Editorial: Listen, talk, dicker

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Members of the ardently pro-vivisection Foundation for Biomedical Research got
quite a shock with their January/February 1993 newsletter. On pages four through six, the
editors extensively, respectfully, and congenially interviewed Henry Spira, the most effec-
tive antivivisection activist of our time and perhaps of any time. He’s not a household word,
because he doesn’t do big direct mailings touting his accomplishments, nor does he head a
multimillion dollar organization, or go on television regularly to shout about victories he
barely acknowledges, because he believes gloating is counterproductive. Still, working
virtually alone, with a miniscule budget, Spira has accomplished more over the past 17
years toward getting animals out of laboratories than any of the national animal rights
groups and antivivisection societies; perhaps more than all of them put together. The bio-
medical research establishment certainly knows his name, and significantly, some of the
most influential people in that establishment thought it was high time to open public,
friendly dialog––even if they got bashed for it by colleagues conditioned to view animal
use/protection as a war zone, a Manichean struggle between good and evil in which one
side or the other must ultimately be annihilated.

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American SPCA drops New York pound contract: “Killing animals shouldn’t be the business of a humane society.”

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––The Amer-
ican SPCA announced March 25 that it will
cease providing animal control service to
New York City after September 1994, and
will begin turning operations over to the city
as promptly as possible.
Losing money on animal control
work, the ASPCA has threatened to pull out
many times since 1977, most recently in
1991. Each time, New York offered conces-
sions and the work of picking up and eutha-
nizing strays went on as usual. In 1991, for
instance, the ASPCA returned responsibility
for selling dog licenses to the city––an intend-
ed fundraising function that had become a
loser––and accepted a bigger direct subsidy
instead.

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Women’s health vs. horses: ESTROGEN BOOM BRINGS BREEDING FOR SLAUGHTER

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

BRANDON, Manitoba––Rocketing demand for estrogen replacement drugs
is expected to double the number of farms producing pregnant mare’s urine (PMU) from
300 in 1991 to 600 by the end of 1993. Already, 485 farms are collecting urine from an
estimated 75,000 catheterized mares. Because the mares must be pregnant to produce a
commercially viable amount of estrogen, they will give birth to as many as 90,000 foals
this year––most of them in May. The equine gestation cycle normally runs from June to

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Wildlife in no-man’s-land: Are war zones safer than refuges?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

When the Persian Gulf War erupted in February
1991, ecologists shuddered at the probable fate of the wet-
lands at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
The region, where Kuwait meets Iraq, is among the world’s
busiest corridors for migratory birds––both songbirds and
waterfowl, coming and going from Europe, Africa, Asia,
and the Indian subcontinent. The bird populations were
already in trouble. Intensive sheep-grazing had desertified
thousands of acres of vegetation. Oil-rich Kuwaiti
thrillseekers compounded the damage with reckless use of
offroad vehicles and contests to see who could shotgun the
most birds, without regard for either endangered species or
bag limits.

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