Iditarod, Yukon Quest racers charged with neglect

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

WASILA, Alaska–Animal control officers from Mat-Su Borough,
Alaska, on October 16 removed 28 allegedly starving dogs from the
property of three-time Iditarod musher David Straub near Willow and
charged him with 17 counts of cruelty.
Competing in the 2000, 2001, and 2002 runnings of the
Iditarod, Straub in 2002 recorded the fastest time ever for a
last-place finisher.
The Straub dogs were seized three weeks after former Yukon
Quest contender Sigmund Stormo was charged with neglecting 15 dogs on
Kodiak Island. Stormo turned the dogs over to former Iditarod musher
Tim Osmar for care, pending resolution of the case. The same dogs
were impounded on June 11 by the Alaska SPCA, after they were found
without food at Stormo’s home near Soldotna. State police reportedly
found more than 50 marijuana plants, but did not find Stormo, who
was in Kodiak. The Alaska SPCA returned the dogs to Stormo and did
not charge him, after he averred that the dogs were neglected by
someone else who was to look after them in his absence.
The ANIMAL PEOPLE files indicate that no prominent musher has
ever been convicted of neglect while in good standing with racing
associations.

R.I.P. tahrs of Table Mountain

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

CAPE TOWN–The last 138 of the Himalayan tahr who inhabited
Table Mountain National Park, overlooking Cape Town, “have been
exterminated by South African National Parks,” Cape Town Adopt-A-Pet
founder Cicely Blumberg e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on October 26,
2004.
“Park manager Brett Myrdal said that the tahr killing is all
over,” Blumberg added, “because the rangers cannot find any more.
The fact that a funded capture and relocation package was presented
to SANParks in March 2004, to which they agreed in an e-mail to the
Marchig Animal Welfare Trust on March 18, is never mentioned,”
Blumberg continued. “Instead they say that no proposal was ever
received.
“The big story now,” Blumberg said, “is that SANParks have
released klipspringer antelope into the park. They said that the
tahr had to be removed before the klipspringer could be
reintroduced.” Nine klipspringer were released on October 27, with
18 more to follow, along with nine grey rhebuck, also native to
Table Mountain but long ago poached out.

Chinese live markets feed the fur trade

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

NEW YORK CITY–“Real Fur Is Fun Again,”
headlined the October 11 edition of Newsweek.
“It’s less expensive and more popular than ever.
But as young people snuggle up, where are the
protesters?”
Fur appeared on 36 of the 270 pages in
the “Women’s Fashion Fall 2004” edition of The
New York Times Style Magazine: as many pages as
in all editions from 2001 through 2003 combined.
Fur is more visible now than at any time
in the past 20 years. Furriers are buying more
ad space in The New York Times and other
periodicals known to reach affluent younger
women, anticipating a profitable winter–if the
economy holds up.
But furriers have often misread market
demand. Expecting a boom in the winters of
1993/1994 and 1997/1998, chiefly through
believing their own propaganda, furriers drove
fur pelt prices up at auction with panic buying
to increase inventory, stepped up their
advertising, and experienced busts instead.

Barker gives $1 million for AR law institute

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

LOS ANGELES–Bob Barker, 81, host of The Price Is Right TV
game show since 1972, on November 4 donated $1 million to create the
Bob Barker Endowment Fund for the Study of Animal Rights Law at the
University of California, Los Angeles campus. The fund will be
directed by UCLA professor Taimie Bryant, who currently teaches a
course in animal law, Associated Press reported.

North America

ANIMAL PEOPLE arranges rare show-and-tell–Procter & Gamble meets Best Friends

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

CINCINNATI–Fifteen founders and senior
staff of the Best Friends Animal Society on
October 22 talked shop with three Procter &
Gamble senior scientists and two senior
representatives of pet food maker Iams Inc., a
P&G subsidiary.
Convened by ANIMAL PEOPLE, preceding the
October 22-24 “No More Homeless Pets” conference
in Cincinnati, the meeting introduced key
personnel from one of the fastest-growing and
most increasingly influential animal charities in
the world to counterparts at one of the most
controversial companies engaged in animal
research.
Procter & Gamble since 1984 has invested
more than $190 million in developing alternatives
to animal testing, including $152 million since
1994. Yet P&G has also been continuously under
boycott by PETA and allied animal rights groups.

Basketballers, footballer investigated for pit bull, Rottweiler mayhem

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

PORTLAND–Oregon Humane Society and Clackamas County
Sheriff’s Office investigators found evidence linking basketball
player Qyntel Woods to dogfighting in October 11 and October 15
searches of his Lake Oswego home, reported Emily Tsao of the
Portland Oregonian on November 6, 2004.
Clackamas County Judge Robert Selander unsealed 26 pages of court
documents for Tsao, with names, addresses, and witness statements
blacked out to maintain the security of the investigation.
The Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball
Association on October 11 suspended Woods, 23, without pay.
Woods came under suspicion a week earlier when Multnomah County
Animal Services traced to him an injured female pit bull terrier
found in an alley. Woods claimed he gave the dog away, but KATU-TV,
an ABC affiliate, reported that Woods dumped the dog for losing a
fight.
Clackamas County detective Jim Strovink on October 21 told
Allen Breitman of the Oregonian that his office had received a tip
that more than one Trail Blazer had attended dogfights in Linn County.
Woods’ Trail Blazers teammate Zack Randolph told Geoffrey C. Arnold
of the Oregonian that he has owned and bred pit bulls, but denied
involvement in fighting.

Right-to-pet verdicts

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

The California State Court of Appeal on September 3 made
binding on all trial courts in California an August 25 ruling that a
homeowners’ association “no pets” rule may be overridden by a
resident’s documented need for a companion animal. The Court of
Appeal held that an animal need not have special skills or training
to be a therapeutic helper to the clinically depressed, and
reinstated an award of $18,000 in damages made in 2002 to Ed and
Jayne Elebiari by the California Fair Employment & Housing
Commission. Both clinically depressed, they adopted a shelter dog
in April 1999 at the recommendation of their therapists. The dog
helped them, but the Auburn Woods I Condominium Association obliged
them to give him to a friend in June 1999. The Elebiaris relapsed
into depression and relocated to Rochester, New York, where they
adopted another dog. The California Department of Fair Employment &
Housing sued the condo association on their behalf in February 2001.

How P&G avoids animal testing

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

Replacement Method

Cytosensor microphysiometer method
Ex vivo rabbit enucleated eye irritation test
Bovine ex vivo corneal opacification permeability test
Chicken ex vivo enucleated eye irritation test
In vitro matrix corrosivity assay (Corrositex) *
Eye human tissue equivalence assay (EpiOcular) *
Eye in silico structure/activity relationship model
Skin human tissue equivalence assay (EpiDerm) *
Skin human tissue equivalence assay (EpiDerm + MTT, IL-1)
In vitro skin penetration assay *
In silico skin penetration SAR model
Proportionality (calculation) method for acute toxicity *
In vitro tissue equivalence assay for gastric irritation
Peptide reactivity screening assay
Skin allergy genomic assay
In silico sensitization SAR model
In vitro guinea pig antibody assay for Type I anaphylaxis
In silico SAR, coupled with in vitro peptide binding
Estrogen receptor competitive binding assay
Androgen receptor competitive binding assay

Letters [Nov 2004]

November 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

Dogs in trucks

Re “Reducing the vehicular accident risk
to dogs,” in the September 2004 edition of
ANIMAL PEOPLE, back in the 1980s the Colorado
Federation of Animal Welfare Agencies found a
sponsor to introduce a state bill that would have
required dogs riding in the beds of pickup trucks
to be tethered. We had estimates of the number
of human and animal fatalities and traffic
accidents caused by unrestrained dogs; we had
the state police and the state sheriffs’
association on our side; we exempted working
ranch dogs; and the law would have applied only
in the urban counties along the Front Range, as
with the automobile emissions law.
The bill was soundly defeated by the
House Agriculture Committee because there was no
law in Colorado prohibiting children from riding
in the back of pickup trucks, and no legislator
wanted to have to explain to his constituents why
he favored dogs over kids.

Letters

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