Canadian sealers on thin ice

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland––An outspoken proponent of killing as many seals as possible in hopes of bringing the overfished cod back, Newfoundland fisheries minister John Effords at a February 7 media conference made no secret of his belief that seal hunt news coverage should be strictly censored.

“If I had my way, photographers wouldn’t be taking pictures of the seal hunt,” Effords told reporters. “There should be no pictures taken of any hunt.”

Agreed Canadian Sealers Association executive director Tina Fagan, “The time has come to stop issung permits” to photographers to be on the ice. Fagan called for a two-year moratorium on publication of visual images of the Canadian seal hunt.

Letters [May 2000]

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

Fixing bitches

Just a short note to say thank you for ANIMAL PEOPLE, which always makes interesting reading. It is good to have a publication that is not attached to any one society and so can criticize as well as praise!

We are still working hard and struggling with the same old problems. We have just sorted out one lady who had eight bitches and three male dogs. Most of the bitches were pregnant. The dogs had attacked her livestock one night and killed eight of her sheep and goats, so at that point she called us in to help. We removed the ring leaders for rehoming where there is no livestock, spayed the bitches, and returned seven to her. This exercise cost us roughly $400. She gave us a donation of $14. She said she could not afford any more. She does have two large cars and a large house. What to do? We did not want 80 new puppies being born to suffer. She did also say that she had given us four dogs to sell, so we are very lucky. She refused to believe that they also would cost us money.

Letters

Editorial: Self-defeat in Los Angeles

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

On March 22, 2000, the Los Angeles City Council at urging of the Coalition to End Pet Overpopulation adopted what In Defense of Animals spokesperson Bill Dyer called “the nation’s strongest spay/neuter ordinance.” It boosts the licensing fee for unaltered animals from $30 to $100. Owners of unlicensed, unaltered dogs found at large––if identified––will get two warnings to license over a 60-day span, before being fined up to $500.

Los Angeles Animal Services Department manager Dan Knapp and local activists celebrated victory. They should have mourned a self-inflicted defeat, not least because the new ordinance killed any chance a local coalition might have had at funding a five-year drive toward no-kill animal control with help from the $200 million Maddie’s Fund.

As Maddie’s Fund executive director Richard Avanzino reminded, on the eve of the L.A. vote, “Maddie’s Fund does not pay for government programs, including state and local animal care and control mandates.”

Starving the hens is “standard”

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

SEATTLE––Rescuing more than 1,000 starving hens from Amberson’s Egg Farm near Lake Stevens, Washington, during the last two days in March, Pasado’s Safe Haven sanctuary cofounders Susan Michaels and Mark Steinway hope farmer Keith Amberson won’t walk this time.

Just 13 months earlier, in February 1999, Michaels and Steinway rescued 250 starving hens from the same facility, where Amberson reportedly was later to gas 20,000 hens with carbon monoxide in order to get manure discharges below legal limits.

Amberson had just been fined $21,000 by the Washington State Department of ecology, and was under orders from the federal Environmental Protection Agency to stop polluting tributaries to Lake Stevens within 10 days.

“But prosecutors refused to bring animal cruelty charges against Amberson,” the Pasado’s Safe Haven web site recounted, “when he claimed that the dead and dying hens” rescued by Michaels and volunteers on that occasion “were a result of forced molting, a standard egg production practice in which chickens are starved for up to 21 days to force them to begin laying eggs again.”

Bush, Gore, and muzzling

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

AUSTIN, NEW YORK, WASHINGTON D.C.––Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush is an unabashed friend of wise-use wiseguys, an avid hunter, and was Safari Club International’s 1999 “governor of the year.”

Vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Albert Gore aided and abetted the 1993 resumption of Norwegian commercial whaling, the May 1999 resumption of Makah whaling after a 72-year hiatus, and the October 1999 resumption of international elephant ivory sales after a 10-year suspension––and is reputedly chief architect of the Invasive Species Council, the cabinet committee named in February 1999 by President Bill Clinton to pursue the extermination of non-native wildlife.

But Bush and Gore have distinctly different levels of tolerance for criticism.

Great gray beasts win in Kenya

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

NAIROBI, Kenya––Elephants and whales are safer, if still far from saved, as outcome of the April 10-20 eleventh triennial meeting of the 151 member nations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The CITES triennial was still underway as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press. On April 15, however, the delegates rejected a Japanese proposal to reopen legal traffic in gray whale products, 63-44 with 16 abstentions.

On April 17, Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa cut a five-way deal which restored the 1989-1997 moratorium on international ivory sales, at least until 2002, when it is again to be reviewed.

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