Tortoise Trust boycotts Sweden

November 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

LONDON––The London-based
Tortoise Trust on October 27 called for a global
boycott of Swedish goods, seeking to force the
resignation of Swedish agriculture officials
Annika Ahnberg and Karin Cerenius over the
treatment of 1,000 Horsfield’s tortoises, who
were seized 10 days earlier from Syrian citizen
Amro Hassan at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm
because he had no import permit. The tortoises
were allegedly held for a week without heat,
food, or drinking water, then frozen to death
because they were said to be too sick to live.
“Neither the Swedish Herpetological
Society nor other reptile consultants in Sweden
were advised of the seizure or asked how to handle
the tortoises,” Tortoise Trust spokespersons
Andy Highfield and Jill Martin objected.

Animal health

November 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Illegal use of farm pesticides on farmland
south of the Salton Sea, 120 miles east of San Diego,
brought a major fish kill in late August. Botulism from
the rotting fish soon contaminated the shallow lake,
which was created by a 1905 engineering accident during
an attempted irrigation diversion from the Colorado
River, and as of October 24 had killed more than
13,000 migratory birds––including more than 1,000
endangered brown pelicans. At that, the bird losses
were less than 10% as great as the toll in 1992, when an
estimated 150,000 grebes were poisoned by a build-up
of selenium and salt. Formerly attracting 500,000 visitors
a year, the Salton Sea now draws just half as many.

BSE bought and sold

November 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

DUBLIN––While the British cattle industry
as a whole is in economic distress due to the loss of
markets caused by the BSE scare, Irish Times agricultural
correspondent Sean MacConnell reported on
October 14 that, “A gang of con men from Northern
Ireland is offering farmers in the Irish Republic a substance
which the men claim will induce BSE in cattle
for sums of over £5,000. Some farmers in financial
difficulty seek diseased animals to claim the very generous
BSE compensation paid by the state,”
McConnell explained.
A week later, McConnell published an official
denial by the Irish Department of Agriculture of a
report in another paper about a similar scheme, then
added, “The emphatic denial conceals a number of
concerns its staff have about levels of compensation
paid to farmers who produce diseased animals. Unlike
in the U.K., where only the infected animal is
destroyed, in the Republic all animals in a herd where
a case has been detected are destroyed. The farmer is
paid the market value of all the animals in the herd.”

FUR SHORTS

November 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Using every ploy to delay or halt the
European ban on trapped fur imports that may
finally take effect on January 1, two years after it
was supposed to, Canada in mid-October sent a
delegation of Federation of Saskatchewan Indian
Nations leaders who happen to be World War II
veterans to Brussels to lobby.
PETA on September 10 dropped a
libel suit against the Saga fur marketing firm,
filed in May after Saga sent fashion designers a
letter alleging that, “PETA uses intimidation
when necessary to get people to comply with their
agenda. They also pay spokespeople––including
some of the models you have heard say they won’t
wear fur.”

High style at Paul’s Furs

November 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––Quick as ever, former Beatle
Paul McCartney stung the fur trade on October 14 with a New
Yorker ad for “Paul’s Furs,” offering would-be customers a
“Free Fur Video.” Suggested the text, “Before you buy, let us
show you our lively collection of fox, mink, and raccoon.
You’ll be astounded and could save thousands.”
The video, produced by PETA, showed how fox,
mink, and raccoon are killed on fur farms and in traps.
The New Yorker ad upstaged the Los Angeles debut of
a new ad for Johnny Walker Red. “There is a large photo of a
glass of scotch on a draped piece of leopard ‘fur,’” reported
activist Igor Tomcej. “The copy reads, ‘Relax. The fur is fake.
But, the drink is real.’”
Release of the live-action remake of the 1959 animated
classic 101 Dalmatians could “put the nail in the coffin of fur,”
predicted Friends of Animals staffer Bill Dollinger. “I saw the
preview,” he continued. “Glenn Close dragging her fur as
Cruella DeVil is the epitome of evil.”
U.S. retail fur sales staggered with each release, rerelease,
and home video release of the original.

LETTERS [Nov 1996]

November 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Bacall
To clarify a few points
mentioned in your October article
“Sugarloaf fight goes on,” I made a
sighting on September 7 of the dolphin
Bacall; she was accompanied
very closely by an obviously young
calf. As luck would have it, I was
not in search mode, nor even on the
water that morning. Under these circumstances
I was very careful to
describe this sighting as a “most
probable” sighting in our release, as
well as making clear that only sightings
with verifiable photographs are
considered confirmed.
You quoted Naomi Rose
of the Humane Society of the U.S. as
stating that the main characteristic I
used to make my identification was a
left lean in Bacall’s dorsal fin. The
primary distinctive characteristic of
Bacall’s dorsal fin is actually a set of
ridges in the lower third of the trailing
edge. The flesh of these ridges
protrudes to her right. We used
these dorsal fin features to distinguish
Bogie from Bacall during their
readaptation period in our sea pen.

Letters

Editorial: Culture and cruelty

November 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

“Caged birds have been outlawed by Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers,”
Christopher Thomas reported in the October 8 edition of the London Times. “Pet canaries
flutter hungrily about Kabul, the capital, waiting to die in the fast-approaching winter.
Mynah birds bred in captivity sit bewildered and starving in the trees. Women have been
beaten on the street for simply being there, regardless of whether they are veiled, because
of a rule confining them to the home except when shopping.”
The Taliban shocked other leading Islamic fundamentalists as much as anyone.
As many hastened to argue, the stated intent of Mohammedan law circumscribing female
freedom of dress and movement was to protect women from male predation. Though obviously
reinforcing patriarchal customs now widely recognized as abusive in themselves,
Mohammed plainly did not intend his laws to increase violent abuse. Likewise, as some
scholars pointed out, Mohammed opposed keeping caged birds because he opposed the
cruel capture of wild birds; his decree was not meant to incite cruelty.
Indeed, the Kabul bird release coincided with World Wildlife Fund distribution of
Islamic journalist Abrar Ahmed’s expose of the capture for sale of more than a million live
birds a year in India, just so they can be released as a display of faith by Hindus, Jains,
Parsis, and Sindhis, as well as Moslems, whose teachings on the subject are parallel.

Sickness in Australia

November 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

SYDNEY, LONDON– – Intro-
ducing a pest to control a pest, against
much scientific and humane advice,
Australian agriculture and wildlife authorities
in mid-October released millions of calicivirus-carrying
Spanish rabbit fleas at 280
sites, expecting to kill up to 120 million of
the nation’s estimated 170 million rabbits.
The rabbits are accused of outcompeting
endangered native marsupial species
for habitat––though they also draw predation
by feral foxes and cats away from marsupials––and
of costing farmers $23 million
to $60 million a year, chiefly by eating fodder
that would otherwise go to sheep.
Calicivirus induces internal hemorrhage,
killing about 90% of the rabbits
who contract it within 30 to 40 hours. It
spreads at about 25 miles per day.

The victory no one claimed: REPEAL OF DELANEY ENDS AN ERA IN ANIMAL TESTING

November 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C. – – Respon-
sible for more animal testing than any other
government standard, the Delaney Clause fell
so softly that when President Bill Clinton on
August 3 signed the Food Quality Protection
Act that repealed it, national press coverage
gave it just one sentence, never mentioning
Delaney by name.
No animal protection group claimed
victory. No environmental or consumer protection
group bewailed defeat. ANIMAL
PEOPLE, aware that repeal of Delaney was
pending, found out it was a fait accompli only
by reviewing the legislative record of the
104th Congress after it adjourned.

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