People & projects

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

British Columbia activists Anthony Marr, Brenda Davis, and
her son Cory Davis have rescheduled their HOPE-GEO “Compassion for
Animals Road Expedition” across the U.S. and Canada “due to U.S.
Immigration temporary visa requirements.” The new scheduled starting
date is September 1, 2003. The 25-week tour of 40 states and four
provinces in a van equipped to display pro-animal videos to the
public was to have begun on January 8, but the HOPE-GEO team “were
not permitted to enter the U.S.,” they told supporters. Marr is
widely known for his investigations of wildlife trafficking, both in
British Columbia and abroad. Davis, a registered
dietician/nutritionist, is author of four books on vegetarian and
vegan nutrition and health. More HOPE-GEO/CARE information is posted
at <www.hope-care.org>.

The Massachusetts SPCA on January 31, 2003 announced that
Ameri-can SPCA president Larry Hawk will in February begin
transitioning from his present post to succeed Gus Thornton, who is
retiring, as president of the MSPCA. Formerly director of
veterinary marketing for Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Hawk in 1995 became
president of PETsMART Veter-inary Services and was founding president
of PETsMART Charities, now headed by Joyce Briggs. He succeeded the
late Roger Caras at the ASPCA in 1999.

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Sweeping pro-animal bill in Turkey

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

ANKARA, Turkey–The Parliamentary Domestic Affairs
Commission on January 15, 2003, adopted a draft national animal
protection bill which would provide prison terms for animal torture,
allowing animals to starve, and bestiality; would prohibit all
forms of animal fighting; would prohibit killing animals by
electrocution, cervical dislocation, drowning, burning, and
boiling; would forbid training animals by methods that cause
avoidable injury or distress; and would prohibit killing animals for
population control unless necessary to halt the spread of an epidemic.
The draft bill would require drivers to make every reasonable
effort to avoid injuring animals on the road, and to take any
animals they hit to a veterinarian and pay for the necessary
treatment.
Only licensed veterinarians would be permitted to perform euthanasia.
Vets would be directed to use the least painful method available of
killing an animal.
The draft bill would form a national animal protection
foundation, and would create animal protection boards in each
province, under the deputy governors.
As drafted, the bill would be perhaps the most comprehensive and
progressive animal protection statute on the books of any nation.
Whether it can gain enough support to pass into law without
substantial amendment remains to be seen.

Niger activists oppose Arab hunting

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

NIAMEY, Niger–“Animal rights campaigners in Niger are
protesting against the Niger government’s decision to allow visitors
from the Persian Gulf to hunt protected animals and birds,” Idy
Baroau of BBC reported on January 9. Barou said the activists, led
by environmentalist politician Ibrahim Sani, had filed a formal
complaint against the issuance of permits to kill gazelles and
capture birds of prey.
“The Gulf princes have been using big-caliber guns and cargo
planes to carry their booty,” Baroau added. “In response to the
criticism, Abdou Mamane, a spokesman for the Ministry of Animal
Resources and the Environment, said that the Arab guests had paid
$300,000 to get carte blanche to hunt in Niger.”

What happened to Algerian cats?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

HOUSTON–Members of the Houston Animal Rights team and PETA
picketed the Houston headquarters of the oil exploration firm
Halliburton on January 12 to protest the alleged poisoning of 200
feral cats at a remote work site in Algeria.
Former Halliburton employees said that the Halliburton
construction subsidiary KBR, Andarko Petroleum, and an Algerian
subcontractor brought cats to the site to control rats, but failed
to sterilize the cats before releasing them. The cats were poisoned
after Halliburton withdrew from the project. The demonstrators
argued that Halliburton had a moral obligation to ensure that the
cats were treated humanely.
Reported KTRK Channel 13, of Houston: “Halliburton issued a
statement saying its company left the work site before the cats were
killed. Andarko said the Algerian company brought in the cats and is
working with the Algerian government to remove the animals in a
humane manner.”
Halliburton employed U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney
immediately before he agreed to become running mate of President
George W. Bush in 2000.

“Animal rights” vs. “wise-users”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

DENVER–Colorado state representative
Mark Cloer (R-Colorado Springs) on Valentine’s
Day 2002 withdrew a bill which would have
redefined pets as companion animals rather than
property, by way of enabling petkeepers to seek
punitive damages rather than just the replacement
value of an animal in cases of abuse and
veterinary malpractice.
The intent of the Cloer bill was to
extend the definition of veterinary malpractice
to include unnecessarily frequent vaccination.
Although modern anti-rabies vaccines provide
protection for three years or more, many vets
still “remind” petkeepers to get annual
vaccinations as a way to get the pets into their
clinics for the general examinations that often
discover health conditions in need of treatment.
The redefinition of pets as companion
animals coincided with the goal of In Defense of
Animals’ effort to get legislative bodies to
replace the term “owners” in pet-related
statutes with “guardian.”

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Farm Sanctuary fined $50,000 in Florida

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

TALLAHASSEE, Florida–The Florida Elections Commission has
fined Farm Sanctuary $50,000 for 210 alleged willful violations of
campaign fundraising laws in connection with the passage of Amendment
10, a November 2002 initiative which banned the use of farrowing
crates to raise pigs in a state which had only two working pig farms.
One of those farms was already going out of business, and
state and federal water quality regulations virtually ensure that no
others can be started in Florida.
“Farm Sanctuary raised nearly half a million dollars from
people coast to coast for the Florida ballot measure, in large part,
I assert by falsely promising tax deductions” for campaign
contributions, attorney Allan D. Teplinsky of Northridge,
California, told the Florida Elections Commission in requesting the
strictest possible penalty.
Teplinsky, who filed the complaint that initiated the
prosecution, has not responded to an ANIMAL PEOPLE inquiry as to why
he pursued the case. He has no known prior history involving animal
issues.

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Dogs and gamecocks take their revenge

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

 

For 40 years dogcatcher Manuel Pascual, 61, of Bulacan city
in Bulacan province, The Philippines, caught stray dogs and
reputedly sometimes stole freeroaming pets, selling them to
restaurants in Malolos, Marilao, Bocaue, and Baliuag, the
Philippine Inquirer reported on February 1, 2003. Eventually,
however, a dog caught Pascual, who died from rabies on January 26.
His was the second turnabout death in the Philippines in just
two weeks. On January 12 gamecock handler Elmer Mariano of Zamboanga
had just strapped spurs to the legs of a cock in preparation for a
fight when the cock wrested one leg free and fatally stabbed him in
the groin.
A similar incident occurred at Kampung Murni, Nabawan
district, Malay-sia, on January 29. According to The Star of
Malaysia, cockfighter Tungkaling Ratu had also just strapped the
spurs to a cock when the bird escaped, fatally slashing the thigh of
his 12-year-old son Henrysius, who had crowded close to the ring to
watch the fight.

Progress at the Kabul Zoo

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

KABUL, Afghanistan–“The bear Donatella’s nose is looking
much better,” Whipsnade Wild Animal Park senior curator Nick Lindsay
reported to Kabul Zoo relief effort coordinator David M. Jones on
December 20, 2002.
That is not the latest information ANIMAL PEOPLE has from the
Kabul Zoo by far, nor the most important in terms of the future of
Afghan animal welfare, but it answers the question most asked about
the war-torn zoo and the resident animals, who became familiar to TV
viewers worldwide during the military campaign that ousted the former
Taliban government of Afghanistan in December 2001, then dropped out
of sight after the fighting mostly ended and most of the visiting
news media returned to the U.S. and Europe.
Marjan the lion, who survived 20 years of nearby combat and
deprivation, died in January 2002, but Donatella, the Asiatic
brown bear with the pitifully inflamed and infected nose from
frequent torture by stick-wielding Taliban and militia visitors, now
has two smaller bears for company. All three bears have newly
re-excavated dens, into which they can retreat to avoid visitors,
and within which they may hibernate for part of the winter.

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Cockfighters spread Asian killer bird flu

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2004:

BANGKOK, BEIJING–Cockfighters, cock
breeders, and public officials kow-towing to
them tried to pass the blame for spreading the
deadly H5N1 avian flu virus throughout Southeast
Asia to pigeons, sparrows, and even open-billed
storks.
Bad vaccines took some of the rap, too.
An attempt was even made, as the death
toll increased on factory farms, to attribute
the epidemic to free range poultry producers.
But as the H5N1 “red zones” expanded in
at least eight nations, the evidence pointed
ever more directly at commerce in gamecocks–and
at the efforts of cockfighters and cock breeders
to protect their birds from the culls and disease
outbreaks that had already killed more than 100
million chickens who were raised to lay eggs and
be eaten, as well as 22 people, most of them
children.
The pattern of the H5N1 outbreak
paralleled the spread of exotic Newcastle disease
through southern California and into Arizona
between November 2002 and May 2003.
Approximately 3.7 million laying hens were killed
to contain the Newcastle epidemic, but USDA
investigators believe it began among backyard
fighting bird flocks, advancing as gamecocks
were transported between fights. It apparently
invaded commercial layer flocks through
contaminated clothing worn by workers who
participated in cockfighting.

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