BOOKS: Captive wildlife debate

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Zoos and Animal Rights: The Ethics of

Keeping Animals, by Stephen St. C.

Bostock, Routledge (29 West 35th St., New York,

NY 10001), 1993. 227 pages, $15.95 paperback.

Orca: A Family Story, by Peter Hamilton,

Lifeforce (POB Box 825, North Hollywood, CA

91603), 1994. 40 pages, $17.99 paperback.

Stephen Bostock, education director for the

Glasgow Zoo, fervently believes most captive wild animals

are happy, healthy, and enjoying the best of all possible

worlds. Peter Hamilton, who has spent many years cham-

pioning unhappy, unhealthy captive wildlife, believes just

the opposite, citing as example the life of the orca Corky,

in an account fictionalized to provide a happy ending: her

release after 25 years to rejoin her pod. Both Bostock and

Hamilton support their positions with a wealth of factual

detail, but both become tedious in their onesidedness.

Hamilton is merely shrill; Bostock is at times absurd, as in

citing a painting as documentary evidence of the terror a

prey species suffers when attacked by a predator.

COURT CALENDAR

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Wildlife and habitat

The U.S. Court of Appeals in

Washington D.C. on March 11 upset jurispru-

dence concerning endangered species protec-

tion by ruling in a case pertaining to timber rights

and spotted owl protection in the Pacific

Northwest that the government lacks authority to

protect wildlife habitat on private land. The U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service said that pending further

clarification of the ruling, perhaps by the U.S.

Supreme Court, it would make no policy changes.

The March 11 ruling directly contradicts the out-

standing precedent in such situations, established

by the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals in San

Francisco.

Zoo notes

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Saved from bankruptcy two years

ago by public donations of $1.2 million and a

gift of $2.4 million from Kuwait, the London

Zoo in 1993 recorded a profit of nearly

$500,000––its first profit since 1976.

The Duke University Primate

Center on January 31 achieved the first birth

in captivity of a golden crowned sifaka, a

highly endangered lemur.

Marine mammals

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

S. 1636, the present Marine

Mammal Protection Act reauthorization

bill, has cleared the Senate Commerce

Committee and at deadline was expected to be

passed any day by the full Senate, with House

ratification likely in April. The Humane

Society of the U.S. has asked members to

write Congress opposing S. 1636 because it

“has no provisions for effective enforcement,”

and “would allow the accidental killing of

endangered species (currently prohibited) and

the intentional shooting of seals and sea lions

solely to protect fish commercially caught or

raised.” HSUS seeks amendments that will

“ensure that marine mammal mortality in com-

mercial fishing operations reaches insignifi-

cant levels approaching zero, mandate specif-

ic punitive consequences if kill reduction goals

are not met on schedule, prohibit the capture

of wild whales or dolphins for public display,

prohibit swim-with-the-dolphin programs and

petting pools, prohibit public feeding of both

captive and wild marine mammals, prohibit

the issuance of permits to kill endangered

species in commercial fisheries,” and “prohib-

it the intentional killing of seals and sea lions

solely to protect fishing gear, catch, or net

pens.” The Animal Welfare Institute has

issued a similar appeal for action.

Zoos

January 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

announced December 20 that it has indefi-

nitely ended consideration of requests to

import giant pandas. The verdict came six

months after Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt

vetoed the San Diego Zoo’s attempt to import

two pandas in exchange for a grant of $1 mil-

lion to loosely monitored “panda conservation”

projects in China, which in the past have

included such activities as building a hydro-

electric dam.

Sea life

January 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

Foiled when a crew from the Shedd Aquarium in

Chicago caught three Pacific whitesided dolphins on

November 27, protesters who hoped to disrupt the capture

effort instead spent the next month keeping the dolphins’ hold-

ing pen at the Kettenburg Marine wharf in San Diego under

around-the-clock surveillance. Steve Hindi of the Chicago

Animal Rights Coalition took video that he claimed shows dol-

phins swimming “in a bathtub ring of their own excrement,”

which a Shedd spokesperson claimed was salt added to the

water to simulate the chemistry of the ocean. The video also

showed “frenzied Shedd officials erecting a barrier to obscure

the traumatized dolphins from view,” Hindi said, and enabled

members of the Whale Rescue Team to identify “a steady

stream of visitors,” including Tim Hauser, who reputedly cap-

tures marine mammals for many aquariums, and a number of

Navy personnel, whose presence was unexplained. The Navy

has applied, however, to do underwater weapons testing in one

area where the dolphins might have been caught, the Outer-Sea

Test Range. Designated in 1946, the range lies seaward of the

Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. The proposed test-

ing will involve “incidental” deaths and injuries to any marine

mammals who happen to be near test explosions, and is

opposed by many of the same groups that opposed the dolphin

captures, as well as the usually conservative National Audubon

Society. As Christmas approached, the Shedd team was hold-

ing daily “desensitizing drills,” preparing the dolphins for trans-

port by raising and lowering them in a cargo sling.

Zoos

December 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1993:

World Society for the Protection of

Animals field officer Neil Trent flew to Tbilsi

in the former Soviet republic of Georgia on

November 26 in an emergency effort to save

starving animals in the city zoo––among them

two tigers, several lions, a polar bear, a leop-

ard, a wolf pack, and 25 birds of two species

(down in recent months from 1,000 birds of 40

species). The animals have reportedly received

only a third of their normal rations for months.

They were to be sent to the better-funded Baku

Zoo in Azerbaijan, but the deal was vetoed by

the Tbilsi mayor for reasons of regional pride,

according to anthropologist Mary Ellen

Chatwin, who called WSPA after other groups

declined to help. The Tbilsi Zoo used to draw

500,000-plus visitors a year, with a staff of

120. Attendance fell with the economy when

civil war broke out following the collapse of the

Soviet Union; some of the present staff of 60

are paid under 50ç a month. Worldwide, the

menageries of at least four major zoos have

starved in the last two years, all due to war.

Guest column: Attacks on Sea Shepherd are unfair

December 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1993:

by Captain Paul Watson

Much criticism of the Sea

Shepherd Conservation Society has come

recently from elements in the animal rights

movement who accuse us of selling out the

effort to free captive dolphins.

I would like to set the record

straight and clear up any misunderstanding

concerning the objectives of Sea Shepherd.

I founded Sea Shepherd in 1977 specifically

to pursue the investigation, documentation

and enforcement of laws against activities

that threaten the survival of wild marine

life. Sea Shepherd is an ecological organi-

zation. Our mandate is the conservation of

endangered marine species and ecosystems.

Free the dolphins and orcas? Free Willy inspires movement––but Watson has doubts, takes heat

December 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1993:

SANTA MONICA, California––Paul Watson,

Ric O’Barry, Peter Wallerstein, and Steve Hindi all agree

on one thing: Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium shouldn’t have

captured three Pacific whitesided dolphins off San Diego

circa November 27. All were bitterly disappointed when the

Shedd capture crew eluded nautical and aerial surveillance

by the Whale Rescue Team to bring in the dolphins by the

dead of night. A Shedd holding pen at the Kettenburg

Marine wharf was dry and empty late Saturday; the anxious

dolphins were there and shrieking on Sunday morning, and

were still shrieking Sunday night, according to Hindi as

ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press.

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