Horse defenders try to close borders

October 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2007:
CHICAGO, SAN ANTONIO, WASHINGTON D.C.–A September 21,
2007 ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court
of Appeals appeared to end horse slaughter within the U.S., pending
further appeals by plaintiff Cavel International.
Immediate effects of the ruling, upholding a May 2007
Illinois law prohibiting the slaughter of horses for human
consumption, were to increase exports of horses to slaughter in
Mexico and Canada, and to redouble efforts by the Humane Society of
the U.S. to ban the exports.
“States have a legitimate interest in prolonging the lives of
animals that their population happens to like,” the three-judge
panel opined. “They can ban bullfights and cockfights and the abuse
and neglect of animals.”

Wildlife Waystation founder Martine Colette says sanctuary is broke

September 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

LOS ANGELES–The Los Angeles Daily News and KNBC-4 television
on August 30, 2007 amplified emergency appeals from Wildlife
Waystation founder Martine Colette for funding she said was urgently
needed to keep the 31-year-old sanctuary operating.
“We are $1 million in debt, and we have no funds left,”
Colette told Daily News staff writer Dana Bartholomew. “Things as
they are today will not continue for the next week, or two weeks,
without help.”
Colette suggested that if an immediate infusion of cash was
not forthcoming, the 400 Waystation animals would “become the
county’s problem, the state’s problem,” a threat she has issued
before in years of disputes with regulatory agencies.
Closed for 110 days by the Calif-ornia Department of Fish &
Game in 2000, Wildlife Waystation never fully regained the permits
it needed to host donors’ visits, which until then were the
sanctuary’s chief revenue engine. More than just generating
on-the-spot donations, visits tended to inspire new donors to give
regularly, and established donors to give more.
“Trying to obtain a permit is a long process,” Colette told
KNBC. “There are many regulations we have to meet in order to get a
permit, and we cannot meet those regulations at all. In the
meantime we have gone broke trying to run the sanctuary without being
open to the public.”
Colette estimated that Wildlife Waystation operating costs
currently run at about $5,000 a day. This is consistent with the
most recent Waystation filings of IRS Form 990. ANIMAL PEOPLE has
found that determining the balance of Waystation program expense,
fundraising costs, and administrative expenditures has been
difficult, however, because of idiosyncracies in how the forms have
been completed.
“Last month,” wrote Bartholomew, “five of the eight
Waystation board members quit, apparently burned out over troubles
at the beleaguered agency.”
Colette at the end of August laid off general manager Alfred
J. Durtschi, who was paid $107,153 in the most recently reported
fiscal year, and also laid off half of the 48 Waystation caretakers
and groundskeepers.
Colette told news media that Southern California Edison had
threatened to cut off the sanctuary electricity due to unpaid bills,
and that the Waystation was also about to lose propane delivery.
Former Waystation board chair Robert Lorsch resigned on July
1, 2007, after five years of intense involvement.

Saving wild burros in their native habitat

July 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
OLANCHA, California–Wild Burro Rescue founder Diana Chontos
has in common with the film ogre Shrek that she lives in a stone
house in the middle of nowhere, is a seldom-seen legend, and puts
saving her asses ahead of the comfort of a damsel in frequent
distress.
Among the differences are that Shrek memorably saved one ass,
in his 2001 screen debut. Chontos had already saved hundreds,
beginning in 1984. Shrek lives in a swamp, with abundant water.
Chontos lives in the high desert near parched Owens Lake, drained in
the early-20th century water diversion scandal dramatized by Jack
Nicholson in the 1974 film Chinatown.
Chontos herself could play the damsel in distress, possibly
with significantly greater fundraising success, but the role never
suited her.

Horse slaughter ban clears U.S. Senate & House

October 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. Senate on September 20, 2005 voted
68-29 to ban horse slaughter for human consumption for one year, as
an amendment to a USDA budget bill.
Introduced by Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada), the bill would
prevent the USDA from paying the wages and expenses of horse
slaughter and horse meat inspection staff.
An identically worded amendment jointly introduced by four
U.S. Representatives cleared the House 269-158 in June 2005.
“The House and Senate bills which contain the horse slaughter
amendments now go to conference committee to create a final law,”
explained Chris Heyde of the Society for Animal Protective
Legislation, the legislative arm of the Animal Protection Institute.
“As a result of the strong support for both the House and Senate
versions of this amendment, it is unlikely that the conference
committee will decide to omit the horse slaughter language from the
final budget. However,” Heyde cautioned, “because this is a budget
bill, after passage into law, it will be in effect for [only] one
fiscal year, beginning November 1.

Wildlife Services toll soars

October 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

WASHINGTON D.C.–USDA Wildlife Services, the official hit
men for the Cabinet-directed Invasive Species Council, in 2004
killed one million more animals than in 2003, according to data
released on September 9, 2005.
“Wildlife Services killed more than five animals per minute,”
observed Wendy Keefover-Ring of the Colorado predator advocacy group
Sinapu to Associated Press Writer Libby Quaid.
The Wildlife Services toll came to 2.7 million lives,
including 2.3 million starlings, 10,735 Canada geese, and 3,263
double-crested cormorants.
Other targeted species were killed at rates that have been
more-or-less normal in recent years. Among them were 75,674 coyotes,
31,286 beavers, and 3,907 foxes, whose killing by paid government
trappers belied fur industry claims that wild pelt demand is strong.
Wildlife Services also klled 397 black bears, mostly suspected of
raiding homes or otherwise menacing humans, plus 359 pumas and 191
wolves, chiefly suspected of killing livestock.
Additional bird victims included 143 feral or free-ranging
chickens and 72 wild turkeys, apparently just for being alleged
neighborhood nuisances.

No justice for horses in court or Congress

September 1, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

WASHINGTON D.C., FORT WORTH, RENO–U.S. District Judge
Terry Means on August 25 ruled that the Beltex and Dallas Crown horse
slaughterhouses in Fort Worth and Kaufman may continue killing horses
despite a 1949 Texas law against selling horsemeat for human
consumption. Beltex and Dallas Crown are the two oldest and largest
horse slaughterhouses in the U.S.
Means found that federal law permitting horse slaughter supersedes
the state law, which has apparently never been enforced.
While the verdict was pending, the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice sold 53 horses to Dallas Crown, despite a 2002
opinion by former state attorney general John Cornyn that such
transactions would be illegal.
Cornyn, now a Republican U.S. Senator, has not been visibly
involved in Congressional efforts to save wild horses from slaughter.
Under an amendment to the 1971 Wild and Free Ranging Horse
and Burro Protection Act slipped through Congress as a last-minute
rider to the November 2004 Consolidated Appropriations Act, the
Bureau of Land Management is now mandated to sell “without
limitation” any “excess” horse or burro who is more than 10 years of
age, or who has been offered for adoption three times without a
taker. “Excess” means any wild horse or burro who has been removed
from the range. The Bureau of Land Management has taken about 10,000
horses and burros from the range in nine western states in each of
the past three years, and plans to take 10,000 this year in 57
roundups.

BOOKS: Humane Horse Care For Equine Wellness

March 1, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

Humane Horse Care For Equine Wellness
by Andrew F. Fraser

280 pages, paperback. $25.00.

A Guide To Carriage Horse Care & Welfare by the Canadian Farm Animal Care Trust
46 pages, paperback, $10.00.

Both from: Canadian Farm Animal Trust
(22 Commerce Park Drive, Unit C, Suite 306, Barrie, Ontario L4N
8W8), 2003.

CANFACT founder Tom Hughes sent these two very useful manuals
exactly one year ago. I looked them over as thoroughly as I could,
then tried to find a reviewer with appropriate experience in
evaluating horses in normal working and riding condition.
Horse rescuers tend to see the worst of the worst–but the
purpose of these manuals appears to be to enable a humane inspector
to recognize potential problems long before they develop, so as to
put in a few words of preventive advice.

Stealth riders attack wild mustangs and migratory birds

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

WASHINGTON D.C.–Stealth riders attached to the “Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2005″ on November 18, 2004 crippled two of the
oldest U.S. federal animal protection statutes.
The 3,600-page, $388 billion appropriations act, HR 4818,
was ratified in final form and sent to U.S. President George W. Bush
for his signature on December 6.
Buried deep within it, Section 142 in effect repealed the
1971 Wild and Free Ranging Horse and Burro Protection Act, virtually
mandating that wild horses and burros must be sold to slaughter.
Section 143 excised 94 bird species from the 1918 Migratory
Bird Treaty Act.
The HR 4818 riders followed four years after similar tactics
permanently excluded rats, mice, and birds from the definition of
“animals” protected by the 1971 Animal Welfare Act.
The effect of the three repeals is that even before the Bush
administration moves to roll back the “critical habitat” provisions
of the Endangered Species Act, as demanded in late November by the
Western Governors Association, animals have less federal protection
now than in 1974, when the ESA was adopted.

Horse advocate Ewing testifies for slaughter

March 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2004:

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois–Donna Ewing, 69,
founder of the Hooved Animal Humane Society in
1971 and the rival Hooved Animal Rescue &
Protection Society in 2001, recently testified
to an executive committee hearing of the Illinois
House of Representatives that horse slaughter for
meat should not be banned.
“Humane societies became involved with
wild horses and stopped ranchers from killing or
culling the wild horses, and the consequence has
been that animals have been kept in concentration
camps at tremendous expense… billions of
dollars, because the humane people said you
cannot kill our wild horses,” Ewing said. “They
need to be controlled to a certain degreeŠIf we
don’t have a place where these animals, the
unwanted horses, the old horses, the sick …
well, they can’t take the sick ones for human
consumption ŠThere’s going to be a glut on the
market. People will be turning their animals
loose and I will be finding dying, starving
horses more than I have been now.

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