Finch fighting busted in Connecticut

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2009:
DERBY, Connecticut–All 19 defendants in the first
finch-fighting case in the U.S. that anyone could remember on August
11, 2009 surrendered title to 150 saffron finches who were seized in
a July 26 raid on the home of Jurames Goulart, 42, of Shelton,
Connecticut. Goulart, Sebastian Andrade, 37, and Nonato Raimundo,
51, both of Danbury, were charged with organizing a finch-fighting
ring that drew gamblers from as far as Massachusetts, New York, and
New Jersey. The other arrestees were charged as spectators.

Border fighting over elephants & tigers

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

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.

Dog bite prevention weak

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:

ALBANY, CHICAGO, DENVER,
INDIANAPOLIS, NEW YORK CITY, WASHINGTON
D.C.–Dog Bite Prevention Week 2009 opened with
opponents of breed-specific legislation claiming
victories in Indianapolis and Highland Park, a
Chicago suburb, but closed with a 13-page
verdict against pit bull terrier advocates in
Loudoun County, Virginia.
The Indianapolis city/county council on
May 12, 2009 voted to table an At Risk Dogs bill
introduced by councillor Mike Speedy. The bill
will not be discussed again until after a new
community budget is approved, probably not
before October, Speedy told ANIMAL PEOPLE. But
Speedy vowed that the At Risk Dogs proposal will
be brought back at the first opportunity.
The At Risk Dogs proposal would have
required that pit bull terriers be sterilized,
in a community where more than 30% of the dogs
arriving at shelters are pit bulls. It
paralleled legislation in effect in San Francisco
since January 2006, credited with achieving a
23% reduction in shelter intakes of pit bulls,
and a 33% reduction in the number of pit bulls
killed by animal control in only two years,
after more than a decade of non-mandatory
programs made little difference. Similar
ordinances are in effect in smaller cities in at
least 10 states. Yet another took effect on
April 16, 2009 in Moses Lake, Washington.
The Highland Park city council on May 14,
2009 deferred until after a June 22 public
workshop any further action on a pit bull ban
proposed by mayor Michael Belsky after a newly
acquired pit bull belonging to a 17-year-old boy
inflicted severe facial bites on a 14-year-old
girl.

Obituaries [June 2009]

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
Princess Elizabeth de Croy, 88, died on
May 18, 2009 at the Refuge de Thiernay she
founded in 1968, three miles from the Chateau
d’Azy, her birthplace and the de Croy ancestral
home. The Princess worked as a flight attendant
in the early years of commercial aviation,
traveled with actor Rex Harrison, and knew
General Charles DeGaulle. She did humanitarian
relief work in Biafra, and with her six sisters,
helped to raise funds for Mother Teresa. Her
first experience in humane work included
introducing the use of captive bolt guns to
French slaughterhouses in 1962, as a member of
the French organization ‘uvre d’Assistance aux
Bêtes d’Abattoirs. She demonstrated stun guns
donated by the International Society for the
Protection of Animals, a subsidiary of the
Massachusetts SPCA which was in 1981 merged with
a subsidiary of the Royal SPCA of Britain to form
the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

Obituaries

Horse racing casualties

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
MELBOURNE, Australia–The Racing Victoria Limited Board
suspended jumps racing for 11 days in May 2009, after seven horses
in two weeks were euthanized due to injuries suffered in jumps
competition of training, including three in two days at the
Warrnambool May Racing Carnival.
Racing minister Rob Hulls lifted the suspension on May 18,
after intensive lobbying by the Victorian Jumps Racing Association.
However, Racing Victoria Ltd. on May 11 suspended four-time Grand
Annual Steeplechase winning rider David “Butch” Londregan, now a
trainer, for threatening in a radio interview to shoot his horses
and send their heads to Hulls.

BOOKS: Watching Giants

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:

Watching Giants: The Secret Lives of Whales by Elin Kelsey
U. of Calif. Press (2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704), 2008.
216 pages, paperback, illustrated. $17.95.

“Whales inspire me to contemplate connections,” says Elin
Kelsey, author and faculty member at Royal Roads University in
Canada. “They inspire me to act more generously. They inspire me to
experience life in whale scale.” Kelsey’s book Watching Giants takes
us into the fascinating world of all 32 species of the mammoth yet
graceful creatures.

BOOKS: Flyaway

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
Flyaway: How a wild bird rehabber sought adventure and found her wings
by Suzie Gilbert
HarperCollins Publishers (10 East 53rd St., New
York, NY 10022), 2009. 352 pages. $25.99
hardcover.
“And I see these two robins, and one is
kicking the crap out of the other one. Beating
the bejesus out of himŠ.And he’s out there right
now waiting for you.”
Bird rehabilitator Suzie Gilbert, of
Hudson Valley, New York, answers frequent calls
of a similar nature, concerned about birds but
not necessarily well-informed about their
behavior.
Her mother fed wild birds, so maybe
Gilbert was destined for this career. But
getting there took time. Gilbert repeatedly
changed directions in pursuing her education and
a career, traveling extensively abroad. She
found her calling by volunteering at a wildlife
rehabilitation center in 1990.

BOOKS: Tails of Recovery

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:

Tails of Recovery: Addicts & the Pets That Love Them
by Nancy A. Schenck
HarperCollins Publishers (10 East 53rd Street., New York, NY
10022), 2009. 175 pages, hardcover. $29.99.

Tails of Recovery offers a glimpse into the tangled lives of
substance abusers, whose behavior does not always elicit sympathy.
While high, their behavior is often not only illegal but disdainful
and dismissive toward the norms and values of civilized society.
In recovery, most ask for forgiveness. Some do not. The
people profiled in Tales of Recovery may be loved by their pets, but
they have not all shown responsible behavior, even though all of
them are years into recovery, following twelve-step programs and
typically holding jobs.
A few treated their dogs and cats badly while under the
influence. Others were indifferent to their pets’ needs. One moved
from criminal behavior to a legal activity which may contribute at
least as much to animal suffering.

Marooned dogs’ howls echo in Turkey

June 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
Marooning the dogs of Palau Ketam had two notorious
precedents near Istanbul, Turkey, recalled by Companion Animal
Network founder Garo Alexanian in the November/ December 2008 edition
of ANIMAL PEOPLE.
The first marooning off Istan-bul occurred at some point
prior to 1869, when Mark Twain described it in The Innocents Abroad,
along with “the howl of horror” from citizens that stopped the
practice.
The second marooning came in 1910. “This act so disturbed
the modern Turkish republic,” Alexanian wrote, “that newspaper
columnists have attributed difficult economic times in Turkey to the
curse of Turks having done it.”

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