Bear sanctuary at the Taj Majal

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

AGRA–The future of captive wildlife
protection in India is at Agra, People for
Animals founder Maneka Gandhi believes, near the
east gate of the Taj Mahal.
There, at Soor Sarovar village,
Wildlife SOS cofounders Kartick Sayanar-ayan and
Geeta Sheshamani in December 2002 opened a
30-acre sanctuary for former dancing bears.
Nearly two years into a sustained effort
to enforce provisions of the 1972 Indian Wildlife
Protection Act that prohibit the traveling
exhibition of lions, tigers, leopards, monkeys,
apes, and bears, Mrs. Gandhi sees in the
Wildlife SOS project the start of a sanctuary
network to provide quality care-for-life to
hundreds of seized former circus animals.
The drive to end the use of lions,
tigers, leopards, monkeys, apes, and bears in
traveling shows began in 2001. As then-minister
of state for animal welfare, Mrs. Gandhi won a
series of verdicts from the Supreme Court of
India against exhibitors who had for a decade
used protracted lawsuits to defy seizure order
she originally issued in 1989, during a stint as
environment minister.

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Is the NIH really going to send chimps to India?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

THIRUVANATHAPURAM–G. Mahadevan of The Hindu daily
newspaper caught both the Indian and U.S. animal advocacy communities
by surprise with an April 15 report that the Thuruvananthapuram Zoo
in the capital city of Kerala state “is finalizing paperwork for the
transfer of two male and two female chimps from the National
Institute of Health in Maryland.”
Joyce McDonald, acting communications director for the
National Center for Research Resources at the U.S. National
Institutes of Health, confirmed to ANIMAL PEOPLE that “NCRR has
begun preliminary discussions with the Thiruvananthapuram Zoo in
India concerning the transfer of chimpanzees from the United States,”
but indicated that it is far from a done deal.
“There are many issues that need to be resolved before any
final determinations are made,” McDonald said. “For instance, NCRR
has to be assured that the zoo environment is appropriate and
properly accredited; that lifetime care is available; that the
animals will stay in the zoo; that notification and approval from
U.S. and Indian regulatory agencies has been obtained; that proper
transportation can be provided, etc. In addition, we need to assured
that expenses can be covered by the Indian zoo. Again, our
discussions are very preliminary,” McDonald emphasized, “and these
issues must be resolved to our satisfaction before NIH would
coordinate the transfer of the animals from a U.S. research facility.

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Letters [May 2003]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Drive Fishery

Thank you for helping to stop the “drive fishery” dolphin
slaughter in Futo, Japan.
The Ito City Fishing Co-operative gave up the drive fishery
this year. The season for the fiscal year 2002 drive fishery expired
on March 31, 2003. We gladly report that no drive fishery was
carried out. According to the Yomiuri newspaper, the Ito City
Fishing Cooperative abandoned the drive fishery because it feared the
criticism of animal protection groups.
The Elsa Nature Conserv-ancy collected nearly 3,500
signatures on our petition seeking to stop the drive fisheries and
promote dolphin and nature watching in Futo instead, reinforced by
more than 2400 signatures against the drive fishery from
organizations abroad.
We also received 3,000 e-mails against the drive fishery from
abroad through the efforts of <www.BlueVoice.org>. According to Blue
Voice more than 9,000 e-mails were already sent to public officals.
We appreciate such strong support!

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Why can’t we stop the Omak Suicide Race?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Why can’t we stop the Omak Suicide Race?
by Irene Muschel

The Omak Suicide Race, held each summer in Omak,
Washington, has been openly cruel to horses ever since a rodeo
promoter dreamed it up in 1935. It consists of galloping horses over
a steep cliff and across the Okanogan River as the main event at the
Omak Stampede rodeo–and is staged four times each rodeo week.
Why have horse protection groups not given more attention and
effort to stopping this event?
Four years after the Omak Suicide Race started, a Hollywood
producer chased a horse over a cliff during the making of the film
Jesse James. That happened just once. Public outrage over the death
of the horse led to the American Humane Association monitoring U.S.
screen productions.
Sixteen horses have died at Omak in the past 20 years.
Humans have been severely injured, and in earlier years at least one
rider was killed, but the Suicide Race is still promoted as a
tourist attraction, after a one-year suspension in 1999, and hardly
anyone seems to be doing anything about it.

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Blind “justice” can’t tell chickens from dead wood

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

SAN DIEGO, California–Ward Poultry Farm owners Arie and
Bill Wilgen-burg, of Escondido, California, will not be charged
with cruelty for having employees toss more than 60,000 live hens
into wood chippers, the San Diego County district attorney’s office
announced on April 10, because the Wilgenburgs were told to chip the
chickens alive by a USDA-accredited veterinarian.
The veterinarian was neither working for the USDA nor
representing it, but was advising the Wilgenbergs about killing
their flocks, at two sites, to help halt the spread of the worst
outbreak of Newcastle disease since 12 million chickens and other
domestic birds were killed to control an outbreak in 1971.
San Diego County Animal Services Lieutenant Mary Kay Gagliardo later
told the Wilgenburgs to stop macerating the hens alive.
Live maceration would be prosecutable cruelty almost anywhere
if done to a pet. When done as a routine agricultural practice,
however, it is exempt from prosecution in most states, and is in
fact among the most common means used by egg ranchers to dispose of
unwanted male chicks and spent hens.

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Legal action against ocean fishing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson on April 10 held for
the fourth time in 13 years that 1988 amendments to the 1972 Marine
Mammal Protection Act oblige the U.S. to exclude imports of tuna
netted “on dolphin,” a method often used by foreign fleets because
dolphins and tuna feed on the same fish species and often swim
together. Surrounding feeding dolphins with nets therefore usually
captures tuna–as well as dolphins who do not escape before the nets
close. Henderson in May 1990 banned imports of yellowfin tuna from
Mexico, Venezuela, and Vanuatu. After Congress reinforced the 1990
verdict by introducing “dolphin-safe” labeling, Henderson in January
1992 banned $266 million worth of tuna imports from 30 nations. A
General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs panel in 1995 ruled that the
U.S. “dolphin safe” law is an improper trade barrier. The law was
eased by the 1997 International Dolphin Conservation Program Act,
but Henderson and U.S. Court of International Trade judge Judith
Barzilay issued conflicting verdicts when then-Commerce Secretary
William Daley tried to admit non-“dolphin-safe” tuna to the U.S. In
December 2002 the Commerce Department moved to allow U.S. firms to
market tuna netted “on dolphin” as “dolphin-safe,” if no dolphins
are known to have been killed during the netting, but Henderson
ruled that the 1990 definition of “dolphin-safe” must stand unless
the law is changed.

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The dogs of war & other animals in liberated Iraq

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

BAGHDAD; CAMP PATRIOT, Kuwait–Mine-detecting dolphins and
war dogs were the nonhuman heroes of the U.S. liberation of Iraq from
Saddam Hussein.
It was an evolutionary homecoming of sorts. Fossils found in
Pakistan indicate that the common ancestors of dogs and dolphins may
have first differentiated in this very region circa 70 million years
ago.
Nine U.S. Navy dolphins were sent to the Persian Gulf from
San Diego. Makai, 33, and Tacoma, 22, performed briefly for news
media before patrolling the port of Umm Qasr, Oman with three
anonymous dolphins. Their team alternated shifts with Kahili, Kona,
Punani, and Jefe. Among them, they reportedly found 22 underwater
mines during their first two weeks of guarding Navy supply ships.
The U.S. Navy previously deployed six dolphins each to Cam
Ranh Bay in 1970 during the Vietnam War and off Bahrain in 1991
during the Persian Gulf War.
The German shepherds Ranny and Brit led the U.S. Army K-9
Corps into Tallil Air Base in Iraq. Handled by Staff Sergeant John
Logie and Sergeant Michael McDonald, their job was guarding Iraqi
prisoners.

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Dutch assassin gets 18 years

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

AMSTERDAM–Volkert van der Graaf, 33, who confessed to
killing anti-immigration and pro-fur politician Pim Fortuyn on May 6,
2002, in the first Dutch political assassination since World War II,
was on April 14 sentenced to serve 18 years in prison.
Seeking a life sentence, the prosecution said it would appeal.
Likening the assassination to shooting Adolph Hitler before
he could rise to power, van der Graaf testified that he shot Fortuyn,
54, because he was “a threat to weaker groups in society,”
including asylum-seekers, Muslims, the disabled, and animals.
Fortuyn’s political party, named for himself, gained a substantial
sympathy vote in the first election following the assassination, but
soon self-destructed due to factionalism and fell out of the
governing coalition in late 2002.
Founding the organization Environmental Offensive in 1992,
the militantly vegan van der Graaf “before the assassination worked
up to 80 hours a week litigating against commercial animal farming,
and was described by other activists as a fanatic,” wrote Toby
Sterling of Associated Press.
If van der Graaf is not re-sentenced to prison for life, he
is expected to be eligible for parole in 2014. Dutch courts have
sentenced only 21 people to prison for life since 1945, most of them
serial killers.

Ed Sayres to head American SPCA

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

NEW YORK CITY, SAN FRANCISCO–Edwin J. Sayres, 54,
president of the San Francisco SPCA since January 1, 1999, was on
April 8 introduced as new president of the American SPCA in New York
City, to succeed Larry Hawk on June 2.
Hawk on February 3 was named to succeed Gus Thornton, who
retired, as president of the Massachusetts SPCA.
Sayres debuted in humane work as successor to his father,
Edwin Sayres Sr., who was longtime executive director of the St.
Hubert’s Giralda shelter founded by Geraldine Dodge Rockefeller on
her estate in New Jersey.
Sayres headed the American Humane Association animal protection
division 1995-1997, and then headed PETsSMART Charities for a year
before succeeding Richard Avanzino at the SF/SPCA, who retired after
24 years to lead Maddie’s Fund.
Succeeding Sayres as acting president of the San Francisco
SPCA will be current vice president Daniel Crain, also hired in
1999, while Jeffrey Proulx, DVM, the SF/SPCA director of
veterinary services since 2000, will take over direction of the
Roberts Medical Center, described as “the community’s first
comprehensive, multidisciplinary specialty veterinary center,
scheduled to begin construction in December 2003.”

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