Just another nerd.
The Associated Press reports that Austria-based Four Paws Foundation recently paid several Bulgarian families small grants (the AP doesn’t report how small) in order to buy the freedom of 13 brown bears used in dancing bear street acts.
The bears will be relocated to a 12-hectare sanctuary on Mount Rila. The sanctuary cost $2.4 million and was created in collaboration with the Brigitte Bardot Foundation.
Source:
Animal rights activists buy freedom bears. Associated Press, June 7, 2004.
Today the Supreme Court of the United States did the right thing in three decisions finding that the government cannot indefinitely people designated as enemy combatants indefinitely without giving them an opportunity to challenge their detention. That includes enemy combatants held outside of the United States, such at Guantanamo Bay.
Source:
Supreme Court Affirms Detainees’ Right to Use Courts. David Stout, New York Times, June 28, 2004.
On June 15, seven animal rights activists accused of interstate stalking and other crimes related to their activities against Huntingdon Life Sciences were formally arraigned in a New Jersey court. The arraignment lasted only 10 minutes, but drew a few dozen protesters and provided some interesting information into what sort of evidence the government might have against the seven.
Kevin Kjonaas, Josh Harper, Lauran Gazzola, Jacob Conroy, Darius Fullmer, John McGee, and Andrew Stepanian all plead not guilty to all charges. U.S. District Judge Mary Cooper set a tentative trial date of August 17, though that will almost certainly be pushed back at the request of the defendants’ attorneys.
One of the interesting tidbits that came out during the arraignment was that federal authorities had wiretaped and videotaped at least some of the seven activists. According to the New Jersey Star-Ledger,
Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles McKenna, who is prosecuting the case, said the evidence includes phone wiretaps and surveillance that yielded 440 cassettes and 50 videotapes.
Some of the protesters were also of interest. According to the New Jersey Star Ledger’s account,
“I came here because this is a travesty of justice,” said David Lambon, 31, of Norristown, Pa. Lambon said he was an independent activist and a college student “between schools.”
That would have been accurate if only Lambon had said he was between arrests. Lambon was one of 11 activists arrested in Pennsylvania on May 29 at a demonstration outside the home of a pharmaceutical company executive.
Source:
Animal rights activists deny targeting lab. John P. Martin and Brian T. Murray, New Jersey Star-Ledger, June 16, 2004.
The Convention on International Trade in Endanger Species (CITES) this month rejected a request by Japan to remove minke whales from the CITES Appendix I list of threatened species in which international trade is prohibited.
Japan had filed an appeal with CITES seeking to have minke whales moved to the CITES Appending II, in which highly regulated trade of an endangered species is permitted.
In a news conference, CITES secretary general Willem Wijnstekers said that the proper place to take up whale-related issues was the International Whaling Commission and that as long as the IWC’s ban on commercial whaling remains in place, so will the Appendix I listing of whales.
Wijnstekers said,
As long as the International Whaling Commission maintains a zero-catch quota for commercial reasons in its management of minke whales, then the best way to coordinate that level of protection within CITES is by maintaining the species in appendix I.
Source:
CITES rejects Japanese call for partial end to ban on whale trade. Agence-France Presse, June 14, 2004.
In mid-June a couple dozen animal rights activists assembled outside of the home of Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn. The activists, affiliated with the Animal Defense League, were there to protest policies at Los Angeles city animal shelters.
Neighbors of individuals targeted by home protests are increasingly taking the offensive against such activists and the Hahn’s neighbors were no exception. About 20 minutes into the protest several of Hahn’s neighbors emerged from their homes to douse the activist with Super Soakers.
Animal Defense League activist Jerry Vlasak told the L.A. Daily News,
All we wanted to do was talk to him about the city’s policies and who he is going to appoint as general manager. We were demonstrating peacefully for about 20 minutes when some of his neighbors came out and got raucous.
They seemed intoxicated and three of them had Super Soakers and started pelting us with water. I thought we were fairly restrained.
Given Vlasak’s rhetoric, it was likely the neighbors with the water guns who were restrained. This is the same Vlasak, after all, who has openly suggested the value of emulating the anti-abortion wackos who assassinate abortion providers,
I donÂ’t think youÂ’d have to kill — assassinate — too many [researchers] Â… I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives.
Vlasak made that statement, by the way, at Animal Rights 2003 where he was representing PETA front-group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
And, of course, as in previous home demonstrations, a number of the activists showed up wearing their ever-popular masks.
The Super Soaking quickly degenerated into a mini-brawl according to the L.A. Daily News,
Vlasak said the demonstration came to an end with shouting between his group and residents and included an alteration where someone grabbed his video camera and threw it to the ground. However, he said, the incident would not deter the demonstrators, who will continue their protests.
Source:
Protest in front of Hahn’s house turns into a wet mess. Rick Orlov, L.A. Daily News, June 15, 2004.
Earlier this year, animal rights activists applauded the decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reconsider a patent that the University of Texas at Austin obtained on a beagle disease model. In late May, the University of Texas at Austin formally gave up all of its rights to the beagle patent.
The University of Texas at Austin was awarded Patent # 6,444,872 for a fungal lung disease model applying to beagles and a number of other animals. The American Anti-Vivisection Society and a number of intellectual property groups asked the USPTO to overturn the patent on the grounds that the method of infecting the animals with the fungal lung disease were not novel or original.
On May 21, the USPTO agreed to reexamine the patent, and shortly thereafter UTA announced it would voluntarily give up its patent rather than defend the patent.
The motivations of the group concerned with patents makes sense, but the animal rights motivation seems a bit odd. AAVS president Sue Leary was quoted in a press release as saying,
It is fundamentally illegitimate and flawed to consider any animal to be patentable subject matter, and defined as a machine, an article of manufacture, or an inventor’s composition of matter. The horrible treatment of these patented dogs is a disgraceful illustration of the convergence of bad science and bad policy.
But, of course, the patent office wasn’t going to consider whether or not animals are patentable — that they are is already well established in the United States and the USPTO has issued more than 450 patents involving animals. All that was at issue here was whether or not the particular method used to infect the beagles with the fungal infection was novel or original.
Leary’s concern about the horrible treatment is even odder. If the method were patented, UTA and the private company it had licensed the patent to would have charged for the method and split the profits (at least for the term of the patent). With the patent rights disclaimed, anyone can use this method royalty free immediately.
So, in effect, Leary and her group fought to make it easier and cheaper for researchers to use this particular method.
Way to go, Sue!
Source:
Beagles win first round in fight for reprieve from patenting. Press Release, American Anti-Vivisection Society, May 21, 2004.
Groups object to UT’s beagle project. Associated Press, February 26, 2004.
Patent on beagle dogs cancelled. Press Release, American Anti-Vivisection Society, May 27, 2004.