CHILDREN & ANIMALS

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

$40 million in public funds are

used to teach “hunter education” to

700,000 U.S. school children a year. The

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service puts up $32.2

million, while the balance comes from the

states; all 50 states participate. “They’re

teaching hunting as ‘gun safety,’ ‘physical

education,’ and any other excuse they cna

think of,” says Katherine Trimnal of

Columbia, South Carolina, who has been

investigating the program for some time.

This program is completely separate from

Project Wild, which also promotes a pro-

hunting message at cost of $23 million a

year.

Diet & Health

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

Responding to public panic over

tainted meat, President Bill Clinton on

February 11 ordered the USDA to hire 160

more meat inspectors, while Agriculture

Secretary Mike Espy promised a complete

overhaul of the meat inspection

system––which the Ronald Reagan and

George Bush presidential administrations

had streamlined by reducing the number of

inspectors. The panic began in December

when a six-year-old girl in San Diego

County, California, died after eating a

tainted Jack-in-the-Box hamburger, and

escalated January 22, when a two-year-old

boy died in Seattle, Washington, from the

same cause. More than 400 people who ate

Jack-in-the-Box hamburgers developed E.

Where horse rescue gets hot by Sharon Cregier

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

AMMAN, Jordan –– The sound of a stick on

hide summons Chris Larter to her second-story balcony.

“It’s the donkey-beaters,” Larter explains. Below, a

mare, foal at foot, plows a stony verge. Sheep and shep-

herd dodge four-lane traffic to graze the edges of con-

struction projects. And of course there are boys driving

donkeys. “Last time they were trying to cut a donkey’s

ears off,” Larter continues. She recalls braving a hail of

stones to take photos, locating the parents of the donkey-

boys, and pleading for the donkey’s welfare.

Today, courage requires police reinforcement.

Obtaining backup, Larter partially unloads a staggering

donkey, obliging the donkey-boys to make multiple trips

to finish moving their cargo.

Larter is field supervisor, publicity officer, and

photographer for the Jordanian Society for the Protection

of Animals, sponsored by the 70-year-old Society for the

Protection of Animals in North Africa. Based in England,

SPANA is among the last and most popular remnants of

the British occupation of Jordan, 1920-1946.

Gene and Diana Chontos: Helping the tough and stubborn

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

“Talking to someone about myself beyond my life

with burros seems abstract to me now,” Diana Chontos told

ANIMAL PEOPLE, “since my life has become burros and

their continued survival. I am a daughter of the pioneers of

Washington, and continue to live by many of the same val-

ues as my great-grandparents, except that during my child-

hood I found the practice of slaughtering and eating animals

abhorent. As soon as I possibly could, I became a vegetari-

an.” Her first animal rescue may have been at age 13,

when, “I rode my horse, galloping bareback, between a

gun-happy bounty hunter and a beautiful coyote I had been

watching as she caught and ate grasshoppers.”

Gene Chontos, Diana’s partner of 18 years, came

to animal rescue later in life, but no less dramatically. “I

was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1937,” he

remembers, “son to Hungarian immigrants. My father and

all his kin served the Bethlehem Steel Company as cheap

labor and resided in lower class poverty, replete with ethnic

prejudice, hatred, and violence. I escaped at age 17

through a four-year enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps.”

Guest column: Stop the war on wild horses! by Anna Charlton

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

A modern-day range war is underway on the vast

prairies of Nevada. Unless there is drastic and immediate

action, the casualty of this war will be the wild horse,

whom ranchers and bureaucrats seem determined to exter-

minate.

The wild horse is an enduring symbol of the

American west. The sight of a herd of these magnificent,

proud animals thundering across the open range evokes the

image of freedom. Responding to public outrage over the

slaughter of wild horses, Congress in 1971 passed the Free

and Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act, which calls for

the protection, management, and control of all wild horses

and burros on public land. But despite this legislative pro-

tection, wild horses are still shot, poisoned, and rustled.

The greatest threat to their survival, however, comes from

the Bureau of Land Management––the agency Congress

entrusted as their guardian. The BLM appears intent upon

“managing” wild horses out of existence, to increase the

profits of cattle and sheep ranchers.

A fish named Alice by Margaret Hehman-Smith

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

I have an unusual animal I’d like to tell

you about: a fish named Alice who does tricks.

You don’t believe it? Everyone says that until they

see my fish for real. Then they admit they have

never seen a fish do that before; and then they

don’t know what to say or do. On the one hand

here is a koi fish who performs learned behaviors

on cue, and on the other, there is the suggestion

that we should regard fish as intelligent, sentient

beings, who don’t belong grilled on a plate.

My Japanese Imperial koi fish is sleekly

beautiful, pearl-white, 24 years old, about the

size of a small dog. She lives in a 100-gallon tank

in my den. She has been taught to ring a bell, go

through a hoop, react to hand signals, push a ball,

Early neuter: cruel or kind?

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

Cruel! by Leslie N. Johnston, DVM

There is a trend now to establish

what are called spay/neuter clinics at all of

the city and county animal pounds and at the

various so-called humane animal shelters all

across our country. The term spay/neuter is

incorrect use of the English language. The

simple term neuter is enough.

The people running these clinics

are also ignorant about neutering dogs and

cats. The trend now is to neuter the dog or

cat before he or she leaves the facility,

regardless of age (as early as six weeks of

age). To neuter a dog or cat this early is

cruel, inhumane, deceptive, and the most

sadistic vivisection that could be done to a

poor little animal.

LETTERS [March 1993]

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

Money and power

The feature article in your

January/February 1993 issue about the role

or non-role of minorities in the movement

was top-notch. I am proud to have worked

for seven years at the Michigan Humane

Society’s downtown Detroit facility, promi-

nently mentioned in your article as one of

the only major U.S. humane societies still

committed to serving animals and people in

an often dangerous environment where

needs are greatest. Some important facts

not noted in your article are that the MHS

has minorities on its board of directors and

in supervisory positions, and that its

Detroit-based charitable animal hospital

helps thousands of animals each year––pri-

marily at reduced cost, no cost, or with

extended payment plans. In my current

Letters

Editorial: How do you tell Brooklyn from the Balkans––or the Berkshires?

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

The editor, the publisher, and the animal control officer were perplexed. Sipping

mugs of coffee on a recent frozen afternoon, they compared notes.

“Jogging up the road here a few minutes ago,” the editor said, “I ran into a young

guy in camoflauge, carrying a gun. It’s not hunting season. There’s nothing he could legal-

ly shoot that would be out at this time of day. Then I saw three kids coming the other direc-

tion, and every one of them had a BB gun. The only animals they could be shooting at are

animals they’re killing just because they’re alive.”

“I moved my family up here from Brooklyn,” said the animal control officer, “to

get away from an environment of poverty and stress and kids with guns. But now that I’m

here, it looks just like the Balkans.”

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