Another investigator sues Friends of Animals

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2004:

ANIMAL PEOPLE on July 14 received a copy of a lawsuit
alleging “gender and sexual orientation discrimination and
retaliation” recently filed against Friends of Animals, FoA
president Priscilla Feral, and FoA Washington D.C. office director
Bill Dollinger by Virginia Leone Bollinger, who was FoA director of
investigations from May 2001 to November 2003.
The lawsuit itemizes 10 claims of alleged abusive behavior by
Dollinger, and charges that FoA president Priscilla Feral failed to
protect Bollinger from his actions.
“FoA, Dollinger, and Feral deny the allegations and believe
the claims are entirely unfounded,” FoA operations director Bob
Orabona told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “The court has already dismissed the
claims against Feral,” which overlapped the case against FoA. “As
the matter is pending litigation,” Orabona added, “we decline to
comment further.”
Bollinger worked for PETA from 1986 to 1993, including five
years as an investigator and one year as chief investigator, before
becoming director of investigations for the Humane Society of the U.S.
In August 1995 Bollinger and former PETA and HSUS legal
investigator Cristobel Block sued then-HSUS vice president for
investigations David Wills for alleged sexual battery. Wills,
widely seen as successor-in-waiting to then-HSUS president John Hoyt,
was fired two months later, was sued by HSUS in a case parallel to
the Bollinger/Block case, and was convicted of embezzling from HSUS.

Read more

Raccoon rabies spreads to Cape Cod, Rhode Island

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2004:

YARMOUTH, EAST PROVIDENCE–Massachusetts state budget cuts
that reduced funding for oral anti-rabies vaccination of raccoons
from $209,000 in 2001 to just $60,000 in 2004 left the Cape Cod
Rabies Task Force nearly penniless at the end of June. Rabies first
hit raccoons in Massachusetts in 1992, but a decade of successful
vaccination kept the disease from jumping the Cape Cod Canal until
March 2004. Twenty-two rabid raccoons were found in four Cape Cod
towns by June 13.
The rabies outbreak also hit Rhode Island. The East
Providence Animal Shelter on May 6 reportedly impounded five
raccoons, in violation of protocol; left them with a foster family
for a month; and then exposed them to a sixth raccoon who was found
acting strangely at a golf course.
That raccoon turned out to be rabid. All of the raccoons
were killed. At least 46 people who handled the raccoons were given
post-exposure vaccination.
Raccoon rabies spread into the northeast from the
mid-Atlantic states after a group of coonhunters and trappers
translocated 3,500 raccoons from a rabies-endemic part of Florida to
the Great Smokies and Appalachia in 1976.

Four new books about doing animal-related law enforcement

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2004:

Animals: Welfare, Interests, & Rights
by David Favre
Animal Law & History Web Center
(Michigan State University/Detroit College
of Law, East Lansing, MI 48812), 2003.
504 pages, hardcover. $78.

Animal Cruelty: Pathway to Violence Against People
by Linda Merz-Perez
& Kathleen M. Heide
Alta Mira Press (c/o Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1630
North Main Street, #367, Walnut Creek, California 94596), 2004.
176 pages, paperback. $24.95.

Brute Force: Policing Animal Cruelty
by Arnold Arluke
Purdue University Press ( P.O. Box 388,
30 Amberwood Parkway, Ashland, OH 44805), 2004. 170 pages,
paperback. $24.95.

Read more

BOOKS: Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff & WorldAnimalNet International Directory of Animal Protection Organizations

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2004:

Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff
Edited by Lila Miller & Stephen Zawistowski
Blackwell Pub. (2121 State Ave., Ames, IA 50014), 2004. 546
pages, paperback. $74.95.

WorldAnimalNet International Directory of Animal Protection Organizations
Edited by Wim DeKok
WorldAnimalNet (19 Chestnut Sq., Boston, MA 02130), 2004. 554
pages, paperback. $29.95.

Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff and the
WorldAnimalNet International Directory of Animal Protection
Organizations are references so useful and so essential that, like
the National Animal Control Association Training Guide, they belong
on the most convenient shelf of every animal shelter library–and if
your shelter does not have a library, nail up a shelf and start one
with these three books.
Assembled by American SPCA senior director of animal services
and veterinary advisor Lila Miller and senior vice president and
science advisor Stephen Zawistowski, Shelter Medicine for
Veterinarians & Staff is the closest approach yet to an encyclopedia
of veterinary issues encountered in humane work.

Read more

Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society will no longer keep dogs & cats during animal control holding period

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2004:

CHICAGO, NEW YORK CITY–Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society
president Gene Mueller, DVM, in early July 2004 announced that
starting in November the Anti-Cruelty Society will no longer house
stray or feral animals brought by the public during the five-day
holding period when they can neither be adopted or killed.
Those animals will instead be redirected to the Chicago
Animal Care & Control Department. Owner-surrendered pets will still
be accepted, since they can be offered for rehoming right away.
“In exchange,” reported Claire Loebs Davis of Best Friends
Online, “the Anti-Cruelty Society plans to substantially increase
the number of legally adoptable animals it transfers out of animal
control to its facility, and to direct more resources toward its
spay/neuter, feral cat, and anti-dogfighting programs. “
The Anti-Cruelty Society already operates one of the dozen
most active nonprofit sterilization clinics in the world, handling
12,000 dogs and cats in 2003.
“The Anti-Cruelty Society also plans to construct the
Bruckner Animal Rehabilitation Center,” wrote Davis, “which will
feature over 100 spaces for long-term rehabilitation of animals with
treatable illnesses and behavior problems, as well as kittens and
puppies too young to adopt.

Read more

Animal Balance in the Galapagos

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

SAN FRANCISCO–Violent confrontations between fishers
hellbent on exploiting the marine life of Galapagos National Park and
Marine Reserve reignited repeatedly in the first half of 2004–except
when Animal Balance was there.
For six weeks, from mid-April to late May, Animal Balance
sterilized, vaccinated, and gave parasite treatment to dogs and
cats, both pets and ferals, on Isabela Island, the largest and
most populated of the Galapagos chain.
The work seemed to bring the warring factions together. The
trouble stopped just as Animal Balance arrived, and again erupted
almost as soon as the Animal Balance volunteers went home.
Former San Francisco SPCA feral cat program coordinator Emma
Clifford conceived and directed the Animal Balance project, with
veterinary help led by Operation Catnip founder Julie Levy of the
University of Florida at Gainesville.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society provided transportation
to the remote islands. Patrolling the Galapagos Marine Reserve since
2001 at invitation of the Galapagos National Park Service, the Sea
Shepherds have often been between the embattled Galapagos National
Park Service conservation staff and the irate fishers–and at odds
with the Ecuadoran Navy, whose senior officers tend to see their
mission as defending the fishing industry, not marine life.

Read more

How to save sea turtles–and why the species conservation approach is failing

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

VISAKHAPATNAM–The Malaysian cargo ship MV Genius Star-VI,
carrying 17 crew members and a load of timber, on April 13, 2004
sank in rough seas 180 miles southeast of Haldia, West Bengal.
Chinese crew members Gao Fuling, Wuxun Yuan, and Zhu Yuan
went overboard together, Gao and Wuxun with life jackets while Zhu
clutched a plank, wrote Jatindra Dash of Indo-Asian News Services.
For the next 34 hours they swam for their lives.
“Gao and Zhu described how two turtles met with them and
tried to help them,” Indian Coast Guard Commander P.K. Mishra told
Dash.
Soon after the sinking, the first turtle tried to help Gao
lift a floating box that he thought might be used to wave in the air
as a signal to aircraft or other vessels.
“When the turtle failed, he pushed me up to the box so that
I could latch on to it,” Mishra said Gao told him. Later, when Zhu
lost his plank, “Zhu said a turtle swam with him for hours and
brought the wood plank back to him,” Mishra added.
All three men were eventually rescued by Mishra’s vessel.
Twelve other men were picked up by other merchant ships. Two were
never found.

Read more

Dope on dog racing

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

TALLAHASSEE–Florida attorney general Charlie Christ does not
have the authority to probe why 117 dogs who raced on Florida tracks
in 2000-2003 tested positive for cocaine, deputy attorney general
George LeMieux told GREY2K USA and the Humane Society of the U.S. in
an early June written opinion.
The 117 positive tests were among moe than 104,000 tests on
dogs for drugging done during the three years in question. During
that time Palm Beach Kennel Club trainers Bernie McClella, Joy
Mayne, and Mark St. Pierre were suspended because their dogs tested
positive, but have continued to claim the tests were in error.
In May, Florida Division of Parimutuel Wagering chief David
Roberts said his office has “found no evidence that anyone has given
cocaine to a dog.”
Greyhound advocates otherwise enjoyed a successful first half of 2004.
New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson in May 2004 vetoed a bill
to require greyhound trainers to track injuries to dogs,
euthanasias, interstate transfers, adoptions, and sales of
dogs–but on June 16 the state legislature overrode the veto, 290-52
in the house and 18-6 in the senate.
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell on May 24 signed into law a
pre-emptive statewide ban on greyhound racing.
The New Hampshire and Pennsyl-vania legislative victories
followed the defeat of bills to authorize the use of other forms of
gambling and tax cuts to subsidize greyhound racing in Alabama,
Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Texas.

Egg & meat ad tactics reviewed

Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

The Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Review
Board on May 9, 2004 upheld a November 2003 ruling by a lower panel
that the United Egg Producers “animal care certified” labeling is
misleading, and should either be dropped or be significantly
altered. On May 10 the United Egg Producers board voted to revamp
their web site to provide further information to consumers about what
the label means. The complaint was brought by Compassion Over
Killing, which has filed similar complaints with the Federal Trade
Commission and the Food & Drug Administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on May 23 to review the
constitutionality of the 1985 federal law that requires beef ranchers
to pay into a collective marketing fund. In July 2003 the U.S. Court
of Appeals in St. Louis held that the law violates the First
Amendment right of free speech, by forcing cattlemen to deliver a
message that they may not choose to deliver. Soon afterward the U.S.
Court of Appeals in Cincinnati issued a similar ruling pertaining to
collective pork marketing, and the U.S. Court of Appeals in
Philadelphia issued a parallel opinion about the constitutionality of
collective milk marketing. The marketing plans are best known for
promoting the phrases “Beef: It’s What’s For Dinner,” “Pork: The
Other White Meat,” and “Got Milk?”

1 … 302 303 304 305 306 … 720