Day: April 1, 1999

NEW BRITISH REGS

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

Starting April 1, the Animal Procedures
Committee of the British Home Office will gain the
authority to close labs if they fail to provide detailed
descriptions of experiments and explain the use of
animals instead of non-animal research techniques,
Home Secretary Jack Straw said in February.
“They will have to justify every test,
explain the exact conditions in which the animals are
kept, and prove they meet all standards,” Straw stated.
“If the Procedures Committee decides any aspect
of the treatment is inappropriate, the license will be
revoked.”
The 300 licensed British laboratories experiment
on about 2.7 million animals per year.

Colgate-Palmolive halts animal testing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––Colgate-Palmolive
Co., committedly reducing animal use since 1983,
in mid-March 1998 announced an immediate moratorium
on all animal use in safety-testing personal
care products.
Colgate-Palmolive told media that “98%
of all internal requests for product safety approval
are currently met using available data and non-animal
alternatives.”
Colgate-Palmolive does not make pharmaceuticals,
which by law must be animal-tested.
PETA president Ingrid Newkirk told
Associated Press that the Colgate-Palmolive moratorium
resulted from a 20-month PETA boycott.

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Bullfeathers

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

Now that SHARK founder
Steve Hindi has shown activists how
to spot the use of electroshock to make
rodeo animals buck, confirmation of
the practice is coming from virtually
every rodeo where people are looking
for it. For instance, Rockford Register
Star reporter Chris Green accompanied
Animal Watch representatives to
Kid’s Day at the World’s Toughest
Rodeo on Valentine’s Day in
Rockford, Illinois, where Green “witnessed
an animal handler or ‘stock
contractor’ discreetly remove a cattle
prod from his rear pocket and shock a
horse and two bulls,” according to the
Register Star’s February 15 edition.
World’s Toughest Rodeo spokesperson
Debra Weaver told Green that shockprodding
could bring a $250 fine from
the Professional Rodeo Cowboys
Association––and said Green was the
first person to tell her about it.

Cruelty-free Premarin rival

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

Premarin, the Wyeth-Ayerst
estrogen drug made from pregnant
mares’ urine, gained a rival on March
26 when the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration authorized Duramed
Pharmaceuticals to sell Cenestin, an
estrogen made of soy and yam extracts,
to treat menopausal symptoms.
Plant-based estrogens were
already available, but Premarin was
the only product sold as a wide-spectrum
menopausal remedy. Duramed
tried to introduce Cenestin as a generic
substitute for Premarin; blocked by
Wyeth-Ayerst legal action, it will now
offer Cenestin as a generic alternative.
Premarin has been widely
boycotted since soon after ANIMAL
PEOPLE revealed in April 1993 that
the perpetually pregnant mares used in
making it spend two-thirds of their
lives tethered in stalls, while their foals
are usually sold for horsemeat.

Rats, mice, birds comment time extended

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

PHILADELPHIA––The USDA has extended until May 28 the comment period on a proposal announced January 29 to amend the definition of “animal” in the Animal Welfare Act enforcement regulations so as to remove the exclusion of birds, rats, and mice which has been in effect since 1970.

ANIMAL PEOPLE, in a March edition front page on the proposed amendment, a longtime goal of the animal protection community, wrongly attributed it to a petition submitted to the USDA by United Poultry Concerns.

In fact, the petition was filed in April 1998 by the Alternatives Research & Development Foundation, an affiliate of the Philadelphia-based American Anti-Vivisection Society.

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WHOSE GAME ARE WILDLIFE AGENCIES PROTECTING?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

ALBUQUERQUE, BOISE, SACRAMENTO,
SALT LAKE CITY–– The
Idaho Fish and Game Commission on March 5
voted 4-3 to fire state fish and game director
Steve Mealey, notorious for mooning a shoreline
statue from a boat last summer.
The New Mexico Game Commission
on January 26 cancelled a $2.8 million
black bear study, commissioned from the
Idaho-based Hornocker Wildlife Institute,
because Hornocker officials refused to meet
with them to discuss allegations by former
Hornocker biologist Jenny Cashman that she
was repeatedly drugged and raped in 1995-
1997 by co-worker Patrick F. Ryan.

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Iceland to resume whaling

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

REYKJAVIK, SEATTLE––The parliament of
Iceland on March 10 instructed the government to begin
preparations for Icelandic whalers to resume commercial
whaling by no later than December 31, 2000––and to mount
a drive to sway world opinion in favor of whaling.
The vote came as a cold shower to whale lovers
who had hoped that the tourist-attracting presence of the orca
Keiko in an Icelandic sea pen would dissuade Iceland from
resuming hunting. Iceland last killed whales in 1989, after
three years of defying the International Whaling Commission
moratorium on commercial whaling in effect since 1986.
Iceland withdrew from the IWC in 1992
“The Makahs have already done the damage we
feared,” said Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society. “Thousand of whales are going to be
killed because of their claim of cultural necessity.” The
Makah argument is echoed by both Iceland and Norway,
which in November 1998 unilaterally set a 1999 quota for
itself of 671 minke whales. Similar rationales are expected to
be heard from other onetime whaling nations.

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Predators, reintroductions, and harsh reality

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

DENVER, EUGENE––Three of
the first four Canadian lynx who were released
into the Rio Grande National Forest of southcentral
Colorado by the state Division of
Wildlife during the first days of February
starved to death by March 23.
C-DoW had confidently predicted
that the reintroduction would succeed, and
would keep lynx off the federal endangered
species list. C-DoW biologist Gene Byrne
even suggested that the department might reintroduce
wolverines, too, as early as next year.
By mid-March, however, C-DoW
had recaptured the last of the released lynx, to
avoid losing her to starvation, and was holding
eight more until later in the year, when
prey might be more abundant.

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LETTERS [April 1999]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

Shrinking stress
A few more words on the
stress endured by animal workers.
Animal helpers face both primary
traumatization, e.g. when attacked
by an irate animal hoarder or a dog,
and secondary traumatization, from
bearing witness to animal suffering.
Secondary traumatization has also
been called “compassion fatigue”
and “vicarious traumatization,” or
VT for short.
Both types of traumatization
can produce profound and toxic
changes in animal workers’ core
beliefs about themselves, others,
and life in general. Primary traumatization
needs to be treated, when it
occurs, as any other psychological
trauma. VT must be seen as an
inescapable occupational hazard.

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