1998 Initiative spending (Most recent reports received.)

December 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

State Pro-animals Anti-animals
Alaska $ 185,600 $ 225,000
Arizona $ unavailable
California
Horses $ 500,000 unavailable
Trapping $ 899,409 $ 316,085
Minnesota $ 25,000 $ 200,000
Missouri $ Unavailable
Ohio $ 521,680 $ 2,400,000
South Dakota $ 67,315 $ 111,646
Utah $ 56,662 $ 596,646
TOTALS $ 2,037,609 $3 ,849,377

Former Animal Protective Association of
St. Louis County director Nancy Grove made personally
sure that the successful campaign to ban cockfighting
in Missouri was adequately funded by contributing
$57,000 to Missourians Against
Cockfighting, and loaning MAC $250,000 more.

What they’ll do for a buck

December 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

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.

Hunters move against rights again

December 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

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.

U.S. ignores sea turtle deadline

December 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The U.S.
was to tell the World Trade Organization by
December 6 what it plans to do to bring sea turtle
protection into line with the General
Agreement on Trade and Tariffs.
Ignoring the WTO could bring trade
sanctions. But with President Bill Clinton and
Congress engaged in impeachment hearings,
the deadline passed with scant notice.
The U.S. on November 6 formally
accepted an October 12 WTO appellate court
panel ruling that barring shrimp imports from
nations whose shrimpers don’t use Turtle
Exclusion Devices (TEDs) is a so-called
“process standard,” violating GATT.
The verdict upheld the April opinion
of a GATT trade tribunal.

Maneka makes waves as animal welfare minister

November 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

NEW DELHI––Contrary to Press
Trust of India and New Zealand Press
Association reports of October 7, Indian minister
for social justice and empowerment
Maneka Gandhi did not ban animal experiments
in India effective on October 8––but she
did announce draft regulations to ban the use
of pound animals in biomedical research, and
on October 11 published a ban on certain uses
of animals in entertainment.
By October 31, Maneka had also
banned the import of dolphins and sea lions for
exhibition in India, after two bottlenose dolphins
brought from Bulgaria died suddenly at
the newly opened Dolphin City oceanarium,
India’s first, near Chennai; banned cattle
transport by train, hoping to end the export of
cattle to slaughter in West Bengal; and banned
the transport of poultry and other birds by
train, striking at the wild-caught bird traffic.

More nasty politics

October 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.– –
While most mass media political coverage
was preoccupied with disclosure
of U.S. President Bill Clinton’s
affair with former White House intern
Monica Lewinsky, U.S. Senator Dirk
Kempthorne (R-Idaho) tried repeatedly
to graft to appropriations bills his
four-year-old Endangered Species
Act “reauthorization” measure,
which would effectively dismantle
the ESA as it has existed since 1973.
The Kempthorne ESA
rewrite codifies the Clinton administration’s
“no surprises” policy, guaranteeing
landowners who sign habitat
conservation agreements that they
will not be hit later with more restrictions,
even if other endangered
species are found on the property or
knowledge increases about what is
necessary to protect a species. The
Kempthorne bill is accordingly supported
by Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt, author of “no more surprises,”
and apparently by Vice
President Al Gore.

NOVEMBER STATE BALLOT MEASURES

October 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

Alaska Ballot Measure 9, the Wolf
Snaring Initative, qualified to face the voters on
August 17, when the Alaska Supreme Court overturned
without comment a May ruling by Superior
Court Judge Ralph R. Beistline that if it passed, it
would infringe upon the Alaska Legislature’s exclusive
right to manage wildlife. Backed by Friends of
Animals, the bill bans all snaring of wolves.
Arizona Proposition 201, the Cockfighting
Initiative, survived a court challenge on
September 22 when Judge Robert Myers of the
Maricopa County Superior Court threw out a suit by
the Arizona Game Fowl Breeders Association which
attempted to invalidate more than 42,000 of the
153,494 signatures that the Arizona Secretary of State
earlier ruled were valid––40,000 more than were necessary
to put the bill to ban cockfighting to a vote. The
well-connected Game Fowl Breeders have killed anticockfighting
bills in agricultural committees of the
Arizona Legislature 23 times since 1954, but may be
out of tricks. The Arizona Star reported on September
3 that an independent poll found 87% of Arizona voters
are opposed to cockfighting. Cockfighting is currently
legal in the U.S. only in Louisiana, New
Mexico, Oklahoma, and Missouri––but Missouri too
may ban it this November.

Maneka claims cabinet post for animals

October 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

NEW DELHI, India––”You will
be happy to know that I have finally gotten
the animal welfare department, which is the
first of its kind anywhere in the world,”
People For Animals founder Maneka Gandhi
e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on
September 8.
“It is now a part of my ministry,”
Maneka said, as welfare minister for the government
of India, “and I would like to make
it into a full-fledged department.”
A senior independent member of
the Indian parliament, representing her New
Delhi district since 1989, Maneka is among
the power brokers in the coalition government
of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya
Janata party. She may actually have more
clout now than she did during two appointments
as environment minister while a member
of the Janata Dal party, from which she
was ousted in 1996 for denouncing alleged
corruption among fellow ministers.

USDA Wildlife Services almost gets culled

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Wiley Coyote almost won a
round on June 23, as the House of Representatives voted 229 to
193 in favor of a bill introduced by Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon)
and Charles Bass (R-New Hampshire) to cut $10 million, the
cost of predator killing programs, from the fiscal 1999 USDA
Wildlife Services budget of $28.8 million––a cut four times
deeper than President Bill Clinton proposed in January.
The funding was almost certain to have been restored
in the Senate, where the 17 western states whose ranchers most
use Wildlife Services have proportionally far more clout, but
taking no chances, Wildlife Services senior staff and livestock
industry representatives lobbied through the night.
Congressional allies then demanded a revote on June 24, which
rescinded the cut, 232-192.
Despite losing an apparent landmark victory, predator
advocates remained encouraged at retaining 53 more votes
against Wildlife Services than ever before were mustered. The
previous high of 139 votes came in 1996, when Wildlife
Services was still called Animal Damage Control.
“We’ll keep at it,” pledged Tom Skeele, executive
director of the Predator Project, an activist group headquartered
in Bozeman, Montana.

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