AR-News: (US CA) Activists Line Up Against Governor's Animal Shelter Plan

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

June 25, 2004 
By Jason Felch and Robert Salladay, Times Staff  Writers



Pet lovers and animal rights  activists today were organizing against Gov. 
Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to  repeal a law requiring animal shelters to 
hold stray cats and dogs up to six  days before killing them.

Opponents of the proposal staged a small  afternoon protest with about a 
dozen dogs at the state Capitol and flooded the  governor's office with faxes and 
phone calls.

Pamelyn Ferdin,  spokesperson for the Animal Defense League of Los Angeles, 
spent today  organizing the group's 3,000 members and working with other 
organizations to  plan a statewide protest this weekend.

"The entire humane community is  organizing," said Ferdin, whose organization 
describes itself as a "militant,  grass-roots, animal rights" group. 
"Wherever [Schwarzenegger] goes to speak,  we'll be outside with photos showing dead 
animals, animals being dragged to the  kill room."

As a favor to the state's cash-poor counties and cities,  Schwarzenegger has 
asked the state Legislature to reverse the 1998 law, which  makes adoption of 
wayward pets the first priority of shelters instead of quickly  putting them 
to death. The law is dubbed the Hayden Act, after former Santa  Monica state 
senator and activist Tom Hayden.

"This is an issue that  affects the care and protection of tens of thousands 
of stray animals, and will  inflict heartbreak on a lot of owners and people 
in the animal adoption world,"  Hayden said Thursday.

The governor proposes a change in the law to allow  birds, hamsters, 
potbellied pigs, rabbits, snakes, turtles and other animals  that are not cats and 
dogs to be put to death immediately if the shelter favors  that approach, animal 
rights groups said.

Schwarzenegger also would  eliminate a requirement that people convicted of 
animal cruelty be prohibited  from owning a pet for three years and be forced 
to pay for medical care for the  animals they have mistreated.

Shelters no longer would be required to  search for owners who have embedded 
microchips in their pets that store  addresses and phone numbers.

full story:

_http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-062504animal_lat,1,5046253.story?coll=la
-home-headlines_ 
(http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-062504animal_lat,1,5046253.story?coll=la-home-headlines)  



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"It is as if life had said, 'I am going to send  you into a world of cruelty. 
I shall make you sensitive to pain, fear, heat,  cold, hunger and starvation. 
In this world of cruelty, I shall make you  defenseless. In addition, I shall 
strike you dumb.' This is the kind of world  that animals are born into." - 
Grace Johnson, Animal Activist
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>' .' <








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