ACTIONS AND REACTIONS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

Guts-throwing
Bison Action Group member
Delyla Wilson, 33, of Bozeman, Montana,
on January 8 drew two years on probation for
allegedly assaulting Senator Conrad Burns
(R-Montana) and Agriculture Secretary Dan
Glickman by throwing a bucket of bison guts
on a table in front of them at a March 1997
public meeting about the killing of bison who
wander into Montana from Y e l l o w s t o n e
National Park. On January 29, Wilson was
setenced to five days in jail with 35 suspended,
and was ordered to do 100 hours of community
service in a plea bargain settlement of
state charges pertaining to the same incident.

Bomb-throwing
Douglas Joshua Ellerman, 19,
pleaded guilty on January 28 to three of 16
federal charges in connection with the March
11, 1997 pipe bombing of the Fur Breeders
Agricultural Cooperative in Sandy, Utah.
Facing up to 50 years in prison and fines totaling
$750,000, Ellerman is to be sentenced on
May 6, after U.S. District Judge J. Thomas
G r e e n e has had time to assess the value of
information Ellerman agreed to share with
prosecutors in exchange for leniency.
Police in Northampton, England,
withheld details of the January 19 arrest of
two purported animal rights activists and
seizure of a carload of incendiary devices.
The bust came a month after Northampton
activist Barry Horne, 45, drew 18 years in
prison upon conviction for multiple arsons.

Furriers, trappers lose it
Stephen Cowit, 42, board member
of the Fur Information Council of America,
treasurer of the Greater Fur New York
Association, son of fur garment maker Henry
Cowit and brother of Madison Avenue Furs
L t d. president Larry Cowit, was arraigned
on January 23 in Nassau County District
Court, Hempstead, Long Island, for allegedly
making repeated telephone death threats
against anti-fur protester Michael Nicosia,
22, his mother, his father, and his cat. Cowit
allegedly began harassing the Nicosia family
after Michael Nicosia was named in radio
news coverage of Fur Free Friday 1997.
New Jersey Animal Rights
Alliance director Angela Metler, 40, of Old
Bridge, on February 13 filed a harassment
complaint against apparently self-described
trapper Frank Harmis, 84, for allegedly
throwing a dead muskrat at her during a
protest outside Furs By Guarino, in East
Brunswick. Harmis was said to be one of several
trappers who pelted about 15 anti-fur protesters
with remains of skinned animals and
chicken parts in a series of attacks which
seemed to follow discussions among the trappers
and store personnel.

Dairy farmers, too
United Dairy Farmers president
Robert Lindner Jr., of Indian Hill, Ohio,
was banned from New Zealand for five years
and fined $8,100 after drug dogs caught him
with 11 grams of cocaine and eight grams of
marijuana during a December 29, 1997 entry
inspection at Auckland International Airport,
Tanya Bricking of the Cincinnati Enquirer
reported on January 7. Lindner, she said,
could not be reached for comment.