ANIMAL WATCH

ANIMAL WATCH - The last extension of the Best Friends Animal Society’s $1-per-year lease of the Los Angeles Animal Services Mission shelter has ended with no fanfare, barely noticed by the media, and its final announcement lacked any celebration of L.A. being a “No Kill” city. 

ANIMAL WATCH - For years, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspectors dutifully documented extensive animal suffering at Moulton Chinchilla Ranch (MCR), a chinchilla breeding facility in Minnesota.

ANIMAL WATCH - There have been months of ignored complaints at L.A. Animal Services Commission meetings by volunteers, staff and the public about the cruel overcrowding, lack of care for the animals—

ANIMAL WATCH - A real dog-bite “accident” is offering a treat to a dog who unintentionally nips your finger. 

ANIMAL WATCH - Sources in South Korea are now saying that the Committee formed to abolish dog meat is contemplating a proposal to phase out dog meat over 8 years or over 15 years.

ANIMAL WATCH - On July 26, WBTV News reported  that a woman was savagely attacked by two Pit Bulls which came out of nowhere while she was walking in Rex Park in Atlanta, GA—

ANIMAL WATCH - A form of on-line betting on simulated and real cockfights is apparently available to current members for gambling on-line and only “temporarily” closed to players worldwide,

ANIMAL WATCH - One emergency meeting cannot solve the neglect that the shelters and animals have suffered under the tenure of Paul Koretz,

ANIMAL WATCH - There are many unforeseeable threats to human and animal safety in modern life, but in most cases we do not have the right to knowingly produce, sell or even own a life-threatening item or animal without a special permit or other restrictions.

ANIMAL WATCH - Adding to the increasing reports of worldwide tragedy of Pit Bull attacks from deaths to worrisome, repeated assaults, Rapper Flávio Cesar Costa de Castro—known as Orochi—is the latest celebrity to be accused of mishandling and mistreating his three Pit Bulls. 

ANIMAL WATCH - Cockfighting—the brutal death-sport of placing two roosters (fighting cocks) in a ring to fight for their lives or be killed during matches on which humans place bets—could make a comeback as a legal activity in the U.S. if it survives in the Oklahoma legislature. 

ANIMAL WATCH - The argument by the Nonhuman Rights Project that an elephant, named Happy, is being illegally detained at the Bronx Zoo in a case about the rights and “personhood” of highly intelligent animals, has been rejected, the New York Times reports. 

GUEST COMMENTARY - More than one million dogs are killed and eaten every year in South Korea. 

ANIMAL WATCH - National Dog Bite Awareness Week was declared by the U.S. Postal Service this year from June 5 through June 11, 2022.

ANIMAL WATCH - Pets in Los Angeles and much of the U.S. find themselves living under much different conditions in 2022 than just a few decades ago. 

ANIMAL WATCH - Los Angeles City Council is in its annual process of hearing and reviewing Departments’ requests for increased budgets for 2022-23 - 

ANIMAL WATCH - Pit Bull attacks have become one of the most common—and dreaded—news reports in the U.S.,

ANIMAL WATCH - A 22-year-old mother in Pasiq City who was terrified of the consequences of not paying off an $870 bet she lost on an “E-Sabong” online cockfight-betting site in the Philippines, sold her 9-month-old daughter in March to a human trafficker she found on Facebook.

ANIMAL WATCH - A tragic Pit Bull attack on 1-year-old Ruby Cervantes by her grandmother’s two dogs, occurred inside a home in Pico Rivera, CA, on April 24, seriously injuring the baby and three adult family members who were trying to save the child.

ANIMAL WATCH - No matter where you live, it is important to be aware of the increasingly violent Pit Bull attacks reported across the U.S. and around the world.

ANIMAL WATCH - Most of the world is aware of the violent theft of two of Lady Gaga’s French Bulldogs in February 2021 and the dog walker who fought valiantly to hold onto them and was shot by one of the robbers.

ANIMAL WATCH - Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz has used his political influence to gain passage of widely publicized animal-related measures and gain media attention and the approval and camaraderie of some of the nation’s largest and most affluent charitable organizations. 

ANIMAL WATCH - On March 21, 2022, a 38-year-old mother of three, Kyleen Waltman, was walking to her home in Honea Path, SC, around 10:30 a.m. when...

ANIMAL WATCH - The merciless bombing of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin has now continued for over a month, with news broadcasts making the tragedy and pain of innocent human and animal victims unbearably palpable and arousing our need to help in the only way we can—by sending a donation to an organization that promises help. 

ANIMAL WATCH - On-line betting on cockfights, called E-Sabong, was approved by the Philippine Congress in 2021 to collect governmental revenue from gambling on this brutal and deadly blood sport in the Philippines.

ANIMAL WATCH - With the recent and ongoing tragic attacks by Pit Bulls in Los Angeles Animal Services’ shelters and in homes to which they are adopted,

ANIMAL WATCH - This is just one in a long string of attacks at Los Angeles Animal Services’ shelters by Pit Bulls and other dogs with a known history or aggression.  

ANIMAL WATCH - Before the 1990's Pit Bulls were rarely kept as pets; and, if so, they were carefully confined for the protection of the community and dogs involved in unprovoked attacks were immediately euthanized.

ANIMAL WATCH - California claims to be the capital of humaneness to animals, but no creatures are more victimized by political ambition and election ploys than dogs and cats; and AB 1881, introduced by Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, is just the latest example, following in the footsteps of Councilman Paul Koretz’ disastrous pet shop ban in Los Angeles.

ANIMAL WATCH - Breast cancer survivor Alicia Barton will struggle for the rest of her life with the pain, crippling injuries, and panic attacks she suffers after a vicious attack by four Pit Bulls last month.