TREASON CHARGE FOR DOLPHIN VIDEO

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.”

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Birds

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

The National Audubon Society plans to use the alleged
mid-February poisoning of more than 40,000 waterfowl at Silva
Reservoir, Mexico, as a test of the strength of the North American
Commission on Environmental Cooperation, set up as part of the
North American Free Trade Agreement to monitor international pollu-
tion problems but not yet asked to rule on a case. The Mexican
National Water Commission blames the deaths on pesticide runoff.
Other sources blame chromium escaping from tanneries nearby, set
up to take advantage of the U.S. market opened by NAFTA.
Eagle deaths since November 1994 due to an unknown
toxin now total 27 in Arkansas, where the toxin causes brain damage,
and nine in Wisconsin, where liver damage is more common. Fifteen
eagles found dead in Wisconsin circa April, 1994, are believed to
have been deliberately poisoned, possibly by feather merchants.

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MARINE MAMMALS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

The clock is apparently running out on the sea
lion/steelhead conflict in Puget Sound, in favor of sea lions
who were caught, caged, and sentenced to death in February
under 1994 revisions to the Marine Mammal Protection Act,
for menacing the last steelhead from the endangered Lake
Washington winter run as they approached Ballard Locks. A
variety of nonlethal methods have failed to deter the sea lions,
but a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society proposal to relocate
them to San Francisco Bay and a publicity-grabbing cage
occupation by Ben White of Friends of Animals apparently
bought them time until the salmon run was over. Forthcoming
amendments to the Endangered Species Act are expected to
relieve authorities of the duty to save the last fish of particular
runs when the species as a whole is not endangered.
A female orca calf, stillborn at the Vancouver
Aquarium on March 8, died from blood loss due to a pre-
maturely ruptured umbilicus. “A calf experiencing this kind
of catastrophic event would be doomed whether in an aquari-
um or in the wild,” said consulting veterinarian David Huff.
The calf was the third the Vancouver Aquarium has lost, with
none surviving longer than 97 days. The death came five days
after an infant orca died at the Kamogawa Sea World (no rela-
tion to the U.S. Sea World chain) in Japan. The losses, along
with that of another infant orca at Sea World San Antonio on
December 28, renewed protest against trying to breed orcas in
captivity. However, noted MARMAM online bulletin board
host Robin Baird, “A large proportion of the killer whale
calves who have not survived have been from two particular
mothers, both at aquaria which have not had a single surviving
calf.” Orca calves born at U.S. Sea World facilities by contrast
have a better survival rate than wildborn counterparts.

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Tales from the cryptozoologists

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

Freelance writer Peter Zahler and math teacher Chantal Dietemann, of
Watertown, New York, recently rediscovered the woolly flying squirrel in the Sai Valley of
northern Pakistan. Presumed extinct, the two-foot-long squirrel, with a two-foot tail, was last
seen in 1924. Although Zhaler and Dietemann actually recovered partial specimens of the
squirrel from around the nests of eagle owls last summer, they delayed the announcement until
March, to obtain scientific confirmation of their findings.
Australian zoology student Elizabeth Sinclair recently captured a pair of Gilbert’s
rabbit kangaroos in a live trap set for short-tailed kangaroos, according to the March edition of
Geo magazine. Considered extinct for more than a century, Gilbert’s rabbit kangaroos were last
seen alive in 1869. A radio transmitter was strapped to the male, who was then released. The
female, who had young in her pouch, remains in captivity.

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Religion & Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

The 83-member Union Hill Cumber-
land Presbyterian Church, of Limestone County,
Georgia, raised $2,500 by hosting the February 18
Bigfoot Hollow Coonhunt. “It’s reaching the young
people with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus,” said the
Reverend Charles Hood, oblivious that Jesus never
in any way endorsed killing for sport.
Losing popularity to the Catholic
Church, the only major nongovernmental institu-
tion in Cuba, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has
reportedly encouraged a revival of Santeria,
because, as Newsweek recently put it, “It has no
institutions to rival the state.” However, livestock
for Santerian sacrifice are in short supply.

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Birds

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:
Pennsylvania Game Commission ornithologist Dan
Brauning has a simple explanation for the increasing abundance
and diversity of bird species around Philadelphia: “Human toler-
ance of wildlife is changing. People aren’t shooting things like
they were 50 years ago. Wild turkeys [for example] would not sur-
vive if kids in the suburbs all had pellet guns.”
Talking Talons Youth Leadership, formed by
Albuquerque raptor rehabilitator and retired school nurse Wendy
Aeschliman, teaches teenagers to do public presentations on civic
and environmental issues, using the birds in her permanent care to
illustrate their various points. According to Modern Maturity,
“Last year approximately 80 young educators appeared before
105,000 people,” tutored by about 50 adult volunteers.

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ZOONOSIS UPDATE

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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Coast Guard

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

Responding to reports that the
U.S. Coast Guard shoots the pets of
refugees picked up in the Caribbean,
USCG public affairs chief Captain E.J.
Blanchard writes, “We make every effort
to provide for the safety of life at sea,
including animals. However, the rescue
of human life remains our foremost prior-
ity. In July and August the USCG res-
cued over 56,000 Haitians and Cubans
from flimsy overloaded boats, rafts, and
inner tubes. An unknown number of ani-
mals were also rescued. Our most diffi-
cult moments came during the early days
of the Cuban exodus. On one day alone,
over 3,300 people on 600 different rafts
were rescued. Some of our 110-foot cut-
ters had over 400 boat people each on
their decks. Our commanding officers
were making life-and-death decisions on
a minute-by-minute basis. Unfortunately,

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Willy may be freed

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

MEXICO CITY––Keiko, the orca star of the 1993 film
Free Willy!, will be relocated to a new facility under construction at
the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport by November, Free Willy-
Keiko Foundation president David Phillips announced on February
6––and this time, after many false alarms, the deal was confirmed by
Oscar Porter, general director of Keiko’s present home at the Nuevo
Reino Aventura amusement park in Mexico City.
Keiko, believed to be about 16, will be accompanied by
some of the Nuevo Reino Aventura staff, Porter said, praising him
for having “developed a very special sensitivity, intuiting and perceiv-
ing people. Keiko is very affectionate,” Porter continued, “especially
toward children, ‘showering’ them constantly with his outstanding
jumps. He is so intelligent that he has been able to learn more than 54
different routines.”

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