Animal groups blast both Gore and Bush

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

WASHINGTON D.C.–– Announcing
his candidacy to succeed U.S. President
Bill Clinton on June 16, Vice President
Albert Gore was expected to lead a White
House ceremony commemorating recovery of
the bald eagle and removal of the eagle from
Endangered Species Act protection on July 4.
But Gore caught heavy flak from
the animal protection community for alleged
empty posturing, including from Senator
Barbara Boxer and Representative George
Miller, both from California––and both, like
Gore, Democrats.
In a June 17 commentary published
by the Los Angeles Times, Boxer and Miller
noted the paradox that the U.S. Commerce
Department has since April 29 allowed tuna
netted “on dolphin” to be sold as “dolphin
safe,” while on May 28 it reminded the public
that people who feed, touch, or swim
with wild dolphins may be prosecuted for
harassing them.

“With the consent of a Republican
Congress, the [Clinton/Gore] administration
is ignoring science and showing a callous disregard
for the plight of a dolphin population
that continues to decline,” Boxer and Miller
wrote. “And it is deceiving consumers by
leading them to believe that cans of tuna bearing
the ‘dolphin safe’ label will continue to
connote concern for the welfare of dolphins.”
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
media releases drew attention to Gore’s role
in facilitating the May 17 Makah tribe killing
of a gray whale in Puget Sound and the
revival of Norweigan and Japanese whaling.
Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine founder Neal Barnard continued
a seven-month campaign against animal
testing scheduled as part of Gore’s “High
Production Volume Challenge” program to
review the safety of 15,000 chemicals that
were federally approved decades ago before
some of their longterm effects were studied.
Barnard reminded PCRM members
that, “This is Gore’s second major environmental
gaff, after having been caught in a
written memorandum cooking a deal that
would allow Norway to resume whaling without
objection from the U.S.”––as exposed by
ANIMAL PEOPLE in June 1994.
Leading Republican presidential
contender George W. Bush, now governor of
Texas, was ripped in a June 7 bulletin from
Fund for Animals executive vice president
Mike Markarian. Explained Markarian,
“Many believe that if Bush is elected,
Montana governor Marc Raciot may become
the next Secretary of the Interior. Proviiding
the Butcher of the Bison with control of
Yellowstone National Park, its bison, and
other wildlife would be disastrous.”
Besides ordering that bison who
wander into Montana from Yellowstone be
killed, Raciot opposed the 1995 reintroduction
of wolves to Yellowstone, opposes
expansion of grizzly bear habitat, and is
among the governors considered most hostile
to the Endangered Species Act. Like both
Bush and Gore, Raciot also favors hunting.
Bush was hit again on June 23, in a
full-page New York Times ad placed by the
Sea Turtle Restoration Project and Help
Endangered Animals––Ridley Turtles, for
allegedly doing too little to protect sea turtles
who nest along the Texas coast.