Animal health

May 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Fifteen thousand cattle have

died so far in Tanzania from an outbreak

of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia––

and it could spread to Zambia, Malawi,

and the rest of southern Africa, United

Nations Food and Agriculture Organiza-

tion animal health officer Peter Roeder

warned on March 29. “Cattle movements

from Uganda and Kenya, sometimes as

result of civil strife, have already caused

major outbreaks in Zaire and Rwanda,” he

said.

Canine distemper is on the

wane in Serengeti National Park, says

Melody Roelke-Parker, chief veterinarian

for Tanzania National Parks––after it

killed 80% of the now rebounding lion

population.

Zoos

May 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Yan Yan, a female giant panda on a

five-year loan from the Beijing Zoo, on April 14

joined Bao Bao, the Berlin zoo’s solitary male,

whose former partner Tien Tien died of a viral

infection in 1984. Yan Yan was taken from the

wild at age three months in 1985. The World

Wildlife Fund ripped the Berlin loan and the loan

of two pandas to the San Diego Zoo as “a danger-

ous precedent,” which could “lead to further

depletion of an already fragile wild panda popula-

tion,” via further removals from the wild. WWF

has asked the secretariat of the Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species to

restrict panda loans to captive-bred animals. The

Dept. of the Interior on March 30 proposed such a

rule to govern future panda loans to the U.S.

Performing animals

May 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Contrary to wire service reports and the account

in the April edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE, dogs did die in

this year’s 1,161-mile Iditarod sled race from Anchorage to

Nome, Alaska––but race officials failed to disclose the

March 10 death of a dog belonging to Minnesota musher

Robert Somers until March 25, eight days after Japanese

musher Keizo Funatsu lost a dog and suffered frostbite just 22

miles from the finish. Although winner Doug Swingley fin-

ished on March 14, Funatsu was still on the course when

ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press.

At deadline a bill to ban horse-tripping, a staple

of charro-style rodeo, needed only New Mexico governor

Gary Johnson’s signature to become law. California adopted a

similar law last year.

San Juan to St. Louis

May 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

ST. LOUIS––”If I was a lost, sick, hungry stray

cat or dog,” says Pet Search volunteer Judith Riddell

Messimer, “Alice Dodge is the face I’d most want to see.”

The 100-odd cats and two dozen dogs in Dodge’s

care at any given time might agree. Messimer was so con-

vinced just from her experience in adopting one kitten that

she traded in an economical Ford Escort for “an $18,000

Jeep PetTaxi,” as she recalls, to be of maximum use in

“spending my Sundays shuttling animals from rural Missouri

to St. Louis and interviewing potential owners.”

But 11 years ago, Dodge couldn’t even stand to

see her own face in the mirror.

“Alice’s son was killed when the vehicle she was

driving was hit broadside,” Messimer explains. “Kenny,

who was five, had removed his seatbelt to climb over the

seat. The impact threw open the passenger door, and Kenny

fell out. His head injuries killed him, but not before Alice

had to see him struggling to survive for days in the hospital.

The guilt and grief nearly killed her.”

LETTERS [May 1995]

May 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Fix dogs too

There is little disagreement in the animal welfare

movement that neutering is the humane answer to pet over-

population and destruction. It is also recognized that most

low-income pet owners are unable to afford the usual veteri-

nary charges for surgery––especially for dogs. It is therefore

unbelievable to read in your April edition that in San Jose

$100,000 “obtained from a surplus in animal licensing,” i.e.

dog licensing, will be used for free vouchers to neuter only

cats, the rationale being that costs for dogs are twice as high

so two cats can be helped for each dog. Consider two equal-

ly poor pet owners, one with a large dog and one with a cat.

Because the surgery costs for the dog are more than twice as

much as for the cat, only the cat owner will be assisted.

––Elisabeth Arvin

Ojai, California

Letters

Editorial: Earth Day is over. Take a clod to lunch.

May 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

The Editor’s most original contribution to the initial Earth Day, 25 years ago,

may have been coining the slogan, “Today is Earth Day; take a clod to lunch.” In the 1970

atmosphere of Berkeley, California, where the Editor was then a cub reporter, it went

without saying that the lunch would be vegetarian. The radical idea was not that meat-eat-

ing was and is the most fundamental environmental issue. Already Food First author

Frances Moore Lappe, Population Bomb author Paul Erlich, and Silent Spring author

Rachel Carson had delineated the links between meat production and depleted topsoil, star-

vation, and overuse of pesticides. Every incipient environmentalist in that particular time

and place at least paid lip-service to the ideal of vegetarianism. Disagreement arose, rather,

over the affirmation that the path to change lay through breaking bread instead of heads;

that environmental problems were due not to inherent flaws in the capitalist system, but to

rectifiable ignorance, which could be overcome more easily through discussion than

through fulminating about smashing the state.

“Full speed ahead and damn the manatees!”

May 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

ORLANDO, Florida– – Killing

manatees at a record rate of almost two a

week, boaters could extinguish the Floridan

subspecies in the wild––if they keep it

up––before the end of the 20th century, now

less than five years away. More than 60

Florida manatees died during the first quarter

of 1995, twice the rate of 1994, when 192

manatees were found dead, second only to

the 206 deaths reported in 1990 among the 25

years that statistics have been kept. As in 24

of those 25 years, the leading cause of death,

claiming exactly 60, was being sliced or

stabbed by power boat propellers, prows,

and keels. That broke the 1989 record of 58

human-caused deaths, 53 of them caused by

boats. Severe cold is the manatees’ only other

significant killer.

TREASON CHARGE FOR DOLPHIN VIDEO

May 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

CORAL GABLES, Florida––Aldemaro Romero is alive and well as an Adjunct

Associate Professor at the University of Miami. That annoys the Venezuelan government.

Officially, he’s wanted for treason. Unofficially, some authorities would rather have his tor-

tured corpse in a ditch, along with that of his colleague Ignacio Agudo, a fellow academic

and president of Fundacetacea (The Whale Fund), who has been dodging dragnets in

Venezuela for more than a year now.

Said Ramon Martinez, governor of Sucre state, to Wall Street Journal reporter Jose

de Cordoba, “If it were up to me, I’d have them shot.”

Their alleged crime was videotaping a fishing crew in February 1993 during the acts

of harpooning a dolphin, then hacking her apart alive for use as bait.

“The remains of 13 other dolphins were found on the beach,” states Romero. “The

crew said on tape that they kill dolphins for shark bait. They also provided information about

the number of dolphins they kill per month, and where they get the harpoons.”

Who you gonna call? Pet Savers

May 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

PORT WASHINGTON, New York––If $35 could save

each and every shelter animal’s life, how many would you save?

“We’ll save them all,” longtime North Shore Animal

League board chairperson Elisabeth Lewyt decided six years ago,

committing North Shore resources to saving not only the animals

coming through its own shelter, but also those handled by other

shelters around the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

Since then, North Shore and the two-year-old Pet Savers

Foundation it created with a $6.3 million start-up grant have helped

arrange nearly 170,000 extra adoptions, above and beyond the annu-

al totals the participating shelters achieved prior to North Shore

involvement. By itself, the North Shore/Pet Savers adoption pro-

gram has achieved a cumulative 3% drop in the U.S. euthanasia

rate––an even more impressive figure considering that, big as it is,

it involves barely 1% of U.S. shelters.

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