Hartz Mountain ignites a powder keg

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

HARRISON, New Jersey––The Hartz Mountain

Corporation on May 6 lit a powder keg by donating 10 cases

each of Blockade flea and tick repellent to numerous animal

shelters. Blockade hasn’t been controversial recently, but

some shelter staff recalled the history of the product and

responded by not only rejecting the gift, but also setting up

a telephone tree to warn other shelters.

The initial furor erupted in 1987, when Blockade

was introduced. Within a year it was blamed for 366 pet

deaths, 2,700 pet injuries, and 56 “alleged unsubstantiated

human injuries,” according to a letter Hartz Mountain sent

the EPA in December 1987, when it took Blockade off the

market for further testing.

New species discovered in the jungles of Southeast Asia

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia– –Exploration teams in the

jungles of Southeast Asia reported two extraordinary finds in late

April––a small herd of kouprey, an extremely rare wild cow, and an

entirely new deer species, the giant muntjac.

Italian veterinarian Maurizio Dioli tracked the kouprey in

northeastern Cambodia from March 27 until April 7, never actually

seeing any, but collecting evidence of their presence, also observing

“one of the largest populations of Asian elephants and Sumatran tigers

in Asia,” and evidence, too, of enough poaching to “present a major

threat to the survival of the wildlife.”

Wildlife

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Hope rose for the endangered

Florida panther in late May when volunteers

from the Coryi Foundation discovered a car-

cass, a single pawprint, and clumps of fur on

the grill of a car that struck an unknown animal

in the St. Johns and Kissimmee River water-

sheds––far outside the Big Cypress Swamp

area of Lake Okeechobee, which was previ-

ously the panther’s only known habitat.

A coalition of U.S. environmental

groups has petitioned the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service to add koalas to the endan-

gered species list. The koala population of

eastern Australia has fallen lately due to habi-

tat loss, caused by the combination of devel-

opment, logging, wildfires, and drought.

RWANDAN GORILLAS LIVE–– LAKE VICTORIA MIGHT NOT

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

VOLCANO NATIONAL PARK, Rwanda–– As of May

14, the mountain gorillas made famous by the late Dian Fossey were

unharmed by Rwandan civil strife, said Jose Kalpers, coordinator of

the International Gorilla Conservation Program.

The IGCP is sponsored by the African Wildlife

Foundation, the Fauna & Flora Preservation Society, and the World

Wildlife Fund.

Kalpers and the rest of the staff at Karasoke, Fossey’s for-

mer headquarters, were evacuated to Kenya shortly after the

Rwandan fighting broke out on April 6. Uganda closed Mgahinga

National Park on May 2, fearing fighting would spill over from the

Volcano National Park area of Rwanda––but it didn’t. By mid-May,

Kalpers said, he was able to visit Zaire, closer to Karasoke than his

temporary headquarters in Nairobi. From Zaire, Kalpers funded

resumed patrols by Rwandan and Zairean park wardens.

Laboratories

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Residents of Cranberry and

Hampton Township, Pennsylvania, got a

close-up view of the realities of vivisection on

May 7 when the tailgate of a truck taking 2.5

tons of dead rats from Zivic-Miller Laboratories

to a landfill broke twice, littering two streets

with rat remains. Zivic-Miller, of Zelienople, a

Pittsburgh suburb, sells rats to research institu-

tions. The dead rats were unsold surplus, owner

Bill Zivic told Associated Press.

1990 University of Minnesota animal

intake records obtained by the Animal Rights

Coalition under the Minnesota Data Practices

Act indicate that the university purchased for

research use at least 139 of 248 dogs who were

individually identified in a 1992 USDA com-

plaint filed against Class B animal dealers Julian

and Anita Toney, of Lamoni, Iowa, for failing

to keep records on animal acquisitions. The

USDA charges, now four years old, are still

pending, while the Toneys remain the primary

suppliers of dogs to the university––which has

been suspected of using stolen dogs ever since

the late Lucille Moses traced dog thefts through

local suppliers to UM in the early 1960s.

Woofs and growls

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Wise-use wiseguys

Frederick Goodwin, former director of the National

Institute of Mental Health, announced in late March that he would soon

be setting up a Center of Science, Medicine, and Human Values at

Georgetown University, to promote vivisection. The announcement was

premature: on May 5, Georgetown University executive vice president

Dr. Patrick A. Heelan, S.J., stated in a letter to inquiring faculty members,

“Please know that Dr. Goodwin is not coming to join the faculty.” No fur-

ther explanation was given.

U.S. Surgical Corporation chairman Leon Hirsch took a 97%

pay cut last year, as USSC stock crashed. His wife, Turi Josefsen, took

almost as steep a cut. Still, Hirsch drew $1.59 million, while Josefsen got

$941,117, enough to enable them to keep supporting anti-animal protec-

tion including the Americans for Medical Progress Research Foundation,

Educators for Responsible Science, and Connecticut United for Research

Excellence––all funded mainly by U.S. Surgical itself.

ON LIFE, LIBERTY AND PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS FOR WILDLIFE IN CONFINEMENT

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

by John Lukas

Director, White Oak Conservation Center, Yulee, Florida

This guest column is adapted from a cage-rattling

presentation Mr. Lukas delivered to the recent White Oak con –

ference on zoos and animal protection, hosted by the Howard

Gilman Foundation.

Happiness is not a term zoo administrators and oth-

ers who hold wildlife in confinement like to use. Many of us

were trained to think of “happiness” as a human interpreta-

tion, linked with anthropomorphizing animals, and therefore

problematic when much of what we do is oriented toward try-

ing to get animals to behave in the manner appropriate to their

own species. Nonetheless, I use the term “happiness,”

because even if we have trouble suitably defining it, I believe

we cannot avoid having to think about it as an essential com-

ponent of animal well-being.

Greenwich Village vivisection and dog export hoaxes rattle humane community

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––Two appar-

ent hoaxes in two weeks rattled the humane

community during late spring. Both orginated

out of New York City’s Greenwich Village, a

longtime hotbed of pranks executed in the

name of performance art. The first, advertised

in The Village Voice, was a purported pro-

vivisection group called American Vivisection

Defense, with a 92¢-a-minute 900 number set

up on April 29. The organization––AVID for

short––claimed to be soliciting donations of

unwanted pets for use in biomedical research.

It had no connection whatever with AVID

Microchip, of Norco, California, which

received a barrage of outraged calls and in

short order threatened to sue the purported

prankster, Winfield Scott Stanley III, of 304

Newberry Street in Cambridge, Mass-

achusetts. Both the name and the address are

believed to be fictitious. Callers to the 900

number heard a long diatribe promoting fur

and veal, as well as biomedical research.

Wake-up call on behalf of wolves

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

NEW YORK, New York––The wolves massacred in Alaska last

winter are dead but not forgotten––and neither are those slated for death next

winter, as Alaska continues to kill wolves to make moose and caribou more

plentiful for hunters. To be sure the wolves are remembered, pajama-clad

Friends of Animals volunteers and staffers occupied the lobby of the ABC-

TV headquarters on the morning of May 19 during the broadcast of the

Good Morning America show, protesting a week-long promotion of

Alaskan tourism. Six demonstrators were arrested for trespassing.

ABC had already scheduled a 30-minute segment on the wolf

killing, featuring a debate between Stephen Wells of the Alaska Wildlife

Alliance and a spokesperson for the state of Alaska––but it aired after the

promotion of Alaska was over with and most of the resultant travel bookings,

FoA believed, would already have been made.

Preparing for further conflict, the Alaska House of Representatives

on April 28 passed a bill to enable the state Department of Fish and Game to

withhold data about wolf pack locations––purportedly to protect wolves

from poachers, but actually directed, newspaper editorials agreed, at inde-

pendent wolf expert Gordon Haber, who sued to obtain such information

last year, then embarrased officials with aerial surveys that showed many of

their claims about wolf, moose, and caribou numbers were inaccurate.

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