Archive for the 'Animal Rights' Category

Judge orders Bush admin. to make listing decision on polar bears

Published by
elophan
April 29, 2008 in Animal Rights, Extinction, Government, Newz and The Environment. 0 Comments

ANCHORAGE (AP) — A federal judge has ordered the Interior Department to decide within 16 days whether polar bears should be listed as a threatened species because of global warming.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken agreed with conservation groups that the department missed a Jan. 9 deadline for a decision. She rejected a government request for a further delay and ordered it to act by May 15.

“Defendants have been in violation of the law requiring them to publish the listing determination for nearly 120 days,” the judge, based in Oakland, wrote in a decision issued late Monday. “Other than the general complexity of finalizing the rule, Defendants offer no specific facts that would justify the delay, much less further delay.”

Allowing more time would violate the Endangered Species Act and congressional intent that time was of the essence in listing threatened species, Wilken wrote.

The ruling is a victory for conservation groups that claim the Bush administration has delayed a polar bear decision to avoid addressing global warming and to avoid roadblocks to development such as the transfer of offshore petroleum leases in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast to oil company bidders.

Summer sea ice shrank last year to a record low, about 1.65 million square miles in September, nearly 40% less ice than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000. Some climate models have predicted the Arctic will be free of summer sea ice by 2030. A U.S. Geological Survey study generated in response to the listing petition predicted polar bears in Alaska could be wiped out by 2050.

A decision on the proposed listing was due Jan. 9, but Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall said in January that a delay was needed to make sure it came in a form easily understood. He promised a decision within a month, but that deadline also passed and the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace sued in March. More…

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K-9 cop trainer fired for kicking dog wants his job back - Video

Published by
elophan
April 29, 2008 in Animal Rights, Law and Justice and Newz. 5 Comments

RALEIGH (WTVD) — Former Trooper Charles Jones, seen in a video kicking his K-9 partner, was fired for mistreating his dog named Ricoh.

At a hearing in Raleigh Monday, the trooper was trying to get his job back.

In a training video from last summer, the dog is seen hanging by its leash from a deck railing. But according to testimony, what got the former Highway Patrol Sergeant fired was leaving the dog hanging too long.

After seeing the video Highway Patrol Captain Ken Castelloe recommended Jones be fired.

“There is no training value in leaving the dog hanging,” Castelloe said.

Castelloe also told the judge that he knew Jones to be a good and respected trainer.

“I can understand what Charles was trying to do. He was trying to gain compliance from his dog,” Castelloe said. “I don’t believe Charles Jones would ever hurt that dog.”

Jones’ attorney said he believes his client was fired because the governor’s office feared the video would be released to the public amid adverse publicity about misdeeds by several other State Troopers. More…


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Orange County Deputies Under Investigation For Tasering Cat To Death

Published by
elophan
April 17, 2008 in Animal Rights, Law and Justice and Newz. 0 Comments

By Stuart Pfeifer, Christine Hanley and Christian Berthelsen, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

Concern about the conduct of deputies inside Orange County jails intensified Tuesday as the Sheriff’s Department investigated reports that deputies used a Taser stun weapon on a cat at Theo Lacy Jail.

A cat’s corpse was found on jail grounds.

The department was awaiting results of a necropsy to determine whether the cat found dead at Theo Lacy had been stunned with a Taser, sheriff’s spokesman John McDonald said. He declined to say how the department learned of the alleged abuse but said it was the subject of an internal investigation.

Animal abuse that causes death can result in felony criminal charges.

A week ago, grand jury transcripts showed that Theo Lacy deputies allowed inmates to use violence to enforce jail rules while they napped, watched television and played video games.

The district attorney is also investigating the April 1 death of inmate Jason Jesus Gomez, 35, who lost consciousness after deputies shocked him with a stun weapon during an altercation in his cell at the Intake Release Center in Santa Ana. Acting Sheriff Jack Anderson placed several employees on paid administrative leave after Gomez’s death.

Last week, the department suspended five other employees amid concerns raised by the special grand jury investigation into the October 2006 slaying of inmate John Derek Chamberlain at Theo Lacy. On Tuesday, a department spokesman confirmed that one deputy named in the transcripts had been fired.

Transcripts from the grand jury’s investigation into Chamberlain’s death showed that deputies at Theo Lacy allowed inmate “shot-callers” to enforce jail rules with beatings and then discouraged wounded inmates from seeking medical treatment. They watched movies, slept and read newspapers when they should have been watching inmates, according to testimony.

During the hour that a pack of inmates took turns beating, sodomizing and urinating on Chamberlain, one deputy watched the television show, “Cops” and exchanged 22 cellphone text messages with friends from a nearby glass-enclosed booth, the transcripts showed. More…

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New abuse detailed at slaughterhouse

Published by
elophan
April 17, 2008 in Animal Rights, Newz and Product Safety. 0 Comments

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - When an animal with untrimmed horns got stuck in a chute at a California cattle slaughterhouse, employees electrically prodded it repeatedly to get it to move, according to a congressional report on a case that led to the largest beef recall in U.S. history.

An undercover video by the Humane Society of the United States earlier this year already captured workers at Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. dragging crippled cattle with chains, shocking them with electric prods and shooting streams of water in their faces.

But the report by the House Oversight and Government Reform domestic policy subcommittee includes the incident in the chute, which was not on the publicly released video. The subcommittee will discuss the report, and how to achieve greater transparency in the meat industry, at a hearing Thursday.

The report is based in part on an interview that congressional staffers did with the Humane Society investigator who shot the video. He told them that the manager at the plant encouraged the practice he saw in the chute, despite the animal’s bellows.

Other findings in the report, based on the investigator’s comments:

- Prior to an audit of the plant, management told staffers not to engage in inhumane handling in front of inspectors.

- Employees didn’t fear getting caught committing handling abuses because inspectors never showed up unannounced.

Messages left with Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. President Steve Mendell and his attorney, Asa Hutchinson, were not immediately returned. More…

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Bush official fails to show for polar bear hearing

Published by
elophan
April 3, 2008 in Animal Rights, Extinction, Newz, The Congress and The Environment. 0 Comments

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barbara Boxer held a hearing Wednesday to find out why the Bush administration has put off deciding whether to list Alaska’s polar bears as a threatened species. But her star witness, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, didn’t show.

“This listing is months overdue, in violation of the Endangered Species Act,” the California Democrat said at the hearing of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee.

The deadline for a decision was Jan. 9. Conservation groups petitioned to list polar bears as threatened more than three years ago because their habitat, sea ice, is shrinking from global warming.

In a letter to Boxer, Kempthorne said he “respectfully” declined her invitation to appear at the hearing, since he is a named defendant in a lawsuit over the polar bear listing filed by an environmental group.

Boxer said she was especially troubled because the administration did not hesitate to open a major bear habitat to oil leases. The Interior Department opened a large area of the Chukchi Sea to oil and gas leases in early February, despite sharp criticism from environmentalists who note that one-fifth of the Arctic’s polar bears depend on sea ice in their hunt for food.

“There’s a rush to drill, and no rush to list” polar bears as threatened, Boxer said.

Witnesses who did make it to the hearing said that given current projections on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and oil and natural gas leasing rights, the polar bear population could be just two-thirds of today’s numbers by 2050. And that does not account for any possible disasters in the area of their melting habitat. More…

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Gray Wolf Hunts Planned After De-Listing

Published by
Gene Shinai
April 1, 2008 in Animal Rights, Law and Justice, Newz, State/Local Government and The Environment. 0 Comments

From Live Science:

By Jessie Bonner, The Associated Press

posted: 29 March 2008 01:59 pm ET

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Good news for gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains: They no longer need federal protection. The bad news for the animals? Plans are already in the works to hunt them.

Federal Endangered Species Act protection of the wolves was lifted Friday in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, giving those states management of the estimated 1,500 gray wolves in the region.

Even though environmentalists plan to sue the federal government next month to restore wolf protections, hunts are already being scheduled by state wildlife agencies to reduce the wolf population to between 900 and 1,250.

Idaho hunters will be allowed to kill between 100-300 of the animals this fall under a plan approved by the Idaho Fish and Game Commission. The hunts are partly in response to increasing numbers of livestock being killed as the predators’ population has grown.

“We manage big game for a living, we’re good at it,” said Steve Nadeau, who oversees large carnivores for the Idaho Fish and Game Department. “The world is watching and we know it.”

Fish and Game estimates Idaho now has 800 gray wolves. Should the number of breeding pairs in Idaho fall below a target number, the animals could be brought back under federal protection.

After a series of public shouting matches between wolf advocates and opponents, comments from Idaho Department Fish and Game officials on Friday seemed largely designed to reassure both ends of the debate.

Cal Groen, director of the department, told reporters that his agency has already proven its ability to recover and maintain Idaho wolf populations. “We’ve exceeded all the goals the federal government set,” Groen said.

But Doug Honnold, a managing attorney for the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice, disagrees. Honnold said the wolf populations won’t be fully recovered in Idaho and the northern Rockies until the animals number between 2,000 and 3,000.

Article Continues @ Sourced Site.

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Marine Throws Puppy Over A Cliff - Viewer Warning

Published by
elophan
March 4, 2008 in Animal Rights, Military and Newz. 51 Comments

From ABC News: The United States Marine Corps is investigating one of its own after a disturbing video appeared on YouTube showing a Marine apparently throwing a puppy off a cliff in Iraq.

Marine spokesman Maj. Chris Perrine said the soldier in the video was believed to be based in Hawaii. Read the rest of the ABC report here.

*Note: There is much confusion as to where this Marine is stationed, and where this event actually took place. At any rate, YouTube has disabled ALL links to this video. The video featured on this site is from LiveNews.com.au in Australia, which you can find here. Please be aware that the video contains disturbing footage. Viewer discretion is advised. -Sue


If that doesn’t play, try QuickTime.


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Ag. Sec. is, of course, blaming charity for scale of beef recall

Published by
elophan
February 22, 2008 in Animal Rights, Government and Newz. 5 Comments

From Paul Courson, CNN

ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) — The Humane Society of the United States is partly responsible for the magnitude of the largest beef recall in the nation’s history, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said Thursday.

The Agriculture Department Sunday ordered the recall of 143 million pounds of beef that came from a California processing plant.

Animals at the site were videotaped falling down and being hoisted by forklift to get them to slaughter.

The tape is thought to have been made in October.

“For four months they sat on that information,” Schafer said, referring to the video, which prompted the USDA to withdraw its inspectors and close the facility.

The Humane Society posted the video in late January and said it was part of the group’s undercover investigation of conditions at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Company of Chino, California.

Schafer, expressing concern Thursday the group failed to immediately tell his agency about the footage, said they “sat on four months of production that went out into the marketplace that’s now being recalled.”

Humane Society president Wayne Pacelle said any delay in releasing the video was caused by a request from a California district attorney’s office that has since filed charges against two men who worked at the plant.

Pacelle said his group went to local authorities because “we have seen the USDA time and time again not take action.”

But San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos was slow to respond and the Humane Society then decided to post the video to “goad” authorities into taking action, Pacelle said.

“Our food safety system should not have to depend on a non-government organization to unearth violations of the law,” he said.

The newly appointed agriculture secretary, in a briefing with reporters after remarks at a farm conference, declined to list additional retail outlets that may have bought and distributed the recalled meat products, some of which went to public school systems across the country.

Schafer denied there is a food safety hazard with the recall. He said “one cow that we know of went down just before moving into the gate, and we were supposed to be notified and were not.”

A congressional panel on food safety plans hearings next month on the beef recall and will have questions about inspections and the level of voluntary compliance with rules on animal processing. More…

Hey Schafer, you gotta be kidding! Blaming the Humane Society?? Isn’t that like blaming the store clerk who sells an alcoholic alcohol, and then that person dies of alcohol poisoning?? If you and the administration you work for weren’t so dead set on tying the hands of whistle-blowers, we probably would have known about this sooner. You make me sick! -Sue

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Slaughterhouse abusers get 143 million pounds of their beef recalled

Published by
elophan
February 17, 2008 in Animal Rights, Health, Newz and Product Safety. 0 Comments

By GREG RISLING, The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday recalled 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a California slaughterhouse, the subject of an animal-abuse investigation, that provided meat to school lunch programs.

Officials said it was the largest beef recall in the United States, surpassing a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats. No illnesses have been linked to the newly recalled meat, and officials said the health threat was likely small.

The recall will affect beef products dating to Feb. 1, 2006, that came from Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., the federal agency said.

Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer said his department has evidence that Westland did not routinely contact its veterinarian when cattle became non-ambulatory after passing inspection, violating health regulations.

“Because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection, Food Safety and Inspection Service has determined them to be unfit for human food and the company is conducting a recall,” Schafer said in a statement.

A phone message left for Westland president Steve Mendell was not immediately returned.

Federal officials suspended operations at Westland/Hallmark after an undercover Humane Society video surfaced showing crippled and sick animals being shoved with forklifts.

Two former employees were charged Friday. Five felony counts of animal cruelty and three misdemeanors were filed against a pen manager. Three misdemeanor counts — illegal movement of a non-ambulatory animal — were filed against an employee who worked under that manager. Both were fired.

Authorities said the video showed workers kicking, shocking and otherwise abusing “downer” animals that were apparently too sick or injured to walk into the slaughterhouse. Some animals had water forced down their throats, San Bernardino County prosecutor Michael Ramos said.

No charges have been filed against Westland, but an investigation by federal authorities continues.

Officials estimate that about 37 million pounds of the recalled beef went to school programs, but they believe most of the meat probably has already been eaten.

Most of the beef was sent to distribution centers in bulk packages. The USDA said it will work with distributors to determine how much meat remains.

Federal regulations call for keeping downed cattle out of the food supply because they may pose a higher risk of contamination from E. coli, salmonella or mad cow disease because they typically wallow in feces and their immune systems are often weak.

About 150 school districts around the nation have stopped using ground beef from Hallmark Meat Packing Co., which is associated with Westland. Two fast-food chains, Jack-In-the-Box and In-N-Out, said they would not use beef from Westland/Hallmark.

Federal lawmakers on Thursday had called for the Government Accountability Office to investigate the safety of meat in the National School Lunch Program.

Upon learning about the recall, some legislators criticized the USDA, saying the federal agency should conduct more thorough inspections to ensure tainted beef doesn’t get to the public.

“Today marks the largest beef recall in U.S. history, and it involves the national school lunch program and other federal food and nutrition programs,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. “This begs the question: how much longer will we continue to test our luck with weak enforcement of federal food safety regulations?” More…

Good! I hope it sends you into bankruptcy. -Sue

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Three companies indicted over contaminated pet food

Published by
elophan
February 6, 2008 in Animal Rights, Law and Justice, Newz and Product Safety. 0 Comments

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Two Chinese businesses and a U.S. company were indicted Wednesday in the tainted pet food incidents that killed dozens of animals last year and raised worries about products made in China.

Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., Suzhou Textiles, Silk, Light Industrial Products, Arts and Crafts I/E Co., and Las Vegas-based ChemNutra Inc. were charged in two separate but related indictments. The U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas City said the tainted food led to the death and serious illness of pets in the U.S. last year.

One of the indictments charges Xuzhou Anying Biologic, located in China’s Jiangsu Province, and Suzhou Textiles, in Suzhou, China, with 13 counts of introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce and 13 counts of introduction of misbranded food into interstate commerce.

ChemNutra and company owners Sally Quing Miller, a Chinese national, and her husband, Stephen S. Miller were charged with 13 counts of introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce, 13 counts of introduction of misbranded food into interstate commerce and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The indictments allege that Suzhou Textiles, an export broker, mislabeled 800 metric tons of wheat gluten tainted with the toxic chemical melamine to avoid inspection in China. Xuzhou then did not properly declare the contaminated product it shipped to the U.S. as a material to be used in food, the indictment says.

It also says the shipment was falsely declared to the Chinese government in a way that would avoid a mandatory inspection of the company’s plants.

According to the indictment, ChemNutra picked up the melamine-tainted product at a port of entry in Kansas City, then sold it to makers of various brands of pet foods. The indictment alleges that the melamine was added to make the gluten meet the required standard for protein content specified in the contract between Suzhou and ChemNutra. More…

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