Vegetarian lifestyle

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Maxwell Lee of the International Vegetarian Union reports that Britain has two vegetarian retirement homes, one at Hastings and the other at Rhos-on-Sea, with a third, giving preference to raw food eaters and vegans, being developed by a German millionaire. The Vegan Society, adds Lee, is collecting funds to start such a home. The growth of interest comes after two other vegetarian retirement homes failed from lack of support. “A problem encountered here,” Lee explains, “is that many people do not wish to move away from their community, and now vegetarianism is so common in the U.K. that many ordinary retirement homes will cater to special diets. Another aspect is that many people gave money to help develop vegetarian retirement homes and this seemed to reduce support for the vegetarian societies––and also probably led to less in legacies.”

Ralph Nader, seeking the Green Party presidential nomination in the March 25 California primary, is the second high-profile vegetarian presidential contender of the decade. Former California governor Jerry Brown, a sometime vegetarian, ran for the Democratic nomination in 1988 and 1992.

STANDARDS OF CARE

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

The European Commission on
January 24 proposed a veal crate ban with a
12-year phase-in. Starting from January 1,
1998, minimum space allowances would apply
to all new or renovated veal barns, sufficient
that each calf “should be able to groom itself
properly, turn around, stand up, lie down normally,
and lie with its legs stretched out,” as a
European Commission advisory committee
recommended last December. All veal operations
would have to be in compliance with the
EC standards by 2008. The EC member
nations currently raise about 5.8 million veal
calves per year. Per capita consumption has
fallen from about 2.8 kilograms per capita i n
1987, two years before the first of two previous
attempts to ban veal crating failed, to 2.3
kilograms per capita now––still twice the U.S.
per capita consumption.

Poultry

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

U.S. frozen chicken
exports to Russia soared from
marginal significance in 1992 to
$500 million worth last year, making
Russia the biggest export market
for the American chicken
industry, and infuriating Russian
poultry producers, who are contending
with soaring grain prices in
the wake of the worst harvest in
1995 since 1965. On February 7,
Russia warned the U.S. that the
traffic might be halted on March
16. Said Russian Agriculture
Department chief veterinarian
Vyacheslav Avilov, “We need
guarantees that these birds are disease-free––that
there is no salmonella,
no bad chemical additives,
or the like.” Reported Lynnley
Browning for Reuter, “The U.S.
birds are on the same market as
Russian ones, which are scrawny,
grey, and unappealing. Chickens
from both countries are often sold
from barely refrigerated containers
or on the street in cardboard
boxes.” Browning described a
salesgirl separating frozen chicken
parts by stomping on them. The
Clinton administration, with reputed
close ties to the Tyson chicken
empire, applied diplomatic muscle,
and on March 6 announced that
Russia would not interfere with the
chicken sales. Related negotiations
began March 22.

Vouching for it by Karen Johnson

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

San Jose, California, is on the
verge of proving either that the fastest, most
cost-effective means of reducing the homeless
cat population is through providing free
neutering vouchers––or that meddlers will
dismantle any program, no matter how well
it works, to advance bureaucracy.
As described in the April 1995 edition
of ANIMAL PEOPLE, San Jose enacted
the free voucher program in October 1994.
After a slow start, it took off in February,
1995, following favorable coverage by the
San Jose Mercury-News. For 16 months it
enabled hundreds of people who feed outdoor
cats, often people of limited means, to get
the cats “fixed.”

LETTERS [April 1996]

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Enough!
Since there is no sign that
any of the national groups intend to
make changes sufficient to fix what
is so obviously wrong, I am only
supporting the grassroots groups in
my own area. I have called/written
telling the nationals the reasons for
my decision: the horrible custom of
chaining or confining dogs and cats
in small pens or cages is a national
problem, which should be recognized
and addressed by these large
groups. Many animals so mistreated
freeze or starve to death in the winter,
and die from the heat and lack
of water in the summer. Two dogs
have starved or frozen here in
Centerville, Iowa, just this winter.
I contacted several of the largest
groups for help, and only got the
runaround. The animal cruelty laws
are seldom enforced here in Iowa,
and the national groups do nothing
to press for enforcement.
For information on current
cases, and what you can do to help,
please contact me.

Letters

Editorial: Animal rights, Republicans, and Original Sin

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

“Four new trends will greatly affect the course of environmental politics in the
1990s,” writes Competitive Enterprise Institute director of environmental studies Jonathan
Adler in his recently published opus, Environmentalism at the Crossroads. “They are: the
growing influence of deep ecology and its radical preservationist policy prescriptions; the
environmental ‘backlash,’ as represented by the property rights and wise use movements;
the emergence of the environmental justice movement and the tensions it has created within
organized environmentalism (as members of racial and ethnic minorities demand representation);
[and] the challenge to conventional environmental policies by free market environ –
mentalism.”

Missouri to trap otters: New icon for antifur drive with European ban pending

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

BRUSSELS––If Europe banned the
import of seal pelts because of the cuteness of
harp seals, just wait until they meet river
otters––not only cute, but playfully active
and insatiably gregarious.
The Missouri Department of
Conservation quietly approved the resumption
of trapping river otters in May 1995, but
word didn’t reach the public until Valentine’s
Day, when the world learned from an article
by Mead Gruver in the St. Louis River Front
Times that the Missouri Trappers aim to give
Miss Missouri an otter coat this year.
Thus alerted, the Fur Bearer
Defenders and the Sea Wolf Alliance warmed
up their fax machines. Within hours bigger
organizations including the Animal Legal
Defense Fund, Fund for Animals, and the
Humane Society of the U.S. were on the case.

Artful Dodge gets Agudo family out of Venezuela

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

GLENCOE, Missouri––Wanted for treason by Venezuela, because in February
1993 he and colleague Aldemaro Romero videotaped fishers in the act of killing a dolphin,
Professor Ignacio Agudo is safe in Brazil, after two years on the run. His daughters Esther,
seven, and Lina, 15 months, are with him.
Romero too is alive and well, having escaped to Miami in February 1994. His wife
followed soon after. But Agudo’s wife Saida, Esther and Lina’s mother, died in hiding on
April 26, 1995, at age 36, because she couldn’t get medication she needed for a chronic
heart condition. Their grandfather, Agudo’s father, repeatedly interrogated by Venezuelan
police, shot himself in December 1994, to avoid giving away their location.

Hogwash

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Pork barrel politics came into the American lexicon
through the political campaigns of North Carolina-born lawyer and
war hero Andrew Jackson, U.S. President 1829-1837, who helped
Tennessee break off from North Carolina and then built a political
empire by allegedly passing out salt pork at the polls.
Off the pig! popped up in the 1960s. In inner city slang,
it meant “kill the police,” but when ANIMAL PEOPLE asked
activists at the recent Midwest Animal Liberation Conference if
they recognized it, none under age 35 did. They guessed, instead,
that it had something to do with living downwind or downstream of
a hog farm.
In the old days, before antibiotics, almost every farm
kept a hog or two, who ate slops––a mixture of kitchen wastes and
barnyard offal––and wallowed at will in a mucky outdoor pen.
Hardly anyone imagined that hybrid corn, motor vehicles, and
penicillin might make possible the use of standardized methods in
rearing the creatures who inspired the expression, “Independent as
a hog on ice.”

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