2005 spring session state legislative achievements

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue on May 10, 2005 signed into
law an income tax return checkoff to help fund the state Dog & Cat
Sterilization Program. The program has been supported entirely by
the sale of commemorative license plates and unsolicited donations.

The Illinois legislature on June 2, 2005 sent to Governor
Rod Blagojevich a revised state Public Health & Safety Animal
Population Control Act. The act, HB 315, expands the funding
sources of the Illinois Pet Population Control Fund from a
commemorative license plate program to include also an income tax
return checkoff, voluntary donations, public safety fines,
forfeited sterilization deposits, and a licensing differential for
intact animals. The act also updates fines and licensing procedures,
requires shelters to offer “adoptable” animals for placement,
expands the definition of dangerous dog and streamlines dangerous dog
law enforcement, exempts feral cat caretakers from the legal
definition of an animal “owner,” and requires shelters to report
intake and killing statistics annually to the state Department of
Agriculture. “HB 669 was also passed. It would provide some
funding to wildlife rehabbers,” said American SPCA senior director
of legal training & legislation Ledy Van Kavage, for whom drafting
and lobbying HB 315 to passage has been a multi-year focal project.

France, Scotland, Canada weigh new legislation

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

French Justice Minister Domin-ique Perben in early May 2005
recommended that the national civil code, drafted by Napoleon
Bonaparte in 1804, be updated to recognize animals as “living and
sentient beings,” Agence France-Presse reported. Animals have long
been protected from abuse under the French criminal code, but only
by extension of their property status.
The Scottish Executive on May 16 introduced a bill to
prohibit awarding live animals as prizes, and to raise the minimum
age for buying a pet from 12 to 16. “The bill also contains
provisions to help protect against diseases such as hoof-and-mouth,”
and “incorporates tough measures to combat animal cruelty,” wrote
Alan McEwen of The Scotsman.
Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler in mid-May introduced
the fifth attempt, by a series of governments, to update the
federal anti-cruelty code. The new draft bill reportedly includes
broad exemptions for traditional hunting and fishing practices,
including seal-clubbing.

Black Wolf Rescue conviction

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Black Wolf Rescue founder Robert Clifton Artois, 56, of
Triangle, Virginia, was convicted on June 1, 2005 of neglecting
the 11 wolf hybrids and 18 other dogs who were removed from his
premises by animal control officers on April 18. Volunteer caretaker
Cheryl Grenier discovered and reported the conditions, including a
dead dog, after Artois was jailed in Alexandria on April 13 and
called from jail to ask her to feed and water the animals. Artois
had already been warned to improve his care regimen in October 2004,
and was charged with one count of neglect in November 2004. In
December 2004, Prince William General District Court Judge Peter W.
Steketee continued the original neglect case until June 2005, and
ordered animal control officers to inspect Black Wolf Rescue weekly.
Artois allegedly then refused to allow animal control personnel to
enter his property.
Founded circa 1992, Black Wolf Rescue raised funds through a
web site. Artois was convicted of felony larceny in 1983, and was
convicted of contributing to the delinquency of minors in 1997 and
2003, according to Maria Hegsted of the Potomac News. The 2003 case
involved a 15-year-old boy whom Artois met via the Internet. Artois
was in a sex offender treatment program, Hegsted indicated, and may
be facing fraud charges for falsely claiming on his web site that
Black Wolf Rescue has IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.

Violence vs. animal law enforcement

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

NAIROBI–Nairobi police fired teargas to disperse
demonstrators on May 18, 2005, and Masai leader Ben Koisaba
threatened to “mobilize Masai to invade Delamere ranches in Nakuru to
press for the re-arrest and prosecution” of Tom Gilbert Patrick
Cholmon-deley, 37, a day after Philip Murgor, Kenya Director of
Public Prosecution, dropped a murder charge filed against
Cholmondeley on April 28 for killing Kenya Wildlife Service ranger
Samson ole Sisina with one of a volley of five shots fired on April
19.
Cholmondeley, an honorary KWS game ranger himself, claimed
Sisina shot first, and said he had mistaken Sisina for a bandit, as
Sisina led an undercover KWS raid on an illegal wildlife
slaughterhouse at one of the Cholmondeley family ranches.
Cholmon-deley remained under investigation in connection with the
slaughterhouse.
Cholmondeley’s grandfather Hugh Cholmondeley, the third
Baron Delamere, visited Kenya to hunt in 1895, decided to emigrate
from Britain to raise cattle, and established the family land and
livestock empire that Tom Cholmondeley now directs.
The Sisina slaying followed the late March murder of a
Swaziland ranger identified only as Mandla.

Evictions to clear a park in Ethiopia

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

While land invasions and their aftermath destroy the remnants
of wildlife protection in Zimbabwe, the African Parks Foundation has
reportedly introduced to Ethiopia the heavy-handed relocation of
longtime land occupants in the name of conservation that helped to
create the pressures leading to the Zimbabwean debacle.
“Ethiopia wants a Kenyan-style network of wildlife parks to
serve a Kenyan-style tourist industry,” columnist Fred Pearce
charged in the April 16, 2005 edition of New Scientist. “Following
the model of Kenya, the country’s leaders have been throwing the
locals out of the park to achieve the ultimate safari experience for
western visitors: wildlife without people.”
The African Parks Foundation, summarized Pearce, “was set
up by a leading Dutch industrialist, Paul van Vlissingen. It offers
to take over moribund parks from African governments, find
international funding to spruce them up, and then get the tourists
rolling in. It is building a portfolio of parks across Africa,”
including in Malawi and Zambia as well as Ethiopia, but will not
invest in parks that are jeopardized by human encroachment.

Denver pit bull terrier ban is reinstated by court & is again enforced

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar’s office on April 20,
2005 announced through spokesperson Kristin Hubbell that his office
will not appeal an April 7 ruling by Judge Martin Engelhoff that the
Colorado state legislature had no right under the state constitution
to usurp the authority of local governments to enact breed-specific
animal control ordinances.
The verdict reinstated the Denver ban on possessing pit bull
terriers, in effect from 1989 until it was overturned by the
legislature in May 2004. In the interim, Denver largely avoided the
eight-fold surge in pit bull terrier attacks and four-fold surge in
animal shelter admissions of pit bulls that has afflicted most of the
rest of the U.S.
Engelhoff previously upheld the Denver ordinance in December
2004, but city officials did not resume enforcing the ordinance
while it was still under state appeal. Denver Animal Control
received six pit bulls as owner surrenders and animal control
officers picked up six on May 9, the first day of resumed
enforcement. The Table Mountain Animal Center in Golden and the
Humane Society of Colorado in Englewood also reported receiving more
pit bulls than usual.

Human obituaries

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

Elmina Brewster Sewall, 93, died on April 7, 2005 in
Kennebunk, Maine. Among the first breeders of Sussex spaniel show
dogs in the U.S., Brewster Sewall “between 1936 and 1940, imported
some of the best stock available in England,” and “went on to breed
seven litters over the next six years,” wrote John Robert Lewis Jr.
in Sussex Spaniel, A Complete and Reliable Handbook (1997). Brewster
Sewall also “bred and raised pugs, and was a familiar figure at the
Westminster Dog Show,” recalled Katie Dolloff, program coordinator
for the Animal Welfare Society of Southern Maine. But she had also
become concerned about pet overpopulation, and in the 1950s allowed
her line of Sussex spaniels to die out. After several years of
informal animal rescue, Brewster Sewall and friends incorporated the
Animal Welfare Society in 1967. A longtime AWS board member,
Brewster Sewall was also active in greyhound rescue, and assisted
other charities including Mainely Girls, Friends of the Sea Otter,
the Student Conservation Association, and the Massachusetts SPCA.
The AWS named the Elmina B. Sewall Animal Shelter after her in 1990.
It finds homes for more than 3,000 animals a year,” Dolloff said.

Obituaries

Wisconsin hunters, birders vote to shoot cats

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

MILWAUKEE–A brown tabby named Junior and three unidentified
cats found shot on a road near a Sheboygan cemetery on April 11 were
apparent early casualties of a Wisconsin Conservation Congress
proposal to allow hunters to shoot feral cats. On April 11 the
statewide Conservation Congress caucuses ratified the proposal,
6,830 (57%) in favor, 5,201 (43%) against.
Junior, normally an indoor cat, escaped on Easter Sunday,
April 3, from the home of Kirk and Liz Obear, and their daughters,
ages 9 and 12. They put up posters and searched for him. A neighbor
found his remains, and the remains of the other cats, while walking
her dog about a mile away.
Before shooting cats becomes legal in Wisconsin, the
proposal must be formally endorsed by the Wisconsin Natural Resources
Board, which was to consider it on May 13. The Wisconsin
Legislature would then have to pass it in the form of a law.
Governor Jim Doyle would have to sign the law.
“I don’t think Wisconsin should become known as a state where
we shoot cats,” Doyle said.

North America

Jailed because she spoke out for dolphins

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

CANCUN, Mexico–Dolphin defender Araceli
Dominguez, chair of Grupo Ecologista del Mayab
(GEMA), was released from jail without charges on
April 28, 2005, five days after she was
detained on a libel writ filed by Bernardo
Zambrano, owner of the Atlantida dolphinarium
and Parc Nizuc Wet N’ Wild swim-with-dolphins
attraction.
Zambrano, son of CEMEX cement company
chair Lorenzo Zambrano, claimed Dominguez
defamed him by reporting that a dolphin recently
died at one of his facilities.
Dominguez “was released in the early
morning hours, just after a representative of
the Governor of the State of Quintana Roo went
around midnight personally to the prison,”
e-mailed Ntailan Lolkoki of Ecoterra
International.
“Zambrano was forced to drop all criminal
charges against Dominguez [and co-defendants] Sara Rincon, head of the Association to Protect
Animals of Cancun, Cecilia Navarro from
Greenpeace Mexico, Ben White of the Animal
Welfare Institute, five local reporters, and
Yolanda Alaniz from Comarino,” the Ecoterra
announcement continued.

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