Watson awaits verdict on Norwegian extradition attempt

June 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

AMSTERDAM––Judge Van der Pijl of the
Haarlem District Court in the Netherlands on May 26 rejected
Norway’s April 18 request to extradite Captain Paul
Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society,
to face charges of alleged “reckless navigation” and “illegal
entry into Norwegian waters” during a July 1994 clash with
the Norwegian patrol ship Andennes during which the
Andennes rammed Watson’s vessel, the Whales Forever.
Watson remained at the Lelystad prison pending a
ruling on a further charge of allegedly sending a false distress
signal. A ruling is due by June 10.
“Even if he’s found guilty of that charge,” Sea
Shepherd international director of operations Lisa Distefano
said, “the public will be reminded that Norwegian commandos
dropped four depth charges, fired on our boat with cannon,
and sheared the bow off our ship by ramming us.”

Friends of Animals, Predator Defense Institute sue feds over coyote killing, refuge grazing

June 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

TACOMA, Washington––Accusing the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service of mismanaging the endangered Columbia whitetailed
deer to the verge of extinction at the southern Washington
refuge created for the species 34 years ago, Friends of Animals and
the Predator Defense Institute on May 27 sued Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt, the Interior Department, and Julia Butler Hansen
National Wildlife Refuge manager James Hidy in the U.S. District
Court for the Ninth Circuit.
Friends of Animals, of Darien, Connecticut, has more
than 100,000 members nationwide, and partners with the Interior
Department in projects including wolf reintroduction and protection
of African elephants from poaching. The Oregon-based Predator
Defense Institute, involved in wildlife policy review, is best
known for exposing allegedly misrepresented Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife reports of puma activity.

COURT CALENDAR

June 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

The late April trials of U.S. activists Steve
Hindi and Ben White for alleged assault and resisting
arrest at a September 1, 1996 protest outside Marineland
of Niagara, Ontario, ended with split verdicts. All
charges against Hindi were dropped; White was fined $500.
Hindi, founder of the Chicago Animal Rights Coalition,
hoped to present video evidence to a jury a month later in
Wauconda, Illinois, on behalf of CHARC member Greg
Campbell, that police captain Frank Winans faked an
alleged assault against him by Campbell during a protest
against last year’s Wauconda Rodeo. The same video,
made by a freelance news team, earlier cleared CHARC
member Chris Grushas of allegedly obstructing justice.
However, the judge strictly limited the video the court
could see, and Campbell was convicted of two misdemeanors.
Hindi said an appeal is likely. Mike Durschmidt,
not a CHARC member but a frequent participant in CHARC
protests, is meanwhile contesting his arrest for disrupting a
children’s sheep-riding event at the same rodeo on grounds
of necessity. Vermont neutering specialist Peggy Larsen,
D V M, also an attorney and former rodeo performer, is
scheduled to testify at a June 23 trial that the cruelty to the
sheep outweighed the charges.

River dolphin capture plans

June 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

DALLAS––Rumors flying since November
1996 that major aquariums are conspiring to capture
Amazon river dolphins, boto for short, were partially
confirmed by the mid-April disclosure that the Dallas
World Aquarium, not associated with the Dallas Zoo
and Aquarium and not accredited by the Alliance of
Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums, has applied to
the National Marine Fisheries Service to import four
boto for display.
Representatives of at least 13 groups from the
U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Columbia, and Finland
had protested to NMFS and the aquarium itself by April
21––but as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press on May
28, the application had yet to be formally accepted for
publication, after which it will go through a 30-day
public comment period before NMFS announces
approval or rejection. NMFS spokesperson Catherine
Anderson said the application was “under review” to see
if it was complete, and that it would be released for
comment “possibly within the next few weeks.”

World Week demonstrations go ape

June 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

Rowdy World Week for Laboratory Animals protests made headlines
in four nations––but only the April 25 sledgehammering of a steel
baboon cage at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa seemed
to draw broad public sympathy. Isaac Mavundla, 16, struck the first blow
after spending 17 days inside the cage to publicize cruel experiments.
The London Daily Telegraph and London Times headlines on April
21 read, respectively, “Pro-animal activists smash family home” and
“Mother and two children cower as house is stormed,” after brick-and-bottlehurling
hooded demonstrators the previous day broke just about everything
that could be broken and extensively vandalized the family car at the residence
of Consort Kennels manager Adam Little, 30, his wife Alison, 28,
four-year-old son Lawrence, and seven-month-old daughter Amber. Consort
Kennels breeds beagles for laboratory use. Adam Little was at the kennels at
the time, beseiged by about 250 demonstrators who managed to take one
puppy, later recovered, before police cleared the scene with tear gas. One
officer was knocked unconscious, several others were injured, and 24
demonstrators were arrested.

SEALS AND SEA LIONS

June 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

Stellar sea lions in the Bering Sea and Gulf
of Alaska, officially threatened since 1990, drew U.S.
Endangered Species Act protection on May 1, after
declining by 85% in some waters over the past 30 years,
including an 18% decline since 1994. Gulf of Alaska
Stellar sea lion pup counts fell 40% between 1991 and
1994. The Stellar sea lions of southern Alaska,
Oregon, and northern California were not included in
the uplisting, as their numbers are slightly up.
Thirty-six members of the last surviving
Mediterranean monk seal colony washed up along the
coasts of Western Sahara and Mauritania between May
19 and May 24, apparent victims of toxic red tides.
The Mediterranean monk seal population may be as low
as 220 individuals in the Cap Blanc Peninsula colony,
plus scattered others living outside a colony structure.

Kaimanawa horse shooting commences

June 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

WELLINGTON, N.Z.––A five-year struggle to save the wild
horses of Kaimanawa, New Zealand, apparently ended in gunfire on May
25, equine behaviorist Sharon Cregier told ANIMAL PEOPLE. Cregier,
of Prince Edward Island, Canada, relayed a faxed report from former New
Zealand Horse & Pony editor Peg Harvey that, “Reporters and photographers
are being kept from the slaughter area. Horses are being driven into
trucks bound for slaughter. Others are being shot and the carcasses left to
rot. Twelve hundred horses are expected to be shot. The roundup, slaughter
transport, and killings are under the auspices of the Department of
Conservation. The New Zealand Wild Horse Protection Association and
International League for the Protection of Horses have protested the killings,
some protesters chaining themselves to the trucks and being sent to jail.”
The Kaimanawa herd, descended from military horses released
during the 1860s and deliberately supplemented with Exmoor ponies and
Welsh stallions in 1877, is to be reduced to 500 of the healthiest horses,
who will be confined to an area less than half the size of their present range.
Only 200 of the horses survived as of 1981, when they were protected by
cabinet order.

Sealing doesn’t pacify Canadian fishers

June 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland––The final
toll isn’t in yet from the 1997 Atlantic Canada seal
hunt, believed to be near the quota of 275,000, but the
only evident protest as it ended came from unemployed
fishers, whose militancy escalated with a May 12 occupation
of Canadian fisheries minister Fred Mifflin’s
office, seeking longer payments for loss of fishing privileges,
suspended since 1993 due to depleted stocks.
Moving to quell unrest on the eve of a federal
election, Mifflin on May 18 opened an experimental
commercial cod season in Placentia Bay and the northern
Gulf of St. Lawrence, against the advice of fisheries
biologists. The move was unlikely to win him as
much favor as his predecessor Brian Tobin curried by
reopening the seal hunt in 1995, just before resigning
to successfully run for premier of Newfoundland: more
than 5,000 fishers exhausted the 16,000-metric-ton limit
within four days.

OUT OF TREES

June 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

Zimbabwe, in addition to claiming
an overpopulation of elephants and the
fastest-growing timber industry in Africa,
also argues that it also has too many
baboons. “The industry is currently losing
millions due to the big baboon population,”
Forestry Commission general manager
Edward Mutsvairo recently told Agence
France Presse. “We are currently looking at
ways to keep them from destroying the trees.
Maybe we will settle for the use of birth control
injections.”

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