Author: Archivist

R.I.P. Vancouver crested mynas

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

VANCOUVER, B.C.–The usual fate of introduced species, even
if they thrive for a time, is to die out eventually from inability
to cope with the climate changes, predators, diseases, and food
competition in their new habitat.
Vancouver Sun reporter Larry Pynn on March 1 eulogized such a
species failure.
“A native of China and Indochina,” Pynn wrote, “the crested
myna was introduced to Vancouver in the 1890s, perhaps arriving as
stowaways aboard a ship or as pets released by Chinese immigrants.
By the 1920s they numbered in the thousands, living as far afield as
Ladner and New Westminster.”

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Would you buy a used car from this man?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

HARTFORD–Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal “is
investigating whether the Animal Health Care Fund is just a clever
vehicle for a used car dealership to help itself,” reported Alan
Cohn of WTNH-News 8 on February 18.
Explained Cohn, “Some charitable organizations use donated
vehicles as a way to raise money. Donors receive a tax decution for
the fair market value of their car. The charity then re-sells the
vehicle and uses the money.”
The IRS in two mid-2002 rulings authorized charities to use
outside firms–such as used car dealers–to manage vehicle donation
programs.

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Civil disobedience comes to farm country

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

ITHACA, TOLEDO, SALT LAKE CITY, TEXAS
CITY, TWIN FALLS–Purported anti-terrorism bills
pushed in recent legislative sessions by
lawmakers in Texas, Oregon, Utah, and
Pennsylvania, among other states, have sought
to criminalize almost any unauthorized exposure
of anything done in the name of agriculture.
Factory farmers are finding that even
when they win convictions of activists who enter
their property to rescue animals and document
suffering, they lose in the court of public
opinion. Prosecuting rescuers, moreover,
appears to increase the public perception that
the farmers are cruel–even when the farms are
traditional family operations.

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Meat avoidance and what it means

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

“In terms of nonreligious literature handed out to
pedestrians, Why Vegan? may be the most widely distributed brochure
in recent years. Hundreds of people and organizations distribute
hundreds of thousands of copies annually–more than 500,000 in 2002,”
Vegan Outreach cofounder Jack Norris recently wrote to ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Norris listed ways in which the most recent updated edition
of Why Vegan? differs from previous versions, including the addition
of “a spread depicting real experiences on factory farms, described
by people who have been there.”
Yet the new Why Vegan? includes less descriptive text about
animal suffering, overall, than in the recent past, and is
actually quite different from the original edition issued in 1999.

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Hedgehog rescuers face a prickly situation off the Scottish coast

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

EDINBURGH–Operation Tiggywinkle was to
commence at dawn on March 27, 2003 in the
Western Isles off Scotland.
Ross Minott, campaign director for the
Scots group Advocates for Animals, was to lead a
20-member volunteer team ashore to try to rescue
an estimated 5,000 hedgehogs from the islands of
North Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist, ahead
of death squads to be sent in April by Scottish
National Heritage.
The hedgehogs were introduced to the Western
Isles in 1974 as an attempted biological control
for garden slugs and snails who annoyed the 6,000
human residents of the islands. Eventually the
hedgehogs came to be considered pests themselves.

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British ad media “chicken out”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

LONDON–London Underground, responsible for London subway
operations, according to the BBC in February 2003 refused as
“offensive” a Compassion In World Farming ad that “featured
scantily-clad models huddled together on one side of a poster and
chickens on a farm on the other.” The ad was reportedly captioned
“Thousands of big-breasted birds packed together for your pleasure.”
The CIWF ad was at least the second critical message
about poultry husbandry to be banned in Britain. In November 2001
the Broadcasting Advert-ising Clearance Centre banned a 30-second
Royal SPCA ad contrasting the growth rate of layer hens to the
hormone-stimulated growth rate of broiler hens, “on the basis,” the
RSPCA said, “that it was controversial and seemed to attack the
industry.”

Letters [April 2003]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

Welfare Ranching

Although I am highly biased towards the merits and strengths
of the arguments put forth in Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized
Destruction of the American West, edited by George Wuerthner and
Mollie Matteson, the ANIMAL PEOPLE review of the book was among the
best I have read (80-plus reviews so far). Congratulations to
reviewer Andrea Lococo!
Hopefully you may publish other articles and editorials about
this issue. Nowhere in all of North America are there as many acres
affected as in this issue of domestic livestock on public lands
(nearly 300 million acres!) Few people understand this and it is
important to get out the word.
–Doug Tompkins
President
Foundation for Deep Ecology
Building 1062
Fort Cronkhite
Sausalito, CA 94965
Phone: 415.229.9339
Fax: 415.229.9340
<info@deepecology.org>
<www.deepecology.org>

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Toys for pigs?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

BRUSSELS–British agricultural officials
and information media are significantly
misrepresenting an October 2001 European Union
directive on pig welfare, says European
Commission spokesperson Beate Gminder.
“Britain’s farmers have three months to
place a toy in every pigsty or face up to 90 days
in prison or a £1,000 fine,” BBC declared on
January 29, 2003.
“We mean footballs and basketballs.
Farmers may need to change the balls so that the
pigs don’t get tired of them,” a U.K. Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
spokesperson told The Times.

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What “Holocaust” really means

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2003–

SAN DIEGO,  RENO,  PHOENIX– “Abusive
treatment of animals should be opposed,  but
cannot and must not be compared to the
Holocaust,”  Nazi death camp survivor and
Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith national
director Abraham Foxman told Michelle Morgante of
Associated Press,  as People For The Ethical
Treatment of Animals hit the road in the U.S.
southwest with a mobile exhibition called “The
Holocaust on Your Plate.”
Using photographs to compare the
slaughter of poultry and pigs to the Nazi
massacre of Jews during World War II,  the
eight-panel PETA exhibit is scheduled to tour the
whole U.S.

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