Animal Welfare

When a plan for a rodeo at the Santa Cruz County fairgrounds was tentatively approved last month, fans of ropin' and ridin' were elated. But officials Tuesday said a threatened lawsuit from animal welfare activists forced them to scuttle the local Sheriff's Department event, which was aimed at raising money for children's activities and organizations. The Santa Cruz County Fair Board of Directors "made a business decision that the benefits didn't outweigh the risks," said Steve Stagnaro, a board spokesman.

The gig : Dr. Gary K. Michelson, 62, is a billionaire inventor of surgical devices and a retired orthopedic surgeon who has devoted an estimated $300 million of his fortune to an assortment of causes. Topping the list: animal welfare, medical research, online textbooks and tropical rain forests. An early influence: Michelson vividly recalls the childhood event in Philadelphia that set him on his path to medicine: His grandmother suffered from a crippling spinal deformity that made it impossible for her to distinguish between hot and cold in her extremities.

Ed Boks says he runs the Los Angeles city department that "most people love to hate." Taking over as general manager of Los Angeles Animal Services a little more than a year ago, he became the fourth person in four years to oversee the care of thousands of animals in city shelters. The turnover rate alone illustrates the political pressure that historically hangs over the department as it manages the population of unwanted pets whose treatment people care about deeply -- even radically.

Someone else may soon be tending to the misty artificial rain forest at the Los Angeles Zoo where Bruno, a 300-pound orangutan with a wispy orange beard and a hulking frame, makes his home. The city opened the zoo and botanical gardens in 1966, but officials are now considering a proposal to turn over management to a private operator. That means the gardeners, plumbers and other city employees who help run the zoo could be transferred to other departments and replaced with private workers.

Have you seen the billboards around town that say "Protect Your Right to Own a Pet"? They show a child hugging a puppy and provide a website, exposeanimalrights.com, flanked by international "no" symbols (a circle with a slash though it) containing the initials PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and HSUS (Humane Society of the United States). When I first passed one a couple of weeks ago, I was confused.

A California Assembly bill that would require anyone who videotapes, photographs or records incidents of animal cruelty to turn over the evidence to authorities within 48 hours - or be charged with an infraction of the law - sounds like a tough new measure to crack down on abuse. It's not. In reality, it's one of a crop of disturbing "ag-gag" bills being introduced across the country. Although AB 343 is not as bad as some others that ban outright recording and videotaping at animal facilities, it would effectively hamper animal welfare undercover investigators and employee whistle-blowers who are collecting information on systemic animal cruelty at meatpacking plants, slaughterhouses, livestock ranches and farms.

An Idaho dairy farm linked to Burger King, In-N-Out and other food companies has been accused by an animal rights group of “some of the most abusive treatment of animals” it had ever seen. Undercover video footage (warning: images may be disturbing) provided by Mercy For Animals shows employees at Bettencourt Dairies, which has more than 60,000 cows, stomping on and beating cattle, twisting their tails and using a tractor to drag one animal by its chained neck. The Murtaugh, Idaho, dairy works with cheese producers and suppliers, which in turn have deals with fast-food chains.

Among listings for fraying couches and used television sets, the Craigslist ad stood out — $2,800 for a prized Asian arowana fish, believed to bring good luck and ward off evil spirits. A grammatically challenged buyer from Las Vegas sent the seller an email expressing interest: "Is she a super red asian arowana? I all ready have all the other species and I need the endangered one to finilize my collection. " The seller responded cautiously — "Are you a cop?" she allegedly wrote in one text message — but ultimately agreed to meet the buyer at Laguna Hills Mall for the handoff.

The elephant researcher stood in the living room of the sleekly modern Pacific Palisades home perched high on a hill. Slides of an African preserve flashed by on a screen. Elephants "are so social, so communicative, so intelligent," said Joyce Poole, who has dedicated her life to documenting and protecting pachyderms. It is a task that takes money, and the admiring audience was ready to help. "I'd like to put up $25,000," businessman Gil Michaels said.

San Diego County's Animal Services Department has filed a complaint against a veterinarian who allegedly authorized a Valley Center egg ranch to kill 30,000 hens by dumping them alive into a wood chipper. Reports by the county, recently obtained by The Times, recount workers at the ranch feeding squirming birds by the bucket into the pounding machine, then turning the mashed remains with dirt and heaping the mixture into piles.