What they’ll do for a buck

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

“And he went down just like that!”
boasted Cathy Keating, wife of Oklahoma
governor Frank Keating, exciting an audience
of male hunters and hunting writers on
November 24.
“I closed my eyes.”
Her victim was a buck reportedly
shot from 950 feet away––a distance so great
that many experts would consider it reckless
and random shooting.
But Keating, also an enthusiastic
participant in so-called rattlesnake round-ups,
was escorted by Oklahoma game warden Ron
Comer and two state troopers.

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Hunters move against rights again

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

BOISE––Idaho Wildlife Council
president Don Clower told media in late
November that he is already fundraising in
support of an initiative to disenfranchise blood
sports opponents, similar to the one adopted
on November 3 in Utah.
Utah Proposition 5 amended the
state constitution to require that future initiatives
pertaining to wildlife must be approved
by at least two-thirds of the voters, rather than
a simple majority.
Anticipating support from around a
dozen national pro-gun, pro-hunting, and
pro-trapping organizations, Clower reportedly
hopes to place the Idaho initiative on the 2000
ballot.

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API, Oregon Humane paid poacher for evidence

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

MEDFORD, Oregon; ALBUQUERQUE,
New Mexico––Former Animal
Protection Institute wildlife programs chief
Bob Hillman and an unnamed former Oregon
Humane Society executive in 1993 allegedly
paid $9,000 to poacher Donald “Scott”
Dungey, 48, “for videos, photos, and other
information about illegal and legal methods
used by bear and cougar hunters,” M e d f o r d
Mail Tribune writer Mark Freeman disclosed
on October 23.
Some of the material was used,
Freeman said, to support the referendum
campaign that in 1994 banned hunting bears
and pumas with dogs in Oregon.

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Does NWF really want to save prairie dogs?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

VIENNA, Virginia––The National
Wildlife Federation, umbrella for 48 state
hunting clubs, doesn’t seem to want to
answer questions from ANIMAL PEOPLE
about the NWF position on protecting prairie
dogs. Yet NWF itself invited the questions.
One hundred twenty days before the
November edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE
went to press, an NWF press release
informed us that, “In what may become one
of the most controversial endangered species
issues of the decade, the National Wildlife
Federation today petitioned the federal government
to issue emergency regulations listing
the blacktailed prairie dog as a threatened
species throughout its range,” including
Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska,
New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma,
South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.

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Action but no whaling––yet

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

NEAH BAY, Washington– – Makah
Tribal Council plans to kill grey whales
appeared in disarray in mid-November––but the
hunt was still definitely on, Makah Whaling
Commission president Keith Johnson told
increasingly skeptical media.
“Instead of engaging its first whale in
70 years,” Seattle Times reporter Lynda V.
Mapes wrote on November 9, “the tribe has
only tangled with whaling opponents and the
press. Instead of answering questions about the
hunt, the tribe is being grilled about arrests by
tribal police of whaling protesters on November
1. Tribal members are asked why their youngsters
threw rocks at nonviolent whaling protesters.
And they are questioned about their police
chief’s fitness for duty.”

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Hunting on opposite sides of the earth

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

JODPUR, India; ANCHORAGE, Alaska;
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota; DENVER, Colorado––
A U.S. federal indictment issued on October 23 in
Anchorage, Alaska, charged Jon S. “Buck” McNeely,
producer and host of the nationally syndicated TV show
“The Outdoorsman with Buck McNeely,” with illegally
using three aircraft to poach caribou.
Also charged were hunting guide James M.
Fejes of Anchorage, Fejes’ assistants Blaine A. Morgan
and William M. Vollendorf, and hunting client Michael
Doyle, of Minnesota.
The case was little noted by national media.

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Let them eat crow, say commissioners

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

The Nevada Board of Wildlife
Commissioners, which in March authorized
hunters to kill up to 10 crows a day
during spring and fall seasons, on
September 26 voted 8-1 not to open a bear
season, due to lack of bears everywhere but
in the Carson Range, east of Lake Tahoe.
Coinciding with the start of
hunting season, the Vermont Office of
Child Support in mid-August placed newspaper
ads warning that parents who don’t
make child support payments on time could
lose their hunting and fishing licenses. The
threat of license suspension has helped drive
collection of unpaid child support up from
$12 million in 1991 to $40 million in 1997.
According to the National
Advertising Council, the top 10 ad categories
in Hunter magazine during 1997, by
page count, were firearms; alcoholic
drinks; electronic devices; tobacco; job
opportunities; bladder control; off-road
vehicles and pickup trucks; hair restoration;
underwear; and pro wrestling.

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Beers for the road at U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

James Beers, former chief of
wildlife refuge operations for the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and now USFWS liaison to
state wildlife agencies, recently told August
Gribbin of The Washington Times that USFWS
has attempted to oust him because he accepted
the National Trappers Association’s
“Conservationist of the Year” award for his
role in killing a European Union attempt to ban
imports of leghold-trapped fur.
This, Beers claimed, offended
USFWS brass who wish to cozy up with animal
rights activists. He didn’t name names.
He is reportedly now trying to press a whistleblower
complaint against higher-ups for transfering
him from Washington D.C. to
Massachusetts.

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MURDER & MURDERING MOST FOWL

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

“Kids need to be careful that they don’t
shoot anything but a starling, pigeon, or English
sparrow,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent
Doug Goessman recently told the Billings Gazette.
Goessman was asked to comment on the
July arrest of Terry McMinn, 25, of Bozeman,
Montana, who allegedly shot a federally protected
magpie with a BB gun in a Pizza Hut parking lot.
“People need to be aware that they can be
fined for this,” added Bozeman animal control
officer Kathy Ham.
If either Goessman or Ham mentioned
that the apparent gratuitious cruelty of the shooting
might be the most serious aspect of it, the observation
wasn’t reported––although Ham was considering
filing cruelty charges.

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