Fall 2013

Volume
62
Number
4
Fall 2013 AWI Quarterly Cover - Photo by Mike Suarez
About the Cover

A goat stands next to a school bus at Prodigal Farm in Rougemont, North Carolina. Prodigal Farm is Animal Welfare Approved (AWA)—meaning the animals are raised in accordance with the most rigorous and progressive farm animal care standards in the world. Finding an animal on pasture at an AWA farm isn’t surprising—continuous pasture access is required whether the animals are goats, cows, pigs, chickens or other. Finding a school bus in the field, however, is a little unique. The bus is the clever solution by owners Dave Crabbe and Kathryn Spann to the problem of providing the goats with mobile shelter. When the goats are moved to a new paddock to take advantage of fresh browse, the shelter follows along. A closer look at Prodigal Farm, as well as its owners, goats, and buses can be found on page 6.

Photo by Mike Suarez

Table of Contents

Animals in Laboratories

Congratulations to the organizers of the Symposium on Social Housing of Laboratory Animals for an extremely informative meeting dedicated to improving the welfare of animals in research.
Former random source Class B dealers Floyd and Susan Martin—owners of Chestnut Grove Kennel in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania—were back in court on August 26 for formal sentencing on charges of mail fraud (Floyd) and conspiracy (Susan)...

Companion Animals

Fact: Petting an animal helps to reduce stress. We don’t really need science to tell us this, but there are studies documenting very real physiological and psychological benefits to being around animals.
San Diego is now the second-largest city in the United States (behind Los Angeles) to ban the retail sale of dogs, cats and rabbits originating from puppy mills and other commercial breeding facilities.

Farmed Animals

Kathryn Spann and Dave Krabbe are the owners of 97-acre Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) Prodigal farm in Rougemont, North Carolina, where they raise goats for meat and cheese. Like Dan and Susan Gibson of Grazin’...
The cattle industry is moving away from a feed additive linked to animal lethargy, lameness, and even becoming too heavy to walk. The drug Zilmax is a beta-agonist, which promotes muscle growth; it is used...
Author Michael Pollan thinks you should be able to shake the hand that feeds you. And by that he means the farmer, not the restaurant owner.
USDA appears to be pushing ahead with a controversial proposal to modify its poultry slaughter inspection program despite a troubling report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Marine Life

The past three years have seen considerable progress on the campaign to end the display of captive cetaceans. The change appears to date from the tragic death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau, who was killed...
If Dr. Naomi Rose, who joined AWI’s staff in September as the organization’s marine mammal scientist, ever elects to pen an autobiography, she knows where to go for the “early years” outline. All she has...
Two new developments spell good news for sharks. The first: India, a major shark fishing nation, has banned shark finning at sea, the practice of slicing off a shark’s fins—often while still alive—and throwing the...
Uruguay’s national legislature has voted to establish a protected sanctuary for migrating right whales and other cetaceans. The final approval of the bill came via a unanimous (62–0) vote in the Chamber of Representatives on...
AWI is very pleased to report that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has denied a permit application by Georgia Aquarium and partners (including SeaWorld and Shedd Aquarium) to import 18 wild-caught beluga whales from...
Long-finned pilot whales have been hunted for human consumption in the Faroe Islands (a small Danish territory located between Scotland and Iceland in the North Atlantic) since the first human settlement of the islands.

Terrestrial Wildlife

A new report by AWI, Project Coyote, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) entitled Indiana Coyote ­“Penning”: An Inside Look at Animal Abuse and Cruelty details the results of an investigation of an Indiana...
On the first day of summer 2013, agriculture officials confirmed that 50,000 bees—likely representing more than 300 colonies—discovered dead in a shopping mall parking lot in Wilsonville, Oregon, were done in by a neonicotinoid pesticide...
On September 9, 2013, Dallas World Aquarium (DWA) representatives traveled to Panama to collect several pygmy three-toed sloths—the world’s smallest sloth—to bring back to Texas.
In July, a scathing New York Times editorial entitled “Agriculture’s Misnamed Agency” highlighted the myriad problems plaguing USDA’s rogue Wildlife Services program, including its outdated and nonselective killing practices, lack of transparency and accountability, and...
On September 10, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it proposes to list the southern white rhinoceros as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Although more than 85 countries have banned or heavily restricted the use of steel-jaw leghold traps, the United States—one of the world’s largest fur producing and consuming nations—continues to defend these inhumane devices.

Government Affairs

With the advent of the Internet and the online sale of all measure of goods, it was inevitable that animals also would be sold over the web.
Humanitarians have been waiting for more than a year for action on two egregious situations—both reported previously in the Winter 2013 AWI Quarterly—pending before the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service...
AWI was honored to be with Willie Nelson and his family at the Hard Rock Café in New York City in June for a celebration of his 80th birthday, and to recognize his legacy and...
A new law in California will phase out the use of lead ammunition for hunting throughout the state. The law, introduced as Assembly Bill 711 in March 2013 by Assembly Member Anthony Rendon, passed both...
In August, Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly stated that—to alleviate what he claimed was a horse overpopulation problem—the government of the Navajo Nation would support rounding up, selling, and slaughtering wild horses from Navajo lands...
Congress tasked the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) with implementing the country’s National Organic Program (NOP). For more than a decade now, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), the advisory committee of the NOP...
Every year, both animals and members of the public are injured or killed because animal exhibitors allow visitors to pet and pose with lions, bears, tigers, primates, and other animals.
Both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have passed versions of the 2013 Farm Bill, and the two chambers of Congress must now reconcile their respective bills and agree upon the provisions that will...
In the summer of 2008, due to a family medical emergency, Tom Siesto and Liz Raab left their beloved Rottweiler, Nitro, at the Youngstown, Ohio, kennel of well-regarded trainer, Steve Croley, who was offering a...

Reviews

According to author T. DeLene Beeland, many devoted wildlife lovers are completely unaware that there is a separate species of wolf in North America called the red wolf ( Canis rufus ); even fewer know...