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.

Animal control & rescue

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

A DISMAL TUNE FROM DOWN BY THE BANKS OF THE OHIO

MANSFIELD, Ohio––A recent

survey of Ohio county animal control depart-

ments done by neutering advocate Diana

Nolen found that 64% consider their shelters

to be overcrowded, 58% see parvovirus as

their greatest health problem (a disease associ-

ated with overcrowding), and only 27%

expect to be able to expand or improve their

facilities soon. Two-thirds of the departments

depend wholly upon dog licensing, fines, and

redemption fees for their income.

Nolen’s survey forms were returned

by the animal control departments in 33 of the

88 Ohio counties, containing 47% of the

human population. The findings indicate that

Ohio animal control agencies took in about

197,000 dogs and cats in 1993; euthanized

135,000, or 69%; adopted out 37,000 (19%);

and returned 25,000 (13%) to their owners.

Thirty percent reported declining intake and

euthanasia figures, 42% reported no change,

and 24% reported increases.

MEXICAN PET THIEVES SUPPLY U.S. SCHOOLS

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

MEXICALI, Mexico––The World

Society for the Protection of Animals on March

25 announced it had exposed a major Mexican

pet theft ring, operating for at least eight years.

The ring is organized by several American resi-

dents of Mexico. Bunchers pay children $1.00

apiece to catch cats, who are trucked in lots of

30 to 40 to Mexicali, where they are drowned

about 10 at a time in water barrels, preserved

with formaldehyde, and hauled to a location in

Sinaloa state, where they are sold for $7.00

each. From Sinaloa, they are trucked to U.S.

customers.

Splatt back

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

DERRY, New Hampshire––Dr.

Splatt’s Roadkill Monitoring Project is under-

way for the second year. Sixty secondary

schoolrooms are keeping an online log of

roadkills for nine weeks, starting March 14.

Thirty classes last spring compiled

the biggest data base on roadkills to date,

finding apparent peak times of vulnerability

for grey squirrels, raccoons, birds, beavers,

skunks, and rats, which may coincide with

when young leave their parents, the growth

of favored food plants, moon phases,

and––for scavengers––peaks in roadkills of

other species.

What makes a scandal?

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Over the past decade, the following issues have become the

focus of 219 public scandals involving 101 U.S. animal shelters, of

which 60 were municipal animal control facilities; 18 were convention-

al humane societies, some of which held animal control contracts; 14

were no-kill shelters; and eight fell into other categories.

The total number of scandals is quite small, considering that

there are more than 6,000 shelters and animal control holding facilities

in the U.S. However, an evident pattern of repeated scandals at the

same shelters reflects a combination of administrators unwilling to rec-

tify problems and a resulting growth of public mistrust, so that eventu-

ally even relatively minor problems become scandals.

Animal Control & Rescue

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

International

Police in the East City dis-

trict of Beijing, China, beat 351 dogs

to death during the second week of

February. “Our policy is to annihilate

them,” said district deputy chief of pub-

lic security Li Wenrui. Some other dis-

trict police bureaus spared smaller pure-

breds––if their owners could find homes

for them outside the city. Still others

killed dogs by strangulation, electrocu-

tion, and dragging them behind jeeps.

Press releases said the dogs were taken

to a shelter run by the Public Security

Ministry, but Jan Wong of the Toronto

Globe and Mail’s China Bureau reported

there is no such place. The Communist

government banned dogs as a nuisance

and a waste of food when it came to

power in 1949. Dogs have been hunted

out and killed every few years since

1951. Despite the killing, stepped up

since 1986, an estimated 100,000 dogs

inhabit Beijing, where a black market

dog can cost as much as many workers’

annual income. Foreigners and others

who can get dogs licensed and vaccinat-

ed may keep them––but rabies vaccine is

so scarce that the disease has killed as

many as 60,000 Chinese since 1980,

and most license applications are denied.

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.

Editorial: Wanted: vets on wheels at combat pay

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Just over two years ago ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartlett disregarded

warnings that she was taking her life in her hands and took an experimental neuter/release

project into inner city Bridgeport, Connecticut––the city with the highest per capita murder

rate and greatest rate of drug-related violence of any in North America. Among the burned-

out, abandoned shells of factories and tenements where families lived six or eight people to

a room on welfare, Kim found a community who for the most part already knew about pet

overpopulation, were worried about the homeless animals they fed at their doorsteps, and

were readily receptive to her help in obtaining neutering and vaccination. Bridgeport had

and probably still has a high density of feral cats not primarily because anyone was ignorant

or indifferent, nor because even the poorest of the poor were unwilling to pay for neutering

their pets––albeit that most couldn’t afford to pay anything close to the going veterinary

rates. On the contrary, Kim was welcomed as “the cat lady” where even police feared to

walk. Children ran up and down the shabby side streets knocking on doors, asking neigh-

bors to bring out their animals. Elderly women without even a warm coat and third genera-

tion welfare mothers produced tattered and painstakingly preserved ten-dollar bills to make

the most generous contribution they could to assist the effort. The nun whose tiny convent

school was among the last outposts of hope in the inner city gave Kim her full support.

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