Woofs and growls

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

In January the International
Fund for Animal Welfare quietly fired
Annemieke Roell, a staffer for 13
years. On April 27, Peter Kuittenbrouwer
of the Toronto-based Financial
Post revealed why: “Three years ago,
sent by IFAW to live in the Magdalen
Islands,” to arrange tourists’ visits to
see seals not being killed, “Roell made
friends with the seal hunters. She tasted
some seal meat and liked it. ‘I had it in
a pate, I had it in stew, I had it in salami
and pepperoni,’” Kuittenbrouwer
quoted Roell. In November 1995, sealing
advocate Gary Troake and Roell
“tried to broker a deal,” Kuittenbrouwer
continued. “The sealers agree to oppose
the trade in seal penises, which are
sought after as an aphrodisiac in Asia,
and IFAW drops its opposition to the
hunt.” Roell told Kuittenbrouwer she
now hopes to “do something from the
other side.”

Wim de Kok, a longtime representative
of the World Society for the
Protection of Animals who left that
organization last summer, is the newly
named executive director of Citizens to
End Animal Suffering & Exploitation,
based in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Among the winners of the
1996 Goldman Environmental Prize,
presentated on April 24, were reporter
Amooti Ndyakira, 39, of Uganda and
W.J. “Bill” Ballentine, 59, “of New
Zealand. “Putting himself at great personal
risk,” the judges wrote, “Amooti
exposed the smuggling of endangered
chimpanzees and African great grey parrots
by airport personnel, game officers,
and business men.” Of Ballentine, they
reported: “A marine biologist and grassroots
activist, Bill Ballentine has
been successfully promoting the
establishment of ‘no-take’ marine
reserves,” both in New Zealand and
elsewhere.
The Okeanos Ocean Research
Foundation, unable to pay staff
and failing federal inspections since
moving from Riverhead, Long Island,
to a new site in Hampton Bays, has
fired research director, cofounder and
former executive director Sam Sadove,
whose departure follows the resignation
of director Richard Blankfein. Begun in
1980 as a stranding network, Okeanos
has in recent years tried to become selfsufficient
by expanding into an exhibition
facility, but is reportedly $3 million
in debt and being audited by the IRS;
has had to conceal its seal tanks from the
public because they don’t meet federal
size requirements for display; has
missed lease payments; and has reportedly
been sued by two major creditors.
People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals was recently
rapped by the Council of Better
Business Bureaus for allegedly misleading
donors by claiming that board
members receive no compensation.
“One board member, Ingrid Newkirk,
received compensation of $14,039 for
her duties as managing director from
July through December 1995,” CBBB
reported. “In addition, during 1994,
another board member, Alex Pacheco,
received compensation of $34,000 for
his duties as president of PETA.”
The American SPCA meanwhile
was rapped by the National
Charities Information Bureau because
it “does not meet that standard calling
for the organzation to insure that
fundraising expense in relation to
fundraising results be reasonable over
time.”
The Animal Welfare
Information Center at the National
Animal Disease Library has lost three
of six staff positions to USDA budget
cuts––and barely survived a move to
merge it back into the main USDA
library. AWIC is used by about 3,000
people a year, 53% of them biomedical
researchers. Animal protection groups
are also heavy users.
Comparing the findings of
American Rivers’ first membership survey
in a decade with those of recent surveys
of animal protection group membership
reveal some of the substantial
differences between animal protection
activists and environmental activists:
77% of American Rivers members are
male, while about 80% of animal protection
activists are female; the average
age of American Rivers members is 48,
from 10 to 15 years older than the average
age of animal protection activists,
which varies within that range depending
on the group whose membership is
surveyed; and 74% of American Rivers
members are college graduates, compared
with about 85% of animal protection
activists who are old enough to have
attended college. However, most animal
protection activists would quickly
endorse American Rivers members’
view that protecting fish and wildlife
habitat is priority #1 where rivers are
concerned.
There are now 10,890 animal-related
registered charities in
B r i t a i n, about as many as in the U.S.,
which has more than five times as many
people. British animal-related charities
are named in 15.2% of individual charitable
legacies, up 17% since 1991.