Parakeet killer back in prison

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

ANCHORAGE––George William Adams,
38, alias William G. Adams and Skip Adams-Taylor,
on June 3 drew 40 months in prison from U.S. District
Judge James Singleton, in Anchorage, Alaska, for
being a felon in possession of a gun.
Convicted in 1980 of strangling a women he
met in a Washington D.C. disco and biting the head off
her parakeet because, he said, the bird’s chirping made
him nervous, Adams served 15 years, then skipped out
on parole, fled to Alaska, and became a clerk for the
Barrow office of the state Department of Corrections.
As part of his cover, apparently, he adopted a
guise as an animal rights activist––which led to his
arrest, wrote Lisa Demers of the Anchorage Daily
News, when “Barrow leaders complained to his bosses
that he may have used his state computer to protest an
Eskimo seal hunt.”

VIVISECTORS IN SPACE

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

MOSCOW, CAPE CANAV
ERAL––Fifteen two-year-old
Oriental newts and 80 snails were
brought aboard the Russian space station
Mir on May 18, to resume neurological
studies of the effects of
weightlessness on anatomy that were
disrupted in February when eight
newts died during their return to earth
aboard a cargo shuttle.
The newts and snails are to
remain in orbit until August––if they
endure that long.
Similar work undertaken by
the 16-day, $99 million “Neurolab”
flight of the NASA space shuttle
Columbia during April and early May
brought mostly unplanned early
deaths of the specimens. The casualties
might have contributed to
NASA’s May 5 announcement that
the Neurolab would not fly a second
time in August, as had been tentatively
planned.

WALT DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM & OTHER ZOOS

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

A unique aspect of Walt Disney’s Animal
Kingdom, opened on April 22 in Lake Buena Vista,
Florida, is that it has taken high-risk geriatric animals
from older facilities, enabling some animals who have
long endured bare steel and cement to end their lives in
more congenial habitat. This hasn’t pleased the Animal
Rights Foundation of Florida, however, which fought
construction of the Animal Kingdom, and has repeatedly
demanded USDA probes of animal deaths there.
Among the 31 deaths between September 1997 and the
official opening, two Asian clawed otters––rarely
attracted to vegetable matter––ate the poisonous seeds
of ornamental loquats; four cheetah cubs ingested
antifreeze, apparently at a previous facility; two West
African crowned cranes were hit by vehicles; nine
gazelles, kudu, and antelopes died from various causes,
including injuries inflicted on each other in contesting
territory; a dik-dik died in surgery; a rhino died from
having ingested an 18-inch stick before arrival; a rhino
died under anesthesia for a veterinary exam; an elderly
hippo died in transit; another hippo died of infections
10 days after arrival from Europe; and some normally
short-lived naked mole rats, chinchilla rabbits, and
guinea pigs died. The death rate, about 4% of the
1,000-animal collection per year, is well below both
wild and zoo norms.

BOOKS: For Children

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Crossing Paths:
Uncommon Encounters with
Animals in the Wild
by Craig Childs
Sasquatch Books (615 2nd Ave.,
Suite 260, Seattle, WA 98104), 1997.
Paperback, 256 pages. $14.95.

According to the publisher, Craig
Childs “camps in the back country at least
nine months of the year, usually living in
the back of his truck, out of a river vessel of
some sort, or from his backpack. He hasn’t
had a phone in seven years.”

Reviews

Wildlife management

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Accused of mismanagement resulting in a $17 million budgetary shortfall a n d
more than 100 layoffs from a staff of 1,600, Bert Shanks, 58, resigned on June 13 as director
of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, but will continue to collect his $96,000-ayear
salary until September 11. Shanks attributed the shortfall to erroneously expecting in July
1996 that fishing license sales would increase, even though a scarcity of fish had obliged cuts
in bag limits and fishing opportunities.
The Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Committee on June 1 approved a 1999 fiscal
year state Wildlife Department budget of $25.4 million, $1 million less than in 1998 due to
declining hunting and fishing license sales revenue.

9th circuit tells feds to obey ESA

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

SAN FRANCISCO––The 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on June 24
that the federal Bureau of Reclamation must
obey both the Endangered Species Act and
California state species protection laws in
allocating water to Central Valley farmers,
even though so doing may put the bureau in
violation of 40-year-old water use contracts.
If the ruling survives an expected
appeal to the Supreme Court by the defendants,
it may be invoked to help compel
other federal agencies to conform to the ESA,
a frequent point of contention in cases
involving everything from fencing along the
U.S./Mexican border to the failure of the
National Marine Fisheries Service to inspect
shipments of shark fins passing through
Hawaiian airports en route from foreign fishing
vessels to markets in Japan.

NEAVS, HSUS embezzling, Center for Coastal Studies court cases

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Margaret
Hinkel on June 23 ratified a settlement of conflict among New
England Anti-Vivisection Society board factions aligned,
respectively, with PETA and the Fund for Animals, which
had paralyzed NEAVS for more than two years. Under the settlement,
Marian Probst of The Fund told ANIMAL PEOPLE,
“All members of the board resigned,” except president
Theo Capaldo, whose succession to office the PETA faction
allegedly illegally conspired to prevent. A new board was
elected by the NEAVS membership. Among the new board
members are longtime Massachusetts activist Annette Picket;
Holly Cheever, DVM; Boston judge Sarah Luick; and Spay
USA founder Esther Machler. Roberta Wright, executive
director for less than a year, who served at request of PETA
cofounder Ingrid Newkirk, resigned and is to be replaced.
Hinkle ruled on January 22, 1998, that the PETA faction under
direction of the other PETA cofounder, Alex Pacheco, had
attempted to take full control of NEAVS in order to continue
diverting NEAVS assets in support of “organizations with
which they were allied.” A PETA/Fund coalition had led
NEAVS since deposing the administration of probate judge
Robert Ford in 1988. Ford was in March 1989 convicted of
mismanaging NEAVS assets for personal gains.

More young men with guns go berserk; Illinois hunter harassment law struck down

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

EUGENE––Kipland P. Kinkel, 15,
was arraigned on June 16 in Eugene, Oregon,
on four counts of aggravated murder, 26
counts of attempted aggravated murder, six
counts of first-degree assault, 18 counts of
second degree assault, and unlawful possession
of a firearm.
Kinkel, who boasted often to classmates
of torturing and killing animals, was
arrested on May 20 at Thurston High School in
Springfield, a Eugene suburb, for alleged illegal
possession of a gun.
Released to custody of his parents,
who both taught at the school, Kinkel allegedly
shot both to death with hunting weapons the
following morning, then massacred classmates
in the school cafeteria.

Initiative efforts frustrated in Ohio, Oregon

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Save The Doves on June 9 submitted
almost 140,000 signatures to the Ohio
secretary of state’s office in support of a referendum
measure on the November 1998 ballot
which, if approved, would restore a state
ban on hunting mourning doves––but was
informed on June 30 that only 84,320 signatures
were valid. Save The Doves was given
another 10 days to collect the 16,073 additional
signatures needed to reach the minimum
of 100,393 required to go before the
voters. Ohio first banned dove hunting in
1917. The ban was repealed in 1975, was
restored in 1977, and was repealed again in
1995. If Save The Doves gets enough signatures,
the pro-dove hunting front Ohioans
for Wildlife Conservation has indicated that
it will attempt to legally challenge the petition
format. Ohioans for Wildlife
Conservation appears to have been organized
by the Columbus-based Wildlife Legislative
Fund of America, which initially formed in
response to a 1977 attempt to ban leghold
traps in Ohio via referendum, then expanded
into a national organization with support
from the National Rifle Association.

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