ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.

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The Watchdog monitors fundraising, spending, and political activity in the name of animal and habitat protection—both pro and con. His empty bowl stands for all the bowls left empty when some take more than they need.

January-February 2007

ASPCA honors

Humane Farm Animal Care founder Adele Douglass, 60, has received the American SPCA Lifetime Achievement Award. Douglass handled animal welfare issues as a longtime aide to former New York City member of the House of Representatives Bill Green, then for 13 years represented American Humane in Washington D.C. Starting American Humane Farm Animal Services in 2000, Douglass left to found HFAC at the end of 2002. HFAC is now the largest U.S. program certifying humane livestock production.

The ASPCA also honored Oklahoma pet sterilization advocate Ruth Steinberger and Marley & Me author John Grogan, and recognized firefighters Richard LaPiedra, Thomas Piambino, Thomas Sullivan, and John Cashman for several daring dog rescues.

Twin Cities societies merge

ST. PAUL--The three largest humane societies serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul area merged, effective on January 1, 2007, becoming a single entity with five shelters, more than 200 workers, a combined annual budget of about $8.5 million, net assets of $23.1 million, and as yet no unified name. Former Animal Humane Society of Golden Valley president Martha McPhee heads the new organization. Former Humane Society for Companion Animals director Janelle Dixon will direct operations. The third partner in the merger is the Greater West Humane Society.

"We all worked together after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," said McPhee. "We realized that with collaboration we could do much more. This merger is driven by our mission."

Exterminator called to Primarily Primates

SAN ANTONIO--The messy plight of the Primarily Primates sanctuary reportedly became messier still in early December 2006, to the point that PETA-backed, state-appointed receiver Lee Theisen-Watt called in ABC Pest & Lawn Services on December 13 to kill rats, mice, and cockroaches.

"ABC is proud to be able to take on this project for free as our holiday gift to the community," said ABC general manager Mark Ambrose.

"It was probably the worst roach infestation I've ever seen," Ambrose later told Chicago Tribune correspondent Howard Witt.
"Cockroaches carpeted the floors and walls of some animals' sleeping houses." wrote Witt, "Rats had colonized others."

Responded Friends of Animals president Priscilla Feral, whose organization agreed to absorb Primarily Primates as a subsidiary just days before the Texas Office of the Attorney General seized the sanctuary and put Theisen-Watt in charge, "I'm not freaked out by mice. If you have lots of food, rodents are attracted. And the roaches--it's not odd that they are there. They are part of nature."

During the 28 years that founder Wally Swett headed Primarily Primates, pest control was done mainly by domestic fowl, cats, and dogs who had the run of the sanctuary. Within two weeks of Theisen-Watt's arrival, however, the Houston SPCA removed the dogs, plus 78 chickens, 22 turkeys, and 20 peacocks who had been what Swett called his "insect control staff."

As the separate species did not mingle, Swett explained to ANIMAL PEOPLE on several different occasions, keeping multiple flocks ensured that multiple areas were being patrolled and pecked clean at all times.

"The state charges that Primarily Primates was chronically understaffed, leading to deplorably filthy conditions," such as "raw sewage collecting in a cesspool near several chimp enclosures," reported Jordan Smith of the Austin Chronicle.

Responded Stephen Tello, Swett's longtime assistant, and successor for the few weeks between Swett's retirement in September 2006 and the state takeover, "Texas environmental officials visited and, after making a few changes, found our method of waste disposal complied with state and local regulations."

Tello and Feral were found in contempt of court in early December for allegedly withholding Primarily Primates' mailing list from Theisen-Watt.

"As part of the court order," wrote Brian J. Foster of the Darien News-Review, "Feral must return all money received from Primarily Primates' donors in response to her fund-raising letter dated October 30, 2006 to the Travis County Probate Court in Austin, Texas." The money will be turned over to Theisen-Watt.

"Feral was also ordered by the court to turn over all Primarily Primates donor lists, passwords or computer records to Theisen-Watt," Foster added. "However, Feral is still allowed to raise money on behalf of Friends of Animals to aid Primarily Primates."

"Friends of Animals stepped in to enable us to legally defend our sanctuary," said Tello. "While we'll abide by the orders of the court, we note that these proceedings were carried out simply because we did what under normal circumstances would be our proper work: asking Primarily Primates' donors to help us survive as a true sanctuary.

"We haven't been able to take in all animals," Tello acknowledged, "but once in our refuge, animals have been safe from being used further or killed-the very point of a sanctuary. Yet one of the first official acts of the temporary receiver was to petition for permission to start killing.

"When an operation like PETA rolls into town with its well-funded public relations machine, it's hard to fight back," Tello noted.

For example, PETA spokespersons were quoted in many news accounts of the rodent and cockroach infestation, but ANIMAL PEOPLE was the only periodical to mention the roles of the chickens, turkeys, and peacocks, removed six weeks before ABC was called.

PETA spokespersons also have made much of the deaths of two of nine chimpanzees in early 2006, soon after their arrival at Primarily Primates from Ohio State University, but Feral and FoA legal director Lee Hall on December 8 listed the unpublicized deaths of a squirrel monkey, a white-handed gibbon, and a spider monkey during the seven weeks since Theisen-Watt's arrival, along with injuries and illnesses afflicting a chimpanzee, a ring-tailed lemur, and a howler monkey, and two alleged instances of small monkeys being stolen, one of whom was later returned.

Chimp Haven sued by founding executive director

SHREVEPORT--Chimp Haven founding executive director Linda Koebner and eight co-plaintiffs in early December 2006 sued founding president Linda Brent and board chair Tom Butler for allegedly mismanaging the chimpanzee retirement colony "in violation of that corporation's purpose, to the detriment of the animals residing at Chimp Haven, and to the detriment of fundraising and additional grant opportunities on which Chimp Haven must rely to survive."

Opened in 2003, Chimp Haven currently houses 89 former laboratory chimps under contract with the National Institutes of Health. The chimps belong to the NIH and technically could be recalled to research use, but there has been little lab demand for chimpanzees for more than 20 years.

The best-known chimps at Chimp Haven are the survivors of the nine-member colony formerly kept by Ohio State University researcher Sally Boysen, who were retired to Primarily Primates in February 2006. One chimp died on arrival at Primarily Primates. Another died two months later. Necropsies found that both deaths were caused by pre-existing heart ailments.

The seven remaining chimps were relocated from temporary holding facilities at Primarily Primates to Chimp Haven on November 16, 2006, ostensibly for temporary caretaking until the legal issues currently surrounding Primarily Primates are resolved.

Koebner's lawsuit accuses Brent and Butler "of making poor decisions about personnel and maintaining the chimps in social groups," wrote Janelle Rucker of the Shreveport Times. "One such instance, the plaintiffs claim, led to the death of a chimp named Woodruff. Placed with three aggressive male chimps, he was later found dead from a heart attack," allegedly from stress resulting from being attacked by the others.

"The suit lists how the defendants 'improperly and illegally' suspended Koebner from the board of directors," Rucker said. "To remedy the situation, the group is asking for injunctions, including the removal and replacement of Brent and Butler, restoration of Koebner to the board, and an independent third-party review of the conditions of the facility, its accounts, and its records."

Responded Chimp Haven spokesperson Rick DelaHaya, to Rucker, "We are confident that when all the facts are presented, all the allegations will be proved false, and we can continue the business of taking care of the chimpanzees."

The plaintiffs include, besides Koebner, Virginia Shehee, Sharon Wright, Mary Jansen, Tim and Sarah Goeders, and Jan and Frank Landon, all of Caddo Parish, Louisiana, and Cathie Neukum, of New York.

Chimp Haven became controversial, even before it was built, because of the chance that the resident chimps might be reclaimed by the NIH for further experimentation.

The House of Representatives late in the 109th Congress passed a bill which would have cancelled the recall possibility, but the bill was stalled in the U.S. Senate by the opposition of Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyoming), who argued that the NIH might eventually need the Chimp Haven chimps to study an urgent threat such as bioterrorism.

"The U.S. government has so many chimps available for experimentation that it plans to retire scores of them in the next few months," wrote Boston Globe staff reporter John Donnelly. Brent told Donnelly that "At least 200 of the roughly 1,200 chimpanzees in federal labs currently are not being used because of a lack of projects.

"The federal Chimpanzee Management Program recently found that the abundance of chimpanzees in laboratories was so great that it recently extended a moratorium on chimpanzee breeding until the end of next year," Donnelly added.
Said New England Anti-Vivisection Society president Theo Capaldo, "The chimpanzees who have finally made their way to retirement are so battered and worn, so used up by science, that we don't call Chimp Haven a sanctuary. We call it a hospice."