Can “National Heritage” status save elephants in ever more crowded, faster moving India?

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

DELHI, GUWAHATI– The largest of land animals, but neither
faster than a poacher’s speeding bullet nor more powerful than a
locomotive, elephants are now officially protected with tigers as
“National Heritage Animals of India,” declared Indian environment
and animal welfare minister Jairam Ramesh on October 21, 2010.
Unclear is whether National Heritage status will help elephants any
more than it has helped tigers, who since gaining their National
Heritage designation in 1973 have been poached and illegally poisoned
for preying upon livestock to the verge of extinction across most of
India.
National Herit-age status helped to secure land and funding
for tiger conservation, and for about 30 years the tiger population
was believed to be recovering, but more recent findings have shown a
steep decline that was not previously noticed due to faulty research
and corrupt management in some tiger reserves.

BOOKS: Through a Dog’s Eyes

September 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

Through a Dog’s Eyes by Jennifer Arnold
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2010.
240 pages, hardcover. $25.00.

Operating a service dog school is a monster job. People with
major disabilities rely on dogs to safely lead them across busy
streets, open doors, and retrieve fallen objects. Some dogs
predict the onset of seizures or pick up sounds their people cannot
hear. Training a service dog takes money, time, patience, and
skill. Jennifer Arnold pulls this off despite having multiple
sclerosis.

JAAN reaches out to horses in the Gili Islands of Indonesia

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:
JAKARTA–Encouraged by success with a working horse aid
program in Jakarta initially funded by ANIMAL PEOPLE, the Jakarta
Animal Aid Network hopes for similar results in the Gili Islands.
Located off the north coast of Lombok, Gili Trawangan, Gili
Meno and Gili Air offer reef diving and night life that attract
tourists from around the world. “No motorized vehicles are allowed
on the islands,” explains JAAN founder Femke den Haas. Horses are
the main means of transport.
Surveying the condition of the Gili horses during the first
nine days of April 2010, den Haas “learned that the horse owners all
came from Lombok in the 1990s,” she told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “Many,”
den Haas found, “started with little to no knowledge about horses,
as they were mostly fishers.”

U.S. backs deal to let Japan legally kill whales in the Southern Oceans

April 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

WASHINGTON D.C.–Japan is likely to be authorized to engage
in commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and
coastal waters, and Norway and Iceland are likely to be allowed to
continue commercial whaling, now with International Whaling
Commission approval, at the 2010 IWC meeting in Agadir, Morocco,
to be held June 21-25.
Japan has engaged in “research” whaling at commercial levels
throughout the global whaling moratorium declared by the IWC in 1982,
and has killed whales within the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary ever
since the sanctuary was designated in 1994. The IWC has not
previously addressed Japanese coastal whaling, which mostly kills
species smaller than those regulated by the IWC. Norway has killed
minke whales in coastal waters since 1993. Iceland has wobbled
between authorizing and prohibiting whaling.

Concern for circus lion cubs brings action in Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and Dubai

April 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

BEIRUT–Concern over the plight of a circus lion cub,
rallied by Animals Lebanon, has persuaded Lebanon to ratify the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
The global conservation community had failed for 27 years to
persuade a succession of Lebanese governments to endorse CITES,
brokered by the United Nations in 1973. But Animals Lebanon, a
two-year-old animal rights group, succeeded in less than 90 days,
by showing the Lebanese public, initially skeptical mass media, and
senior officials that inability to enforce CITES rules is a
significant cause of animal suffering.
Along the way, the suffering of the lion cub also helped to
prompt Jordan to adopt a national animal welfare law, taking effect
on April 2, 2010, and led to Egypt introducing a requirement that
henceforth circus animals may be transported out of the country only
by air.

Jockeys strike over horse treatment, owner quits

March 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:

PHILADELPHIA–Michael Gill, the winningest racehorse stable
owner in North America in 2009, on February 2, 2010 announced that
he would sell his horses and sue his critics for defamation.
The Pennsylvania Racing Com-mission and the Penn National
Race Course in Grantville, Pennsylvania, opened investigations of
Gill’s racing practices after jockey Thomas Clifton led fellow
jockeys in a boycott of any race in which a Gill horse was entered.
The racing commission later barred Gill horses from PRA-sanctioned
events.
Gill leases 49 stalls at the Penn National track, typically
running about five horses per racing card. Nationally, Gill has
fielded as many as 400 horses, but told media that he now has about
100. His horses won $6.7 million with 370 victories in 2,247 starts
in 2009, according to the data firm Equibase.

N.Y. Racing Assn. bans selling horses to slaughter

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

NEW YORK–The New York Racing Association on December 11,
2009 announced that it would bar from competition any horse owner or
trainer who is caught selling horses for slaughter. The association
“also urged horsemen who are part of what is widely considered the
premier racing circuit in the nation to support rescue and adoption
efforts, and to find humane ways of dealing with horses who are
unable to continue racing,” reported Joe Drape of the New York Times.
The New York Racing Association governs horse racing at three
of the most prestigious tracks in the U.S.: Aqueduct, Belmont Park,
and Saratoga. The two latter host the second and third events in the
horse racing Triple Crown series, which begins each spring with the
Kentucky Derby in Louisville.
The racing association crackdown came after more than 170
starving horses were found in April 2009 at Center Brook Farm in
Climax, New York. Property owner Ernie Paragallo was barred from
racing in New York, and in August 2009 was charged with 35 counts of
cruelty.

New doping rules

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
COPENHAGEN–New International Equestrian Federation
anti-doping rules took effect on January 1, 2010.
Federation president Princess Haya of Jordan commissioned a
review of the doping rules after six horses tested positive for
banned drugs at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, four years after three
gold medalists were stripped of their awards for illegal doping at
the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The first major test of the new rules is expected to come at
the 2010 World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky.

Greyhound racing comes to end in Wisconsin

November 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

MILWAUKEE–Greyhound racing will end in Wisconsin on December
31, 2009, 20 years after it started, with the closure of the
Dairyland Greyhound Park in Kenosha.
“In 1989, state regulators with dollar signs in their eyes
approved five operating licenses for pari-mutuel greyhound racing,”
recounted Don Walker of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Tracks
opened in Geneva Lakes, Kaukauna, Lake Delton, Hudson and Kenosha,
attracting 3.5 million visitors in 1991, the first year all five
tracks were open. But by 1994, four of the five tracks reported
losses. Costing $45 million to build, Dairyland was the last
survivor, but lost $17 million in the last seven years that it
operated. Attendance dropped 19% in 2009; wagering dropped 29%.

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