USDA Wildlife Services almost gets culled

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Wiley Coyote almost won a
round on June 23, as the House of Representatives voted 229 to
193 in favor of a bill introduced by Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon)
and Charles Bass (R-New Hampshire) to cut $10 million, the
cost of predator killing programs, from the fiscal 1999 USDA
Wildlife Services budget of $28.8 million––a cut four times
deeper than President Bill Clinton proposed in January.
The funding was almost certain to have been restored
in the Senate, where the 17 western states whose ranchers most
use Wildlife Services have proportionally far more clout, but
taking no chances, Wildlife Services senior staff and livestock
industry representatives lobbied through the night.
Congressional allies then demanded a revote on June 24, which
rescinded the cut, 232-192.
Despite losing an apparent landmark victory, predator
advocates remained encouraged at retaining 53 more votes
against Wildlife Services than ever before were mustered. The
previous high of 139 votes came in 1996, when Wildlife
Services was still called Animal Damage Control.
“We’ll keep at it,” pledged Tom Skeele, executive
director of the Predator Project, an activist group headquartered
in Bozeman, Montana.

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DOGFIGHTING RAIDS LEAD TO DRUG BUSTS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

HILLSBOROUGH, N.C.– –
RAS Kennels owner Glenson Rolston Isaac,
29, of Hillsborough, on June 10 became
the first person charged under a 1997 North
Carolina law making dogfighting a felony.
Sheriffs’ deputies and Orange
County animal control officers seized 45 pit
bull terriers from RAS Kennels one day
after Isaac and kennel workers Dwayne
Harrigan, 25, of Durham, and Kelvin A.
Brown, 27, of Miami, were arrested for
possession of an estimated $300,000 worth
of cocaine, found during investigation of a
complaint that the kennel had exceeded the
20-dog zoning limit.

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PET THEFT HITS INDIA

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

“Organized gangs are abducting
pedigreed dogs for breeding and ransom,
spreading terror among the owners
in the southern city of Bangalore,”
S.N.M. Abdi of the Hong Kong-based
South China Morning Post r e c e n t l y
reported from Calcutta––a story which
must have seemed bizarre back in India,
where even dogs of popular breed type
are so abundant at large that anyone who
wants a dog can attract one with just a
piece of bread.
But the Abdi account followed
only a month after The Times of India
described the pampered treatment of the
231 purebreds entered in the 90th annual
Bombay Presidency Kennel Dog Club
show in Mumbai.

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Awards, honors, and appointments

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

San Francisco SPCA president
Richard Avanzino on April 15 received the
first-ever ALPO Humane Achievement
Award, presented by Friskies PetCare
Company, Inc.
Peter Singer, author of Animal
Liberation, is relocating in August from
Australia to Princeton University, where he
is to become DeCamp Professor of Bioethics
at the Princeton Centre for Human Values.
Sangeeta Kumar, formerly outreach
director for the Toronto Vegetarian
Society, has relocated to San Diego, where
she has founded a new organization,
Compassion In Action, initially sponsored
by philanthropist Kanwar Jain.

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WILL CHINA WELCOME CAPITALIST RUNNING DOGS?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

HONG KONG––Friends of
Animals president Priscilla Feral on June 17
led about 50 demonstrators in protest outside
the embassy of the People’s Republic of China
in Washington D.C., demanding that U.S.
president Bill Clinton add cruelty to animals to
his list of topics for discussion during a late
June visit to Beijing.
“We have documented evidence that
cruelty to animals is so pervasive and conspicuous
that it must be officially sanctioned,”
Feral said. “Much of the cruelty involves the
mistreatment of companion animals destined
for slaughter.”
The Clinton administration did not
respond, amid conflicting indications of shifting
Chinese views about dogs and petkeeping.

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ALL ABOUT MONEY

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

The Internal Revenue Service has
reportedly revoked the nonprofit status of
Adopt-A-Pet, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for
allegedly operating for the “private benefit”
of the direct mailing firm Watson &
Hughey, under a fundraising agreement
signed in 1985, which allowed Watson &
Hughey unlimited use of the mailing list generated
in connection with Adopt-A-Pet promotions,
but did not allow Adopt-A-Pet to
rent or trade names. IRS Form 990 filings
indicate that over the next three fiscal years
Adopt-A-Pet spent 97% of all receipts on further
fundraising. In 1991 Adopt-A-Pet was
among the co-defendants in a series of cases
brought against Watson & Hughey in 22
states for alleged misleading fundraising in
connection with use of sweepstakes appeals.

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African updates

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi
in May fired Kenya Wildlife Service director
David Western, 53, who told The London
Times that he believes the reason was his
refusal to cooperate with the turnover of land
reserved for wildlife to agriculture and development
projects promoted by persons well
connected with the arap Moi regime. Western
succeeded Richard Leakey in 1994, after
Leakey was ousted over his uncompromising
stances against poaching and corruption.
The National Party, of South
Africa, on June 16 endorsed the recommendation
of the International Fund for Animal
Welfare that the South African government
should adopt “parliamentary proposals for the
special protection of lion, leopard, and cheetah,”
who are under increasing risk from habitat
encroachment and the spread of diseases
associated with domestic dogs.

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Greenpeacers who hung themselves get off

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

A Seattle Municipal Court jury on June 11 acquitted
seven Greenpeace activists of nuisance and obstruction charges for
suspending themselves on ropes from the Aurora Bridge, above the
mouth of Lake Union, to block the exit of pollock fishing vessels en
route to the Bering Sea in August 1997. Pollock depletion is suspected
as the cause of starvation deaths of Stellar sea lions and sea birds in
Alaskan waters. Acquitted were Holly Dye, of uncertain age, and
Sean Gale, 27, of Seattle; Katie Flynn-Jambeck, 25, of Warwick,
Massachusetts; Omi Hodwitz, 20, of Vancouver, British Columbia;
Troy Jones, 36, of Russellville, Kentucky; Kelly Osborne, 29, of
Flower Mound, Texas; and Donna Parker, 34, of Missoula,
Montana. Charges alleged accomplices Stephanie Hillman, L o r i
Mudge, and Joseph Dibbee, all of Seattle, were separately dropped.

CRIME & COUNSELING UPDATE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

The June 1998 ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial, “Crime and
counseling,” pointed out that there is no proven model for preventing
sadistic behavior through psychological counseling, and warned that
SB 1991, a bill pending before the California legislature, was premature
in mandating counseling as a probationary condition in cruelty
cases, since it seemed to imply that a “seek counseling” order might
by itself be an adequate sentence.
On May 26, a week after the ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial
was distributed to all members of the California legislature, Sherry
DeBoer of Political Animals informed us: “Today an amendment was
made to California SB 1991 which makes it an excellent bill from a
prosecutor’s position. Therefore, we are withdrawing our opposition.”
The amended passages now provide:

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