Judge imposes settlement of fundraiser Eberle’s libel suit, ANIMAL PEOPLE corrects error made by a source and two items never in the newspaper nor on our web site

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2003:

FAIRFAX, Virginia–Imposing the
“Correction & Statement of Regret” published
directly below, Fairfax County Circuit Judge
Stanley Paul Klein on May 29, 2003 ended a
lawsuit brought against ANIMAL PEOPLE in July
2002 by direct mail fundraiser Bruce Eberle and
his firm Fund Raising Strategies.
Obtaining several specific corrections
and clarifications that ANIMAL PEOPLE had already
made, to the extent that available information
allowed, Eberle and FRS received no retractions
of main coverage, no damages or costs, no
admission of their allegations of libel and
tortious interference in business relationships,
and–in tacit recognition that Eberle and one of
his major clients contributed to whatever errors
were made through their own inaccurate
remarks–no apology.

LETTERS [July/Aug 2003]

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

Stress, distancing, vivisection, and A primate’s memoir

Reading your review of Robert M.
Sapolsky’s A Primate’s Memoir: A
Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life among the
Baboons in the June 2003 edition of ANIMAL
PEOPLE, I was reminded of an all-day conference
I attended years ago on the physical and
psychological effects of stress.
The only speaker was Robert Sapolsky, a
lively, humorous, and engaging man who spent
the morning describing the many and varied ways
that stress is experienced, the painful nature
of the experience, and the personal toll that
stress had taken on people’s lives, including
his own.
Somewhere in the middle of the afternoon,
after the audience had been charmed and seduced
by Sapolsky’s warmth and wit, he announced to
this group of caretakers–nurses, psychologists,
and social workers such as myself–“I am a
vivisector.”

Letters

Eberle says he had nothing to do with MIA “skeleton in closet”

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

Responding to the June 2003 ANIMAL PEOPLE
article “Judge imposes settlement of fundraiser
Eberle’s libel suit,” Bruce Eberle of Fund
Raising Strategies Inc. both telephoned and wrote
in reference to four paragraphs quoted and
paraphrased from a Los Angeles Times exposé of
the activities of his former client Jack Bailey.
The complete exposé, by Los Angeles
Times staff writer Scott Harris, was originally
published on August 7, 1991, and is accessible
at <www.latimes.com>.
Stated Eberle, “Neither my company nor I
had anything whatsoever to do with a fund appeal
[discussed by Harris] that referred to Jack
Bailey bringing back a partial skeleton of a
supposed American POW. If such a fund appeal
was, in fact, mailed, my company and/or myself
did not create it, mail it, or have anything
to do with it.”

Getting biodiversity backward

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

CANBERRA, Australia–At least 1,595 Australian native plants
and animals are at risk of extinction, 2,900 regional ecosystems are
imperiled, and the leading threats come from land clearing, sheep
and cattle grazing, drought, and fires, says a recently published
national Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment. Predation and
competition with native species by introduced species ranked as a
lesser threat in most parts of Australia.
Principally authored by ecologist Paul Sattler, the
assessment was commissioned by the national government. It was
presented to Parliament in late April 2003.
What, three months later, is Australia doing about the findings?

* The Cooperative Research Centre for Pet Control has
applied for permission to send a genetically engineered mouse herpes
virus into field trials–in effect, to begin yet another
introduction of a non-native species.
The Cooperative Research Centre “aims to spread the virus throughout
the exotic mouse population,” reported the Brisbane Courier-Mail,
noting that mouse plagues annually “cost the nation’s grain farmers
about $150 million.”

Editorial: Shelter killing & regional values

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

On page 17 of this edition ANIMAL PEOPLE presents our tenth
annual casualty count in the 131-year-old battle by humane societies
against dog and cat overpopulation.
For the first 100 years after the Women’s Humane Society of
Philadelphia became the first U.S. humane organization to take an
animal control contract, there was no visible progress. Even after
the numbers of dogs and cats killed in U.S. shelters and pounds began
to fall in the early 1970s, there was little recognition of
improvement. The numbers everywhere were still higher than almost
anyone could bear to study in any kind of depth.
As recently as 1993, the American Humane Association,
Humane Society of the U.S., and PETA still erroneously asserted that
the shelter killing toll was going up.

British fox hunting ban is near

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

LONDON–The British House of Commons on July 9, 2003 voted
317-145 in favor of a national ban on fox hunting, a week after
voting 363-154 to enact a total ban instead of a compromise that
would allow some hunting to continue for predator control.
The votes brought close to fulfillment the 1997 election
promise of Prime Minister Tony Blair to ban fox hunting if the Labour
Party won the Parliamentary majority. Blair and Labour have led the
government ever since, but have put other matters ahead of the
proposed hunting ban, while anti-hunting private members’ bills have
cleared the Commons only to die in the House of Lords.
The Hunting Bill, now presented with the full support of the
Blair government, is scheduled for second reading by the Lords on
September 17, followed by detailed review in October. The Lords,
who hold their seats by heredity rather than election, can amend and
delay legislation. The anti-fox hunting Commons majority, however,
has become strong enough to override the Lords.

Prairie dogs with monkeypox blow the whistle on the exotic pet trade

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

CHICAGO, ATLANTA– With sentries ever
vigilant atop burrows, uttering different
whistles to denote flying, four-footed, and
two-footed gun-toting predators, what prairie
dogs do best is alert their whole habitat to the
approach of any danger.
In recent weeks prairie dogs alerted the
U.S. to the risk of little known lethal diseases
arriving from abroad through the exotic pet trade.
The triggering event was the arrival of
monkeypox, a milder cousin of smallpox, with 18
Gambian giant pouched rats and a number of
Ghanian dormice received on April 21 by Phillip
Moberly of Phil’s Pocket Pets in Villa Park,
Illinois.

Dog chaining bill signed in Connecticut

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

HARTFORD–Animal Advocacy Connecticut founder Julie Lewin
announced on July 10, 2003 that Connecticut Governor John G. Rowland
had signed the Confinement and Tethering of Dogs Act and three other
bills endorsed by AACT. To take effect on October 1, the
Confinement and Tethering of Dogs Act is the first state law in the
U.S. to limit how long a dog can be tethered outdoors.
Rowland vetoed a similar bill in 2002 that included specific
restrictions on tethering, but approved this one, spokes-person John
Wiltse told Associated Press, because it requires only that
tethering may not be for an “unreasonable period.” What is
“unreasonable” may vary with the weather and the breed and age of the
dog.

Canada cancels help for whales, dolphins caught by accident–308,000 worldwide

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

CAPE BROYLE, Newfoundland; BERLIN, Germany; LIMA,
Peru–Environment Canada has ceased funding Whale Release &
Stranding, a nonprofit organization that frees trapped whales and
other marine mammals from fishing gear, and the Department of
Fisheries and Oceans and Parks Canada have not picked up the slack,
Dene Moore of Canadian Press reported on June 15.
Whale release & Stranding received 55 reports of marine
mammals caught in fishing gear during 2001-2002, director Wayne
Ledwell told Moore. Ledwell and assistant Julie Huntington are the
only two paid employees of the group, which was partially funded by
the Canadian Coat guard until 2000, when Environment Canada took
over.

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