Will Clinton earn stripes on tiger boycott?

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

GENEVA, Switzerland– – The

Standing Committee of the Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species

met March 21-25 to decide whether to call a

global boycott of exports from Taiwan and

China to protest their role in wildlife poach-

ing and smuggling. Chinese and Taiwanese

demand for aphrodisiacs and other traditional

wildlife-based medicines is the source of

much and perhaps most of the money in the

illegal wildlife traffic.

Splatt back

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

DERRY, New Hampshire––Dr.

Splatt’s Roadkill Monitoring Project is under-

way for the second year. Sixty secondary

schoolrooms are keeping an online log of

roadkills for nine weeks, starting March 14.

Thirty classes last spring compiled

the biggest data base on roadkills to date,

finding apparent peak times of vulnerability

for grey squirrels, raccoons, birds, beavers,

skunks, and rats, which may coincide with

when young leave their parents, the growth

of favored food plants, moon phases,

and––for scavengers––peaks in roadkills of

other species.

Alaskans slaughter caribou “protected” from wolves

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

FAIRBANKS, Alaska––While

Alaska sponsored the slaughter of at least 92

wolves to make caribou more plentiful in the

Delta area southeast of Fairbanks, officially

known as Game Management Unit 20-A, the

caribou wandered into a free fire zone on

March 5––as they may have done for years.

Independent wildlife expert Dr.

Gordon Haber discovered while doing an aer-

ial survey on March 5 for Friends of Animals

that up to 1,500 caribou––30% of the Delta

herd––had moved out of 20-A into an area

east of Cantwell where intense roadhunting

and hunting from snowmobiles has been

underway since early January. Hunters in the

vicinity claimed a 90% success rate.

Hunting & Fishing

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

A bill to ban pigeon shoots includ-

ing the notorious Labor Day shoot in Hegins

fell three votes short of clearing the

Pennsylvania state house on March 8––and

actually drew a majority of the votes cast, 99-

93. However, 103 votes would have been

required to pass the bill from the 202-member

house to the state senate. Though the bill

would almost certainly have failed in the sen-

ate, where 38 of the 48 members have ‘A’ rat-

ings from the National Rifle Association, the

vote was a marked advance from 1989, when

the house defeated a similar bill, 126-66.

The Colorado house finance com-

mittee on February 16 killed as contrary to the

expressed intent of the electorate a bill that

would have reauthorized spring bear hunting

and hunting bears with hounds and bait––all of

which were banned by referendum in 1992.

ANIMAL HEALTH

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Epidemiology

New York and Rhode Island

health officials said February 24 that a mys-

terious hantavirus caused the January 20

death of Rhode Island School of Design stu-

dent David Rosenberg, 22, who may have

become infected via rodent droppings while

sweeping out a warehouse in Queens. The

case is among the first known human cases in

the U.S. that apparently does not involve deer

mice. Four days earlier, the Centers for

Disease Control confirmed that the hantavirus

afflicts Florida cotton rats, and announced

the death of three Kansans from suspected

hantavirus infections. Of the 60 known U.S.

human victims, 27 have died; 23 have

recovered after suffering debilitating illness.

Too many deer

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Deer overpopulation remained a hot

issue right through the winter in at least four

states. In Pennsylvania, where the legislature

recently mandated a 6.5% cut in the deer herd,

the state Game Commission enlisted the

National Guard to plow 1,200 miles of roads

and trails to enable hungry deer to reach 875

food plots at 65 public access hunting areas.

Without the feeding, some deer might have

starved––and many pregnant does would have

reabsorbed their fetuses, achieving the reduc-

tion in herd size independent of sport hunting.

What makes a scandal?

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Over the past decade, the following issues have become the

focus of 219 public scandals involving 101 U.S. animal shelters, of

which 60 were municipal animal control facilities; 18 were convention-

al humane societies, some of which held animal control contracts; 14

were no-kill shelters; and eight fell into other categories.

The total number of scandals is quite small, considering that

there are more than 6,000 shelters and animal control holding facilities

in the U.S. However, an evident pattern of repeated scandals at the

same shelters reflects a combination of administrators unwilling to rec-

tify problems and a resulting growth of public mistrust, so that eventu-

ally even relatively minor problems become scandals.

Essay was “anti-meat”

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

SACRAMENTO, California––Under heavy public

pressure for alleged racist censorship, the California state

Board of Education on March 12 reversed an earlier decision

to exclude from state achievement tests an essay and a short

story by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, plus a story by

Annie Dillard. The Walker essay “Am I Blue?”, was pulled

from the exams because, according to board chair Marion

McDowell, “It was anti meat-eating.”

The essay concerns a woman’s reflections upon the

loneliness of a horse kept for years in a paddock. It concludes,

“As we talked of freedom and justice one day for all, we sat

down to steaks. I am eating misery, I thought, as I took the

first bite. And spat it out.”

Getting a leash on no-kills

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

PHOENIX, Arizona––”As a volunteer at a no-

kill animal sanctuary in Utah,” Lynda Foro wrote to 230 no-

kill shelter directors last summer, “and as a supporter of no-

kill sanctuaries in the Phoenix area, I believe a directory of

the no-kill animal sanctuaries in the U.S. will be a useful

tool for communication and support.”

Foro compiled her mailing list from a combination

of personal contacts and responses to a classified ad in ANI-

MAL PEOPLE. About half the addressees responded,

enabling her to publish the 1994 No-Kill Directory i n

January. Sales were brisk enough, at $10 apiece, to meet

most of her expenses. (Order from POB 10905, Glendale,

AZ 85318-0905.) Already she’s assembling a 1995 edi-

tion––and is attracting notice from those who research trends

in humane work. Stereotypes of no-kills abound, but hard

data is lacking, largely because no one has had the roster of

such facilities necessary to do serious surveying.

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