Men who beat up cattle

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Rodeo
Three years after lobbying to defeat
California state bill AB 1660, which would have
required on-site veterinarians at all rodeos, the
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association has
moved to require on-site vets at all events that it
sanctions––and to bar the use of prods in bull
riding, “without exception,” as well as in other
riding events except with animals known to have
histories of refusing to leave the chutes.
While longtime rodeo critic Eric Mills
of Action for Animals said, “Things are looking
up,” he added that even though “vets were present
at the 1995 California Rodeo in Salinas, in
which five animals died, a roping calf with a
broken back was not euthanized but was simply
trucked off to slaughter, terrified and in pain
[and in apparent violation of the 1994
California Downed Animal Protection Act],
with no pain-killers given, for ‘That would ruin
the meat,’ said the attending vet. After great
public outcry,” Mills noted, “the Salinas Rodeo
Committee’s new policy will require immediate
euthanasia, as well as a ban on the brutal and
unsanctioned wild horse race,” in which a horse
died last July.

Zoo people

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Jim Fouts, 42, an unaccredited
exotic animal broker/transporter who in
1990-1991 surfaced as a central figure in
routing animals from AZA-accredited zoos
to canned hunts, is now breeding about 25
species at his Tanganyika Wildlife Co. ranch
near Goddard, Kansas, and promoting the
sale of meat and antlers from captive-reared
elk, after several years of breeding and selling
ostriches. For several years beginning
in 1977, Fouts captured South American
monkeys for laboratory suppliers; then ran
an exotic bird import business; and operated
an avian quarantine station from 1982 to
1985. Because zoos are now more particular
about who they deal with, Molly McMillin
of the Wichita Eagle reported recently,
Fouts now trades mainly with “privately
owned zoos, circuses, and wealthy animal
collectors,” and finds Kansas “a good place
to do business because it does not have as
many restrictions on raising exotic animals
as does California.” Fouts is, however,
advising Sedgewick County on a proposed
ordinance to ban private ownership of
“inherently dangerous” animals including
“undomesticated cats over 15 pounds.”
Presumably this does not include feral
domestic cats.

Primates

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Forced to cut costs by 24 weekends
of rain during the first nine months of
1995 plus a $53 million construction debt load
for expanded marine mammal facilities,
Marine World Africa USA on October 31 discontinued
the chimpanzee act run since 1982
by husband-and-wife team Liam and Kim
Hussey. Of the seven MWAUSA chimps,
four, ages 13, 15, 21, and 22, were already
retired from performing, and two others, ages
9 and 11, were near the usual upper age limit
for performing chimps. They are, however,
just coming into their prime breeding years,
and are highly valued members of the
American Zoo and Aquarium Association administered
chimpanzee Species Survival
Plan gene pool. “We have always wanted to

Overhead at the National Zoo

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Closed to
the public repeatedly during the
November/December federal budget impasse,
the National Zoo made headlines earlier for
introducing a unique 400-foot Orangutan
Transit Line enabling the six resident orangs
to swing from cables 35 to 45 feet above visitors
as they cross at will from the current ape
house to a schoolroom in the original monkey
house, built in 1907. Unauthorized descents
from support towers are inhibited by a 9,000-
volt electric skirting around the tower platforms.
The orangs were introduced to the
transit line in pairs, to see what one could
learn from watching another. In the schoolroom,
the orangs are learning to use a computer
with a special symbol keyboard, which
may eventually enable them to talk to visitors.

More elephant news

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Activists thought a July 10
stampede by two Clyde Beatty-Cole
Brothers elephants during a performance
in Queens, New York, might have marked
a turning point in efforts to halt traveling
elephant acts. None of the 12 spectators
who were injured were hurt seriously, but
the stampede did occur before the New
York media, drawing national publicity,
and came shortly after the same elephants
made national TV with a May 20 stampede
in Hanover, Pennsylvania. Within 10
days, the Beatty-Cole circus had cancelled
scheduled elephant performances on Long
Island, and retired the two elephants
involved. Within 21 days the Performing
Animal Welfare Society sued the USDA,
asking that the Beatty-Cole, Hawthorn
Corporation, and King Royal Circus elephant
collections be confiscated due to
alleged violations of the Animal Welfare
Act, purportedly contributing to the stampedes.
Momentum soon shifted, however,
as on August 25 the town board of
Southampton, New York, unanimously
voted to ask Beatty-Cole to bring performing
elephants. Beatty-Cole followed with a
media blitz defending its elephant handling.

Fire kills primates

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

PHILADELPHIA––Fumes from
an electrical fire killed 23 residents of the
Philadelphia Zoo monkey house in their
sleep early on December 24, as alarms
failed to sound and security guards misattributed
the smell of smoke to railroad locomotives
idling nearby.
Ranging in age from 11 months to
30 years, the victims included a family of
six western lowland gorillas, three Bornean
orangutans, four white-handed gibbons,
two ruffed lemurs, two mongoose lemurs,
and six ringtailed lemurs. Ten primates
housed farther from the blaze survived.
Shocked keepers were offered
bereavement counseling.
Upon completing repairs, the zoo
is expected to rebuild its primate collection
by recalling animals it has out on loan to
other institutions––including another six
gorillas, one of whom, Chaka, 11, has
sired six offspring at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Begun in 1859, the Philadelphia
Zoo is the oldest in the U.S.

The memory of an elephant by Donna Robb

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

At least one of the estimated 600
elephant handlers in the U.S. has been killed
in each of the past 15 years by an elephant’s
foot, trunk, or tusk, or as part of an elephant
sandwich, making elephant training riskier,
in fatalities per thousand, than any other
occupation.
So who would want such a job? I
would. I was an elephant keeper for four
years at the Cleveland Metropark Zoo. I
worked with two female African elephants,
Simba and Tiani, who touched my life more
than anything else but the births of my three
daughters. I went through two of my pregnancies
while working as an elephant keeper,
and never received more than a squashed
wedding band and a few stitches in my forearm
to show for it. What would the statisticians
have done with a stomped 9-monthspregnant
keeper?

Sanctuaries

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Last July someone dumped four
six-week-old kittens at the Wildlife Images
Sanctuary in Grants Pass, Oregon.
Volunteers caught, neutered, and adopted
out three, but the fourth eluded them.
Starving, he eventually dashed into a pen
where Griz, a 560-pound male grizzly bear,
was eating a bucket of chicken. Because
male grizzlies are notoriously grouchy, Griz
had been kept alone since arriving in 1990,
after a train killed his mother and sister.
“The kitten was so hungry he walked up and
begged for food,” recalls Wildlife Images
founder Dave Siddon. “I thought, ‘Oh my
gosh, he’ll be killed.’ With all due deliberateness,
the bear pulled a piece of chicken
out and dropped it beside his forepaw, and
the cat walked up and ate it.” They now eat,
sleep, and play together––and the cat won’t
let humans near him unless Griz is close. He
whacks Griz on the nose if the play gets too
rough; Griz backs off.

News from zoos

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Improvements
Four months after giving the Los
Angeles Zoo one year to make improvements
necessary to keep accreditation,
American Zoo and Aquarium Association
representive Stephen McCusker credits interim
zoo administrator Manuel Mollinedo, 49,
with accomplishing many of the goals. “He’s
worked miracles,” adds Los Angeles city
council member Rita Walters, a member of
the Ad Hoc Committee on Zoo Improvement,
indicating that Mollinedo could soon be
given the top zoo job on a permanent basis.
A longtime Parks and Recreation official,
Mollinedo took the interim post with no
background in either zoo management or veterinary
science. His hand was strengthened
by a recent report to the Ad Hoc Committee
by Los Angeles chief legislative analyst Ron
Deaton and chief administrative officer Keith
Comrie, who argued that the zoo should
become an independent branch of the city
government, with greater authority over the
Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, the
private fundraising organization that runs the
zoo concessions. Zoo attendance has fallen
since 1990, while the concessions lost
money in both 1993 and 1994.

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