Australian, Canadian, U.S. high courts open refuges to native hunters

November 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1999:

CANBERRA, OTTAWA, WASHINGTON,
D.C.––The Supreme Court of Australia on October 7 ruled 5-2
that the 410,000 recognized members of aboriginal tribes are
exempt from hunting and fishing license laws, under the
Federal Native Title Act of 1993, and may freely hunt even
protected and endangered species for personal use.
The Australian high court struck down parts of the
earlier Queensland Fauna Conservation Act on behalf of
Gangalidda tribe activist Murrandoo Yanner, who speared two
esturine saltwater crocodiles near Doomadgee in 1994 to create
the test case. The Yanner victory is expected to mean charges
will also be dropped against aboriginals who are charged with
illegally killing an extremely rare spiny anteater and an endangered
dugong, apparently also to set up test cases, as well as
against alleged aboriginal poachers of fish and seagull eggs.

Wildlife Report

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

Bird habitat
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service credits killing
thousands of nest-parasitizing cowbirds since 1991 with bringing
the least Bell’s vireo up from just 268 known pairs in 1991
to more than 2,000 in 1999. “Just as important,” explained Los
Angeles Times reporter Gary Polakovic, “the vireo’s comeback
may prove that habitat along streams in Southern
California is recovering––a critical indicator of environmental
health in a state that has lost 97% of its riparian woodlands,
more than any other.” As Illinois Natural History Survey
scientist Scott Robinson observed in 1995, after examining the
relationship between vanishing songbirds and cowbirds,
“Small nature preserves, which work fine for preserving plants,
don’t work for migratory birds,” whose nesting sites become
vulnerable to cowbirds when deforestation removes their cover.
“The [British] Royal Society for the Protection of
Birds are completely barking,” Game Conservancy Trust
head of grouse research David Baines recently told Daily
Telegraph environment editor Charles Clover, because after
five years of intensively killing crows and foxes to protect a
rare grouse called the capercaillie, the RSPB has experimented
since 1995 with not killing predators. The capercaillie population
is down from 2,200 in 1995 to about 1,000. But the RSPB
says the main reasons for the drop have been bad weather at
nesting season and, wrote Clover, “the death of up to a third of
its capercallie by flying into deer fences put up to allow the
regeneration of native pines.”

Australians want to sell fruit bats

September 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

KUALA LUMPUR––Nipah virus
antibodies have been found in fruit bats in
Perak, Malaysia, confirming suspicion that
the deadly disease spread from bats to pigs
and then to people.
Nipah virus killed at least 108
Malaysians in the first six months of 1999,
all of whom lived or worked on pig farms.
More than a million pigs were slaughtered to
contain the disease, causing economic hardship
to about 300,000 people.
It is still premature to name fruit
bats as the natural hosts of the Nipah disease,
cautioned Australian Animal Research
Institute veterinary epidemiologist Hume
Field, who announced the discovery of the
antibodies in fruit bats on July 21.

Animal control, rescue, sheltering, and alternatives to population control killing

July 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

The fifth year of the San Francisco
Adoption Pact, completed on March 31,
dropped the combined San Francisco Department
of Animal Care and Control and San
Francisco SPCA euthanasia toll to a new low
of 3,688 dogs and cats. The SF/DACC euthanized
2,526 dogs and cats due to irrecoverable
injury, illness, or aggressive behavior, and
1,162 for other reasons, most often that they
were neonatal kittens with possible upper respiratory
disease and––though some might have
recovered with much care, a poor prognosis.
The SF/DACC returned 1,472 dogs and cats
to their owners, adopted out 1,833, and sent
2,482 to the SF/SPCA. “Of these,” said the
SF/SPCA, “1,598 had special impediments,
often requiring medical or behavioral care
prior to adoption,” as did “932 of the 2,643
dogs and cats whom the SF/SPCA accepted
directly from the public.” The SF/SPCA
returned 29 dogs and cats to their owners, and
adopted out 4,971. The San Francisco rate of
shelter killing, already the lowest of any major
U.S. city, dropped to 5.01 per 1,000 residents.

Fire hits Arapawa feral goat rescuer

May 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1999:

“In early March,” according to
the March 1999 edition of the New Zealand
Anti-Vivisection Society newsletter
Mobilize, “NZ/AVS life member Betty
Rowe lost her house and all her possessions
in a fire. Betty lives with her husband on
Arapawa Island in the Marlborough
Sounds,” between the two major islands of
New Zealand, “and founded the Arapawa
Wildlife Sanctuary approximately 20 years
ago,” after organizing the first New Zealand
animal rights conference in 1978.
“The wildlife sanctuary is one half
of Arapawa Island,” Mobilize continued .
“About 200 Arapawa Island goats live there,
along with other rescued animals. Betty
became involved in animal protection when
the government tried to kill all the goats on
the island. Betty and her husband were left
with only the clothes they were wearing. It
is unclear if they will be able to stay on the
island.”
Betty Rowe may be addressed c/o
Arapawa Wildlife Sanctuary, Private Bag,
Picton 412, New Zealand.

KANGAROOS VS. BANDICOOTS

May 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1999:

MELBOURNE––”Beneath the soil
at Woodlands Historic Reserve lie the bodies
of 1,000 eastern grey kangaroos––males,
females, and their joeys,” Animal Liberation
campaign coordinator Rheya Linden charged
in the spring 1999 edition of the organization’s
magazine Animate. “Their bodies were
discovered by an Animal Liberation investigation––the
bodies of kangaroos kept alive
through the recent drought with regular fooddrops
by Animal Liberation and concerned
members of the public.”
Linden rebutted the claim of
Melbourne Zoo species management officer
Peter Myroniuk that Animal Liberation was
responsible for the failure of an attempt to
reintroduce the eastern barred bandicoot to
the Woodlands reserve.

Chocolate bunnies menace Down Under biosecurity

May 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1999:

WELLINGTON, CANBERRA––Announcing on
April 1 that he had distributed at eight sites 50 rabbits who were
genetically modified to resist rabbit calicivirus disease (RCD),
Auckland entrepreneur Graham Milne made four-day suckers
of New Zealand officials and media.
The intent of the releases, Milne said, was “to
obtain field data on the transfer and spread of RCD immunity in
the feral population.”
In other words, Milne might have insured recovery
of the animal RCD was to eliminate.
Milne had actually just distributed chocolate Easter
bunnies. But no one figured that out until April 5––even as he
shared chocolate bunnies with reporters, bearing labels
explaining that they were RCD-proof.

USDA considers calling birds “animals”

March 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1999:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The USDA
on January 28 announced that it will take
comments until March 29, 1999 on a petition
from United Poultry Concerns to amend the
definition of “animal” in the Animal Welfare
Act enforcement regulations to remove the
current exclusion of birds, rats, and mice.
“A short letter is fine,” commented
UPC founder and president Karen Davis,
“but the important thing is that the USDA
hears from the public that we want birds,
rats, and mice to be included in the AWA
regulations.”
The opening of the comment period
marks the farthest advance yet toward removing
the exclusion, made initially because
animal experimenters claimed the cost of
complying with AWA regulations in handling
birds, rats, and mice would be prohibitive.

FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE SAYS SNAKES THREATEN GARDEN OF EDEN

September 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

HONOLULU––Preparing to
reintroduce Guam rails to Guam in
October, a decade after the flightless bird
species was extinguished from its native
habitat by accidentally introduced brown
tree snakes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service warned at a late July symposium
in Honolulu that the snakes could likewise
devastate Hawaiian wildlife, if ever
allowed to establish themselves.
The symposium came 10 days
after Hawaii Department of Land and
Natural Resources chief Mike Wilson
announced bans on the transportation or
release of Jackson’s chameleons, apple
snails, red-eared slider turtles, and ringnecked
parakeets.

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