Landmark verdict in Jaipur elephant case

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January-February 2007:
JAIPUR–Eighteen years after a jeep killed an elephant used
to give tourists rides up the narrow, winding road to the Amer
Palace overlooking Jaipur, the Rajasthan High Court on December 20,
2006 upheld a 1993 ruling by the Motor Accident Tribunal of Jaipur
that elephant owner Saddique Khan should be compensated the same
amount as if the elephant had been a human being.
The sum, about $12,500 U.S. plus interest, is to be paid by
the New India Insurance Company. The company contended that it
should only pay the standard rate for livestock of equivalent size,
about $41.50 as of 1988, when the accident happened.

BOOKS: Firehorse

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January-February 2007:

Firehorse by Diane Lee Wilson
Margaret K. McElderry Books (c/o Simon & Schuster, 1230 Ave. of the
Americas, New York, NY 10020), 2006. 325 pages, paperback.
$16.95.

Researching the Great Boston Fire of 1872, Firehorse author
Diane Lee Wilson discovered the diary of a 14-year-old girl who had
lived in Boston at the time. The book is woven around that girl’s
hopes and dreams.
The Great Fire broke out after a horse flu epidemic that
spread across North America had immobilized Boston’s fire horses.
Firefighting equipment had to be pulled by volunteers on foot. This
is often cited as the leading reason why the fire got out of control,
but the city commission which later investigated the fire found that
fire crews’ response times were delayed by only minutes.

Greyhound racing updates

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:

The Alabama Supreme Court on December 1, 2006 ruled
unanimously that the MegaSweeps video sweepstakes gambling games at
the Birmingham Race Course violate the state law against slot machine
gambling. Track owner Milton McGregor asserted that losing the
machines, installed in 2005, might put the track out of business,
costing 250 jobs. Two lower court rulings favored video sweepstakes
gambling. “Soon, small storefront [gambling] operations began
popping up across the state,” wrote Philip Rawls of Associated
Press–and Christian Action Alabama began trying to close them.

Hauler is banned for life in alleged racing greyhound adoption scam

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:

The Arizona Department of Racing on December 19, 2006 issued a
lifetime ban from involvement in the Arizona greyhound industry
against Richard Favreau of Calhan, Colorado, for failing to
account for more than 140 greyhounds he took from the Tucson
Grey-hound Park between Nov-ember 2005 and July 2006.
Owners of retired racing dogs paid Favreau $150 apiece to
find adoptive homes for them. Greyhound Protection League president
Susan Netboy believes at least 177 dogs are missing. Only six of
Favreau’s purported adoptions have been verified.
“The animals may have been killed for profit,” wrote Arizona
Department of Racing director Geoffrey Gonsher.

Bang the drum slowly for Irish greyhounds

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
DUBLIN–The Irish Greyhound Board reportedly used DNA
profiling to trace the owner who abandoned a racing greyhound in
Tramore, County Waterford, in April 2006, after cutting off her
ears to remove her tattoos. The Waterford SPCA found the greyhound
roaming at large. The owner was located in Munster. No further
information about the case has been disclosed.
A furor broke meanwhile when John O’Connor, manager of
Custy’s Traditional Music Shop in Ennis, County Clare, admitted
selling bodhran drums covered with greyhound skin. “We sell
greyhound,” O’Connor told Mark Tighe of the London Sunday Times,
“but the majority of our bodhrans are sourced locally and made from
goat or calf skin. In every tourist shop you go into, those
mass-produced bodhrans would be from the subcontinent and would
generally be greyhound or some other poor-quality skin.”

Class action in greyhound theft for sale to labs case

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
MILWAUKEE–Greyhound racing trainer George Panos, of Hudson,
Wisconsin, in mid-October 2006 filed a class action lawsuit on
behalf of as many as 1,000 racing dog owners against former Greyhound
Adoption of Iowa president Daniel Shonka for allegedly selling dogs
to laboratories without the owners’ consent. Shonka claimed to be
placing the dogs in good homes, the suit alleges.
Shonka on February 6, 2003 pleaded guilty to both felony and
misdemeanor theft of greyhounds by fraud. The owners were told
either that Shonka was racing their dogs at the now defunct St. Croix
Meadows Greyhound Racing Park in Hudson, Wisconsin, or that he had
placed the dogs in homes.

Horse show abuse updates

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
The Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders & Exhibitors Association
on October 16, 2006 cancelled the alternate “grand champion”
competition it had announced on September 21.
To have been held in Mur-freesboro, Tennessee, the
alternate competition was to have replaced the final judging at the
Tennessee Walking Horse National Celeb-ration in Shelbyville on
August 21, which never took place. Of the 10 horses selected for
the final judging, seven were disqualified after USDA inspectors
detected scarring that may have shown the horses’ hooves were sored
to train them to use the high-stepping walking horse gait.
“The decision [to cancel the alternate competition] came
after weeks of criticism by horse trainers, many of whom threatened
to boycott the show,” reported Nashville Tenn-essean staff writer
Brad Schrade.

Greyhounds killed at British sanctuary?

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
MANCHESTER–The Leigh Ani-mal Sanctuary
in Greater Manchester, Britain, on September
17, 2006 began refusing to accept greyhounds,
the same day that Daniel Foggo of the London
Sunday Times recounted that “a reporter posing as
a trainer who wanted two healthy dogs killed” met
“an employee called David [who] accepted £70 in
cash to kill two young greyhounds,” no questions
asked.
“Three greyhound trainers have given
interviews, on condition of anonymity, stating
that the sanctuary has been the killing ground of
choice for the greyhound racing industry in the
northwest for many years,” wrote Foggo.

Wanted: 192 missing greyhounds

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
TUCSON–Greyhound Protection League president Susan Netboy
has offered $10,000 for information leading to the discovery of the
fate of 192 ex-racing greyhounds who vanished in 2005 and early 2006
after they were taken from the Tucson Greyhound Park by Richard
Favreau, 37, of Calhan, Colorado.
“All we can do is pray that someone will respond so that
these dogs don’t become casualties of the greyhound racing industry
like the other 15,000 greyhounds who disappear each year,” Netboy
told Anslee Willett of the Chicago Tribune. “They just disappear.
In our opinion, they are destroyed.”

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