End of E.U. live cattle export subsidies may change Eid al-Adha

January 2, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

BERUIT, BRUSSELS–Eid al-Adha slaughters on January 10,
2006 marked both the end of the haj, the season of pilgrimage to
Mecca for the Islamic devout, and the end of nearly $80 million per
year in European Union live cattle export subsidies.
Much of the money underwrote the sale of cattle killed during
the annual Eid al-Adha ritual bloodbath.
Most of the cattle killed for Eid al-Adha this year were
shipped before the European Union cancelled the subsidies on December
23, 2005.
European Union Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development
Mariann Fischer Boel emphasized the importance of animal welfare
considerations in persuading the electorate.
“This is tremendous news for the welfare of cattle,” added
United Kingdom Member of the European Parliament Neil Parish.
“British taxpayers have been unwittingly sponsoring this abhorrent
trade for too long. The subsidy is not necessary,” Parish asserted,
“as cattle can be slaughtered under humane conditions in the E.U. and
shipped abroad on the hook, rather than on the hoof.”

Letters [Jan/Feb 2006]

January 2, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

Scoring system

This letter is to address reviewer Kim Bartlett’s concerns
about the numerical scoring system for slaughterhouse evaluation that
I described in my book Animals In Translation. She was concerned
that many animals would suffer because a plant can pass even when it
makes some mistakes. Audits by restaurants that hold a plant to a
numerical standard have resulted in great improvements. The audit
criteria allow a plant to pass if 1% of the cattle fall down. In
2005, the 20 largest beef plants that were audited by more than one
restaurant company had 0% of the cattle falling. Cattle slipped in
only three plants. These plants have been in the audit system for
five years. This is a big improvement compared to my 1996
pre-restaurant audit data in 11 beef and veal plants. In two plants
(18%) a total of 8% and 12% of the animals fell down.
Reducing vocalization (moos and bellows) from distressed
cattle has also been greatly reduced. In 1996, the worst plant had
35% of the cattle vocalizing and in 2005 the worst vocalization score
out of 43 plants was 6%. In the 20 most heavily audited beef plants
the worst vocalization score was only 3%.
In 2005 the average scores for the heavily audited beef plants were:

Letters

Kites vs. kite-birds & other species in the skies of India & Pakistan

January 2, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

AHMEDABAD–As many as a million kites soared aloft over
Indian cities on January 15, 2006 as Hindus celebrated Makar
Sankranti, the Day of the Sun.
Festivals throughout India featured kite-fighting contests, in which
flyers tried to saw through each other’s strings.
Celebrity kite-fighters included Sonia Gandhi, president of
the ruling Congress Party, and recently retired former prime
minister and Bharatija Janata Party president Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
who met in Jaipur.
Everywhere kites rose through the air space occupied by
sidewalk and garden bird species such as sparrows and bulbuls, up
past ringnecked parakeets and house crows patrolling at treetop
height, on to baffle the kite-birds and vultures whose
congregations, circling on thermal currents, are often the first
sign that Indian airline pilots see of their destination cities,
while the cities themselves are still beyond the horizon.

Non-enforcement erodes U.K. pack hunting ban

January 2, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

LONDON–Almost a year after the Hunting
Act banned most forms of hunting with dogs in
England and Wales, effective on February 19,
2005, pack hunting participation on Boxing Day
was reportedly undiminished.
As many as 250,000 people either rode to hounds
or followed the dogs on foot on December 26,
2005, the traditional peak of the British pack
hunting season.
“Far from consigning hunting to history,”
Times of London countryside editor Valerie Elliot
claimed, “thousands more are in the saddle or on
foot in pursuit of a fox scent, sometimes
accidentally hunting real foxes.”
Entering 2006, there were still 317 active hunt
clubs in Britain, including 184 that hunt foxes
and 100 that hunt hares. The Aldenham Harriers,
of South Hertfordshire, disbanded in
mid-January, but hunting participation overall
is up an average of 33%, asserted Elliot.

Obituaries

January 2, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

Tony Banks, 62, died on January 7, 2006 from a stroke
sufferedon vacation at Sanibel Island, Florida. A Member of
Parlia-ment 1983-2004, sports minister 1997-1999, and named to the
House of Lords in mid-2005, Banks was a vegetarian and “a staunch
animal welfarist who played a key role in having hunting with dogs
banned in Britain,” World Society for the Protection of Animals
director general Peter Davies recalled. “He was also a strong
supporter of my separate charity which erected the Memorial to
Animals in War in Park Lane, London,” Davies said. Added League
Against Cruel Sports chair John Cooper, “In his firm belief that
people have a moral responsibility to animals, Banks was not just a
figurehead for millions of animal welfare supporters across Britain,
but a determined street fighter in the corridors of Westminster.”
At his death Banks was League Against Cruel Sports vice president.

Ethel Thurston, 94, died at home in New York City on
January 4, 2006. A longtime professor at Hunter College, Bryn
Mawr, New York University, and the Manhattan College of Music,
Thurston was globally known as a musicologist who recreated the
original sounds of compositions from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
But Thurston was legendary, friend Sara Sohn recalled, as “a
pioneer of the animal rights movement, who devoted the last three
decades of her life to running the two organizations she founded.

Obituaries

Animal Obituaries

January 2, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

Angus, 27, believed to be the world’s biggest captive
elephant, was found dead on January 8 by his trainer, Michael
Hackenberger, at the Bowmanville Zoo near Toronto. The star of the
Bowmanville Zoo elephant ride concession for 20 years, Angus died
about 30 hours after a sedative test given in preparation for
retiring him to the Pumba private game reserve near Port Elizabeth,
South Africa. Born in Kruger National Park, Angus was captured at
age two. He toured with the Garden Brothers Circus and briefly
resided at zoos in Quebec and Texas before arriving at Bowmanville
with Hackenberger and his wife, zoo veterinarian Wendy Korver. A
highlight of his life was swimming with beluga whales in the St.
Lawrence River on one occasion while on tour.

Ragtime, 19, a miniature performing horse who was involved
in a landmark 1989 zoning dispute in Thousand Oaks, California,
died on January 2, four days after his trainers, Rich & Patty
Fairchild, moved him and his mate Sassy to Colorado Springs.

Obituaries

Greenpeace, Sea Shepherds chase whalers

January 2, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

SOUTHERN OCEANS WHALE SANCTUARY–Neither Australia, New
Zealand, nor the United Nations defends the Antarctic whale
sanctuary declared in 1974 by the International Whaling Commission,
so Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society did it
themselves in December 2005 and January 2006, while the Japanese
whaling fleet sought to kill 935 minke whales and 10 fin whales
within the sanctuary limits –which Japan does not recognize.
Greenpeace pursued the whalers with two ships, the Esperanza
and the Arctic Sunrise, a helicopter, and combined crews of 60
people, including two photographers and two videographers. For
Greenpeace, wrote Geoff Strong of the Melbourne Age, “the most
important weapon is not the water spray designed to confuse the
harpoonists’ aim,” a new tactic used to reported great effect, “but
the new satellite Internet link that allows them to send fresh
broadcast-quality images.
“Sea Shepherd has a different method of disseminating the
message,” Strong continued. Aboard the Farley Mowat were “an
embedded contingent of independent media, including representatives
from Australia’s Seven network, National Geographic, and
documentary filmmakers from the U.S., France, Brazil, and Canada.
“The whalers have a public relations machine too,” Strong
noted. “For the first time they too have been releasing images.”

So why doesn’t the Belgrade Zoo cage the war criminals & leave the elephant in India?

January 2, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

BELGRADE, Serbia–Belgrade Zoo director Vukosav Bojovic
sought publicity in mid-January 2006 for his intended acquisition of
an elephant named Djanom from an unnamed zoo in Punjab, India.
The Belgrade Zoo got publicity on January 11, 2006 as scene
of Associated Press file photos showing former Croatian Serb
paramilitary commander Dragan Vasiljkovic kissing a brown bear named
Kninja and her two cubs. Vasiljkovic visited the zoo on Sept-ember
19, 2005 to visit Kninja, formerly mascot of his militia unit.
Croatia on January 11 issued an international warrant seeking
Vasiljkovic’s arrest for alleged 1991 war crimes including torturing,
killing, and expelling Croatian civilians as well as soldiers from
their homes, plus arranging the assassination of Egon Scotland, 43,
who documented some of Vasiljkovic’s actions for the Munich daily
newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Believed to be living in Perth, Australia, Vasiljkovic,
51, “had petty convictions against him and was involved in
Melbourne’s brothel industry in the 1970s,” reported Natasha Robinson
of The Australian.

Asia
Europe

1958 slaughter act protects all species, say lawsuits

January 2, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

SAN FRANCISCO, WASHINGTON D.C.–Separate
federal lawsuits filed by the Humane Society of
the U.S. and the Humane Farming Association
contend that Congress meant the 1958 Humane
Methods of Slaughter Act to cover all species who
are routinely killed for human consumption.
Filed in San Francisco one month apart,
both lawsuits place jurisdiction for the first
ruling and first two steps of the inevitable
appellate phase before the Ninth U.S. Judicial
Circuit, a court which has historically been
more friendly toward animals than most other
jurisdictions.
USDA enforcement of the Humane Methods of
Slaughter Act, as well as being sporadic and
uneven, has always exempted poultry, rabbits,
and ranched “wildlife” species such as bison,
deer, and elk. In consequence, more than 95%
of all the animals slaughtered for meat in the
U.S. have had no legal protection from cruelty.

« 1 … 254 255 256 257 258 … 720 »