OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Dallas Pratt, M.D., 79, died May
20 at his home in Garrison, New York. In an
autobiography authored for the journal
Between The Species, Pratt recalled joining a
society for the prevention of cruelty at age 9,
and giving up hunting at age 22 in 1938, but
noted that he did not otherwise concern him-
self with animals until after he acquired his
first pet, a Scottie dog he named Maud, after
his nanny, in 1966. Within a few months
Pratt helped prosecute the director of the near-
by Hampton Animal Shelter for cruelty; in
1969, noting a paucity of documentation
about animal issues in advocacy literature, he
and friends founded the humane education
group Argus Archives, recently reorganized
as Two Mauds Inc. and now administrated by
Ron Scott. In recent years the group has
focussed upon documenting the activities of
the animal rights movement. Through Argus
Archives, Pratt published two books, Painful
Experiments on Animals (1976) and
Alternatives to Pain in Experiments on
Animals (1980). In 1981 the Animal Welfare
Institute honored him with the Albert
Schweitzer Medal for lifetime achievement in
animal protection.

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COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Activism
Forty-two activists who were
arrested at the 1992 Hegins Labor Day
pigeon shoot on July 15 sued 16 employ-
ees and officials of Schuykill County,
Pennsylvania, who allegedly subjected
them to illegal strip-searches. The plain-
tiffs include PETA cofounders Alex
Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk, who claims
male guards were able to see her nude
through an open door. The suit parallels
one filed by nine female activists who won
a similar case after the 1991 Hegins shoot.
U.S. judge Franklin S, Van Antwerpen
ruled last September in that case that the
Schuykill county strip-searching policy
was unconstitutional.

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Music Reviews

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Animal Tracks, written and recorded by
Dwayne Robertson; distributed by The Spayed
Club (POB 1145, Frazer, PA 19355). $9.00.
The first song of the four-song cassette Animal
Tracks could be a popular hit were it to enter the main-
stream. “Friends for Life” is reminiscent of a railroad bal-
lad with touches of the classic “Mr. Bojangles.” It tells the
true story of a loyal dog, Shep, who waits for his master
by the railroad tracks for six years. Every day he meets
the train, and every day he is disappointed, for his master
was dead when put aboard.
The other three songs are considerably less art-
ful, but carry important messages. They are, however,
too sad for me to enjoy. Thus I question their application.
Perhaps they could be useful as part of a humane society
program, but my experience is that people turn away from
messages that are depressing or overly preachy.
I’d market “Friends for Life” as a single, or put it
on a tape with more appealing songs if I were serious
about reaching the general public.
––Kim Bartlett

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Killing for the hell of it

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

A federal anti-hunter harassment statute
tucked into the Crime Bill is likely to stay there––and
pass––as the Clinton administration strives to get
around National Rifle Association opposition to the
Crime Bill as a whole, which would ban 19 types of
assault rifle. The NRA on August 10 claimed credit
for temporarily defeating the Crime Bill on a proce-
dural vote in the House of Representatives.
The Senate version of the California
Desert Protection Act, passed in April, would cre-
ate an East Mojave National Park between the Joshua
Tree and Death Valley National Monuments, which
are to be upgraded to National Park status––meaning
a ban on hunting. However, in a move of symbolic
import to the NRA, the House version passed on July
27 downgrades East Mojave to the status of a
National Preserve, to allow hunting. National Park
Service director Roger Kennedy pointed out that
because preserves require more staff than parks, the
House version will cost $500,000 more per year to
run. Since hunters kill an average of only 26 deer and
five bighorn sheep per year in East Mojave, Kennedy
said, this amounts to “a subsidy of $20,000 per deer.”
A House/Senate conference committee must reconcile
the conflicting versions before the bill goes back to
both the Senate and House for final passage.

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Circuses & spectacles

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Cesar, a runaway circus sea lion, was
recaptured on July 22 while napping on a parked
car, ending a four-day chase in Lake Maggiore,
Switzerland, during which activists demanded that
he be allowed to live in the lake. Cesar’s brother
Otto escaped with him, but was caught earlier––and
recaught after escaping again.
The Atlantic City SPCA said August 9
that it was satisfied with improvements the Great
Moscow Circus had made to animal holding condi-
tions at the Trump Taj Mahal Hotel, and would not
file cruelty charges. An exercise cage for the bears,
built at the insistence of Eileen Liska of the
Michigan Humane Society during the Moscow
Circus tour of 1988-1989, was reclaimed from stor-
age in Canada, and was to travel with the circus
throughout the rest of the current tour. The Taj
Mahal shows were continuously picketed by the
New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance.

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Animals in laboratories

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

The American Medical Association has honored Louisiana State
University researchers Michael Carey and Betty Jean Oseid (his wife) for their
“defiant and unflinching stand against animal rights extremists.” Carey spent $2.1
million shooting more than 700 cats in the head until a General Accounting Office
probe found the work dubious, influencing the U.S. Army to halt funding in
1989. A stint as a combat surgeon in the Persian Gulf War revamped his image,
Mike Wallace of CBS 60 Minutes whitewashed the cat-shooting, blaming animal
rights activists rather than the GAO for
the Army decision, and Carey has
been on the stump seeking renewed
funding ever since.

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Horse notes

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

A legal parallel to the White
Sands situation came to light on the
Yakima Reservation, at Toppemish,
Washington, and the Warm Springs
Reservation near Madras, Oregon,
after horse enthusiast Sheila Herron
traced several injured horses she found
in a horsemeat dealer’s feedlot at Yelm,
Washington, back to annual roundups
authorized by the tribal councils.
Yakima councillors told Herron they
were “weeding out the crippled and
old,” but most of the horses at the feed-
lot were healthy, Herron said, and
some were foals. A Warm Springs
councillor said the Madras horses are
privately owned. “I was certainly
unaware,” Herron told ANIMAL PEO-
P L E, “that only mustangs and burros
from BLM or Forest Service lands are
protected by federal law. Mustangs and
burros from Park Service, Indian, mil-
itary or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
lands have no protection from being
rounded up and sold for slaughter.”

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Horses starve at White Sands

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

WHITE SANDS, New Mexico–– Three of the four wild horse herds on the
White Sands Missile Range survived an early summer drought in good shape, but
between July 6 and July 15, when rain came and the grass grew, the Mound Spring
herd lost 122 of an estimated 400 members to starvation––49 of them shot by military
police to end their misery. Descended
from ranch horses left when the range was
expropriated in 1946, from 1,300 to
1,500 horses roam about two million
acres. The New Mexico Department of
Game and Fish says the range can support
no more than 500 horses. In 1989 protest
halted a White Sands attempt to auction
some horses for slaughter, via the state
Livestock Board, which by state law
owns all free-roaming horses not covered
by federal law. In 1990 Rep. Joe Skeen
(R-N.M.) won an appropriation of
$200,000 to enable White Sands to pay
the Bureau of Land Management to adopt
out some of the horses. The New Mexico
wild horse law stopped that.

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AGRICULTURE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

The central event at the American Humane Association annual confer-
ence, Sept. 28-Oct. 1, is to be an already controversial “Livestock forum,” at which
four university livestock experts, often critical of industry norms, are to outline for
humane officers “which current farming practices are acceptable, which can be chal-
lenged, and how” under existing laws, and “which desperately need to be changed.”
Claiming the speakers are too close to the livestock industry, representatives of the
Humane Farming Association, Humane Society of the U.S., and Fund for Animals
have offered themselves as speakers instead. Responded Adele Douglass of AHA,
who set up the forum, “This session is not to talk about ideals; it’s to inform people
about what’s being done now, why it’s being done that way, and what kind of farm-
related cases a humane officer can hope to prosecute successfully under today’s laws.”

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