PETA to defend Anaheim Coyotes from Rizzo’s Gas Chambers.

Well our friend Matthew Duncan must feel vindicated. No longer will he be the lone wolf, howling at the moon, while defending coyotes from inhumane execution at Anaheim Council meetings – the cavalry has arrived! (And he told me this was gonna happen.)

Over our transom this weekend, PETA (the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) sent us this video and press release. FIRST THE SHORT VIDEO, an excerpt from their upcoming film “One Nation Under Dog,” showing the gas-chamber execution of four young coyote “song dogs”:

UPDATE VIDEO REMOVED AT PETA’S REQUEST. A copyright thing with HBO I think. But you had 4 days to see & hear it!


And next, PETA’s press release, announcing an action they’re taking tomorrow, Tuesday:

Orange County — In response to the cruel and ineffective trapping and gassing of coyotes in Orange County, PETA representatives—flanked by a pack of supporters wearing coyote masks—will hold a news conference outside the headquarters of the California Fish and Game Commission in Sacramento on Tuesday to call for statewide regulations that would ban gassing coyotes to death and prohibit cities from contracting with private trappers who trap and kill the “song dogs” on public land. 

PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange, PETA Foundation General Counsel Jared Goodman, and PETA Foundation Wildlife Veterinarian Dr. Mason Payne will all speak at the news conference on Tuesday and are available for phone or video interviews with you about this issue.

The news conference will highlight PETA’s petition for rulemaking, which the Fish and Game Commission will consider at its June 19–20 meeting, filed in response to Anaheim’s contracts with a private trapper—Jimmie Rizzo of Coyote, Wildlife & Pest Solutions Inc.—who uses a gas chamber in the back of his truck to kill coyotes and has repeatedly self-reported setting snare traps near dozens of homes in possible violation of state law.

According to contracts between Rizzo’s company and Anaheim—as well as Rancho Palos Verdes and Torrance in Los Angeles County—each city has spent between $105,000 and $215,000 in taxpayer money on coyote-trapping programs despite extensive research demonstrating that lethal removal doesn’t control the animals’ populations or minimize conflicts with humans. None of the cities could produce a single public record showing that they exercise any oversight of Rizzo’s use of a gas chamber, which Californians historically have opposed.

“It’s time to put trappers on notice for cruelly killing California’s wildlife, who should be respected, not slowly strangled in snares and gassed in the back of a truck,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA is urging state lawmakers to ban Anaheim and every other city in California from senselessly exterminating animals who are simply trying to survive.”

At Tuesday’s news conference, members of PETA will speak about the legal ramifications of the trappings and killings and show footage of coyotes caught in snare traps and coyote-sized dogs sent to gas chambers to highlight the immense suffering and terror caused by these lethal methods.

To encourage coyotes to leave residential neighborhoods, PETA and California state authorities recommend that homeowners remove food sources and keep companion animals indoors and garbage tightly sealed.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on XFacebook, or Instagram.

3. The RIZZO Concern.

Vern here again. To paraphrase Trump, we are sure there are MANY FINE PEOPLE named “Rizzo.” It’s just that the Rizzi we KNOW about give one pause to say the least.

  • Jimmie Rizzo, the trapper/killer in question, who has managed to charm journalists with his Southern accent and eccentric behavior into writing puff pieces like this. “What a character!” they rave, he reminds them of that Australian crocodile guy. Meanwhile in recent years he’s come under investigation for breaking numerous laws in his insatiable and sadistic quest for more dead coyotes and other wildlife.

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  • Robert Rizzo, HB-dwelling Bell City Manager, “was regarded as the ringleader among the ‘Bell Eight,’ former Bell city officials (all of whom resigned or were recalled or fired), accused of bilking taxpayers out of about $5.5 million through hefty salaries, benefits and illegal loans of public money.” Comparable to and a harbinger of the Anaheim scandals of 2022!

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  • Rizzo of the Jerky Boys, the most aggressive of the characters developed by those 1990’s prank-call artistes. Though others of their characters are more surrealistically creative, “Rizzo” or “Paul Rizzo” or “Frank Rizzo” is the scariest, and most worthy of our concern.

  • Further research may help us shed more light on … everything under the sun! I just read that the Jerky Boys named that character Rizzo (although they Americanize the pronunciation) in honor of that unforgettable Dustin Hoffman character from Midnight Cowboy, RATSO RIZZO.” At some point all of this may make sense...

You’re the one that we want! Ooh-ooh-ooh!
  • Greg belatedly chimes in to ask: “Is it more, or is it less, respectful of women to have omitted from this list a role that was surely among the greatest of all Rizzi? Like Squeaky Fromm and Sara Jane Olson in Sondheim’s “Assassins,” it seems best to include Here’s Betty Rizzo of “Grease,” arguably at this late date when high school musicals have kept her perhaps the most famous of them all — even though she wasn’t really bad, but more like just misunderstood. She was played by the great Stockard Channing prior to her becoming First Lady a couple decades later. This Rizzo’s view on coyotes? Unknown, it would hardly be surprising if she eventually became a cougar.”

    Well, we hope this was at least a little bit helpful. The Orange Juice Blog will keep you abreast of any developments on the coyote front, and whether or not Anaheim and other towns will stop contracting with the cruel and irresponsible RIZZO! Vern out (and not a moment too soon!)

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.