Day: November 1, 1995

LETTERS [November 1995]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

No-kill speech
Thank you for the transcript
of your speech to “No-Kills In
the Nineties,” held recently in
Phoenix. I have made copies of it
for the members of our Animal
Control Advisory Committee. Your
message helps people understand the
different missions of each animal
group. With that understanding, the
groups can find the common ground
to work together.
I believe every animal
shelter has an obligation to seek the
means to become a no-kill. We just
received a National Animal Control
Association award for our aggressive
adoption outreach, but just because
we have received a national award
doesn’t mean we can stop and pat
ourselves on the back. We still have
a long way to go, and we will not
stop until we get there.

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Editorial: Opportunities for humane education

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

News clips from readers provide our best index of public concern about current
events. Our regular clippers notice anything about animals, no matter how small and
buried, but when clips flood our desk from folks who don’t even read ANIMAL PEOPLE,
yet find out about us in their desperation to address an outrage, we know a groundswell of
concern can be channeled into positive action.
Four events in particular have lately brought tidal waves of clips, faxes, e-mail,
and telephone calls. One was the torture-killing of Duke the Dalmatian in Bucks County,
Pennsylvania, by three Beavis-and-Butthead imitators. The second was the death of a pig
at a county fair in Tyler, Texas, when an adolescent pushed a hose down the animal’s
throat and turned on the water, hoping to achieve last-minute weight gain sufficient to win a
prize. The third case was the September 14 torture-killing of a quarterhorse named Mr.
Wilson Boy in a pasture near Silsbee, Texas. Ten boys and a girl, ages 8 to 14, chased the
horse into barbed wire, beat him to death, and bragged about it.

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Dolphin-safe tuna law erased by treaty

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

PANAMA CITY, Panama– – The
U.S. embargo against imports of tuna netted
“on dolphin” collapsed October 4 as the Bill
Clinton administration signed the Declaration
of Panama, a treaty which redefines “dolphin-safe”
from zero preventable dolphin
deaths to killing under 5,000 per year.
Accepted under pressure from the
anti-regulation Republican Congress and the
enforcement panels of the General Agreement
on Trade and Tariffs and the North American
Free Trade Agreement, the treaty is expected
to be quickly ratified by the Senate.

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A wild horse story

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.––The Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act is perilously
close to becoming an unfunded mandate, due to Congressional budget cuts.
If that happens, the Bureau of Land Management will be forced to return to the
range more than 8,000 horses and burros now in adoption programs and sanctuaries––without
the money to protect them from snipers and horsemeat contractors.
Since 1970, the BLM has been responsible for keeping the wild horse and burro
population on federal land at a level acceptable to grazing lease holders, without killing horses
or burros, and without allowing anyone else to. In that time the wild horse population has
officially quadrupled, to circa 50,000. Citing private surveys, wild horse advocates say it’s
less than half that number.
Either way, western ranchers say it’s too many. About 3.2 million cattle compete
for water and forage within the equines’ habitat. Ranchers used to just round up wild horses
and burros for slaughter. Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable drew attention to that practice in
their last film, The Misfits (1961), which gave impetus to Nevada secretary Velma Johnson’s
then little noted efforts to protect wild equines. When the “Wild Horse Annie Act” finally
outlawed the slaughter roundups in 1970, it was nicknamed in Johnson’s honor.

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