North Shore Animal League changes guard, offers free neutering

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. –– North Shore Animal League president David Ganz resigned
March 1, just as the March issue of ANIMAL PEOPLE reached readers with a page one probe of NSAL’s
unconventional approach to promoting adoptions and neutering. The investigation discovered that the NSAL
approach is substantially reducing both pet overpopulation and euthanasia rates wherever tried, and found little
current evidence to support criticisms often directed at NSAL by more conventional humane groups.
Although a successor to Ganz was not named immediately, NSAL chairperson Elizabeth Lewyt said,
“It is business as usual at NSAL, with all divisions running smoothly,” adding, “All NSAL programs and poli-
cies, including support and assistance for other animal shelters, will continue without interuption.”
NSAL attorney John Stevenson is now acting chief executive officer. “As chairprerson,” Lewyt con-
tinued, “I am now taking a more active role in the management of the shelter.”
As Lewyt’s first public action, she announced that, “Commencing April 1, NSAL will be providing
free spaying and neutering to all NSAL adopters.”

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HORSES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals is to rule soon on whether the
National Park Service can remove about 20
feral horses from the Ozark National Scenic
Riverways park, 150 miles southwest of St.
Louis, Missouri. The horses are feral
descendents of a herd released during the
Great Depression. A three-judge panel is to
decide whether they are protected by the
same laws as western mustangs––whose
own protection is currently in dispute.
More than 60,000 Americans
needed emergency treatment for head
injuries suffered while riding horses in
1991, reports the Johns Hopkins Injury
Prevention Center. Children under 15 were
the most frequent victims. The center rec-
ommends that riders wear helmets.

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Diet & Health

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Riley Detwiler, age 17 months,
on February 21 became the fourth toddler to
die from the outbreak of E. coli bacteria
poisoning that hit Jack-in-the-Box restau-
rants in Washington state and San Diego,
California, in December and January.
March 16, President Bill Clinton responded
to the deaths by proposing a complete over-
haul of the USDA meat and fish inspection
systems. Tainted meat killed more than 150
Americans and made more than 150,000
seriously ill during the past decade.
Tainted pork killed 63 people in
France last year, made 279 people serious-
ly ill, and caused seven abortions.

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From bunkers to bat caves by Doug Reed

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

NEWINGTON, N.H. –– The weapons storage
area lies brooding at the core of the Great Bay National
Wildlife Refuge, surrounded by an eight-foot-high chain
link fence capped with barbed wire and razor wire. Thirty
concrete block buildings, 250 power poles, miles of wire,
and 15 weapons storage bunkers––fortified cement crypts
covered with earth and grass––crowd the site with silence.
Clustered at the far end of the 62-acre storage
area, the bunkers are empty of the missiles and explosives
stored there for the past 30 years. The double steel doors
are six inches thick and weigh five tons each. A heavy-
duty hydraulic jack opens one door, and visitors, mostly
members of the Audubon Society of New Hampshire,
wander into the dark. Jim Halpin, the manager of this new
refuge, explains that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is
exploring the bunkers’ potential as bat caves. It’s an ironic
exchange of wildlife for arms: bats for bombs.

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The price of conversion

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

MADISON, Indiana –– The
pros and cons of converting no-man’s land
into wildlife refuges are nowhere more evi-
dent than at the 57,600-acre Jefferson
Proving Ground. Since 1941, Army per-
sonnel have fired more than 23 million
artillery, mortar, and tank rounds at
Jefferson, including 1.4 million dud
rounds that may still go off at any minute.
The Army wants to close Jefferson, to
save $7 million a year. But the closure
will cost southern Indiana at least 410
civilian jobs. Virtually the only alternative
use for the site would be as a wildlife
refuge, which would require the least
amount of clean-up. But even removing
enough unexploded ordinance to make
Jefferson minimally safe for refuge person-
nel could run as high as $550 million.
Despite all the shooting, the
edges of Jefferson are still forested, while
the firing ranges, carpeted with wildflow-
ers, attract birds and butterflies. Whether
or not Jefferson is formally designated a
wldlife refuge, chances are it will be
increasingly important to wildlife as the
human presence diminishes.

Houston Humane Society then and now; $15 neutering vs. 93% euthanasia rate

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Then
In September 1980, Houston Humane Society
board president Sherry Ferguson drafted a 12-page report to
her fellow board members. Opened in February 1963, HHS
was in every sort of trouble: badly overcrowded because of
a no-kill policy, financially shaky because of weak admin-
istration, and struggling to adopt out 700 animals a year.
By comparison, the Houston SPCA was adopting out
15,000 a year, and Citizens for Animal Protection, a group
founded to reform HHS, was adopting out 2,500 even
though it had no shelter.
That wasn’t the worst of it. HHS had no neutering
requirement for animals who were adopted out. When there
wasn’t space for newcomers, people who tried to surrender
animals were turned away––so many came at night and sim-
ply abandoned the animals on the property, alongside a
busy secondary highway. Many were killed by traffic
before staff arrived in the morning. Vermin infestations
were so severe that Ferguson said she wondered if HHS had
become a shelter for rats.

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The Project BREED Directory: access to a lifesaving network

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

GERMANTOWN, Maryland––
Shirley Weber, by her own admission, is in
over her head. Her savings are gone, her
telephone bills sky-high. Her assets include
four dogs and four cats, a condominium in
a rough part of town, and two volumes of
something called The Project BREED
Directory. (BREED is short for Breed
Rescue Efforts and Education.)
Weber also has the belief that what
she has done in creating The Project
BREED Directory is important, that it will
make a difference for thousands of animals
from coast to coast. The paperback direct-
ory includes contact information for every
group Weber could find that rescues pure-
bred dogs, some groups who rescue other
specific kinds of animal, and a considerable
amount of useful advice.

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Guest column: Helping all dogs through breed rescue by Gina Spadafori

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Some nights the telephone never stops ringing for
Sheltie Rescue.
The local humane society is holding a dog and
hopes we will pick her up soon––like today. A rescuer who
works with a different breed has pulled a Sheltie from a
municipal shelter two counties away––when can we pick
him up? A veterinarian is calling in hopes we can help a
middle-aged dog left for euthanasia when the family
moved. Two people want to dump their dogs tonight, and
we have no place to put them.
“If you don’t come get this dog right now,” hisses
one caller, “it’s dead. And I’m going to tell everyone what
hypocrites you are. Sheltie Rescue my ass.”

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Letters [April 1993]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Edison was a genius
I just received your letter
announcing your newspaper. As I
started reeading what you had to say,
I felt as if you knew my husband and
me personally. We are longtime
vegetarian/animal advocates who
write letters, take in strays, spay
and neuter, help the sick and
injured, and do what we can in gen-
eral to fight cruelty.

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