Truth in advertising and HSUS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

The Humane Society of the U.S. is to collect
“3-5% of all sales” of book, plush animal, and audiotape
packages produced by The Benefactory, of
Fairfield, Connecticut, inspired by “true stories about
real, living animals.” If any of the money gets back to
the rescue groups actually involved with each animal,
there seems to be no mention of it in the publicity package
ANIMAL PEOPLE received. Among the stories is
that of a dog saved by the Northeast Animal Shelter, a
no-kill high volume adoption facility––with no mention
that HSUS has crusaded against both no-kill sheltering
and high volume adoption for more than 40 years.
Wrote San Francisco SPCA president
Richard Avanzino on November 21 to Humane
Society of the U.S. president Paul Irwin, “In a recent
edition of your publication Animal Sheltering, devoted
to the no-kill debate, you admonish no-kill shelters that
failure to be forthright can create ‘false and harmful’
perceptions. You counsel against misrepresenting the
extent of the ‘surplus pet problem’ and stress the need
for everyone to be ‘fair and truthful.’ However, your
own publication states that ‘In the fiscal years 1993

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WHO GETS THE MONEY? LATE RETURNS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

These tables on animal-and/or-habitat-related
organizations whose IRS Form 990 filings were
received late appear supplemental to the tables published
in our December 1997 edition. That edition covered
105 other organizations, in our eighth annual
“Who Gets The Money?” special feature, and is still
available at $3.00 per copy.
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. R and W are used only if a
group makes a point of being one or the other.

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AzSPCA founder loses leg

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

Arizona SPCA founder Treva
Slote, 68, lost her left leg and Phoenix
police officer Brian Wilbur, 26, was critically
injured on December 20 when Elfido
Moreno, 35, allegedly rammed them as
they picked up a hurt dog. Officer Jeremy
Rosenthal, 25, suffered minor injuries.
Moreno was booked on two counts of aggravated
assualt and one count of endangerment.
He reportedly had just left a party,
and had a police record for alleged drunk driving.
Slote, a former exotic dancer, cofounded
the Arizona Humane Society and
started the AzSPCA in 1960, after first trying
to purchase every cat and kitten who
would otherwise be killed by Maricopa
County animal control. In 1976 she convinced
the county to halt killing animals by
decompression––already discredited as inhumane,
but then still in common use.

Organizations

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

DEBUTS
Frequent ANIMAL PEOPLE contributor
Carroll Cox on December 5
announced his incorporation of EnviroWatch,
“to do research and investigations related to
environmental issues,” especially involving
“endangered species in Hawaii and other parts
of the world.” Spotlighted on the
EnviroWatch web site, >>http://www.envirowatch.org<<,
are alleged mismanagement of
an ecologically and culturally sensitive state
property near Kona; harm to endangered
Hawaiian stilts and protected migratory birds
from oil sumps at the Chevron refinery on
Oahu; deaths of albatrosses, whales, turtles,
and monk seals caused by longline tuna fishing;
and the U.S. Navy use of Farallon de
Medinilla, an endangered bird habitat off
Guam, as a target for bombing practice.

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Butchers, pig poop, & truth in advertising

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

The Confederation Francaise de la
Boucherie, a Paris-based 22,000-member
union of butchers, objects to “massacres,
shootings, and throat-cuttings which crop up
in the news described as butchery,” such as
the Ramadan killings of more than 400
women and children in Algeria. A butcher’s
role, the butchers claimed, “evokes peace
and fraternity. He is not an executioner or a
torturer. He is an artisan, in love with his
trade.” Alleged Islamic militants used almost
the same killing methods on the Ramadan victims––and
thousands of others since 1992––as
are used to kill sheep at Ramadan, an Islamic
festival, for fast-ending meals.

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Honoring American values

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

HAWAII––George Peabody,
publisher of the Molokai Advertiser-News
since 1984, charged on November 19 that
“Molokai Ranch Ltd., which owns a third of
this island, has suddenly banned my paper
from all Ranch properties, has gagged staff,
and has excluded all advertising, because of
my editorial about the abuse of animals in
rodeo, calling for a boycott of the Molokoi
Ranch Rodeo on Thanksgiving weekend. I
suggested that their facilities be used instead
for human sports events, like mountain bike
racing and traditional Hawaiian wrestling.”

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Zoos

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

St. Louis Zoo director Charlie
Hoessle on January 1 told Tom Uhlenbrock
of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that in 1997 visits
to the Galapagos, Alaska, New Guinea,
and Australia, he saw more ecological change,
including coral dying near the equator, the
Arctic ice fields shrinking, and rainforests
drying into tinder, than he’d previously seen
in 20 years of study. “I’m not alarmed,”
Hoessle said, “but I am concerned. This is an
international conservation issue of enormous
magnitude, that can affect all of us.”

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Bombings in Quebec, a grand jury in Pennsylvania, convictions in U.K., Utah

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

Le Journal de Quebec, of Quebec
City, received an anonymous call on
November 26 from a man claiming to represent
the previously unknown Quebec City cell
of the Animal Liberation Front, who said he
was calling on behalf of the also previously
unknown Montreal ALF to claim responsibility
for two bombs that earlier in the day damaged
both the Laval head office of BioChem
Pharma Inc. and a third bomb that damaged a
BioChem diagnostic lab in Montreal. Quebec
activists told ANIMAL PEOPLE it was a
“bad rap” against the cause, while animal
rights groups that often receive ALF communiques
said they had not received any about
the Quebec cases. Most denounced the bombings,
which came in mid-morning when both
buildings were fully occupied. BioChem,
spun off from the Institute Armand Frappier
at Laval University, uses mice and rats in
pharmaceutical product testing. The Institute
Armand Frappier primate research compound
is next door to the BioChem offices. BioChem
got warnings that the bombs had been
placed at 9:52 a.m., just in time to evacuate
200 people in Laval and 55 in Montreal.

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Recognition

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

ANIMAL PEOPLE photographer
Robert L. Harrison ( right ), of East
Meadow, New York, won certificates of
appreciation from the Town of Hempstead
and Nassau County for “The Silver Swan,”
featured in the 1998 Town of Hempstead calendar.
Harrison also won first, second, and
third prizes for wildlife and nature photos at
the recent New England Woodcarving &
Wildlife Exposition.
Brewster Bartlett, coordinator of
the Dr. Splatt roadkill research project,
recently received a Chevron Award for excellence
in producing a science and technology
classroom exercise. Bartlett, a science
teacher at Pinkerton Academy in Derry,
New Hampshire, involves middle school students
at more than 100 schools around the
U.S. in the annual spring Dr. Splatt census.

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