High hopes for Chinese draft animal welfare legislation

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Beijing–How close to passage is the
draft Chinese animal welfare bill, completion of
which was announced with a burst of publicity in
July 2009?
“The draft law will be submitted to the
National People’s Congress by the end of the
year,” reported China Central Television on
July 7, 2009.
At year’s end, however, the draft bill
had not yet been introduced as a formal
legislative proposal. Neither were there clear
indications that it would be. But there were
continuing hints from Beijing media that the
Chinese government is encouraging activities that
help to build public opinion in favor of animal
welfare.

Asia
Law

Obituaries [Jan/Feb 2010]

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Billy Arjan Singh, 92, died on January 1, 2010 at his
Tiger Haven refuge, 250 kilometers from Lucknow, India. Born into
the Ahluwalia royal family of Kapurthala, Singh shot seven tigers as
a youth, but came to detest hunting as he saw tigers, leopards,
blackbuck, and other Indian “trophy” animals shot to the verge of
extinction. Founding Tiger Haven in 1959, which has never had any
relationship or resemblance to the captive tiger facility by the same
name in Tennessee, Singh created the private preserve that
eventually became Dudhwa National Park. Singh notoriously dragged
poachers to town behind his jeep and expressed unsympathetic views
about the losses of employees and visitors who brought their children
into proximity with the captive tigers and leopards he rehabilitated
for release and bred with former zoo stock, including Tara, a part
Siberian tiger he imported from England in 1976, dismissing
objections that he was “contaminating” the Indian tiger gene pool.

Obituaries

Transporter sinks

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

BEIRUT–Thirty-nine people were rescued, but nine were found
dead, 35 were missing and presumed dead, and 10,224 sheep plus
17,932 cattle died when the livestock transporter Danny F II capsized
and sank on December 17, 2009, 11 nautical miles from Tripoli,
Lebanon, en route from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Tartarus, Syria.
The British captain reportedly went down with the ship.
Launched as the car transporter Don Carlos in 1975, the
Danny F II was renamed when converted to haul livestock in 1994. In
2005 the Danny F II was reportedly detained at Adelaide after
inspectors found holed bulkheads, defective navigation lights and
radio equipment, and defective watertight doors.
The sinking brought the biggest loss of life of any livestock
hauling incident since the sheep transporter Uniceb burned and sank
in September 1996, killing 67,488 sheep who were en route to Jordan
from New Zealand and Australia.

BOOKS: Cat Be Good

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Cat Be Good:
A Foolproof Guide for the Complete Care and Training of Your Cat
Third Edition
by Annie Bruce
2000, 2003, 2005 — Free online at <www.CatBeGood.com>; 208 pages.

After selling out three printed editions in less than 10
years, Colorado cat advocate Annie Bruce has now made Cat Be Good
available for free online.
While the priceless advice in Cat Be Good is now freely
accessible, a free cat is never free of expenses, Bruce cautions.
Who pays for the food, litter and vet bills? Cats also need
scratching posts and toys to keep them occupied, and usually are
happiest with cat companions, who bring their own expenses. Keeping
a cat–or several–is a lifetime responsibility, Bruce emphasizes.

Animal obituaries

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Rodney, a one-and-a-half-year-old mule deer buck, was on
December 21, 2009 confiscated and shot by California Department of
Fish & Game wardens. Rodney was picked up on June 3, 2008 by Katie
McFadyen, 16, of Los Molinos. She gave him to neighbor Thora
Adcock after her family moved. “Wardens considered releasing Rodney
onto a refuge,” warden DeWayne Little told Dylan Darling of the
Redding Record-Searchlight, “but opted to kill him because he had
become habituated to humans during his time with Adcock and showed
aggression to people.”

Obituaries

BOOKS: Rescue Matters

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Rescue Matters:
How to find, foster and rehome companion animals
by Sheila Webster Boneham, Ph.D.
Alpine Publications (38262 Linman Road, Crawford, CO 81415), 2009.
166 pages, paperback. $14.95.

Sheila Boneham recognizes that animal rescue is central to
the volunteers involved. They give up evenings to transport unwanted
animals from shelters to foster homes. Huge chunks of their weekends
are spent at adoption events. They may skip a holiday dinner to pick
up a stray dog who has been hit by a car. Hearts get broken along
the way too, when favorite animals don’t survive.
Rescuing animals can be rewarding, but it can also be
challenging and dangerous. And it’s not for everyone. There is a
lot more than plucking a stray dog from an animal shelter or saving a
cat from a band of hoodlums. Be prepared for hard work.

BOOKS: Scream Like Banshee

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Scream Like Banshee
by Tamira Ci Thayne
Dogs Deserve Better
(P.O. Box 23,
Tipton, PA 16684), 2009.
172 pages, paperback. $14.98.

Fostering a dog is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do,
says Tamira C. Thayne, founder and president of Dogs Deserve Better.
Thayne, formerly known as Tammy Grimes, offers tales and tips about
dealing with unwanted dogs, many of whom have lived chained to
fences, doghouses, or trees.
As a child, Thayne always liked animals. She grew up to be
caring and compassionate. A chained black Labrador named Worthless
changed her life. Thayne passed Worthless on her daily drive to
work. Sometimes she saw the dog shivering in the blustery
Pennsylvania winters, his chain snagged in debris that prevented
him from reaching his dog house. In the summer Worthless panted
under the harsh summer sun. His owners finally relented, after
several years, and gave Worthless to Thayne. Renamed Bo, the old
dog lived only a short time longer, but his last few months were
surrounded by love and comfort. He died unchained.

Japanese shelter numbers fall

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

OSAKA–Who is making the fastest progress toward becoming a
no-kill nation?
A good case could be made for Japan, according to 2007 data
collected by All Life In a Viable Environment and published in
December 2009 by Animal Refuge Kansai.
1999 data collected by Yoshiko Seno, published in the
November 2002 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE, showed that Japan then had a
dog population of about 10 million, of whom 280,199 were killed in
animal control shelters. Japan has no non-governmental shelters that
kill homeless animals. As Japan has had no visible street dogs in
more than 40 years, all of the dogs entering shelters were presumed
to be former pets.

Madras & Delhi courts rule on dog breeding & feeding

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

COIMBATORE, DELHI–High Court verdicts rendered five days
apart in Chennai and Delhi in mid-December 2009 were hailed by media
nationwide as among the most significant for dogs since Maneka Gandhi
vs. Delhi in 1992.
In the 1992 case, recalled Utkarsh Anand of the Indian
Express, “the Delhi High Court held that street dogs are a part of
the city, and just beng classified as strays does not mean they
should be killed. The court accepted that sterilization and
vaccination of dogs is the only scientific and humane solution to the
so-called problem of street dogs.”

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