Hunting bears with bait, dogs, traps, & loaded ballot language

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

JUNEAU, AUGUSTA–Alaska and Maine voters will decide on
November 2, 2004 whether to ban baiting bears into shooting range,
but as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press the exact wording of the Alaska
ballot proposition remained in doubt.
Alaska Lieutenant Governor Loren Leman reworded descriptions
of the anti-bear baiting measure and two unrelated propositions after
they had already won enough petition signatures to qualify for the
ballot. The petition language was approved in June 2003 by Alaska
assistant attorney general Marjorie Vandor. Leman did not seek
approval of his rewrites from the organizations promoting the ballot
measures, and is known to oppose all three.
Half a million ballots were printed before Anchorage Superior
Court Judge Morgan Christen ruled on September 29 that Leman’s
rewrite of one proposition was illegal.
“Christen said that destroying the old ballots was the only
way to correct the misleading, biased, and factually inaccurate
working of the Trust the People initiative to strip the governor’s
authority to fill a vacated U.S. Senate seat by appointment,” wrote
Richard Mauer and Joel Gay of the Anchorage Daily News. Mauer and
Gay anticipated that Leman would appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court.

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Dog meat trafficking

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

Thai police on October 1, 2004 seized 1,070 dogs from three
trucks and arrested four men who were allegedly about to cross into
Laos from Sakon Nakon province, en route to dog meat markets in
Vietnam. The dogs were impounded under quarantine. The men would be
fined if found guilty of illegal trading, said police colonel
Sunthorn Kongkraphan, but would not be jailed.

Philippine police on August 10, 2004 seized 80 trussed-up
street dogs from a truck taking them from Cavite province, south of
Manila, to a slaughterhouse in Baguio City, the reputed dog meat
capital of the Philippines. The truck was intercepted following an
11-mile hot pursuit after trying to evade a police checkpoint. The
driver was charged with violating the national animal welfare act.

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U.S. Senators make USDA subpoena for Siegfried & Roy video disappear

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

LAS VEGAS–The USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service
in mid-September agreed to settle for viewing a Feld Entertainment
Inc. videotape of the October 3, 2003 mauling of tiger trainer Roy
Horn at the Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas, without actually
obtaining a copy of the tape.
USDA/APHIS in April 2004 subpoenaed the videotape while investigating
whether Horn and his performing partner, Siegfried Fishbacher,
broke the Animal Welfare Act. Feld Entertainment, owners of both
the Mirage and the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus, offered to
show the video to USDA/APHIS inspectors, but refused to give them a
copy lest it be obtained by animal rights activists or TV magazine
shows via the Freedom of Information Act.
When the USDA/APHIS continued to seek a copy, U.S. Senators Harry
Reid (D-Nevada) and John Ensign (R-Nevada) threatened to introduce an
amendment to the USDA budget which would have prevented use of any
funding to obtain the video.

Big winners & losers at CITES 2004

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

BANGKOK–Minke whales, Irriwaddy dolphins, and great white
sharks were among the big winners at the 13th meeting of the 166
nations belonging to the United Nations Convention on International
Trade In Endangered Species, held October 2-14 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Black rhinos and crocodiles were among the big losers.
Whether elephants won or lost varied with the perspectives of
the participants. A Kenyan proposal to extend the 1989 global
moratorium on ivory trading failed, but the delegates approved a
resolution committing every African nation with a domestic ivory
trade to either strictly control it or halt it.
“Unregulated domestic markets across Africa are fueling a
significant part of the poaching we are seeing in central Africa,”
explained Tom Milliken, eastern and southern Africa director for the
wildlife trade monitoring organization TRAFFIC. “These markets
consume up to 12,000 elephants annually,” Milliken continued, “so
it’s time we close this huge loophole in the global effort to save
elephants.”
Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, and
Nigeria have the most open domestic ivory markets, according to
TRAFFIC.

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No cultural defense for cockfighting in Hawaii, judge rules; federal case pending

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

NEW ORLEANS–Eighteen months after filing a “cultural
defense” lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Lafayette, Louisiana,
which has yet to be heard by Judge Rebecca F. Doherty, the United
Gamefowl Breeders Association still hopes a claim of discrimination
will overturn the two-year-old U.S. law prohibiting interstate
transport of gamecocks.
The anti-gamecock transport law appears to be untested in
court. There have been no prominent prosecutions.
But the legal theory behind the case against it was on August
31, 2004 rejected by Hawaii 2nd Circuit Court Judge Joel August.
August ruled in an 11-page verdict that even though the Hawaii
constitution protects native customs and traditions, and native
Hawaiians practiced a form of cockfighting called haka moa before
Hawaii was annexed by the U.S., cockfighting does not fit the
definitions of protected activity.
The plaintiffs did not make a case or even press a claim that
haka moa was demonstrably integral to practicing the native Hawaiian
religion, August pointed out. Neither could the practice of haka
moa be called a subsistence right.

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International Legal Precedents

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

 

Justice Richard C. Gates of Ontario Superior Court on
September 7, 2004 struck down a 2002 city of Windsor bylaw barring
exotic animal acts, on grounds that it violates circus performers’
right to freedom of expression, as defined by the Canadian Charter
of Rights & Freedoms. While the bylaw was written as a public
safety measure, Gates explained, and as such could have overridden
the relevant degree of concern for freedom of expression, “because
it was passed for the ulterior purpose of animal welfare, the
Respondent City failed to provide at least a reasonable degree of
evidence to causally link exotic animal performances to public
safety. There was insufficient examination of any evidence to
rationally support the secondary purpose of protection of the
public.” Issued on behalf of the Shriners Circuses, the Ontario
ruling may be cited as a precedent in an anticipated follow-up
lawsuit against animal act bans passed in 1999 by the Town of Mount
Royal and Ville St. Laurent, then independent cities and now
boroughs of Montreal.

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Bogus charges filed against snake-charming foes prove to be their lucky charm

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

AHMEDABAD–Being arrested on bogus charges as an alleged
dangerous criminal proved to be a blessing in disguise for Animal
Help Foundation founder Rahul Sehgal, his associates, and the
snakes they were trying to rescue, Sehgal told ANIMAL PEOPLE
afterward.
When it happened, though, it sounded bad.
“Twelve activists of the Animal Help Foundation were booked
for kidnapping, wrongful confinement, and unlawful assembly,” the
Indian Express reported from Mumbai on September 16, “after snake
charmers from Ganeshpura village in Ganghinagar district filed a
police complaint accusing the activists of abducting them from the
village on September 3.
“Snake charmer Babulal Madari said he and six others were
returning home when they were intercepted by the activists on the
highway and beaten up,” the Indian Express continued.
More than 30 years after the 1973 Wildlife Protection Act
outlawed capturing snakes from the wild, and 14 years after the
Supreme Court of India upheld the portions of the act banning
commerce in snake products and wild animal fur, Indian
snake-charmers still capture more than 400,000 snakes per year,
Wildlife Trust of India researcher Bahar Dutt reported in June 2004.

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Australia bans animal to human transplants

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

PERTH–The Australian National Health & Medical Research
Council in mid-September 2004 imposed a five-year moratorium on
animal-to-human transplants, called xenographs.
“There were ethical concerns, there were social concerns,
but the major area of concern were the risks,” NHMRC chair Alan
Pettigrew told news media. “There were risks to health, not only of
the individual but to their immediate family, and from there to the
wider population.”
In July 2002 the NHMRC issued draft guidelines that allowed
researchers to exprimentally transplant parts from genetically
modified pigs into humans. These guidelines have now been narrowed.
Pettigrew said that the NHMRC had decided the organs from
nonhuman primates should not be transplanted into humans in any
future clinical trials. Therapies involving use of animal cells but
not entire organs are still under review, he said.

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Galapagos rangers win exit of pro-fishing boss

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

 

Quito, Ecuador–Ecuador environment minister Fabian
Valdivieso on September 27, 2004 appointed Galapagos National Park
biologist Victor Carrion interim park director, ending a 17-day
strike by the 300 park rangers.
Moving to placate fishers and their Ecuadoran Navy allies, Valdivieso
on September 10 touched off the strike by firing former park director
Edwin Naula.
Several international scientific and environmental
organizations froze funding to the park in anticipation of Naula’s
ouster, park spokesperson Diego Anazco told Associated Press. In
consequence, the rangers had not been paid since July.
Naula, a marine biologist, had led Galapagos National Park
staff efforts to halt sea cucumber poaching since 1997. The local
fishers responded with escalating mob violence. After the Ecuadoran
Navy failed to support the park rangers, Naula in 2000 invited the
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to help patrol the Galapagos marine
reserve.
The Sea Shepherds in 2001 “documented an admiral accepting a
bribe to release a poaching vessel in the marine reserve,” according
to Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson. The admiral lost his job. The
navy retaliated in June and August 2004 by attempting to evict the
Sea Shepherds from Ecuadoran waters.

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