BOOKS: Ask the Animals: A vet’s-eye view of pets and the people they love

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

Ask the Animals: A vet’s-eye view of pets and the people they love
by Bruce R. Coston, DVM
Thomas Dunne Books (175 Fifth Ave., New York,
NY 10010), 2010. 274 pages, paperback. $14.99.

I like books that start with a bark and don’t stop yapping until I’m done. Ask the Animals isn’t one of them. Having spent the past 20 years volunteering in animal shelters, including shelter clinics, I have an idea how brisk and lively a vet’s office can be–but I read nearly 50 pages of Ask the Animals before Coston moved past his personal life to introduce an animal who was not his own. This was a dog named Tess who was referred to his teaching hospital for a further evaluation of a complex medical problem. Read more

"Summit for the Horse" promotes slaughtering wild horses

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

LAS VEGAS--Intended to promote horse slaughter in general, and slaughtering wild horses in specific, the Summit for the Horse held in Las Vegas during the first week of January 2011 heard messages from Bureau of Land Management director Bob Abbey and slaughterhouse design consultant Temple Grandin that were not what most of the reportedly sparse audience wanted to hear.

Not more than 200 people converged on the Southpoint Casino to attend the Summit for the Horse, according to a variety of crowd counts. Most counts placed the plenary attendance at 100-150, including 42 speakers.

Speaking for allied animal use industries were National Cattlemen’s Beef Association vice president J.D. Alexander, Masters of Fox Hounds Association executive director Dennis Foster, and Mindy Patterson, who led breeder opposition to Missouri Proposition B, a ballot initiative to increase regulation of puppy breeders that was approved by voters in November 2010. Read more

ANIMAL OBITUARIES

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

Animal Obituaries

Old Man, 32, a naked mole rat born in Kenya, died on Thanksgiving morning 2010 at the Barshop Institute for Longevity & Aging Studies on the Texas Research Park campus near San Antonio. Old Man was the senior member of the University of Texas Health Science Center’s colony of about 2,000 naked mole rats. Captured with 75 kin in a sweet potato field in 1980 by physiologist Rochelle Buffenstein, Old Man traveled with Buffenstein to the University of Cape Town in South Africa, then to the City College of New York in Harlem, arriving in San Antonio in 2007. Naked mole rats, who live to an average age of 26, “in many ways confound what scientists think they know about how diseases progress and why living things age,” Buffenstein told Richard A. Marini of the San Antonio Express News. For example, naked mole rats rarely develop cancer, and although they develop the same type of brain plaque found in Alzheimer’s disease victims, they do not suffer similar cognitive decline. Read more

Obituaries

Obituaries

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

“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

Patricia Simonet, 51, died of cancer on December 2, 2010. Earning a Ph.D. in animal behavior at the University of Nevada, Simonet from 1992 to 2000 researched topics including what children learn from live animal shows, chimpanzee play, and elephant self-recognition in mirrors. Then, recalled Robert Brost, her husband of 26 years, “While researching the meaning of sounds that dogs make, she discovered dog laughter,” the happy panting that characterizes dogs at play. Hired by Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Services in 2003 to do temperament testing and training, Simonet in 2005 demonstrated that playing recorded dog laughter in the shelter helped to calm the dogs and increased the adoption rate of adoptions. Brost and Simonet subsequently marketed dog laughter recordings, which are typically played at less than the threshold of human hearing. “While Trisha worked for SCRAPS, she also volunteered at the Spokane Humane Society,” Brost said, “training their volunteers and serving on their board of directors.” The Spokane County Board of Supervisors in June 2010 designated an off-leash area at Gateway Regional Park the Patricia Simonet Laughing Dog Park. Read more

Obituaries

What does the Food Safety Modernization Act mean for farmed animal welfare?

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

WASHINGTON D.C.–-U.S. President Barack Obama on January 4, 2011 signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act, the most extensive update of U.S. food safety legislation since 1938. The enforcement regulations are due to be completed by 2014.

Though not specifically an animal welfare bill, the Food Safety Modernization Act has huge implications for animal welfare, especially in regard to livestock and poultry disease control. The Food Safety Modernization Act specifically does not amend or supercede the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act, and the Packers & Stockyards Act. However, the act includes 28 specific mentions of animals. Most of the mentions stipulate that the provisions of the Food Safety & Modernization Act extend to protecting animal health as well as human health. Read more

U.S. whaling negotiator hinted to Japan that IRS might pull Sea Shepherd Conservation Society nonprofit status

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

MADRID--U.S. State Department messages published on January 3, 2011 by WikiLeaks and the leading Spanish newspaper El Pais disclose that U.S. diplomats in negotiation with senior Japanese officials entertained the possibility of asking the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the nonprofit status of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

The State Department messages also confirm the belief widespread among whale conservationists that current White House policy seeks as a first priority to lower the profile of confrontation with Japan over whaling. Read more

U.S. retail fur industry didn’t get big holiday bounce–& did get Truth in Fur Labeling Act

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

WASHINGTON D.C.-– Experiencing sales declines of 15.5% in 2008 and 7% in 2009, U.S. retail furriers ballyhooed hopes for a big comeback during the 2010 holiday season. But the first available sales data suggests they didn’t get it.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that apparel sales were up 2.7%. But the increase came mostly at department stores, whose sales were up 2.8%, not at high-end luxury boutiques.

The department store contribution to the U.S. retail fur trade consists chiefly of selling inexpensive fur-trimmed garments, mostly made abroad.

The biggest news for that branch of the fur trade during the 2010 holiday season was that U.S. President Barack Obama on December 18 signed into law the Truth in Fur Labeling Act.

Taking effect in March 2011, the Truth in Fur Labeling Act “finally closes a loophole in federal law that currently allows some animal fur garments to go unlabeled if the value of the fur is $150 or less, leaving consumers in the dark as to whether they are buying faux or animal fur,” explained Humane Society Legislative Fund president Mike Markarian. Read more

Spanish national broadcasting agency banishes bullfights to protect children

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

MADRID–The Spanish national broadcasting agency, Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española (RTVE) on January 8, 2011 made official that it will no longer televise bullfights.

RTVE “has not shown bullfighting in any of its programs for months, citing low audience ratings and budget problems,” wrote Associated Press correspondent Harold Heckle. RTVE made the de facto exclusion of bullfights from broadcasts official in the 2011 edition of the corporate stylebook. A chapter titled “Violence against animals” says RTVE has ceased broadcasting bullfighting in part because bullfights are usually held at hours when children are likely to be watching. Read more

South Korea kills 1.6 million pigs, cattle, & dogs in fight against foot and mouth disease

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

SEOUL–Water taps spat blood on New Year’s Day 2011 in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, “just one day after some of nearly 1,000 pigs within a 500-meter radius of a foot-and-mouth-hit livestock farm were buried alive to prevent further spread of the disease,” reported Park Si-soo of Korea Times.

The quarantine officers who ordered the live burial claimed the water would soon run clean, but “many experts insist that blood from the buried animals will eventually contaminate underground reservoirs,” Park Si-soo wrote. Read more

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