BOOKS: Gray Whales: Wandering Giants

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Gray Whales:
Wandering Giants
by Robert H. Busch
Orca Book Publishers (POB 468, Custer,
WA 98240-0468), 1998.
138 pages, paperback, $19.95.

Among the whales most often seen
along the Pacific coast, gray whales until
recently have been much less known than the
acrobatic orcas and humpbacks, and the giant
blue whales, who––though relatively rarely
seen––loom as large in imagination as in life.
Perhaps for that reason there was
little public opposition when gray whales
were downlisted from endangered to threatened
in 1992, and removed completely from
Endangered Species Act protection in 1994.

BOOKS: Animal Rights: History and Scope of a Radical Social Movement

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Animal Rights:
History and Scope
of a Radical
Social Movement
by Harold D. Guither
Southern Illinois University Press (POB
3697, Carbondale, IL 62901), 1998.
287 pages, paperback, $25.00.

Harold D. Guither, professor
emeritus of agricultural policy at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
offers in Animal Rights: History and Scope
of a Radical Social Movement the most thorough,
dispassionate, statistically documented
analysis of the animal rights movement
yet published. Though Guither approaches
the topic from an agribusiness perspective, it
would be unfair to characterize him as antianimal
rights. Guither’s philosophical position

ROUGH STUFF IN CANADA

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Pat Houde, reputedly the biggest
horse feedlot operator and buyer of horses
for slaughter in Manitoba, was reportedly
charged on March 17 with assault, theft, and
uttering threats against Project Equus
founder Robin Duxbury and Walter Powers,
a freelance photojournalist who apparently
caught most of the incident on video.
Duxbury and Powers were videotaping for a
documentary about the Premarin industry,
they said, and were taking video from the
road of the Houde feedlot at Elm Creek when
Houde used a truck to run them into a ditch,
took the keys from their car, tried to take
Powers’ camera, and hit Duxbury in the head.
Powers called police from a cell phone while
still videotaping. “Both Powers and Duxbury
had to receive minor medical treatment at the
Victoria Hospital in Winnipeg,” said Project
Equus assistant director of cruelty investigations
Anita Vongelsang. “Powers suffered a
few minor cuts to his face, leg, and back.

Be Kind To Animals Kids

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

The American Humane Association will
name the 1998 “Be Kind To Animals Kids” during
“Be Kind To Animals Week,” May 3-9. ANIMAL
PEOPLE informally nominated two six-year-old
boys in Winlaton, Tyne and Wear, Britain, who in
November 1997 tried unsuccessfully to stop four 12-
year-olds as they blinded a cat with a laser pen, but
were told by police that the crime couldn’t be prosecuted,
as they were too young to testify; Shaun and
Kristina Wilson, of Roosevelt Elementary School
in Cocoa Beach, Florida, who on February 9, 1998
found two female manatees trapped in a storm drain
and called Sea World, whose staff got them out;

COURT CALENDAR

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Genetic patents
New York Medical College cellular biologist Stuart A. Newman,
cofounder with biotechnology critic Jeremy Rifkin of the Council for
Responsible Genetics, revealed in the April edition of Nature that on
December 18, 1996 he and Rifkin applied for a patent on three techniques of
mixing human embryonic cells with the embryonic cells of other species to produce
part-human, part-animal “chimeras,” named for beasts of Greek myth
who had lion heads, goat bodies, and snake tails. Explained Newsweek, “The
two activists hope that a patent would give them the legal means to block scientists
from using any of the methods they lay out in the application.” Patent
Office verdicts, N e w s w e e k continued, “can be appealed all the way to the
Supreme Court––a prospect that delights Rifkin and Newman. Bioethicists say
that the ensuing court battles may force the first real legislation on what constitutes
a human,” thereby legally limiting many potential uses of both human and
animal genetic material in research.

Classroom dissection

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

New curriculums introduced this academic
year exempted first-year medical students from live
pig dissection at the St. Louis University School of
Medicine and made participation in live dog dissection
optional at the University of Colorado School of
M e d i c i n e. The new St. Louis University curriculum
introduces observations of demonstration surgery on
live pigs at the second-year level, and hands-on work
as an option later. About 35 pigs were spared by the
change, pharmacology and physiology chair Thomas
C. Westfall told James Ritchie of the St. Louis PostDispatch.
The University of Colorado policy amendment
allows medical students to opt out of three 10-
week dog laboratories traditionally held each spring.
An Islamic student, Safia Rubaii, in 1993 challenged
mandatory participation as an alleged violation of her
faith, and sued the university Health Sciences Center
when the administration threatened to flunk her. In
1995, recalled Denver Post medical writer Ann
Schrader, “University officials agreed to pay Rubaii
$95,000, and promised to establish a review process to
accommodate future students whose religious beliefs
don’t allow doing experiments on animals.”

2,500 march against sealing

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

OTTAWA––At 1,000 strong, the
lightly publicized Canadians Against the
Commercial Seal Hunt rally outside the
Liberal Party convention on March 31 was
already the largest animal rights demonstration
Canada ever had.
Then 48 buses rolled in from as far
away as Quebec City and Windsor. By the
time International Fund for Animal Welfare
Canadian director Rick Smith rose to speak,
2,500 people formed “a sea of crimson CATCSH
hats that stretched from the stage across the
closed Colonel By Drive and up the spiral
staircase of the MacKenzie King Bridge,”
Don Fraser of the Ottawa Citizen reported.
Inside, the Liberal government still
didn’t get it, reportedly just barely winning a
resolution from the delegates in favor of continued
sealing and big quotas, on the false
premise that seals rather than political policy
makers are primarily responsible for the
Atlantic Canada cod crash.

WTO dumps turtle protection

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

GENEVA, VISAKHAPATNAM,
WASHINGTON D.C.––The World Trade
Organization ruled on April 6 that the U.S. in
barring the import of shrimp from nations
whose fleets are not required to use turtle
excluder devices on their nets is violating the
General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs.
The WTO held that even under the
international treaty that allows exceptions to
GATT rules to protect the environment, the
U.S. may not force other nations to safeguard
endangered species. The WTO particularly
objected to the part of the U.S. TED law which
requires TED to be used in all shrimping, not
just shrimping done for export to the U.S.
U.S. trade representative Charlene
Barshefsky said the ruling “does not affect our
efforts to protect endangered sea turtles.” As
many as 150,000 sea turtles a year are
drowned in shrimp nets not equipped with
TED. But Barshefsky did not explain how the
U.S. can continue to prevent foreign shrimpers
from competing unfairly with U.S. shrimpers
who by law must use TED.

Maneka faces wise-users: FIRST ACTS IN NEW INDIA GOVERNMENT ARE FOR BEARS AND BEAGLES

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

NEW DELHI––Koose Muniswamy
Veerappan, perhaps the most notorious
alleged poacher at large in the world, on April
11 reportedly sent three former henchmen to
police with a cassette containing an offer of
surrender. But Indian authorities were reportedly
unexcited. According to the Press Trust
of India, Veerappan has often in the past
offered to surrender in trade for clemency. He
is believed to be the world’s leading trafficker
in poached Asian elephant ivory and illegally
logged sandalwood.

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