Wildlife agencies & advocates

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
director Jamie Rappaport Clark has named
Susan Lieberman, previously chief of the
Branch of Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species Operations, to succeed
Charles Dane, who retired, as chief of the
Office of Scientific Authority. USFWS
recruited Lieberman from the Humane
Society of the U.S. in 1990.
Joseph Lamp, 48, a speech professor
at Anne Arundel Community College
and Johns Hopkins University, as well as an
active member of the Humane Society of
Anne Arundel County, was in January
named to the Maryland Wildlife Advisory
Commission by governor Paris Glendening.
Lamp may be the first non-hunter to serve on
the commission. Also appointed was avid
hunter Robert Gregory Jr., the first AfroAmerican
commissioner.

U.S. Representative Bennie
Thompson (D-Mississippi) and state representative
Jim Evans (D-Jackson) in January
issued complaints against the M i s s i s s i p p i
Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and
Parks for allegedly excluding Afro-Americans
from key positions. Deputy director B o b
Tyler responded that nearly a third of the 96
new employees hired since July 1997 are
Afro-American, but there are only 17 AfroAmericans
among the almost 500 Mississippi
game wardens, and four of the 17 have filed
grievances claiming they were denied promotions
due to racial bias.
Coral Forest, of San Rafael,
California, and Reef Relief, of Key West,
F l o r i d a, have merged, retaining the name
Reef Relief and the Key West office. Founded
by diver and tour boat captain Craig Quirolo
in 1986, Reef Relief “has installed and maintained
116 reef mooring buoys at seven reefs
near Key West; distributed more than 10,000
educational kits to teachers; produced educational
materials and events to show tourists
how to protect the reefs; and has helped establish
grassroots conservation programs in
Honduras, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Mexico,
and Cuba,” according to Miami Herald s t a f f
writer Cyril T. Zaneski. Coral Forest, founded
in 1993 by film maker Jessica Abbe,
Rainforest Action Network president Randy
Hayes, and author Wendy Weir, has carried
out similar programs, assisted by G r a t e f u l
Dead guitarist Bob Weir and percussionist
Bill Kreutzmann.
The Florida Keys gained another
activist group the same week with the formation
of Friends and Volunteers of the
Refuges by Harold Nugent of Big Pine Key,
with representatives from among the volunteers
at each of the four National Wildlife
Refuges in the Keys. The new group is among
125 support groups for National Wildlife
Refuges whose establishment the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service is encouraging. Duties
of the support groups are to include providing
environmental education, monitoring wildlife,
and cleaning up litter.
The Utah Wildlife Heritage
Certificate Program, created in 1993 to raise
funds from non-consumptive wildlife users,
sold only 300 of the $15 certificates through
1997, Tom Wharton of the Salt Lake
T r i b u n e reported on January 9. “The major
reason the program did not catch on,”
Wharton offered, “is that those who bought
the certificate got little or nothing for their
money.” Trying to boost interest, the U t a h
Division of Wildlife Resources has invested
$30,000 borrowed from the Utah Habitat
Council in promotional merchandise to be
given to certificate buyers, including decals,
key chains, and several publications. The
program directors seem to be avoiding consideration
that people who don’t hunt, fish, or
trap are not eager to help fund an agency
whose primary function is pushing sales of
hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses.
PETA on February 10 asked
Crater Lake National Park, in Oregon, to
ban fishing. “The lake, naturally devoid of
fish, has not been stocked since the late
1940s,” Associated Press reported. Replied
PETA anti-fishing campaign coordinator
Dawn Carr, “That would make it a great lake
to start with,” in ousting fishing from all 150
National Parks that now permit it. “Our position
is that fishing is inherently cruel,” Carr
added. ANIMAL PEOPLE is aware of only
two other prominent animal protection organizations
with equally firm positions against
fishing––us and the Chicago Animal Rights
Coalition. Both stipulated opposition to fishing
in founding policy statements. CHARC
president Steve Hindi explained in the May
1996 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE how his
experience as a nationally recognized trophy
fisher brought him to see the cruelty of fishing.
His guest column, “I was a fish killer,”
is available at the ANIMAL PEOPLE w e b
site, >>http://www.animalpepl.org<<.
The Nature Conservancy, with an
annual budget of $338 million, and the World
Wildlife Fund, with a budget of $68 million,
each got richer in settlement of recent court
cases. In January, Eklof Marine Corp., of
Staten Island, New York, agreed to pay $1.5
million to TNC for the purchase of land
around Moonstone Beach in South Kingston,
Rhode Island, as part of $9.5 million in total
penalties for causing a January 1996 oil spill
from a tug boat. Former Eklof president
Leslie Wallin, 50, of Mountainside, New
Jersey, drew a fine of $100,000 and three
years on probation for ordering the tugboat
crew to work without a proper storm anchor.
Tug captain Gregory Aitken, 44, of West
Islip, New York, was fined $10,000 and got
two years on probation. The spill killed at
least 12 million lobsters, 82 million crabs,
679 million mussels, 81 million clams, and
5,500 sea birds, officials estimate. WWF collected
$250,000 toward the cost of a habitat
monitoring program in Indonesia, in partial
settlement of wildlife smuggling charges
brought against Strictly Reptiles o w n e r
Michael J. Van Nostrand, of Hollywood,
Florida. Van Nostrand also drew eight months
in prison plus eight months of home confinement
for the alleged illegal import of more
than 1,500 endangered and threatened reptiles.
In February the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
S e r v i c e announced a five-year suspension of
the Strictly Reptiles import/export permit.
Colorado Division of Wildlife
director John Mumma, 58, announced on
January 15 that he would step down on July 1.
The CDoW directorship is awarded on a contractual
basis, one year at a time, by the
Colorado Wildlife Commission. Mumma
will have lasted two years, under constant
attack from hunters for losing the 1996
Colorado trapping initiative and because of a
dip in the deer herd.