Channel Islands National Park ex-chief hits cruelty of killing “invasive species”

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

SANTA BARBARA–Denouncing “systematic biologic genocide”
committed by the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy in
Channel Islands National Park, off the California coast, retired
park superintendent Tim J. Setnicka has affirmed almost every
criticism of the cruelty of “invasive species” eradication that
animal advocates have issued since the killing in the islands began
circa 1970.
Setnicka published his 3,500-word confession in the March 25,
2005 edition of the Santa Barbara News Press.
A globally recognized search-and-rescue expert, Setnicka
developed his skills during approximately 30 years of killing
non-native species in the Channel Islands. “The Park Service
reassigned him to other duties before his retirement. He lives in
Ojai,” on the nearby mainland, the News Press said.
Setnicka was apparently brought to catharsis after viewing a
slide show of the history of Channel Islands National Park at a
celebration of the 25th anniversary of the official park opening.
“A large portion of the park’s history revolved around
killing one species to save another,” Setnicka saw.

New Hampshire greyhound execs hit by indictments

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

CONCORD, N.H.– Responding to a report by New Hampshire
attorney general Kelly Ayotte that a consortium called the New
Hampshire Gaming Association is unfit to hold a dog racing license,
“The Lakes Region Greyhound Park is actively seeking a buyer and upon
finding one, may surrender its racing license under a tentative deal
with the attorney general’s office even before the state Pari-Mutual
Commission conducts hearings on whether to revoke it,” Fosters Daily
Democrat staff writer John Koziol reported on March 29, 2005.
The Lakes Region Grey-hound Park has reportedly lost money recently
and laid off staff.
Former Lakes Region Greyhound Park general manager Richard
Hart and assistant general manager Jonathan Broome were among 17
people indicted in January 2005 for allegedly running a five-state
illegal betting ring based in Concord, New Hampshire that handled
$200 million in just four years. The ring allegedly operated within
an entity called the International Players Association.
The money “was laundered through various off-site betting
companies, including Euro Off-Track on the Isle of Man in the United
Kingdom,” wrote Providence Journal State House Bureau reporter
Scott Mayerowitz.

New murder-by-dog case filed in Virginia

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

FREDERICKSBURG–The first murder-by-dog case filed in
Virginia was on March 24, 2005 set for an April 20 preliminary
hearing in Spotsylvania County Circuit Court, three days after a
grand jury indicted Deanna Hilda Large, 36, of Partlow, on one
felony count of involuntary manslaughter, carrying a possible
10-year prison sentence, and three misdemeanor counts of allowing
dangerous dogs to run loose.
Large was briefly jailed but was released on $10,000 bond
after police determined that her three unneutered male pit bulls on
March 8, 2005 killed distant neighbor Dorothy Sullivan, 82, and
Sullivan’s Shih Tzu in Sullivan’s front yard.
The first sheriff’s deputy to arrive, after an emergency
call by Sullivan’s daughter, reportedly shot two of the pit bulls at
the scene. The third was captured and euthanized later. Local
police shot two more pit bulls outside Large’s home two days later
when they charged as the officers interviewed her.
“The [five] dogs were suspected of killing other pets in the
neighborhood, including a German shepherd [on March 1, 2005] and a
kitten,” wrote Emily Battle and Keith Epps of the Fredericksburg Free
Lance-Star. “Sources said that although Large was questioned in
those cases, there was not enough evidence to file charges.”

Safari Club International lobbyist to head U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

WASHINGTON D.C.–U.S. Interior Secretary Gail Norton on March
17 appointed former Safari Club International chief lobbyist Matthew
J. Hogan to be acting director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service,
succeeding Steve Williams, who resigned a week earlier.
Williams resigned hours after formally admitting that the
Fish & Wildlife Service used incomplete and misleading data on
Florida panther movements in assessing several high profile land use
applications. Most involved projects favored by Florida Governor Jeb
Bush, younger brother of President George W. Bush.
“Dan Ashe, the service’s top science adviser and a member of
the review panel, said the agency relied too much on data collected
only in late morning hours to establish the panthers’ home range.
Panthers are most active at dawn and dusk,” explained John Heilprin
of Associated Press.
“The agency announced it would revise documents that
understated the panther’s habitat and painted an over-optimistic
picture of its prospects,” added Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel staff
writer David Fleshler. “The review [of panther research] came after
an agency biologist, Andrew Eller, filed a petition last May under
the federal Data Quality Act accusing the agency of knowingly using
flawed data to rubber-stamp eight construction projects in panther
habitat.”

Murder on the animal control beat

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Dennis L. Rader, 59, longtime code enforcement and animal
control officer for Park City, Kansas, a Wichita suburb, was on
February 27, 2005 charged with serially killing 10 people in Wichita
since 1974. The killings were claimed in letters to local media from
“BTK,” short for “Bind, Torture, Kill.” Rader’s tenure in animal
control coincided with two long interludes between murders. Park
City and Wichita are both in Sedgewick County, where the rate of
animal control killing per 1,000 human residents is more than twice
the U.S. norm.

Chi Luu Linville, 57, of Loxahatchee, Florida, was on
March 11 convicted of trying to hire Palm Beach County sheriff’s
detective Kim Bradley to kill animal control officer Tammie Craw-ford
in October 2003, after Crawford impounded Linville’s goats and
cattle, and said she would return to impound Linville’s pigs and
cats. Explained Palm Beach Post staff writers William Cooper Jr. and
Larry Keller, “A judge had barred Linville–cited many times for
neglect and animals running loose–from keeping animals without court
approval. Linville feared losing an agricultural exemption on her
10-acre property if all animals were removed, assistant state
attorney Dan Galo said. Linville testified that her property taxes
would triple if she lost the exemption.” Linville contended that
Bradley entrapped her by posing as the stepdaughter of an
acquaintance.

H5N1 & Marburg outbreaks

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

HANOI, LUANDA–If an epidemiologist’s worst nightmare isn’t
the avian influenza strain called H5N1, it might be Marburg
hemorrhagic fever, a virulent close cousin to the better known Ebola
virus. Both are zoonotic diseases, meaning that they spread to
humans from animals. With a quirk or two of virus evolution, both
could depopulate continents. The worst-ever outbreaks of each are
raging right now in Southeast Asia and Central Africa.
H5N1, discovered after it killed three people in Hong Kong in 1997,
apparently crossed from migratory wild birds to ducks and geese
reared in huge outdoor pens and paddies in southern China, crossed
to indoor-raised chickens, then raced throughout Southeast Asia with
the mostly illegal but lightly prosecuted commerce in gamecocks.
Killing about 70% of the humans who contract it from birds,
H5N1 has not killed millions chiefly because it has not evolved into
a form that spreads easily from human to human, and does not spread
easily from bird to human. Only the estimated 25 to 40 million
Southeast Asians who raise poultry are believed to be at risk of
becoming infected by the bird-to-human route.

Ontario bans pit bull terriers

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

TORONTO–The province of Ontario,
Canada, will on August 29, 2005 implement the
farthest reaching ban in North America on the
sale or acquisition of pit bull terriers,
attorney general Michael Bryant announced on
March 31.
Enforcement will be phased in over 60
days. A “grandfather clause” allows pit bulls
already in Ontario or born within 90 days of the
ban taking effect to remain, on condition that
they are sterilized and are muzzled and leashed
when out in public.
The Ontario pit bull ban was among
several amendments to the Dog Owners Liability
Act passed through the provincial legislature by
the Liberal Party majority on March 1, 2005.
Other amendments doubled to $10,000 (Canadian
funds) the maximum penalty for allowing a
dangerous dog to escape control, and eased
search-and-seizure warrant requirements for
police and animal control officers who impound
dangerous dogs.

Ethiopians fight on against dog shooting

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

I am writing to you on behalf of the Homeless Animals
Protection Society of Ethiopia. I can not stress enough how bad is
the situation in the struggle against the influence of the Ethiopian
Wolf Conservation Program at Bale Mountains National Park, where
Efrem Legese and Hana Kifle put their own jobs and families on the
line for the sake of animals. Such actions are rare, especially
here in Ethiopia, where losing your job can mean starvation for your
family.
Efrem had to send his children to relatives and take them out
of school because he could not provide for them. Hana’s family has
been hurt, too. Their families do not understand why Efrem and Hana
would risk their jobs for the sake of stray dogs. Even so, Efrem
and Hana are trying to keep HAPS together and showing more courage,
determination and integrity then anyone else I know in this field.
They have continued to defend animals here in Addis Ababa. They have
won governmental consent for implementing an Animal Birth Control
program, and have increased membership in HAPS to almost 90 people.
They feel that the quarrel with the EWCP is now chasing them
in the form of baseless and vicious rumors that hurt HAPS’ good name
and delay its progress. This is not only a disaster for HAPS, but
for the abandoned animals of Ethiopia.
Please help us fight evil rumors in favor of people who really care.

Africa

Demolition, eviction, & good deeds that save animal shelters

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

DELHI, CANCUN, BUCHAR-EST, MONROE
(Ct.)–Two kinds of good deeds are the life and
death of animal shelters: good deeds for animals,
and good title deeds to the land they occupy.
Rescuers who try to do good deeds without
good title deeds may find their hopes and dreams
crashing down around them, as Friendicoes SECA
shelter manager Geeta Seshamani of Delhi, India
did on March 16, 2005.
Acclaimed worldwide for tsunami relief
work in Tamil Nadu state and the Andaman Islands,
Friendicoes SECA “just had a large chunk of its
shelter ripped down by a demolition squad,”
Seshamani e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE.
In addition to her regular workload,
Seshamani for the first six weeks of 2005
supervised operations at the Wildlife SOS
sanctuary for rescued dancing bears near Agra,
while Wildlife SOS co-founder Kartick Satnarayan
directed the three Wildlife SOS/Friendicoes SECA
tsunami relief teams. The field work left both
institutions shorthanded.

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