JUNE 2006
Two major donations
Bob Barker, 83, host of The Price Is Right TV game show since 1972, on May 5, 2006 donated $1 million to the Georgetown University Law Center for the study of animal rights law. Barker previously established $1 million endowments for the study of animal rights law at Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, Stanford, Northwestern, and Duke universities. “Barker’s donation will be used to strengthen and expand the Law Center’s animal rights law curriculum, provide opportunities for students to work in the field, support student-initiated animal rights projects, and sponsor conferences and symposia on subjects related to animal protection,” said Elissa Free, who made the announcement for the university. Her mother, the late Ann Cottrell Free, devoted much of her life to advancing legal protection for animals.
Houston realtor Bernard Aptaker, 80, recently donated 60 acres to the Houston SPCA to become the future site of Freedom Farm, a refuge for rescued farm animals, Houston SPCA director Patty Mercer announced in early June. The gift is in memory of a special dog and her pups. “Born in the largely Jewish village of Zakrzowek, Poland, not far from Lublin, Aptaker was 13 when the Germans invaded in 1939,” wrote Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle. Aptaker’s mother and one brother died in Nazi gas chambers, but Aptaker, his father, and another brother survived in concentration camps. “Two German soldiers knocked on our door,” recalled Aptaker, “With them were three Polish firemen, showing the Germans where the Jews lived. I had a small dog. She had three puppies. The little dog tried to defend me. A German shot her. The firemen stomped the puppies.”
Animal advocacy court calendar
A Utah law requiring a two-thirds majority to pass a wildlife-related ballot initiative is constitutional, the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on May 17, 2006, upholding a 2001 verdict by Utah U.S. District Court Judge Tena Campbell . The law was itself passed by ballot initiative, gaining 56% of the vote.
U.S. District Judge William Shubb ruled in late May 2006 that Alfredo Kuba of In Defense of Animals and up to 10 other activists could protest in front of Six Flags Marine World over the Memorial Day weekend despite a Six Flags policy against permitting protests on high-traffic days.
Compassionate Consumers founder Adam Durand, 26, on May 16 drew six months in jail, a fine of $1,500, 100 hours of community service, and a year on probation for making three night visits to the Wegmans egg farm in Wolcott, New York, to document the conditions. Durand aired his findings in a video entitled Wegmans Cruelty. Durand and two women who accompanied him removed 11 hens during their visits, he testified, “"because in every case they were sick or dying and there was just this feeling that they needed veterinary care.” Durand was acquitted of felony burglary, for which he could have received seven years in prison.
Pamela Ferdin, 48, and Jerry Vlasek, 49, were convicted on May 25, 2006 of misdemeanor trespassing and “targeted demonstration” for leafleting outside the home of Los Angeles Department of Animal Services director of field operations David Diliberto in June 2004. Sentencing was set for June 22. Ferdin, the voice of “Lucy” in several “Peanuts” television specials, in 2004 became head of the U.S. branch of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, after founder Kevin Kjonaas was indicted for conspiracy to commit animal enterprise terrorism and interstate stalking. Kjonaas was convicted in March 2006. Vlasek was barred in 2004 from visiting England to address an animal rights conference, because of remarks he made in 2003 that seemed to endorse killing vivisectors. In April 2005, while a member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society board of directors, Vlasak allegedly said similar things about sealers in a radio interview, and was removed from the Sea Shepherd board after allegedly posting personal details about a sealer on the Sea Shepherd web site.
PEOPLE & ORGANIZATIONS
Horst Kleinschmidt, 60, former deputy director general of the South African environment department and former deputy chair of the International Whaling Commission, has joined the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society advisory board and became a sitting member of Sea Shepherd South Africa, Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson announced on May 15, 2006. “In 1998, Horst was awarded the Order of the Polar Star, First Class, and was knighted by the King of Sweden,” Watson recalled. “In 1991, he was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Services to Human Rights, in recognition of his decades of struggles against apartheid in South Africa.”
The Philadelphia Zoo in early May announced that longtime banking executive Vikram H. Dewan, 51, would succeed Pete Hoskins, 58, as executive director, effective June 12. Hoskins headed the zoo for 13 years, after serving as the Philadelphia city streets commissioner.
New laws on dogs, s/n, bestiality, factory farming
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on May 31 signed three bills into law which create a felony penalty for allowing dangerous dogs to run loose or failing to keep them securely enclosed; also create a felony penalty for failing to sterilize a dog defined as dangerous by past behavior; add a felony penalty for failing to follow orders pertaining to keeping a dangerous dog; allow civil penalties for possession of dangerous dogs; prohibit convicted felons from keeping dangerous dogs or any unsterilized dog; add penalties for using dogs in the commission of crimes; increase the penalties for attending dog fights; add a felony penalty for taking children to dog fights; and ease the requirements for convicting a person of illegal dog fighting.
Virginia Governor Tim Kaine on May 26, 2006 signed into law a bill that allows owners of a dog who causes serious bodily harm to a person to be charged with a felony. The new law also creates a misdemeanor penalty for keeping dogs who attack a person, imposes security requirements for keeping dangerous dogs, and establishes a registry of dangerous dogs. The bill was passed through the lobbying efforts of the family of Dorothy Sullivan, 82, who was killed by a neighbor’s pit bull terriers in March 2005. The neighbor, Deanna Large, 37, is appealing a March 2006 conviction for involuntary manslaughter, including a three-year prison sentence.
Vermont Governor James Douglas on May 26, 2006 endorsed into law a bill allowing judges to issue protective orders covering the pets of people who are trying to leave abusive relationships. Maine Governor John Baldacci signed a similar bill into law earlier in 2006.
An Alabama law requiring shelters to sterilize dogs and cats offered for adoption takes effect on July 1, 2006. Governor Bob Riley signed the law on April 27, 2006.
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano on May 24, 2006 signed into law a bill specificially prohibiting bestiality. The bill replaces a law against committing an “infamous crime against nature” which was repealed in 2001. The bill was introduced after Mesa deputy fire chief Leroy Johnson, 52, was booked in March 2006 on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct, trespassing and public sexual indecency, but could not be charged with bestiality for allegedly attempting intercourse with a neighbor’s lamb. Johnson retired from the fire department after his arrest, Associated Press reported.
The Rhode Island legislature on May 24, 2006 sent to Governor Don Carcieri a bill which if signed into law would require people who keep cats to have them sterilized by six months of age, or obtain an intact animal permit costing $100. Violators would be fined $75 a month. Three Rhode Island cities––East Providence, Pawtucket, and Warwick––already have similar ordinances. Attemped “breeding ban” legislation has historically failed either because enforcement was unsustainable or because the legislation failed to recognize that the right to breed animals was clearly among the rights left “to the people” by the Ninth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Rhode Island legislation is believed to be constitutional, since it recognizes a right to breed animals if a person meets the permit requirements, but not clear is whether it can be enforced against people who deny “owning” free-roaming cats.
Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack on June 2, 2006 vetoed a part of a budget bill that would have defined “canines from licensed facilities” as a “farm product.” The practical effect of the bill would have been to exempt commercial dog breeders from some sales taxes, and to overturn some local zoning ordinances that have been adopted to keep puppy mills out. Vilsack vetoed a similar bill in 2004. Earlier, on May 31, 2006, Vilsack vetoed a bill which would have limited the ability of the state Department of Natural Resources to deny licenses to confinement livestock facilities, or to require them to follow prescribed manure management plans.
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford on May 30, 2006 allowed a bill stripping local governments of authority to regulate poultry farms to become law without his signature. The bill is a boon to the 1,107 egg farms, 426 broiler farms, and 331 turkey farms in South Carolina, but impedes the ability of communities to keep factory farms out.
Alaska steps up predator killing
The Alaska Board of Game at a three-day mid-May 2006 meeting expanded predator killing to increase huntable moose and caribou populations to cover about 9% of the state; eased restrictions on land-and-shoot bear hunting using aircraft and bait piles; expanded five areas that are open to land-and-shoot and aerial wolf-killing, tripling one of them; added incentives for killing grizzly bears in two areas; and adopted amendments intended to limit the ability of opponents of predator killing to challenge the changes in court. Alaska is now persecuting predators more aggressively than at any time in approximately 30 years.
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