Month: November 1996

Playing possum

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Sometimes an animal’s best
defense could be his worst enemy.
Take the example of the
opossum who nearly became as dead as
he pretended to be.
I was driving down a back
street in Lorain County, Ohio, near my
home when I spotted a dead opossum
lying on his side in the center of the
road. I slowed down to avoid the carcass,
but as I passed it, something registered:
there was no blood. I stopped
for a closer look. He lay still as death,
not even breathing as near as I could
tell. Despite the lack of bloody evidence
of a crash, I figured he must
have been dead.

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ORGANIZATIONS

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Hoorik Davoudian, vice president of
SUPRESS, in a September 4 mailing asked members
to thank Cindy Adams, editor of the American
SPCA magazine Animal Watch, for publishing a
full-page ad showing a vivisected cat, refused earlier
by both the MSPCA magazine Animals and TV
Guide. Davoudian also accused the North Shore
Animal League of issuing “a flat refusal to rent its
mailing list to us,” because “they disagree with our
message and want to make sure nobody else agrees
either.” Claimed Davoudian, “They told us outright
that they simply don’t want our message out!”
According to North Shore executive secretary Carol
Berry, North Shore merely exercised its policy of
not renting its list to other animal protection groups,
which is almost identical to the policies of such other
groups as the Fund for Animals and United Animal
Nations, and never told SUPRESS anything about
the content of the proposed mailing piece.

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NEAVS cleavage widens

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

BOSTON– –Overturning the New England Anti-Vivisection Society
board majority led by PETA cofounder Alex Pacheco, the Massachusetts Office
of the Attorney General on September 10 accepted the finding of NEAVS corporate
counsel Howard Mayo that longtime activist Theo Capaldo is the legal
NEAVS president-elect and that Irene Cruikshank, fired by the majority, is still
managing director.
Capaldo was picked as successor to retiring president Cleveland
Amory, founder of the Fund for Animals, by a board nominating committee consisting
of Pacheco, treasurer Dick Janisch, Evelyn Kimber, and Laura Simon.
Fracturing the alliance of PETA and the Fund that took control of NEAVS in
1988, after a two-year campaign, Pacheco rejected the choice, backed by fellow
PETA cofounder Ingrid Newkirk, Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine president Neal Barnard, and activists Tina Brackenbush, Merry
Caplan, and Scott Van Valkenburg.

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Fewer give––and Congress may scrutinize advocacy

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Donations to environmental
causes, including animal protection, grew 12.5% from
1993 through 1995, reports a Gallup Organization poll of
2,617 adults with household incomes of under $200,000,
done for the charity umbrella group Independent Sector.
The growth was significant, as a fundraising slump
after Earth Day 1990 and the 1990 March for the Animals
brought an overall decline of 0.6% during the eight years
from 1987 through 1995, as sharp gains before 1990 were
quickly lost. Environmental and animal causes were more
successful at fundraising relative to past performance than
education, religion, international aid, and public and social
benefit charities, but lagged well behind health and youth
causes––and donations to the arts, culture, and humanities,
despite a 29% overall loss of support 1987-1995, enjoyed a
42% rebound during the last three years of the study.

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Wise-use wiseguys

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Responding to a libel suit filed by
the the Western Canada Wilderness
Committee, the British Columbia Wildlife
Federation in late September withdrew the
fall edition of its Outdoor Edge magazine
from newsstands, and apologized via newspaper
ads distributed throughout B.C. for
“any suggesting” that WCWC “is engaged in
criminal acts or acts of terrorism in any of its
activities, including its current initiative,
‘An Act to prohibit the hunting of bears.’”
In an Outdoor Edge article, BCWF apparently
confused some leaders of WCWC with
members of Bear Watch, a Britsh Columbia
anti-hunting group which has been involved
in recent confrontational protests reportedly
led by David Barbarash, 31, and Darren
Thurston, 26, both of whom have been convicted
and done jail time for alleged Animal
Liberation Front activities including illegal
possession of explosives and related paraphernalia.

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Police recorded early MOVE animal actions

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

PHILADELPHIA––Philadelphia
police surveillance records and a Philadelphia
Daily News clipping provided to ANIMAL
PEOPLE on September 27 by Arlette Liewer
of Den Hague, The Netherlands, document
that the Afro-American activist commune
MOVE held at least nine demonstrations presaging
the animal rights movement between
July 1973 and September 1974.
Most of the animal-related MOVE
protests came within days of the publication of
the books Man Kind?, by Cleveland Amory,
and Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer,
which are generally recognized as the founding
documents of the animal rights movement,
as distinguished from the ancestor humane,
antivivisection, and animal welfare movements.
Amory founded The Fund for Animals
later in 1974.

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Seaquarium sea lions bark “Out, out, out!”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

MIAMI, Florida––At deadline
USDA Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service chief Dale Schwindaman
hadn’t answered ANIMAL PEOP-
LE’s request for comment on Subpart
E, section 3.100, clauses (d) and (f) of
the Animal Welfare Act, which would
appear to stipulate that the Miami
Seaquarium has held the orca Lolita illegally
since July 30, 1987, when all variances
to keep marine mammals in undersized
tanks were to expire.
Schwindaman has claimed in
letters to the Seaquarium and Seaquarium
critics that while Lolita’s tank is technically
too small under the AWA standards,
the intent of the standards is met
because the tank is longer than required,
and therefore impounds about the same
amount of water as would be required of
a tank built to specifications. According
to Schwindaman, the Seaquarium
received a permanent variance in 1988,
allowing it to keep Lolita despite noncompliance
with the AWA.

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Oceanariums

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

The city council of Vallejo, California, unanimously
agreed on October 16 to take possession of Marine
World/Africa USA, the city’s second-largest employer, and
authorized $8 million credit to keep it open through the winter.
With assets of $33 million, Marine World/Africa USA is $56
million in bond debt, and would have missed payments of $2.3
million due November 1. Attendance, hurt by rainy weekends
and failure to add new attractions, fell from 1.9 million in 1993
to a projected 1.3 million this year. Often criticized for high
gate prices and too many souvenir stands, Marine
World/Africa USA is now a nonprofit institution, but both U.S.
Mortgage Co., of Dallas, and Ogden Services Corp., of New
York, were reportedly interested in buying it and turning it into
a for-profit venture. Spokesperson Jeff Jouett told media that
there are presently no plans to close, move, or sell the animals.

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Alleged seal-killing cover-up in South Dildo

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland– –
Fined $750 per count against them on
October 8, assigned up to three years of probation
apiece, and barred from sealing for
three years were Petty Harbor,
Newfoundland residents John Hearn, 39,
shown on a home video clubbing seals with a
boat hook and skinning a seal alive; James
Joseph Walsh, 46, also shown clubbing seals
with a boat hook; and Michael Joseph Hearn,
52, and William Hearn, 41, who each shot
seals with an illegal weapon.
The video recording of their deeds
was delivered to the International Fund for
Animal Welfare by a shocked viewer. But,
said IFAW seal campaign manager Arthur
Cady, “The whole sealing industry is guilty
of cruelty on a vast scale. These four sealers
are just the scapegoats for a barbaric business
that should be in the dock, found guilty, and
banned. The fisheries minister who sanctions
this hunt and the government subsidies that
pay for it should take their share of the
blame.”

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