Accused of involvement in elephant poaching, Thai officials raid Wildlife Friends

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

Accused of involvement in elephant poaching,  Thai officials raid Wildlife Friends

BANGKOK--Responding to a week of daily raids by 60 to 70 staff of the Thai National Park,  Wildlife and Plants Conservation Division,  Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand founder Edwin Wiek convened a February 21,  2012 press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok to present,  Wiek said, “new facts on elephant poaching and the illegal elephant and wildlife trade.” Read more

WSPA bewilders anti-bear farm activists

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

WSPA bewilders anti-bear  farm activists

SEOUL--“Victory!  Korea commits to end bear farming,” bannered a World Society for the Protection of Animals electronic newsletter distributed on February 18,  2012,   but dated a month earlier.

The announcement bewildered veteran anti-bear bile farming campaigners,  including Moonbears.org founder Gina Moon.
“WSPA welcomes the news shared by our partner Green Korea United,”  explained the newsletter,  “that the budget committee of the Korean National Assembly recently voted through a proposal to ‘prepare measures to end the practice of bear farming through investigation of the current status of bear farming and its management plan.’  The government has cleared a budget of 200 million Korean won ($175,000 U.S.) to ascertain the current situation of bears on farms in Korea,  and design ways to end the practice.” Read more

Thai & Chinese dogs rescued

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

Thai & Chinese dogs rescued

NAKON PHANOM,  CHONQING-Nearly 3,000 dogs were impounded from meat traffickers in Thailand and China during mid-January 2012, straining quarantine centers.  The Thai navy seized 750-800 dogs from a boat on the Mekong River on January 13,  plus 500 dogs who were found on a truck that was driving to meet the boat.  About 500 more dogs were found hidden in nearby woods,    to be sent to China via Laos.  About 2,000 dogs were believed to have already been transported.  Not known is whether some of those dogs were among about 1,100 who were intercepted a few days later by the Chongqing Small Animal Protection Association,  of Chongquing in southwest China.  The dogs were being taken to Guangdong.

Hormel, Smithfield, & McDonald’s agree to end keeping pregnant pigs immobilized in stalls

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

Hormel,  Smithfield,  & McDonald’s agree to end keeping pregnant pigs immobilized in stalls

AUSTIN,  Minnesota–Hormel Foods,  producers of the pork product Spam since 1937,  on February 2,  2012 followed Smithfield Foods in pledging to phase out immobilizing pregnant sows in gestation stalls by 2017.

The Hormel and Smithfield pledges appeared to be strategic positioning in advance of a February 13,  2012 announcement by McDonald’s Corporation senior vice president Dan Gorsky that “McDonald’s wants to see the end of sow confinement in gestation stalls in our supply chain.  We are beginning an assessment with our U.S. suppliers to determine how to build on the work already underway to reach that goal,”  Gorsky said.  “In May,  after receiving our suppliers’ plans, we’ll share results from the assessment and our next steps.” Read more

AAPN changes guard

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

AAPN changes guard

HONG KONG“Lisa Warden has kindly agreed to take over the role of moderator of the Asian Animal Protection Network Forum, starting March 1,”   AAPN founder John Wedderburn,  M.D.,  on February 14,  2012 e-mailed to members.  “John Edmundson will take over the rest of AAPN,  including the web site,  and bring it into the 21st century.” Read more

BOOKS: Kalahari Dream by Chris Mercer & Bev Pervan

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2012:

Kalahari Dream by Chris Mercer & Bev Pervan
Paperback:  <http://amzn.to/vLHjhv>.  Download for Kindle:
<http://amzn.to/vYlNJk>.
Download for iPad and all other eReaders:  <http://bit.ly/sFM2Wb>.
302 pages,  including 100 photos.  $9.99.


On an overnight stay in Kuruman,  South Africa,  deep in the

Kalahari desert,  wildlife enthusiasts Chris Mercer and his wife Bev
Pervan asked about land for sale.   Purchasing a rundown 1,500-acre
farm,  in 1998 they opened the Kalahari Raptor Centre,  the first
wildlife rehabilitation center in the Northern Cape Province.
Mercer,  a former attorney who turned to farming before
taking up wildlife rehab, describes the huge renovation project that
they undertook to start the project as prolonged chaos,  but “The
transformation from the tired, degraded farm we had bought,  to the
luscious, rich parkland we now owned,  was quite extraordinary,”  he
writes.  “It was rather like buying an old tin mug at an auction,
and then finding out that it was made of pure gold.” Read more

Birding crimes

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2012

 

WASHINGTON D.C.— Convicted in District of Columbia Superior

Court of misdemeanor attempted cruelty to animals on October 31,
2011,  anti-feral cat ornithologist Nico Dauphine was on December 14,
2011 sentenced to do 120 hours of community service,  spend a year on
probation,  and pay a fine of $100,  with 180 days in jail suspended.
Dauphine is prohibited from volunteering or working with cats during
her time on probation.  A security camera caught Dauphine allegedly
trying to poison cats on March 2,  2011.  Employed at the time by the
National Zoo,  Dauphine has authored papers attacking neuter/return
feral cat control which have been distributed and cited by the
American Bird Conservancy and the Wildlife Society. Read more

Obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2012:

Obituaries

 

“I come to bury Caesar,  not to praise him.  The evil that men do
lives after them.  The good is oft interred with their bones.”
–William Shakespeare

Lynn M. Gorfinkle, 64,  of Redding,  Connecticut,  died on
December 25,  2011 in Danbury Hospital.  The longtime president of
the Animal Rights Alliance of Fairfield County,  and active in cat
rescue with her friend Natalie Jarnstadt of Project Save A Cat,
Gorfinkle was best known for opposition to deer hunting and culling.
Gorfinkle “would not, if she were stranded on a desert island with
only a rabbit, eat that rabbit in order to survive,”  wrote Rob
Inglis of Yale Daily News in 2006.  “She thinks that modern-day
American sport hunters–especially deer hunters–are morally
deficient and probably ‘hung like hamsters.'”  Hunting media
denounced Gorfinkle from coast to coast three years later,  after a
bowhunter wounded a deer who fled to the Gorfinkle property before
dying.  Her husband Mike Gorfinkle refused to allow the hunter to
retrieve the deer. “If someone’s going to eat that deer,  I want it
to be natural predators,  not some hunter,”  Lynn Gorfinkle told
reporters.  Coyotes dragged away the carcass about two weeks later. Read more

Criminal justice

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2012:

VICTORVILLE,  California— Convicted on December 6,  2012 of
committing the 2009 contract murder of Jesus Rocha Sr. on his chicken
ranch near Helendale,  California,  Edgar Gutierrez, 40,  and David
Gomez, 18,  face life in prison without parole.  Co-defendant Oscar
Acosta,  who testified against them,  could receive 35 years to life
in prison.  A fourth co-defendant,  Jose Sosa,  who acted as lookout
during the murder and also testified against the others,  is expected
to receive a sentence of 13 years and eight months.  Gutierrez
allegedly paid Gomez and Acosta $5,000 each to kill a man who lived
with Rocha whom Gutierrez claimed had not paid him $10,000 in
connection with arranging the sale of a gamecock.  They killed Rocha
when Rocha found them on the property. Read more

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