Greyhound Racing Association Files Complaint Over Funding of Anti-Racing Groups

The Greyhound Racing Association of America filed a complaint in January with the Massachusetts Attorney General complaining about how a group that receives a state grant related to greyhound racing dispenses that money.

In 2002 the Massachusetts legislature created a special fund to give grants to groups that encourage the adoption of greyhounds after they are no longer used for racing. The fund was created as part of a bill that expanded simulcasting of races on Massachusetts four greyhound racing tracks.

The Greyhound Racing Association of America charges that rather than giving the money to groups promoting adoption, the Greyhound Care and Adoption Council is instead giving the money to groups actively opposed to greyhound racing.

Greyhound Racing Association of America president Ron Hevener told The Taunton Gazette that two-thirds of the money dispensed by Massachusetts Greyhound Care goes to “anti-racing” groups. According to Hevener,

It is a blatant conflict of interest and misappropriation of funds, as well as possible collusion and conspiracy to commit fraud.

Diane Baedeker, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture, which administers the fund on behalf of the Greyhound Care and Adoption Council, told the Taunton Gazette, “We’re confident that we followed all proper procedures.”

Source:

Greyhound Association cries foul over grant allocation. Susan Weinstein, Taunton Gazette, January 19, 2003.

Judge Seals File in PETA's Lawsuit vs. Ringling Brothers

An odd item appeared recently in the Washington Post — the judge hearing a lawsuit filed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals against Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus has ordered the lawsuit file to be sealed and ordered PETA to remove a copy of the file from its web site.

This is odd because neither PETA nor Ringling Brothers requested that the case file be sealed. According to The Washington Post, in Virginia case are generally only sealed after one party or the other convinces a judge that there is a compelling reason to do so.

The lawsuit stems from claims that Kenneth Feld, president of Feld Entertainment which owns Ringling Brothers, conspired to infiltrate and disrupt PETA. Aside from everything else, you have to love the irony of PETA suing Ringling because Ringling allegedly sent someone in undercover to infiltrate PETA. Gee, I wonder where they got that idea.

Feld and associate Richard Froemming, who is also named in the lawsuit, filed a motion last year asking that allegations that Feld and Froemming engaged in theft and lies about PETA be stricken from the lawsuit. The judge rejected that motion, but ruled that since allegations were being made about individuals not formally named in the lawsuit, that the court had a

. . . compelling interest to ensure that nonparties, who really have no standing to protect themselves in the context of this litigation, receive that kind of attention from the court, and I find that sealing the court’s file is the least burdensome and most narrowly tailored way to do that.

PETA’s attorney Philip Hirschkop has filed an appeal with the Virginia State Supreme Court seeking to overturn the sealing of the case file, telling The Washington Post, “What the judge did is outrageous — there’s no basis for it.”

Source:

Fairfax Judge Seals File in PETA, Circus Suit. Tom Jackman, Washington Post, March 13, 2003.

New Jersey Takes Preliminary Steps Toward Bear Hunt

The New Jersey Fish and Game Council this month approved a six-day bear hunt season for December 2003 to manage the bear population in the state.

What would be New Jersey’s first bear hunt since 1970 was approved in a 10-1 vote by the council> Now the proposed hunt will be the subject of public hearings before a final decision is made in September.

Officials in New Jersey are obviously worried about the killing last year of a 5-month old infant by a black bear in New York. Although there has never been a similar killing in New Jersey, complaints about black bears increased to 1,412 in 2002, up from only 1,096 in 2001. In addition, The New York Times reports that in the last two years 59 bears have been killed by animal control officers because they posed an immediate threat to people or property.

New Jersey Fish and Game Council member Jane Morton Galetto explained that she voted for the hunt because,

It’s just a matter of time before a child or an adult is killed here, and people start to say they want to see every bear wiped off the face of New Jersey.

In 2000 a similar hunt was authorized to kill 175 bears, but was withdrawn after lobbying from cities and animal rights organizations. Instead, the state spent $1 million educating people on how to avoid bears. Those groups also plan to lobby hard to prevent the December bear hunt from taking place.

The Daily Record News (NJ) quoted Angie Metler of the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance as noting that New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey lobbied against the 2000 hunt adding, “we intend to hold McGreevey to his promise to protect the bears.”

The Humane Society of the United States’ Barbara Dyer told The New York Times,

We see this as really a call for a trophy hunt. We stopped the hunt before, and we pledge to stop it again.

New Jersey environmental commissioner Bradley M. Campbell, who would likely have authority over any bear hunt, said that additional study might be needed on exactly how many bears there are in New Jersey before he would be prepared to go ahead with a hunt.

Sources:

State council authorizes black bear hunt. Rob Jennings, Daily Record (New Jersey), March 8, 2003.

Bear hunt is proposed in New Jersey. Robert Hanley, The New York Time, March 8, 2003.

UPC Planning Its 13th Annual Spring Vigil for Chickens

United Poultry Concerns recently issued a press release announcing its 13th Annual Spring Vigil for Chickens urging activists to protest between April 16 and April 28 for the chickens — and for a low, low payment of just $15, UPC will supply activists with “3 color posters and 100 Chickens Brochures.”

According to the press release,

ONce chickens and eggs were symbols of Life and Spring. Today chickens have become symbols of suffering and death. In the U.S. each year, more than 8 billion baby “broiler” chickens, both males and females, are raised in filth and slaughtered for food. Worldwide more than 40 billion chickens are slaughtered every year. Chickens in the U.S. and Canada have no legal protection. Eery day millions of chickens are paralyzed with electric shocks in slaughterhouses, caged, starved, debeaked, buried alive, trashed at birth, infected with Salmonella, and tortured in laboratories. Chickens are excluded from the U.S. Humane Slaughter Act and the Animal Welfare Act.

UPC will also be holding two protest events in Washington, DC in April, including leafletting at the annual White House egg roll on April 21.

Source:

UPC 13th Annual Spring Vigil for Chicken. Press Release, United Poultry Concerns, March 12, 2003.

In Defense of Animals Appalled at Oprah's Mink Slippers

In Defense of Animals sent to a newsletter in late January including an item expressing its outrage over Oprah Winfrey’s apparent fondness for fur,

On a recent Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah gave all of her guests a gift of mink-trimmed slippers in drawstring mink bags. Please let Oprah know that animals raised for fur are kept in miserable conditions [etc., etc.] . . .

You know when Oprah Winfrey’s handing out mink slippers, all of this nonsense from activists about the fur industry being on the run is about as accurate as everything else the animal rights movement produces.

Source:

In Defense of Animals Newsletter. In Defense of Animals, V.2, #3, January 31, 2003.

Anti-Fur Activist Yvonne Taylor Ready to Go to Jail — Don't Let Us Stop You, Yvonne

Scottish animal rights activist Yvonne Taylor made quite a splash in Paris recently with her efforts to disrupt fashion shows. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals member disrupted a Gaultier fashion show by jumping on the runway holding a banner reading “Fur Kills” while she chanted “Fur is dead” (thankfully the crowd was spared the sight of her naked body, unlike the poor citizens in Beijing who were subjected to that display).

In an interview with Scottish newspaper The Herald, Taylor said she is afraid of being arrested and possibly spending time in prison, but is ready to go to jail if that’s what it takes,

Although I’m petrified, it’s nothing compared to what these animals go through. When a model is on the catwalk wearing fur, all I can see is an animal suffering. If I thought about consequences I’d never do anything. Prison is always a possibility, but I just can’t think about it.

Don’t worry, with a bit of luck Taylor will have plenty of time to think about it at some point.

Not that she’d be missing much. According to The Herald, Taylor is a professional protester who “has turned her back on a nine-to-five job and instead campaigns for animal rights” full time. In addition to stripping and chanting for PETA, she is a coordinator with the Scotland-based Advocates for Animals.

Taylor adds that she plans to do this for the rest of her life,

I will never stop. Even when I’m an old lady I will drop my clothes to keep fur off people’s backs.

Probably beats seeing Bruce Friedrich streaking for some nonsense, but not by much. But the important point here is that she is exactly right — she will have to be taking her clothes off when she’s 80 because the fur industry will still be around and going strong. At least Taylor understands the futility of her little stunts.

Source:

Fur protester ready to go to jail for the cause. Catherine Lyst, The Herald (Scotland), March 12, 2003.

Naked fur protesters freed. The BBC, October 24, 2002.

PETA Activists Confront Gaultier on the Catwalk. Press Release, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, March 3, 2003.