Moral relativism & Marine World

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

VALLEJO, California––Any day now the fishing

crews of Iki, Japan, may string nets between their boats and,

banging metal objects together to make a noise that carries

underwater, herd scores of Dall’s porpoises and pseudorcas

into an inlet to be harpooned and hacked apart with machetes.

Spring is the season for such massacres, conducted intermit-

tently at least since 1900 and almost annually since 1967

despite international protest. The traditional rationale is

reducing competition for yellowtail; also, much of the por-

poise and whale meat is either eaten or sold.

A few months later, Eskimo hunters in power boats

will shoot walruses up and down the Bering and Arctic

coasts, ostensibly for meat but perhaps mostly to get ivory

tusks, according to witness Sam LaBudde, a research biolo-

gist and native of Alaska who has observed the killing for

Friends of Animals. LaBudde’s testimony is backed by

Alaskan eco-journalist Tim Moffat. Some hunting parties

retrieve whole carcasses, those that don’t sink; others just

hack off tusked heads, carve out genitals, and leave the rest,

contrary to Marine Mammal Protection Act requirements.

MONEY TALK

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

“By significantly expanding the scale and

scope of their groups’ activities” during the past decade,

“the directors of environmental organizations hoped to

capitalize on Americans’ increasing demands for environ-

mental quality,” say Christopher Boerner and Jennifer

Chilton Kallery of the Center for the Study of American

Business at Washington University in St. Louis, in a new

report entitled Restructuring Environmental Big Business.

“Unfortunately, as many U.S. corporations have discov-

ered, expansion away from an organization’s core compe-

tency often has numerous disadvantages,” including inten-

sified competition for donor dollars and loss of concentra-

tion on achieving key goals. Examples of groups in trou-

ble include Greenpeace , down to 3.5 million members

from a peak 4.8 million; the Sierra Club, down from

630,000 members to 500,000; the Wilderness Society,

down from 400,000 members to 275,000; the National

Audubon Society, which posted a deficit of $1.7 million

in 1993; and the National Wildlife Federation, which

has been reducing staff since 1992. Humane societies and

animal rights groups have not been hit as hard, partly

because most have remained more closely focused.

However, Boerner and Chilton Kallery note that groups

“employing highly emotional and often misleading cam-

paigns,” including “apocalyptic prophecies,” have suf-

fered significant erosion of public trust.

Success in San Francisco: No-kill animal control

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

SAN FRANCISCO––If San Francisco SPCA ethical stud-

ies coordinator Pam Rockwell hadn’t supported her January 5 report

to president Richard Avanzino with three pages of graphs and statis-

tics, it might have been mistaken by outside readers for a work of

utopian fiction.

“Every adoptable dog and cat in San Francisco’s shelters

found a loving new home in 1994,” Rockwell stated. “Older cats

and dogs, blind animals, deaf animals, animals missing limbs or

otherwise disfigured––as long as they were healthy and of reasonably

good temperament, these dogs and cats were all adoptable. Each

was and is guaranteed a new home under the Adoption Pact,” which

the SFSPCA negotiated with the San Francisco Animal Care and

Control department just a year ago. “Since this group of animals

would be considered unadoptable and be euthanized in most shelters,

the fact that in San Francisco all these animals were saved would

appear to be an unprecedented achievement.”

Political intelligence and other oxymorons

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

The Green Scissors Coalition,

led by Jill Lancelot of the National

Taxpayers Union Foundation and Ralph

DeGennaro of Friends of the Earth, has

recommended to Congress a series of bud-

get cutbacks that would trim $33 billion

from the federal budget over the next

decade-plus with benefits for wildlife

habitat. The cuts aren’t likely to be made,

however, as they include irrigation subsi-

dies to big landowners in Republican-

dominated southern California and would

require significant amendment of the

Mining Law of 1872, any changes to

which have been fought by the wise-use

lobby. The law allows mining firms to

buy mineral rights to federal land for

under $5.00 an acre, while paying no roy-

alties on the proceeds of what they extract.

Activists

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

The Sea Shepherd Conservation

Society urgently seeks volunteer crew to

mount a voyage in protest of resumed

large-scale sealing in Atlantic Canada.

Get details from 310-301-7325 or fax 310-

574-3161.

Several anonymous Internet

p o s t i n g s in late January claimed a Sea

Shepherd vessel had collided with the

Norwegian destroyer King Olaf Gustav near

Valdheim Island. “The Sea Shepherd

Conservation Society has not been involved

in any such accident, nor do we have a ship

anywhere near the area described,”

responded Sea Shepherd Internet representa-

tive Nick Voth.

Activists & Organizations

FARM campaign backfires

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

“In September and October,” The Farm Animal Reform Movement recently told members,

FARM conducted a massive letters-to-the-editor writing campaign that published over 100

letters on five topics in 60 of the nation’s largest newspapers.

We estimate that this brief campaign alone has reached between two and five million

readers, some more than once, raising substantially public awareness of the destruc-

tive impact of animal agriculture.”

That claim raised the awareness of Robert G. Zimbelman, executive vice

president of the American Society of Animal Science, who soon informed newspaper

editors across the U.S. that someone using the name “Tom Oliver” and a variety of

apparently bogus addresses had published letters following the FARM format in 22

newspapers between December 5 and February 5.

Horses

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

Washington governor Mike

Lowry intervened with an emergency order on

January 24 while the state legislature rushed

through special legislation to allow animal res-

cuer Carlene Whitesell and sons Israel, 12,

and Benjamin, 8, of Paterson, to keep a pony

named Blaze. After postmaster Beth Allen

found the pony wandering along a railroad

track on December 30, she and the Whitesells

captured him, searched unsuccessfully for the

owner, then called the state brand inspector––

who moved to seize and auction the pony in

compliance with a state law governing the

roundup of unclaimed cattle. Authorities now

believe the pony was abandoned deliberately.

AGRICULTURE

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

Livestock show judge Lynn

Holley, 42, of Bowling Green, Ohio, was

indicted December 22 along with Dallas

Miller, 42, also of Bowling Green, and

Gregory Garmyn, 41, of Hicksville, for

allegedly trafficking in clenbuterol, a banned

steroid. The drug is illegally used as a growth

stimulant for veal calves and a performance

booster for both human and equine athletes.

Residues in meat can cause illness and even

death. Holley was caught when Ohio

Department of Agriculture investigators dis-

covered at slaughter that vegetable oil had

been injected into the rump of his son Mike’s

steer, named grand champion at last year’s

Wood County Fair. The oil enhanced the

steer’s appearance but violated pure food laws

and the rules of fair exhibition. Looking far-

ther, the ODA found that eight award-win-

ning animals in the junior livestock division

at the Ohio State Fair had been tampered

with––three by injections of vegetable oil,

two with clenbuterol treatments, and three

with both substances.

ZOONOSIS UPDATE

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

A technical advisory committee set

up by the Indian government announced

February 7 that data review had confirmed

that a major disease outbreak in the city of

Surat last September was indeed pneumonic

plague, as first diagnosed, even though it did

not spread as fast or kill as many people as past

outbreaks have. A slightly earlier outbreak of a

disease reported as bubonic plague in

Maharashtra state is still under study. Both

forms of plague may be spread by rodent infes-

tation.

Yevgeny Belyaev, head of Russia’s

Epidemics and Sanitary Control State

Committee, told media February 8 that stray

dogs had become a serious threat to public

health in the Chechnyan war zone. He said the

chance that the dogs might spread cholera was

the greatest concern.

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