Sirenians

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Swamped in extra work by the
deaths of at least 370 manatees during the
first 10 months of 1996, nearly twice the
next highest toll of the past 20 years, the
Florida Bureau of Protected Species in
October sought an emergency allocation of
$500,000 to get through the year. The Save
The Manatee Trust Fund has raised $15.6
million since 1990 by selling more than
345,000 commemorative license plates, but
expenditures for 1996 alone will total nearly
$4 million. The fund employees 17
researchers in St. Petersburg and 16 people
in Tallahassee to review land use permits for
possible impact on manatees and develop
local manatee protection plans.

PINIPEDS & SEA OTTERS

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Alaskan tour boat operators are
reportedly lobbying the Alaska Sea Otter
Commission, a native-run board set up to
supervise “subsistence” hunting exempted
from the Marine Mammal Protection Act, to
prevent repetition of an August 22 incident in
which several Anchorage residents shot as
many as 50 sea otters in front of tour vessels
in Kachemak Bay, but retrieved just 14.
Publicity over the sea otter massacre may have
helped encourage the Bristol Bay Native
Association and state and federal agencies to
divert funding from other programs to closely
supervise the October native killing of 10 walruses
at Round Island, within the Walrus
Islands State Game Sanctuary. In a fit of
pique at Friends of Animals for documenting
native walrus poaching and opposing wolfkilling
to make more moose and caribou available
to human hunters, the Alaska Legislature
axed funding of the sanctuary last spring.

Cetaceans

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

South Australia on September 25
proclaimed the Great Australian Bight Marine
National Park. The long discussed park will
bar fishing and mineral exploration during the
six months of each year when the waters are
used by about 60 rare southern right whales.
Federal judge Douglas P.
Woodlock on September 26 ruled that
Massachusetts is breaking the Endangered
Species Act and other federal law in issuing
permits to fishers who use equipment known
to kill highly endangered right whales.
Woodlock ordered the state to develop a right
whale protection plan by December 16.
Hearings on how to protect right whales from
fishing gear were already underway, but
Massachusetts attorney general Scott
Harshburger immediately appealed on behalf
of the state’s 1,686 lobster trappers, likely to
be the fishers most affected. A federal appellate
court upheld Woodlock’s verdict on
October 17. Max Strahan, of Greenworld,
who filed the suit against Massachusetts,
pledged to next pursue a similar case in Maine.

Herpetology

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

U.S. Court of International Trade
judge Thomas Aquilino ruled in early October,
responding to a motion from the Earth Island
Institute Sea Turtle Restoration Project, that the
State Department may no longer permit wildcaught
shrimp imports from nations that don’t
have a sea turtle protection program. Brazil and
China are likely to be most affected.
Louisiana Republican House members
Billy Tauzin, Jimmy Hayes, and Bob
Livingston held up a National Marine Fisheries
Service attempt to strengthen turtle excluder
device requirements by slipping a rider into the
omnibus appropriations bill signed on
September 30 by President Bill Clinton that
requires more study and consultation. The new
rule, mandating that TEDS have a rigid frame,
was to take effect December 31.

Tortoise Trust boycotts Sweden

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

LONDON––The London-based
Tortoise Trust on October 27 called for a global
boycott of Swedish goods, seeking to force the
resignation of Swedish agriculture officials
Annika Ahnberg and Karin Cerenius over the
treatment of 1,000 Horsfield’s tortoises, who
were seized 10 days earlier from Syrian citizen
Amro Hassan at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm
because he had no import permit. The tortoises
were allegedly held for a week without heat,
food, or drinking water, then frozen to death
because they were said to be too sick to live.
“Neither the Swedish Herpetological
Society nor other reptile consultants in Sweden
were advised of the seizure or asked how to handle
the tortoises,” Tortoise Trust spokespersons
Andy Highfield and Jill Martin objected.

Animal health

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Illegal use of farm pesticides on farmland
south of the Salton Sea, 120 miles east of San Diego,
brought a major fish kill in late August. Botulism from
the rotting fish soon contaminated the shallow lake,
which was created by a 1905 engineering accident during
an attempted irrigation diversion from the Colorado
River, and as of October 24 had killed more than
13,000 migratory birds––including more than 1,000
endangered brown pelicans. At that, the bird losses
were less than 10% as great as the toll in 1992, when an
estimated 150,000 grebes were poisoned by a build-up
of selenium and salt. Formerly attracting 500,000 visitors
a year, the Salton Sea now draws just half as many.

BSE bought and sold

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

DUBLIN––While the British cattle industry
as a whole is in economic distress due to the loss of
markets caused by the BSE scare, Irish Times agricultural
correspondent Sean MacConnell reported on
October 14 that, “A gang of con men from Northern
Ireland is offering farmers in the Irish Republic a substance
which the men claim will induce BSE in cattle
for sums of over £5,000. Some farmers in financial
difficulty seek diseased animals to claim the very generous
BSE compensation paid by the state,”
McConnell explained.
A week later, McConnell published an official
denial by the Irish Department of Agriculture of a
report in another paper about a similar scheme, then
added, “The emphatic denial conceals a number of
concerns its staff have about levels of compensation
paid to farmers who produce diseased animals. Unlike
in the U.K., where only the infected animal is
destroyed, in the Republic all animals in a herd where
a case has been detected are destroyed. The farmer is
paid the market value of all the animals in the herd.”

FUR SHORTS

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Using every ploy to delay or halt the
European ban on trapped fur imports that may
finally take effect on January 1, two years after it
was supposed to, Canada in mid-October sent a
delegation of Federation of Saskatchewan Indian
Nations leaders who happen to be World War II
veterans to Brussels to lobby.
PETA on September 10 dropped a
libel suit against the Saga fur marketing firm,
filed in May after Saga sent fashion designers a
letter alleging that, “PETA uses intimidation
when necessary to get people to comply with their
agenda. They also pay spokespeople––including
some of the models you have heard say they won’t
wear fur.”

High style at Paul’s Furs

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––Quick as ever, former Beatle
Paul McCartney stung the fur trade on October 14 with a New
Yorker ad for “Paul’s Furs,” offering would-be customers a
“Free Fur Video.” Suggested the text, “Before you buy, let us
show you our lively collection of fox, mink, and raccoon.
You’ll be astounded and could save thousands.”
The video, produced by PETA, showed how fox,
mink, and raccoon are killed on fur farms and in traps.
The New Yorker ad upstaged the Los Angeles debut of
a new ad for Johnny Walker Red. “There is a large photo of a
glass of scotch on a draped piece of leopard ‘fur,’” reported
activist Igor Tomcej. “The copy reads, ‘Relax. The fur is fake.
But, the drink is real.’”
Release of the live-action remake of the 1959 animated
classic 101 Dalmatians could “put the nail in the coffin of fur,”
predicted Friends of Animals staffer Bill Dollinger. “I saw the
preview,” he continued. “Glenn Close dragging her fur as
Cruella DeVil is the epitome of evil.”
U.S. retail fur sales staggered with each release, rerelease,
and home video release of the original.

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