What’s up in Minneapolis?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

MINNEAPOLIS––The Animal
Humane Society of Hennepin County, the
leading shelter in Minneapolis, has
achieved a 50% adoption rate or better
every year since 1990. Broken down,
AHSHC places 97% of the puppies it
receives, 50% of the adult dogs, 60% of
the kittens, and 35% of the adult cats. The
high adoption numbers are not achieved
through selective intake: of the 22,151 ani-
mals AHSHC handled in 1992, 84% were
animal control pickups.

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HSUS QUITS COMPUSERVE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

The Humane Society of the U.S. on July
25 abruptly terminated its forum on Compuserve.
“The decision,” said HSUS vice president for
training initiatives Randall Lockwood, “was based
primarily on the heavy demands it made on staff
time with very little return in terms of productive
contact with our constituents.”
Users took a different view. “Not only
did HSUS have a very low scroll rate,” said writer
Marcia King, “meaning it wasn’t making very
much money either for them or Compuserve, but
the HSUS system operator would barely tend the
forum.”
Added animal rescuer Vicki Rodenberg,
“There was an operator on duty for a while, but he
kind of faded away. Many of us, even HSUS sup-
porters, never understood why they had the forum
if they wouldn’t participate in it.”

Cold winter holds down roadkills: Peaks coincide with moon phases

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

DERRY, New Hampshire––The good
news is that roadkills will apparently claim 23%
fewer animal lives in 1994 than 1993. The bad news
is that the reason is probably not safer driving, but
rather the harsh winter of 1993-1994, which thinned
the numbers of many of the most vulnerable species.
Refinements of the survey method may
also account for some of the drop, from an estimated
total of 187 million animals killed in 1993 to just 137
million this year. The 1993 statistics were derived
exclusively from Dr. Splatt’s Roadkill Project, a
learning exercise then including students at 31 New
England middle schools, coordinated by Dr.
Brewster Bartlett of Pinkerton Academy, in Derry,
New Hampshire. 

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ASPCA gets eye––and doesn’t like it

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––The American
SPCA won a preliminary injunction on August 12
against use of founder Henry Bergh’s name in con-
nection with fundraising by the Henry Bergh
Coalition, a reform group assembled last spring by
New York City activist Livi French.
The ASPCA accused French of trademark
infringement on June 27, after she began airing an
expose series entitled Eye on the ASPCA o n
Manhattan public access television. The first three
episodes presented pretaped interviews with Herman
Cohen, an ASPCA vice president from 1989 until
his firing in February, with three other senior offi-
cials, for alleged incompetence. The firings came
amid an overtime pay scandal, including the revela-
tion that former ASPCA senior investigator Huando
Torres had pocketed $340,000 in overtime since
1990, while serving as shop steward for one of two
ASPCA Teamsters locals (one of which was recent-
ly decertified.)
Soon thereafter, New York media revealed
the improper designation of ASPCA board members
as humane officers, to enable them to carry
guns––allegedly over the objections of Cohen,
Torres, and the Teamsters. But it happened on
Cohen’s watch, as ASPCA chief administrator until
an August 1993 demotion, after which he was head
of humane enforcement. The deputizations appar-
ently began in late 1992. In one case, Cohen pur-
portedly personally deputized board member Steven
Elkman’s wife Linda. The board gun-toting ended in
February, three months after then-ASPCA special
counsel Madeleine Bernstein advised that the prac-
tice put the ASPCA’s law enforcement status at risk.
Meanwhile, in October 1993, Cohen hit
the ASPCA with eight cruelty counts for failing to
fix the society’s deficient Manhattan shelter. All
counts were conditionally dismissed on June 13 after
senior vice president John Foran––Cohen’s replace-
ment as chief operating officer––testified that he had
given shelter repairs a high priority. Cohen filed the
cruelty charges on the same day Foran says he called
in an architect to plan $400,000 worth of retrofitting.
“He should have served the summons on
himself,” Foran recently told John Simerman of the
Manhattan weekly Our Town. Built during Cohen’s
term as chief administrator, the shelter opened in
April 1992.
Claiming he was fired for whistleblowing,
Cohen is reportedly suing the ASPCA. Two other
staffers who were fired for alleged incompetence,
Martin Belardo and Jose Fernandez, say they were
actually dumped for refusing to help Foran find cause
to fire Cohen. Torres is seeking reinstatement and
back pay through arbitration, arguing that Foran
ousted him to breaking the shelter unions. Union
strife is reportedly one reason the ASPCA is giving
up the New York City animal control contract after
this year, thereby getting rid of most of the unionized
staff. The unions are also said to be the main reason
that New York is unwilling to just absorb the ASPCA
animal control apparatus. The city recently rejected
the only legal bid it received for the animal control
contract, from the Dewey Animal Care Center of Las
Vegas, which reputedly does an outstanding job in
that city, and instead advertised in the July 31 edition
of The New York Times for leadership to form a new
nonprofit animal care and control corporation under
the direction of the city health department.

We all live in a yellow submarine

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

The Mirage, Paul Watson’s yellow
submarine, drew more note from some U.S.
media than whaling issues––even though it
apparently wasn’t used. Watson caught flak
from both Ric O’Barry of the Dolphin
Project and Mark Berman of Earth Island
Institute for accepting much of the $200,000
price of the submarine as a donation from
Steve Wynn, owner of the Mirage hotel and
aquarium in Las Vegas. Wynn has helped to
fund Sea Shepherd projects since 1988.

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MARINE LIFE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Canada is secretly among the
nations trying to overturn the U.S. ban on
imports of tuna netted “on dolphin” as a
violation of the General Agreement on Trade
and Tariffs, according to a Canadian govern-
ment document disclosed by Michael
O’Sullivan of the Humane Society of Canada.
Canada has only a small tuna fleet, but seeks a
precedent toward overturning the pending
European Community ban on imports of fur
caught with leghold traps. Intended to take
effect in January, that ban has reportedly been
put off for another year, and is already subject
of a protest to the GATT tribunal by the U.S.-
based National Trappers Association.

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Love & Care shelter in trouble again

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

MONTGOMERY, Alabama––Responding to consumer complaints,
attorney Greg Locklier of the Alabama Office of the Attorney General is “cur-
rently investigating Love and Care for God’s Animalife Inc.,” a purported no-
kill shelter based in Andalusia, Alabama, “for possible deceptive trade practices
and other violations of Alabama law.” Love and Care has moved and changed
business names several times in recent years while incurring debts and legal
problems in both Georgia and Alabama, including frequent alleged violations of
humane care standards. Founder Ann Fields now lives in California, Locklier
said. After longtime shelter manager Linda Lewis quit at the start of the sum-
mer, the already marginal care standards degenerated, according to Locklier, as
management chores were left to a staff of apparent illegal aliens. Shortly before
Lewis quit, she said Love and Care was housing 688 dogs, half of them age 10
or older, and 400-plus cats, of whom about half the females were unneutered.

HSUS: PROSECUTE CAT RESCUERS BECAUSE FERAL DOGS ARE DANGEROUS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

According to Humane Society of the U.S. director for overpopulation
issues Kate Rindy, in a March 3 letter to Renee Welch of the Outer Banks
SPCA in Nag’s Head, North Carolina, neuter /release is a bad idea because,
“while feral cat colonies often stay within a confined area, feral dogs form packs
which roam over large areas and which can pose a threat to humans.”
Rindy and HSUS South Central Regional Office director Jim Tedford
also told Welch that neuter/release is illegal in North Carolina.
Welch had inquired in reference to monitored neuter/release of vacci-
nated cats as practiced by the Outer Banks Spay/Neuter Fund in nearby Kitty
Hawk, though she may not have given Rindy and Tedford complete context.
Using HSUS fact sheets on how neutering can cut animal control costs, Karen
LeBlanc of the OBSNF had approached the Dare County Animal Control
Advisory Board two weeks earlier to ask that $5,000 of its annual $104,227 sub-
sidy to the Outer Banks SPCA be earmarked for neutering assistance. The Outer
Banks SPCA objected––even after the OBSNF redrafted the proposal to stipu-
late that no public funds would be used for neuter/release. Armed with the Rindy
and Tedford letters, the Outer Banks SPCA on March 11 faxed a “Statement of
Disassociation” to local veterinarians and on March 13 published it as an adver-
tisement in The Coastland Times. The statement questioned the nonprofit status
of the OBSNF, a chapter of the California-based United Humanitarians, and
echoed without citing the source of the opinion that neuter/release is illegal.

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Wise-Use Wiseguys

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Champion steer wrestler Bob
Marshall, whose work somewhat resembles bes
tiality and involves frequent bumps on the head,
claimed recently in the Friends of Rodeo
newsletter that opposition to animal rights was
ordained by Paul in the name of Jesus because
animal rights activists “listen to seducing spirits
that teach the doctrine of demons,” promoting
“sex without marriage” and “sexual perver
sions,” which “basically expresses the view
point of our liberal leaders.” Thus, he said,
“The devil is who we really stand against.”
This came to him, he hinted, in a vision.
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