ALL ABOUT MONEY

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

The Internal Revenue Service has
reportedly revoked the nonprofit status of
Adopt-A-Pet, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for
allegedly operating for the “private benefit”
of the direct mailing firm Watson &
Hughey, under a fundraising agreement
signed in 1985, which allowed Watson &
Hughey unlimited use of the mailing list generated
in connection with Adopt-A-Pet promotions,
but did not allow Adopt-A-Pet to
rent or trade names. IRS Form 990 filings
indicate that over the next three fiscal years
Adopt-A-Pet spent 97% of all receipts on further
fundraising. In 1991 Adopt-A-Pet was
among the co-defendants in a series of cases
brought against Watson & Hughey in 22
states for alleged misleading fundraising in
connection with use of sweepstakes appeals.

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African updates

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi
in May fired Kenya Wildlife Service director
David Western, 53, who told The London
Times that he believes the reason was his
refusal to cooperate with the turnover of land
reserved for wildlife to agriculture and development
projects promoted by persons well
connected with the arap Moi regime. Western
succeeded Richard Leakey in 1994, after
Leakey was ousted over his uncompromising
stances against poaching and corruption.
The National Party, of South
Africa, on June 16 endorsed the recommendation
of the International Fund for Animal
Welfare that the South African government
should adopt “parliamentary proposals for the
special protection of lion, leopard, and cheetah,”
who are under increasing risk from habitat
encroachment and the spread of diseases
associated with domestic dogs.

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Greenpeacers who hung themselves get off

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

A Seattle Municipal Court jury on June 11 acquitted
seven Greenpeace activists of nuisance and obstruction charges for
suspending themselves on ropes from the Aurora Bridge, above the
mouth of Lake Union, to block the exit of pollock fishing vessels en
route to the Bering Sea in August 1997. Pollock depletion is suspected
as the cause of starvation deaths of Stellar sea lions and sea birds in
Alaskan waters. Acquitted were Holly Dye, of uncertain age, and
Sean Gale, 27, of Seattle; Katie Flynn-Jambeck, 25, of Warwick,
Massachusetts; Omi Hodwitz, 20, of Vancouver, British Columbia;
Troy Jones, 36, of Russellville, Kentucky; Kelly Osborne, 29, of
Flower Mound, Texas; and Donna Parker, 34, of Missoula,
Montana. Charges alleged accomplices Stephanie Hillman, L o r i
Mudge, and Joseph Dibbee, all of Seattle, were separately dropped.

CRIME & COUNSELING UPDATE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

The June 1998 ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial, “Crime and
counseling,” pointed out that there is no proven model for preventing
sadistic behavior through psychological counseling, and warned that
SB 1991, a bill pending before the California legislature, was premature
in mandating counseling as a probationary condition in cruelty
cases, since it seemed to imply that a “seek counseling” order might
by itself be an adequate sentence.
On May 26, a week after the ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial
was distributed to all members of the California legislature, Sherry
DeBoer of Political Animals informed us: “Today an amendment was
made to California SB 1991 which makes it an excellent bill from a
prosecutor’s position. Therefore, we are withdrawing our opposition.”
The amended passages now provide:

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LETTERS [July/Aug 1998]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Whaling
I read with interest your June
edition report on the recent International
Whaling Commission meeting in Oman,
and whilst it was mostly accurate with
regard to the Brydes whale resolution
etc., the IWC did not take up the Makah
whaling issue this year. This is because
most IWC delegations do not believe they
have endorsed the Makah application, as
the U.S. and the Makah Tribal Council
contends they did in 1997, and therefore,
as the U.S. has not yet taken any whales,
there is no infraction to debate.
It was interesting this year that
the countries opposing action against the
Japanese proposal to kill Bryde’s whales
for supposed research purposes were also
the ones supporting the Irish Compromise.
Why were they willing to defend
pelagic and scientific whaling, when the
Irish Proposal is supposed to exclude
these elements?
––Chris Stroud
Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society
Bath, United Kingdom

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U.S. Surgical CEO is not exactly retiring, despite sale

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

NORWALK, Ct.– – U.S.
Surgical Corporation founder and
CEO Leon Hirsch, 70, on May 24
sold the firm to Tyco International
Ltd., in a deal expected to close in
September. Whether the sale will
reduce the role of U.S. Surgical in
anti-animal rights work is uncertain.
“We don’t really anticipate
any effect,” Americans for Medical
Progress director of public affairs
Jacquie Calnan told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
U.S. Surgical personnel founded
AMP, and in 1992 $980,000 of the
$985,000 AMP budget came from
U.S. Surgical, but Calnan said that
“Over the past few years, as AMP
grew and developed a broad base of
support among the research community,
U.S. Surgical gradually reduced its
financial backing. Today,” Calnan
said, “AMP has over 90 corporate and
institutional partners, including U.S.
Surgical. But as of this year,” she
added, “USSC is no longer the majority,
or even the largest, contributor
among AMP’s members.”

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Editorials: In bed with stars

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

They call themselves “gun nuts,” in seeming confession of mental instability and of
equating their weapons with manhood. There are 2.8 million of them, down from 3.5 million
as recently as 1995. They’re the National Rifle Association, desperate to reverse a decline
that has cut cash assets from $81 million in 1991 to just $43 million now.
On June 7, in Philadelphia, a setting selected to evoke historic imagery, the 1,600
delegates to the NRA annual convention elected actor Charlton Heston president.
Heston, 73, derives much of his claim to leadership from having played Moses in
the 1956 film The Ten Commandments––a weightier role, to be sure, than former U.S.
President Ronald Reagan’s most famous role, opposite a chimpanzee in Bedtime for Bonzo.
NRA foes chortled as Heston described himself as a moderate. As USA Today editorialists
noted, “Just last December, he likened gun owners to Jews during the Holocaust,
boasted that the Founding Fathers were ‘white guys,’ and said that U.S. President Bill
Clinton’s ‘shock troops…claim it’s time to place homosexual men in tents with Boy Scouts.’
In most worlds, that would count as lurid extremism.”
Political reality, though, is that celebrities attract big bucks, including from corporate
high donors, and without both money and star power, few campaigns succeed.
Thus, also on June 7, in Denver, the American Humane Association board accepted
the May 19 joint resignation of five members, and elected three replacements.
“The change resulted from fundamental differences in defining the role and function
of effective board members,” AHA secretary Robert F.X. Hart explained to staff. “The
majority of our board believe that the board should not be involved in micro-managing operations.
There was also widespread sentiment that board composition should be modified,” to
include “members who can provide us access to celebrities, finances, etc.”
The new AHA board members include actress Shirley Jones, L.A. Cellular vice
president of external affairs Steven C. Crosby, and David Grannis, introduced as “president
of Planning Company Associates, a company which specializes in strategic planning and
implementation to both the public and private sectors.”

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Dr. Spock’s last kindness

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

NEW YORK––Humane childrearing
advocate Benjamin Spock, M.D., left
some of his most important advice for last:
“We now know that there are harmful
effects of a meaty diet,” he stated in the
seventh and last edition of Baby And Child
Care produced under his direct supervision.
“Children can get plenty of protein and iron
from vegetables, beans, and other plant
foods that avoid the fat and cholesterol that
are in animal products.”
Spock also rejected milk.
“I no longer recommend dairy
products after the age of two years,” the new
edition of Baby And Child Care advises.
“Other calcium sources offer many advantages
that dairy products do not have.”
If parents are reluctant to become
vegetarians or vegans, Spock urged them “to
explore vegetarian meals and to serve as
many meatless meals as possible.”

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Raising a crop of fire

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

DALLAS, MANILA, KUALA
LUMPUR––Martha Hovers, attending 300
dogs at the Animal Refuge Foundation sanctuary
in Sherman, Texas, saw the smoke from
the burning Las Chimalapas biosphere refuge
and environs on May 27 and knew it was no
ordinary fire: the clouds were too dark, too
thick, too high. advancing as one dark blanket.
She called ANIMAL PEOPLE to make
sure we were on the story.
Among the largest dog sanctuaries in
the U.S., ARF is about as far from Las
Chimalapas as it could be and yet remain in
Texas. Mexico is most of a day’s drive south.
Las Chimalapas is in Oaxaca, toward the
southern end of Mexico, 2,000 miles away,
while the also burning El Triunfo nature reserve
is in Chiapas, even farther south.
Guatemala, where other forest fires
contributed more smoke to the blanket, is more
southerly still.

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