LETTERS [May 2003]

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Drive Fishery

Thank you for helping to stop the “drive fishery” dolphin
slaughter in Futo, Japan.
The Ito City Fishing Co-operative gave up the drive fishery
this year. The season for the fiscal year 2002 drive fishery expired
on March 31, 2003. We gladly report that no drive fishery was
carried out. According to the Yomiuri newspaper, the Ito City
Fishing Cooperative abandoned the drive fishery because it feared the
criticism of animal protection groups.
The Elsa Nature Conserv-ancy collected nearly 3,500
signatures on our petition seeking to stop the drive fisheries and
promote dolphin and nature watching in Futo instead, reinforced by
more than 2400 signatures against the drive fishery from
organizations abroad.

Letters

Why can’t we stop the Omak Suicide Race?

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Why can’t we stop the Omak Suicide Race?
by Irene Muschel

The Omak Suicide Race, held each summer in Omak,
Washington, has been openly cruel to horses ever since a rodeo
promoter dreamed it up in 1935. It consists of galloping horses over
a steep cliff and across the Okanogan River as the main event at the
Omak Stampede rodeo–and is staged four times each rodeo week.
Why have horse protection groups not given more attention and
effort to stopping this event?
Four years after the Omak Suicide Race started, a Hollywood
producer chased a horse over a cliff during the making of the film
Jesse James. That happened just once. Public outrage over the death
of the horse led to the American Humane Association monitoring U.S.
screen productions.

Blind “justice” can’t tell chickens from dead wood

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

SAN DIEGO, California–Ward Poultry Farm owners Arie and
Bill Wilgen-burg, of Escondido, California, will not be charged
with cruelty for having employees toss more than 60,000 live hens
into wood chippers, the San Diego County district attorney’s office
announced on April 10, because the Wilgenburgs were told to chip the
chickens alive by a USDA-accredited veterinarian.
The veterinarian was neither working for the USDA nor
representing it, but was advising the Wilgenbergs about killing
their flocks, at two sites, to help halt the spread of the worst
outbreak of Newcastle disease since 12 million chickens and other
domestic birds were killed to control an outbreak in 1971.

Legal action against ocean fishing

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson on April 10 held for
the fourth time in 13 years that 1988 amendments to the 1972 Marine
Mammal Protection Act oblige the U.S. to exclude imports of tuna
netted “on dolphin,” a method often used by foreign fleets because
dolphins and tuna feed on the same fish species and often swim
together. Surrounding feeding dolphins with nets therefore usually
captures tuna–as well as dolphins who do not escape before the nets
close. Henderson in May 1990 banned imports of yellowfin tuna from
Mexico, Venezuela, and Vanuatu. After Congress reinforced the 1990
verdict by introducing “dolphin-safe” labeling, Henderson in January
1992 banned $266 million worth of tuna imports from 30 nations.

The dogs of war & other animals in liberated Iraq

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

BAGHDAD; CAMP PATRIOT, Kuwait–Mine-detecting dolphins and
war dogs were the nonhuman heroes of the U.S. liberation of Iraq from
Saddam Hussein.
It was an evolutionary homecoming of sorts. Fossils found in
Pakistan indicate that the common ancestors of dogs and dolphins may
have first differentiated in this very region circa 70 million years
ago.

Dutch assassin gets 18 years

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

AMSTERDAM–Volkert van der Graaf, 33, who confessed to
killing anti-immigration and pro-fur politician Pim Fortuyn on May 6,
2002, in the first Dutch political assassination since World War II,
was on April 14 sentenced to serve 18 years in prison.
Seeking a life sentence, the prosecution said it would appeal.
Likening the assassination to shooting Adolph Hitler before
he could rise to power, van der Graaf testified that he shot Fortuyn,
54, because he was “a threat to weaker groups in society,”
including asylum-seekers, Muslims, the disabled, and animals.

Ed Sayres to head American SPCA

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

NEW YORK CITY, SAN FRANCISCO–Edwin J. Sayres, 54,
president of the San Francisco SPCA since January 1, 1999, was on
April 8 introduced as new president of the American SPCA in New York
City, to succeed Larry Hawk on June 2.
Hawk on February 3 was named to succeed Gus Thornton, who
retired, as president of the Massachusetts SPCA.
Sayres debuted in humane work as successor to his father,
Edwin Sayres Sr., who was longtime executive director of the St.
Hubert’s Giralda shelter founded by Geraldine Dodge Rockefeller on
her estate in New Jersey.

Will new Kenya government lift hunting ban?

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:
NAIROBI–Kenya has a new President, National Rainbow
Coalition candidate Mwai Kibaki, succeeding Daniel arap Moi,
President since 1978.
Kibaki, a longtime leading member of the parliamentary opposition to
the arap Moi regime, almost immediately replaced the entire Kenya
Wildlife Service board of directors, fueling concern that Kibaki may
next move to overturn the national ban on sport hunting enforced
throughout arap Moi’s tenure as–according to Ghosts of Tsavo author
Philip Caputo–a gesture of respect to Daphne Sheldrick, widow of
Tsavo National Park founder David Sheldrick and pioneer of successful
rehabilitation of orphaned elephants.

Embezzling in Germany

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

MUNICH–Wolfgang Ullrich, 58, head of the 230,000-member
German animal welfare society Deutsches Tierhilfswerk 1994-1999, was
on April 1, 2003 sentenced to 12 years in prison for embezzling $28
million.
Reported Reuters, “Thai police first arrested Ullrich, who
ran a restaurant in the resort of Pattaya, after investigating him
for tax evasion. Subsequent probes into his finances uncovered a
front company Ullrich had set up in Switzerland, into which he
channeled donations from animal lovers.”
Deutsches Tierhilfswerk is now expected to sue seeking
recovery of the money.

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