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 Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:35 pm Post subject: PETS / Toxic PET BYLAWS - animals make us sick, even kill us |
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Toxic pet slaves:
Should we allow pets in multi-unit housing when we know they make us sick and may even kill us?
| Quote: | | Probably not, but gosh knows, even if you buy into a strata corporation with a No Pets bylaw, in B.C., that bylaw can be overturned by an easy 3/4 majority vote before you can say, "A baby, two dogs and three cats per unit." (See FICOM ]Instruction Guide #13 under item 6). |
Consider a column in the Province March 5/06 by Dr. Dave Hepburn, who makes the following observations:
| Quote: | ... It now appears that doctors without border collies are safer for you, the patient, than doctors with dachshunds.
If your doctor cuddles his/her dog/cat then he/she might well be the cause of your untimely demise. A recent study has indicated that MRSA, the so-called superbug resistant to most antibiotics, can be passed from pets to people (i.e., doctors) and then on to other people (i.e., patients).
MRSA is a lovely mutant form of staph. aureus that usually does nothing more than etch out a small spider-bite-like lesions on your skin. But on occasion it can get downright nasty and spread into your body, causing other adverse effects, like zits and death. (See also, Superbug breaks out in B.C., by Pamela Fayerman April 6/06 in the Times Colonist).
Zoonosis is the transmission of diseases from animals to humans and doctors. Children are particularly susceptible, given their propensity to want to taste what the dog tasted, lick toys that the dog licked, and fling their filthy festering fingers freely into their mouths.
... Thousands of kids in North America are infected annually with roundworm parasites, the commonest zoonotic infection passed on by dogs. While most will show no evidence of this infestation, 10,000 kids will develop a strange rash and 750 per year will have their vision damaged as the worm crawls into the retina.
... from toxocara to toxoplasmosis, courtesy of those cute but toxic kitties. Toxoplasmosis may cause no symptoms either, but on occasion it can lead to brain and eye damage. It is especially important for pregnant women not to clean cat litter boxes, as toxoplasmosis can cause birth defects.
... the greater risk of contracting this disease comes from gardening (particularly if a cat was gardening there before you) or eating undercooked meat, like pork, lamb or rack of kitty.
And cats don't get off easy with just parasites. Of concern of late is the dreaded avian flu (H5N1 if you speak droid). Cats tend to snack on avians and have now been found to contract avian flu, shedding the virus in their feces and nasal droplets. (-- p. B7) |
Now that the risk has been established, the question is whether pet slavers should have the right to put libertarian pet abstainers and their children at risk.
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| Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 11:32 am Post subject: |
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Boston.com
Rabies scare prompts killing of 50,000 dogs
By Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press
Aug. 2/06
| Quote: | China slaughtered 50,000 dogs in a government-ordered crackdown after three people died of rabies, sparking unusually pointed criticism in state media yesterday and an outcry from animal rights activists.
Health experts said the brutal policy pointed to weaknesses in the healthcare infrastructure in China, where only 3 percent of dogs are vaccinated against rabies and more than 2,000 people die of the disease each year. The five-day slaughter in Mouding county in Yunnan province in southwestern China ended Sunday and spared only military guard dogs and police canine units, state media reported.
Dogs being walked were seized from their owners and beaten to death on the spot, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported. Led by the county police chief, killing teams entered villages at night creating noise to get dogs barking, then beat the animals to death, the reports said. |
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 1:18 pm Post subject: |
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New Scientist
Magazine Subscription
Deadly H5N1 may be brewing in cats
We have been spared a flu pandemic because the H5N1 virus is not very infectious. That could soon change.
By Debora Mackenzie
Jan. 27/07
| Quote: | Bird flu hasn't gone away. The discovery, announced last week that the H5N1 bird flu virus is widespread in cats in locations across Indonesia has refocused attention on the danger that the deadly virus could be mutating into a form that can infect humans far more easily.
In the first survey of its kind, an Indonesian scientist (Chairul Anwar Nidom of Airlangga University in Surabaya, Indonesia) has found that in areas where there have been outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry and humans, one in five cats have been infected with the virus, and survived. This suggests that as outbreaks continue to flare across Asia and Africa, H5N1 will have vastly more opportunities to adapt to mammals than had been supposed. (emphasis added)
... Infected cats may not directly increase the danger of people catching the virus, as humans seem to catch the current strain only with difficulty even from birds, which they kill, pluck and eat. The main worry, says (Albert) Osterhaus (of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands), is that as the virus replicates in cats it will further adapt to mammals and acquire the ability to spread more efficiently to people and from person to person, unleashing a human pandemic. (emphasis added)
... Killing cats won't solve the problem, Osterhaus warns. Like shooting wild birds, it is unlikely to have much impact and could send infected animals elsewhere. It would also lead to a population explosion of disease-carrying rodents, which the cats normally keep in check.
"Cats must just be kept from eating sick chickens," Osterhaus says, though this will be a tall order in open-air markets across Asia and Africa, which are typically swarming with hungry cats. In Jakarta this week, officals are slaughtering thousands of banned backyard poultry - then handing them back for their owners to eat. Some of the birds cold well be infected despite appearing healthy. It is hard to imagine the local cats not getting their share. (-- pgs. 6-7) |
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| Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 10:08 am Post subject: |
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Condo pet's puppies put an owner in breach of pet bylaw:
| Quote: | From: Puppies
To: editor@bccondos.ca
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 8:33 PM
Subject: Puppies
What protection does a condo owner have if their dog has puppies? My neighbor has puppies right now and her strata council is threatening a $200-weekly fine until she gets rid of them. Her bylaws state only two pets per unit, one dog and one cat, two cats or two birds.
I will watch the web site for a response or you can email me.
Thank you, for your time |
Our reply:
| Quote: | From: editor
To: Puppies
Cc: editor
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 10:00 AM
Subject: Fw: Puppies
Hello Puppies,
Puppies, huh? Not good, even in the pet-slave-friendly climate currently embraceed by many municipalities on the Lower Mainland today. See FICOM Instruction Guide #14, How To Enforce Bylaws and Rules, which sets out fairly clearly the parameters regarding fines at a strata corporation - not just maximum amounts but the procedures strata councils MUST follow to give owners the opportunity to respond to a complaint as well as time to comply. Suggest puppy owner craft a short letter to the strata council ASAP acknowledging the complaint and the date it was received. Explain that owner did not intend to breach the bylaw, that owner was somehow (explain how) surprised by offending pet's condition and that a best effort is being made to find the (how many) puppies homes. Include the date owner estimates she'll again be in compliance with the bylaw. Something in writing from a pet advocacy group, i.e. Vancouver Humane Society, supporting that date would help. Strata council might have a tough time issuing fines if the subject of the complaint has undertaken reasonable steps to comply with the bylaw - unless the puppies are driving everyone so crazy that the strata council is inundated with complaints.
Hope that helps.
Ed. |
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| Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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Company of Adventurers
Hardcover
Classic text on the history of Canada's
Hudson's Bay Trading Company
By Peter C. Newman
| Quote: | One whimsical example of how profoundly the two cultures differed enlivens a memoir by American painter George Catlin, who observed the behaviour of a group of Indians he guided through Paris in the early 1840s. The natives were not particularly overawed by large buildings nor wildly impressed by the carriages and litters; they managed to suppress any sign of enthusiasm for white women and retained their dignity even when pawed over by various impertinent royal personages assembled to inspect them - but they were utterly flabbergasted by the way Parisian women treated their dogs. The visitors were unable to understand the affection showered on the pooches when they had seen orphanages filled with unwanted children. They could not comprehend the horror on a saleswoman's face when they tried to buy the main course for a traditional dog feast. One of the Indian visitors carefully repoduced a table of Parisian dog-walking habits that ironically presaged later anthropological reports on North American Indians:
Women leading one little dog 432
Women leading two little dogs 71
Women leading three little dogs 5
Women with big dogs following (no string) 80
Women carrying little dogs 20
Women with little dogs in carriages 31
The French visit was followed by a tour of England by a dozen Chipewyan from the HBC territories in 1848. All but three died of pneumonia and English cooking. (From the chapter, A Savage Commerce, pgs. 185, 202-203) |
More about Newfoundland dialects.
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| Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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B.C. 'BILLIES gotta keep LOTS of pet-slaves:
The Vancouver Sun
Tiger warning ignored: SPCA
An official says the government and RCMP were cautioned about zoo where woman was fatally mauled
By Miro Cernetig
May 12/07
| Quote: | Government officials and the RCMP were warned repeatedly for almost two years that a menagerie of tigers and lions at the Siberian Magic private zoo posed a serious danger to the public, the SPCA said Friday.
But despite the warnings and the poor conditions of the animals, no action was taken that might have prevented the death of Tania Dumstrey-Soos, 32. She was mauled by one of the tigers she was caring for in the private zoo near 100 Mile House.
..."We were made aware of the dangers in 2005. We served five violations-of-animal-welfare orders, the last in January 2007. We informed the regional district, the RCMP and [provincial] conservation officers."
B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner was also given a written warning more than a year ago about Siberian Magic zoo. He also was told its operator, Kim Carlton (the dead woman's fiancee), was taking his tigers to malls and did not have suitable cages to prevent escapes. "This is in our opinion a disaster waiting to happen," said a Dec. 1/06 letter from the Vancouver Humane Society (VHS), which was accompanied by video footage. Humane society spokesman Peter Fricker said there was no response from the minister. Penner also was not available Friday for comment. Nor would the RCMP comment on the case.
..."These cats were housed in 12-foot-by-12-foot pens made of chain link fence, with a simple padlock," she (SPCA investigator Marcie Moriarty) said. "He admitted that he walked tigers on a leash, that his kids fed them, that he took the tigers out and let members of the public take pictures with the tigers. It was a tragedy waiting to happen."
But why was it?
The reality is that this year, after almost 20 years of urging from the SPCA and VHS, the B.C. provincial government has finally begun reviewing its Wildlife Act with an eye to outlawing such menageries that contain tigers, lions, crocodiles, poisonous snakes and perhaps even elephants. A permit is only needed to keep an indigenous species in captivity, such as wolves or bears or moose. Exotic pets are left unregulated by the province.
...As well, there's the difficult problem of what to do with a 350-lb. tiger that needs a better home. The SPCA spent thousands of dollars trying to find new lodging for the tigers at the Siberian Magic zoo, even asking the Calgary Zoo to adopt them. It found no takers.
...Most people don't know it, but while tigers grow rarer in the jungles of Asia, North America is actually awash in them. Tigers are one of the favorite animals of the exotic-animal industry which has emerged as a $1-billion worldwide business. (emphasis added) (-- p. A4) |
The three-year-old Tiger was later euthenized by a vet.
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| Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 1:06 pm Post subject: |
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Off-leash dog on a public walkway or - GASP! - in my yard - what to do?
The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks
Hardcover
By Frostback Robertson Davies, alter ego of
humorist Samuel Marchbanks
| Quote: | SUNDAY
Was out for a walk this afternoon, and was joined by a dog; it was unknown to me, and was obviously of mixed ancestry; it was not a Social Register dog. What there was about me which struck its fancy, I cannot say, but it romped under my feet, smelled me searchingly, licked my gloves and hindered my progress seriously. Its most irritating trick was to run just ahead of me, with its head turned back so that it could stare rudely into my face; naturally it fell down a lot because it did not look where it was going, and every time it fell down I had to dance an impromptu jig to keep from falling over it... I like dogs, just as I like children. I like to think about them, and I like to read in the papers that dogs have been given medals for life-saving. But I do not particularly relish dogs in the flesh. When I meet a dog socially, with its owner, I am prepared to pat it once, and to allow it to smell me once, and then, so far as I'm concerned, the matter is closed. Dogs who go beyond this limit are asking for a kick in the slats, and they usually get it. (From The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, p. 15) |
| Quote: | OF HIS FALLING OUT WITH DOGS
I was cornered before dinner by that solemn man over there who took me to task for my attitude toward dogs who are, he tells me, noble creatures. This grieves me, for the quarrel between me and the canine world was begun by the dogs themselves. I am the sort of man at whom dogs bark, rush wildly, and jump up. People who think that dogs are wonderful judges of character insist that this means that I have the soul of a burglar, or possibly a cat. If dogs think so poorly of me is it any wonder that I am distant in my attitude toward dogs? I get on well with horses, I mix freely with cows, cats are affable in my presence, and goats consider me one of themselves. Babies (also considered infallible judges of character) gurgle with fascination when I go near them. Old ladies ask me to help them across the street. But dogs dislike me. By a process of reasoning too complicated to go into here, this leads me to dislike dogs, and to regard them as idiotic and dangerous, or both. My household pet is a cat, which was man's friend while the dog was unable to distinguish itself from a wolf. (From The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks, p. 255) |
| Quote: | HE ANIMADVERTS UPON DOGS
A dog attempted to end it all under the wheels of a car in which I was riding this afternoon. The suicidal instinct seems to be strong in all dogs, but amounts to an overmastering passion in collies and Airedales. My theory is that dogs go mad from the boredom of being dogs and seek to take their lives as a consequence. The much advertised intelligence of dogs is mythical. A recent article in Saturday Night, written by a scientist, asserts that dogs have even less intelligence than chickens, which is a strong statement. A dog can't begin to compete with a monkey, the writer says, and horses simply laugh at the pretensions of dogs to be sagacious. A pig can learn more tricks than a dog, but has too much sense to want to do it. All this supports my lifelong contention that Man's Dumb Chum is a fraud, and has only wormed his way into the hearts of dog-lovers by undignified self-abasement. The dog is a Yes-animal, very popular with people who can't afford to keep a Yes-man. (From The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks, p. 342) |
View Vancouver pet bylaws, especially:
| Quote: | #9150 Sec. 4.2
Dogs Must Be On A Leash
A person who keeps a dog must not permit, suffer or allow the dog to be on any street or other public place unless the dog is under the immediate charge and control of a person by means of a leash that is not more than 2.5 meters long.
#9150 Sec. 4.9
Dog Waste
A person who keeps a dog, or a person who has care, custody or control of a dog, except for a service dog in the company of a handler who is physically disabled or a guide dog in the company of a handler who is blind, must immediately remove any excrement deposited by the dog, and deposit it in a suitable refuse container. (This does not apply to the dog owner's property).
#9150 Sec. 6.5
Biting Dog
A dog which has bitten or who is alleged to have bitten a person may be seized and impounded for a period of up to 21 days.
#9150 Sec. 4.11
Dogs in Open Vehicles
A person who keeps a dog, or a person who has care, custody or control of a dog, must not keep the dog in an open vehicle unless such person secures the dog in a manner that prevents the dog from falling or being thrown out of the vehicle. |
See also Trespass to land, which states the thing quite neatly, in our view:
| Quote: | Trespass to land is a common law tort that is committed when an individual intentionally (or in Australia negligently) enters the land of another without lawful excuse. Trespass to land is actionable per se. Thus, the party whose land is entered may sue even if no actual harm is done. In some jurisdictions, this rule may also apply to entry upon public land having restricted access. A court may order payment of damages or an injunction to remedy the tort.
For trespass to be actionable, the tortfeasor must voluntarily go to a specific location, but need not be aware that he has entered the property of a particular person.
... In most jurisdictions, if a person were to accidentally enter onto private property, there would be no trespass, because the person did not intend any violation.. (From Wikipedia) |
Pretty tough to prove the dog is there by accident when it's off-leash.
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| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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The Summer of a Dormouse
A Year of Growing Old Disgracefully
Hardcover
By John Mortimer
| Quote: | | The Earl of Onslow, in a pronouncement which is almost a sufficient justification for the retention of hereditary peers, said, 'In my youth, the Church of England was anti-buggery and pro-fox-hunting. Now, strangely enough, it's pro-buggery and anti-fox-hunting.' The present excitement about hunting is due to the decline of religion. G.K. Chesterton said that when people stop believing in something, they don't believe in nothing. The reverence once accorded to the ancient gods is now given to animals, to whom all human virtues are attributed, regardless of the fact that foxes have absolutely no concern for animal rights and England's favourite, the cat, murders millions of small birds and mammals for fun, drawing out the killing process with sadistic glee. Recently, a three-legged deer was given an artificial limb and put back in the woods, where it no doubt met an early death, and in Sweden, a man caught spanking his wife with a live eel was fined heavily for cruelty to the eel. (From Chapter 9, pg.s 86-87) |
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| Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack
Hardcover
By deceased Frostback literary noise,
Robertson Davies
| Quote: | YOUR PET BETRAYS YOU / A man I know who is very fond of dogs called my attention to a newspaper article today, which said that a dog grows to be like its owner. Nervous people have nervous dogs; savage people have savage dogs; stupid people have stupid dogs. Well, it may be so, though I have never seen any dog-owners among my acquaintance nosing their pets away from a garbage can, or chasing each other amorously over a newly-seeded garden. But it is a fact that married people grow alike from living together, and no true dog-owner would admit that his dumb chum was less sensitive to atmosphere than his married partner. It may be that this theory about dogs throws new light on some of my friends: Professor A, the celebrated economist, has a dog which always forgets where it has buried its bones: Madame B, the fortune-teller, has a dog which cannot foresee what will happen when it goes to sleep with its tail under the rockers of Madame's chair; modest little Miss C owns a pooch of notorious wantonness and infidelity. Can it be that these beasts reveal the truth about their owners? Beware of the Dog!
(-- p. 43) |
More notable Pet Bets.
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 11:31 am Post subject: |
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cbc.ca
Don't expect antivenin for exotic snakebites: B.C. health officials
Dec. 17/07
| Quote: | A Surrey man who nearly lost his finger after a bite from his pet cobra is now home recovering, but B.C. health officials are warning the province has no supply of antivenin for exotic snakebites. Jason Hansen, 36, was bitten by Eve, his pet albino cobra, on Dec. 6, and he is still suffering from the effects. He has massive scarring on his arm and may still lose his finger, which is badly damaged. The bite was dry and no venom was released, but the neurotoxins in the snake's saliva caused serious tissue damage, he said. "It just looks like a finger with no skin," he told CBC News on Friday.
Experts say the case should be a warning to people who collect exotic and dangerous pets that life-saving antivenin is difficult to get and not always effective. Debra Kent, the supervisor of the B.C. Poison Control Centre, told CBC News that even if a hospital does have antivenin, doctors won't necessarily administer it to patients, because it is only effective in limited situations. In Hansen's case, antivenin was eventually obtained from Alberta, but never administered, because his respiratory system wasn't failing, said Kent. Many B.C. hospitals carry antivenin for bites from rattlesnakes, a species native to parts of B.C.'s Southern Interior, but they don't stock antivenin for non-native species such as cobras, said Kent. "The two closest places to us that carry exotic snake antivenin are the Woodland Zoo in Seattle and Reptile World in Drumheller, Alta.," said Kent.
Michael Teller, the manager at the Woodland Zoo ... If the bite is verified, and if the situation is life-threatening, they will ship antivenin, but Teller said exotic snake antivenin is rare and expensive, meaning if they hand out their vials, they put themselves at risk.
Cobra bites are rare, Kent said, but the latest incident has been a wakeup call for local health officials. "We don't really know how many private collections there are in B.C. [of poisonous exotic snakes]," she said. Hansen said there are a lot more than people think, and for that reason exotic snake antivenin should be readily available. |
Any law against trade in exotic, protected, endangered, dangerous species?
Here's how it works:
| Quote: | EC Investigation Into Alleged Illegal Importation of African Elephant Ivory Leads to Charges
Vancouver, April 12, 2007 - Environment Canada has laid 4 charges against Yuk Ming HO of Richmond, British Columbia for alleged violations of the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (WAPPRIITA). The charges stem from an investigation by Environment Canada's Wildlife Enforcement Division, Pacific and Yukon Region. Mr. Ho has been given notice to appear in Richmond Provincial Court on April 26, 2007.
It is alleged that in March 2005, Mr. Ho unlawfully imported into Canada African Elephant ivory which had been exported from Hong Kong without a permit, an alleged importation violation in contravention of WAPPRITTA. Mr. Ho also faces a charge of possession of African Elephant ivory specimens allegedly for the purpose of distributing or offering to distribute parts of an animal considered to be threatened with extinction.
Controls on the international trade and movement of animal and plant species that have been, or may be, threatened due to excessive commercial exploitation are set by the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). More than 30,000 endangered species of animals and plants, including African Elephants, are listed under CITES. WAPPRIITA is the legislation by which Canada meets its obligations under CITES. The Act and regulations rely on a permit system as assurance that trade in CITES-listed wild animal and plant specimens is legal.
Environment Canada is responsible for the administration and enforcement of WAPPRIITA. An individual found guilty of an offence under the Act is liable to a maximum penalty of a $150,000 fine or five years imprisonment or both. Further information on CITES and WAPPRIITA may be found at www.cites.ec.gc.ca.
For more information, please contact:
Regional Communications Advisor
Micheline Brodeur
(604) 713-9539
Regional Enforcement Officer
Marko Goluza
(604) 666-9082 |
Our e-mail to Environment Canada:
| Quote: | From: editor
To: greenlane.pyr@ec.gc.ca
Cc: editor
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 11:27 AM
Subject: Trade in exotic and dangerous animals listed on Control List
Hello Environment Canada,
Like many Vancouverites this Christmas, I was horrified to learn from the CBC News story on cobra owner Hansen (see http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1224#1224) that there may be quite a number of dubiously motivated collectors here of rare, exotic and extremely dangerous animals. I visited EC's website and was relieved to see both CTES and WAPPRITTA, but I'm unclear on the regulations regarding fauna on the Control List. Can it be - say NO!- that Hansen is quite within his rights to keep this poor creature? Please advise.
Editor
http://www.bccondos.ca
Tracking the failure of mult-unit housing worldwide compounded
by the culture's apparently boundless compulsion to sequester pet-slaves. |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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Vanity Fair
Magazine Subscription
England Made Them
Meet Garech Browne, the Guinness heir whose father
raised pigs in their drawing room. And Gavin Pretor-Pinney,
founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society. And the
Marquis of Bath, with 64 mistresses he calls "wifelets."
Tim Walker captures a cross-section of proud
standard-bearers in Britain's long tradition of eccentricity
as Christopher Hitchens explains why his
native land often seems like one big one big Monty Python skit
January, 2008
| Quote: | You might well think that it is easy to write about eccentric English people. “An embarrassment of riches” is a phrase that leaps to mind. After all, “England is the paradise,” as George Santayana wrote, “of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, anomalies, hobbies and humors.” But before making one’s selection, one has first to appreciate that the entire place has something batty, squiffy, potty, and loopy about it. For a start, Santayana’s remarks on the English appear in his work entitled “The British Character.” So, what is this country actually called? If you come from France or Sweden, you can say so when asked, and that’s it. But if you come from an odd-shaped and rain-lashed little archipelago in the North Sea, you can answer “England” (unless you are Scottish or Welsh) or “Britain” (unless you are from the six counties of Ulster). The actual title of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is really the name not of a place but of a distinctly odd 17th-century political compromise.
... There are various forms of English mania and oddity, and they tend to be more notorious among the upper classes, if only because true eccentricity requires some leisure time, and some money, for its cultivation. But a national weirdness, shared across all classes, has to do with the strong preference for animals over people. The country boasts, for example, a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It also has, but in a somewhat lower register, a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The façade of national reserve has crumbled a bit in the past few decades, though reticence and understatement are still prized, but if you want to see the English become emotional, speak to them about foxes and pheasants and horses and pigs and deer. Alexander Waugh’s memoir of the four generations of writers and novelists in his family tells heart-rendingly of his grandmother who, even when her son lay in the hospital, wanted most of all to be back with her cows. I knew of a man, more of a squire than an aristocrat, who when taken ill would summon a country vet to attend to his wants. “Because,” he roared, “the man knows how to make a diagnosis without asking a lot of bloody stupid questions.” |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, and look what we found Jan. 31/08 at Yahoo Answers!
| Quote: | What's the best way for angry listeners to prevent CBC from acquiring bigger audience access in BC via FM?
I'm sick to death of Vancouver's Early Edition http://www.cbc.ca/earlyedition/contact.h... a) using the station to promote their own dubious causes and interests (program director boosts all things dog, host flogs big business sports), b) filing one-source stories, often c) convicting defendants before trial and d) generally besmirching CBC Radio's once glorious past as journalism's finest. They pay little or no attention to complaints about editorial content.
How can I get the broadcast licensing body to nix the request, sending CBC brass a blast for allowing news standards to languish so in BC?
See CBC Radio One Vancouver http://www.cbc.ca/bc/making-the-move-to-fm/ regarding:
Vancouver and Gabriola Island, British Columbia
Application No. 2007-1423-9
Application by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, to convert radio station CBU Vancouver from the AM band to the FM band.
The applicant is also proposing to establish a new FM transmitter at Gabriola Isla... |
| Quote: | | Note: Yes, and unbelievably, on March 11/08, despite a day with plenty of news to report, including a conflict of interest case involving lobbyist Ken Dobell and the premier's office, a call by the parks board for the removal of its head and the recent discovery of a dangerous new designer drug on the Lower Mainland that encourages date rape, the show nevertheless gave itself permission to use public funding to broadcast ANOTHER lengthy feature by program director on pet dogs. |
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Last edited by editor on Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:45 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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editor
Site Admin
Joined: 01 Dec 2003
Posts: 878
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:40 am Post subject: |
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The Chickens Fight Back
Pandemic Panics and Deadly Diseases
that Jump from Animals to Humans
Paperback
BY Dr. David Waltner-Toews
| Quote: | The plague is a disease of increasing concern because of the growth of human slums globally and the unstable weather conditions associated with global warming and El Nino; these lead to changes in habitat for rodents in the countryside and explosions in rodent population in urban centers. We tend to view this disease as one that affects people, which, of course, it does. But we may learn something by taking a broader view. The plague is a disease of people, of fleas, of rodents, and, finally, of whole socio-ecological systems.
In people, it comes in three forms: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. To cause disease, the causative organism, Yersinia pestis, needs to get into the bloodstream, through an open wound, through transmission from one's afflicted cat (say, by kissing the cat and inhaling the bug), or through a bite from an infected flea that then vomits the bacterium into the bloodstream. (-- p. 22) |
| Quote: | | In the southwestern United States, ground squirrels can carry the plague, which has made for some exciting, if maudlin, made-for-television movies. In 2006, a woman in Los Angeles picked up bubonic plague from an unknown source, probably a flea that jumped from rodent tyo cat to person. The occasional cat has passed the disease directly to an affectionately stupid person by rubbing noses. (-- p. 30) |
| Quote: | | In those places where dogs are a major source of the parasites for flies and people, they may offer some opportunities for control. In the late 1980s, one of my graduate students went to investigate an epidemic of leishmaniasis in a town in Central America. She wanted to explore the role of dogs. When she arrived, she found that local authorities had already killed all the dogs, and new ones were being brought in. The Chinese apparently were effective in getting rid of the disease in some places by getting rid of dogs. Dogs, however, are not just carriers of disease or even just human companions. In some countries, they are food. And, as we discovered in our work in Nepal (chapter 16), they may have other jobs, for example as night guards and community police. Even removing rodents or rodent habitats may pose unexpected problems, as discussed in chapter 3. (-- 74) |
| Quote: | The bad news is that people move themselves and a wide range of species, legally and illegally, out of Africa every day. The animals are transported to become pets, to be used in research or for food, or just because that's what humans do. In 2003, monkeypox (fortunately not a fatal disease in people) got into the United States when an animal distributor inmported a variety of rodents from Ghana. These included species such as rope squirrels, tree squirrels, Gambian giant rats, brushtail porcupines, dormice and striped mice. The animals were then shipped to pet stores across the country and thoused in the same stores that sold prairie dogs, those pesky things that farmers like to shoot. Apparently, there is a market for these little beasties as pets; apparently, the market does not know that these abimals act as vessels for microbes out to see and colonize the wide world.
It may be time re-examine some of the things we "just do." (-- 130) |
| Quote: | | ... It wasn't until the 1970s that scientists discovered the trysting, let's-have-sex-until-we-drop hideouts for Toxoplasma: cats. (-- p. 163) |
| Quote: | | In some ways, the prevention of direct disease transmission from pets to people seems simple and painless: get pets vaccinated and dewormed, don't let cats hunt in the wild, enforce laws that require owners to take their animal poop home with them, and wash your hands after handling an animal and before eating. Keep your dog on a leash when in public places. (-- p. 168) |
| Quote: | | It should go without saying (but it doesn't, believe me) that an animal with diarrhea should not play with little children or visit a nursing home. (-- p. 173) |
| Quote: | | About 60 per cent of the dog owners in the areas where livestock were slaughtered were feeding raw meat, offal, bones, or cysts (meat infected with parasites) to their dogs. Unlike people in North America, where feeding raw meats to dogs has become a health-food fad, these peopple fed their dogs raw meat because they didn't have many alternatives. In whatever country one lives, feeding raw meat to dogs is a great way to spread all sorts of diseases from livestock to dogs and to the people handling the dog food. (-- p. 201) |
| Quote: | We had hoped that the epidemiological studies would, through the sheer weight of evidence, persuade people to change their ways. The solutions were, on the face of it, obvious: have health inspectors at the slaughtering areas to cut out cysts and dispose of them properly; close in the slaughtering areas and educate the public so that the dogs didn't get access to raw, cyst-infested meat; educate the public about hand-washing after handling their dogs and about cleaning up dog feces to decrease fecal contamination of streets and houses; control the dog populations. ...
Knowing how they are transmitted means that preventive measures are obvious, at least at the individual level. None of these measures are foolproof, but all of them are reasonably effective. Washing your hands with soap after handling animals or meat will take care of many bacteria and parasites; so-called antibacterial soaps are unnecessary and may only encourage the evolution of more aggressive microbial populations. Wearing a long-sleeved shirt outdoors and using insect repellents will help keep the mosquitoes and ticks in check. Cooking your food well will kill bacteria like Salmonella on the surface of - and parasites like Toxoplasma inside - your meat. Cleaning up dog poop and disposing of it by, say, composting, or in landfills, will help keep a variety of parasites and bacteria out of general ciruculation. (-- pgs. 203-215) |
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editor
Site Admin
Joined: 01 Dec 2003
Posts: 878
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| Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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New York Times Magazine
Newspaper Subscription
The 7th Annual Year in Ideas
"Cat Lady" Conundrum, The
By Rebecca Skloot
Dec. 9/07
| Quote: | Here's a little-known and slightly terrifying fact: According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 60 million people in the United States are infected with a parasite that may migrate into their brains and alter their behavior in a way that - among other things - may leave them more likely to be eaten by cats. New research into this common parasite - Toxoplasma gondii - may offer clues to the phenomenon known to the unscientifically-minded as "crazy cat lady" syndrome.
The basic facts: Toxo can infect many species, but it undergoes sexual reproduction only in cat digestive tracts. Once the parasite reproduces, the cat passes it in its feces, where the next unwitting host picks it up by digesting it (intentionally or unintentionally). Then the cycle starts again. In the long run, Toxo must find its way back to a cat's stomach to survive. So the parasite has evolved a complicated system for taking over its hosts' brains to increase the likelihood that they'll be eaten by cats.
How? Scientists are still figuring that out. Research conducted this year by Toxo expert Robert Sapolsky of Stanford, and also by Joanne Webster, professor of parasite epidemiology at Imperial College London, has found that Toxo actually causes rats to become attracted to the smell of cat urine.
Might Toxo explain why soe humans develop an unhealthful attraction to cats and apparently become immune to the smell of their urine? And might that explain the ystery of crazy cat ladies? "That idea doesn't seem completely crazy," Sapolsky says. "But there's no data supporting it."
Not yet. But Jaroslave Flegr, an evolutionary biologist at Charles University in the Czech Republic, is looking into it. He has spent years studying Toxo's impact on human bbehavior. (He found, for example, that people infected with Toxo have slower reflexes and are 2.5 times more likely to get into car accidents.) He won't have results of his study for a while and refuses to speculate. But Joanne Webster says the connection isn't too much of a stretch: "In our evolutionary past, perhaps we were eaten by cats, too," she says. (-- p. 60) |
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