Wildlife lawsuits

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1998:

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office
said on May 13 that it intends to appeal an April 6
World Trade Organization tribunal verdict that the
U.S. broke international trade rules by barring the
import of shrimp netted without the use of Turtle
Excluder Devices (TEDS). The import ban was
protested by India, Malaysia, Pakistan, and
Thailand. On May 1, just five weeks after Thai sea
turtle conservationist Manop Kidsarng warned that
the Phuket Island turtle population was in desperate
trouble due to fishing and poaching, the U.S. certified
that Thailand and 38 other nations have adequate
turtle protections in place, and that Thai
shrimp therefore can now be imported.

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Easter bunny blasters want more targets

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1998:

DUNEDIN (New Zealand)––Of all the animal massacres
assocated with spring religious observance, the Easter
bunny shoot at Alexandra, New Zealand, most nakedly celebrates
killing for the hell of it.
The 12-member Tuturau Titty Ticklers blasted 712
rabbits to win the 24-hour, 25-team killing contest this year,
as shooters griped of an alleged paucity of targets caused by
the unauthorized release last summer of rabbit calicivirus
(RCD). The bag fell to 5,290, from nearly 24,000 in 1997.
“A group called the Waihou Virus shot more geese
than rabbits,” reported the New Zealand Press Association.
“Eight teams bagged fewer than 100 each.”
That left organizer Martin McPherson to pick among
ending the event, opposing RCD use, or targeting captive animals,
like the Labor Day pigeon shoot at Hegins,
Pennsylvania. Any of the options would belie the purported
higher purpose, in combatting the depredations of feral rabbits.

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Cuckoo bills & the ESA

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1998:

TUCSON––They used to call it The
Tombstone Territory.
Now it’s potential critical habitat for
yellow-billed cuckoos, who could become the
next target of ideological gunslingers hellbent
on blowing away the Endangered Species Act.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit on
May 5 announced that 29 recovered species
including the bald eagle, Columbia whitetailed
deer, grey wolf, and peregrine falcon will be
delisted over the next two years––just in time,
cynics noted, for the next U.S. Presidential
election, when Babbitt if he survives present
poltical controversies might like to be making a
run for the White House.

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BOOKS: Gray Whales: Wandering Giants

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Gray Whales:
Wandering Giants
by Robert H. Busch
Orca Book Publishers (POB 468, Custer,
WA 98240-0468), 1998.
138 pages, paperback, $19.95.

Among the whales most often seen
along the Pacific coast, gray whales until
recently have been much less known than the
acrobatic orcas and humpbacks, and the giant
blue whales, who––though relatively rarely
seen––loom as large in imagination as in life.
Perhaps for that reason there was
little public opposition when gray whales
were downlisted from endangered to threatened
in 1992, and removed completely from
Endangered Species Act protection in 1994.

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COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Genetic patents
New York Medical College cellular biologist Stuart A. Newman,
cofounder with biotechnology critic Jeremy Rifkin of the Council for
Responsible Genetics, revealed in the April edition of Nature that on
December 18, 1996 he and Rifkin applied for a patent on three techniques of
mixing human embryonic cells with the embryonic cells of other species to produce
part-human, part-animal “chimeras,” named for beasts of Greek myth
who had lion heads, goat bodies, and snake tails. Explained Newsweek, “The
two activists hope that a patent would give them the legal means to block scientists
from using any of the methods they lay out in the application.” Patent
Office verdicts, N e w s w e e k continued, “can be appealed all the way to the
Supreme Court––a prospect that delights Rifkin and Newman. Bioethicists say
that the ensuing court battles may force the first real legislation on what constitutes
a human,” thereby legally limiting many potential uses of both human and
animal genetic material in research.

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2,500 march against sealing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

OTTAWA––At 1,000 strong, the
lightly publicized Canadians Against the
Commercial Seal Hunt rally outside the
Liberal Party convention on March 31 was
already the largest animal rights demonstration
Canada ever had.
Then 48 buses rolled in from as far
away as Quebec City and Windsor. By the
time International Fund for Animal Welfare
Canadian director Rick Smith rose to speak,
2,500 people formed “a sea of crimson CATCSH
hats that stretched from the stage across the
closed Colonel By Drive and up the spiral
staircase of the MacKenzie King Bridge,”
Don Fraser of the Ottawa Citizen reported.
Inside, the Liberal government still
didn’t get it, reportedly just barely winning a
resolution from the delegates in favor of continued
sealing and big quotas, on the false
premise that seals rather than political policy
makers are primarily responsible for the
Atlantic Canada cod crash.

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WTO dumps turtle protection

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

GENEVA, VISAKHAPATNAM,
WASHINGTON D.C.––The World Trade
Organization ruled on April 6 that the U.S. in
barring the import of shrimp from nations
whose fleets are not required to use turtle
excluder devices on their nets is violating the
General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs.
The WTO held that even under the
international treaty that allows exceptions to
GATT rules to protect the environment, the
U.S. may not force other nations to safeguard
endangered species. The WTO particularly
objected to the part of the U.S. TED law which
requires TED to be used in all shrimping, not
just shrimping done for export to the U.S.
U.S. trade representative Charlene
Barshefsky said the ruling “does not affect our
efforts to protect endangered sea turtles.” As
many as 150,000 sea turtles a year are
drowned in shrimp nets not equipped with
TED. But Barshefsky did not explain how the
U.S. can continue to prevent foreign shrimpers
from competing unfairly with U.S. shrimpers
who by law must use TED.

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BOOKS: Hummingbirds: My Winter Guests

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

Hummingbirds:
My Winter Guests
by Arnette Heidcamp
Crown Publishing (201 E. 50th St. New
York, NY 10022), 1997.
192 pages, hardcover, $18.00.

Several years ago I found a bird’s
nest in the woods: tightly woven from fine
grass fibers, and incredibly small. Recognizing
that it had belonged to a hummingbird, I
was astounded to realize that the tiny bird had
raised her entire family in it.
Arnette Heidcamp’s third volume
on her experiences with hummingbirds
recounts the events of the 1995-1996 winter,
when she hosted two injured rubythroats and
two rufuses who stayed too long in their summer
territory.

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BOOKS: Land of the Tiger

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

Land of the Tiger
A Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent
by Valmik Thapar
University of California Press (2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94720), 1998.
288 pages, 167 color photos, $29.95 hardcover.

You might expect a pornographic
preoccupation with predation from the title
Land of the Tiger , a dry tome from the subtitle,
a coffee table ornament from the oversized
illustrated format, or New Age quasi-spiritual
gibberish from the jacket blurb promising that
Valmik Thapar “links the reverence shown to
nature by Eastern religions, including
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, to the
tremendous biodiversity that remains on the
Indian subcontinent today.”

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