Pet Sterilization in the US Grows Controversial

Maryann Mott, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 13 May 08;

For some pet owners, spaying or neutering their animals is no longer a choice - it's the law.

Nearly 40 mandatory sterilization bills have been introduced this year alone in cities and counties nationwide, including Dallas, Texas and Palm Beach, Fla. So far, only a handful has passed.

During local hearings, the controversial proposals attract legions of animal enthusiasts who pack rooms to voice their strong opinions. The issue is also being argued online in chat rooms where spirited discussions fill electronic page after page after page.

Supporters believe these "fix it or ticket" laws will ultimately reduce the millions of animals abandoned and destroyed annually in shelters . But opponents say such measures often lack funding to subsidize the surgery and rely heavily on voluntary compliance, allowing for easy evasion of the law.

The Los Angeles model

Earlier this year the City of Los Angeles passed a universal spay-neuter ordinance requiring most cats and dogs over the age of 4 months to be altered. Pet owners who don't comply by October could face fines up to $500.

But animal control officers won't be knocking on doors and peaking under pets' legs to see if they've been fixed. Instead the law will largely be enforced when officers encounter nuisance animals. Ed Boks, general manager of Los Angeles Animal Services, says the public agency receives 600 complaints daily, mostly involving intact (unsterilized) dogs chasing kids, biting people and fighting with other dogs.

"There's little we can do," he explains. "We can write a leash law warning and try to educate people - that sort of thing - but we've been doing that for 34 years and it just doesn't solve many of the problems."

The new ordinance is a valuable tool in making city neighborhoods safer, he says, because altered dogs are less likely to cause problems to which his officers must respond. In many cases sterilization reduces canine aggression and roaming.

Other California cities may soon join Los Angeles. A statewide bill, which stalled last year in a Senate committee, is expected to be heard again in late June, says a spokesperson for the bill's author, Assembly member Lloyd Levine.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles has opened two low-cost spay-neuter clinics for financially strapped pet owners and plans to operate seven more by the end of the year. And Boks says he's flooded with calls from other cities interested in enacting a similar ordinance.

Quick recovery

Spaying and neutering is a fast, simple surgery that stops animals from reproducing. Spaying refers to the removal of a female's ovaries and uterus; neutering removes a male's testicles.

Puppies and kittens 4 months-old or less not only recover faster but experience virtually no pain or complications, says veterinarian Marvin Mackie, an early spay-neuter specialist who has performed 250,000 surgeries during his 32-year career.

"The youthful patients are truly resilient," he says. "Their anesthetics are metabolized more rapidly and they are up quicker than their [older] counterparts. They are pretty much totally unaware of their surgery."

An educational effort nationwide by public shelters and humane societies pushing people to alter their pets has largely paid off, particularly in the Northeast where there's now a puppy shortage. To fill the void, young dogs from overcrowded shelters in Southern states are transported to facilities in communities where they're in demand.

Most animal advocates agree spaying and neutering is one of the most effective tools in reducing the number of unwanted and stray animals in a community, but it's not a silver bullet. Other types of programs are also needed to stem the flow into shelters, such as animal training to stop frustrated owners from relinquishing unruly pets.

In some cities, feral and free-roaming cats are bigger problem for shelters than dogs, requiring humane workers to take a different approach in controlling populations including a popular yet controversial method called Trap-Neuter-Return.

Not a new idea

Forcing people to fix their pets is only now being hotly debated - and sometimes legally challenged - but it's not a new legislative idea. A handful of communities have quietly had such ordinances on the books for years, although it hasn't always produced desired results.

Since 1996, the northern California cities of San Mateo and Belmont, as well as unincorporated areas of San Mateo County, have required sterilization of most dogs or cats over six months of age.

The thinking at that time was if a few cities passed the ordinance, they'd see wonderful results such as increased pet licensing, which in turns boosts city revenue, as well as fewer animals entering shelters and euthanized, said Scott Delucchi, president of the Peninsula Humane Society and SPCA, which provides animal control services for all 20 cities in San Mateo County.

But that never happened.

"There was no A causes B relationship that they could prove," he says.

In fact, in some cases, Delucchi says, the Pet Overpopulation Ordinance, as it's dubbed, had just the opposite effect. Consequently other cities weren't interested in passing the statute and the effort was largely dropped.

Subsidized surgeries

Fast forward to today. PHS/SPCA in San Mateo County isn't in favor of California's statewide spay-neuter bill (AB 1634) because it lacks a good enforcement component and doesn't subsidize spay-neuter, said Delucchi.

If the bill passes, he thinks irresponsible and ignorant owners - the root of pet overpopulation - will simply ignore it.

A better way is to provide low-cost or free surgeries to the community, he said, something PHS/SPCA has done since the 1970s. Back then, the shelter took in 45,000 unwanted dogs and cats. Today that number has plummeted to 9,000 animals, despite the area's increased human and pet population.

The organization also operates a spay-neuter mobile clinic that targets low-income neighborhoods, and last year fixed 1,000 cats and dogs countywide.

"We know we're reaching a lot of people who probably otherwise wouldn't be altering their animals," he said.

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Best of our wild blogs: 14 May 08

Want to go to Cyrene Reef? Now is your chance!
All the details are announced on the leafmonkey blog!










Heartfelt Responses for May Day Outreach
on the flying fish friends blog

Sand mining and sand dumping next to Labrador and near Cyrene Reef and Sentosa latest MPA notice on the wildfilms blog

Seagrass-Watch bulletin: Dugong feeding trails galore!
on the teamseagrass blog

When birds die, they get recycled!
on the bird ecology blog

Feast of termites under a lamp post
on the bird ecology blog

Cyrene snapping shrimp
video clip on the sgbeachbum blog

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34 rays die mysteriously at Canadian zoo

Yahoo News 13 May 08;

Authorities said Tuesday they suspect foul play in the recent deaths of dozens of rays at a zoo in western Canada.

Staff at the Calgary Zoo are "puzzled and shocked" by the sudden deaths of its rays, said spokeswoman Laurie Herron.

"It's really devastating for the staff that cared for the animals," she told AFP, calling the deaths "suspicious."

"We cannot find a reasonable explanation for why this happened," she said, adding that "activists' groups or individuals who have become more militant" may be responsible.

The deaths were "certainly not for lack of care," Herron said.

According to a zoo statement, keepers noticed the rays swimming erratically Sunday and observed that they seemed to be in "extreme distress."

Then started dying off. By Monday morning, 34 of the 43 cownose rays were dead.

A preliminary examination found that their gills were very irritated, but otherwise, the animals had seemed in good health.

The zoo's director of conservation Cathy Gaviller said there was no mechanical failure in the tank's life support system, and numerous water tests since the exhibit opened in February were normal.

The zoo sent food and water samples, as well as ray tissue samples to a lab for testing Monday to determine if there were toxins in the water.

"We're still waiting for the latest water chemistry results," Herron said.

The nine surviving rays, meanwhile, were transferred to a separate holding tank and "appear to be doing marginally better today," she said.

Canadian zoo investigates puzzling stingray deaths
Yahoo News 13 May 08;

Officials at the Calgary Zoo remained baffled on Tuesday as they tried to puzzle out just why 34 of their stingrays suddenly died.

The juvenile cownose stingrays, about the size of a dinner plate, were kept in a "petting" tank where visitors were able to touch them, a common feature in a number of North American zoos and aquariums, according to the zoo officials in the Western Canadian city.

On Sunday, within a few hours of opening, the normally voracious fish lost their appetites, became discolored and started dying, with 34 of the 43 rays quickly succumbing to an ailment or cause that has yet to be diagnosed.

"It was a very acute onset of something, a very sudden change," said Cathy Gaviller, director of conservation, research and education for the Calgary Zoo. "It was high mortality in a very short period of time."

The zoo, as yet, has no real idea of what happened to the rays, which are common in the waters off North America's east coast.

Water tests show there were no problems with the tank or its filtration system, though the zoo has also sent off samples for independent testing.

Gaviller said that because of the speed of the deaths, disease or parasites were unlikely causes, but nothing is being ruled out. However results from tissue and toxicology tests won't soon be ready.

"It's unfortunate that we have very few facts," she said. "But the No. 1 likelihood is that something in the water changed suddenly."

She added that there were no signs that a zoo visitor caused the rays' deaths.

The incident is the latest in a number of animal deaths at the zoo that have sparked criticism of the facility.

A hippopotamus being moved to Calgary from Denver, Colorado, died in October. As well, a baby gorilla died in August after other gorilla disrupted the mother's nursing routine.

(Reporting by Scott Haggett; editing by Rob Wilson)

Stingrays probably poisoned, says zoo
Eva Ferguson, Canwest News Service, Canada.com 15 May 08;

CALGARY --The Calgary Zoo has called in the police in the mysterious deaths of 39 cownose rays, now believed to have been poisoned by a visitor.

"This is a huge tank, so something substantial had to have been put in. We don't know if it was a powder or a liquid," said Laurie Herron, a spokeswoman for the zoo.

"But at this point we're thinking it was not accidental."

Tests from an independent local lab released yesterday found the water chemistry of the ray pool was within acceptable ranges. Levels of ammonia, dissolved oxygen, PH, salinity and other natural minerals were measured. Initial tests, however, can't identify possible toxins in the water.

Late Sunday, 26 of the 43 rays died, with other deaths following over the next few days, including one Tuesday evening and another four overnight. The rays were suffering from breathing problems and inflamed gills.

Only four now remain.

Zoo veterinarian Doug Whiteside, who performed the necropsies, said the dead rays had changed from their normal light-grey colour to having splotches of dark grey and yellow. The colour change is normally a reaction to some kind of stress.

The sudden death of so many rays makes it likely a poison was added to the water, said zoo spokeswoman Cathy Gavillier.

"It's disturbing to think of this as a possibility, but we have so far been unable to pinpoint any other cause that would provoke such an acute and severe reaction in the rays," Gavillier said.

Because the rays sickened and died so quickly, disease is an unlikely culprit, she said. Nor was there any mechanical failure in the life-support system.

The ray pool, which allows visitors to reach in and touch them as they swim, was introduced at the zoo in February.

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World tree planting drive sets goal of 7 billion

Alister Doyle, Reuters 13 May 08;

OSLO (Reuters) - A campaign to plant trees worldwide set a goal on Tuesday of seven billion by late 2009, just over one for each person on the planet, to help protect the environment and slow climate change.

The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), an organizer of the tree planting drive begun in late 2006 with an initial goal of a billion by the end of 2007, said governments, companies and individuals had already pushed the total above 2 billion.

It set a target on Tuesday of an extra five billion plantings by the time a U.N. climate conference in Denmark starts on November 30 next year that is meant to agree a new long-term treaty to combat climate change beyond the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.

"In 2006 we wondered if a billion tree target was too ambitious; it was not," said Achim Steiner, head of UNEP.

"The goal of two billion trees has also proven to be an underestimate. The goal of planting seven billion trees, equivalent to just over a tree per person alive on the planet, must therefore also be do-able," he said in a statement.

UNEP said that safeguarding and planting forests were among the most cost-effective ways to slow climate change, blamed by the U.N. Climate Panel on emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars.

Trees soak up carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when burnt or when they rot. Deforestation accounts for over 20 percent of the carbon dioxide humans generate.

The campaign registers pledges of plantings on the Internet but does not check that all seedlings or saplings are actually planted or survive.

"Regional and national governments organized the most massive plantings, with Ethiopia leading the count at 700 million, followed by Turkey (400 million), Mexico (250 million), and Kenya (100 million)," it said.

Millions of individuals have also taken part, including schoolchildren or religious groups. "It has given expression to the frustrations but also the hopes of millions of people around the world," Steiner said.

One U.N. official said that seven billion trees would, as they grow, soak up roughly the same amount of carbon dioxide emitted by Russia in a year. Russia is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind the United States and China.

Among projects, mangroves were planted in Indonesia after the devastating 2004 tsunami to help protect coastline. And the Replant New Orleans initiative sponsored plantings of fruit trees to help communities recover after Hurricane Katrina.

(Editing by Matthew Jones)

Two billion trees planted in UN campaign
Yahoo News 13 May 08;

More than two billion trees were planted around the world as part of the UN's campaign to combat climate change, the world body's environment programme (UNEP) said Tuesday in a statement.

The Nairobi-based agency said the tree planting campaign, inspired by Kenyan Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai, will help mitigate the effects of pollution and environmental deterioration.

The campaign launched in 2006 saw two billion trees planted, double the original target, with Ethiopia leading the count at 700 million, Turkey at 400 million, Mexico at 250 million and Kenya at 100 million trees.

The campaign set a new target of seven billion by late 2009, when governments gather in Copenhagen for a crucial climate change conference.

"The goal of planting seven billion trees -- equivalent to just over a tree per person alive on the planet -- must therefore also be do-able given the campaign's extraordinary track record and the self-evident worldwide support," UNEP chief Achim Steiner said in a statement.

"It is a defining issue of our era that can only be tackled through individual and collective action. I am convinced that the new target will be met -- one tree at a time," he added.

Heads of state participated in the campaign, as did corporations, cities, faiths and communities, but individuals accounted for over half of all participants, UNEP said.

Experts say that trees are the most cost-effective way of containing carbon that accumulates the heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change.

"Trees and forests play a vital role in regulating the climate since they absorb carbon dioxide," UNEP said.

"Deforestation, in turn, accounts for over 20 percent of the carbon dioxide humans generate, rivaling the emissions from other sources."

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U.S. Major Importer of Illegal Asian Timber, Study Says

Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News 13 May 08;

Vietnam has become a hub for processing Asia's illegally logged timber, much of which is sold in the United States as outdoor furniture, conservationists say.

In a report released in March, the U.K.-based nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and its Indonesian partner Telapak warned that the illegal timber trade is threatening some of the last intact forests in Southeast Asia, especially in Laos.

"Despite wide awareness of the problem of illegal logging and a series of political commitments to tackle the issue, demand for cut-price wood products is still fuelling the illegal destruction of some of the worlds most significant remaining tropical forests," said Julian Newman, head of the EIA's forest campaign program.

It is currently legal in the United States to import illegally sourced wood products. But legislation now under consideration in the U.S. Congress would ban imports of wood products derived from illegally harvested timber.

Endangered Species at Greater Risk

EIA estimates that the illegal logging business, which the agency says is orchestrated by cross-border criminal syndicates working with corrupt officials, costs developing countries some 10 billion to 15 billion U.S. dollars a year.

A rise in timber prices has prompted some wood-producing countries, such as Indonesia, to clamp down on illegal logging.

Other countries, such as China and Vietnam, have taken measures to sharply reduce all logging of their own forests, while importing timber from neighboring countries for their growing timber-processing industries.

Around 60 percent of the trade in tropical timber moves between the countries of southern and eastern Asia, according to EIA.

"One of the biggest shifts in the timber industry in Asia over the last decade or so has been the emergence of a huge wood-processing industry in China and Vietnam," said Newman.

The Mekong region—which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and China—has some of the most valuable and vulnerable tree species sought by the international timber trade, including rosewood, keruing, teak, and yellow balau.

Mekong forests are also home to a range of endangered animals, including the clouded leopard, tiger, and Malayan sun bear.

Many of the remaining forests in the region have been so heavily logged that they are now of critically low quality. In Laos, for example, only around 10 percent of forests remain commercially viable, according to the report.

Undercover Investigations

In Vietnam logging is restricted to 5.3 million cubic feet (150,000 cubic meters) from forests grown for timber production.

To satisfy its demand for raw products, Vietnam is exploiting the forests of neighboring Laos despite Laotian laws, which ban the export of logs and cut timber, the EIA report claims.

In the Vietnamese port of Vinh, undercover investigators found piles of huge logs from Laos awaiting sale.

At one border crossing 45 trucks carrying logs were seen lining up on the Laos side waiting to cross into Vietnam.

The agencies estimate that at least 17.7 million cubic feet (500,000 cubic meters) of logs move illegally from Laos to Vietnam every year.

"This trade is organized by informal networks involving timber brokers and government and military officials on both sides of the border," Newman said.

"The losers are the rural communities [in Laos] who traditionally rely on forests for their livelihood."

According to the Laotian government, forest cover in the country has declined from 70 percent in the 1970s to 40 percent today.

Large volumes of timber from Laos also go to China's burgeoning wood-processing industry, researchers say.

Jeff Hayward is the verification manager of the SmartWood Program for the Rainforest Alliance in Washington, D.C.

"The EIA study illustrates the ways and means for illicit timber to end up in the workshops of Vietnam, resulting in consumers [in Europe and the United States] unwittingly buying furniture that comes at the cost of forests in Laos and Cambodia," he said.

New Legislation

Vietnam's furniture exports reached U.S. $2.4 billion in 2007, a ten-fold increase since 2000.

The United States is by far the largest market for Vietnamese wooden furniture, accounting for almost 40 percent of the exports.

"Illegal logging and trade are rife, but most businesses don't ask hard questions about the source of the wood they buy, because they simply don't have to do so," said Andrea Johnson, the forest campaigns coordinator for EIA in Washington, D.C.

"Until consumer markets like the U.S. change their no-questions-asked policy, irreplaceable forests from Indonesia to Vietnam to Honduras to the Congo are going to continue to end up as dining room tables and porch swings."

The U.S. legislation being considered prohibits the import or trade of illegally sourced timber and wood products.

The bill has broad political support and is backed by virtually all major environmental organizations and the U.S. timber industry.

Illegal logging costs U.S. companies as much as a billion U.S. dollars a year in lost exports and reduces prices for timber products, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.

"This law will send a major signal to the global timber sector that the world's largest consumer market is closing its doors to illegal wood," Johnson said.

"Companies who source on the up-and-up and conduct strong due diligence will now be rewarded with market share rather than undercut by cheaper illegal products."

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