Animals 24-7

News & perspective for the humane community

Walls, boar purges, & no-man’s-land fail to stop African swine fever

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Wild boar to blame for only 1% of outbreaks, Chinese learn             PARIS,  France––Donald Trump is not the only world leader who has yet to learn that walls don’t work––not if the goal is really to keep a foreign threat out,  as opposed to presenting the appearance to a political base of doing something drastic […]

Alleged pit bull starver Lueders & “rescue” horse thief Blackwood both busted

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Bully Breed Rescue president to be arraigned on February 13, 2019             BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut;  TUSKEGEE,  Alabama––Bully Breed Rescue president and alleged pit bull starver Heidi E. Lueders,  31,  can expect to face a howling mob of former donors,  volunteers,  sympathizers,  and miscellaneous other pit bull advocates when she appears for arraignment on February 13,  2019 […]

Federal shutdown helps disease race from gamecocks to egg barns

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Deadly exotic Newcastle outbreaks were all but ignored even before U.S. President Donald Trump furloughed most of the government personnel who could have responded             RIVERSIDE,  California–– Pleading for urgent attention to the recent spread of exotic Newcastle disease from southern California cockfighting flocks to commercial egg barns,  Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED) moderator […]

Are kosher & halal slaughter bans anti-Semitic & Islamophobic?

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Animal advocacy, religious teaching, & cultural insecurity collide in Belgium             BRUSSELS,  Belgium––Is Belgium moving rapidly to ban slaughter without pre-stunning out of concern for animals,  or are prohibitions of the traditional kosher and halal slaughter methods rooted in latent anti-Semitism and Islamophobia? Slaughter without pre-stunning becomes illegal Whatever the political truth is,  legal reality […]

U.S. & Canadian courts favor farmed animals five times in a week

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Jurisdictional issues guided four of the five decisions             WASHINGTON D.C.,  DES MOINES, Iowa,  TORONTO,  Ontario––A January 2019 blizzard of court decisions,  rendered in both the U.S. and Canada,  appear to have come down heavily in favor of improved animal welfare law enforcement on behalf of farmed animals. The effect of the U.S. decisions will […]

Last acts for animal circuses in Russia, India, New Jersey, & Hawaii

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Russian law protects Moscow State Circus monopoly             MOSCOW,  NEW DELHI––New legislation in Russia,  whose circuses have for almost a century been the most attended worldwide,  and in India,  where the circus tradition started,  appear to be among the final acts in several thousand years of traveling exhibitions of performing animals. The new Russian “Law […]

Timothy J. Walker, 73, exposed slaughterhouse cruelty

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by Gail Eisnitz, chief investigator, Humane Farming Association Timothy J. Walker,  73,  died on September 10,  2018 in Naples,  Florida,  a little known hero for animals sent to slaughter. After graduating from St. Mary’s High School in St. Louis,  Walker at age 17 joined his two first cousins in the U.S. Navy. Disaster relief Initially stationed […]

Did Louisiana cop Terry Yetman do the dog?  If so,  why?

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Bestiality bust just before Christmas went viral BOSSIER CITY,  Louisiana––The animal story most often read,  worldwide,  during the five days before Christmas 2018 had nothing to do,  so far as is known,  with reindeer,  and probably nothing to do with donkeys,  lambs,  or wise men on camels,  either,  though the full details are yet to […]

Frustrated fishers push to kill West Coast sea lions & seals

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Newly formed Pacific Balance Pinnipeds Society gives voice to anger             VANCOUVER,  B.C.;  PORTLAND,  Oregon––Removing a longtime irritant to the British Columbia wild salmon fishing industry––and a major economic competitor––the British Columbia government and First Nations have agreed to phase out 17 commercial salmon farms operated since 1987 by a company called Marine Harvest off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island.             The […]

Rather than kill pit bulls, Ontario SPCA quits busting dogfights

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Ontario SPCA also quits investigating cockfighting, farmed animal,  & horse-related cases             TORONTO, Ontario––Paid $5.75 million per year by the Ontario government to enforce animal-related legislation,  the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has unilaterally––and without public announcement or prior disclosure to the government––opted out of enforcing laws including the 2006 provincial ban […]