LEMSIP’S LAST STAND: MOOR-JANKOWSKI FIGHTS FOR CHIMPS

April 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

STERLING FOREST, New York––One would think New York University

wouldn’t want to fight with Jan Moor-Jankowski. As a youth, he fought the Nazis in occu-

pied Poland. As a researcher, he’s battled disease for 30 years at his Laboratory for

Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP), widely considered the world’s

most advanced in primate care––and the most accessible to people who care about primates.

As a humanitarian, he was among the first researchers to adopt the principles of “reduction,

refinement, and replacement” as his laboratory policy toward animals. As editor of the pres-

tigious International Journal of Primatology, Moor-Jankowski from 1983 until 1991 battled

a libel suit filed by the Austrian pharmaceutical firm Immuno AG, in response to a letter-to-

the-editor authored by Shirley McGreal of the International Primate Protection League.

Paying expenses largely from his own pocket, Moor-Jankowski won landmark victories for

press freedom in the Supreme Court and New York Court of Appeals.

Yet despite Moor-Jankowski’s for-

midable reputation, NYU has moved to dis-

mantle LEMSIP in apparent retaliation for his

criticism of drug addiction experiments con

ducted by fellow NYU primate researcher

Ronald Wood. Moor-Jankowski in turn has

delayed his scheduled retirement for at least a

year to fight for the lives of the 225 chim-

panzees in LEMSIP custody.

Smouldering for months, the con-

flict erupted on August 16, 1994, when

Moor-Jankowski resigned from the

Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee

that oversees Wood’s work, in protest of what

he terms “highly reprehensible” conduct that

“must be stopped.” Moor-Jankowski isn’t

allowed to discuss details, under IACUC rules

of confidentiality, but according to the fal

1994 edition of the American SPCA magazine

Animal Watch, “NYU sources claim Wood’s

studies involve extreme negligence and animal

cruelty, and have prompted temporary sus-

pension of Wood’s experiments last spring,

the resignation of former NYU head veterinar-

ian Dr. Wendell Niemann, the firing of sever-

al people with direct knowledge of wrongdo-

ing possibly because of their ‘whistleblower’

status, and two federal investigations.”

Weeks later, Moor-Jankowski

recalls, “I was shocked to learn that NYU

intended to dispose of LEMSIP,” which he

founded in 1965 and had run under NYU aus-

pices since 1967. On August 23, 1994, NYU

had without Moor-Jankowski’s knowledge

informed the USDA, which enforces the

Animal Welfare Act, that LEMSIP was no

longer a “site of the NYU Medical Center.”

The import of that, Moor-Jankowski

explains, is that while he personally raises

LEMSIP’s annual budget of $4 million, mostly

from industry, “The money goes through NYU.

As soon as I started opposing Wood’s experi-

ments, the money was withheld, jeopardizing

our ability to meet USDA standards.”

Elaborates Suzanne Roy of In

Defense of Animals, “Moor-Jankowski had

arranged for over $450,000 in funds from the

U.S. Army to underwrite the establishment of a

chimpanzee retirement facility in South Texas.”

Also to house retired LEMSIP chimps, the

facility was to be run by the Buckshire

Corporation, whose president, Glen Wrigley,

rattled the research establishment by filing a

brief in support of Moor-Jankowski and

McGreal during the Immuno case. The contract

was to cover lifetime care for 12 chimps, all

over 30 years old, formerly used in military

experiments at the Delta Regional Primate

Center in Louisiana. Those projects ceased in

1991. Three of the chimps are now at the

Buckshire headquarters in Pennsyvlania, while

LEMSIP has five; four remain at Delta.

“But NYU wouldn’t sign the deal,”

Moor-Jankowski continues. “They wanted to

keep the money. And they wanted to fire me,

but they couldn’t, so they fired the lab.”

While Moor-Jankowski pursued the

transfer of LEMSIP to the Aaron Diamond

Foundation, a longtime sponsor, preparatory to

his own retirement, NYU associate dean David

Scotch “appears to have actively courted the

participation of Fred Coulston in a takeover

plan,” Wisconsin Regional Primate Center

librarian Larry Jacobsen charged in a February

9 posting on Primate-talk, an Internet bulletin

board for primatologists. University of

California at San Diego anthropologist Jim

Moore backed the posting on February 14 with

an extensive bibliography of sources.

Neither NYU representatives nor

Coulston have been willing to discuss the situa-

tion in detail with media.

Coulston

Coulston, 80, is owner of the White

Sands Research Center in Alamogordo, New

Mexico, and founder of the Coulston Found-

ation, sited at nearby Holloman Air Force Base,

which keeps 140 chimps left over or descended

from the NASA “space monkey” program of the

1950s and early 1960s. Since Coulston took

over the Holloman facility in June 1993, three

chimps died from overheating on October 31,

1993; four macaques died of bloat and vomit-

ing on June 14, 1994, their first day in outdoor

housing; two chimps died in July 1994, one of

apparent untreated pneumonia and meningitis,

the other of apparent oversedation for a routine

physical; and in December 1994, according to

Jacobsen, “An as yet unrevealed number of

monkeys died of thirst and dehydration in a

room where the water was shut off.”

A staffing ratio of one person per 33

primates, criticized by the National Institutes of

Health in a June 1994 site visit report, may

have contributed to the deaths. “The report also

notes that the Coulston

Foundation veterinary

staff is too small, largely

undertrained and inexpe-

rienced,” Jacobsen said.

Between his two

facilities, Coulston

already has about 540

Chimps and

800 macaques. He reportedly

offered NYU $1 million

for LEMSIP, the acquisi-

tion of which would give

him more than half the lab chimps in the U.S.

“This,” observed Jacobsen, “despite the fact

the Coulston’s enterprises in New Mexico are

marginal financially.”

At deadline, Moor-Jankowski hoped

criticism of a possible deal with Coulston from

other scientists might make NYU back off.

PETA

Meanwhile, according to Roy, “a

PETA undercover investigation has shown

Buckshire is in serious violation of the Animal

Welfare Act in both its chimpanzee housing

area, where conditions are at best bleak, and its

cat colony.” In February, the USDA cited

Buckshire for housing chimps in undersized

cages and failing to provide adequate medical

care––situations Moor-Jankowski attributes to

the NYU hold on the funding.

In mid-March, Army Medical

Research Acquisition Department director

Gregory Doyle ordered NYU to remove the

chimps from Buckshire.

In between, on February 24, Wrigley

offered to sell PETA all the chimps to which

Buckshire holds title. PETA refused the offer

on February 27. However, wrote PETA direc-

tor of research, investigations, and rescue

Mary Beth Sweetland, “We are always willing,

in conjunction with the Great Ape Project and

the Chimpanzee Rescue Centre [an English

s a n c t u a r y ] , to talk about a donative transfer.

Perhaps a condition under which Buckshire is

released from providing for the chimpanzees’

lifetime care would make such a transfer more

attractive to you.”

“We have 40 adult chimps,”

Buckshire spokesperson Sharon Hersh told

ANIMAL PEOPLE, “ranging from 13 to 35

years of age, who would be able to leave their

current situation for residence outside of the

research community. We have assigned costs

ranging from $12,000 to $18,000, depending

upon their breeding status. Many are ex-per-

forming chimps who had worked with trainers.

Some were part of a large group imported from

Africa for breeding in the late 1960s. Others

were born within the research community. We

would entertain selling specific animals.”

Neuter/release proves cost-effective: City fixing to fix feral cats

April 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

SAN JOSE, California––”Are you feeding stray cats?”

the fliers ask. “The City of San Jose will give you FREE spay/neuter 

vouchers to alter either your own cats or the strays you are feeding. 

Simply take the voucher with the cat to a participating veterinarian. 

Your owned or stray cat will be altered for free.” 

Initially printed and distributed in December by the San 

Jose-based National Pet Alliance, the fliers drew the attention of 

reporter Linda Goldston, who amplified word of the free neutering 

offer in the February 21 edition of the San Jose Mercury-News. 

More than 1,000 vouchers were distributed during the next three 

weeks, while voucher redemptions shot up from 575 during the first 

two months of the program to 1,032 by March 13. The vouchers 

were used to neuter 631 female cats and 401 toms. 

“At least half of the cats were strays, according to the 

questionaires attached to the vouchers in the last month,” NPA 

board member Karen Johnson told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “Almost a 

third of respondents claim to be feeding stray cats in their neighbor-

hood. Not everyone fills out the questionaire. There is still some 

suspicion about getting something free, and those who are feeding 

multiple cats are understandably nervous, since there is a two-cat 

limit in San Jose and the program is run out of the dog licensing 

office,” which enforces the pet limit.

Johnson’s goal is to emulate the success of the San Diego-

ased Feral Cat Coalition in lowering the local euthanasia rate by fix-

ing feral cats. City of San Jose animal control records indicate, as 

the neutering program announcement explains, that “More than 37% 

of the cats euthanized at the shelter are either wild, or their 

unweaned offspring.” And the numbers could go up, for while NPA 

survey data indicates 86% of the owned cats in the San Jose area 

have already been neutered, about 10% of the households also feed 

unowned cats––an average of 3.4 cats apiece, of whom 97% have 

not been neutered. In the rural district south of San Jose, 

including Morgan Hill, San Martin, and Gilroy, 17.8% of 

households feed an average of 5.25 unowned cats apiece, 

amounting to 62% of the known cat population. In all, 

unowned cats are 41% of the known cat population of the 

Santa Clara Valley, in which San Jose is the principal city. 

“Handling these wild cats and kittens costs tax 

money,” the neutering program fliers continue. “Altering 

one pair of stray cats now will save the cost of handling thou-

sands of their offspring over the next 10 years.” 

Indeed, Johnson’s cost/benefit analysis shows that 

neuter/release not only cuts the numbers of homeless cats 

faster than conventional trap-and-kill, but is also more cost-

effective. Setting the cost of testing cats for common conta-

gious diseases, vaccinating them against rabies, and neuter-

ing them at $52 apiece, substantially more than the $21.11 

average cost per cat in the San Jose program (which covers 

only neutering), Johnson discovers savings of $18 per cat 

over the cost of keeping a cat for the mandatory three days in 

a shelter prior to euthanasia. 

Will pay for itself 

“Looking at the figures from San Diego,” she says, 

“one can readily see that for a cost of $163,956, they have 

reduced the expenses at their shelter by at least 6,500 cats, or 

$455,000 over a two-year timespan.” Thus the San Jose pro-

gram “will pay for itself through less shelter costs.” 

As Johnson recounts in the current edition of the 

Cat Fanciers Association Almanac, “The nonprofit Feral Cat 

Coalition has trapped, altered, and released in excess of 

3,100 cats over the past two years. Prior to this project, the 

San Diego County Animal Management Information System 

reported an increase of roughly 10% per year in the number 

of cats handled by San Diego Animal Control shelters from 

1988 to 1992. The increase peaked at 13% from fiscal year 

1991 to fiscal year 1992, with a total of 19,077 cats handled. 

After just two years, with no other explanation for the drop, 

only 12,446 cats were handled––a drop of 35%. Instead of 

another 10% annual increase, euthanasias plunged 40% from 

1991-1992 to 1993-1994. Clearly, the project to trap, alter, 

and release cats in San Diego County has had a dramatic 

effect on the number of cats handled and euthanized at their 

shelters, which even historical or nationwide downward 

trends cannot explain.” 

Closer to home, Johnson and San Jose officials are 

impressed at the accomplishments of the Stanford Cat 

Network, formed in 1989 in response to a Stanford 

University plan to exterminate an estimated 500 feral cats liv-

ing on campus. Among the first organizations to openly 

administrate a neuter/release program in the U.S., SCN 

picked up, socialized, and adopted out 60 kittens in its first 

year. “By 1994,” Johnson reports, “only four kittens were 

found.” The total Stanford cat population is down to 300. 

The San Jose policy has also been influenced by the 

example of the San Francisco SPCA, which since giving up 

the city animal control contract in 1989 has promoted neuter-

ing so successfully, including neutering thousands of feral 

cats for free, that a year ago San Francisco became the first 

city in the U.S. to embrace a no-kill animal control policy. 

Under the Adoption Pact, more fully described in the March 

1995 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE, the SFSPCA accepts 

and guarantees placement of all dogs and cats not placed by 

S.F. Animal Care and Control, including the aged and the 

recoverable sick and injured. Only the unrecoverable, the 

vicious, and animals requiring rabies testing are euthanized. 

Precedent 

But the San Jose program differs from those of San 

Diego, Stanford, and San Francisco, whose neuter/release 

activity has been wholly funded and managed under private 

auspices. Although other cities have funded no-questions-

asked low-cost neutering, including Los Angeles city and 

county for more than 15 years, San Jose is the first major 

city in the U.S. to actively endorse and promote 

neuter/release as part of official animal control policy. The 

initial budget of $100,000 came from a surplus in animal 

license division revenue. “There is expected to be another 

surplus for the next fiscal year,” Johnson says, “so the pro-

gram can be continued. At this point it is estimated at over 

$60,000. There has been some discussion re vouchers for 

dogs and allocating a portion of the funding in that direc-

tion,” Johnson adds. But it probably won’t happen. “Costs 

for dogs would run approximately $40 each, so two cats 

could be done for each dog,” she explains. In addition, 

records kept by Chris Arnold, executive director of the 

Humane Society of the Santa Clara Valley, show that only 

5% of dogs received are puppies under four months of age, 

while kittens under four months of age account for over half 

of all incoming felines. “There is not a problem with too 

many puppies,” Johnson concludes, “so the need for altering 

more dogs is not as urgent.” 

The San Jose initiative is apt to draw fire from the 

Humane Society of the U.S., People for the Ethical 

Treatment of Animals, and the Fund for Animals, which 

favor regulatory approaches to pet overpopulation; hold that 

outdoor life is inherently cruel to cats; hold that euthanasia is 

more humane than allowing unowned cats to remain out-

doors; and are already aggressively critical of both private 

neuter/release programs and the Adoption Pact. 

But San Jose isn’t alone in its position, even in the 

Santa Clara Valley. The Palo Alto Humane Society is also 

actively encouraging neuter/release, likewise influenced by 

NPA and the SFSPCA. Providing free neutering to the needy 

for 15 years, PAHS recently formed CatWorks, to expand 

the service throughout the San Francisco Bay area. “We 

want to make sure people don’t feel as if they’re working 

alone,” president Carole Hyde told Goldston, “and we want 

to provide a way to help those who would prefer to make 

donations” to a neuter/release program, rather than a humane 

society practicing trap-and-kill. 

Other Bay area agencies practicing and/or assisting 

neuter/release include Animal Birth Control Assistance Inc., 

Companion Animal Rescue, the Nike Animal Resource 

Foundation, Friends of the Feral Cats, the Ohlone Humane 

Society, the Oakland SPCA, and the Santa Cruz SPCA. 

[NPA memberships fund pet overpopulation 

research. Write to POB 53385, San Jose, CA 95153.] 

BOOKS: The Endangered Species Act: Time for a Change

April 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

The Endangered Species Act: Time for a Change, by Thomas Lambert and Robert J. Smith.

Center for the Study of American Business (Washington University, Campus Box 1208, One Brookings Drive, St.

Louis, MO 63130-4899), 1994. 63 pages. Free on request.

Thomas Lambert and Robert J. Smith evidently

subscribe to the theory that the Endangered Species Act “is

being used for little more than the achievement of de facto

national land use control and the regulation of economic

development.” Though they avoid saying so themselves,

they quote and paraphrase others to this effect so often that

one is inclined to start looking under the bed for the “out-of-

work Soviet economists” that they suggest through another

quotation might be influencing U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service data analysis. Either that, or bolt the door against

the National Biological Survey, which is––again through

unrefuted quotations––equated with an “eco-Gestapo.”

BOOKS: Love, Miracles, and Animal Healing

April 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

Love, Miracles, and Animal Healing: A Veterinarian’s Journey from

Physical Medicine to Spiritual Understanding, by Allen M. Schoen, DVM,

and Pam Proctor. Simon & Schuster (1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY

10020), 1995. 236 pages, $22.00.

I didn’t know what to expect when I

saw a testimonial by Henry Kissinger on the

cover of Love, Miracles, and Animal

H e a l i n g. It was so bizarre as to pique by

interest immediately. When did Henry

Kissinger begin to concern himself with the

“emotional as well as the physical needs” of

animals? Allen Schoen, the New England

veterinarian who authored the book with Pam

Proctor, sounded like the Norman Vincent

Peale of the finned and fuzzy. In fact, I sus-

pected Dr. Schoen himself was a bit fuzzy.

OBITUARIES

April 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

Veterinarian James Alfred

Wright, 78, known to the world as author

James Herriot, died of prostate cancer on

February 23 in Thirsk, Yorkshire. Deciding

to become a vet at age 13, Wright studied

small animal medicine, but under financial

duress became junior partner in an agricultural

practice in Thirsk, where he continued to treat

animals until 1990. Adopting as pseudonym

the name of a Scots soccer goalie, Wright

wrote unsuccessfully, as a hobby, for many

years before producing two successful vol-

umes of reminiscences of his veterinary career

at age 53. Sales were initially slow, but they

inspired a hit BBC television series, even

more popular in the U.S. than in Britain, and

combined into a single volume, retitled A l l

Creatures Great And Small, became a best-

seller. Wright went on to produce six more

books, including Every Living Thing, which

at his death had been on The New York Times

bestseller list for 22 weeks.

Obituaries

BOOKS: Reflections of Eden

April 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

Reflections of Eden:

My Years With the Orangutans of Borneo, by Birute M.F. Galdikas.

Little, Brown & Co. (1271 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10020), 1995.

403 pages; 16 pages of photos. $24.95; $29.95 in Canada.

Birute Galdikas is less known than

her colleagues Jane Goodall and the late Dian

Fossey, but her reminiscences of field

research on primates are no less colorful and

interesting. Paleoanthropologist Louis

Leakey and his handpicked trio of female

researchers spent decades documenting the

lives of apes in the wild, and campaigning to

preserve primates and their natural habitat.

BOOKS: The World Beyond The Waves

April 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

The World Beyond The Waves, by Kate Kempton, illustrated by

Larry Salk. Portunus Publishing Co. (3435 Ocean Park Blvd. #203, Santa Monica,

CA 90405; 1-800-548-3518), 1995; 88 pages. Cloth, $14.95; paper $8.95.

Strange things happen even before

the recently orphaned Sam, a 12-year-old

girl, is swept off the sailboat by storm

waves. A trio of dolphins appears just before

the hurricane, one of them seriously wound-

ed and needing medical attention. Sam’s

aunt and uncle, both marine biologists, are

able to administer an antibiotic, but can do

little else. A tropical bird lands on the life-

lines next to Sam, seeming to communicate

something of importance to the dolphins.

Later, after being washed overboard, Sam

wakes up in a dim, dark place, only to be

greeted by the bird. Almost drowned, Sam

has been rescued by sea creatures and

brought to The World Beyond The Waves, a

sanitarium for sick and injured marine life of

all kinds, all suffering from things humans

have done—some deliberate cruelties, but

mostly careless or unthinking acts.

COURT CALENDAR

April 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

Humane Enforcement

Gamecock breeder John Brown, of Corbin, Kentucky, on

March 17 sued the Knox County Humane Society, executive director

Vicky Crosetti, and operations manager Debbie Clark for $2.1 million

because they euthanized five cocks seized from him on June 30, 1993,

by the Knox County Animal Control Unit, while a Tennessee Highway

Patrol trooper was citing him for drunk driving and speeding. Those

charges were reduced to one count of reckless driving, for which

Brown paid a fine. KCHS records indicate the cocks were badly dehy-

drated. Cockfighting is legal in Kentucky, but not in Tennessee.

Brown had just purchased the cocks in North Carolina.

Animal collector Vikki Kittles, 47, on February 3 drew six

months in jail and five years on probation, during which time she may

not keep animals, after being convicted of all 42 cruelty and neglect

counts brought against her in Clatsop County, Oregon. She also for-

feited 39 dogs, was given 30 days in which to place 61 more, and was

ordered to undergo psychological evaluation and counseling. Arrested

in April 1993, Kittles served as her own attorney during a two-week

trial, after going through eight court-appointed attorneys and six

judges in nearly two years of preliminary motions. The case cost

Clatsop County $100,000; citizens also donated $40,000 in cash and

supplies to the county animal shelter, to provide for the dogs. Kittles

was previously in trouble for animal collecting in Broward County,

Florida, from 1985 into 1988, and in Missisippi and Washington later

in 1988. Kittles is also suspected in the disappearance of her mother,

who was last seen in 1988, living in a van guarded by Kittles’ dogs.

Poodle breeder Charlotte Speegel, 56, dodging cruelty

charges in various northern California jurisdictions since December

1990, was convicted on March 15 of eight felony counts of cruelty and

one misdemeanor count of neglect. She faces up to six years in prison

and has forfeited claim to 350 dogs seized by the Northwest SPCA in

two 1993 raids, of whom 30 remained at the shelter.

The American SPCA on March 1 seized 91 fighting cocks

in a raid on a Suffolk County home where 47 people were caught

attending a cockfight. “From June to this raid,” ASPCA investigator

Robert O’Neill told Evelyn Nieves of The New York Times, “we’ve

seized 1,450 birds and arrested something like 190 people. We’ve

forced cockfighting out of the city.” The maximum penalty for cock-

fighting is four years in prison, but so far, O’Neill said, no defendant

has received more than three months in jail.

Raiding a dogfight held just two blocks from City Hall,

San Francisco Animal Care and Control officers on March 16 arrested

75 people and seized seven live dogs along with two dead dogs and

$50,000 in alleged gambling stakes. Two more live dogs were recov-

ered in a follow-up raid on another location.

The Los Angeles SPCA on February 27 seized 39 allegedly

neglected animals from the Elias Pet Shop in East Los Angeles. “We

hope this will send a message to all pet shop owners that every animal

in their care must be provided for properly,” said LASPCA executive

director Madeline Bernstein.

After Eric Kiernan, 19, of Belfast, Maine, was jailed on

January 12 for alleged burglary and theft, acquaintances revealed how

he severely abused a kitten––who lived, with 24-hour-a-day care from

Sonja Berenyl and Corine Fitzjurls of the Claude Clement Animal

Shelter. On February 17, Kiernan was charged with cruelty, too.

Ingrid Leonovs and John Diehl, each 24, of Bucks

County, Pa., were fined $300 apiece on February 15 for starving their

18-month-old Dalmatian to death. Just a month earlier, three Bucks

County men were convicted of the torture-killing and mutilation of a

Dalmatian named Duke. Jason Tapper, 21 drew 18 to 36 months in

jail for the deed; Jan Pyatt, 23, got six to 23 months; and R o y

Elliott, 21, got nine to 23 months. The number of Dalmatians

involved in cruelty cases and received by shelters has soared since the

1991 re-release of the Disney video 101 Dalmatians touched off a

Dalmatian breeding boom.

Washington D.C. postal worker Robert Boggs on March 6

copped a plea on a single count of postal theft. Boggs was arrested last

fall after investigators found thousands of pieces of undelivered mail,

20 dead turtles, 10 dead birds, a severely neglected dog, 43 neglected

turtles, and 15 neglected birds in his Maclean, Virginia apartment.

The Washington Humane Society laid no charges, believing Boggs to

be mentally ill and therefore not culpable for intentional cruelty.

A court in Munich, West Germany, on February 27 ruled

that use of remote-controlled electric shock collars in dog training isn’t

cruel. The case is believed to be the first of its kind to go to trial.

Prosecutors on February 8 filed stiffer charges a g a i n s t

Alameda Naval Air Station personnel Christopher Bishop, 24, Kevin

Johnson, 23, and Stephen LeBlanc, 27, for the October 3 videotaped

torture-killing of a cat named Boots, whom LeBlanc’s wife abandoned

when she left LeBlanc earlier in the day. LeBlanc and Bishop have

been held in lieu of $50,000 bail since their October arrest, while

Johnson is out on bond.

Activism

Rod Coronado, 28, pleaded guilty o n

March 3 to aiding and abetting the February 28,

1992 fire at Michigan State University that razed the

offices of Richard Auerlich, who does USDA

research on behalf of the mink industry, and Karen

Chou, who was researching alternatives to animal

testing. Coronado also pleaded guilty to the

February 1992 theft and destruction of a cavalry-

man’s journal, take from a museum at the Little

Bighorn Battlefield. In exchange for the plea, feder-

al charges against Coronado in connection with a

series of alleged Animal Liberation Front actions

against mink-related facilities in Oregon,

Washington, and Utah during 1991 and 1992 were

dropped. Coronado said he took the deal rather than

risk impeaching others through testimony presented

at a trial. He faces from 41 to 51 months in prison.

The 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic

Entrances Act was invoked for apparently the first

time on February 15 in Cleveland, as Dr. Gerald

Applegate won a preliminary order barring anti-abor-

tion activist Alan M. Smith of Youngstown from

speaking to or harassing him or his family.

Applegate testified that someone had stabbed his dog

to death, leaving the remains on his porch with a

note saying, “From your pro-life friends.” There has

been speculation that the act could set a precedent for

ordering animal rights activists away from laborato-

ries and researchers’ homes.

Crimes against humans

Thomas William McCluskey, 39, “ter-

rorized friends and family with knives, axes, and

guns, and forced them to listen to his bloody, grisly

tales of torturing cats and dogs,” Donna M. de la

Cruz of the Nashville Sentinel reported on March 14.

On March 12, McCluskey went berserk with a

chainsaw, without apparent provocation, and dis-

membered his cousin, Jason Bowen, on a city side-

walk in Pulaski, Tennessee. He was charged with

murder, while undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

British Columbia parole officials in

mid-February relocated former Sooke school

principal Harold Irving Banks, 59, from Nanaimo

to Victoria, after his daughter Bree Smith went pub-

lic with the charges that sent him to prison, previ-

ously concealed to protect her identity. Banks

copped a plea in 1988 after being accused of more

han 1,000 sexual assaults against children, which he

logged on a calendar, including acts of buggery and

attempted bestiality. Smith testified that she was sex-

ually assaulted from age 18 months, when Banks

broke her jaw, until age 16, when she ran away from

home. Most traumatic, she said, was being forced

to eat her pet rabbits.

As ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, a

verdict was due in the Roseburg, Oregon trial of avid

hunter and former deputy sheriff Larry Gibson for

allegedly murdering his two-and-a-half-year-old son

Timothy by abuse on March 18, 1991. After his

wife Judy fled frequent beatings last year, daughter

Karen, now 8, came forward to testify that she saw

Gibson beat Timothy, stuff him into a plastic bag,

and drive away. No body has ever been found.

Police believe Gibson dispatched Timothy with a pis-

tol; Gibson admits firing the shot that neighbors

heard, but claims he was killing a cat.

Abdalah Benhajra, 28, of Casablanca,

Morocco, on March 7 drew eight years in prison and

a fine of $349 for selling dog meat sausages.

Benhajra butchered about three stray dogs per week.

That was legal; selling the meat to humans wasn’t.

Animal Welfare Act

The feral rhesus monkeys at Silver Springs,

Florida, are all to be trapped by June 1 and held for life in

one-acre pens inaccessible to visitors, under a plan approved

by the USDA, which had threatened to charge the town of

Silver Springs with violating the Animal Welfare Act for

keeping the monkeys as a tourist attraction while failing to

keep them properly caged. The monkeys were apparently

released on an island in the Silver Spring river circa 1937 by

one Captain Colonel Tooey, promoter of a “jungle cruise”

boat ride. In 1984 the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish

Commission ordered Silver Springs to curb colony growth,

but 25,000 citizens petitioned to have the monkeys left alone

after 217 were captured and sold for laboratory use. A steri-

lization program followed, but was stopped when the mon-

keys were found to be carrying the simian herpes B virus,

usually fatal to human victims. The Florida Department of

Natural Resources, Centers for Disease Control, Humane

Society of the U.S., and Florida Audubon Society all urged

that the monkeys be euthanized, but that plan also met pro-

longed resistance.

Endangered species act

The Sierra Club on February 16 sued the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, California, for

failing to add the peninsular desert bighorn sheep to the

endangered species list. The USFWS determined that the

sheep were eligible for listing in 1992. Coveted by hunters

and poachers, they numbered circa 1,200 in 1980, but fewer

than 400 remain in the mountains of San Diego, Riverside,

and Imperial counties. The listing is opposed by cattle ranch-

ers, who will probably try to claim cash compensation if it

goes through.

The USFWS on February 17 declined to list the

Alexander Archipelago wolf, an Alaskan subspecies of 600 to

1,000 members, as threatened. Logging on 600,000 acres of

the 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest had been held up

while the status of the wolf was under review.

The Fund for Animals announced February 15 that

the USFWS has now proposed endangered species listings for

154 of the 443 species for which listing decisions are to be

made by 1996, according to the 1992 settlement of a suit filed

against former Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan by the Fund

and Defenders of Wildlife.

The Biodiversity Legal Foundation has asked the

USFWS to list the fisher as a threatened species in the western

U.S., “due to isolated, low population levels, direct and acci-

dental trapping pressures, loss of habitat through destructive

timber practices, restricted range, and inadequate govern-

ment protection,” according to petitioner Jasper Carlton.

Carlton has also pledged to sue the USFWS and Interior

Secretary Bruce Babbitt for refusing to protect the lynx. “This

case is of particular concern to conservationists,” he said,

“since it is one of the few times the Washington office of the

USFWS has reversed recommendations from biologists in

both its Montana field office and its regional office in Denver,

both of which recommended the listing of the lynx.”

U.S. District Judge Louis Bechtle on February 26

issued a permanent injunction under the Endangered Species

act to keep the Pacific Lumber company from logging a 237-

acre portion of the Owl Creek Forest in Humboldt County,

California, which may host the rare marbeled murrelet.

Judge Yoichi Ono of the Kagoshima District Court

in Japan on March 8 threw out a suit filed by the Environment

Network Amami on behalf of the Amami hare, Lidth’s Jay,

White’s ground thrush, and Amami woodcock, on grounds

the four endangered species have no legal names and address-

es. “We knew the court would do something like this,” said

ENA leader Hiroaki Sono. “We just wanted to point out the

huge gaps in the law.” The four are among 100 species Japan

protects as “national monuments,” forbidding their killing or

sale, but not preventing the destruction of their habitat.

Animal entertainment

April 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

Known for wounding bulls rather

than killing them outright, then dragging

them about the ring before kneeling in front of

them preliminary to the final sword thrust,

Jesuslin de Ubrique, 20, is the latest star of

Spanish bullfighting. Pelted with bras and

panties by female admirers when he enters the

ring, de Ubrique says, “Having fought with

thousands of animals, I have learned that the

woman is the best of all. I love bullfighting,”

he adds, “but if I decided upon this profession,

it was only to make money.”

At deadline, pending authorization

from Congress, the Ringling Brothers

C i r c u s was booked to perform an 18-elephant

“Salute to Congress” outside the U.S. Capitol

on April 5, to which Speaker of the House

Newt Gingrich proposed to bus school children.

Friends of Animals, the Fund for Animals, and

the Washington Humane Society planned to

protest. Ringling has otherwise ceased holding

circus parades and other outdoor performances

––and even asks reporters not to disclose the

hour at which animals will be marched from

railway station to arena. Once held in mid-day

with great fanfare to drum up interest in the

show, the processions now take place at night.

Police in Chonburi province,

Thailand, on March 16 shot a circus elephant

who killed two handlers during a performance.

Fearing such an incident, the city of Bangkok,

60 miles west, on February 11 banned ele-

phants from the city streets. Thousands of for-

mer logging elephants, thrown out of their old

jobs by forest conservation measures imposed

in 1989, have been brought to Thai urban

areas, where they perform to earn their keep.

The Columbus, Ohio city council

on February 7 voted 7-0 to bar novelty animal

acts, exempting zoos, rodeos, horse shows,

and circuses. The object is to keep out

wrestling bears, boxing kangaroos, and diving

mules. The ordinance also increased the penal-

ty for cruelty from $750 to $1,000, and made it

a first rather than third-degree misdemeanor.

Guests of honor at the Genesis

A w a r d s presentation on March 12 included

wildlife biologist Gordon Haber and Weela, a

pit bull terrier. Hired by Friends of Animals to

monitor the wolf massacre authorized by for-

mer Alaskan governor Walter Hickel, Haber

in November took dramatic video of the deaths

of four snared wolves that led new governor

Tony Knowles to announce the killing would

be halted as his first act after inaugeration.

Weela, a trained rescue dog, “rescued 30 peo-

ple, 29 dogs, 13 horses, and one cat during

the floods that plagued southern California

during the winter of 1993,” according to the

Ark Trust, the awards sponsor. The awards

honor media for outstanding contributions to

awareness of animal issues. Winners this year

included Black Beauty (feature film); D r .

D o l i t t l e (film classic); T i m e magazine; the

ABC news program 20/20; and The Simpsons

TV show.

Questionaires received from 619 of

the 2,301 active members of Circus Fans of

A m e r i c a listed elephants and big cats as the

favorite circus acts among 40 possibilities.

Horses ranked ninth, exotic animals 12th,

domestic animals 14th, and elephant rides

23rd. Acts involving chimpanzees, bears,

and sea lions were barely mentioned. Ninety-

five percent of the respondents were males,

average age 62; just 6% were under 40.

Three dogs died in the mid-

February running of the 1,000-mile Yukon

Quest sled race, as seven of the 22 teams

dropped out. Two died of “sled dog myopa-

thy,” a genetic disorder; one suffered severe

internal injuries after being hit by a sled.

Doug Swingley, 41, of Simms,

Montana, on March 14 became the first non-

Alaskan to win the 1,161-mile Iditarod Trail

Sled Dog Race, in a record time of nine days,

two hours, and 22 minutes. Despite the loss

of $450,000 worth of national sponsorship,

the race––the first in which no dogs died––fea-

tured a record purse of $350,000, of which

Swingley got $52,000.

The American Humane Assoc-

i a t i o n has amended its guidelines for the use

of animals in TV and film productions to bar

sedation for non-medical reasons. In April

1994, a drug overdose killed a vulture who

was sedated to appear dead in the film In The

Army Now.

Greyhound racing

Cleveland car dealer Ed Mullinax

is reportedly trying to talk a city task force

into adding $20 million worth of accommoda-

tions for greyhound racing to the estimated

$100 million cost of bringing 63-year-old

Cleveland Stadium up to date for football.

A Massachusetts bill to ban dog

racing and dog racing simulcasts, introduced

by Rep. Shaun Kelly, is reportedly stuck in

the legislature’s joint committee on govern-

ment regulations. State residents may ask

that the bill, HB 899, be favorably reported

out, c/o representatives Steven Angelo and

Vincent Ciampa, and senators Michael

Creedon and Robert Travaglini, at the State

House, Boston, MA 02133.

Vermont senator Jean Ankeney

has introduced a bill to ban dog racing in that

state. The only dog track in Vermont, the ex-

horseracing circuit in Pownal, has been

closed since 1992, but could yet be reopened.

The Texas Greyhound Assn. o n

January 15 opened a $675,00 training and

research center near Lorena. About 300 dogs

at a time are to be trained there, in sessions

open to the public.

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