Illegal in California

California and Hawaii are the only 2 US states that ban residents from keeping ferrets as pets. California ferret owners are ramping up their campaign to persuade lawmakers, wildlife regulators and the public that it's time to overturn a ban that's been in place for nearly 80 years.

"There is no reason the ownership of the domesticated ferret should be illegal in California," said Pat Wright, who heads the Legalize Ferrets campaign, told the California Fish and Game Commission in February. "These guys are part of our family. The pet-human bond is a strong one, and you're stepping on it."

State wildlife regulators say escaped or discarded ferrets could establish feral populations and threaten native wildlife, such as nesting birds, rabbits and squirrels.

Despite the ban, California is believed to have more ferrets than any other state. The pet industry estimates that about a quarter of the nation's ferret care supplies are sold in California, where ferret owners can have their pets confiscated and be prosecuted for a criminal misdemeanor.

Source

Baylor Law Commencement Includes Juris 'Dog'tor' Degree

Skeeter Jones graduated from Baylor Law School but will never take the state bar exam or address a jury.

He doesn’t seem to care, however, and is content with just being scratched behind the ears or playing with an empty, plastic Coke bottle.

Skeeter, a playful service dog, received his honorary Juris “Dog”tor, making him the first nonhuman to be conferred a degree from the institution.

Actually, Skeeter is a service dog, who assists Amy Jones. A skiing accident in 2002 left Jones a quadriplegic, and she uses a wheelchair. In 2004, Jones was paired with Skeeter, a black Labrador retriever, whom she describes as a “wonderful help.”

Source: Baylor University

(via Legal Blog Watch)

Thanks, Leslie!

Was it tapeworm salad?

Anthony Franz had started to eat healthy, but the salmon salad he ordered for lunch from Shaw's Crab House in August 2006 wasn't the best choice, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

Franz says he became violently ill for several days after eating that salad and later "passed a 9-foot tapeworm."

A pathologist determined the giant tapeworm only has one source -- "undercooked fish, such as salmon," according to court papers.

The lawsuit against Shaw's Crab House, 21 E. Hubbard, and its parent company, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, claims the restaurant's staff was negligent in serving him undercooked fish.

Franz, who was not available for comment, wants more than a refund. He's seeking $100,000 for his pain, suffering, lost time from work and "lost enjoyment of life."

Carrol Symank, vice president of food safety for Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, said he is confident the tapeworm did not come from the restaurant.

"We have done a thorough investigation and we're confident the restaurant is not the source," he said.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

Attention, cat haters

There's money to be made in Randolph, Iowa, which is offering a $5 bounty for each feral feline turned in.

Mayor Vance Trively says that the southwest Iowa town of 200 people is being overrun by dozens of feral cats and needed to do something.

"You can't just let them keep multiplying in town," Trively said.

Town officials approved the bounty after receiving numerous complaints, ranging from a cat attacking a small dog to a dozen cats showing up at the bowl when a resident tried to feed his own cat.

Under the new policy, stray cats without collars will be taken to a veterinarian in the nearby town of Sidney - Randolph has no vet clinic - where they'll be kept "for a time for people to claim them," the mayor said.

If no one does, they'll be euthanized and buried.

Pink

Pink it´s my new obsession
Pink it´s not even a question
Pink on the lips of your lover, ´cause
Pink is the love you discover
Pink as the bing on your cherry
Pink ´cause you are so very
Pink it´s the color of passion
`Cause today it just goes with the fashion
Pink it was love at first sight, yea
Pink when I turn out the light, and
Pink gets me high as a kite
And I think everything is going to be all right . . .

But not, if you live in Denver

Lyrics: Aerosmith

Source: Denver Post

Check local laws on ferret ownership

According to estimates from the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, about 500,000 people own some 2 million ferrets. Ferret folks claim the real numbers are much higher.

But ferrets, those slinky, mink-y cousins of weasels, badgers, skunks and polecats, are outlawed in New York , Salt Lake City and numerous other municipalities, and the states of California and Hawaii and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

"It's because they believe they're wild animals and they believe they'll decimate the wildlife. These are neutered and spayed animals," said an exasperated Norine Barnes, president of the Greater Chicago Ferret Association, which has about 275 members and runs a shelter for ferrets, which are legal in Illinois.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals agrees. It opposed the 1999 ban on ferrets in New York.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Chimp not a person, Austrian court rules

Austria's Supreme Court ruled that a chimpanzee named Matthew Hiasl Pan cannot be declared a person.

The shelter where Matthew has lived for 25 years is going bankrupt, threatening to leave him homeless. Matthew and another chimp at the shelter, Rosi, were captured as babies in Sierra Leone in 1982 and smuggled to Austria for use in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officers intercepted the shipment and turned the chimps over to the shelter.

Donors have offered to help support Matthew, but under Austrian law, only a person can receive personal gifts.

Source: AP

It's cat vs. rat in NY delis

New York city’s health code and state law forbid animals in places where food or beverages are sold for human consumption. Fines range from $300 for a first offense to $2,000 or higher for subsequent offenses.

But many deli and Bodega owners in New York City are defending their right to keep cats in their stores. The cats keep the rat and mice under control - city inspectors contend the cats pose a health hazard.

Many store owners keep cats despite the law, mainly because other options have failed and the fine for rodent feces is also $300.

“It’s hard for bodega owners because they’re not supposed to have a cat, but they’re also not supposed to have rats,” said José Fernández, the president of the Bodega Association of the United States.

Source: New York Times
(via)

Chicago may ban chickens

The same city that put out the welcome mat for bees and fought to protect goose livers is poised to send a different message to residents: We don't want your clucking chickens.

The City Council will vote Wednesday on a proposal to ban chickens, a former barnyard denizen that is pecking its way into cities across the country as part of a growing organic food trend among young professionals and other urban dwellers.

$1,000 fine for feeding pigeons?

Put your hands up and back away from the breadcrumbs. Feeding New York City pigeons could soon be banned under a proposal to thin the flocks of the birds sometimes referred to as "rats with wings."

City Councilman Simcha Felder plans to introduce legislation to ban pigeon feeding and fine those caught flouting the ban $1,000.

Lawyer for the dog

A decade ago, the idea that a divorce would involve "custody" of a pet, much less that the decision would factor in the pet's own predilections, would have been dismissed by most lawyers as absurd. Pets were property, and not very valuable property at that, to be balanced against all of the other stuff that is split up in a divorce - nobody, after all, talks about joint custody of an armoire.

But recent years have seen an intensifying effort on the part of animal rights activists, legislators, prosecutors, and legal scholars to change the way the law treats animals.

The result has been the beginning of a qualitative shift - not merely the stiffening of animal cruelty laws, though in most states that has happened, but changes that are turning animals into legal beings with their own interests, and, in a few cases, their own enforceable preferences.

The field of animal law is growing. Nearly half of the 190 accredited law schools in the United States now offer animal law courses, up from a handful 10 years ago, and around 100 now have chapters of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund. A rising number of lawyers are dedicating themselves, in whole or in part, to the practice, and the American Bar Association and 13 state bar associations now have animal law committees.

Baltimore to be mongoose free

The Baltimore City Health Department finalized regulations regarding which exotic pets and farm animals are permitted in homes. No bears, bats, ostriches, kangaroos, monkeys or mongooses as city pets. And Baltimore's avid pigeon racers will be able to keep up to only 125 pigeons each.

In addition to the limit on volume, the new regulations restrict pigeon exercise to three daily sessions, and bird owners will have to pay a one-time $80 fee.

Green iguanas smaller than 30 inches and larger than 5 feet are out. Vietnamese potbellied pigs are OK, as long as they don't grow to more than 150 pounds.

All even-toed ungulates - deer, goats, sheep and the like - are banned as pets.

Diapers on Donkeys?

Donkey owners in the Kenyan town of Limuru are up in arms over an order from the municipal authorities that their animals must wear nappies (diapers.)

But recent press coverage and outrage from the town's residents has led the authorities to put their plans on hold.

"If we have to put nappies on our donkeys, soon they will say our cows need them too," one donkey owner said.

Limuru's mayor, James Kuria, says: "We must come up with a way to make sure that the droppings are not a nuisance."

(via)

Key West commission moves to protect Hemingway's famous 6-toed cats

City officials have sided with Ernest Hemingway's former home and its celebrated six-toed felines in its catfight with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Key West City Commission exempted the home from a city law prohibiting more than four domestic animals per household. About 50 cats live there.

The house has been locked in a dispute with the USDA, which claims the museum is an "exhibitor" of cats and needs a special license, a claim the home disputes.

The new ordinance, approved Tuesday, reads in part, "The cats reside on the property just as the cats did in the time of Hemingway himself. They are not on exhibition in the manner of circus animals. ... The City Commission finds that family of polydactyl Hemingway cats are indeed animals of historic, social and tourism significance."

It also states that the cats are "an integral part of the history and ambiance of the Hemingway House."

3 pigs still have a Lake Forest home

A Chicago-area judge has upheld Estelle Walgreen's right to keep three pigs on her suburban property despite a petition from 300 neighbors about the smell.

Walgreen, moved into the house on 2.3 acres of land in Lake Forest, Ill., last year after her divorce from a member of the Walgreens drugstore family, along with two 200-pound teenage pigs named Pinky and Piggy. She has since acquired a 2-year-old pig named Cooper, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Tuesday, Circuit Judge Mitchell Hoffman frustrated Walgreen's neighbors and upheld the City Council's decision to allow the pigs to remain until at least 2011 when an ordinance regulating farm animals takes effect.

Alleviate pig boredom, Dutch ministry tells farmers

Dutch farmers need to do more than just provide a bit of mud and food for their pigs, according to the country's agriculture ministry.

The ministry said farmers ought to liven up the hog pen with toys, hay or straw to keep the swine amused and has sent brochures on its new pig policy to farmers.

"Without good diversion, pigs can become bored. This can be expressed in behaviour such as tail-biting," the ministry said.

Tiny pet turtles could make a comeback

The red-eared slider was the "it" pet for generations of kids until tiny turtles were banned more than 30 years ago because they shed salmonella. Later this week, Congress will decide if these baby reptiles are ready for a comeback.

The sale of turtles with shells smaller than 4 inches was banned in 1975 because the sweet-faced reptiles harbored a dirty little secret: They shed salmonella. Kids became infected with the dangerous germ after putting their turtle-tainted fingers — or the turtles themselves — in their mouths. Regulators figured by banning turtles smaller than 4 inches, they’d curb the pet’s popularity, and at least bigger shells wouldn’t be able to fit into kids’ mouths.

Before the ban went into place in 1975, an estimated 100,000 cases of salmonella sickness occurred each year as the result of baby turtles and other pet reptiles, Sundlof says. Since the tiny-turtle prohibition, that number has gone down by about a quarter.

Californians may be forced to neuter pets

California may become the only U.S. state to require the sterilization of pets under a bill passed by the state Assembly, pitting dog and cat lovers against animal rights activists.

The bill would require pet owners to spay and neuter their dogs and cats, or face a $500 fine for each animal.

Breeders, as well as owners of guide dogs, could obtain exemptions.

Pig sick

A BAKER has been forced to rename her novelty pig tarts - because they don't contain any pork.

Val Temple, who runs Sgt Bun Bakery, Weymouth, says officers from Dorset's trading standards department also told her she must swap the name of robin tarts as they are not made from robins.

And she claims she was instructed to rename her paradise slice because ... it's not from paradise.

Mrs Temple has made the novelty cakes in the shape of pigs and robins as a treat for her customers for years.

She said: "It's a joke.

"The officers came in and said they had had a complaint and I must change the names because they didn't contain pork, robin or paradise.
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"It's an insult to the public. Of course they don't contain pig, robin or paradise.

(via)

Colo. court swats down mosquito lawsuit

Three prisoners serving potential life sentences in Colorado say their lives have been threatened by mosquitoes.

The inmates at Walsenburg and Limon prisons sued, saying they were at risk of contacting West Nile virus or other diseases after they were bitten repeatedly by mosquitoes and suffered "the emotional and mental distress of whether or not each mosquito's bite would result in death or serious bodily injury."

The Colorado Court of Appeals swat down their case and upheld a lower court's decision to throw their case out.

Prison officials said no confirmed cases of West Nile virus have ever been found in the prison population, and inmates are provided mosquito repellant.