Caught to eat, then abandoned

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
WINDHOEK–The all-volunteer Cat Protection Society in
Windhoek, Namibia in mid-April 2008 rescued hundreds of cats who
were abandoned in company housing after the Malaysian firm Ramatex
closed a clothing factory that at peak operation employed 7,000
workers. Many other cats died from neglect before the rescuers
learned of their existence, wrote Denver Isaacs of The Nambian.
Opened in 2002 with heavy government subsidies,
Ramatex-Namibia tried to impose Asian sweatshop conditions, claimed
labor organizers. When the Namibian employees unionized, Ramatex
quickly settled a strike, but then hired “trainers” from China, the
Philippines, and Bangladesh to take over much of the work.

Pet theft-to-eat cases prosecuted in China, Korea, Hawaii

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
ZHENGZHOU–Eating dogs and cats is legal
in China, but stealing them isn’t, a Zhengzhou
judge emphasized recently, fining “a man
surnamed Zhang” $214, about two weeks’ wages,
for “killing and cooking what he thought was a
stray dog,” the Zhengzhou Evening News reported.
The dog was actually a lost pet belonging to a woman surnamed Liu.
Summarized China Daily, distributing the
story nationwide, “Zhang, who likes to eat dogs
and cats, hung the dog’s skin from a fence over
a bridge so that he could dry and sell it. Upon
seeing the skin, Liu tracked down Zhang and
demanded that he pay her for killing her pet.
The woman recognized her pet’s skin because she
had dyed his fur.”
Chinese state-run media have reported
increasingly critically about dog and cat
consumption in recent years. Reportage linking a
disapproved practice to crime is a frequent
prelude in China to regulatory discouragement.
Also seen recently in connection with wildlife
consumption, this trend is more familiar to
westerners in reference to praise of the Dalai
Lama, the practice of Falun Gong, and uses of
Google and Yahoo search engines to research
banned topics.

Booking agency sues SHARK for dissuading entertainers from performing at rodeo

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
CHEYENNE–Romeo Entertainment, incorporated in Omaha but
based in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, on April 16, 2008 sued the
animal advocacy organization SHARK, of Geneva, Illinois, for
allegedly using “false and misleading information” and “threats of
negative publicity” in successful efforts to dissuade singer Carrie
Underwood and the band Matchbox 20 from performing at the Cheyenne
Frontier Days rodeo in July 2006 and July 2008, respectively.
SHARK founder Steve Hindi sent video of alleged animal abuse
at past Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo performances to both Underwood
and Matchbox 20, he acknowledged. Romeo Entertainment, headed by
Bob Romeo, “has arranged for night show entertainers for Cheyenne
Frontier Days at times over the last 20 years,” says the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed nine days before Cheyenne Frontier Days
animal care committee chair Bob Budd announced a ban on “the use of
hand-held electric shock devices at the rodeo except in emergency
situations where they are needed to prevent injuries,” according to
Cary Snyder of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle.

South Korean capital defines dogs as “livestock”

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
SEOUL–Acknowledging the existence of at least 528 Seoul
restaurants that sell dog meat, plus 70 more that may offer dog meat
as a summer special, Seoul city health officials on April 12, 2008
announced that they would begin inspecting dog carcasses.
“The city will take samples of dog meat from about 530
restaurants and examine them to see if they contain harmful
substances such as heavy metals, antibiotics, and bacteria,” wrote
Korea Times staff reporter Kim Tae-jong.
The unilateral city inspection initiative follows years of
efforts by the dog meat industry to have dogs recognized as a “meat”
animal, on the pretext that traffic in species not so recognized
cannot be regulated under the existing hygiene laws.
Selling dogs’ meat for human consumption has been technically
illegal since 1983, but the law has never been enforced, and
provides no means for it to be enforced.

New legislation addresses violent entertainment

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:

Nebraska governor Dave Heineman on April 16, 2008 endorsed
into law a bill to ban horse tripping, a common event at
charreada-style rodeos. The language that “No person shall
intentionally trip or cause to fall, or lasso or rope the legs of,
any equine by any means for the purpose of entertainment, sport,
practice, or contest” makes the Nebraska law “the strongest such law
in the nation, far better than California’s,” or those of Texas,
New Mexico, Maine, Florida, Oklahoma, and Illinois, said Action
for Animals founder Eric Mills. A bill modeled on the California law
cleared the Arizona house of representatives on March 30.

The $64 million question: is Moscow building new shelters promised in 1999?

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
MOSCOW–“Moscow Dog Attacks Spur $64 Million Castration
Drive,” the international financial news web site Bloom-berg.com
bannered on April 14, 2008.
The headline, in a publication founded by New York City
mayor Michael Bloomberg, seemed to promise the largest dog
sterilization campaign anywhere, ever.
Bloomberg.com Moscow correspondent Henry Meyer reiterated in
the lead paragraph of his article that the $64 million would be spent
“to castrate as many as 50,000 stray dogs,” in response to dog
attacks now occurring at about an eighth of the U.S. rate.
But reality–as Meyer acknowledged five paragraphs later–is
that Moscow chief veterinarian Natalia Sokolova told a television
audience that the city plans to spend the $64 million to build 15
animal shelters, meant to impound about 2,000 stray dogs apiece per
year. The shelters are to be opened in 2009, ten years after they
were first promised.

PETA littering convictions overturned in N.C.

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
RALEIGH–The North Carolina Court of Appeals on April 15,
2008 overturned the February 2007 littering convictions of former
PETA employees Adria J. Hinkle and Andrew B. Cook.
Hinkle and Cook, who then worked for PETA, were arrested in
June 2005, after a police stakeout in Ahoskie, North Carolina,
caught them in the act of disposing of dog and cat carcasses in a
supermarket dumpster.
Judge Rick Elmore wrote for the three-judge appellate panel
that while the defendants’ actions leading to the conviction were
undisputed, the prosecution failed to prove that the supermarket
dumpster where Hinkle and Cook left the remains was an illegal place
to dispose of them.

What is the cost of fraud & theft to animal charities?

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
NEW YORK, N.Y.– Data gathered by the Association of
Certified Fraud Examiners and evaluated by four professors of
nonprofit accounting indicates that U.S. charities are losing about
13% of their annual income to fraud and theft– more than twice the
6% rate of loss for all organizations, including government agencies
and for-profit businesses.
The sum stolen, estimated at about $40 billion in 2006, is
roughly equal to the sum of all giving by corporations and private
foundations, Independent Sector president Diana Aviv told Stephanie
Strom of The New York Times.
The amount stolen from animal charities, if proportionate to
total charitable giving, would be about $400 million: three times
the total income of the Humane Society of the U.S., with about half
the amount stolen from animal care organizations and the rest from
organizations chiefly involved in advocating for wildlife and habitat.
Among 58 cases reported to the fraud examiners in a random
survey of charities, the typical thief was a female employee paid
less than $50,000 a year, who had worked for the organization at
least three years. The average amount she stole was less than
$40,000.\

Nepalese royals misused National Trust for Nature Conservation, says audit report

April 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:

KATHMANDU–A three-member audit committee on March 26, 2008
confirmed years of rumors that the Nepalese royal family had
extensively misused the King Mahendra National Trust for Nature
Conservation.
Examining financial records from 2000-2006, the audit
committee reported that, “Millions [in Nepalese rupees] were spent on
travels abroad and lavish parties,” summarized the Nepal Horizons
News Service, in an account also internationally distributed
verbatim by the Indo-Asian News Service.

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