Birds

November 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:

Cowbirds, native to the

midwest, invaded California 10 to 15

years ago and are now blamed for extir-

pating at least four threatened or endan-

gered songbirds from key parts of their

range. Female cowbirds indirectly kill

as many as 48 young songbirds apiece

per nesting season by laying their eggs

in songbirds’ nests. The songbird par-

ents then raise the fast-hatching cowbird

offspring ––who push the songbirds’

own eggs out before they hatch.

Songbird species such as the Bell’s

vireo, willow flycatcher, yellow-breast-

ed chat, and white crown sparrow are

believed capable of withstanding losses

of 10% of their eggs, but decline quick-

ly when the losses exceed 20%. Studies

of white crown sparrow nests in San

Francisco’s Golden Gate Park indicate

losses to cowbirds may exceed 50%.

Hopes for the eventual recovery of the

highly endangered Bell’s vireo were

raised this year when one or two pairs

reportedly nested along the Ventura

River, near Santa Barbara, for the first

time since 1908––but a lone Bell’s vireo

seen in Monterey County, a former

stronghold of the species, failed to find

a mate. Bell’s vireos apparently haven’t

nested successfully there since the cow-

birds arrived, circa 1983.

Wildlife: wolves and elephants and turtles and bison and bats and bears––oh my!

November 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:

The North American Free Trade

Agreement could harm endangered species

and wildlife sanctuaries along the

U.S./Mexican border, a U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service impact analysis says. “There

are serious habitat problems and endangered

species problems on the border now, and we

expect that NAFTA may in fact exacerbate

some of them,” USFWS international affairs

specialist Doug Ryan told the Los Angeles

Times on September 27. The USFWS report

confirms the view of the majority of national

animal and habitat protection groups; see

“Animal and habitat protection groups split”

on page 6 of the October issue of ANIMAL

PEOPLE.

COURT CALENDAR

October 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1993:

Editor’s note: The people grouped under the heading “Animal Collectors,”

below, call themselves animal rescuers. The others, purportedly, sought to make

money. In each case, however, regardless of alleged motive, the pathology and cir –

cumstances of the perpetrators seems to be the same. As humane investigator Lewis R.

Plumb of the Promotion of Animal Welfare Society in Paradise, California wrote about

a case he and his wife prosecuted, “When two people are living in a mobile home with

hundreds of dogs, with feces all over the floors and even on the bed, when in one small

container a mother poodle nurses two dead puppies who have been left in the cage,

when three dead puppies are in the freezer next to a frozen turkey and some ice cream,

then you get the idea that it just maybe is not so much criminality as insanity. How

should these people be humanely dealt with? As it is now, each felony cruelty count

under California law carries a maximum penalty of one year is prison, a maximum fine

FUR

October 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1993:

ARE FUR SALES UP OR DOWN?

U.S. retail fur sales rose to $1.1

billion in 1992, ending a four-year slump

during which sales fell from $1.8 billion to

just $1 billion––says the Fur Information

Council of America.

But the FICA figures, published

in the September 21 Wall Street Journal,

are open to question––not least because it’s

hard to boost sales with markedly fewer

sales outlets. Nearly half the fur retail out-

lets of five years ago are now out of the fur

business. Among them are 34 of the 50 out-

lets formerly owned by Evans Inc., which

controlled 10% of the U.S. retail fur trade;

20 of the 49 Jindo and Fur Vault franchises;

and the entire Furrari and Antonovich

chains, both of which went bankrupt.

Marine mammals

October 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1993:

The Dolphin Alliance, of

Melbourne Beach, Florida, announced

September 22 that Bogie and Bacall, the

Ocean Reef Club dolphins, will be going

home to the Indian River Lagoon as soon

as they complete rehabilitation with former

“Flipper” trainer Ric O’Barry, who heads

the closely allied Dolphin Project.

Publicity surrounding the 1988 capture of

Bogie and Bacall influenced the National

Marine Fisheries Service to ban further dol-

phin captures for the benefit of facilities

not open to the public. When the Ocean

Reef Club was sold recently, it lost the

grandfather clause enabling it to keep

Bogie and Bacall.

Congressional leaders ask Babbit, Espy to halt Alaska wolf massacre

October 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1993:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Convinced that Alaska’s Board of Game wouldn’t yield

to reasonable requests for a humane wolf policy, 30 Congressional leaders on September

22 urged the Clinton administration to intervene and suspend same-day wolf hunts on

public lands. Letters condemning the wolf-killing, set to start October 1, were sent to

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit and Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy.

Babbitt alone could effectively halt the same-day hunting, since the Department

of the Interior oversees 90 million acres of Alaska under the Bureau of Land Management,

77 million acres under the Fish and Wildlife Service, and 54 million acres under the

National Park Service. The Department of Agriculture has jurisdiction of 23 million

acres.

Watson trial Dec. 6 ––if Canada dares

October 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1993:

ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUND-

LAND––Enjoying his new reputation in

Canada as “Captain Cod Hugger” for his July

28 confrontation with foreign dragnetters in

the North Atlantic, Paul Watson of the Sea

Shepherd Conservation Society is to go to

trial December 6 before a St. John’s jury for

allegedly endangering the lives of his crew,

the crew of the Cuban dragger Rio Las Casas,

and the Rio Las Casas itself––if the

Canadian government actually has the nerve

to try Watson for an action applauded from

coast to coast, including by many of the

same people who have long reviled him for

his protests against seal hunting.

WOOFS AND GROWLS

October 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1993:

THE WISE USE WISE GUYS ET AL

George Frampton’s last major task

before leaving the presidency of The Wilderness

Society to become Assistant Secretary for Fish,

Wildlife, and Parks in the Clinton administration

was to preside over the assembly of a 50-page

report called The Wise Use Movement: Strategic

Analysis and 50-State Review. It calls upon the

mainstream environmental movement to distance

itself from radical environmentalism, deep ecolo-

gy, and animal rights, while rebuilding alliances

with farmers and hunters.

The fall 1993 issue of Friends of

Animals’ ActionLine magazine features ANIMAL

PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton’s “Attack of the

Wise Use Wise Guys,” an investigation of vio-

lence against animals and animal defenders by

members of the self-named “wise use movement.”

It’s $1.95, from POB 1244, Norwalk, CT 06856.

Having run low on friends in Washington D.C.,

Putting People First is relocating this month to

Helena, Montana––PPF president Kathleen

Marquardt’s birth state.

BOOKS: A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature Through History

October 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1993:

A View to a Death in the Morning:

Hunting and Nature Through History, by

Matt Cartmill. Harvard University Press (79 Garden

St., Cambridge, MA 02138-1499), 1993. 331 pages,

hardcover. $29.95.

A traditional fox-hunting song, “D’ye ken John

Peel,” gave Matt Cartmill his title; it appears in a stanza in

which the hunters follow their dogs “from a find to a check,

from a check to a view, from a view to a death in the morn-

ing.” Despite the title, Cartmill spends little time on fox-

hunting, boar-hunting, bear-hunting, wolf-hunting, bad-

ger-hunting, coon-hunting, fishing, fowling, and falconry.

The theory, practice, myths, and effects on its practition-

ers of deer hunting are the focus of his chapters about hunt-

ing, from the ancient Greeks to Bambi . Those chapters

which concentrate on nature are more diffuse.

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