LETTERS [June 1994]
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:
Cat licensing
I love and care for cats and
I want all cats licensed and vaccinat-
ed for rabies. Whether or not there is
a rabies threat, I especially want all
cats licensed. We should start now
controlling the stray cat problem.
Two hours ago I trapped a seven-
week-old kitten by an off-ramp of
Highway 101. I am getting tired of
spending every free moment trapping
stray cats. If the state doesn’t start
now, the expense will be even
greater whenever they do start.
Voluntary rescuers such as myself
cannot keep up, no matter what the
talkers say.
––Carol A. Reitmeir
Menlo Park, California
Humane opposition to the
recently withdrawn California cat-
licensing bills, led by the San
Francisco SPCA, objects not to the
principle of mandatory cat licensing
and vaccination, but rather to the
failure of the bills to protect cat res –
cuers from prosecution and feral cat
colonies from mass extermination. A
clause recognizing monitored
neuter/release projects would satisfy
these objections, but the National
Audubon Society, a leading support –
er of cat licensing, openly intends for
licensing laws to be a means of man –
dating the killing of homeless cats.
Year of the Cat
Reference is made to the
letter from Elizabeth Arvin of More
Spays Less Strays, of Ojai,
California, who referred to the six
national animal welfare organiza-
tions who decided arbitrarily to call
1993 the Year of the Cat. If those
organizations had not spent their
money on throw-away glossy litera-
ture and put it to better use to help
many organizations neuter their cats,
we would have more spays and less
strays. I don’t believe that literature
proclaiming 1993 as Year of the Cat
got one animal adopted. What was
the purpose anyway?
––Roseann Trezza, Asst. Director
Associated Humane Societies
Forked River, New Jersey
Cat feeders
Humane groups should
work with cat feeders, and I’m glad
you encourage that. I’ve always
found feeders to be very cooperative,
provided one is on the up and up and
has proved worthy of trust.
––Patty Adjamine
N.Y. for Companion Animals
New York, New York
Objects to HSUS coverage
Your coverage of the
Humane Society of the U.S. hiring
Wayne Pacelle contained implica-
tions which need clarification. My
March 15 resignation from the HSUS
board was not a part of any maneu-
vers by HSUS or anyone in it. I
resigned on my own initiative to have
more time to devote to my other ani-
mal and vegetarian activities. I
believe the executives at HSUS had
no prior knowledge of my resigna-
tion, and I certainly was unaware of
their plans to hire Pacelle, a move I
would nevertheless have wholeheart-
edly supported.
Your veiled suggesting that
I might have become part of a board
constituency behind the executives’
backs is wrongheaded and wrong-
hearted. I have been a strong sup-
porter of HSUS before, during, and
after my service on its board. I think
the executives were confident of this
support or else I would never have
been asked to serve as chairman of
the audit committee and more recent-
ly as chairman of the board of
Humane Society International ( a n
administrative umbrella for HSUS
and related organizations formed in
1991––Ed. note).
In my opinion Pacelle is
one of the brightest, most effective
people in the animal rights move-
ment, and his new position with
HSUS is a welcome additional step in
their gradual movement toward a
“rights” philosophy––a movement
which was always slower than I
wished, but often faster than I
expected.
––Leslie R. Inglis
Nokomis, Florida
Inglis, like everyone else
mentioned in the article to which he
responds, was offered the chance to
be quoted on the record before it was
written. He declined.
Bob Barker ad
didn’t tell the
whole story
Bob Barker, through United
Activists for Animal Rights, recently
placed an advertisement entitled, “Why
was the American Humane Association
so desperate to avoid going to court?”
The 1989 lawsuit pertained to state-
ments and activities by Barker, relating
to animals in film and AHA’s role in the
protection of those animals. Much of
the text of that advertisement was mis-
leading.
• Mr. Barker chose not to
mention that he filed a motion in
Superior Court, asking the court to
throw out AHA’s libel case against him
without ever having a trial, based on
Barker’s position that AHA had no
valid case. The judge found that AHA
did, in fact, have a valid case, and
denied Barker’s motion.
• Barker appealed this ruling
to the Court of Appeals, asking it to
throw out AHA’s case without a trial.
The Court of Appeals rejected Barker’s
arguments.
• Finally Barker, who sup-
posedly wanted to go to trial, peti-
tioned the California Supreme Court to
overturn the trial court and the Court of
Appeals. The California Supreme
Court rejected Barker’s petition.
Finally AHA agreed to settle
the case for $315,000. AHA accepted
this settlement payment from Barker’s
insurance company in order to resolve
the matter and focus its attention on the
two primary goals of AHA: prevention
of cruelty to animals and prevention of
child abuse.
Rehashing the events related
to the lawsuit, or the settlement itself,
serves no useful purpose, nor does the
expense of advertisements justifying
Mr. Barker’s position. It’s time for both
organizations to move on with their
energies and resources devoted to the
care and protection of animals.
––Robert F.X. Hart, Executive Director
The American Humane Association
Englewood, Colorado
Unnatural Order
Someone just sent a copy of
P.J. Kemp’s review of my new book,
An Unnatural Order. Thanks very
much. I need all the help I can get,
because it is not getting any reviews in
mainstream media. What a waste of 12
years of research! Good luck and
regards.
––Jim Mason
Mt. Vernon, Missouri
Hunting & molesting
Editor’s note: Responding to our study “Hunting and
molesting,” published in our March issue, which demonstrated a
statistical association between rates of hunting license sales and
rates of sexual assaults on children in the 62 counties of New York,
Carl E. Parker of Guilderland, New York, wrote in a letter we pub –
lished in April, “Society would be better served if you investigated
the probable link between animal extremism and mental illness.” On
May 6, he wrote again:
I received a telephoned death threat from one of your
female sympathizers on the night of May 3. After asking whether I
was the Parker “who used to work for D.E.C.,” this lawbreaking
vixen said, “You’d better be careful when you go out because it’s
your turn to die next.”
We’d made no reference whatever to Mr. Parker being a
retired biologist for the New York Department of Conservation. (We
didn’t know anything more about him than his address, at the time.)
We wrote back that in view of the D.E.C. reference, the caller was
more likely a poacher, or related to one, than any sort of animal
person. We noted, too, that we routinely get threats from hunters,
and that our investigation of the relationship between hunting and
sexual assaults on children began last November when two jeeps full
of hunters shouted sexual threats at our son Wolf, age 3, as he and I
walked on a lonely dirt road about a quarter mile from our home.
Retorted Parker:
Only a pathological dislike of hunting and hunters can
account for your equating a death threat from a female animal
extremist and your verbal exchange with a group of allegedly rude
hunters. It is certainly not rational.
We presume Mr. Parker believes it is more rational to sit in
his own home, surrounded by his arsenal, quaking over a crank
telephone call, than for a three-year-old and his unarmed daddy to
be apprehensive when six physically present armed hunters accost
them in the middle of nowhere, threatening to rape the child.
Perhaps he’d like to trade places: we’ll take the calls from
women who hate hunting, and he’ll take the gun-nuts who are into
gang sodomy.
Furriers don’t close for summer vacation
It is nice to see that the fur industry seems to be on a steady
decline, but we must not think that our battle is over. The industry is
using every trick they have to try not to collapse. If you live in an
area with a fur store, plan protests. During the summer months we
can’t let up. Fur stores don’t close for summer vacation, and you bet-
ter believe that the animals don’t get one. During summer many ani-
mals [on fur farms] die from heat exhaustion. We need to keep the
pressure on; let’s not get cocky.
––Kris Qua
Holocaust Vegazine
Syracuse, New York
CORRECTIONS
Typographical errors in our
May issue caused several embarrass-
ing misidentifications. The New
York Aquarium rehabilitated and
released a beached pilot whale, not
the Shedd Aquarium (subject of the
item just above that one). The Fund
for Animals was begun in 1967, not
1974. We confused a Great Dane
with a greyhound in a photo caption
(we do know the difference); con-
fused a dog breeder’s holding pen
with a pack hunter’s chase pen in try-
ing to clarify Darlene Willians’ letter
about Doll Stanley-Branscum; and
transposed the names of Maine state
veterinarian Chip Ridky and farmer
John Ahern the second time we men-
tioned them in connection with cruel-
ty charges filed against Ahern, after
getting their names right in both the
preceding sentence and the next sen-
tence. Also, Friends of Animals
wants us to note that attorney Herman
Kaufman works by the job, not as
staff, and that “Ross Rosenthal” is
actually Ross, Rosenthal Inc., an
accounting firm, not the FoA accoun-
tant. Both were briefly mentioned in
our December 1993 issue.
