Vivisection

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

A page one expose in The New York Times on March 23 reviewed the mounting evi-
dence that animal testing is not a valid means of measuring human risk from exposure to tox-
ins––especially carcinogens. The Clinton administration is believed likely to reduce governmen-
tal reliance on animal studies in assessing public health risks.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on March 24 lifted a 16-year-old ban on the
use of female volunteers in drug safety testing. Imposed to protect unborn children, the ban had
the effect of exposing women to greater risks from new drugs––and increased the number of
female animals used in developing some drugs.

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COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Humane Enforcement

Miami primate trafficker
Matthew Block abruptly withdrew his
guilty plea March 16 in connection with
arranging the 1990 Bangkok Six orang-
utan smuggling incident, in which three
orangutans of a shipment of six died en
route from Borneo to Yugoslavia. The
shipment was intercepted in Thailand.
Block pulled out, apparently, because of
the likelihood he would draw jail time.

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HUNTING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

The Federation of Ontario
Naturalists reports that 95% of spring bear
hunters in the province are Americans, from
states that ban spring bear hunting. In 1991,
Ontario spring bear hunters killed 6,760 bears,
9% of the estimated provincial population. A
third of the bears were females. Only 30% of
cubs who lose their mothers live to age one.
“All too many Alaska hunters are
lazy, ill-mannered, beer-guzzling, belly-
scratching fat boys, or girls,” Anchorage
Daily News outdoors editor Craig Medred
opined recently, “who want nothing more
than to ride around on their favorite piece of
high-powered machinery until they find some-
thing to shoot full of holes with their high-
powered rifle.” Medred also attacked the

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Fur

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Preliminary data indicates U.S.
trapping license sales fell to 147,000 dur-
ing the winter of 1992-1993, down from
191,000 in 1991-1992; 230,000 in 1990-
1991; and 338,000 in 1987-1988, when
U.S. trappers sold 19 million pelts. This
past winter they sold just 2.5 million.
Trapping was a $10 million a
year industry in Louisiana during the
early 1980s, but is now earning only $1
million a year. Trying to revive the boom,
state Department of Wildlife and
Fisheries biologist Greg Linscombe
recently told Newsweek that damage to
bayous caused by Hurricane Andrew was
actually the fault of allegedly overpopu-
lating nutria. Nutria are muskrat-like
South American aquatic mammals
brought to Louisiana by fur farmers about
70 years ago––and are a favorite food of
alligators. The Louisiana Department of
Wildlife and Fisheries, removes 75,000
alligator eggs a year from the bayous to
stock alligator farms.

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Eastern cougar lives!

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

FREDERICTON, New Brunswick––Natural Resources minister Alan Graham
announced March 1 that droppings and paw prints found near the village of Juniper are
those of an eastern cougar. The cougar was tracked by provincial biologists who had been
taught to recognize the elusive signs of a big cat’s presence by members of Friends of
Eastern Panther, led by Sue Morse of Jericho, Vermont.
The eastern cougar, or catamount, is closely related to the puma, the Texas
cougar, and the Florida panther, but may be either tawny or jet black. Once present
throughout the east, the cougar was officially extirpated from its last known habitat in
Quebec in 1863, from Vermont in 1881, and from Ontario in 1884––but then one last
specimen was shot in Vermont in 1907. After that, there were no more cougars until a
New Brunswick hunter shot one in 1938.

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Zoos & Aquariums

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

The World Society for the Protection of Animals recently liberated Flipper, the
last captive dolphin in Brazil, near where he was captured in 1982. Before the release,
Flipper was reaquainted with life in the ocean under the supervision of Ric O’Barry of the
Dolphin Project––who also trained his namesake, the star of the Flipper TV program. Brazil
banned keeping marine mammals in captivity in 1991. The Brazilian Flipper spent the past
two years in solitude at an abandoned amusement park near Sao Paulo, and was kept alive
by the local fire department, who used their pumper truck to change his water after the filtra-
tion system in his tank deteriorated beyond repair.
Colorado’s Ocean Journey, the proposed aquarium to be built in Denver,
recently tried to head off protest by claiming it would include “only third generation captive-
born dolphins.” Pointed out David Brower, president of Earth Island Institute, “There are
no third-generation captive-born dolphins anywhere.” The Coors Brewing Company recent-
ly retreated from the dolphin controversy. According to a prepared statement issued
February 15, “Contrary to rumors and recent advertisements, Coors does not ‘want to bring
dolphins to Denver.’ Our support of this project is not focused on, nor dependent on,
cetaceans.”

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WILDLIFE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Babbitt moves on endangered species
Newly appointed Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt lost no time
demonstrating a new approach to endan-
gered species protection. As President Bill
Clinton scheduled a Forest Summit for
April 2, in hopes of resolving the long
impasse over northern spotted owl habitat
and old growth logging in the Pacific
Northwest, Babbitt on March 13 appointed
noted conservation biologists Thomas
Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution and
Peter Raven of the Missouri Botanical
Garden to set up a national biological sur-
vey, which will map animal and plant habi-
tat much as the U.S. Geological Survey
maps topographical features. The habitat
map will be the first step toward reorienting
Endangered Species Act enforcement to
focus upon critical ecosystems, instead of
trying to save species on a slow, costly
case-by-case basis.

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ANIMAL CONTROL & RESCUE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Legislation In Support of
Animals has awarded the St. Tammany
Humane Society a “platinum” star for being
the top shelter in Lousiana three years in a
row. The Louisiana SPCA won LISA’s gold
star this year; Ouachita Animal Control of
West Monroe and the no-kill Morehouse
Humane Society each earned a silver star;
and Slidell Animal Control received a bronze
star. The award winners include both public
and private facilities, with some of the
biggest and smallest budgets in the state. A
golden heart award went to two anonymous
sheriff’s deputies who arrested a pair of men
they caught torturing a mouse by dunking her
repeatedly in a beer glass, and threw the
book at them. The black star for worst shel-
ter of the year went to the Leesville Animal
Shelter. “The shelter is actually clean and by
most appearances, well run,” LISA execu-

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Elvis manager Tom Parker made first fortune from animal shelter

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

TAMPA, Florida––While playing
Elvis Presley’s longtime manager Colonel
Tom Parker in the recent NBC made-for-TV
movie Elvis & the Colonel, actor Beau
Bridges mentioned to Canadian Press TV
writer Wendy McCann that Parker was “one
of the first people to come up with the con-
cept of a pet cemetery,” as a fundraiser for
an animal shelter he ran in Tampa, Florida.
Since every tabloid needs an occa-
sional Elvis story, even once removed, we
jumped right on it. And it’s as true as any
story involving either the King or the
Colonel; truer than most.

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