, intrusion by other land uses, extreme weather, and the horses’ inability to migrate to new ranges due to human-made barriers require some intervention so that the horses remain in balance with range resources. It is in the application of horse management techniques that the Bureau of Land Management has demonstrated both competent resourcefulness and gross incompetence.
The recent roundup of the iconic wild horse Cloud and his herd in the Pryor Mountains of Wyoming and southern Montana have provided a shining example of incompetence. There were no major injuries to either horses or humans, according to the BLM, but videos posted to YouTube showed horses who were unnecessarily stressed, limping, and frightened, and local news coverage described incidents and procedures which could have had disastrous consequences.

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Animals are among losers of “War on Terror”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2009:
BARSTOW, JACKSONVILLE– Wars are lost by losing lives and
land. Thus whales, burros, pigs, and desert tortoises far from
any battlefield are among the losers of the War on Terror,
informally declared in 2001 by then-U.S. President George W. Bush.
The Barack Obama administration in March 2009 abandoned use
of the phrase “War on Terror” to describe what are now called
“overseas contingency operations,” and are no longer rhetorically
linked, in recognition that U.S. troops are fighting different foes
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But changing terminology has not changed the issues. Even
before “War on Terror” was used to drum up support for the U.S.
invasion of Iraq, it was used to quell opposition to military
training exercises that harm animals and habitat. Military projects
harmful to animals that began or expanded in the name of the “War on
Terror” are still underway, often bigger than ever.

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Border fighting over elephants & tigers

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2009:
KATHMANDU, Nepal; Jalpaiguri, India–For the second time
in two years elephant incursions across the Nepalese/Indian border
have inflamed tensions in Jhapa, a Nepalese district north of West
Bengal.
“With the Brahmaputra plains in India’s Assam state flooded
by the monsoons, the elephants began migrating,” said the
Indo-Asian News Service. Nepalese police wounded six elephants who
forded the Mechi river to enter Nepal circa June 11, 2009, and
allegedly also shot at Indian forest guards who followed the
elephants into Nepal and tried to stop the shooting.

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Obama family accepts a “second chance” dog from Ted Kennedy

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
WASHINGTON D.C.– Massa-chusetts Senator Ted Kennedy and his
wife Victoria in early April 2009 ended months of speculation that
President Barack Obama and family would adopt a shelter dog for
daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, by giving the Obamas a
purebred Portuguese water dog– not a shelter dog, but a “second
chance” dog, who was returned to the breeder after reportedly
failing in at least one previous home.
Originally named Charlie, according to the anonymous
FirstDogCharlie web site that leaked the news on April 10, 2009,
the dog was renamed Bo by the Obamas.

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