Wildlife
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:
British and Danish mammologists have con-
firmed the discovery of a previously unknown hooved ani-
mal in the Vu Quang Nature Reserve of northwestern
Vietnam, along the Laotian border. Dubbed Psuedoryx
nghetinhensis, the animal resembles a cow, is about the
size of a goat, and has antelope-like horns. Psuedoryx
nghetinhensis is the biggest new land animal to be found in
more than 50 years.
An investigation of the cash value
Pennsylvanians would assign to various wildlife-related
experiences, upcoming in The Journal of Environmental
Management, found a day of fishing assessed at from
$4.80 to $53.40, depending on the site, while a day of
bird-watching would go for $15.00, and the chance to
view an elk at close range would fetch $24.52. The prices
are over and above the actual cost of the activity.
Sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service and Trout Unlimited,
the study may be used in estimating the value of wildlife
habitat in pollution-related legal settlements.
Effective July 1, Louisiana requires wildlife
refuge hikers and bird-watchers who don’t have a hunting
or fishing license to carry a non-consumptive use permit
priced at $5.50.
The University of Washington Animal Care and
Use Committee has authorized a team led by Burke
Museum bird curator Sievert Rohwer to kill as many as
1,200 birds and small mammals on a collecting trip to
Siberia this summer—mainly by squeezing them to death.
Rohwer’s team killed 800 animals on a similar trip last
year.
Eighteen European wolf protection groups
totalling 30,000 members met May 22-23 in Liege,
Belgium, to form an umbrella group, the European
Federation for the Wolf—just in time to help lead the boy-
cott of Alaskan tourism called to protest the state’s wolf
control plan.
Faced with losing 18,000 Navy-related jobs due
to the threatened closure of several obsolete mine-sweeper
bases, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, hired a
team of lawyers and public relations experts to attack
Naval Station Ingleside, a brand-new $440 million
minesweeper base near Corpus Christi, Texas, for
allegedly posing a threat to at least four endangered
species—none of which are actually at risk, according to
wildlife experts. The outcome is still in doubt.
China banned trade in rhinocerous horns and
tiger bones on June 5. If enforced, the ban will bring
Chinese law into line with the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species. China banned tiger hunting
nearly 30 years ago, and ratified CITES in 1981, but the
widespread practice of traditional Chinese medicine has
maintained a strong market for rhino horn and tiger bones,
among other wildlife-based remedies. The same day
Taiwan, widely suspected of being a major conduit for
smuggling rhino horn into China, burned 19 rhino horns
and 1,640 pounds of elephant ivory valued at $384,000.
The horns and ivory were seized by customs inspectors last
year. While Taiwan banned the import of rhino horn in
1985, dealers are allowed to continue selling any rhino
horn they already had in stock until the end of this year.
