I apologize Don for posting all those positive articles on the semiconductor industry. Today I discovered it has gone to the dogs -g-:
Copyright 1998 Times Mirror Company
Los Angeles Times
January 6, 1998, Tuesday, Home Edition
L.A. MOVES TOWARD PLAN TO IMPLANT COMPUTER MICROCHIPS INTO ANIMALS
They flutter from telephone poles all over the city: homemade fliers with blurry photos of lost dogs or cats, posted by desperate pet lovers. Now, the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation believes that it may have a technological solution to the problem of wandering pets: computer chips.
By implanting a chip the size of a grain of rice under the skin of a pet's neck, the department hopes to reunite lost pets and their owners and cut down on the number of animals that it must kill.
Lost dogs and cats implanted with chips can be scanned like groceries and more easily reunited with owners. "We would like to see every animal have a microchip," said Peter Persic, a department spokesman.
The chips are inserted with a needle and are considered safe and painless by veterinarians. "I've watched a dog's face when it's being done and it doesn't even flinch," said Jack Nylund, a senior system analyst for the department.
The chips have been used in Ventura County and the city of San Diego and by several other agencies across the country. But Los Angeles' interest marks a significant step in the evolution of electronic animal identification.
The city had held off using the chips in the past, partly because the fiercely competitive companies that make the chips were not manufacturing compatible technologies. That meant that a shelter with one brand of scanner might not pick up the code from another company's chip, Nylund said.
But, Nylund said, newly compatible technologies have largely eliminated that problem. So the City Council's Public Safety Committee voted unanimously Monday to approve a contract with American Veterinary Identification Devices (AVID) of Norco to install scanners at the city's six animal shelters. The scanners can read all kinds of chips.
Best - Joe |
