US banker Sonia Dias hides her clandestine cargo, Zena the pit-bull terrier, in the back of her SUV in a desperate quest to save the dog from city officials and a possible death sentence.
The professional from Denver, in the western state of Colorado, is part of an "underground railroad" intent on secretly ferrying the dogs -- blamed for a string of savage and sometimes deadly attacks on people -- to safety before local officials can impound and euthanize them.
Denver was one of the first of a growing number of US municipalities to ban the beasts from its city limits, a move that has infuriated pit-bull lovers, raised cries of canine racism and spawned a string of canine "safehouses."
"I don't have any two-legged children, but I have two four-legged children," Dias said of her dogs, including Zena the brindle-colored pit bull.
"It's the equivalent, to me, of saying, `You have to give up your children,'" she said.
Since Denver's city council renewed its 1989 ban on the dogs on May 9, at least 260 pit bulls have been put to sleep in the Rocky Mountain metropolis, spurring a network of pit-bull lovers into illegal action.
Volunteers of the pit bull "railroad" take illegally harbored pit bulls and drive them to shelters like Mariah's Promise Animal Sanctuary in the southern mountain town of Divide, about 160km away.
The railroad urges those who run such shelters to hole up inside with the flurry of fearsome dogs, not open the door to animal control officers and force authorities to obtain a search warrant.
Following a flurry of US pit bull attacks, Denver's tough ban has reignited the debate over whether the dogs or their human handlers are to blame for vicious behavior, and who should pay for their misdeeds.
"The problem is when you have a specific breed used for dog fighting and to protect drug premises and they're trained to be rough," Councilwoman Carol Boigon said of the dogs.
Denver moved to ban the dogs after 20 reported pit-bull attacks on humans between 1984 and 1989.
They included the 1986 death of a three-year-old boy and the 1989 mauling that left 59-year-old Reverend Wilbur Billingsley with over 70 bites and two broken legs.
But the ordinance ran up against state law last year, when Colorado Governor Bill Owens signed a bill prohibiting local governments from regulating a specific breed.
The city suspended its enforcement of the ban but reinstated it three months ago, after it successfully challenged the state with a lawsuit arguing that the city had a right to regulate its own borders.
While it is difficult to estimate how many pit bulls live in Denver, the number of impounded pit bulls has been steadily rising over the past few years, from 103 in 1999 to 652 in 2003.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS