SPECTACLES

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

The film Free Willy, the Paul

McCartney song Looking for Changes

and episodes of the TV comedies T h e

Simpsons and Dinosaurs took the top hon-

ors at the Genesis Awards ceremony March

12. Presented by the Ark Trust, the

Genesis Awards honor entertainment and

reportage that furthers awareness of animal

protection. The Simpsons, a surprise

choice, was recognized for an episode in

which underachiever Bart Simpson and his

sister Lisa disrupt a rattlesnake roundup.

Dog sledding

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

After announcing that the

Humane Society of the U.S. would call a

boycott of Iditarod sponsors if any dogs

died during this year’s edition of the 1,163-

mile race from Anchorage to Nome, HSUS

vice president David Wills was embarrassed

when a six-year-old dog belonging to four-

time Iditarod winner and leading exponent of

humane dog care Susan Butcher died suddenly

of a heart attack on March 7. Butcher, who

backed the zero death goal, revolutionized

sled dog training by motivating her teams with

love instead of aggression; was instrumental

in forming a self-policing association of

dogsledders; outspokenly opposes breeding

large numbers of dogs to get a few fast ones;

and keeps 28 retired dogs as well as breeders

and dogs in training. After the death, she

gave her team a 24-hour rest, dropping out of

contention. She previously lost two dogs

when a moose charged her team in 1985, plus

another who died of a ruptured liver in 1987.

Horses

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Wild Horse Annie (right), the first

wild horse to be protected by the Bureau of

Land Management, died on January 27 at the

International Society for the Protection of

Mustangs and Burros sactuary near Scottsdale,

Arizona. Named after Velma “Wild Horse

Annie” Johnston, the Nevada secretary who

worked for more than 20 years to secure feder-

al wild horse protection (and inspired the last

film of Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, The

Misfits), the horse was tattooed U.S. #1 after

she was rescued as a starving foal on

September 4, 1970, in the Pryor Mountains

––a year before the Free Ranging Wild Horses

and Burros Act took effect.

Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. and Canada, September 1982-April 1994

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Compiled by the editor ofANIMAL PEOPLEfrom press accounts, this

table covers only attacks by dogs kept as pets. Attacks by dogs trained specifically to

fight are excluded. “Attacks doing bodily harm” includes all fatalities, maimings,

and other injuries requiring prolonged hospitalization. “Maimings” includes perma-

nent disfigurement or loss of a limb.

Bangkok Six attorney kills himself

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Attorney Michael Metzger, 57, of St.

Helena, California, shot his wife Kyle in the

legs on March 3, then killed himself. He had

reportedly been depressed and drinking since

federal judge Saundra Armstrong suspended his

right to practice for six months in late 1992, after

he allegedly challenged two prosecutors to fist-

fights and asked a female prosecutor for tissue

samples “to see what species you are.”

The San Francisco Chronicle described

Metzger as “a generous, gentle man who loved

dogs and cats as well as the deer that roamed

near his home and vineyards.” As a member of

the Animal Legal Defense Fund, he defended,

on several occasions circa 1990, activists who

had been arrested while trying to stop legbreak-

ing experiments on greyhounds at Letterman

Hospital, a military facility in San Francisco.

COURT CALENDAR

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Wildlife and habitat

The U.S. Court of Appeals in

Washington D.C. on March 11 upset jurispru-

dence concerning endangered species protec-

tion by ruling in a case pertaining to timber rights

and spotted owl protection in the Pacific

Northwest that the government lacks authority to

protect wildlife habitat on private land. The U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service said that pending further

clarification of the ruling, perhaps by the U.S.

Supreme Court, it would make no policy changes.

The March 11 ruling directly contradicts the out-

standing precedent in such situations, established

by the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals in San

Francisco.

Birds

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

The Clinton administration on

February 23 unveiled a management plan

for 24 million acres of public land in the

Pacific Northwest that cuts the rate of log-

ging to 20% of the pace in the 1980s. Most

of the 5.3 million acres of old growth on the

public lands will be off limits, to protect

spotted owls and more than 1,000 other old

growth-dependent species. Although the

plan will make permanent the layoffs of

about 9,500 forest products workers, it is

expected to be what The New York Times

called “the final blueprint” for settling the

spotted owl crisis. Studies of the impact of

logging on spotted owls go on; critics of owl

protection may enjoy the March 13 disclo-

sure that the Seattle Center for Wildlife

Conservation is getting $107,000 from the

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to check spot-

ted owl guano from logging areas for hor-

monal signs of stress.

FROGS & TOADS

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Speakers at the American

Association for the Advancement of

Science annual meeting in San

Francisco in late February argued that

endangered species protection should

focus on species with few living rela-

tives and therefore a unique genetic

heritage. Amphibian expert David

Wake of the University of California

at Berkeley pointed out that the spot-

ted owl has many close relatives,

while a primitive tailed toad who

inhabits the same forest apparently

diverged from other frogs and toads in

the Jurassic era, 150 million years

ago. The value of spotted owl protec-

tion, he argued, lies mainly in the

spinoff value of protecting habitat for

more unique species along with the

owl habitat.

Fur

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Canadian environment minister Sheila Copps,

whose gracelessness earned her the nickname “Leader of

the rat pack” during her years as a Parliamentary back-

bencher, disrupted a meeting of top environmental offi-

cials from the seven major Western industrialized nations

on March 12 by denouncing the European Community ban

on seal pelt imports, the pending EC ban on imports of

pelts trapped by cruel methods, and opposition to the cur-

rent Canadian seal hunt. Copps claimed an alleged popula-

tion explosion of seals is causing the collapse of the

Atlantic Canada fishing industry, despite strong biological

evidence that seals do not eat many fish of the most com-

mercially valued species.

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