International briefs

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

McDonald’s restaurants, stung by
the 1997 High Court “McLibel trail” verdict
that the chain is “culpably resonsible” for cruelty
to factory-farmed animals, reportedly
held talks with the Royal SPCA in London
during February about the possibility of winning
the endorsement of the RSPCA’s
“Freedom Food” campaign. Previous talks
along similar lines, held in 1994, apparently
brought no agreement. Now, however, vegetarian
opposition to a deal may be muted by a
warning from the RSPCA counsel that the
organization may jeopardize its charitable status
if it actively promotes a meatless diet.

Body Shop skeletons rattle

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

LONDON––London Greenpeace,
whose pamphleteers David Morris and Helen
Steel were vindicated in 1997 after an eightyear
battle with McDonald’s restaurants when
a British court found McDonald’s “culpably
responsible” for animal abuse by patronizing
factory farms, on February 27 attacked a new
target: The Body Shop cosmetics empire,
already fighting lawsuits from franchisees and
suppliers alleging fraud in Brazil, Canada,
France, Spain, Great Britain, and the U.S.
“The Body Shop has manufactured
an image of being a caring company that is
helping to protect the environment and indigenous
peoples, and preventing the suffering of
animals,” London Greenpeace said. “They do
not help the plight of animals or indigenous
peoples, and their products are far from what
they’re cracked up to be.”

Recruiting failure

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.––A heads-up for the U.S.
animal rights movement comes from researchers Shelley L.
Galvin of Mars Hill College in North Carolina, and Harold
A. Herzog, of Western Carolina University, whose findings
about movement participation appear in the spring/summer
1998 edition of Society & Animals, a sociological journal
published by The White Horse Press of Cambridge, England.
(10 High St., Knapwell, Cambridge CB3 8NR, U.K.)
Galvin and Herzog distributed questionaires to participants
in the 1990 and 1996 Marches for the Animals in
Washington D.C., getting back 231 responses in 1996––as
much as 10% of total March participation.

ASPCA board member shot sitting ducks

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––Three months after allegedly
shotgunning a flock of sitting ducks at a private hunting club in
a fit of pique, New York Daily News and U.S. News & World
Report chief executive officer Fred Drasner has apparently quietly
left the American SPCA board of directors, with no public
apology and––perhaps protected by his media clout––no public
statement from ASPCA president Roger Caras.
Neither did other New York animal protection groups
openly object, after the duck killing, to Drasner’s presence on
the 20-member board of the oldest U.S. humane society.
The ASPCA did not respond to either A N I M A L
PEOPLE or Chicago Animal Rights Coalition president Steve
Hindi when asked to clarify Drasner’s board status, including
the circumstances of his departure if as we were unofficially
informed he did depart.

FIXING PETS, RODEO ABUSE, AND MAIL MILLS

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

GLENDALE, Calif.; CHICAGO; SARASOTA––Unacquainted
with each other except through the pages of
ANIMAL PEOPLE, DELTA Rescue founder Leo Grillo,
Chicago Animal Rights Coalition president Steve Hindi, and
Sarasota In Defense of Animals wildlife coordinator Sumner
Matthes have independently served notice on major national
animal and habitat-related charities that they are mad as hell
about the nationals raking off money for projects the nationals
don’t really fund, and after years of putting up with it are ready
to start pointing fingers.
Grillo fired the loudest warning shot with a March 16
direct mailing to thousands of southern Californians, starting
fundraising for his new Spay L.A. 2000 and Spay America
2000 low-cost pet sterilization initiatives.
“I’m sick of the lies and empty promises of the selfappointed
animal welfare ‘gurus,’” Grillo said in his appeal.

What cooks at NEAVS?

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

BOSTON––The PETA faction
fighting for control of the 103-year-old New
England Anti-Vivisection Society and assets
of $5.9 million continues to try to run it
despite a January 22 ruling by Superior Court
Justice Margaret Hinkle that it “breached fiduciary
duties” in a 1996 bid to oust a faction
associated with The Fund for Animals.
The Hinkle ruling installed psychologist
Theo Capaldo as NEAVS president, two
years after proxy ballots that were to have
elected her disappeared on the eve of the 1996
annual membership meeting.
But Capaldo found she had little
ability to act. The PETA faction still holds the
board majority, and in February voted to
remove Richard Janisch, who had refused to
obey board orders he believed were illegal, as
NEAVS treasurer.

Independent counsel should probe whole Bruce Babbitt regime, says Cockburn

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Attorney
General Janet Reno in mid-February asked a
three-judge panel to appoint an indpendent
counsel to probe allegations that Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt improperly intervened
in 1995 to keep three Chippewa tribes from
converting a dog track into a gambling casino
that would have competed against casinos
operated by five other tribes. The opponents
were represented by well-placed Democrats,
including reputed longtime Babbitt pal Paul
Eckstein, who met with Babbitt shortly before
the Chippewa bid for a casino permit was
denied. The opponents in 1996 gave $230,000
to the Democratic National Committee.

Coon hunt benefit for St. Jude goes on

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

M E M P H I S––The 22nd annual World’s
Largest Coon Hunt, a United Kennel Club-licensed
event, will be held on April 9-11 at Parsons,
Tennessee, sponsored by Ralston Purina, to benefit
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital of Memphis.
Contestants’ dogs are not allowed to kill
raccoons, but must keep each raccoon treed until
the animal’s presence is confirmed by a judge, and
as a whole the event promotes coonhunting, in
which raccoons are routinely dismembered by dogs
or are shot out of trees and thrown to dogs.
St. Jude has often denied culpability for
the event, but has reportedly accepted $1.5 million
from it over the years without objecting to the
hunters’ use of the St. Jude name. The host organization
was incorporated in 1984 as Decatur CountySt.

COURT CALENDAR

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

Circuit judge Dennis P.
M a l o n e y of Lakeland, Florida, on
January 24 sentenced Frederick Martin
III, 36, to serve five months in jail, and
also convicted his wife, Janet Martin,
33, who will be sentenced this summer,
for falsely testifying in September 1997
that their son Freddie Martin, 13, had
no previous arrest record. Freddie
Martin and David Clark Elliott, 11,
were charged with felony animal cruelty
for hanging a neighbor’s dog from a tree,
then killing her with a lawn trimmer. In
fact, Freddie Martin was a fugitive from
justice in Ossipee, New Hampshire,
where he was charged in October 1996
for stabbing four pigs, who survived,
and sexually mutilating a sheep, who
died. The Martins moved to Florida after
two hearings in the New Hampshire case.

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