COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Humane enforcement
Superior Court judge William Patrick on May 3
sent poodle breeder Charlotte Spiegel, 56, of Oroville,
California, to Chowchilla state prison for a 90-day pre-sentenc-
ing evaluation. A jury on March 15 convicted Spiegel of abus-
ing 350 dogs seized in two 1993 raids and later forfeited to the
Northwest SPCA. Patrick also ordered Spiegel to forfeit 57
dogs seized in later raids, and made her liable for up to
$260,000 in restitution to the SPCA for holding the dogs.
The Ottawa Shores Humane Society is in reported
financial distress after the scheduled May 16 trial of accused
animal collectors Earl Postema, 65, and his daughter Karen
Zalsman, 38, was postponed to mid-July because they fired
their attorney. OSHS volunteers in late March removed 72
goats, eight horses, and eight rabbits from their farm in Nunica,
Michigan. Four dead goats were found in a manure-choked

barn, and a dead colt was found in a field. Postema was reput-
edly involved with the Michigan militia, a private paramilitary
force whose events Oklahoma City bombing suspect Tim
McVeigh at times attended.

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BOMB SUSPECT MCVEIGH WAS A HUNTER

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

OKLAHOMA CITY––Tim McVeigh, charged
with the April 19 Oklahoma City truck bombing that killed 168
people, was a hunter––and his alleged accomplice, Steven
Garrett Colbern, arrested on May 12 in Oatman, Arizona,
was reputedly a hunter, a reptile breeder, and may have been
involved in animal-based biomedical research.
McVeigh defended hunting in a letter published on
March 10, 1992 in the Lockport (N.Y.) Union-Sun & Journal.
Contrasting hunting with slaughtering, McVeigh wrote that
he’d seen cattle killed with chainsaws and machetes, without
prestunning, methods not legal in U.S. slaughterhouses within
his lifetime but perhaps practiced by survivalist associates.

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Children & Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Iqbal Masih, 12, of Murdike, Pakistan, was
shot dead on Easter Sunday by a man he and his relatives
Liaqat Masih and Faryab Masih caught allegedly raping a
donkey, police say. As the circumstances were not imme-
diately disclosed, media linked the murder to carpet mag-
nates whose child labor practices Iqbal Masih disclosed to
an international conference in Sweden last November. A
member of Pakistan’s Christian minority, Masih was sold
by his parents to a carpet factory at age four, where he
worked until age 10, often shackled to a loom. Foreign
carpet orders reportedly plummeted by $10 million in the
three weeks after Masih’s murder. “The $10 million is
only an immediate loss,” said Imran Malik, vice chair of
the Pakistan Carpet Manufacturers and Exporters
Association. “Irreparable damage is done when Western
consumers think Pakistani carpets stand for a child’s blood
and slavery.” Despite the outcry, also affecting carpet
exports from India and Bangladesh, Indian commerce min-
ister P. Chidambaram expressed satisfaction on May 8 that
the newly created World Trade Organization is unlikely to
address either child labor or environmental issues.

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Zoos & sanctuaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

The sale of the city-owned
Bridgeport Zoo to the nonprofit Connecticut
Zoological Society, backed by $5.5 million in
state aid, has been delayed and perhaps halted
after three years of planning. The zoo occu-
pies park land donated by the James Walker
Beardsley family, who have the right to
reclaim the site if it is turned over to any entity
other than the city or the state. Beardsley’s
heirs say they would not exercise such a claim,
but public officials aren’t willing to take the
chance. The financially troubled city seeks to
sell the zoo, still undergoing extensive renova-
tion, because it costs about $1 million a year to
run, only $600,000 of which comes from
admissions, concession sales, and donations.

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Birds

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Psychologist Shigeru Watanabe of
Keio University in Tokyo reported in the
May edition of New Scientist that pigeons can
tell paintings by Pablo Picasso’s cubist period
from those of impressionist Claude Monet,
but cannot distinguish the works of Cezanne
from those of Renoir––which is to say they
have about the same ability to discern style as
the average art appreciation student.
The last male crested ibis in
Japan died suddenly on May 1 while carrying
grass to the nest occupied by his mate, bor-
rowed from China, and their cluster of five
eggs. The egg were to hatch circa May 10.
The dead ibis, age 21, was the next to last of
five who were taken from the wild for
attempted captive breeding in 1981. None so
far have bred successfully. The sole survivor
of Japan’s once plentiful crested ibises is a 28-
year-old female. China still has 28 of the big
birds, all in zoos and/other sanctuaries.

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“He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother.”

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK–– National Park Service rangers have
killed 400 wild burros in Death Valley since 1987, but through the intervention of Wild
Burro Rescue, the 1995 quota is zero. It will stay zero for as many years as WBR is able to
rescue the number of burros the NPS would otherwise shoot to prevent ecological damage.
“I got shingles,” said WBR co-founder Gene Chontos, “but we did it,” raising
$23,000 between reaching a deal with the NPS last December and commencing the rescue
on March 18––and then rounding up 20 burros with the help of six mounted wranglers and a
rented helicopter. The team caught 19 burros the first day, with difficulty.

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RELIGION & ANIMALS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Islamic fundamentalists on April
19 capped two weeks of railing against the
appearance of scantily clad performers b y
torching the stage and tents of the New Opera
Circus, killing a boy and a bear, as it per-
formed outside the Cox’s Bazar resort near
Eidgaon village in Bangladesh. The mob also
stabbed a tiger, an elephant, and various other
animals before police arrived, arresting three
assailants. Officials of Cox’s Bazar said they
had been unable to persuade the circus, from
the Brahmanbaria district of Bangladesh, to
pack up and leave.

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Fur

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Minneapolis furrier Robert
Zicari recently told Fur Age Weekly read-
ers that he’s trying to get licensing rights
from Walt Disney to promote fur goods bear-
ing the image of Snow White, and “Their
response was not altogether negative. We
have a chance if we put the cost up front.”
Linking Disney to fur would be an unlikely
coup; the 1959 Disney film 101 Dalmatians,
about Cruella DeVil’s attempt to make a
dog-fur coat, preceded a fur sales crash, and
the 1991 re-release of the film in home video
format also coincided with a skid. More is
ahead: Walt Disney Pictures on May 9 hired
Stephen Herek to direct a live edition of 101
Dalmatians, to be produced by John Hughes
and Ricardo Mestres, probably starring
Glenn Close as Cruella. Filming begins in
October. Thank Walt Disney Co. for its his-
torical role in promoting kindness toward
animals and urge it keep high standards at
500 Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521.

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RABIES UPDATE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

A rabid raccoon bit Samantha
Sorochinski, age 2, on May 5 in West Milford,
New York, prompting New York, New Jersey,
and Connecticut authorities to remind the public that
the mid-Atlantic raccoon rabies pandemic, which
crested three to four years ago, has not gone away.
Peruvian Health Ministry staff on May
8 began a 40-day drive to poison an estimated
90,000 stray dogs in Lima, the national capitol, to
reduce the risk of rabies.

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