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WISE-USE WISEGUYS

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

“Powerful crime syndicates
including the Cali Cartel, the Sicilian
Mafia, and the Tijuana Cartel, have
bought up most of the tuna fleets and
canneries in Latin America in order to
smuggle cocaine and heroin by sea and
to launder billions in narco profits,”
Craig Van Note of TRAFFIC charged
in a recent address to the T u f t s
University Symposium on Global
Crime, Corruption, and Accountability.
“Tuna was an ideal product to
use as a cover for narcotics: the prime
markets for the high-priced fish are the
U.S., the European Union, and Japan,
also the wealthiest consumers of drugs.”

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Dolphin freedom advocates fined $56,000

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

KEY WEST––Dolphin Project founder
and former “Flipper” trainer Ric O’Barry and
Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary founder Lloyd Good
III were on June 10 ordered by U.S. Administrative
Law Judge Peter A. Fitzpatrick to pay combined
civil penalties of $59,500 for allegedly illegally
releasing the former U.S. Navy dolphins Buck and
Luther on May 23, 1996, off Key West, Florida.
Luther, apparently hurt in a fight with
other dolphins, was recaptured the next day. Buck
was caught 13 days later, 40 miles away, reportedly
emaciated, also with injuries.
O’Barry and Good deny that the dolphins
were in seriously bad shape when recaptured, and
argue that the release was not illegal because, they
contend, the Marine Mammal Protection Act did not
then specifically require a release permit. It has
since been amended to add such a requirement in
more explicit language. O’Barry and Good have
until July 10 to decide whether to appeal.

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Whalers’ covert strategy confirmed

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

TOKYO, VICTORIA (B.C)– –
Whaling industry revival strategies long suspected
by ANIMAL PEOPLE and the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society were bluntly
confirmed in early June, soon after the annual
International Whaling Commission meeting
ended in Grenada without lifting the 1986
global moratorium on commercial whaling.
Citing Hideki Moronuki of the
Japanese ministry for agriculture, forests, and
fisheries as her source, Mari Yamaguchi of
Associated Press on June 3 reported from
Tokyo that “In a bid to gain support for commercial
whaling, Japan hopes to coax developing
countries to join the IWC by giving
them financial assistance. Aid will be given,”
Yamaguchi continued, “to countries that have
been reluctant to join the IWC for fear of damaging
their diplomatic and economic ties with
the West” if they favor whaling.
Moronuki argued that whales, rather
than aggressive fishing led by the Japanese
fleet, are chiefly responsible for globally
declining catches.

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Legislation

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg
and U.S. Representative Robert
Menendez, both Democrats from New
Jersey, on June 3 introduced the Safe Air
Travel for Animals Act, to strengthen the
right of persons sending animals by air to be
fully informed of the transport conditions,
and to double the penalty against airlines for
causing the injury, loss, or death of an animal
to $5,000, from the present $2,500.
The state legislatures of New
York and Illinois each recently approved
bills to create a felony penalty for especially
aggressive forms of cruelty to animals––and
New York governor George Pataki has
already signed the New York version into
law. The Illinois version additionally provides
that persons previously convicted of
aggravated cruelty shall be charged with a
felony for a repeated alleged offense.

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Jacques Cousteau’s Silent World

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

PARIS––Bernard Violet, author of
a 1993 biography of the late undersea explorer
and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau, on June 17
disclosed documents he said he had obtained
since Cousteau’s death that may belie many of
Cousteau’s claims about his early career.
Violet likened Cousteau’s alleged
autobiographical misrepresentations to later
instances in which Cousteau used abusive
techniques to get dramatic film footage of wild
marine mammals––techniques which
Cousteau himself eventually acknowledged,
regreted in public statements, and denounced,
even as the films he made helped to create the
international movements to save whales, seals,
and other marine life.

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What seals, bears, coyotes, lynx, pumas, and foxes have in common

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

The House of Commons fisheries committee in early June yanked and rewrote at a secret meeting a scientific report on the interaction of seals and cod off Atlantic Canada to recommend that seals be totally extirpated from northeastern Newfoundland, the southern and northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, and elsewhere “as deemed necessary” to keep seals out of the depleted cod fishery. The rewrite reportedly reversed the findings and recommendations of the committee’s scientific advisors, and was presented to media as “unanimously approved,” while dissenter Peter Stoffer (New Democratic Party, British Columbia) was attending his father’s funeral. The 1999 Atlantic Canada seal hunt ended in June with a reported toll of 244,552 harp seals and 201 hooded seals killed: 89% of the harp seal quota, and just 2% of the hooded seal quota. “Because many seals are shot or clubbed and then escape to die beneath the ice, and because many dead animals are discarded and not properly counted, the actual kill of harp seals in 1999 was probably between 400,000 and 500,000,” projected International Fund for Animal Welfare spokesperson Rick Smith. Many sealers admitted dumping seal carcasses this year, as prices for them collapsed in a glutted market.

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No-Kill notes

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

Lynda Foro left Sun City, Arizona,
in June to become director of the Pet Savers
Foundation, the outreach arm of the North
Shore Animal League. Her duties will
include continuing all current DTFA projects––the
biggest of which is the annual N o
Kill Conference, co-sponsored by North
Shore/Pet Savers since 1995. (See ads, page 7
and back cover.) The North Shore grants program
remains under the direction of operations
manager Perry Fina, who had divided time
between North Shore and Pet Savers positions.

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Farewells

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

Rutgers University law professors
Gary Francione and Anna Charlton in May
closed the Animal Rights Law Clinic, which
they founded together in 1990. “Francione and
I will continue to teach a seminar on animal
rights,” Charlton said. The clinic reportedly
drew about 100 telephone inquiries a week,
but had difficulty attracting enough volunteer
law students and funding to keep up with the
potential caseload.
Cindy Adams, editor of the
American SPCA magazine Animal Watch
since 1990, announced her departure in the
summer 1999 edition and didn’t answer an
ANIMAL PEOPLE inquiry as to where she
was going, why. “Thanks, again, Henry
Spira,” Adams wrote in her final editorial,
“for reminding us that [farm animals] account
for roughly 97% of animal suffering but less
than 5% of animal welfare budgets.”

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Saving turtles

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

Indifference on the part of the
Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission
didn’t deter Marianne Allen, animal
abuse director for the Sunshine Ranches
Homeowners Association, after resident
Sharon Armellini reported spotting a turtle
trapper in action. Allen recently led a sweep of
community waterways that freed 25 turtles
from traps and found 10 others who had died in
traps. Trapping and exporting Florida softshell
turtles to Asia and Asian-style markets elsewhere
in the U.S. remains legal, despite a
recent global crash in turtle populations,
caused mainly by human consumption.

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