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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:

U.S. Army bans pit bulls & Rottweilers

WASHINGTON D.C.--U.S. Army commanders at more than 40 bases around the world are moving to implement a new "Pet Policy for Privatized Housing Under the Army's Residential Communities Initiative Privatization Program," which prohibits pit bull terriers, Rottweilers, Doberman pinschers, chows, and wolf hybrids.
Issued as an order on January 5, 2009, the new Army policy also limits personnel living in base housing to keeping no more than two dogs or cats, forbids keeping exotic pets and farm animals, requires all pets to be microchipped for identification, and forbids keeping pets "tied or staked outside the home or any building."
The order further prohibits keeping "Any other dog who demonstrates a propensity for dominance or aggressive behavior," indicated by "Unprovoked barking, growling or snarling at people approaching the animal, aggressively running along fence lines when people are present, biting or scratching people," or "escaping confinement or restriction to chase people."
Additional provisions of order stipulate that "Voice command is not an acceptable means of control," that "Pets are not allowed in playgrounds or tot lots at any time," and that pet keepers in military housing must "Maintain appropriate, humane care of pets (e.g. food, water, shelter from extreme weather, etc.)."
The Army became the first branch of the U.S. armed services to adopt breed-specific legislation after at least six dog attack fatalities in five years and one near-fatal mauling either occurred in military housing or involved personnel who had lived in military housing. Of the nine dogs involved, five were pit bulls, two were Rotttweilers, and two were Siberian huskies, not included in the Army order.
Most recently, in May 2008, a visitor's pit bull killed a three-year-old boy at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The attack came as the U.S. Marine Corps faced a $5 million lawsuit over a 2005 attack by a Rottweiler at Camp Lejeune that cost a child an ear.
On November 6, 2007 an 11-year-old boy who had been mauled by a pit bull terrier died at the Carl Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, near Killeen, Texas. Believed to have had the least restrictive dog policy of any major Army installation, having only prohibited possession of wolf hybrids, coyotes, and jackals, Fort Hood banned pit bulls in November 2008, but allowed pit bulls who were registered at the Fort Hood Veterinary Clinic before July 10, 2008 to remain on base.
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lydon, then the Fort Hood provost marshal, told Amanda Kim Stairrett of the Killeen Daily Herald that over the preceding six years, 68% of the dogs who were declared dangerous after biting someone on base had been pit bulls and 8% were Rottweilers.
A July 2007 fatal attack on an 11-month-old boy by two Siberian huskies in a home near Cookeville, Tennessee, involved two families who met while living in U.S. Marine Corps housing. The father of the victim was a U.S. Marine Corps recruiter, who was still on active duty, but the attack appears to have occurred on private property.
Two pit bulls in May 2007 killed a three-year-old boy in base housing at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia.
A Rottweiler in February 2006 fatally mauled the four-year-old son of a woman who was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base, near Ulm, Montana. The victim and his mother were staying with relatives.
In May 2005 a pit bull terrier whose family acquired him while living in military housing in Texas killed a two-year-old girl in Huntington, West Virginia.
About 950,000 military personnel and more than two million wives and children of military personnel occupy military housing. The rate of fatal dog attacks among the children of military personnel living on base appears to be approximately five times the background level of fatal attacks for the U.S. as a whole.
Best Friends Animal Society attorney Ledy Van Kavage and radio columnist Steve Dale of WGB radio in Chicago denounced the breed-specific aspect of the new Army policy on the air on February 15.
DogsBite.org founder Colleen Lynn pointed out, however, that the U.S. Army policy chiefly consolidates and makes uniform the policies that were already in effect at many bases. "The U.S. Army enacted the new policy to protect base housing citizens from serious attacks and to prevent pet owners from encountering uneven policies when moving between installations," Linn said. "DogsBite.org expresses great gratitude to the U.S. Army."
Researching the Army order, Lynn learned that all 10 bases in the U.S. Air Force Space Command bar pit bulls and Rottweilers from base housing.
Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, and McGuire Air Force in New Jersey likewise prohibit pit bulls and Rottweilers. Ellsworth and McGuire additionally name Dobermas, and Kirtland names wolf hybrids.
Pit bulls are also banned from housing at the U.S. Marine Corps bases in Quantico, Virginia, and Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
The ANIMAL PEOPLE log of dog attack fatalities and maimings occurring in the U.S. and Canada since September 1982 shows that breeds banned by the U.S. Army policy have committed 83% of the incidents qualifying for listing through March 22, 2009, and have caused 75% of the fatalities.
Pit bulls have been involved in 1,332 of the 2,560 incidents and 133 of the 320 fatalities. Rottweilers have been involved in 435 incidents and 66 fatalities. Wolf hybrids have been involved in 80 incidents, producing 19 fatalities. Pit bull mixes, exclusive of mixes with other fighting breeds, have been involved in 80 incidents, resulting in seven fatalities. Chows have been involved in 52 incidents, resulting in seven fatalities.
Dobermans have been involved in only 12 incidents and four fatalities.

--

More Bali rabies deaths

Jama Asmara, 46, on March 23, 2009 became the eighth human victim of a canine rabies outbreak afflicting southeastern Bali, Indonesia since September 2008. Bitten in November 2008, Jama Asmara reportedly received post-exposure vaccination on November 27, plus a later booster, but skipped two further prescribed boosters because he did not feel ill.
Previous Bali rabies victims have included two three-year-olds, a four-year-old, two 32-year-olds, and a 45-year-old.
The Bali government has reportedly killed at least 2,000 dogs, mostly with strychnine, and has vaccinated about 20,000 near confirmed rabies cases, using an Indonesian-made vaccine that requires revaccination after only three months. As of late March 2009, Bali officials admitted that they were having difficulty administering revaccinations. Hospitals and clinics were mostly out of human post-exposure vaccine.
The Bali government, as first reported in ANIMAL PEOPLE in November/ December 2008, continues to prohibit the Bali Animal Welfare Association and other animal help agencies from either importing up-to-date vaccines good for at least three years, or vaccinating dogs outside the rabies zones.

Five sled dogs die in 2009 Iditarod

ANCHORAGE--Five dogs died during the 2009 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the most in any year since 1997. The race runs 1,131 miles, from Wasilla to Nome.
"The first dog to die this year was 6-year-old Victor in the team of North Pole musher Jeff Holt," reported Craig Medred of the Anchorage Daily News. Running 50th of 67 teams, Holt's goal was to just to finish. "The dogs were fresh and well rested when he left the Rainy Pass checkpoint," wrote Medred. "A veterinarian looked the team over and said they looked great. A few miles down the trail, Victor fell over and died."
Maynard, age 5, ran in the team of veteran Yellowknife musher Warren Palfrey, who finished 19th. At Safety, just 20 miles from Nome, "Maynard reportedly looked fine," Medred wrote. "Ten miles farther, with the finish nearly in sight, he died."
Omen, 8, running for 39th place musher Rick Larson of Sand Coulee, Montana, also died from no apparent cause.
Dizzy and Grasshopper, running for physician Lou Packer, apparently died of hypothermia, after Packer, third from last at the halfway mark, ran into a blizzard that most of the field had missed. Also hit by the blizzard, and fearing that her dog Cotton, 8, might be suffering from hypothermia, Kim Darst of Warren County, New Jersey, dropped out to get veterinary help.
The deaths stoked PETA opposition to the Iditarod. The Humane Society of the U.S., however, which campaigned against the Iditarod in the early 1990s, no longer opposes it. "I would like to see the Iditarod celebrate the history and culture of the event and not be just a timed event, but they're trying to make it as safe as they can for both the animals and humans," HSUS western region director Dave Pauli told Associated Press writer Rachel D'Oro. "We're definitely reformists and not abolitionists on an event like this," Pauli said.
At least 146 dogs have died during the 35 runnings of the Iditarod. About a third of the deaths have been from undetermined causes, some of them possibly involving inbred heart defects known to occur among huskies. Many of the rest have resulted from collisions with snow machines, other vehicles, and wildlife.
Iditarod chief veterinarian Stuart Nelson Jr. in the mid-1990s hoped that the Iditarod safety rules could be improved to eliminate dog deaths, he told Medred.
But the odds are heavily against that happening. Huskies typically live about 10 years: 3,650 days. The 67 teams competing in 2009 included more than 1,200 dogs, who spent an average of about two weeks on the trail: 16,884 days. Expected deaths among any random cohort of huskies over 16,884 days would be 4.6, which rounds off to five.

Obituaries

Paul Harvey, 90, died on February 28, 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona. Beginning in radio journalism while still in high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Harvey met and married Lynne Cooper, whom he called Angel, while working for St. Louis radio station KXOK in 1940. She became his chief researcher until her death in 2008. They were later joined by their son, Paul Harvey Jr. At peak in the 1970s, their broadcasts reached more than 24 million listeners via more than 1,200 American Broadcasting Company affiliates plus 400 Armed Forces Radio stations. In addition, 300 newspapers carried Paul Harvey's syndicated column. "Paul and Angel were two of the best friends that animal protection and the Humane Society of the U.S. ever had," recalled HSUS president Wayne Pacelle. "The same must be said of Paul Harvey Jr. The September 1956 issue of HSUS News records that Harvey reported on the activity of the House Agricultural Com-mittee in regard to humane slaughter," during the campaign for the Humane Slaughter Act, passed in 1958. "He also appealed for an end to slaughterhouse cruelties in his newspaper column," Pacelle continued. "He visited a Chicago slaughterhouse to watch the killing as part of his orientation to the issue, and gave the keynote address at the 1956 HSUS annual conference. He spoke out against puppy mills, animal fighting, seal clubbing, and factory farming. He endorsed the landmark farm animal protection ballot initiatives in Arizona in 2006 and in California in 2008. With a generally conservative political orientation," Pacelle noted, "his unyielding support for animal protection was a reminder to all his millions of listeners that this cause was not of the left or the right, but is a cause that every decent American should embrace." Paul Harvey received a Genesis Award from the Ark Trust in 1986, and in 1987 received the inaugural James Herriot Award from HSUS.

Norman Seaton, 87, died on March 20, 2009. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Seaton became a vegan at age 12. A laser researcher at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California, Seaton refused to participate in projects of military purpose. The husband of Animal Switchboard cofounder Virginia Handley for 39 years, Seaton in 1971 cofounded the San Francisco Vegetarian Society. Sailing with the Greenpeace VII from San Francisco on July 12, 1975 to confront the Russian whaling ship Vostok off the Mendocino coast. Seaton "rigged speakers outside the wheelhouse and piped Gustav Holtz's The Planets throughout the ship," recalled Rex Wyler in Greenpeace: How A Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed The World (2004). The voyage produced iconic photographs of Greenpeacers racing motorized rafts between the Vostok's harpoon gun and the whales the Vostok was trying to shoot, and of Paul Watson, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society two years later, standing on a fatally injured whale to try to keep the Vostok crew from pulling the whale aboard.

Haren Kalita, 30, a member of the Home Guard at Pathsala, Assam, India, was fatally shot on March 20, 2009 in a confrontation with poachers. Manas National Park deputy director C.R. Bhobora and another Home Guard member were wounded. Sixteen alleged poachers and the remains of leopards, tigers, deer, and bison were captured.

Kamaraju Bhuyan, a forester, was trampled by elephants on February 16, 2009 at Raampu village, Berhampur, Orissa, India, while trying to rescue a two-year-old elephant who fell into a well after her weight broke the concrete cover.

Animal Obituaries

Socks, 18, the White House cat throughout the Bill Clinton administration, died on February 20, 2009. Originally kept by former President Clinton's daughter Chelsea, who adopted Socks from a litter born in her piano teacher's yard when Clinton was governor of Arkansas, Socks had lived with Bill Clinton's former secretary Betty Currie in Hollywood, Maryland since the Clinton family left the White House in early 2001. After Socks and a newly acquired chocolate retriever named Buddy had several altercations on the White House grounds, then-First Lady Hilary Clinton in 1998 published a book of children's letters to the animals entitled Dear Socks, Dear Buddy. Bill Clinton likened trying to achieve a truce between Socks and Buddy to seeking peace in the Middle East, a problem Hilary now confronts as Secretary of State.

Angel, a severely beaten white dog who became mascot of the Selangor SPCA in Malaysia, died on February 26, 2009.

Ivan, a 10-week-old blond cocker spaniel adopted by television talk show host Oprah Winfrey from the Pets Are Worth Saving Shelter in Chicago, died on March 17, 2009 of parvovirus. Winfrey first adopted one of Ivan's littermates, whom she named Sadie. She introduced Sadie and the rest of the litter on her March 6, 2009 broadcast, then adopted Ivan too. Ironically, PAWS is noted for providing a high standard of veterinary care. The PAWS clinic has at least twice been a tour stop for participants in national humane conferences. "Winfrey has worked with and supported PAWS in the past, most notably during a series of shows last year about puppy mills and pet overpopulation. She also has funded a pet room at the facility," wrote Chicago Tribune staff reporter Willaim Hageman.

Muchana, an 8-year-old western lowland gorilla, became tangled in a rope and strangled during the night of February 28, 2009 at the St. Louis Zoo.

Hope, 35, who in 1989 birthed Kwanza, the only gorilla born at the North Carolina Zoo, was euthanized on March 19, 2009 due to severe health problems. "Hope arrived in 1984 after the National Institutes of Health discontinued a gorilla research program in Louisiana," recalled Raleigh News & Observer staff writer Martha Quillen.

Muke, 44, a female western lowland gorilla who had lived at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City since 1996, was euthanized on March 23, 2009 after a year-long struggle against cancer of the uterus.

Chalakka Mohanan, 53, an elephant brought by two unlicensed and ill-trained mahouts to Kottuvally, near North Paravur, Kerala, India, died from malnutrition and neglect on March 17, 2009, The Hindu reported. The mahout apparently leased Chalakka Mohanan from one Anwar Saddath, of Perumbavoor. Locals tried unsuccessfully to save Chalakka Mohanan, and demanded that the mahouts be prosecuted.

Subramani, 57, the oldest tusker and second-oldest elephant at the Theppakadu elephant camp within the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in India, died on March 14, three weeks after he was gored by a wild elephant. Captured in 1958, Subramani worked at first in logging, and was later used to help capture problematic wild elephants.

Girija, 43, an elephant used in temple parades, died on March 12, 2009 at Anuparpalayam, Tamil Nadu, allegedly of dehydration caused by a neglectful mahout.

Badger-baiters busted in Ulster

ULSTER--Many of the most prominent badger baiting web sites disappeared in early 2009, John Mooney of the London Sunday Times reported on March 3, 2009, after an undercover investigation by the Ulster SPCA and another Sunday Times reporter led to a series of police raids on the homes of several alleged badger fighters.
"We believe a number of prized dogs were moved south of the border," Ulster SPCA chief executive Stephen Philpott told Mooney. "The baiters know the authorities in the republic will take no action."
George MacManus of the Sunday Times on January 4, 2009 disclosed that the Ulster SPCA had begun investigating badger baiters, "in a bid to curtail the practice and to prompt prosecutions," after only 10 alleged badger baiters had been prosecuted in more than 20 years.
"Badger baiting has grown in popularity in Northern Ireland since the end of the Troubles, due to the significant reduction in police patrols in rural areas," wrote MacManus. "Animal baiting was outlawed in Ireland and Britain in 1835. Digging badgers using terriers was made illegal in Northern Ireland by the Badgers Act of 1973. Badgers were afforded full protection in Ireland under the 1976 Wildlife Act," but enforcement of the laws has been erratic on both sides of the border.
The subjects of the investigation apparently did not read the Sunday Times. Eighteen pit bull terriers were seized in the February 2009 raids, along with other evidence identifying "an international blood sports network operating between Ireland, Britain, France and America," Mooney said.
"Until now," Mooney wrote, "the existence of organized badger baiting was considered something of an urban myth."

BOOKS

The Adopted Dog Bible by Petfinder.com
Harper Collins (10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022), 2009. 512 pages, paperback. $22.99.

"Choosing a dog is much too important a task to be conducted in haste," says The Adopted Dog Bible, from Petfinder.com--exactly the message that the humane community has tried to teach potential dog adopters since dog adoptions began. Assembled by Petfinder.com vice president of shelter outreach and public relations Kim Saunders, The Adopted Dog Bible includes valuable contributions and helpful hints from experts including Amy Shojai, Susan McCullough, Liz Palika, Sue Sternberg, and Lila Miller, DVM, among others.
Adoption is a great option says The Adopted Dog Bible, guiding readers through finding a shelter or rescue near their home, and explaining what adoption entails.
Petfinder.com, founded in 1996, popularized choosing pets by viewing them at web sites, but the authors recommend meeting a dog in person before sealing an adoption. Shelters and rescues want each adoption to last for the life of the dog, so should allow everyone in the family a chance to personally bond with the dog. Dogs who return to shelters have an increased sense of abandonment. With each failed adoptiona dog can become more difficult to rehome successfully.
The Adopted Dog Bible asks potential adopters to consider the expense of keeping a dog, whether all members of a household are in agreement about having a dog, whether the dog will be left alone often, what kind of dog to adopt, and whether the adopters can adequately care for a dog with special needs, such as a dog who is blind or deaf. A section is devoted to puppies: how to puppy-proof a home, how often puppies eat, how many vaccinations they need, and proper housetraining. Petfinders.com encourages readers to consider older dogs who are already housebroken, behavior-trained, and simply looking for a good home.
Chapter seven begins, "All dogs need training." Shelter dogs are no different. Often people avoid adoption because they assume that shelter and rescue dogs behave badly. Indeed, about half of the dogs in shelters at any given time are there for behavioral reasons, but about half are not.
Many shelters and rescues will train out any known behavioral problems that contributed to a dog being surrendered to a shelter. But even if this has not been done, issues such as lack of housetraining and chronic chewing or digging can be worked out with time, patience, and rewards-based training.
Newer training methods, such as clicker training and the target stick, give the reader options to modify behaviors like begging, barking at the doorbell, or panic caused by thunderstorms. The Adopted Dog Bible also helps dog keepers to introduce their dogs to newborn babies, so that babies will be safe and a confused pet is not returned to a shelter.
Nutrition is important to any dog's health. Shelter dogs often have had poor nutrition, from living as strays or as victims of past neglect, so a proper diet is important. The Adopted Dog Bible discusses wet vs. dry foods, home-cooked foods, snacks, and even a holistic diet. Canine obesity is discussed, as an increasing problem for dogs as well as humans.
All dogs need exercise. Adopted dogs may have spent months or years chained, caged, crated, or left alone in a yard without being walked. If potential dog keepers are not prepared to walk a dog daily, they should put off the adoption or consider hiring a dog walker. Dog parks, increasingly common now, are a great place to socialize dogs and allow them to romp and roll off leash. The Adopted Dog Bible recommends waiting to take an adopted dog to a dog park until the adopter knows the dog's behavior and has earned the dog's trust. Adopted dogs may enjoy hiking and jogging, but a veterinary check up is recommended first. Dogs who may be predisposed toward developing dysplacia will need a less strenuous regimen.
Other sections include caring for sick and senior dogs. As dogs age, they become susceptible--like humans--to chronic diseases including diabetes, liver failure, and heart ailments. These conditions can be treated at home, but diabetes will require insulin injections or tablets. The Adopted Dog Bible familiarizes the reader with basic medical care for older, sick dogs and offers first aid tips.
If a person or family must give up a dog, The Adopted Dog Bible suggests that shelters should be the last option, not the first. The authors recommend that keepers should try find suitable homes for dogs by interviewing applicants and asking for references. Ideally one should visit a new home, and should not be afraid to say no if the new home seems inappropriate.
The last chapter says that "losing a dog is like losing part of yourself." Everyone who keeps dogs will eventually confront euthanasia. Most shelter personnel who perform euthanasia will testify that experience helps only up to a point. Saying goodbye to a beloved dog is a decision that no one wants to make. Yet when a dog is old, sick, and suffering, ending the dog's pain is often the kindest choice. The authors say that grief over a dog's death is real. If a grieving owner has trouble coping, pet loss counseling is available, usually through animal shelters or hospices.
--Debra J. White

If Only They Could Speak: Understanding the powerful bond between dogs and their owners
by Nicholas H. Dodman
W.W. Norton & Co. (500 Fifth Ave., New York,
NY 10110), 2003, 2008. 262 pages, paperback. $15.95.

W.W. Norton & Co. published this second edition of one of Nicholas Dodman's most popular books in September 2008. Dodman heads the Tufts Behavior Clinic at the Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. His 1999 volume Dogs Behaving Badly made him one of the more acclaimed dog behavior gurus of our time--but Dodman was already well known to news media for promoting the idea that many dog behavior problems can pharmaceutically treated.
"Throw in a shrink" has long been standard editorial advice to reporters trying to find experts to explain difficult or disturbing news. Dodman's recommendations, often summarized as "Put your dog on Prozac," have made him perhaps the most quoted doggie shrink ever.
Dodman has developed his own versions of behavior-modifying drugs for dogs. In 2007 Dodman and Tufts University sold licensing rights for Prozac-like anti-aggression and anti-obsessive compulsive disorder doggie drugs to the British firm Accura Pharma. Accura Pharma lists Dodman as an advisory board member, and projects sales potential for the behavior drugs as $1.2 billion per year.
The Dodman approach is increasingly popular with harried dog keepers who feel they don't have the time or budget to invest in more training--or re-training--than the average dog receives.
But British dog training expert Ian Dunbar, for one, is critical of drugging dogs. "I've never had to resort to drugs to deal with some quite serious mental problems. But the average pet owner wants a pill because he thinks it's a simple solution," Dunbar told Tom Leonard of The Daily Telegraph in December 2008.
Added Royal SPCA chief veterinary officer Mark Evans, to Jasper Copping of The Daily Telegraph in March 2009, "Drug companies are obviously keen to find pharmaceutical solutions, but instead of simply tackling the symptoms, owners should be encouraged to look at the underlying causes of difficult behaviour, rather than create a culture of pill-popping dogs."
Many of the 13 case histories described in If Only They Could Speak may be seen as either arguments for the Dodman approach, or as thinly disguised commercials.
Prozac, by itself, was clearly not the right answer in one of the cases most often mentioned by reviewers. A young German shepherd, Tina, acquired from a pet store by a Mrs. Spinelli, became extremely jealous of Bonnie, an older poodle who came from a shelter. "I think she's going to kill her," Mrs. Spinelli told Dodman.
The problem, in gist, was that Spinelli showed favoritism. Bonnie, adopted from a shelter, was queen. Spinelli also kept several beloved exotic birds.
Tina acted out. Dodman recommended that the dogs had to be kept carefully separated, and that Tina would have to feel secure and accepted as the dominant dog.
Tina was started on Prozac, but the most essential part of the behavioral remediation program was that Spinelli was to praise Tina and fuss over her when she returned home from work every day. Weeks later, she admitted that she hadn't done it. Instead, she punished Tina for displaying hints of aggression toward Bonnie.
Several months later, Dodman heard Spinelli's quivering voice on his answering machine: "Bonnie's dead. Tina killed her."
Spinelli kept Tina, despite the attack, until Tina killed one of her treasured parrots. Then Spinelli had Tina euthanized.
Prozac was apparently part of successfully treating Merlin, a shelter dog from New Hampshire, who was adopted as a companion for Sammy, an older mongrel. Merlin bonded with Sammy, but "would cower, shake and urinate submissively, or attempt to run and hide" when around most people, Dodman recalls. The sight of sticks, rakes or even flyswatters caused him to panic, suggesting a history of abuse. Merlin later displayed aggressive tendencies.
A treatment plan included Prozac as well as behavior modification. During the course of treatment, however, the family home caught fire. Merlin hid under a bed. Firefighters were only able to rescue him after smoke overcame him.
During the next several months a parade of contractors, electricians and painters rebuilt the damaged part of the home. Merlin remained skittish and fearful, but slowly his behavior changed.
If Only They Could Speak is subtitled "understanding the powerful bond between dogs and their owners," but three chapters are devoted to cats, including Honey, a Burmese who only trusted one person, Susan Gale, and resisted all efforts to reconcile her to Gale's new husband when she married. Susan and her husband persisted in trying to cope with the jealous, cantankerous cat, with Dodman's intervention--and Prozac.
Part of Dodman's success in promoting pharmacological behavioral intervention appears to be his insightful, entertaining, sometimes sad and always educational descriptions of dogs and cats with behavior problems. The books of noted dog writers Arden Moore, Roger Tabor, and Cesar Milan are worthwhile, but Dodman presents an especially clear picture of each dog or cat's behavioral issue and how it impacts the animal's people.
--Debra J. White & Merritt Clifton

Cumulative cost of PETA-funded lawsuits against Primarily Primates may reach $1 million

SAN ANTONIO--Judge Solomon Casseb III of the 288th Judicial District Court of Bexar County, Texas, on March 11, 2009 rejected Primarily Primates' motion for a summary judgement dismissing the latest round of four years of PETA-funded litigation against the sanctuary.
Primarily Primates has since August 2006 been a program of Friends of Animals.
"This order only means that Judge Casseb believes there are issues to be decided by a factfinder," FoA president Priscilla Feral told ANIMAL PEOPLE. "We have not yet discussed a trial setting with opposing counsel," Feral said, "but we believe the earliest jury trial setting will be in December 2009 or January 2010."
Plaintiff Carl Hensley, a neighbor of the Primarily Primates sanctuary in Leon Springs, Texas, acknowledged in deposition that he filed the case in 2008 after two attorneys who have been employed by PETA approached him with the idea. Hensley also acknowledged that PETA is paying his legal expenses.
Hensley contends that Primarily Primates is operating in violation of the Texas Dangerous Wildlife Act and the Texas legal definition of an animal shelter. The Dangerous Wildlife Act, restricting private possession of a list of species including several kept at Primarily Primates, includes an exemption for "an injured, infirm, orphaned, or abandoned dangerous wild animal while being rehabilitated, treated, or cared for by a licensed veterinarian, an incorporated humane society or animal shelter, or a person who holds a rehabilitation permit." Hensley's lawsuit argues that "The dangerous wild animals at PPI are not injured, infirm, orphaned or abandonedŠand therefore the exemption does not apply to themŠ.the exemption authorizes only temporary housingŠ.PPI is not a licensed veterinarian, an incorporated humane society or an animal shelter."
Continues the Hensley lawsuit, in reference to previous litigation involving Primarily Primates and PETA, "PPI is also actively seeking to bring additional dangerous wild animals to its Serene Hills facility. In May 2007, PPI filed a lawsuit against Chimp Haven," a sanctuary in Shreveport, Louisiana.
The lawsuit sought the return to Primarily Primates of seven chimps who were retired to Primarily Primates by Ohio State University in February 2006. The ex-OSU chimps, two others who died soon after arrival, and an endowment of $324,000 for the chimps' habitat and upkeep were sent to Primarily Primates over the objections of OSU researcher Sally Boysen. Supporting Boysen, PETA sued to try to force Primarily Primates to send the chimps to Chimp Haven.
While that case was underway, Primarily Primates founder Wally Swett resigned after 28 years as president, and Primarily Primates formally became a project of Friends of Animals.
The PETA case seeking to send the chimps to Chimp Haven was dismissed, but five weeks later, while FoA was just beginning to restructure and make improvements at Primarily Primates, Primarily Primates was placed in receivership by the Texas Office of Attorney General, based on allegations forwarded by PETA. The seven surviving former OSU chimps were relocated to Chimp Haven during the receivership.
The Texas Office of Attorney General in April 2007 rejected the PETA claims against Primarily Primates, ended the receivership, and agreed to "fully and completely release, acquit, and forever discharge Primarily Primates," Swett, other staff and board members, and Friends of Animals from "all claims" brought against them in connection with the seizure. In addition, the Texas Office of Attorney General agreed to try to help Primarily Primates recover the former OSU chimps from Chimp Haven.
However, Chimp Haven appealed a February 2008 Bexar county court order to return the chimps to Primarily Primates, and in February 2009 won a Texas Fourth Court of Appeals ruling that the Bexar county court did not have jurisdiction over the case.
"Primarily Primates may well be entitled to the return of the OSU chimpanzees, but that issue is for the Travis County probate court to decide," ruled Appellate Judge Catherine M. Stone. Rather than incur the cost of refiling the case, FoA opted at that point to leave the chimps at Chimp Haven.
Feral told ANIMAL PEOPLE that Primarily Primates and Friends of Animals spent more than $50,000 defending against the initial PETA-backed case; spent more than $240,000 to regain control of Primarily Primates after it was placed in receivership; and have already spent more than $80,000 defending against the Hensley case.
PETA and the plaintiffs aligned with PETA have not disclosed their legal expenses, but the American Justice Partnership Found-ation estimates that plaintiffs on average incur about 60% of the cost of pressing a lawsuit, while defendants incur about 40%.
This ratio would suggest that total cost of cases involving Primarily Primates since 2006 now exceeds $925,000--more than the total income of the sanctuary in all but two years before FoA annexed it. Under FoA direction, according to the most recent available IRS Form 990 filings, Primarily Primates has approximately doubled both public support and program-related spending.
The cases involving Primarily Primates and PETA appear to be the longest-running and most costly series of litigation among animal charities currently before U.S. courts. However, a defamation case filed in August 2004 by the British Columbia SPCA against the Animal Advocates Society may be as expensive. Animal Advocates Society president Judy Stone is using her home equity to fight the lawsuit, due for trial later in 2009.

Mike Baker of Brooke Hospital named to head WSPA

LONDON--Mike Baker, chief executive officer of the Brooke Hospital for Animals since June 2001, will in June 2009 succeed Peter Davies as director general of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, WSPA announced on March 6, 2009.
"I hope still to be active in the movement," Davies told ANIMAL PEOPLE. WSPA had announced Davies' retirement in July 2008. Davies, previously director general of the Royal SPCA of Britain, had headed WSPA since mid-2002.
Baker, 44, served as political manager for the British Union Against Vivisection, 1989-1994, and then headed the BUAV in 1995-1998, after an interlude with Amnesty International. From November 1998 until Baker became the Brooke chief executive he was United Kingdom director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Founded by Dorothy Brooke in 1934 as The Old War Horse Hospital, the Brooke at Baker's arrival raised about £3 million per year, supporting Dorothy Brooke's original equine aid program in Cairo, plus similar projects elsewhere in Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, India, and Pakistan.
In addition, since March 2001 the Brooke had treated the horses and donkeys of Afghan refugees at camps in Peshwar, Pakistan. Under Baker, the Brooke followed U.S. troops into Afghanistan in 2002, and by March 2003 was operating clinics in both Kabul and Jalalabad. The Afghan programs reached approximately 130,000 equines in 2008. Also under Baker the Brooke added programs in Guatemala, Kenya, Nepal, Palestinian settlements in Israel, and on the West Bank.
Bringing to the Brooke the aggressive IFAW approach to fundraising, Baker nearly doubled fundraising investment in 2005, doubling revenue by the end of 2006. In November 2006 the Brooke elected as board president the Duchess of Cornwall, known as Camila Parker Bowles before her marriage to Prince Charles. Both are avid fox hunters, and Charles is also a prolific bird shooter. The Duchess' involvement coincided with a further surge in income. The Brooke raised nearly £11.1 in fiscal 2007 and slightly more in fiscal 2008 despite the slowing world economy. During 2008 the Brooke also extended future fundraising reach by incorporating a U.S. affiliate, American Friends of the Brooke.
Baker gained experience with multi-organization coalitions as chair of the European Coalition Against Cosmetics Tests on Animals in both 1993-1994 and 1996-1998. He has headed Eurogroup for Animals, which lobbies the European Parliament, since April 2006. Baker is also on the board of the Marwar Trust, formed in 2003 by Help In Suffering trustee Federico Spinola to sterilize and vaccinate street dogs in Jodhpur, India, following the model established by Help In Suffering in Jaipur and Darjeeling.
ANIMAL PEOPLE asked Baker if he would be personally willing to endorse, on the record, the WSPA position statements that "WSPA is opposed to the taking from the wild of animals for their fur or skins, and to the farming of animals for the same purpose," and that "WSPA is opposed to the manufacture, sale, possession and use of any snares and traps which cause suffering or death....WSPA opposes, on both ethical and humane grounds, the harassment, capture or killing of marine mammals for commercial and sport purposes."
These were among the first policies adopted by WSPA after it was formed in 1981 by merging older organizations which had similar policies. WSPA board president Dominic Bellemare, however, has for more than 25 years been closely associated with Canadian political factions which favor the fur and sealing industries. At the time of his election as WSPA board president, in June 2008, Bellemare was unsuccessfully seeking a seat in Parliament as a member of the Conservative Party, headed by Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper. Harper has outspokenly promoted the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt.
Noting that Bellemare has apparently never spoken out against either fur or sealing, ANIMAL PEOPLE asked him and all WSPA board members whether they personally support the WSPA policies. Only one board member, Blue Cross of India chief executive Chinny Krishna, was willing to so state.
"I cannot yet speak on behalf of WSPA," Baker said, "as I do not start there for some months. However, I have no hesitation in fully endorsing the WSPA policies you quote on a personal level."

Katrina fraud sentence

Donald D. Chambers, 40, of Amherst, Ohio, on January 30, 2009 was sentenced to serve a year in prison, was fined $1,000, and was ordered to pay $62,124 in restitution to the Best Friends Animal Society, of Kanab, Utah. Chambers on October 24, 2008 pleaded guilty to defrauding Best Friends by taking 28 dogs rescued after Hurricane Katrina, plus $1,000 apiece for their care and feeding, on the promise to find adoptive homes for them.
"The relationship between Chambers and Best Friends began when he presented himself as Don the Dog Guy, who had a kennel and training facility in Lorain County," wrote Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Donna Miller. "He traveled to Best Friends' sanctuary and spent time with the dog trainers there."
"He claimed to have placed the dogs, and sent convincing photos and wrote stories about the dogs for our web site," Best Friends spokesperson John Polis told Miller. "Don actually was quite popular with the trainers here, and had somewhat of a following on our web site."
However, Best Friends eventually learned that only three of the dogs given to Chambers found homes.
"Ten were euthanized at the Lorain County Kennel. One died in a dog fight. One died of untreated heartworms. Three died and were tossed into a trash bin. Six are unaccounted for. Best Friends took back three of them," recounted Miller.

Big trouble at South Jersey Animal Rescue, Clean Slate, and Cats With No Name

The New Jersey SPCA on March 4, 2009 filed three civil and three criminal counts of cruelty to animals against Daniel C. Tyce, 26, of Atlantic City, and filed a similar set of charges against his alleged assistant, Sam Smith. Tyce for about two years allegedly pretended to be a female veteterinarian, "Dr. Danielle Smith," of "South Jersey Small Animal Rescue."
Arrested on January 9, 2009 in Vineland, New Jersey, for practicing medicine without a license, Tyce was held in the Cumberland County Jail in lieu of posting $10,000 bond. After police and state conservation officers raided his home on January 12, Tyce was indicted by an Atlantic County grand jury for alleged illegal possession of prescription-strength ibuprofen and possession of a prescription drug with intent to distribute.
The Bowling Green-Warren County Humane Society and the Humane Society of the U.S. on March 2, 2009 evacuated to a temporary shelter in Bowling Green the last 96 of 240 dogs and 31 cats who were surrendered to the Green River Animal Shelter on February 24 by Clean Slate Animal Rescue founder David Howery. Howery, 50, of Sparksville, Kentucky, was charged with 295 counts of cruelty.
The Clean Slate animals also included "53 chickens, 13 goats, three sheep, three potbellied pigs, seven ducks, three chinchillas, one horse, two donkeys and a large bird thought to be a parrot," wrote Paul B. Hayes of the Columbia Adair Progress. Howery founded Clean Slate in Estacada, Oregon, but moved to Sparksville in March 2007.

Virginia E. Justiniano, 49, and Andrew J. Oxenrider, 37, of Pine Grove Township, Pennsylvania, were on February 19, 2009 charged with 118 counts of cruelty for alleged neglect of cats at the Cats With No Name sanctuary, founded by Justiniano in 1996. She was then known by her former married name, Virginia Kresge.
"The neglected cats were discovered after a January 24 traffic incident, in which Oxenrider was arrested, charged with drug possession and attempting to bribe a police officer," wrote Pottsville Republican & Herald staff reporter Frank Andruscavage. Searching the Cats With No Name premises, police "found cocaine, ketamine, marijuana, doxycycline and oxytetracycline, several thousand hypodermic needles, and materials used for packaging drugs," Andruscavage recounted. Oxenrider was on February 19 charged with 20 drug-related offenses. Justiniano was charged with six drug-related offenses.
Volunteers mobilized by the Ruth Steinert Memorial SPCA reportedly found 70 live cats, a deer, four ferrets, two chickens, a rooster, and four geese at Cats With No Name, plus many dead cats. Of the live cats, 13 were euthanized due to irrecoverable effects of disease and starvation. Pallets of cat food were stacked at the scene, rescuers said, but according to police the defendants were selling donated cat food to buy drugs, rather than feeding the animals. Claims of severe neglect at Cats With No Name were were posted to the Internet in September 2007, but were apparently not investigated by law enforcement.

Bide A Wee closes Wantagh shelter

WANTAGH, New York--The 94-year-old Bide A Wee Adoption Center in Wantagh was closed for financial reasons on March 8, 2009. Founded in 1903 by Flora Kibbe of Manhattan, Bide A Wee continues to operate shelters at the original site in Manhattan and in Westhampton.
Thirty-six of the 135 Bide A Wee staff were laid off, Bide A Wee chief executive Nancy Taylor told Christina Hernandez of Long Island Newsday. Taylor said donations had dropped 30% since October 2008, while Bide A Wee lost $2 million in investments. Bide A Wee had revenue of about $8 million per year in recent years, with nearly $14 million in financial reserves.
Bide A Wee was the second of the oldest and wealthiest humane societies in the U.S. to announce shelter closures in early 2009. The Massachusetts SPCA announced earlier that it will close shelters in Springfield, Martha's Vineyard, and Brockton on March 31, May 1, and September 30, respectively.

Pennsylvania SPCA accepts CEO's resignation

PHILADELPHIA--The Pennsylvania SPCA board of directors on February 19, 2009 unanimously accepted the February 11 resignation of chief executive officer Howard Nelson, 45, effective immediately.
"One-year board member Beth Ann White, 43, a former banker, was named interim chief executive," reported Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Gail Shister. White will serve while the PSPCA conducts a national CEO search.
Hired in May 2007, Nelson "engineered PSPCA's successful bid late last year for the city's $2.9 million animal-control contract," recalled Shister. "He increased staff and oversaw major improvements in the deteriorating Feltonville shelter."
But Pocono Record senior managing editor Susan Koomar took a more critical view of Nelson's performance. "Nelson is responsible for closing the Monroe County shelter at the end of January," Koomer wrote. "Local rescue groups took charge of the shelter's animals. Unwanted pets have been abandoned at a pet shop and veterinarian's office since the closing."
The Monroe County shelter in Stroudsburg reportedly lost about $125,000 in 2008. It had four directors in less than two years after the June 2007 resignation of Barbara Balsama, the director for nearly 20 years, according to Pocono Record staff writer Beth Brelje. Balsama clashed with Nelson, said Brelje, who repeatedly exposed trouble under Balsama's successors.
Nelson closed the Stroudsburg shelter a year after closing the PSPCA shelter in Clarion County.

Scottish SPCA slams RSPCA in ad campaign

The Scottish SPCA in February 2009 published £100,000 worth of full-page ads in several Scottish newspapers that accused the Royal SPCA of Britain of "stealing food from the mouths of Scotland's defenseless animals."
Alleged Scottish SPCA chief executive Stuart Earley to the BBC, "Many people do not know that the RSPCA does not rescue or rehome any animals in Scotland. By advertising here it has been intentionally adding to the confusion to make money. We are a completely separate charity and have asked the RSPCA to make it clear it does not save animals in Scotland so people can make an informed choice about who to donate to. After six months of talks we are no further forward. This has increased the huge pressure on our resources for many years."
The RSPCA, in a prepared response, said "Every piece of [RSPCA] printed literature, television advertising and internet banner advertising always features the wording 'The RSPCA is a charity registered in England and Wales.' We always make every effort to exclude advertising messages reaching Scottish consumers. All Scottish donors who contact us via RSPCA fundraising campaigns are directed to the Scottish SPCA. With television advertising, if a station is able to restrict Scottish coverage, we only buy English and Welsh airtime. However, many satellite channels only enable us to purchase UK-wide."
The Scottish SPCA in a 2005 survey of 10,000 donors found that 87% had mistakenly donated to the RSPCA. While the RSPCA raised £114 million in 2007, helping to fund 172 branches in England and Wales, the Scottish SPCA raised £10 million, and has struggled with cash flow for most of the decade. Threatening to close seven of 13 regional rescue centers in 2002, the Scottish SPCA now operates 10 regional rescue centers plus wildlife rescue units in Fife and Shetland.
The Scottish SPCA was founded in 1839, 15 years after the London SPCA, renamed the RSPCA in 1840.
Alleged confusion of names which might lead to misdirected donations is also at issue in a lawsuit filed in December 2008 by the 130-year-old Wisconsin Humane Society, of Mil-waukee, against Humane Milwaukee, founded in 2005 as the Companion Animal Resource & Adoption Center.
The case was in January 2009 moved to federal court.

What would Dr. Dolittle think of the Dancing Star Foundation?

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.--"We have received a written agreement from Dancing Star Foundation to enact a moratorium on killing animals under their care," e-mailed Farm Sanctuary communications director Tricia Berry on February 26, 2009, affirming earlier statements to ANIMAL PEOPLE by Farm Sanctuary attorney Russ Mead. "We are now monitoring the situation to ensure that Dancing Star abides by the agreement," Berry added. "If they fail to do so, Farm Sanctuary will have no other recourse than to contact the California Attorney General and urge that Dancing Star be investigated."
Berry forwarded a brief message from Dancing Star Foundation president Michael Tobias. "While it is our obligation to our animals to regularly assess their quality of life," Tobias said, "there are no plans to put any to rest at this time."
Sue Stiles, an heir to the McClatchy newspaper fortune, opened the Dancing Star Foundation sanctuaries near Cayucos and Paso Robles, California, in 1993. At Stiles' death from cancer in 1999, the two sanctuaries reportedly kept about 320 animals on more than 1,000 acres. The present population is about 265 animals, Mead told ANIMAL PEOPLE. Longtime friends of Stiles told ANIMAL PEOPLE that she conducted a frantic search for a successor as her death approached. Tobias and his wife Jane Gray Morrison impressed Stiles as the authors and producers of numerous books and documentaries about animals and ecology. Within a few years of Stiles' death, few if any of her personal hirees and acquaintances remained involved with Dancing Star. Directors listed on the Dancing Star filing of IRS Form 990 for fiscal year 2007, the most recent available, include Robert Radin, Geoffrey Holland, and Pat Fitzgerald. All three appeared with Tobias and Morrison on lists of film credits between 1994 and 1999.

Money

The Dancing Star Foundation assets, according to IRS Form 990 filings, stood at $46.4 million at the end of 2007, including just under $10 million in land, buildings, and equipment. Program-related spending was $3.1 million.
Tobias was paid $285,000, Morrison was paid $244,000, and accountant Don C. Cannon was paid $240,000. Though not open to the public, the Dancing Star Foundation spent $391,728 on "educational outreach" in 2006, and $359,317 on "educational outreach" in 2007. These amounts may have been the cost of producing videos and books by Tobias and Morrison under the Dancing Star imprint.
The Dancing Star Foundation has also spent more than $200,000 annually in recent years on conservation projects in New Zealand.
"Former and present employees of the Dancing Star Foundation claim that Tobias and Morrison intend to focus on endangered animals," and have "commenced the systematic elimination of aged and infirm farm animals under the foundation's care," reported Karen Velie of CalCoastNews on February 17, 2009.
"Both horse veterinarian Tristen Weltner and cattle veterinarian Gary Evans assert that all the animals that have been put down have had health problems," Velie added, "though both have also noticed a change in the treatment of animals at the sanctuary during the last month."
Said Evans, "I was told they were out of money. Sue Stiles would not approve of the way things are being done. Her whole deal was rescuing animals." Asked by CalCoastNews why animals were being killed and staff were being laid off, Dancing Star manager Jerry Smith responded, according to Velie, "These questions have nothing to do with you. This doesn't concern you. It is none of your business."
Kathe Tanner of the San Luis Obispo Tribune reached Morrison the following day. Morrison "did not address specific allegations," Tanner wrote, "but made a blanket denial."
Dancing Star has "a lot of animals whose time has really come," Morrison told Tanner. "We're actually adopting some animals out, " Morrison added, "and have tried to find sanctuaries or homes for other animals where they'd have a safe haven. We'd absolutely love to find homes," Morrison said, but lamented that other sanctuaries are "either not taking animals in or are going out of business because of the economy."
Within the next 24 hours, "The foundation brought in mouthpiece Roger Gillott to deal with press inquiries and protesters," wrote San Luis Obispo Tribune columnist Bill Morem--who found Gillott's answers "underwhelming."
Explained Gillott of the apparent drift of the Dancing Star mission, "Our founder, the late Sue Stiles, was instrumental in enlarging the scope of the foundationŠto embraceŠ funding and encouraging a broad range of environmental, cultural and animal care activities. At the sanctuaries," Gillot said, "we are unwavering in our commitment to compassion and to sound conservation strategies needed to restore and preserve healthy free populations--both farm animals and rare and endangered species, as well as safeguarding precious habitat."
Applied to farm animals, the phrase "free populations" seemed incongruous--until allegations surfaced from now ex-employees that Dancing Star was killing animals who needed barn care.
Continued Gillott, "We recognize that when an animal's quality of life has significantly deteriorated and the animal requires permanent medication or invasive surgical procedures, difficult decisions must sometimes be made. Neither has the foundation been immune to the prolonged economic downturn that is affecting individuals, companies and other nonprofit foundations around the world," Gillott acknowledged. "This has forced the foundation to make significant reductions in operating expenditures, including reductions in workforce and salaries."
Gillott told Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Chawkins that the salaries paid to Tobias, Morrison, and Cannon "have been cut twice" since the most recent Dancing Star filing of IRS Form 990.
Assessed Morem, "If large numbers of animals are being put down as a cost-saving measure, contrary to Stiles' written wishes, the foundation should lose its nonprofit status and its assets should be placed in a court-appointed trust."
The Dancing Star Foundation web site mentions that Tobias and Morrison have done "research and documentation" at the Farm Sanctuary location in upstate New York. "Farm Sanctuary emphatically condemns the killing of any animal whose quality of life remains at a reasonable level. It has been reported that animals are being killed for the wrong reasons at Dancing Star and that confounds us," said Farm Sanctuary publicist Berry. "We do not want to enable sanctuaries to lightly unload their charges any time their animals become inconvenient. Dancing Star is one of the wealthiest farm animal sanctuaries in the nation, with the financial resources to care for these animals."
Flying to California to meet with Tobias, Farm Sanctuary attorney Mead "urged Tobias to stop killing the animals," Berry summarized. Mead also visited both Dancing Star locations. Mead, a longtime employee of the Best Friends Animal Society before joining Farm Sanctuary, told ANIMAL PEOPLE that he "never saw better physical facilities. They are at the Farm Sanctuary or Best Friends level. I didn't see anything hinting at extermination of non-native species," Mead added. "The place is set up as a sanctuary, with nothing native about the habitat."

Care regimen changed

Former Dancing Star maintenance manager Jason Hamaker and other former employees allege, however, that the Dancing Star sanctuaries' animal care regimen changed in late 2008, beginning by "cutting back on medications and feed for some of the older animals," summarized Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Chawkins of Hamaker's statements.
"They said they wanted a total of 50 gone within a couple of months, and then another 30 after that," Hamaker told Chawkins.
Agreed former Dancing Star employee Sheldon Rowley, who was fired on February 6, 2009, "They said if we didn't thin out the herd, animals wouldn't get the care they needed. First we were told it was financial. Then we were told it was a quality-of-life issue."
Hamaker told Kathe Tanner of the San Luis Obispo Tribune that he was ordered "to clean house, get rid of all the old animals, the ones being fed mush, because they were paying too much for grainŠMost of the animals who were put down," Hamaker alleged, "were brought in with the same symptoms" for which they were later killed.
Another former Dancing Star employee, Jennifer Smith, told Tanner that in January 2009 she was told to 'get rid of anything that needs special care,' and empty out two of the three cattle barns. She called a veterinarian for advice. She said she was suspended for 10 days. At the end of her suspension, her employment was terminated."
"Hamaker said he watched local horse veterinarian Tristen Weltner and a sanctuary employee give horses a number based on the amount of mush and hay they required and the cost of their medications," added Velie of CalCoastNews. "The more a horse cost the foundation, the sooner the horse was slated for lethal injection. Employees at the sanctuary say they were told to move infirm animals out of the barns to muddy hillsides where many would fail to thrive. In mid-December, most medications and vitamins meant to improve the quality of life for the foundation's wards were halted."
Velie obtained "death certificates, medical records, and the actual list of animals slated for the needle," she wrote. According to the documentation, 15 cattle and 17 horses were killed on the Dancing Star premises between December 12, 2008 and February 19, 2009. The last three horse killings, including one in which the horse vigorously resisted, were videotaped by witnesses, and the video was posted online.
"After getting through the first wave of euthanasia, we were to start getting rid of employees," Hamaker said. Within a week of dismissing Rowley, Dancing Star began requiring former staff "to sign a stringent agreement prohibiting them from talking publicly about the sanctuary before receiving a severance check equivalent to about a week's pay," reported Vellie and Daniel Blackburn of CalCoastNews. "The four-page 'severance and general release agreement' was first distributed to cashiered employees on Friday the 13th [of February]. The agreement seeks to prohibit former employees from 'making disparaging statements or remarks about the foundation, any of its officers, directors, employees or any of its activities.' It also attempts to limit contact with the mediaŠAlso contained is a prohibition against former employees 'assisting or engaging in any litigation against the foundation, except as compelled by order of a court or as necessary to participate in an investigation or proceeding conducted by [governmental agencies].'"
After Hamaker spoke to Velie, Dancing Star foreman Jerry Smith on February 25, 2009 "ordered Hamaker to vacate the ranch home he occupies within 24 hours, and fired the outspoken employee," Velie wrote. Hamaker obtained representation from San Luis Obispo attorney Jeff Stulburg. "It is my general practice not to discuss pending civil cases with the media," Stulberg told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Rob Bryn of the San Luis Opispo County rural crime unit told Tanner that Dancing Star apparently did not break any laws by killing the animals. San Luis Obispo County Animal Services chief Eric Anderson told Tanner that the animals were "either beyond treatment or had conditions for which euthanasia would be at least one of the considerations that could responsibly be made."
Rowley acknowledged that the animals who were killed had required special care, "But that's what a sanctuary is for," he told Tanner. "Sue Stiles wanted them to stay there as long as they lived."

  Writing Dolittle author's bio
Among the five titles listed as "Forthcoming Books" at the Dancing Star Foundation web site, all by Tobias and Morrison, is The World Of Doctor Dolittle: The Life & Times of Hugh Lofting, scheduled for "late 2009" publication.
Lofting, while enduring World War I trench warfare, in his letters home created the fictional character Doctor Dolittle. Lofting went on to write 12 volumes of Doctor Dolittle stories between 1920 and 1948, which have inspired at least 14 film, stage, and radio adaptations.
Trained as a human physician, Doctor Dolittle gave up his medical practice to become a veterinarian and naturalist, who learned to converse with animals in their own languages. Dolittle's premises were always quasi-sanctuaries, but Lofting depicted him and his animal friends making ends meet by operating a post office, a circus, and a zoo. Dolittle didn't kill any animals, even when broke, and despite having to become "a reluctant but sincere vegetarian," as Rex Harrison sang in the 1967 musical film based on the Lofting stories.

Uncertain times for hunter/conservationists

Commerce Department inspector general Todd Zinser in early March 2009 sent an administrative subpoena to the National Wildlife Federation, demanding documents that would identify whoever leaked information to the NWF about the plans of the George W. Bush administration to weaken the Endangered Species Act with administrative rules changes introduced just before leaving office. The leak helped the NWF and other Endangered Species Act defenders to ensure that reversing the rules changes is a high priority for the Barack Obama administration. Zinser, appointed by Bush in November 2007, issued the unusual subpoena at request of Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the senior Republican on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The leaked documents "were not marked sensitive, secret or otherwise confidential or classified," reported Associated Press writer Pete Yost.

The Nature Conservancy, ranked the 25th largest charity in the U.S. by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, on February 11, 2009 announced a 10% staff cut. "Unfortun-ately, the recession and subsequent declines in revenue require that we implement staff reductions," Nature Conservancy president Mark Tercek said in a written statement.
Wrote Chronicle of Philanthropy editor Holly Hall, "At least $32 million that donors had expected to give through charitable remainder trusts, gift annuities, and other planned gifts are on hold because of the economy, said Angela Sosdian, the Nature Conservancy's director of philanthropy for gift planning. That is equivalent to the amount such gifts typically produce in an entire year."
Reputedly the world's largest philanthropic land trust, the Nature Conservancy refuses to accept gifts of property where hunting, trapping, and fishing are not to be permitted, and purges non-native species by methods described in 2005 by retired Channel Islands National Park superintendent Tim J. Setnicka as "biological genocide."
The Nature Conservancy as of 2007 had annual revenues of $827 million, with financial reserves of nearly $1.7 billion.

The Sierra Club is seeking an executive director to succeed Carl Pope. Pope announced on January 23, 2009 that he will transition to chairperson after a new successor is hired. A Sierra Club employee for more than 30 years, executive director since 1992, Pope pushed policies and introduced programs meant to attract hunters. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson in April 2006 resigned from the Sierra Club board in protest, pointing out that Sierra Club founder John Muir called hunting "the murder business."

Congress vs. states over horse slaughter

BISMARCK, BOISE, HELENA, WASHINGTON D.C.--A political race to the wire over horse slaughter pits Congressional support for the proposed Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act, which would prohibit interstate transport of horses for slaughter, against a field of state legislation written to expedite the resumption of horse slaughter, suspended in the U.S. since the last three horse slaughterhouses closed in 2007.
The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act 2009, introduced by Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) had 103 cosponsors as of March 23.
Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, had on his desk a bill passed by the Republican majorities in the state house of representatives and senate to encourage construction of a horse slaughterhouse.
"The bill would require those challenging a slaughter facility permit to post a bond worth 20% of its construction costs. It would also prohibit courts from halting construction of a facility once it has been approved by the state," summarized Associated Press writer Kahren Deines.
The North Dakota Senate was meanwhile considering a bill passed by the state assembly which would allocate $50,000 to study the feasibility of opening a horse slaughterhouse. At least 10 states were considering or had already passed resolutions asking Congress to defeat the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act.
The resolutions were boosted by publicity over horse neglect and abandonment cases, which typically peak each year in late winter, when hay supplies are low and prices are high. Despite the weak U.S. economy, however, ANIMAL PEOPLE files indicate that the numbers of horses involved in such cases in early 2009 are similar to the numbers involved when horse slaughter was booming.
"The pro-slaughter side has used the media to great effect, seeding articles that have wrongly tied horse neglect and abandonment cases to an end to domestic slaughter," observed online equine issues commentator Alex Brown. "Sadly these stories are easy for general audiences to believe and allow politicians to justify their position on a bill without researching the veracity of the claims."

Los Angeles dog & cat sterilization funds cut

LOS ANGELES--"Our spay/neuter program has not been terminated," Los Angeles Animal Services general manager Ed Boks clarified on March 19, 2009, six days after rumors swept the animal welfare world that the oldest city-funded dog and cat sterilization program anywhere was a casualty of the U.S. economic crisis.
"Distribution of our spay/neuter coupons under this program was temporarily suspended," Boks acknowledged. "Since implementation of the Los Angeles spay/neuter ordinance, the demand for these coupons has exceeded our funding. We are working with the mayor's office to restore distribution in a manner that can be sustained," Boks said.
Explained Los Angeles Daily News staff writer Rick Orlov, "The city last year adopted a law requiring dog and cat owners to have pets spayed or neutered when they reach four months of age. As a way to promote the program, the city included the certificates to cover most of the costs of the procedure."
During the 2007-08 fiscal year, Los Angeles Animal Services assistant general manager Linda Barth told Orlov, the department issued 22,000 coupons good for a $30 discount and 12,000 coupons good for a $70 discount. About 35% were redeemed within the 90-day time limit, Barth said.
The coupon program was the latest incarnation of a series of initiatives begun in 1972. A year after Mercy Crusade opened a low-cost dog and cat sterilization clinic in 1973, Los Angeles Animal Services took over the management, and has been a low-cost sterilization service provider ever since.
"From 1972 to 2008, 479,269 cost-assisted pet sterilizations were performed under various Los Angeles programs," recounted Animal Issues Movement founder Phyllis Daugherty. "This reduced the number of animals impounded from 83,500 to 25,478," and reduced shelter killing from 110,000 animals to 18,000, including surrendered dogs and cats as well as impounds.
Working for the Los Angeles sterilization program from inception, surgeon Marvin Mackey, DVM, developed and popularized the small-incision, high-speed techniques that are now standard operating procedure worldwide.
There was one previous interruption of funding, after the "Rodney King Riots" of 1992 drained the city budget--and that was the only time in the past 37 years that Los Angeles shelter killing increased relative to the human population of the city.
Only a week before suspending spay/neuter coupon distribution, Boks on March 6, 2009 celebrated "the lowest January/February euthanasia rate in the department's history," achieved "despite the highest January/February impound rates in nearly a decade. With the opening of our new and expanded centers," Boks said, "we experienced nearly a 250% increase in kennels and workload, while our staffing increased only 100%."
Meanwhile, facing a 2008 budget deficit of nearly $500 million, the Los Angeles city council cut $300,000 from Animal Services' dog and cat sterilization budget, Boks explained, and then for 2009 ordered Animal Services to absorb a further cut of $414,000. Animal Services trimmed $250,000 from other budgets, Boks said, before cutting the sterilization program.
"With an alarming increase in the number of dogs and cats entering the city system, we need to maintain staffing," Boks said. "Our only recourse is to make up the remaining deficit through another reduction in our spay/neuter coupon and mobile programs."
Los Angeles city council member Tony Cardenas introduced a motion to restore the sterilization budget, seconded by council member Dennis Zine.
"Canceling the voucher program was insincere to the community and a step backwards in trying to reach a no-kill policy," Cardenas told Orlov.
"Although the city faces extreme budget challenges, this decision is an error in fiscal and moral judgment," agreed Zine.
But cuts to other Animal Services programs might not have produced the same outcry in favor of restoring some of the money.
Operating on total funding of $19 million in 2008, Los Angeles Animal Services is scheduled to receive $21 million in 2009.

Obama bans slaughtering downed cattle, but judge overturns California downer law

WASHINGTON D.C.--U.S. President Barack Obama in his weekly video and radio address to the nation on March 14, 2009 announced that the U.S. would reinforce and make permanent a ban on killing downed cattle at federally inspected meat plants.
"As part of our commitment to public health, our Agriculture Department is closing a loophole in the system to ensure that diseased cows don't find their way into the food supply," Obama said.
Newly confirmed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called the ban "a step forward for both food safety and the standards for humane treatment of animals."
"Under the previous regulations," said Farm Sanctuary cofounder Gene Baur, "a case-by-case assessment was made of cattle who went down at the slaughterhouse after passing the pre-slaughter inspection. This encouraged slaughterhouse workers to try to get cattle to stand and walk, pulling them by the ears and tails, prodding them with electric shocks, even dragging them with chains and pushing them with forklifts."
"We believe this policy should apply to pigs and all other species as well," Baur added. Farm Sanctuary debuted in 1986 with a "No Downers" campaign after Baur and others rescued a downed sheep named Hilda from a stockyard near Philadelphia, and has pursued anti-downer laws ever since.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O'Neill on February 19, 2009 ruled in Fresno, California that downed pigs may still be slaughtered for human consumption, under the 1907 Federal Meat Inspection Act, despite a 2008 California law that was meant to keep downed pigs and cattle out of the human food supply.
"The state legislation was approved last summer after the largest beef recall in history," wrote John Ellis of the Fresno Bee. "That recall came after the Humane Society of the U.S. secretly videotaped animal abuse at a Southern California slaughterhouse, including a man dragging and shocking sick cows. But the National Meat Association and the American Meat Institute challenged the California law, saying federal law preempts state law. The legal battle isn't over," Ellis continued. "O'Neill's ruling is preliminary. But if the state doesn't appeal the ruling, the National Meat Association and the American Meat Institute will ask O'Neill to make it permanent."
California attorney general Jerry Brown on March 5, 2009 appealed O'Neill's verdict to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Judge O'Neill a week before issuing his preliminary ruling allowed the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Humane Farming Association, Farm Sanctuary, and the Humane Society of the U.S. to petition the court in favor of the state law. ALDF, HFA, Farm Sanctuary, and HSUS filed a joint appeal of the verdict to the Ninth Circuit appellate court one day after Brown filed.
"The ruling could set a precedent for other farm animal processors seeking to skirt food safety laws and put meat from other sick and injured animals, including cattle, into the public food supply," said ALDF spokesperson Lisa Franzetta.
"Downed cattle are more likely to be infected with mad cow disease and more likely to harbor foodborne bacteria, such as E. coli and Salmonella," pointed out Franzetta.

Vietnam drops dog meat regs after rabies case

HANOI--Two recent human rabies deaths appear to have influenced the Vietnamese government to withdraw a proposal to draft standards for preparing dog meat for human consumption, and to reiterate a decade-old but lightly enforced ban on eating cats.
The first rabies victim "had prepared and eaten a dog who had been killed in a road accident; rabid dogs were known to inhabit the neighborhood," reported Heiman Wertheim, M.D., of the National Institute of Infectious and Tropical Diseases and the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidem-iology in Hanoi. "The second patient," Wertheim said, "had butchered and eaten a cat who had been sick for days."
"In early February," e-mailed Animals Asia Foundation founder Jill Robinson, "our Viet-nam director, Tuan Bendixsen, received an official letter from the Central Department of Animal Health, Ministry of Agriculture. Apparently they had received official requests from various provincial governments asking for guidelines on slaughtering dogs for human consumption."
Bendixsen responded by pointing out health risks to those involved in preparing and consuming dog-meat, "highlighting parasites, rabies, and leptospirosis," Robinson said.
Bendixsen in early March was notified, Robinson added, that the Vietnamese government had decided not to enact a regulation on processing of dog meat for human consumption.
"Although a local government can enact such a regulation for their own area," Robinson said, "usually they will not go against the Central Government's directive. I'm now looking at getting the Central Government to officially ban it instead of just not enacting it," Robinson concluded.
"I don't have actual figures on dog eating in Vietnam," said Bendixsen, "but I feel dog eating is only popular in the north. There is hardly any sign of dog meat restaurants in Saigon or elsewhere in the south, and most of the people who eat dogs in the south are from the north."

Alaska suspends shooting wolves from the air

FAIRBANKS-- The Alaska Department of Fish & Game on March 19, 2009 suspended shooting wolves from a helicopter, after killing 84 wolves in five days to try to increase the numbers of caribou and moose accessible to human hunters in the Fortymile region.
Currently numbering about 40,000, the Fortymile caribou herd reputedly stretched from Fairbanks to White-horse, and included about 568,000 caribou in 1920, when first surveyed. Subsequent counts have never found more then 46,000, and the 1975 count fell below 4,000, but the Department of Fish & Game continues to try to increase the herd to 60,000.
"The department pulled the plug on the program one day after Defenders of Wildlife went to court in Anchorage to file for an injunction to stop it," reported Tim Mowry of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
But DFG Fairbanks regional supervisor David James told Mowry that the aerial shooting was stopped only because wolves were becoming harder to find, and about 80% of the $100,000 allocated to the project had been spent.
"After the first few days of an operation like this the productivity curve falls steeply," James said.
"They couldn't find any more wolves to kill," responded Defenders of Wildlife representative Wade Willis said. "They ran out of wolves; it's plain and simple."
Estimating that about 300 wolves inhabit the Fortymile region, and hoping to reduce the population to 88, the DFG expected to kill 150 by using a fixed-wing airplane to spot their tracks, radioing in the helicopter to do the actual gunnery. "Prior to the helicopter strategy, the DFG relied on hunters, trappers and private pilot-gunner teams in fixed-wing aircraft who received permits from the state to kill wolves in the area," wrote Mowry, but the private pilot-gunner teams had killed only 39 all winter.
Private pilot-gunner teams and trappers "can continue to take wolves until April 30, or until conditions are such that planes can no longer land to retrieve wolves who are shot," Mowry said.
More than 800 wolves have been killed as part of the Alaska aerial wolf control program during the past five years, but the annual toll has been consistently far short of the DFG goals. The wolf killing this winter focused on the Fortymile calving grounds adjacent to the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, where predator control is prohibited. The National Park Service does not allow any kind of predator control in the preserve.
"Many of those wolves have home ranges centered in the preserve," preserve manager Greg Dudgeon told Mowry. "If a person traveling the upper Yukon corridor doesn't have the opportunity to hear a wolf howl, I'm not doing my job," Dudgeon said.
Wrote Mowry, "The National Park Service requested a no-kill buffer zone around the preserve, but the state refused on the grounds thatŠit would be biologically and politically unfeasible."
The Fortymile wolf-strafing began a week after the Alaska Board of Game authorized the use of snares to trap bears in the name of predator control, and the use of helicopters for trappers to access bear habitat. The Board of Game also allowed state personnel to use lethal gases to kill orphaned wolf pups in their dens.
The underlying issue, pointed out Willis of Defenders to Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News, is that years of aggressive predator killing, escalated under present Alaska governor Sarah Palin, have failed to produce any substantial increase in the Fortymile caribou herd beyond approximately the present level, but proponents of predator control continue to believe that if they can just find a way to kill even more predators, the herd will grow.
Predator control critics suspect that the Fortymile caribou carrying capacity is not more than 50,000, and that the 1920 count was either grossly exaggerated or an aberration.

Chimp attack wins attention of lawmakers

WASHINGTON D.C--Boosted by the February 16, 2009 rampage of a longtime pet chimpanzee named Travis in Stamford, Connecticut, the Captive Primate Safety Act on February 24, 2009 cleared the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 323-95 and returned to the U.S. Senate.
"The bill will ban interstate commerce in apes, monkeys, lemurs, marmosets, and other nonhuman primates for the pet trade," explained Humane Society Legislative Fund director Mike Markarian. "A number of states and communities already prohibit private ownership of primates as pets, but the patchwork of local laws and the interstate nature of the primate pet trade call out for a federal response. The Senate bill passed the Environment and Public Works Committee in July 2008," Markarian continued, "and has been awaiting further action. Identical legislation passed the Senate unanimously in 2006." Charla Nash, 55, "lost her hands, nose, lips and eyelids and may be blind and suffering brain damage" after Travis attacked her at the home of her friend Sandra Herold, 70," reported Associated Press writer Dave Collins on March 17, 2009. Receiving treatment at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where the first U.S. face transplant surgery was performed, Nash remained in critical condition.
Her family has sued Herold, seeking $50 million in damages.
Police shot Travis after he attacked a police car, trying to get at the officers inside.
Associated Press writer Susan Haigh revealed on March 20, 2009 that a Connect-icut Department of Environmental Protection biologist, whom Haigh did not name, warned superiors on October 28, 2008 that Herold was keeping Travis in violation of state law. The biologist concluded "I would like to express the urgency of addressing this issue."
Travis had previously escaped and run loose through Stamford in 2003.
However, the DEP "chose not to enter into what we believed would be a battle to take custody of a local celebrity," DEP commissioner Gina McCarthy responded in a written statement to Connecticut legislators.
The existing Connecticut law forbids keeping a nonhuman primate who will weigh more than 50 pounds at maturity. The Connecticut general assembly environment committee on March 20, 2009 voted 28-2 to prohibit outright keeping chimpanzees and other potentially dangerous species.
With the injuries to Nash in the news, the board of health in Carbon County, Montana on March 12, 2009 voted unanimously to require chimp keeper Jeanne Rizzotto to "quarantine her two chimps, provide current medical records, and update their vaccinations. The board stopped short of ordering Rizzotto to send the primates to a chimp sanctuary," reported Linda Halsted Acharya of the Billings Gazette.
One of Rizzotto's chimps in November 2008 bit a woman who was visiting a neighbor. Rizzotto claimed someone had tampered with the locks on the chimp's cage.
The chimps are not Rizzotto's only legal issue. On March 4, 2009 she accepted a deferred sentence on a felony charge of writing a bad check for $155,000, contingent on paying a fine of $1,000 and making restitution for the full amount, Halsted Acharya said.
Nor are nonhuman primates the only kind of dangerous exotic pet that lawmakers and law enforcement are now wrestling with, after more than 30 years of warnings from the humane community about the growth of the exotic pet industry.
For example, while the Connecticut general assembly considered banning dangerous pets, a small alligator was captured on March 23, 2009 in South Windsor, just north of the state capitol in Hartford.
"The Captive Primate Safety Act is similar to a bill that Congress passed unanimously in 2003," Markarian noted, "prohibiting interstate commerce in tigers, lions, and other dangerous big cats for the pet trade."
The Captive Wildlife Protection Act, also called the Shambala Act after actress Tippi Hedren's Shambala sanctuary near Los Angeles, appears to have reduced the big cat traffic, but animals acquired before the law was passed still turn up in bad situations, sanctuaries struggle to accommodate them, and law enforcement continues to have difficulty preventing recidivism by big cat keepers who are repeatedly cited for violations.
The Detroit Zoo on March 22, 2009 announced that three African lions kept since 1995 by Jeffrey Harsh of Oakley, Kansas, had cleared health checks, and would be coming to the zoo within a few more days. Two tigers kept by Harsh at a facility he called the Prairie Cat Animal Refuge will be sent to the Carnivore Preservation Trust in North Carolina. Harsh is divesting of the big cats to avoid charges in connection with injuries suffered by one of his employees. "Bradley Jeff Buchanan, who was apparently under the influence according to law enforcement authorities, for some reason stuck his arm in one of the cages and was bitten," summarized Mike Corn of the Hays Daily News.
Also on March 22, 2009 the USDA confiscated two tigers and a lion, reportedly not properly fed in weeks, from North Texas wildlife exhibitor Marcus Cook. The animals were taken to the In-Sync Exotic Wildlife Rescue and Education Center in Wylie.
"The sudden addition is a strain for the Wylie center, which is already reeling from slumping donations," reported Jonathan Betz of WFAA-TV.
Cook, a former police officer, quit that job in 1997 "because of concerns about his credibility," the Dallas Morning News reported. Cook subsequently ran into trouble in connection with exotic cat exhibition. ANIMAL PEOPLE detailed his history in 2002. Animals in his custody later injured people on at least three occasions. In 2007 four white tiger cubs died in his care. Texas and Florida have charged Cook with animal handling offenses, and he has also been investigated at least twice in Minnesota.

ALF burns Italian zoo

TURIN--An arson claimed by the Animal Liberation Front with spray-painted slogans and a posting to the Florida-based Bite Back web site on February 25, 2009 razed the newly built Zoom Zoo near Turin, Italy. The zoo was to open in April.
"Several bottles filled with petrol were used to start the fire, which killed some 40 hawks, buzzards and owls," Europe News and Italian media reported. The ALF claimed to have released about 30 birds.
Also killed were two hedgehogs, but firefighters kept the blaze from harming several tigers who were also on the premises.

Pilot charged with killing hunt follower

COVENTRY--Heating technician, hunting opponent, and gyrocopter pilot Bryan Griffiths, 54, of Bedworth, Warwickshire, has been held by police since March 9, 2009 on a charge of murdering hunt follower Trevor Morse, 48, of Alderminster, Warwickshire.
"Morse died of head injuries after he was struck by the gyrocopter's propeller at Long Marston airfield, near Stratford-upon-Avon," reported the London Times. "Magistrates in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, were told that a witness videotaped the incident, and the moments before it. The court was told that Griffiths was a member of an anti-hunt animal rights campaign and worked as a volunteer hunt monitor, liaising closely with police. Warwickshire Police said that a second man arrested on suspicion of murder was released on police bail pending further inquiries."
"A gyrocopter had been following us for a couple of weeks and we had made a formal complaint to the Civil Aviation Authority 10 days ago," Warwickshire Hunt joint master Sam Butler told BBC News.
Summarized Lucy Bannerman and Valerie Elliott of the London Times, "It is believed that Morse went with a friend to the airfield to try to discover who piloted the gyrocopter. He and a woman were believed to have approached the aircraft as it was refuelling."
The incident came just over a month after the British High Court upheld the acquittal of fox hunter Anthony Wright, who in 2006 was the first person charged with violating the 2004 Hunting Act. The court ruled that while the Act forbids any deliberate pursuit of a wild mammal with hounds, including hare coursing, it does not forbid using hounds to stalk and flush out foxes to be shot, using up to two dogs to track a wounded animal, using dogs to flush out animals to be hunted by falcons, using dogs to flush birds to be shot, and using dogs to hunt rodents.
The pro-hunting Countryside Alliance asserted that the High Court verdict rendered the Hunting Act meaningless. The League Against Cruel Sports is reportedly having to reassess 18 pending prosecutions for alleged Hunting Act violations, but both League Against Cruel Sports chief executive Douglas Batchelor and Royal SPCA director of animal welfare promotion John Rolls told media that the law can still be used.
Of the first 31 prosecutions under the Hunting Act, Guardian environment editor John Vidal wrote, 28 were for hare coursing; only three were for traditional fox hunting. Fox hunt participation has soared since the Hunting Act took effect in 2005, but polls commissioned by the League Against Cruel Sports continue to show that more than 70% of the British public favor the act, which was billed as ending fox hunting.

Is diplomacy making gains against Japanese whaling?

ROME--Some International Whaling Commission insiders believe the IWC is close to brokering a deal that would allow the Japanese government to end so-called "research whaling" without losing political credibility.
Others believe Japanese actions against whaling opponents show that the Japanese government believes it has the upper hand and can force the IWC to reopen commercial whaling, after a 23-year suspension.
After initially refusing to honor the 1986 commercial whaling moratorium, Japan in 1988 accepted the moratorium but began killing whales in the name of "scientific research," continuing to sell whale meat. The 2009 self-allocated Japanese "research" quota includes 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales.
The 63rd annual IWC meeting, to be held in Madeira, Portugal, in June 2009, appears likely to open with the U.S. and Australian delegations taking ambiguous positions. Nominally opposed to whaling, both the U.S. and Australian governments appear to endorse concessions that are mostly not supported by anti-whaling advocacy groups.
"It is our view that any package, to be acceptable, must result in a significant improvement in the conservation status of whales," White House Council on Environmental Quality chair Nancy Sutley told Gina Dogget of Agence France-Presse on March 11, 2009, after the inconclusive end of an IWC intersessional meeting held in Rome.
The present IWC chair, serving until the end of the June 2009 meeting, is Florida Atlantic University professor William Hogarth, a George W. Bush administration appointee. Hogarth is believed to be the chief author of a trade-off that would allow IWC member nations to authorize commercial whaling in their territorial waters in exchange for the end of "research whaling."
That deal would allow the annual Taiji dolphin massacre and other hunts of small whales in Japanese waters to continue without the risk of the IWC claiming an expanded mandate to protect smaller whales. The IWC has historically regulated only hunting of baleen and sperm whales.
Whether the rumored deal would actually reduce the numbers of regulated species that the Japanese fleet kills is unclear. Such a deal would formalize IWC acceptance of the Norwegian assertion of a right to kill minke whales in coastal waters, with a 2009 quota of 885. An IWC rule allowing coastal whaling would also almost certainly bring other nations back into commercial whaling.
South Korea, in particular, already has a small whale-butchering industry, which processes the meat of whales nominally caught by accident by fishing vessels. South Korean fishers have clamored to be allowed to hunt whales legally.
Iceland, not currently an IWC member, will allow whalers to kill 150 minke whales and 150 endangered fin whales this year, under a quota allocated by a former coalition government on the day it left office. The new government has hinted that it may cut the quota next year.
"We have been warning all along that if Japan gets a deal, other countries are going to want part of the action," Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society policy director Sue Fisher told Andrew Darby, covering whaling issues for the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age.
Japan's "political will is far greater than the combined political will of the pro-conservation governments," Fisher added, to Dogget of Agence France-Presse.
The IWC Rome intersessional meeting adopted a resolution deploring "acts of violence against ships" and calling for "action to be taken by the relevant authorities" in response to the efforts of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in particular, to obstruct Japanese whaling within the Southern Oceans Whale Sanctuary, declared by the IWC in 1994.
Australian federal police on February 20, 2009 seized 157 video rolls from Discovery Channel personnel aboard the Sea Shepherd flagship Steve Irwin, along with Sea Shepherd navigational records, as the ship docked in Hobart.
"The videos show the Sea Shepherd clashes with Japanese whalers," including a collision between the Steve Irwin and the Japanese whale-catching vessel Yushin Maru #2 on February 6, 2009, "and may be given to the Japanese government," wrote Andrew Darby. "A federal agent said yesterday's raid resulted from a formal referral from Japanese authorities. Australian National University law professor Don Rothwell said international legal obligations meant evidence of alleged maritime offences could be forwarded to Japan.
"People actively opposing whaling could be persecuted or worse because of video evidence if it is sent to the Japanese," said Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson. "I wish the Australian Government would apply the same diplomatic pressure on Japan to end their illegal whaling operations," Watson added in a written statement. "The Japanese ships have not been boarded by the Australian federal police. They have not had their video and navigational data confiscated. They have not been questioned, nor will they be, yet they violently attacked my ship and crew."
Noted Darby, "Attempts by Green Party Senator Bob Brown to obtain information on Japanese whaling gathered by the Australian patrol ship Oceanic Viking last year have been rejected. The Environment Department has ruled that releasing images or data would "adversely affect the confidence Japan would have in our diplomatic efforts to achieve an end to 'scientific whaling.'"
In Japan, meanwhile, Greenpeace on March 20, 2009 asked the Fisheries Agency of Japan via Japanese legislator Shokichi Kina for uncensored copies of whale meat sales documents. Copies obtained through a 2008 Freedom of Information request were "supposed to detail whale meat sales, as well as contracts between the FAJ and the Institute of Cetacean Research," said a Greenpeace press release. "However, copies of the documents released on January 19, 2009 were so heavily redacted that they were worthless."
The request was made as Greenpeace Japan members Junichi Sato, 31, and Toru Suzuki, 41, face trial for allegedly stealing whale meat.
Sato and Suzuki "tracked a package of whale meat to a mail depot in northern Japan, summarized Los Angeles Times Tokyo correspondent John M. Glionna, "after tipsters told them it contained whale meat bound for the Japanese black market, smuggled by crew members of a ship commissioned to kill whales for scientific research. But when they held a cameras-flashing news conference to turn the meat over to police, the officers instead arrested the activists for trespass and theft. Japanese officials say the men are eco-terrorists who stole the meat from a legitimate transporter to falsely malign the nation's whaling establishment. The pair could receive up to 10 years in jail if convicted."
"Our activists handed over a box of whale meat as evidence of the whale meat smuggling operation, and the Tokyo public prosecutor agreed there was sufficient evidence of wrongdoing," said Greenpeace oceans campaigner John Hocevar on June 20, 2008, after Sato and Suzuki were arrested. However, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office in July 2008 cleared the implicated employees of the whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd and the Institute of Cetacean Research of the Greenpeace allegations against them.

Indian animal advocates beaten

AHMEDABAD, THRISSUR-- The Kerala Elephant Lovers' Association on March 24, 2009 asked the Indian federal government to investigate the ambush beating of Thrissur SPCA senior inspector E.R. Jayan. Jayan was allegedly assaulted by four men on March 19 after responding to a false report that an elephant was being abused.
Jayan was attacked two weeks after Animal Lovers Emergency Rescue Team founder Sandra Jhala, 53, of Ahmedabad, "suffered multiple fractures, cuts and bruises after men went into her yard and attacked dogs kept there," reported the Times of India on March 3, 2009. Beaten when she intervened, "Jhala received more than 50 stitches on her head and has five fractures on her left hand," elaborated Roshan Kumar of the investigative newspaper DNA.
Jhala named her assailants. "It was an attempt by my neighbours and local goondas, including Nainesh Patel, Shailesh Patel, Dipak Patel and Daya Patel, to kill me," Jhala alleged to Kumar. "Dipak Patel has been running all sorts of nefarious activities, including gambling and liquor trade," Jhala added, "and the local police are also assisting him," she alleged. Wrote Kumar, "Jhala said Dipak Patel and her neighbours wanted her to vacate the ground-floor flat where she has lived for more than 11 years so that they could use the area for business purposes." Charges were filed against the suspects, but they remained at large, Kumar reported.
Rahul Sehgal, founder of the Ani-mal Help Foundation in Ahmedabad, was in mid-2007 beaten in a similar gang attack, and the Animal Help computers were smashed. Sehgal also named his assailants, whom he said were associated with a rival animal charity, but to little avail.
An early 2000 crackdown on illegal slaughter in Ahmedabad turned violent after vigilantes helped police to seize 2,125 animals from illegal butchers, including 641 cows. 180 people were arrested, 58 vehicles were impounded, and one person was killed in fights between the butchers and the vigilantes.

Teaching young people to kill

BISMARCK--The North Dakota Senate on March 19, 2008 voted 47-0 for a bill to allow "apprentice hunters" aged at least 16 to hunt without taking a safety course first, if accompanied by a hunter at least 18 years old who has taken the state safety course.
The move to ease the rules for youth hunters followed a national legislative trend promoted by wildlife agencies and the gun lobby, in hopes of rekindling youth interest in hunting. Hunting license sales have fallen steadily throughout the U.S. for nearly 30 years, with the steepest decline among teens.
The Washington House of Representatives bucked the trend on March 10, voting 70-26 for a bill that would require hunters younger than 14 to have adult supervision when hunting on public land. Washing-ton state law since 1994 has allowed anyone of any age to hunt alone if licensed and if the hunter has completed a safety course.
The Washington bill was introduced after a 14-year-old was charged with first-degree manslaughter for killing hiker Pamela Almli, 54, on August 2, 2008. The 14-year-old and his 16-year-old brother told investigators that they were hunting bears.
At least three recent murder cases have involved youth who were introduced to hunting at an early age.
Tim Kretschmer, 17, of Winnenden, Germany, on March 11, 2009 killed eight girls, a boy, and three female teachers at his school, killed three more people as he fled the scene, and then shot himself as police closed in to arrest him. Kretschmer reportedly took his weapon from his father's arsenal.
Using a shotgun that his father Christopher Brown gave him for Christmas, Jordan Brown, 11, of Wampum, Pennsylvania, on February 14, 2009 won a Valentine's Day turkey shoot at a local gun club. Two days later he shot his father's girlfriend, Kenzie Marie Houk, 26, as she lay in bed. Houk was eight months pregnant. Jordan Brown is charged with premeditated homicide.
In St. Johns, Arizona, a nine-year-old boy on February 19, 2009 pleaded guilty to one count of negligent homicide for killing his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39, on November 5, 2008. The boy's mother, Erin Bloomfield, 26, who divorced Romero in 2002, told New York Times reporter Solomon Moore that Romero gave her son the .22 rifle he used to kill the men, and that he had hunted with both.

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Letters

Portuguese bullfights

Defensor Moura, the mayor of Viana do Castelo, Portugal since 1993, decided in December 2008 to have the city buy the local bullring and turn it into a science and education center. He told news media that Viana do Castelo has no bullfighting tradition and that it is no longer acceptable to torture animals for fun.
ANIMAL asked people to send messages congratulating Moura, and asking him to declare Viana do Castelo to be officially an anti-bullfighting city--the first in Portugal. Moura received more than 1,000 e-mails, from all regions of Portugal and all over the world. He has now declared Viana do Castelo to be Portugal's first anti-bullfighting city.
We next asked Braga mayor Fran-cisco Mesquita Machado to not authorise a bullfight that was to have taken place on June 20, 2009 at a local festival. Less than 24 hours after the beginning of our e-campaign to stop this bullfight, the communication officer for the Mayor of Braga responded that, "The President of the Municipality of Braga, upon becoming aware of this alleged announcement of the organization of a bullfight in this city, has instructed the relevant municipal services to not authorise it. This means that no bullfight will take place in Braga."
We are now trying to stop the legis-lative bodies of the Azores from legalising killing bulls and using picadors in bullfighting. The legislative regional assembly of the Azores now has the constitutional power to do this, in an active bullfighting region where this legislative step has long been sought.
--Miguel Moutinho
Executive Director
ANIMAL
Apartado 2028
8501-902 Portimão
Portugal
Phone: 00-351-282-491-216
<miguel.moutinho@animal.org.pt>

TNR in Armenia

In collaboration with the Humane Society of the United States, we have founded the first-ever spay/neuter project in the former Soviet Republic of Armenia, where dogs and puppies are at times still shot in the streets.
In 2008 the HSUS Remote Area Veterinary Services team, led by Jennifer Scarlett, DVM, traveled to the capital city of Armenia to train veterinary students and several working veterinarians in trap/neuter/ release technique. After the training, we hired one of the graduates of the class, and sterilized more than 100 dogs in a pilot TNR program. We tagged and collared the dogs, and posted signs where we returned the fixed dogs explaining that the mayor ordered that these dogs not be shot. We began receiving calls from residents seeking to help more dogs.
In April 2009 we are sending two Armenian veterinarians to Romania for TNR training, who will be employed full time at a new farm/shelter/sanctuary, Armenia's first ever, to perform TNR with 50 dogs per week.
Who said that an entirely volunteer organization can't do much?
--Garo Alexanian
Companion Animal Network
P.O. Box 656712
Fresh Meadows, NY 11365
Phone: 718-544-PETS
<info@CompanionAnimalNetworkTV.org>
<www.companionanimalnetworktv.org>

PAWS arranged a last meal for doomed pigs

I represented the Philippine Animal Welfare Society at Bulacan on March 1, 2009, when officials began culling 6,011 pigs due to an outbreak of the Reston strain of Ebola virus.
Secretary Eric Tayag of the Philippine Department of Health had informed us that the decision to kill all the pigs, even those who were not infected or had not been tested, was final and non-negotiable. The best that PAWS could do at that point was to encourage government officials to use the most humane possible methods.
Some newspapers erroneously reported that the pigs would be electrically stunned. The equipment actually used were penetrating captive bolts--an irreversible stunning method that results in immediate death because the bolt penetrates both the skull and the brain. Police were on standby with guns using .22 caliber bullets, as provided by the Philippine Animal Welfare Act, in case the captive bolts did not do the job.
Only five captive bolts were available for the culling. These were on loan to the government by the supplier. Three of the five captive bolts jammed during the first hour. The police were told to shoot the remainder of a truckload of 50 pigs. Most of the pigs were moving when shot. Because the shots were not accurate, the pigs had to be shot three or four times before they died.
I had already asked if there was a way to hold the pigs to ensure more accuracy, and to have the pigs shot out of sight of the other pigs who were waiting to be killed. However, I was told that this was not possible because of the volume of pigs and the limited budget and resources that the government had for culling them.
Based on what I observed--which was personally very traumatic for me-- PAWS' recommendations were to:
1. Refine how pigs were handled. Some piglets were held by the ear or by one leg while being transferred from their pens to the truck that took them to their deaths.
2. Keep the captive bolts in good repair, as this is a more humane method of killing than the use of guns. Although the jammed captive bolts were eventually repaired, half of each batch of pigs were shot by the police, because of the large numbers who have to be put down each day. The official target was to kill 1,000 a day.
3. Ensure that no pigs are thrown into the dead pit still alive, as happened to two pigs on the first day. They were immediately shot when police finally found them.
4. Ensure that pigs will be fed up until the last day. To our horror, we were informed on our March 1 visit to the farm that the pigs were last fed on February 24--which meant that the condemned pigs had been living for days on only water. We pressured government officials to direct the farm owner to feed the pigs immediately, and to monitor the feeding until the culling was completed on March 6. I wish I had recorded the sound of the hungry pigs when they were fed. I will never forget it as long as I live.
We also recommended that pigs weighing 110 kilograms or more be bled out, even after the use of the captive bolt, to make sure that death comes quicker.
We tried to be as diplomatic as possible. This is the first time a Philippine animal welfare group has been called to supervise culling. We want this to continue, to ensure that animals are not burned or buried alive in the future, if culling is to be done.
--Anna Cabrera
Program Director
Philippine Animal Welfare Society
87 Small Horseshoe Drive
New Manila, 1112 Quezon City
Metro Manila, Philippines
<philpaws@yahoo.com>
<www.Paws.Org.Ph>

Treats for chained dogs

The 2009 Dogs Deserve Better Have a Heart for Chained Dogs campaign mailed or hand-delivered Valentines to 12,113 dogs! This was 1,678 more dogs in 2009 than 2008. We send a heartfelt thank you to everyone who contributed to the 2009 campaign.
--Tamira Thayne
Dogs Deserve Better
P.O. Box 23
Tipton, PA 16684
Phone: 1-877-636-1408
<tddb@dogsdeservebetter.org>
<www.dogsdeservebetter.org>

Nature's animal control officers

San Diego County

I just wanted to share with you how much I enjoyed your March 2009 articles about coyotes. Our agency does not handle coyotes at all. Instead, we refer people to the Project Wildlife website <www.project-wildlife.org>, which attempts to educate people about how to live with wildlife. If there is a perceived threat to public safety, the caller is referred to the California State Department of Fish & Game. Also, the County of San Diego Department of Agriculture, Weights & Measures contracts with a federal predator hunter, who will track and kill an offending coyote but there must be very compelling evidence of a threat to people--not just their pets.
I also found your perspective on the evolution of animal control agencies interesting. Our agency has changed dramatically. We now handle far more animal abuse and neglect cases then cases of animals who are threatening people. When asked what we do we say we protect animals from dangerous people and people from dangerous animals.
--Dawn D. Danielson, RVT, Director
County of San Diego
Department of Animal Services
5480 Gaines St.
San Diego, CA 92110
Phone: 619-767-2605
<Dawn.Danielson@sdcounty.ca.gov>
<www.sddac.com>

Such survivors!

I liked the articles on coyotes in your March edition. Coyotes are among my favorite animals. Such survivors! We have lots of them around here, both in the desert and in urban areas where they come in on the washes and prey on small pets. We hear lots of complaints about cats and small dogs being chomped by coyotes. The word, as your articles stressed, is to be vigilant.
--Laurel Speer
Tucson, Arizona
<speer3@gmail.com>

Editor's note:

A "wash" is an area that is subject to flash floods, and therefore cannot be developed. "Washes" in desert cities tend to become busy wildlife corridors, much like greenbelts in cities of more temperate climate.

Coyote meets seals

I enjoyed your March 2009 coverage of coyotes. I watched one trot over the hill to Piedras Blancas, the beach near here with the elephant seals, when the pups were being born. The coyote sniffed around--I wondered if we would see a confrontation between a mother seal and the coyote--and then trotted to the water and north along the waterline.
The issue of leaving out cat food is difficult. I have been feeding a stray for the past couple of months. Word is out that there is cat food in our yard. Yesterday the crows held a convention about it. There must have been ten of them on the ground, taking pieces and discussing the quality of the food.
--Christine Heinrichs
Cambria, California
<christine.heinrichs@gmail.com>

Requests to reprint

I very much enjoyed your March 2009 articles describing the often misunderstood behavior of coyotes. This article was very nicely done and speaks volumes to the important role these animals play in our ecosystem. Hopefully, it will put many fears to rest! Would you mind if I printed extra copies, crediting Animal People of course, to distribute them to local animal control personnel who frequently respond to questions from concerned community members? --Laura M. Nirenberg
Executive Director
Wildlife Orphanage, Inc.
4988 West 150 North
La Porte, IN 46350
Phone: 219-362-6999
<laura@wildlife-orphanage.org>
<www.wildlife-orphanage.org>

Reprint available:

Our March 2009 cover feature about coyotes, Nature's Animal Control Officers, has been reformatted for handout use, and is available as a ready-to-print PDF from <anmlpepl@whidbey.com>.

The cause of disaster

Your March, 2009 cover article "Hell and high water hit Down Under" described the major negative effects on animals and humans in Australia caused by severe drought and major wild fires in one section of the country, and major flooding in another. This should be still another wake-up call to the need for major changes to avoid an unprecedented international catastrophe due to global warming.
The animal rights movement can and should help to avoid that potential catastrophe by increasing awareness of the major role that animal-based agriculture plays in producing global warming. According to the 2006 United Nations report Livestock's Long Shadow, animal agriculture emits more greenhouse gases than all means of transportation worldwide combined. This same report indicates that the number of farmed animals is projected to double in the next 50 years. If that happens, the increased greenhouse gas emissions will negate improvements from many positive changes, such as switches to more efficient light bulbs, cars, etc.
Hence a major shift to vegetarian and preferably vegan diets is essential to move our imperiled planet to a sustainable path. Animal welfare and rights groups should make getting this essential message out a major priority
--Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D.
President
Jewish Vegetarians
of North America
and Society of Ethical &
Religious Vegetarians
Phone: 718-761-5876
Fax: 718-982-3631
<rschw12345@aol.com>

Art use of animals

The Animal Rights Action Network was recently inundated with calls and e-mails seeking help to stop a proposed art project by Seamus Nolan that would have featured two homeless dogs from the Louth dog pound. The dogs would have been caged for the duration of the project, except for being taken out for walks and given food and water. ARAN offered to work with Nolan to develop an art project that would expose the killing of many thousands of homeless dogs in pounds across Ireland. The story went national.
Both dogs have been adopted to good homes, we believe, and Seamus Nolan and the art galley have no plans to use animals in future exhibitions.
--John Carmody
Campaigns Coordinator
Animal Rights
Action Network
120 Vale Avenue
Carew Park, Limerick
Ireland
Phone: 353-087-6275579
<arancampaigns@eircom.net>
<www.ARAN.ie>

The White House dog

I have most of President Obama's early speeches and I remember when he said that he wanted to settle into the White House first, before adopting a dog, and then told us that he didn't know for sure what kind of dog he would get for the Obama girls, but for sure the dog would be from a shelter. I thought it was great for our leader to tell America that should we want a pet, there are hundreds at shelters who would just love to have a good home. Now I'm seeing pictures of a Portuguese water dog that Obama is planning to get, and I'm wondering if that is a breed commonly found in shelters. I hope our President didn't forget about the pets waiting for a home in the shelters.
--Christianne Erwin
Reno, Nevada
<cianne@charter.net>

EDITORIAL

Helping more animals with fewer resources

A year into the global financial meltdown, the humane community as a whole seems to be holding up relatively well, so far--but precariously.
Puppy mills, by contrast, are collapsing at an unprecedented pace. 2008 brought more than twice as many dogs and cats into animal shelters as result of breeder failures than 2007, and the 2009 volume from breeder failures is on pace to eclipse the 2008 record.
Some animal charities have collapsed, as well, leaving hundreds of animals in need of accommodation by the surviving organizations. Through 2008, however, the numbers of animals left in need by animal charity failures had increased only marginally from 2007. Because many animal charities had rapidly expanded their holding capacity during earlier boom years, the humane community has so far managed to absorb most of the animals left by puppy mill and animal charity failures with only occasional reversion to the on-the-spot mass killing of impounded animals that frequently resulted from such cases in past decades.
There have been exceptions, however, and there is much anxiety among the humane community that continued economic distress could force a return to high-volume shelter killing. Animal advocates in cities and counties whose shelters are now pursuing the elusive goal of no-kill animal control fear that momentum and public support will be lost if killing rates blip upward. Activists in cities and counties that have only just begun to promote low-cost dog and cat sterilization fear that the urgently needed sterilization programs will be lost to budget cuts. Where gassing animals has recently been abolished but gas chambers remain in place, there is concern that gassing will resume as a perceiving cost-trimming measure--even though shelter consultant Doug Fakkema has assembled hard data demonstrating that gassing is actually a more expensive way to kill animals than use of pentobarbital injection.
The good news, so far, is that even though shelter surrenders of animals have increased, and even though adoptions are markedly down, shelter killing in the U.S. does not appear to have increased since ANIMAL PEOPLE in July/August 2008 published our most recent set of regional tables. Two-thirds of the way to publishing our 2009 tables, most incoming data continues to show modest declines in shelter killing.
The bad news is that data from fiscal years ending in 2008 may not include the numbers from the worst of the economic crisis. If 2008 brought a downturn in the numbers of dogs and cats who were sterilized by nonprofit programs, the result will be more puppies and kittens born during the 2009 "puppy and kitten season" that is now just beginning.
Humane societies and animal control agencies are used to working in crisis mode. Coping with whatever the emergency for days, weeks, or even months is familiar to veterans of animal rescue. The most stressful part of the present situation, for many and perhaps most animal agency administrators, is not being able to look ahead to a specific time that may bring respite. Floods recede and fires burn out, but a recession does not hit bottom on a predictable schedule. No one knows how long resources may have to be stretched, how secure program funding is, or how secure jobs are.
What we all do know is that if lean times get leaner, the need for humane services will only increase, and donations decrease.
For many individual donors, the most frustrating part of the crisis is not being able to respond as generously as they would like, because they themselves have lost jobs, or fear their jobs may be at risk, or are using whatever extra resources they have to help stricken family members--and the family members' animals.
ANIMAL PEOPLE is coping with the same pressures as the rest of the humane community, and other print media too. In 2007 we were obliged by a 35% increase in printing and mailing costs to reduce our frequency of publication from 10 editions per year to nine. In September 2008 we suspended mailing free subscriptions to foreign animal charities. At the end of 2008, having lost several pages of pre-sold advertising, including from one organization whose budget was frozen by an archaic law that prevents it from using a significant endowment, we dropped from 24 pages per edition, our size since mid-1995, to 20 pages, our count in 1992-1995.
We have, nonetheless, fared much better--through the much appreciated continued support of our generous readers--than many of the largest and most prestigious U.S. daily newspapers. Unlike the collapsing dailies, most of them failing only a few years after turning record profits, ANIMAL PEOPLE has always been published on a nonprofit basis, to fulfill a community need. Our modus operandi has always been close to the model that mass media analysts suggest is most likely to succeed in the 21st century. Thus, though the times are difficult, we are as optimistic about our own future as about the future of the humane cause.
Animal advocacy has actually expanded in many past recessions, in part because national and international economic calamity has tended to expose the failings of major animal use industries. For example, the first few dozen humane societies in the U.S. formed during the recession that followed the end of the U.S. Civil War. The number of U.S. animal shelters increased by half during the Great Depression. The Humane Society of the U.S., Friends of Animals, and the Animal Welfare Institute are among the most prominent of a generation of animal charities that emerged amid the post-Korean War recession. The animal rights movement debuted during the post-Vietnam War recession. After a few years of national economic recovery, the U.S. unemployment rate soared during the first few years of the 1980s--but those same years brought the formation of PETA, the Best Friends Animal Society, and In Defense of Animals, among dozens of other animal charities of continuing prominence.
The present recession coincides with increased recognition of global warming and ecological damage to the world's oceans, of which overfishing is a leading cause. The rise of concern for farm animal welfare is already a political fact in many nations, driven by outbreaks of deadly zoonotic diseases in some parts of the world where there are no strong farm animal advocacy voices. The role of violence toward animals as a precursor to violent crime against humans is increasingly recognized, even where there are no humane laws.
There is, in short, every reason to believe that current events favor the humane message. On multiple fronts the humane community is uniquely positioned to help humanity to effectively address problems which are at once more urgent and more enduring than how we organize the exchange of chits representing assets and credit. The economic crisis is an administrative issue. When the global economy recovers through administrative changes, and it will recover, sooner or later, the issues that the humane community can help with will remain, and will continue to demand humane leadership.

Trust funds lost when most needed

Meanwhile, there is the reality that animal charities are as squeezed by the financial crisis as anyone else. Amplifying humane perspectives is inhibited when cash flow is stretched just to provide basic care to animals in need. An inescapable irony is that the humane community might have all the resources necessary to fulfill present needs and opportunities, if only the wishes of legators had been honored.
Manhattan Surrogate Court judge Troy Webber on February 25, 2009 ruled that the trustees of the Leona M. & Harry Helmsley Charitable Trust are not bound by the first clause of Leona Helmsley's 2004 mission statement, to make grants for "purposes related to the provision of care for dogs," and may instead follow the second clause, to fund "such other charitable activities as the trustees shall determine."
Helmsley Charitable Trust spokesperson Howard Rubenstein stated that the trust's funds, estimated at $5 billion to $8 billion, will be allocated "as soon as possible in such areas as health care, medical research, human services, education and various other areas" that he did not specify.
"Rubenstein did not say whether dog-related charities would be guaranteed recipients of the trust," reported Amy Westfeldt of Associated Press.
The Helmsley Charitable Trust assets alone could have trebled the resources of the U.S. hands-on animal welfare community, with enough left over to extinguish canine rabies worldwide. Instead, it may do nothing for animals whatever.
The Helmsley debacle came 16 years after tobacco heiress Doris Duke left $1.2 billion to endow the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, mandated to fund projects in the areas of the performing arts; the environment; prevention of cruelty to children and animals; and biomedical research. Duke also expressed her interest in animals by leaving smaller sums to the Doris Duke Foundation for the Preservation of Endangered Wildlife, the Doris Duke Foundation for the Preservation of New Jersey Farmland and Farm Animals, and the New York Zoological Society. Then, recalled HSUS president Wayne Pacelle when the Helmsley verdict was announced, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation trustees "parsed the language of Duke's will to justify exclusion of animal welfare funding as a priority."
This too had a precedent. Candy heiress Helen Vorhees Brach was murdered in 1977 while personally investigating a ring who killed race horses to collect insurance. The perpetrators were finally brought to justice nearly 20 years later. Brach had already formed the Helen V. Brach Foundation. During her lifetime, 100% of the Brach Foundation went to projects benefiting animals, reported Steve Warmbir of the Elgin Daily Herald. After Brach's death, projects benefiting animals got just 20% of the grant money allocated during the next five years, Warmbir found. This had dropped to 10% by the time Brach's brother Charles Vorhees died in 2002, and was 7% in fiscal 2008.
Helen Brach's will has been cited in at least four estate planning handbooks as an example of sloppy wording that enabled the Helen V. Brach Foundation trustees to circumvent her own intentions, and to instead fund projects of personal interest to them. The same could be said of the Duke and Helmsley estates. But Brach, Duke, and Helmsley also made a more fundamental error in putting their estates into perpetual trusts, instead of liquidating their assets to directly endow the charities they meant to support.
Contrary to common belief, creating a perpetual trust does not help to ensure that an estate will not be misused. Rather, it gives more people the opportunity to misuse it, while keeping the money away from the purpose it is supposed to be used for.
The whole notion of endowing a charity in itself also requires revisiting. Conventional wisdom in nonprofit management holds that legacies not specifically designated for a here-and-now purpose should be kept in permanent reserve, to generate interest or dividends. Typically these returns are invested in fundraising from the public. The endowment income thus drives institutional growth. However, while 5% to 10% of the endowment helps to fund the work of the charity, 90% to 95% helps to fund whatever for-profit enterprise the rest is invested in, via banks and stock brokers.
Though investing endowments is considered to be the "safe" approach to ensuring that a charity will have a future, endowments can be lost to bad investments--and many recently have been. Hundreds of charities, including dozens in animal work, have lost the equivalent of many months or even years of operating expenses. Some invested in unrepaid mortgages. Some were caught in the collapse of the stock market. Either way, money left to help animals did less for animals than if it had insulated a rat's nest.
To limit the potential damage from investment losses, many states have laws preventing charities from using endowment funds if the value of the endowment funds falls below the sum of the money that has been put into them. Thus the Massachusetts SPCA, still among the 10 richest humane societies in the world, is laying off staff for the second time in six years and is closing three shelters, leaving large parts of Massachusetts with severely restricted humane services. At least three other humane societies among the 20 largest in the U.S. are making deep cuts in services for essentially the same reason.
The fallacy inherent in both creating posthumous trusts and in funding endowments is in seeking perpetuity--in effect, investing in the continuance of misery, withholding resources now so as to help a little bit later.
Thoughtful estate planning empowers credible and committed beneficiaries to lastingly reduce suffering in the future by eradicating sources of misery here and now.

Meat kills, confirms National Cancer Institute study of half million Americans

WASHINGTON D.C.--"High intakes of red or processed meat may increase the risk of mortality," National Cancer Institute researchers conservatively reported in the March 23, 2009 edition of Annals of Internal Medicine.
Annals of Internal Medicine is a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Medical Association--and what the study authors actually found was the strongest scientific condemnation yet of the health effects of a meat-centered diet, regardless of the type of meat consumed.
The National Cancer Institute examined the relationship of diet and mortality among more than half a million middle-aged and elderly Americans from 1995 until the end of 2005. The participants, all between 52 and 71 years old, joined the study by completing a 124-question survey about their eating habits, distributed by the American Association of Retired Persons.
"Follow-up for vital status was performed by annual linkage of the cohort to the Social Security Administration Death Master File, and cause of death information was provided by follow-up searches of the National Death Index," explained study authors Rashmi Sinha, Amanda J. Cross, Barry I. Graubard, Michael F. Leitzmann, and Arthur Schatzkin.
The authors corrected the findings to exclude the effects of smoking. The study examined many other potential variables affecting mortality, but none of the others appeared to have statistical significance approaching that of meat consumption--especially red and processed meat intake.
There were 47,976 male deaths and 23,276 female deaths among the study cohort of 322,263 men and 223,390 women.
"Red and processed meat intakes were associated with modest increases in total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular disease mortality," Sinha et al found, as compared to the norms of the study group.
But the differences between the people who ate the most red and processed meat and those who ate the least were much greater. The 20% of men who ate the most red meat were 35% more likely to likely to die than the 20% who ate the least. The 20% of women who ate the most red meat were 43% more likely to likely to die than the 20% who ate the least. The differentials for the highest and lowest consumption of processed meat were 20% for men, 31% for women.
"Eleven percent of deaths in men and 16% of deaths in women could be prevented if people decreased their red meat consumption to the level of intake in the first quintile," the study authors determined.
"Red meat intake was calculated using the frequency of consumption and portion size information of all types of beef and pork," said the study, "and included bacon, beef, cold cuts, ham, hamburger, hotdogs, liver, pork, sausage, steak, and meats in foods such as pizza, chili, lasagna, and stew. Processed meat included bacon, red meat sausage, poultry sausage, luncheon meats, cold cuts, ham, regular hotdogs, and low-fat hotdogs made from poultry."
"There are various mechanisms by which meat may be related to mortality," Sinha et al explained. "In relation to cancer, meat is a source of several multisite carcinogensŠIron in red meat may increase oxidative damage and increase the formation of N-nitroso compounds. Furthermore, meat is a major source of saturated fat, which has been positively associated with breast and colorectal cancerŠElevated blood pressure has been shown to be positively associated with higher intakes of red and processed meat."

White meat

"It would be better to shift from red meat to white meat such as chicken and fish," Harvard School of Public Health nutrition scientist Walter Willet told Rob Stein of the Washington Post, "which if anything is associated with lower mortality."  Similar comments from others were widely echoed.
But that is not what the study found. Mortality among the 20% of the study cohort who ate the most poultry and fish was slightly lower than among those who ate the least, but the participants who ate the most poultry and fish tended to eat the least red meat. "In general, those in the highest quintile of red meat intake tended to consume a slightly lower amount of white meat but a higher amount of processed meat compared with those in the lowest quintile," the study reported.
"From Table 1 of the paper," commented Burnham Institute for Medical Research biochemist Shi Huang in a posting to Med Page Today, "it is shown that the group with the highest red meat intake consumed 119 grams [of all forms of meat] per kilogram of caloric intake. The data of total amount of all meat [consumed] for the group with the highest white meat intake is not shown, but my estimate based on the reported data for this group is 69 grams per kilogram of caloric intake. So, it seems that people who mostly eat white meat consumed [about half as much meat of all types] than people who eat red meat. The people with the highest intake of white meat have a lower risk of death than those with lowest intake, as reported. But those with low intake of white meat actually consume more red meat and total meat in general. The bottom line," Huang concluded, is that "the data overall shows a link between total amount of meat and mortality. The color of meat is irrelevant."
The study did not separately investigate mortality among vegetarians, who in the middle-aged and elderly age brackets would be only about 2% of the U.S. population.
Editorialized Barry M. Popkin, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in the same edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine that published the Sinha et al findings, "We are seeing the confluence of growing constraints on water, energy and food supplies combined with the rapid shift toward greater consumption of all animal source foodsŠThe need is for a major reduction in total meat intake, an even larger reduction in processed meat and other highly processed and salted animal source food products, and a reduction in total saturated fat."
A recent study by agricultural economists James Mintert, Ted Schroeder, and Glynn Tonsor found that the number of medical journal articles linking dietary fat to cholesterol and heart disease nearly quadrupled from 1982 to 2004, coinciding with a 9% decline in U.S. beef consumption.

U.S. Army bans pit bulls & Rottweilers

WASHINGTON D.C.--U.S. Army commanders at more than 40 bases around the world are moving to implement a new "Pet Policy for Privatized Housing Under the Army's Residential Communities Initiative Privatization Program," which prohibits pit bull terriers, Rottweilers, Doberman pinschers, chows, and wolf hybrids.
Issued as an order on January 5, 2009, the new Army policy also limits personnel living in base housing to keeping no more than two dogs or cats, forbids keeping exotic pets and farm animals, requires all pets to be microchipped for identification, and forbids keeping pets "tied or staked outside the home or any building."
The order further prohibits keeping "Any other dog who demonstrates a propensity for dominance or aggressive behavior," indicated by "Unprovoked barking, growling or snarling at people approaching the animal, aggressively running along fence lines when people are present, biting or scratching people," or "escaping confinement or restriction to chase people."
Additional provisions of order stipulate that "Voice command is not an acceptable means of control," that "Pets are not allowed in playgrounds or tot lots at any time," and that pet keepers in military housing must "Maintain appropriate, humane care of pets (e.g. food, water, shelter from extreme weather, etc.)."
The Army became the first branch of the U.S. armed services to adopt breed-specific legislation after at least six dog attack fatalities in five years and one near-fatal mauling either occurred in military housing or involved personnel who had lived in military housing. Of the nine dogs involved, five were pit bulls, two were Rotttweilers, and two were Siberian huskies, not included in the Army order.
Most recently, in May 2008, a visitor's pit bull killed a three-year-old boy at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The attack came as the U.S. Marine Corps faced a $5 million lawsuit over a 2005 attack by a Rottweiler at Camp Lejeune that cost a child an ear.
On November 6, 2007 an 11-year-old boy who had been mauled by a pit bull terrier died at the Carl Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, near Killeen, Texas. Believed to have had the least restrictive dog policy of any major Army installation, having only prohibited possession of wolf hybrids, coyotes, and jackals, Fort Hood banned pit bulls in November 2008, but allowed pit bulls who were registered at the Fort Hood Veterinary Clinic before July 10, 2008 to remain on base.
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lydon, then the Fort Hood provost marshal, told Amanda Kim Stairrett of the Killeen Daily Herald that over the preceding six years, 68% of the dogs who were declared dangerous after biting someone on base had been pit bulls and 8% were Rottweilers.
A July 2007 fatal attack on an 11-month-old boy by two Siberian huskies in a home near Cookeville, Tennessee, involved two families who met while living in U.S. Marine Corps housing. The father of the victim was a U.S. Marine Corps recruiter, who was still on active duty, but the attack appears to have occurred on private property.
Two pit bulls in May 2007 killed a three-year-old boy in base housing at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia.
A Rottweiler in February 2006 fatally mauled the four-year-old son of a woman who was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base, near Ulm, Montana. The victim and his mother were staying with relatives.
In May 2005 a pit bull terrier whose family acquired him while living in military housing in Texas killed a two-year-old girl in Huntington, West Virginia.
About 950,000 military personnel and more than two million wives and children of military personnel occupy military housing. The rate of fatal dog attacks among the children of military personnel living on base appears to be approximately five times the background level of fatal attacks for the U.S. as a whole.
Best Friends Animal Society attorney Ledy Van Kavage and radio columnist Steve Dale of WGB radio in Chicago denounced the breed-specific aspect of the new Army policy on the air on February 15.
DogsBite.org founder Colleen Linn pointed out, however, that the U.S. Army policy chiefly consolidates and makes uniform the policies that were already in effect at many bases. "The U.S. Army enacted the new policy to protect base housing citizens from serious attacks and to prevent pet owners from encountering uneven policies when moving between installations," Linn said. "DogsBite.org expresses great gratitude to the U.S. Army."
Researching the Army order, Linn learned that all 10 bases in the U.S. Air Force Space Command bar pit bulls and Rottweilers from base housing.
Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, and McGuire Air Force in New Jersey likewise prohibit pit bulls and Rottweilers. Ellsworth and McGuire additionally name Dobermas, and Kirtland names wolf hybrids.
Pit bulls are also banned from housing at the U.S. Marine Corps bases in Quantico, Virginia, and Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
The ANIMAL PEOPLE log of dog attack fatalities and maimings occurring in the U.S. and Canada since September 1982 shows that breeds banned by the U.S. Army policy have committed 83% of the incidents qualifying for listing through March 22, 2009, and have caused 75% of the fatalities.
Pit bulls have been involved in 1,332 of the 2,560 incidents and 133 of the 320 fatalities. Rottweilers have been involved in 435 incidents and 66 fatalities. Wolf hybrids have been involved in 80 incidents, producing 19 fatalities. Pit bull mixes, exclusive of mixes with other fighting breeds, have been involved in 80 incidents, resulting in seven fatalities. Chows have been involved in 52 incidents, resulting in seven fatalities.
Dobermans have been involved in only 12 incidents and four fatalities.

Russia halts seal hunt

MOSCOW, OTTAWA--Russian minister of natural resources Yury Trutnyev on March 11, 2009 told the world that Russia has halted hunting seals under one year old on the frozen White Sea.
"This bloody hunting is from now on banned in our country, as in most developed countries," Trutnyev told media.
Trutnyev described the ban as "an important measure to preserve Russian biodiversity." The recent White Sea quota of about 35,000 seals per year was about a tenth the size of recent Atlantic Canadian sealing quotas, but amounted to a third of the White Sea seal population. The White Sea seal herd has reportedly declined by 95% since it was first surveyed in 1928. However, the first herd estimate, produced in the early years of the Communist era to assess the potential for economic expolitation, may have been grossly exaggerated.
Marine biologist Masha Vorontsova, a longtime critic of the White Sea seal hunt, called the ban "a fantastic achievement." Vorontsova heads Moscow office of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Momentum toward the ban built, recalled a written statement from the Moscow-based animal rights group VITA, after VITA members in March 2008 took a delegation of Russian celebrities to witness the annual seal pup massacre.
"Countless TV clips that followed the event led to the Russian ban," said VITA. Early indications of an eventual positive response from the Kremlin included an award presented to VITA by the Russian ministry of natural resources for producing the "Best Ecological Project of 2008."
Continued VITA, "On January 16, 2009," nearly two months before Trutnyev's announcement, "the Federal Agency for Fisheries issued an order banning the slaughter. This decision was confirmed by Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin."
The Russian state newspaper Rossisskaya Gazeta reported that Putin on February 26, 2009 told a cabinet meeting that he personally considers seal hunting a "bloody industry" that "clearly should have been banned long ago."

European Parliament

Trutnyev disclosed the end of the White Sea seal hunt a week after the European Parliament's internal market and consumer protection committee on March 2, 2009 voted 25-7 to prohibit the import of seal products into the 27 European Union member nations. The bill exempts seal products made "for cultural, educational or ceremonial purposes" by the Inuit people of northern Canada.
"The full European Parliament is to vote on the ban at a April 1 plenary session in Brussels. The measure also has to be approved by EU governments before it can be implemented," explained Oliver Moore of the Toronto Globe & Mail.
"I'm very disappointed that elected officials in Europe are going against World Trade Organization rulings and legal opinions," Rob Cahill of the Canadian Fur Institute told media.
Cahill hinted that Canada will appeal to the WTO to try to overturn a European Union ban on seal pelts, if the ban is adopted.
As if in defiance of world opinion, Canadian fisheries minister Gail Shea on March 21, 2009 increased the 2009 Atlantic Canada sealing quota to 338,200, 55,000 more than in 2008, but 27,000 fewer than the 365,000 seals who were killed in 2004, the highest total of the past half century.
Putin's condemnation of sealing came as both an indirect endorsement of the proposed European Union legislation, and a slap at Canada.
"The words of a man often accused of using military force to quash dissent in areas of Russia with separatist leanings clearly packed a punch--and they have seemingly left Canada even more isolated," wrote Michael McKiernan of the Toronto-based National Post. "Although Putin has yet to indicate whether his sympathies extend far enough to copy the European Union approach and ban imports, his stance has pushed Canada further into the proverbial corner."
"Anti-sealing advocates dispute the size of the Russian market for Canadian seal pelts, but a Newfoundland processor said in 2007 that the country was the leading customer for his products, with China not far behind," wrote Moore of the Globe & Mail.
VITA noted that "The ban applies only to baby seals. Now, on the eve of the hunting season for greycoats, young animals whose coats are no longer white, VITA and other animal protection activists are determined to obtain a ban on the commercial killing of all young seals. With this aim, VITA and the Living Nature Club on March 10, 2009 organized a flight for journalists to the White Sea.
"We want the journalists to see for themselves that seal watching is a unique kind of tourism which is already successful and in terms of jobs is an effective alternative to the two-week slaughter," explained VITA coordinator Alexey Skrobanskiy of Arkhangels, the major seaport on the White Sea.
Added VITA president Irina Novozhilova, "We are delighted with the government ban; it is an unprecedented victory for public opinion. The first step has now been taken. However, we want to point out to the government that the commercial slaughter of greycoats is of absolutely no use as a way of ensuring an income for local residents; indeed, not only is it unethical, it is also unprofitable."
Explained the VITA written statement, "The commercial slaughter of seals in the White Sea is carried out nowadays by Norwegian companies with the financial backing of Norwegian investors. The local Russian workers are paid a pittance. It seems to us that Russia has better things to do than supply the people of Norway with employment and Norwegian businessmen with profits."

Canadian motion

Unable to gain a Parliamentary majority without significant support from Atlantic Canada, all major Canadian political parties have strongly backed the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt since it was revived after a 10-year suspension in 1994.
Noting growing global opposition to the seal hunt, however, Canadian Senator Mac Harb on March 3, 2009 broke ranks with his own Liberal Party to introduce a private member's bill to halt sealing. The bill quickly died from lack of a second.
"There was silence. Total silence! I was amazed that not one of my colleagues, from any one of the political parties, would even want to debate the issue," Harb told A.G. Sulzberger of The New York Times.
But the Harb bill had political fallout. On March 5, 2009, the ruling Conservative Party conceded that it had improperly used federal funding to distribute three press releases, two of them from fisheries minister Gail Shea, attacking an alleged Liberal "hidden agenda" against the seal hunt.
World Society for the Protection of Animals board president Dominic Bellemare helped to form the Conservative Party via merger of two older parties in 2003, and ran unsuccessfully for Parliament as a Conserv-ative in 2008. However, while WSPA officially opposes the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt, Bellemare has apparently never opposed it on the public record, and has refused to say whether he supports or opposes it in response to questions from ANIMAL PEOPLE.

World response

Animal Rights Activist Network founder John Carmody, of Limerick, Ireland, on March 17, 2009 hoped to have ended waffling by Irish environment minister John Gormley on the proposed European Union sealing ban. "The Irish government have today signaled their support for a total E.U. trade ban on seal products, with no loopholes and no exemptions," e-mailed Carmody, after orchestrating a week-long campaign of e-mails, letters, and calls asking Gormley to commit to supporting the European Union anti-sealing bill as written.
Approximately 100 sealing opponents organized by the Spanish animal rights group Equanimal on March 15, 2009 held a nude and nearly nude protest in central Madrid to rally support for the proposed E.U. seal product import ban.
Other anti-sealing demonstrations were held as far away as Multan, Pakistan, reported Animal Save Movement Pakistan president Khalid Qureshi.
Anticipating that the European Union bill will pass, and that the importance of China as the last remaining major purchaser of Canadian seal pelts will increase, the Hong Kong SPCA and Humane Society International in March 2009 sent actress and singer Karen Mok Man-wai to witness the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt.
This predictably infuriated the Hong Kong Fur Federation, reported Hazel Parry of the South China Morning Post.
John F. Robins, campaign consultant for the Scottish organization Animal Concern, meanwhile sought to draw attention to seal hunting along the coast of Scotland.
"As many as 5,000 seals are legally killed every year by Scottish aquacultural and fishery interests," said Robins, seeking to add language to a pending omnibus Marine Bill that would prohibit killing seals in Scotland and Scottish waters.
"The Scottish Government wants to use the new Marine Bill to tinker with the situation and bring in a few rules regarding the shooting of seals," Robins explained. "We only require one rule and that is to make it illegal to shoot seals. The Scottish seal slaughter shames our nation and must be stopped."

Wolves will be hunted

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Gray wolves may soon be legally hunted in several of the Lower 48 states of the U.S., for the first time in more than 80 years--but whether that means more wolves will be killed than the 300-plus dispatched by USDA Wildlife Services in 2008 for menacing livestock is anyone's guess.
Among the restored populations of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, together including about 1,650 wolves, Wildlife Services in 2008 killed 264 wolves, more than one wolf in six, exterminating 21 entire packs as well as alleged rogue individuals.
Wildlife Services, other agencies, and farmers protecting livestock also killed 45 wolves in Wisconsin, plus some in Michigan and Minnesota.
Ranchers, blaming wolves for the confirmed loss of 601 cattle, sheep, llamas, and guard dogs in 2008, and sport hunters who allege that wolves have reduced the numbers of elk and deer, would like to kill even more wolves. Some elected officials in the northern Rockies would openly prefer to hunt wolves back to regional extirpation.
The 2008-2009 winter wolf count found 846 wolves in Idaho, 497 in Montana, and 302 in Wyoming.
"I'm prepared to bid for that first ticket to shoot a wolf myself," said Idaho governor C.L. "Butch" Otter on March 6, 2009.
Otter howled like a wolf for reporters after U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that the Barack Obama presidential administration will abide by the January 14, 2009 decision of the George W. Bush administration to remove gray wolves from the U.S. endangered species list.
The announcement came just five days before Bush left office. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel had suspended the delisting for review.
Otter also declared his interest in hunting wolves after the Bush administration floated the delisting proposal in January 2007, and has pushed an Idaho wolf management plan that will allow hunters to kill as many as 320 wolves in the first wolf season. The plan requires Idaho to maintain only 15 of the present 39 breeding pairs of wolves, distributed among 88 packs. But whether recreational hunters are able to kill wolves in anything like the numbers killed by helicopter-flying Wildlife Services personnel remains to be seen.
The wolf delisting was delayed for nearly two years because the Wyoming governor Dave Freudenthal, the Wyoming legislature, and the Wyoming wildlife and agriculture agencies sought to confine wolves to the northwestern part of the state with a "predator" designation that would have allowed anyone to kill wolves anywhere else at any time.
Eventually the Interior Department delinked Wyoming from all other Lower 48 states with wolf populations. Because Wyoming officials continue to resist adopting a wolf management plan that allows wolves to expand their range and maintain a viable population, wolves remain federally endangered in Wyoming.
Under the terms of delisting, states are allowed to establish wolf hunting seasons and quotas. But state wildlife agencies may not permit wolves to be hunted to renewed endangerment. If Idaho hunters, for example, killed the full state quota of 320 wolves this year, there might be no wolf hunting season, or a severely restricted wolf season, in 2010.
Wildlife Services will continue to kill wolves, along with other livestock predators, as contracted by state agencies, but wolves killed by Wildlife Services count against the numbers killed by sport hunters. If Wildlife Services kills more wolves than anticipated in future management plans, the state quotas must be cut back.
Wildlife Services spent nearly $1 million to kill wolves in the northern Rockies in 2008, about a fourth of total federal expenditure on regional wolf management. Most of the cost of wolf management will now pass to state agencies.

Wolves vs. elk

Governor Otter and other Idaho hunters hope that killing wolves will help to rebuild the elk population in the Lolo elk management zone. This region, described by Associated Press writer Todd Dvorak as "a vast stretch that incorporates the Lochsa and North Fork of the Clearwater River drainages," twenty years ago supported as many as 16,000 elk.
"In the last two decades," Dvorak summarized on March 9, 2009, "that herd has diminished to a little more than 3,000 elk due to habitat changes, hunting, and depredation from bear, mountain lions, and wolves."
Elsewhere, Dvorak reported, "Wildlife managers have met or exceeded the National Elk Refuge population objective in Wyoming for nine consecutive years. Of the seven elk hunting units overlapped by Wyoming's trophy game area, where wolves could be hunted only with a license during a regulated season," according to the present state plan, "only two are below herd objectives, and one of these is by 48 animals while the other is about 500 below desired levels."
In Montana, "The northern Yellowstone elk herd is larger than last year, according to a recent aerial survey," wrote Brett French of the Billings Gazette, "but the number of calves remains one-half to one-third of what wildlife managers would like to see. Predation of elk calves by grizzly bears and wolves is blamed for the lower calf numbers. But the overall drop in elk numbers has also been attributed to extended drought and hunter harvests."
The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks "decreased the number of antlerless elk permits from 1,102 in 2005 to 100 per season between 2006 and 2009," explained French, "to increase the number of breeding-age cow elk.
"Elk numbers in the northern herd have dropped 60% from all-time highs," since the 1995 wolf reintroduction, French wrote, "but wolf numbers in Yellowstone are down 40% from 2008, dropping from 94 to 56 wolves in the northern range. The wolf decline has been blamed on disease and lethal fights between packs battling over limited resources."
Wolves vs. coyotes
Whatever influence wolves have had on elk, coyotes have probably taken proportionately the biggest hit from wolf reintroduction of any species--both from wolves and from hunters, ranchers, and USDA Wildlife Services.
"Long hated and persecuted for resembling wolves, coyotes again figure to pay the price for their bigger cousins as wolves, their own image rehabilitated, are reintroduced to fragments of their former habitat," ANIMAL PEOPLE predicted in October 1994. "The strongest argument wolf defenders have for reintroduction, they have found, is not that wild wolves have never verifiably attacked a human being within the U.S., nor that they are the lovable creatures whose family life Farley Mowat recorded in Never Cry Wolf! Rather, it's that a wolf will kill a coyote if he sees it."
Within months of release in Yellowstone National Park, wolves drove coyotes to the fringes of the Lamar Valley, a former coyote stronghold. As wolves spread out of Yellowstone into surrounding states, coyote numbers initially thinned wherever wolf packs became established.
Irate about wolf predation on livestock and elk, ranchers and hunters said little about the parallel decline in coyote predation. But USDA Wildlife Services records tell the story--especially in Wyoming. Calls about alleged problem coyotes and lethal responses fell so steeply that after killing 5,302 coyotes in Wyoming in 1994, the seventh highest state total, Wildlife Services killed just 2,446 in 1997, eleventh among the states.
By November 1997, reported Wildlife Conservation Society researcher Kim Murray Berger and USDA scientist Eric Gese, the Yellowstone National Park coyote population had fallen 40% since the wolf reintroduction. The coyote population of Grand Teton National Park, to the south, fell 33%.
This restored the proportions of predators and prey to those of the 19th century, before wolves were extirpated, Berger and Gese believed. The return of wolves introduced significant predation of elk and bison, for the first time in more than a century, but because coyotes learn to avoid wolves, while wolves mostly hunt larger prey, predation on sheep, deer, and pronghorn had declined, Berger and Gese found.
Berger told Associated Press that unpublished data suggested the pronghorn population had increased by 6% per year in areas where wolves replaced coyotes.
Wolf restoration unexpectedly benefitted beaver, found Oregon State University ecologists William Ripple and Robert Beschta. The coyote population declined by half in the portions of the Yellowstone region accessible to beaver, while the beaver population increased by 900%. Apparently coyotes hit dispersing young beavers much harder than anyone realized. Wolves tend to leave beavers alone, as they are not big enough to feed a pack.
As beaver create habitat for many other species, including muskrats, otter, fish and birds, wolf recovery boosted biodiversity throughout the northern Rockies.
But the political pendulum swung with the election of former U.S. President George W. Bush. The Bush administration placated rancher and hunter anger over the wolf reintroduction by boosting the USDA Wildlife Services coyote toll in Wyoming to 7,857 in 2001, and kept it between 6,079 and 7,069 through 2006.
Then, while trying to woo Wyoming into adopting an acceptable wolf management plan, the Bush administration allocated $6 million more to coyote killing in Wyoming in 2007 and 2008. The USDA Wildlife Services staff in Wyoming was increased from 20 to 45. The coyote toll jumped to 10,914 in 2007. Rod Krischke, Wildlife Services program director for Wyoming, predicted in August 2008 that the 2008 toll would be higher, once the numbers are tallied.
Killing coyotes in steeply increased volume is possible in Wyoming, despite the wolf reintroduction, for two reasons. The first is that wolves still have a strong presence only in the northwest part of Wyoming, near Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. The second is that killing coyotes, unlike killing wolves, tends to accelerate their rates of reproduction and dispersal.
Coyotes came to be on the Wildlife Services hit list in the first place because wolves were extirpated from most of the Lower 48. The U.S. Forest Service initiated wolf "control" in 1905, in partnership with the U.S. Biological Survey. Formed in 1884 as the Office of Economic Ornithology and Biology, the latter agency 20 years later faced termination by Congress unless it could find a justification for its continued existence. By 1915, the Biological Survey had an annual wolf-killing budget of $125,000. Two years later, as political enthusiasm for wolf eradication grew, the budget was up to $250,000, equivalent to perhaps $5 million today. The Biological Survey killed a high of 523 wolves in 1920, but could kill just 47 by 1927 and only nine a year later.
As wolves were exterminated, coyotes spread into their former range, in far greater numbers, and soon killed many times more domestic sheep and calves than wolves ever had. Congress in 1931 formed the department of Animal Damage Control with a mandate to extirpate coyotes. The ADC killed as many as a quarter of a million coyotes per year at peak, but coyotes proved more resilient than wolves. Despite the killing, coyotes increased their numbers and range, reaching Maine by 1948.
Amid scoffing that "ADC" stood for Accelerated Distribution of Coyotes, studies begun in the mid-1950s discovered what had happened. A Texas study, confirmed in other states, found that intense hunting made more food available to surviving pregnant female coyotes, whose average litter size increased from four to as many as seven.
Along with the extermination of wolves, a vogue for fox fur collars throughout the 1930s and 1940s had opened up new habitat. As foxes were hunted and trapped out of the east, coyotes moved in, despite every effort of the ADC, and despite state after state introducing an open season on coyotes, often reinforced by bounties.
ADC became USDA Wildlife Services in 1997. The House of Representatives in June 1998 approved a budget cut that would have abolished Wildlife Services, but the agency budget was later more than doubled, and the agency mandate was expanded to include exterminating "invasive species" as well as wildlife threats to human economic interests.
A coalition self-described as "115 conservation, animal protection, ranching, and faith-based organizations from across the United States" on January 2, 2009 asked then newly appointed agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack to reform Wildlife Services so that it would no longer be essentially a government-managed extermination agency. Confirmed in the appointment on January 20, 2009, Vilsack in his first 60 days in office did not take any major actions involving Wildlife Services.
Coyotes briefly got a break from the beginnings of wolf recovery. A few wolves had either survived the ADC onslaught in Minnesota, or had recolonized the region from Canada. In 1970 some of the Minnesota wolves dispersed into Wisconsin. Allegedly mistaking the wolves for coyotes, hunters and ranchers shot many of them. In 1979 Wisconsin banned coyote hunting in counties known to have wolves--but lifted the ban in 1983 due to protests from deer hunters.
There are now about 3,000 wolves in Minnesota, 520 in Michigan, and 550 in Wisconsin. The current Minnesota state wolf conservation plan calls for a five-year moratorium after federal delisting before any legal wolf hunting might be authorized. Michigan also has no immediate plans to allow wolf hunting. But, pressured by the Wisconsin Conservation Congress and the Wisconsin Hunters Rights Coalition, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in August 2008 told the state Natural Resources Board that hunters could kill from 29 to 41 wolves per year without harming the population.
Known wolf mortality in Wisconsin in 2007 was 92, said Adrian Wydeven of the Wisconsin DNR, including 37 wolves killed by government personnel in response to predation, three shot by property owners to protect livestock or pets, and 28 who were hit by vehicles. --Merritt Clifton

Merritt Clifton
Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE
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