Sending out the dove

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

LOS ANGELES––Thirty circling
vultures are excellent news for the often
embattled Los Angeles Zoo and San Diego
Wild Animal Park. That’s because the vultures––California
condors, to be exact––are
now using their 10-foot wingspan to soar on
mountain air currents over southern California,
northern Arizona, and southern Utah.
Just 27 California condors remained
alive in 1987, when the last wild member of
the species was lured into captivity despite
militant protest from Earth First! and lawsuits
from the Sierra Club and National Audubon
Society––and the 1987 count was up slightly
from the low of 22, recorded in 1982. By
1985, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
decided to capture the whole population for
protected breeding, just nine wild condors
remained, along with 14 in captivity. There
are now 134 of the giant birds, some of whom
are fanning out more than 200 miles from
release sites, reclaiming habitat they haven’t
occupied in thousands of years.

Fur

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

While the U.S. retail fur trade again ballyhoos an alleged comeback,
just four fur garments appeared in the 120 pages of ads and editorial matter making
up the fall 1997 edition of Fashions of the Times, a supplement to The New York
Times. Leather wasn’t very evident, either: leather shoes appeared only six times,
along with 13 depictions of other leather items, mostly handbags.
Marion Stark, New York representative for the Fund for Animals,
asks New York residents to address Governor George Pataki by mid-December to
thank him for helping to create proposed regulations banning trap placement within
100 feet of a path in a public recreation area; state strongly that traps should be
banned for public safety reasons in all parts of public recreation areas, including
aquatic portions; emphasize that so-called nuisance trapping often exascerbates
wildlife/human conflict by encouraging “nuisance” species to raise bigger litters;

Animal control & rescue

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

The SPCA of Texas, formerly the
Dallas SPCA, recently celebrated the one hundred
thousandth pet sterilization since it began
offering on-site neutering surgery in 1976. In
1996, the SPCA of Texas––which claims a
92% adoption rate––placed 10,091 animals in
new homes, and neutered 11,601.
Because the Argentine senate clerk
“accidentally” sent a 1995 update and revision
of the Argentine Criminal Law for the Protection
of Animals to the wrong committee after it
was approved by the legislature, the bill was to
die due to inaction on November 30––despite
the signatures of more than 150,000 Argentine
citizens who signed petitions favoring it. At
deadline the Club de Animales Felices asked
the world to e-mail messages of support for passage
to >>quinzio@senado.gov.ar≤≤.

Most recent data shows shelter killing at 4.2 to 5.5 million per year

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

The table below represents the third ANIMAL
PEOPLE biennial updated projection of U.S. animal shelter
intake and killing statistics, based on the most recent available
intake/exit data from every shelter or nearly every shelter
in particular states. Our method builds upon previous projections
based on smaller data samples, published in 1990 by
Andrew Rowan and in 1993 by Phil Arkow.
In October 1993, ANIMAL PEOPLE projected
from the data produced from a geographically balanced sample
of states totaling 40% of the U.S. human population that
the annual shelter killing toll, humane societies and animal
control agencies combined, might have fallen as low as 5.1
million dogs and cats per year––about a third of the thenprevalent
guesstimates by national organizations. Our 1995
projection, published in March 1996, was based on a geographically
balanced sample of states totaling 51.5% of the
U.S. population, and affirmed the 1993 estimate. However,
both the 1993 and 1995 projections undercounted the Florida
numbers by half, as we misunderstood Florida Animal
Control Association statistics to represent all Florida shelters,
not just animal control agencies. This year the FACA produced
a state shelter survey which does represent all Florida
shelters. We have accordingly corrected the previous error.

O’Barry probes Latin whale-jails

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

MARACAIBO, Venezuela––
Working undercover for the World
Society for the Protection of Animals,
Ric O’Barry of the Dolphin Project
suspected he might be in trouble with
Colombian cocaine kings, whom he
alleged had invested in a traveling
marine mammal act, but was more
concerned with Pepsi Cola than coke
when he called ANIMAL PEOPLE
to share information.
Pepsi and Polar Beer, O’Barry
said, were evidently major sponsors
of a Latin American tour by WaterLand/Mundo
Marino, of Cali, Colombia,
which O’Barry and colleague
Helene Hesselager in a November 13
report to WSPA termed “probably the
last traveling dolphin show in the
world, and clearly the most abusive.”

WHO GETS THE MONEY?

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

This is our eighth annual report on the budgets,
assets, and salaries paid by the major national animal-related
charities, listed on the following pages, together with a handful
of local activist groups and humane societies, whose data
we offer for comparative purposes. This is the sixth of these
reports published in ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Each charity is identified in the second column by
apparent focus: A for advocacy, C for conservation of habitat
via acquisition, E for education, H for support of hunting
(either for “wildlife management” or recreation), L for litigation,
N for neutering, P for publication, R for animal rights, S
for shelter/sanctuary maintenance, V for focus on vivisection
issues, and W for animal welfare. The R and W designations
are used only if a group makes a point of being one or the other.

Krill killing

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

The last paragraph of the
official summary of the 1997
International Whaling Commission
meeting in Monaco noted that the
IWC is funding two research cruises.
“One,” the summary said, “is
aimed at providing information on
blue whales and the other at providing
information on minke, blue,
and other whales in the Southern
Ocean Sanctuary. Japan is generously
providing the vessels.”
That paragraph worries
the Sea Shepherds as much as any
other development of the meeting,
as it suggests an opening for Japan
to reassert a frequent claim that the
blue whale population is not recovering
due to competition for krill,
the microscopic shrimp that are
their staple food, from the more
abundant minke whales that Japan
wants to commercially hunt.
Krill have declined precipitously
in recent years, coinciding
wih increased ultraviolet radiation
hitting the ocean through holes
in the Antarctic ozone layer––and
with escalated Japanese use of krill
as pig feed and fertilizer.

It’s not tar that North Carolina factory farm heels are tracking

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

HENDERSONVILLE,
N.C.––Dumping manure into Mud
Creek for more than seven years and
ignoring a September 1996 clean-up
order, dairy farmers James Sexton
Jr. and Charles E. Sexton on
November 11 drew 30 days in jail
each for contempt.
Superior Court Judge
James Downs said they would be
released as soon as a new manurehandling
system is in place and certified
by the North Carolina Soil and
Water Conservation District.
That meant the Sextons
would actually serve about two
weeks, James Sexton said, alleging
unfair treatment. Just before their
sentencing, the Sextons had temporarily
removed their cattle from
the property, dug a two-acre cess
lagoon, and ordered $32,000 worth
of sewage separation equipment.

LETTERS [Dec 1997]

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

Servicing coyotes
The Wildlife Services division of the
USDA, formerly Animal Damage Control,
recently published findings from a study using
lithium chloride balls as an aversive conditioner
for coyotes.
Lithium chloride is an emetic. It
causes the coyotes severe vomiting. It has
been used in Saskatchewan and Manitoba for
over 30 years with excellent results. It does
not kill coyotes––just trains them to avoid certain
food sources. In Canada, ranchers inject
45% lithium chloride into dead sheep, placing
them in areas that coyotes frequent. Coyotes
learn to associate sheep with violent illness,
and therefore avoid sheep.

Letters

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