Editorial: Vaccination and Count Dracula

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

 

Fast losing support in a city afflicted by corruption,
inflation, unemployment, fuel and food shortages, ethnic strife,
and no quick remedies, Bucharest mayor Traian Basescu on April 18
ordered “the killing of all dogs in city shelters,” e-mailed
activist Liviu Gaita to ANIMAL PEOPLE. Associated Press confirmed
the report.
In August 2000 Basescu made a similar show of force by
bulldozing street vendors’ kiosks. Students and labor unions got the
message. This time, however, Basescu sparked “street protests
attended by Parliament members and hundreds of citizens,” Gaita
said. “The President of the Republic and the Prime Minister asked
Basescu to switch to more humane methods. In response, Basescu
threatened on April 21 to use riot police to disband any further
protest. ‘A few sticks’ on the backs of the ‘the ladies from the
protection organizations’ would be quite appropriate, he said, as a
lesson on authority and public order.”

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LETTERS [May 2001]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

Letters

Tirana

I am writing again to publicize the plight of stray dogs in Tirana, Albania. The situation is reverting again to the conditions I described in the letter you published in November 1999. The Albanian public TV station has proudly informed the people of Tirana that “mass shooting of stray dogs has begun,” and has advised people to “please do not be afraid to try eating dog meat instead of beef, swine, or poultry, because the city of Tirana has taken all the necessary measures” to insure that it is safe for human consumption.

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Animal care & rescue abroad

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

 

The adamant opposition of bird advocacy organizations to neuter/return stalled feral cat sterilization projects this spring from the Street Cat Rescue Program of Saskatoon to the Bermuda Feline Assist-ance Bureau–with the result that far fewer cats were spayed approaching “kitten season” than could have been, causing more kittens to be born at large. The Saskatoon SPCA, as animal control contractor to the city of Saskatoon, proposed to fine Street Cat Rescue Program president Linda Gubbe about $200 U.S. for each cat found at large with identification markings. Why? Because the act of identifying the animal, according to the Saskatoon animal control bylaw, acknowledges ownership–and makes releasing the animal an act of abandonment.

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Japan lacks humane shelters

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

 

YOKOHAMA, Japan–Horri-fied to learn that hunters had begun visiting Enoshima Island, a popular recreational site off Yokohama, Japan, to shoot feral cats, Kamakura resident Toshiko Matsumoto in February and March raised enough money from other island visitors to spay 165 cats. The island has become a popular place to abandon unwanted cats because in most of Japan there are no shelters which offer animals either a reasonable chance of adoption or quality longterm care.

Explained Ark Animal Refuge Kansai founder Elizabeth Oliver, in a recent e-mail to ANIMAL PEOPLE, “There is no public office dealing with the protection or welfare of animals. Hokenshoes, as the offices of Public Health and Hygiene are called, run kanri centers, or pounds, for catching and exterminating stray animals. Although the kanri centers employ token veterinarians to sit in their offices, they in practice do not handle the animals, let alone treat the sick and injured or euthanize the suffering. The job of killing is subcontracted to outside companies that make money on the side selling animals to laboratories for experiments, or selling the meat and hides.

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Botswana lions are ex-President Bush meat

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:
Botswana lions are ex-President Bush meat: Old George Bush lobbies for Safari Club; young Bush attacks ESA

GABORONE, Botswana; JOHANNESBURG, South Africa; HARARE, Zimbabwe; WASHINGTON D.C.–“You might call the lions of southern Africa potential Bush meat,” wrote Manchester Guardian correspondent Chris McGreal from Johannesburg on April 27. “Former U.S. President, George Bush, father of the current President, and his old Gulf War ally, General ‘Stormin’ Norman’ Schwarzkopf, are pleading with the government of Botswana to be allowed to revive their old alliance,” McGreal explained, “this time in pursuit of Africa’s endangered big cats. Bush is among the prominent members of Safari Club International who have asked Botswana to lift a ban slapped on the trophy hunting of lions in February. Bush’s former vice president, Dan Quayle, is also a signatory.”

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Institutional cases

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

 

Walla Walla, Washington county prosecutor Jim Nagle has “determined that criminal prosecution was not warranted” for alleged violations of humane slaughter and anti-cruelty laws at the Iowa Beef Packing plant in Wallula, the Washington State Department of Agriculture announced in mid-April, 11 months after receiving undercover video from the Humane Farming Association which showed cattle being skinned and dismembered while alive and conscious. The WSDA case summary said that Nagle “concluded there was insufficient admissible evidence to prove criminal corporate liability” because “the acts were not done by employees in the course of employment,” and “unedited video showed that employees took corrective action” when conscious animals were seen. Therefore, the WSDA continued, Nagle “could not conclude that the alleged activity would benefit IBP or that there was evidence of intent to benefit…Neither was there any basis for imputing the alleged acts to” IBP, though the improper stunning allegedly resulted from trying to kill cattle at too fast a pace. Nagle was said to be “particularly concerned that the unedited video demonstrated HFA’s intent to promote a particular agenda through the edited tape, such that all evidence developed by HFA was discredited.” The ruling appeared to contradict the precepts of criminal law that crimes cannot be retracted and that physical evidence is not necessarily negated by observer bias.

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Huntingdon Life Sci strikes back

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

 

HUNTINGDON, U.K.– Citing five years of “physical attacks on individual employees, death threats, bomb threats, destruction of property, burglary, harassment, and intimidation,” Huntingdon Life Sciences Group of England and New Jersey and the Stephens Group investment firm of Little Rock, Arkansas, which is the largest Huntingdon creditor, on April 19 sued Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, Voices for Animals, the Animal Defense League (N.J.), In Defense of Animals, and various individual activists for alleged violation of the U.S. Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organization statute.

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Nine-year-old is victim of first deadly dingo attack in 21 years

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

FRASER ISLAND, Queensland, Australia–Out for an early morning stroll near where their family had camped overnight on Fraser Island, off the Queensland coast, brothers Dylan and Clinton Gage, 7 and 9, along with an unidentified seven-year-old friend, found themselves being stalked by a male and female dingo. First they tried to walk back to the Waddy Point campsite, about half a kilometre away. As the dingos became bolder, they ran for their lives. Clinton fell and was fatally mauled, in the first lethal dingo attack on a human since the death of nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain at Ayer’s Rock in August 1980.

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Cats-and-dogs in Israel

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

 

JERUSALEM–Overshadowed by the ongoing strife between Palestinians and Jewish settlers on the west bank of the Jordan River, two trials now before Israeli courts have excited comparable discord among animal advocates.

In one case, a recent Soviet immigrant and a university lecturer are charged by Jerusalem authorities with illegally feeding feral cats. In the other, euthanasia technician Na’ama Bello has been charged by the no-kill animal sheltering and advocacy organization Let The Animals Live with illegally killing sick and/or severely injured cats–even though she was authorized to do so by both the Israeli health ministry and the veterinary services division of the agriculture ministry, according to Concern for Helping Animals in Israel founder Nina Natelson.

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