WHALE-WATCHING AND SWIM-WITH

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

The Australian Nature Conservation
Agency on September 18 recommended
restricting whale-watching in breeding areas,
accrediting tour operators, and forming a
code of ethics for whale-based tourism. The
Australian whale-watching industry grew
13% from 1991 to 1994, as more than
500,000 people spent up to $70 million a year
to see whales. Protecting whales from whalewatchers
became a public issue on June 2,
1994, when Andrew Curven of New South
Wales was photographed standing on the back
of a right whale. On September 1, Curven
was fined $500 (Australian currency). He
faced a maximum penalty of two years in jail
and a fine of $100,000 for allegedly violating
the 1974 National Parks and Wildlife Act––
aimed at industrial polluters, not individuals.

Marine life

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Sea turtles
The Senate Appropriations
C o m m i t t e e, at urging of Senator J. Bennett
Johnson (D-La.) on September 14 approved
$500,000 to monitor changes in the sea turtle
population––and $750,000 to research ways to
protect sea turtles without forcing shrimpers to
use turtle exclusion devices (TEDS), which
they blame for declining catches. Thus pressured,
NMFS announced September 18 that it
would consider a shrimp industry proposal to
set aside sea turtle management areas in the
Gulf of Mexico, where turtles would be protected,
in exchange for elimination of the TED
requirement. Catching flak from both directions,
NMFS also faces a lawsuit over alleged
failure to enforce TED use, filed July 8 by
Earth Island Institute, Help Endangered
Animals––Ridley Turtles, and HSUS.

Fish stories

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

The House on October 18 approved a tougher
reauthorized edition of the Magnuson Fishery
Management and Conservation Act, 388-37. The new
version dropped a clause exempting Gulf of Mexico
shrimpers from having to immediately reduce bycatch and
sea turtle deaths. The Gulf bycatch averages four pounds of
wasted finfish for every pound of shrimp retrieved.
After three years of negotiation sponsored by
the United Nations, 99 countries agreed in August to a
treaty regulating commercial fishing in all waters, including
sovereign waters. The treaty will take effect when and if it
is ratified by at least 30 nations.

Salmon at risk?

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service
jointly proposed on September 28 that Atlantic salmon
should be listed as threatened in Maine, but not in the rest
of its historic range, as requested by Protect the North
Woods, because south of Maine the salmon are already lost
as a distinct species through overfishing, habitat loss, and
hybridization with introduced strains.
Maine governor Angus King charged that the proposed
listing would cause undue economic hardship.
Earlier, NMFS proposed listing the Coho salmon
as endangered from Monterey Bay, California, to the
Columbia River in Washington, sparking furor in the west.

Fish vs. seals

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland–– “Decimated fish populations
like the northern cod will recover if fishing is cut down,”
Fisheries and Oceans Canada biologist Ransom Myers reported in
the September edition of Science. “What happened to [Atlantic
Canadian] fish stocks had nothing to do with the environment,
nothing to do with seals. It is simply overfishing.”
Myers was lead author of a review of the population
dynamics of 128 stocks of 34 commercially fished species over a
16-year period, commissioned by Fisheries Canada and the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service to see if overfishing might slow fish
breeding because survivors have a harder time finding mates, a
phenomenon called the despensation effect. Among the species
reviewed were salmon, cod, hake, haddock, herring, and
anchovies. The review discovered apparent despensation afflicting
only Islandic herring. Historically, despensation is believed
to have contributed to the extinction of the Lake Erie blue pike,
and many bird and mammal species.

U.S. subsidizing Makah whaling

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

SEATTLE––The U.S. government is spending
$7 million to underwrite the Washington-based Makah
Tribe in killing whales next summer, charges Captain Paul
Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Watson cites grants, subsidies, and interest-free
loans to help build a marina big enough to serve whaling
vessels, provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Forest Service, Department of Commerce, USDA, Office
of Native American Programs, and Washington State
Department of Parks and Recreation.
“The Corps of Engineers signed the Project
Cooperative Agreement with the Makah on May 2, 1995,”
Watson told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “On May 5, the
Makah informed the U.S. government that they would
resume whaling, for commercial reasons under the guise
of aboriginal whaling, without regulation under
International Whaling Commission rules. It is clear that
the Makah intend for the U.S. government to fund the
facilities for landing and processing whales. The federal
agencies are proceeding with no information on the
impending whaling operation other than the tribal
announcement of their intent and treaty right to kill grey
whales.”

Hurricane season

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Hurricanes pounding the Caribbean in September and early
October had humane rescue teams hopping.
Gerardo Huertas of the World Society for the Protection of
Animals’ Costa Rica office reported that the worst damage from
Hurricane Marilyn was on St. Maarten, where 12 Animal Welfare
Foundation volunteers expected to spend four to six weeks catching and
caring for abandoned dogs. Learning that dogs not reunited with owners
would be shot, Huertas gave the AWF 500 doses of pentobarbital
euthanasia solution, along with antibiotics and other veterinary supplies,
and arranged for dog food deliveries. Huertas also set up a relief effort
for the Antigua and Barbuda Humane Society, which had no shelter
even before Marilyn. He said he saw 72 homeless dogs foraging for food
around dawn in the Antigua hotel district, along with “many mongooses
feeding on corpses of dead animals.” About 12,000 chickens were killed
or released by the destruction of poultry barns. Cattle, sheep, and donkeys
were temporarily left to wander, but the ABHS took in 26 llamas.
The American Humane Association evacuated 15 dogs and cats
from the roofless St. Thomas Humane Society on September 28, while
Hills Pet Foods shipped nine tons of food to St. Thomas.
United Animal Nations cleaned up after Hurricane Opal,
which ripped through the Barrier Islands along the Florida Gulf Coast.
Led by Terri Crisp, the UAN team picked up more than 100 pets in three
days, working out of the Panhandle Animal Welfare Society shelter in
Fort Walton Beach.
Donations toward the relief work are welcomed by WSPA at
POB 190, Boston, MA 02130; AHA at 63 Inverness Drive East,
Englewood, CO 80112-5117; and UAN at POB 188890, Sacramento,
CA 95818.

Animal health

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Infectious diseases
Protecting their collections, Sea World San Diego and Marine World Africa USA
in Vallejo, California, have suspended accepting stranded marine mammals, after morbillivirus
was found in a common dolphin who beached herself on August 31 near Marina Del
Ray and was taken to Sea World for rehab. Lack of a rehab site obliged authorities to euthanize
a stranded pygmy sperm whale in early October. Morbillivirus, related to canine distemper,
killed tens of thousands of seals and at least 800 bottlenose dolphins in the North
Atlantic during 1987-1988, about 1,000 striped dolphins in the Mediterranean in 1989-1990,
and circa 900 dolphins off the Texas coast in 1994, but has never before been found in the
Pacific. The infected dolphin, still at Sea World, shows no symptoms of the disease, and
may be an immune carrier.

Animal control & rescue

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Neutering
Animal Aid of Tulsa made 362 follow-up
calls to animal adopters from January 1
to July 23 to check neutering compliance. Ten
percent couldn’t be located, but 80% had
neutered their adopted pets, nearly twice the
rate of compliance that other shelters found in
studies done in the 1970s and 1980s.
John Schultz, animal warden for
Medina County, Ohio, passed out 111 certificates
good for a $20 discount on neutering
adopted dogs between July 1 and September
11, but only 10% were used by September 21.
The Fund for Animals mobile neutering
clinic was to visit the Zuni and Navajo
Indian Nations in New Mexico, Arizona, and
Utah from October 14- 29, expecting to fix
300 to 400 dogs and cats with sponsorship
from the American Humane Association, the
Houston Rockets basketball team, Solvay
Animal Health, and Holiday Inn. In addition
to the mobile unit and a fixed-site neutering
clinic in Houston, the Fund plans to open a
low-cost “super clinic” in New York City next
year, said spokesperson Sean Hawkins.

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