Marine ecology notes

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

The Emily B. Shane Award, a
$10,000 stipend, supports “conservation-oriented,
non-harmful research on free-ranging seals,
sea lions, and sea cows. Application deadline is
May 1. Get details c/o Carol Fairfield,
Awards/Scholarship Committee, Society for
Marine Mammalogy, NOAA/NMFS/SWFSC,
c/o University of California, EMS Bldg., Room
A319, Santa Cruz, CA 95064.
At least 16 manatees were killed by
red tide poisoning in southwestern Florida during
November, just as construction of a manatee
hospital at the Miami Seaquarium halted
when anticipated costs rose over $500,000,
more than three times initially estimate. On top
of that, the Miami Herald disclosed on
December 27, of 13 coastal Florida counties
that were to draft manatee protection plans
under a 1990 directive by then-governor Bob
Martinez, just three have actually done so.

ANIMAL CONTROL, RESCUE, AND SHELTERING

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

The Arizona Humane Society h a s
become the first U.S. shelter to try out injection
sterilization of male dogs. Already used
since 1994 in Mexico and Costa Rica, the sterilization
chemical, Neutersol, was developed
by the University of Missouri at Columbia
medical school. The active ingredient is zinc
gluconate, combined with arginine. “Within
24 hours of injection, the sperm count begins
to go down, and within 100 days there’s a
100% reduction,” AHS director Ken White
told Linda Helser of the Arizona Republic.
The one-shot procedure costs about $10.
City animal control advisory panels
in Los Angeles, California, and Austin,
Texas, in December 1997 began formal study
of no-kill animal control, following the San
Francisco model.

The Brown Dog riots

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

LONDON––February 1998 marks
the 95th anniversary of the 1903 events that
touched off the Brown Dog Riots, in
Battersea, England, four years later.
According to historian Peter
Mason, the Brown Dog was a stray who
was repeatedly used in demonstration
surgery, without anesthetic, to show 70
medical students at University College,
London, the workings of the pancreatic and
salivary glands.
The repeated use violated the 1876
Cruelty to Animals Act. The Society for
United Prayer for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals raised funds to erect a commemorative
drinking fountain, as an enduring
form of public protest. A plaque on the
fountain, beneath a statue of the dog,
memorialized not only the Brown Dog but
also 232 other dogs killed in similar
University College dissections during 1902.

SEALERS TO KILL 275,000

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland– –
Canadian fisheries minister David Anderson on
December 30 set the 1998 Atlantic Canada sealing
quota at 275,000, the same as in 1997, but
increased the number who may be hooded seals to
10,000, 2,000 more than last year.
The Seal Industry Advisory Council
requested a 1998 quota of 300,000 seals, but
Anderson said the Department of Fisheries and
Oceans would do a harp seal census this year
before making any further quota changes.
Anticipating continued high quotas,
Caboto Seafoods Ltd. of Newfoundland earlier in
December advanced plans to remodel a fish processing
plant into a sealing plant, to extract oil
from carcasses and tan pelts.
DFO scientists have leaked data publicized
by the International Fund for Animal
Welfare indicating that sealers actually kill two
seals for each carcass landed, keeping just males
because penises are by far the most lucrative part.

Whales & dolphins

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

The Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society on December 24 named
Stein Erik Bastesen, son of whaling and
sealing magnate Steinar Bastesen, “honorary
crew member of 1997,” for “admitting
that he ‘accidentally’ scuttled his
father’s notorious outlaw whaling vessel
Morild. We suggest, however, that the
insurers underwriting the Morild should
take a good look at the facts,” the
announcement continued. “We have
received confirmation that the Morild was
sunk by the Norwegian anti-whaling group
Agenda 21 on November 11, 1997, in
response to Norway walking out of the
International Whaling Commission
meeting in Monaco a few weeks before.
Stein Erik Bastesen originally denied that
he was responsible. Steinar Bastesen originally
claimed sabotage as the cause.

White House kills EU fur ban

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

BRUSSELS––Hope that the European Union would finally enforce
a ban promised since 1991 on imports of furs possibly taken by leghold trapping
died on December 1, 1997, when 12 hours after the EU threatened to
impose the ban against U.S. wild-caught furs within a week, it accepted a
non-binding deal that allows continued imports of leghold-trapped furs for at
least six more years while individual states set their own schedules for phasing
out or modifying leghold traps to meet so-called international standards developed
by the trapping industry.
The USDA is meanwhile spending $350,000 this year in experiments
to develop alternative trapping methods. Largely replicative of work
done in Canada for nearly 40 years without finding anything acceptable to
both trappers and humanitarians, the experiments call for trapping at least 186
foxes, 186 coyotes, and 1,080 raccoons.

“Reform vet med board,” says I.G.

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

Ohio Inspector General Richard
Ward on December 10 recommended that the
Ohio Veterinary Medical Board should
develop written policies and procedures to
expedite handling of public complaints.
During an investigation of delayed response,
Ward said, “We found repeated instances
where the board could have acted but did not.”
His findings paralleled those of the Arizona
Office of the Auditor General in a probe of
the similarly constituted Arizona Board of
Veterinary Medical Examiners, published in
April 1997, and reflect growing concern
nationally that veterinarians may be insufficiently
accountable for their work. Vets, like
medical doctors and dentists, are largely
peer-regulated, but unlike medical doctors
and dentists have little vulnerability to malpractice
suits, since the court-recognized
value of most animals is less than the cost of
filing fees. Ward looked into the Ohio
Veterinary Medical Board due to claims that it
failed to promptly address charges against
Alexia Wilde, DVM, of Columbus.

Money, influence, and wildlife

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

The Nation newspaper, of Bangkok,
Thailand, on December 18 reported that
Pavillon Massage Parlor manager Somchai
Rojjanaburapha contributed $111 of the
$222 price of a 14-month-old sun bear to save
him from sale to a Korean restaurant,
and––though the Thai economy is in freefall
collapse, the massage business with it––forty
masseuses chipped in the rest. The bear was
sent to the Khao Khieow Open Zoo, 50
miles southeast of Bangkok.

Fish & Wildlife resignations

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.––U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service supervisor of Everglades
ecosystems Craig Johnson resigned in midDecember,
“after almost three years battling
for manatees, panthers, seaside sparrows,
and Key deer against higher-ups in his own
agency and other agencies supposed to be
protecting the environment,” Miami Herald
staff writer Cyril T. Zaneski reported on
December 23.
Johnson, 42, returned to a post
with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Born in Harlem, Johnson was
among the few identifiable members of racial
and ethnic minorities at high levels in the Fish
and Wildlife Service. Former Fish and
Wildlife Service special investigator Carroll
Cox charges in a pending lawsuit that racial
discrimination was involved in his 1994 dismissal,
after years of conflict with other Fish
and Wildlife Service staff over his efforts to
enforce the Endangered Species Act against
longline fishers, Chevron Oil, and Bishop
Estate, a major Hawaii landowner.

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