RULINGS ABROAD

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

Kerala High Court Justices K.
Narayana Kurup and K.V. Sankaranarayanan
ruled on June 7 in Kochi, India, that animals
such as lions, tigers, panthers, bears, and
nonhuman primates, “though not homo sapiens,
are also beings entitled to humane treatment.”
Added the judges, “Though the law currently protects
wildlife and endangered species from extinction,
animals are denied rights, an anachronism
that must change. If humans are entitled to rights,
why not animals?” The judges upheld the authority
of Indian federal minister for social justice and
empowerment Maneka Gandhi to enforce her
October 1998 invocation of the W i l d l i f e
Protection Act of 1972 to bar circus exhibition of
large carnivores and nonhuman primates.

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COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

U.S. District Court Judge Ellen S. Huvelle ruled on June 27 in Washington D.C. that the Alternatives Research & Development Foundation, In Vitro International, and Philadelphia college student Kristine Gausz have standing to pursue their March 1999 lawsuit against the USDA for failing to protect birds, rats, and mice under the Animal Welfare Act. Huvelle held that “a researcher who witnesses the mistreatment of rats in her lab must have standing,” and that the USDA does not have “unreviewable discretion to exclude birds, rats, and mice from AWA protection.” The Alternatives Research & Development Foundation is a subsidiary of the American Anti-Vivisection Society, founded in 1994 to support the development of alternatives to animal use in laboratories.

Seattle Federal District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled on June 12 that USDA Wildlife Services could proceed with killing as many as 3,500 resident Canada geese in alleged problem areas around Puget Sound this summer, under contract to 12 counties, 11 cities, the University of W a s h i n g t o n, and B o e i n g. As many as 1,000 geese were reportedly captured and gassed during the next two weeks. USDA Wildlife Services regional chief G a r y O l d e n b u r g refused to disclose the locations of goose roundups and killing to either the Seattle Times, activist groups, or Renton mayor Jesse Tanner, and reportedly told Tanner that if any journalist turned up at a killing site, the killing would be halted to avoid exposure. Similar massacres––and secrecy––are slated for many other regions.

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LEGISLATION

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

The Conservation and Reinvestment
Act, approved on May 10 by 314 of
the 435 members of the House of Representatives
and now before the Senate, would
allocate $45 billion in federal oil leasing revenues
to buying land for parks and green
space, wildlife protection, and beach maintenance.
Backed by most leading conservation
groups, it is opposed by John Eberh
a r t of the Georgia Earth Alliance, who
argues that the matching funds it would
grant to state wildlife agencies might remove
their incentive to seek support from the nonhunting
and trapping public, not just the
license-buying hunters and trappers.
The California State Assembly
on May 30 voted 55-18 in support of A B
2 4 7 9, which would prohibit dismembering,
flaying, or scaling live turtles, frogs, and
birds sold as food––notably at the so-called
“live markets” serving mostly ethnic Asian
clientele in San Francisco, Oakland,
Stockton, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.
Illinois Governor George Ryan
on June 9 signed into law HB 3254, the
Dissection Alternatives Act, which enables
students to opt out of school dissection labs.

HUMAN OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

H. Jay Dinshah, 66, who founded
the American Vegan Society in 1960 and
headed it ever since, assisted by his wife
Freya and other family members, died on
June 8 from a heart attack at the AVS office
in Malaga, New Jersey. Congenital heart
disease was reportedly common on both sides
of his family. Recalled S. Joseph
Hagenmayer of the Philadelphia Inquirer,
“Dinshah was raised as lacto-vegetarian from
birth and homeschooled by his parents, the
late Dinshah P. Ghadali and Irene Grace
Hoger Dinshah,” but became a strict vegan
after visiting a Philadelphia slaughterhouse at
age 23. “His ethic of reverence for life was
expounded through writings and essays and
crusades that took him around the world,”
Hagenmayer continued. “He helped organize
conventions, including the 1975 World
Vegetarian Congress at the University of
Maine in Orono, that played significant roles
in the development of the vegetarian and
vegan movements.” Dinshah was a secondgeneration
vegetarian crusader: Dinshah
Ghadali, an Indian-born Parsi mystic, physician,
lawyer, aviator, and inventor, gave up
hunting and meat-eating at age 18, and went
on to practice and advocate vegetarianism
until his death at 92.

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ANIMAL OBITS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

Major, 33, the oldest polar bear in
captivity, was euthanized on June 3 due to
liver cancer. Born in Siberia, Major was captured
in 1966, imported to the Worcester
Ecotarium in 1971, and transferred to the
Stone Zoo in Boston in 1975. The thenseverely
substandard zoo was closed in 1990
and the animals dispersed. “Public outcry
would not allow him to be euthanized, even
though there was no place for him to go,”
recalled his longtime friend and zoo volunteer
Carol Rocci, of Medford, Massachusetts.
Major’s presence and popularity eventually
won funding to reopen and improve the zoo.

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CAGE-RATTLING VISIONS OF ANIMAL RIGHTS, FROM APES TO DOGS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

Rattling the Cage
by Steven M. Wise
Perseus Publishing (10 East 53rd St., New York, NY
10022), 2000. 362 pages, hardcover. $25.00.

Visions of Caliban
by Dale Peterson & Jane Goodall
University of Georgia Press (330 Research Drive,
Athens, GA 30602), 1993, 2000.
379 pages, paperback. $18.95.

The Orangutans
by Gisela Kaplan & Lesley J. Rogers
Perseus Publishing (10 East 53rd St., New York, NY
10022), 2000. 192 pages, hardcover. $23.00.

The Social Lives of Dogs
by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Simon & Schuster (1230 Ave. of the Americas,
New York, NY 10020), 2000.
256 pages, hardcover. $24.00.

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CAN HUMAN-RAISED CHIMPS FIND HAPPINESS?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

Experiments of markedly contrasting
intent in raising young chimpanzees are underway
at the Primarily Primates sanctuary in San
Antonio, Texas, and the New Iberia Primate
Center on the campus of the University of
Louisiana at Lafayette.
In San Antonio, Primarily Primates
president Wally Swett is trying to hand-raise two
young chimps whose mothers were too psychologically
and physically scarred by use in biomedical
research to be able to rear them. His goal
is to produce happy, healthy adults who will be
able to live without maladjustment for the rest of
their lives in a sanctuary setting.
The first infant chimp, Deeter, is a
male who “was born at Primarily Primates on
May 28, 1999, after his mother Betty, a former
member of the NASA colony at Holloman Air
Force Base in New Mexico, arrived pregnant,”
Swett explains. “Sadly, Betty had deformed
breasts and couldn’t feed him.”

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Seals & sealing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

The Atlantic Canada seal hunt
closed on June 15 with about 94,000 seal carcasses
landed, 184,000 short of quota.
Claiming the harp seal population is near an
all-time high, the Canadian Department of
Fisheries and Oceans said bad ice conditions
caused the shortfall. Blaming seals for collapsed
fish stocks, Atlantic Canadians from
1996 to 1999 killed more than a million seals.
British Columbia fish farmers,
said the Canadian DFO, in 1999 killed 470
harbor seals, 133 California sea lions, and
87 Stellar sea lions. Stellar sea lions are listed
as endangered in nearby U.S. waters.

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Sea change in Hawaii

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

HONOLULU––Federal District Judge David Ezra on June 23 effectively closed the Hawaiian longline fishery if the National Marine Fisheries Service cannot achieve “100% coverage” of the fleet with onboard observers within 30 days to insure protection of endangered species.

If the ruling is not amended or overturned on appeal, 115 vessels with 600 crew will be idled.

Fourteen NMFS observers monitored 3% to 5% of longliner sailings from 1995 through April 2000. On May 9, however, 12 of the 14 observers were laid off.

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