SHARK Octocopter drone allegedly shot down while documenting Pennsylvania pigeon shoot

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:


HAMBURG,  Pennsylvania–An Octocopter drone video camera platform snagged in a tall tree guarantees that Showing Animals Respect & Kindness (SHARK) will continue to keep an eye on the Wing Pointe gun club near Hamburg,  Pennsylvania for some time to come, while pursuing legal action to get the Octocopter back.

The case appears likely to ensure that SHARK and Wing Pointe will meet in court,  but not necessarily in connection with the cruelty prosecution SHARK has tried to press against Wing Pointe since retrieving 21 wounded but living pigeons from a “dead pile” after a pigeon shoot on December 5,  2010. Read more

Penn State faculty start industry-backed poultry transport certification program

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

STATE COLLEGE,  Pa.–Pennsylvania State University faculty in the first week of 2011 introduced what they termed “a certification program believed to be the first to offer third-party quality assurance training on poultry handling and transportation for ‘catch crews.'”

The program was developed as a collaboration among 12 organizations and government agencies which operate in support of agribusiness,  among them the National Chicken Council,  United Egg Producers,  National Turkey Federation,  USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service,  and American Veterinary Medical Association. Read more

Oslo Fashion Week bans fur from catwalk

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:


OSLO--Oslo Fashion Week founder Pål Vasbotten on January 8,  2011 confirmed to ANIMAL PEOPLE that the only Norwegian fashion event of global note has banned fur from the catwalks. Oslo Fashion Week, held twice a year since 2004,  will next be celebrated from February 15 through February 21,  2011.

Unconfirmed reports quoting Vasbotten with a variety of different attributions circulated for more than two weeks before the Oslo Fashion Week web site first mentioned the ban by including a third-hand account by Katherine Sweet of the fashion publication Radar. Sweet reported that Vasbotten told The Huffington Post that banning fur from the catwalk “has been a very natural choice for us because we do not want [Oslo Fashion Week] to appear as an arena in which to promote products based on the treatment of animals [as] prohibited by animal welfare concerns in several countries.” Read more

Obama signs the Shark Conservation Act, meant to stop killing sharks just for fins

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

Washington D.C. – U.S. President Barack Obama on January 4, 2011 endorsed into law the Shark Conservation Act,  passed unanimously by both the Senate and the House of Representatives during the last days of the 111th Congress.

“The legislation requires that sharks be landed with their fins still naturally attached,  the only sure way to enforce a ban on finning,”  summarized Humane Society Legislative Fund president Mike Markarian. Read more

New Malaysian Wildlife Conservation Act including anti-cruelty language comes into effect

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

PETALING JAYA,  Malaysia— The arrival of 2011 in Malaysia brought into full effect the Wildlife Conservation Act,  a sweeping update of 30-year-old previous legislation that includes under one heading the corpus of Malaysian law covering almost every aspect of human interaction with wild animals.  Like most national wildlife laws,  the Malaysian Wildlife Conservation Act covers hunting,  fishing,  capturing wildlife, protection of endangered and threatened species, and dealing with dangerous and “nuisance” wildlife.  It also includes language prohibiting cruelty to wildlife,  including captive wildlife, and establishes basic requirements for zoo management. Read more

New Jersey attorney general files suit seeking to dissolve NJ Horse Angels

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

NEWARK--New Jersey attorney general Paula T. Dow and Thomas R. Calcagni,  acting director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs,  on December 2,  2010 charged in a civil lawsuit that “Through the Internet,  and in particular through Facebook,  Sharon Catalano Crumb and a charitable organization known as NJ Horse Angels raised at least $145,132,  purportedly to rescue horses from slaughter between September 2009 and September 2010. Read more

Montana Large Animal Sanctuary becomes largest-ever sanctuary failure

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

HOT SPRINGS,  Montana–The 400-acre Montana Large Animal Sanctuary,  among the largest in the world,  once regarded as a showplace,  is finishing a 15-year existence as the subject of the largest sanctuary evacuation ever undertaken.

Starting with almost 1,000 animals in urgent need of care and better homes,  AniMeals founder Karyn Moltzen,  the on-site rescue coordinator,  had only 249 of 603 llamas left to place after almost a month of camping on site.  Herds of horses,  goats,  sheep,  donkeys, two bison,  two camels,  and 11 emus were all either moved out to other sanctuaries or were “spoken for,”  Moltzen told ANIMAL PEOPLE. Read more

Coffee fad revives civet farming (long version)

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010

DENPASAR, HANOI–Just seven years after
China banned civet farming because of the
association of civet consumption with more than
800 human deaths from Sudden Acute Respiratory
Syndrome, a vogue for pricy civet coffee has
brought the industry back perhaps bigger than
ever–and certainly in many more places.
Sold to coffee snobs as kopi luwak, the
Indonesian word for it, civet coffee is brewed
from the beans that civets excrete after eating
coffee berries, one of their favorite foods.
Civet coffee is by reputation stronger and
usually more aromatic than most coffees.
Collecting and salvaging the excreted
beans from wild civets is so laborious that civet
coffee, known for centuries, has historically
been so costly to produce as to be consumed only
in small amounts by the very rich and jaded. But
civet farming in coffee-growing country has
brought civet coffee within occasionally reach of
the merely affluent–at prices of from $50 to
$100 a cup.

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Whole Foods introduces multi-tiered animal welfare certification

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:
AUSTIN, WASHINGTON D.C.– The 300-store
Whole Foods Markets chain and the Animal
Compassion Foundation, begun by Whole Foods
founder John Mackey, on November 15, 2010
introduced a new system of identifying how
animals slaughtered for meat were raised. The
first standards are for pigs, cattle, and
chickens raised for meat. After a trial interval
the system is to be extended to laying hens and
dairy animals.

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