Farm animals in court

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

Hogs in court

The U.S. 8th Circuit of Appeals ruled in St. Louis on August
14 that Bell Farms Inc. lacks standing to challenge the 1999
revocation of a land lease which would have allowed Bell to build one
of the world’s largest factory hog farms on the Rosebud Sioux
Reservation in South Dakota. The new ruling confirmed an April 2002
verdict by the same court. Bell on August 15 said it will petition
next to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Humane Farming Association and
local activists have been fighting the Bell project at Rosebud since
1998.

Judges & prosecutors weigh dog attacks

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

Civil law

Issuing one of the first court verdicts to weigh a conflict
between the right of a legally disabled person to keep a companion
animal and the duty of landlords to protect tenants from dangerous
dogs, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled on August 8, 2002
that the San Francisco landlord of Guy Lowe, 38, met the
requirements of federal law and the California Fair Employment and
Housing Commission by allowing legally disabled persons to keep small
dogs, and that Lowe, whose claimed disability is severe depression,
acted unreasonably in demanding to keep a pit bull terrier. “The
potentially catastrophic consequences of a pit bull attack must be
considered, even if the risk of that attack is remote,” Judge Alsup
wrote.

Refuge for former dancing bears allows Bulgaria to enforce bear protection law

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

BELITSA, Bulgaria–Nine years after Bulgaria first tried to
ban training and exhibiting so-called dancing bears, bears are still
shuffling in chains to music on street corners. But the show is
almost over, officials say, because new legislation adopted in July
2002 substantially reinforces the 1993 law –and, as important, the
not-quite-two-year-old Belitsa Dancing Bear Park in the woodland
reserves of the Rila mountains at last gives police a place to take
bears they confiscate.
Like many other animal protection laws hastily adopted within
the former Eastern Bloc after the collapse of Communism, the
original law protecting bears went unenforced because there was no
way to make it work.

Why bother to explain a dead monkey in a sanctuary water tank?

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

SACRAMENTO– Why doesn’t Animal Protection Institute
executive director Alan Berger answer questions from ANIMAL PEOPLE
any more about conditions at the Texas Snow Monkey Sanctuary in
Dilley, Texas, annexed by API in January 2000?
ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton asked Berger that
question in person at the August 2002 Conference on Homeless Animal
Management and Policy in Reno, Nevada.
“Why bother?” Berger responded.
ANIMAL PEOPLE forwarded to Berger nine photographs of reasons
to bother on July 25, 2002, along with a copy of a July 15 cruelty
complaint against API filed by San Antonio attorney Juan Gonzalez on
behalf of Lou Griffin, the snow monkey sanctuary director for more
than 22 years.

American Airlines bans pits, Rotts, Dobies

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

NEW YORK CITY–American Airlines on July 27 banned pit bull
terriers, Rottweilers, Doberman pinschers, and related mixed
breeds from all flights. Puppies from eight to 12 weeks of age are
excepted.
The ban took effect five days after a 68-pound pit bull broke
out of an approved molded plastic travel carrier en route from San
Diego to New York City, tore an 18-by-8-inch hole through a
fiberglas bulkhead, and chewed through four insulated cables in the
electronics bay of the plane, a Boeing 757.

Crackdown on SHAC hits activist for child porn, brings Boston busts

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

BOSTON; CAMBRIDGESHIRE, U.K.–A year after Stop Huntingdon
Animal Cruelty activists thought they were on the verge of victory,
the campaign appears to be collapsing under the weight of the
ruthless and often violent tactics that have characterized it.
British campaigner Robert Moaby, 33, in mid-August 2002
pleaded guilty to two counts of threatening to kill executives of
Huntingdon and other firms, and 17 counts of making pornographic
pictures of children.
According to BBC News, “Moaby sent e-mails containing
violent threats to financial backers of the Cambridgeshire-based
animal research organization, Southwark Crown Court was told. The
messages were full of obscene language and threats of sexual assault,
the court was told. When police examined his computer, they also
found that he had more than 2,800 pornographic imagines of children,”
reportedly as young as age five.

Banning exotic & dangerous wildlife for the animals’ sake

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

WACO, Texas–As the living conditions of large carnivores
and exotic wildlife in private hands go, the mascot bears at Baylor
University in Waco, Texas, are better off than most. The
six-month-old baby bear has a toy: an orange cone. Some say it
resembles a Baylor cheerleader’s megaphone. Others call it a dunce
cap. The 18-month-old senior bear has a multi-level enclosure. Both
bears have pools. Few roadside zoos or backyard menageries offer
comparable amenities–but few are as visible to as many well-educated
people, who might recognize conditions falling far short of optimal
for the animals.
Baylor recently did something about that, after the bears’
stereotypical pacing, filthy water, and lack of any way to get off
the bare concrete drew protest: someone put up a plywood fence to
inhibit casual viewing.

BOOKS: The Cosmic Serpent

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge by Jeremy Narby
Translated from the original French by the author, with assistance
from Jon Christensen
Tarcher/Putnam (c/o Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson St., New York,
NY 10014), 1998. 257 pages, hardcover. $22.95.

The Cosmic Serpent is not a quick, easy read. It is
thought-provoking, and bound to bring to light surprising facts for
readers, no matter what their area of expertise. That does not mean
that the facts will convince most readers to agree with all the
conclusions painstakingly drawn by anthropologist Jeremy Narby. Any
book which begins as this one does, with a description of the
author’s hallucinogenic trip under the guidance of a shaman, is
bound to stir some controversy.

BOOKS: Wolves At Our Door

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

Wolves At Our Door
by Jim & Jamie Dutcher , with James Manful
Pocket Books (c/o Simon & Schuster, 1230 Ave. of the Americas,
New York, NY 10020), 2002. 302 pages, hardcover. $26.00.

Emmy Award-winning documentary film maker Jim Dutcher began
writing Wolves At Our Door as an intended “behind-the-scenes look at
the making of a wildlife documentary,” also called Wolves at Our
Door, which he produced for the Discovery Channel. But just making
the documentary took much longer than was originally planned. The
Dutchers ended up spending six years on site, because making the
film itself, complicated as that was, turned out to be less
problematic than ethically placing the wolves that they raised in
captivity–albeit very spacious captivity–in order to do the filming.

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