Letters [April 2009]

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:
 
Portuguese bullfights

Defensor Moura, the mayor of Viana do
Castelo, Portugal since 1993, decided in
December 2008 to have the city buy the local
bullring and turn it into a science and education
center. He told news media that Viana do Castelo
has no bullfighting tradition and that it is no
longer acceptable to torture animals for fun.
ANIMAL asked people to send messages
congratulating Moura, and asking him to declare
Viana do Castelo to be officially an
anti-bullfighting city–the first in Portugal.
Moura received more than 1,000 e-mails, from all
regions of Portugal and all over the world. He
has now declared Viana do Castelo to be
Portugal’s first anti-bullfighting city.
We next asked Braga mayor Fran-cisco
Mesquita Machado to not authorise a bullfight
that was to have taken place on June 20, 2009
at a local festival. Less than 24 hours after
the beginning of our e-campaign to stop this
bullfight, the communication officer for the
Mayor of Braga responded that, “The President of
the Municipality of Braga, upon becoming aware
of this alleged announcement of the organization
of a bullfight in this city, has instructed the
relevant municipal services to not authorise it.
This means that no bullfight will take place in
Braga.”
We are now trying to stop the
legis-lative bodies of the Azores from legalising
killing bulls and using picadors in bullfighting.
The legislative regional assembly of the Azores
now has the constitutional power to do this, in
an active bullfighting region where this
legislative step has long been sought.
–Miguel Moutinho
Executive Director
ANIMAL
Apartado 2028
8501-902 Portimão
Portugal
Phone: 00-351-282-491-216
<miguel.moutinho@animal.org.pt>
Read more

U.S. Army bans pit bulls & Rottweilers

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:
WASHINGTON D.C.–U.S. Army commanders at more than 40 bases
around the world are moving to implement a new “Pet Policy for
Privatized Housing Under the Army’s Residential Communities
Initiative Privatization Program,” which prohibits pit bull
terriers, Rottweilers, Doberman pinschers, chows, and wolf
hybrids.
Issued as an order on January 5, 2009, the new Army policy
also limits personnel living in base housing to keeping no more than
two dogs or cats, forbids keeping exotic pets and farm animals,
requires all pets to be microchipped for identification, and forbids
keeping pets “tied or staked outside the home or any building.”
The order further prohibits keeping “Any other dog who
demonstrates a propensity for dominance or aggressive behavior,”
indicated by “Unprovoked barking, growling or snarling at people
approaching the animal, aggressively running along fence lines when
people are present, biting or scratching people,” or “escaping
confinement or restriction to chase people.”

Read more

Meat kills, confirms National Cancer Institute study of half million Americans

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:
WASHINGTON D.C.–“High intakes of red or
processed meat may increase the risk of
mortality,” National Cancer Institute
researchers conservatively reported in the March
23, 2009 edition of Annals of Internal Medicine.
Annals of Internal Medicine is a
peer-reviewed journal published by the American
Medical Association–and what the study authors
actually found was the strongest scientific
condemnation yet of the health effects of a
meat-centered diet, regardless of the type of
meat consumed.
The National Cancer Institute examined
the relationship of diet and mortality among more
than half a million middle-aged and elderly
Americans from 1995 until the end of 2005. The
participants, all between 52 and 71 years old,
joined the study by completing a 124-question
survey about their eating habits, distributed by
the American Association of Retired Persons.
“Follow-up for vital status was performed
by annual linkage of the cohort to the Social
Security Administration Death Master File, and
cause of death information was provided by
follow-up searches of the National Death Index,”
explained study authors Rashmi Sinha, Amanda J.
Cross, Barry I. Graubard, Michael F. Leitzmann,
and Arthur Schatzkin.

Read more

Russia halts seal hunt

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:
MOSCOW, OTTAWA–Russian minister of natural resources Yury
Trutnyev on March 11, 2009 told the world that Russia has halted
hunting seals under one year old on the frozen White Sea.
“This bloody hunting is from now on banned in our country,
as in most developed countries,” Trutnyev told media.
Trutnyev described the ban as “an important measure to
preserve Russian biodiversity.” The recent White Sea quota of about
35,000 seals per year was about a tenth the size of recent Atlantic
Canadian sealing quotas, but amounted to a third of the White Sea
seal population. The White Sea seal herd has reportedly declined by
95% since it was first surveyed in 1928. However, the first herd
estimate, produced in the early years of the Communist era to assess
the potential for economic expolitation, may have been grossly
exaggerated.

Read more

Wolves will be hunted

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:
WASHINGTON, D.C.–Gray wolves may soon be legally hunted in
several of the Lower 48 states of the U.S., for the first time in
more than 80 years–but whether that means more wolves will be killed
than the 300-plus dispatched by USDA Wildlife Services in 2008 for
menacing livestock is anyone’s guess.
Among the restored populations of Idaho, Montana, and
Wyoming, together including about 1,650 wolves, Wildlife Services
in 2008 killed 264 wolves, more than one wolf in six, exterminating
21 entire packs as well as alleged rogue individuals.
Wildlife Services, other agencies, and farmers protecting
livestock also killed 45 wolves in Wisconsin, plus some in Michigan
and Minnesota.
Ranchers, blaming wolves for the confirmed loss of 601
cattle, sheep, llamas, and guard dogs in 2008, and sport hunters
who allege that wolves have reduced the numbers of elk and deer,
would like to kill even more wolves. Some elected officials in the
northern Rockies would openly prefer to hunt wolves back to regional
extirpation.

Read more

Nature’s animal control officers

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2009:
To fully appreciate coyotes may require
getting to know them– not taming them, not
trying to interact with them as wild cousins of
domestic dogs, just watching and listening.
Long before humans devised Tweeters to
let all their friends and family know where they
are and what they are doing at every moment,
coyotes learned to bark briefly each evening as
they emerge from their dens, which they change
almost every night, to tell every other coyote
within earshot where they will be hunting and
scavenging.

Read more

Letters [March 2009]

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2009:
 
Supplements stink
Re “Estrogen supplements double cancer risk,” in the
January/February 2009 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE: estrogen suppements
based on pregnant mares’ urine are not only harmful for women’s
health, but also cause women who take them to have a bad body odor.
They smell like horse urine. You can always tell when a woman is
taking the estrogen supplements because of the bad odor she has. If
you are anywhere within 10 feet of such a woman you can smell it.
If estrogen supplements make a woman stink, can they be any
good for her health? There are natural supplements that are safe and
good for the health. Horse urine is not something that people should
put in their bodies. People are not horses, and horse hormones are
an unnatural, biologically harmful substance for people.
–Elaine Woodriff
Petaluma, CA
<ew0220@sonic.net>
 
Read more

USDA probes claim that saliva test can reduce post-mortem rabies tests

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2009:
AMES, Iowa–A company called Dyne Immune created web buzz on
February 3, 2009 that a new saliva test to detect rabies might end
the need to confirm suspected cases through post-mortem
examination–but the enthusiasm expressed by rescuers without
veterinary background was not shared by rabies experts, ANIMAL
PEOPLE learned within minutes of receiving the Dyne Immune
announcement and making inquiries.
“No more killing an animal just in case!” exulted one poster
to an online discussion group.

Read more

Australian Bushfire Victims

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2009:

Chris Towie, M.D. 53, was killed by bushfire on his land
at Reedy Creek, near Broadford, Australia, on February 7, 2009.
“It is believed he was trying to save his animals,” reported the
Melbourne Herald-Sun. Partially deaf, Towie was known for
confronting bureaucracy on behalf of immigrants, the disabled, and
the disadvantaged, and for demanding that more be done to fight
methadrine addiction. Animals were also among his priorities.
“Every animal he found he took home,” Broadmeadows medical clinic
manager Cheryl Ferguson told Carol Nader of the Melbourne Age. The
animals whom Towie died defending reportedly included several camels,
emus, horses, a pony, five dogs, and many birds.

Read more

1 … 148 149 150 151 152 … 720