FEAR AND LOATHING IN TORONTO THE GOOD

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

TORONTO––A Divisional Court ruling by Justice
Edward Saunders is expected soon as to whether the Toronto
Humane Society must release to the public copies of the
pound contract it holds with the City of Toronto.
Claiming a need to protect the security of animals
and staff, THS has appealed a December 29, 1995 order
from Tom Mitchinson, assistant commissioner of the
Information and Privacy Commission of Ontario, to release
both the current contract, signed in 1995, and the contract
that preceded it, signed in 1985, with an automatic annual
renewal clause that will expire on July 31.
The Toronto City Council on March 5 authorized
the negotiation of another one-year renewal, over the objection
of Councillor Pamela McConnell, who held the THS
board seat reserved for the City Council from November 30,
1994 to February 7 of this year.

Breeding & biotech notes

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

The United Nations Food and Agricultural
Organization warns that about 30% of the world’s 3,882 known
breeds of domesticated animal species are in effect endangered
or threatened species, as factory farming with standardized
breeds takes over husbandry. The greatest loss of diversity
looms in Asia, where 68 domesticated mammals and 37 domesticated
birds are at imminent risk of extinction, while 865 mammals
and 131 birds are represented by fewer than 1,000 females
or fewer than 20 breeding males. “In Europe,” FAO geneticist
Keith Hammond says, “half of the breeds that existed at the turn
of the century have become extinct; 41% of the remaining 1,500
breeds are in danger of disappearing over the next 20 years. In
North America, over a third of the livestock and poultry breeds
are rare or in decline.”

Can cloned sheep, Select-A-Bull save the Empire?

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

LONDON––Uncertainty over the future of the British
cattle herd erupted just six days after the Holstein Friesian
Society of Great Britain and Ireland introduced Select-A-Bull,
billed as the most advanced system in the British Isles for managing
herd reproduction. About five million of the 11 million
cattle in Britain are Holstein Friesians. If the British herd is
slaughtered and rebuilt from breeding stock, the Select-A-Bull
genetic repository could be invaluable.
Meanwhile, many farmers are likely to postpone
decisions to breed.
The BSE scare stole the farm press spotlight from a
series of scientific breakthroughs in livestock breeding, beginning
last December when a Colorado State University research
team announced it had invented a way to preselect the sex of
calves. Likely to be commercially available in three to four
years, the method requires the use of only 200,000 sperm per
insemination, instead of the 20 million typically used now,
which in turn multiplies the reproductive capabilities of top
bulls. It also permits farmers to preselect for males, who gain
weight faster, if breeding for meat; daughters, if breeding to
replace milking cattle.
In February, a team in Kyodo, Japan, reported conceiving
hogs from frozen fertilized eggs, a potential quantum
leap in further standardizing hog breeding.
On March 6, embryologist Ian Wilmut of the Roslin
Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, reported that he and colleagues
had cloned five female Welsh mountain lambs, of
whom two survived––the first-ever success at cloning a mammal.
Wilmut said he started with 250 embryos, of which 34
were transplanted into Scotts mothers. However, he predicted,
“It may be up to 20 years before this could be used to produce
large numbers of identical animals.”

Wolves

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

More Yellowstone releases
Yellowstone––Following the release of 28
Canadian-captured grey wolves in Yellowstone National
Park and central Idaho last spring, 38 wolves are to be
released in the Yellowstone region this spring.
The second round of the high-profile reintroduction
of wolves––extirpated by the forerunner of the
Animal Damage Control program in 1922––began in
January with the apprehension of the wolves by British
Columbia bounty trappers. The B.C. wildlife branch has
contracted to supply up to 180 grey wolves to the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service over the next four years. The
wolves will be taken out of a region overlapping the area
where B.C. wildlife branch officers killed more than 700
wolves during the mid-1980s, to make more ungulates
available to trophy hunters. The present wolf population
of the region is estimated at 300.

Farm bills

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

A joint House/Senate committee
was working to reconcile differences in
their respective editions of the new Farm
Bill as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press.
Of perhaps most importance to animal protection,
the final version is likely to phase
out all dairy subsidies by 2000, which may
accelerate the demise of the small dairy
farm––and the reduction of the national
dairy herd, as genetically engineered
“supercows” take over from those of simple
selective breeding. This in turn would
reduce the number of calves available to the
veal industry, already declining for 50
years. Controversial parallel actions
include a Farm Bill rider introduced by
Senator Hank Brown (R-Colorado), which
would eliminate Forest Service authority
over stream flow below either public or private
lands, and S. 1459, the “Public
Rangelands Management Act” introduced
by Senator Pete Domenici (R-Utah), to
make grazing the primary purpose of leased
public lands. The latter was approved by
the Senate, 51-47, and is expected to clear
the House, but may be vetoed by President
Bill Clinton because it would end the longstanding
doctrine of multiple use.

Mad cow disease panic hits beef-eaters

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

LONDON––British health secretary
Stephen Dorrell touched off global panic on
March 20, telling the House of Commons that
an advisory scientific committee had advised
him that consumption of cattle afflicted with
bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) a
decade or more ago was “the most likely
explanation” of the origin of a seemingly new
variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Both
diseases cause the formation of sponge-like
holes in the brain.
Within days British government officials
seriously discussed the possible costs and
consequences of slaughtering the entire national
herd of 11 million cattle, in a gamble that
this would facilitate the recovery of the British
beef industry rather than its demise.
BSE, also known as “mad cow disease,”
has killed more than 160,000 cattle in
Britain since 1985––some directly, most in
government-ordered slaughters intended to
keep BSE from spreading. Over the same
time, British beef sales have fallen 12%; 40%
of Britons say they have cut down on meat
consumption; 11% say they don’t eat red
meat; and 4.3% are now vegans.

DIET & HEALTH

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

More veggies, less fat fights cancer
WASHINGTON D.C.–– A 20-member National Research Council panel reported
February 16 that about a third of the 1.35 million new cancer cases detected in the U.S. each
year are attributable to diet; that excess calories and fat are far more likely to contribute to
cancer than either natural or synthetic chemicals in food; and that the best way to avoid cancer
is to eat more fruits and vegetables, but less fat.
That’s a tall order for meateaters, as recent studies have found that fat is the part of
meat they most crave. The National Cancer Institute reported in January that U.S. children and
teenagers eat the right volume of vegetables, but that french fries account for a third of their
consumption, while intake of dark green and yellow vegetables with cancer-fighting properties,
such as spinach and carrots, tends to be low.
The NRC report was critical of the use of animal studies to predict human health risk
from chemical consumption, pointing out that test animals typically ingest far more of a suspect
substance in a short time than most humans would ever encounter.

Vegetarian lifestyle

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Maxwell Lee of the International Vegetarian Union reports that Britain has two vegetarian retirement homes, one at Hastings and the other at Rhos-on-Sea, with a third, giving preference to raw food eaters and vegans, being developed by a German millionaire. The Vegan Society, adds Lee, is collecting funds to start such a home. The growth of interest comes after two other vegetarian retirement homes failed from lack of support. “A problem encountered here,” Lee explains, “is that many people do not wish to move away from their community, and now vegetarianism is so common in the U.K. that many ordinary retirement homes will cater to special diets. Another aspect is that many people gave money to help develop vegetarian retirement homes and this seemed to reduce support for the vegetarian societies––and also probably led to less in legacies.”

Ralph Nader, seeking the Green Party presidential nomination in the March 25 California primary, is the second high-profile vegetarian presidential contender of the decade. Former California governor Jerry Brown, a sometime vegetarian, ran for the Democratic nomination in 1988 and 1992.

STANDARDS OF CARE

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

The European Commission on
January 24 proposed a veal crate ban with a
12-year phase-in. Starting from January 1,
1998, minimum space allowances would apply
to all new or renovated veal barns, sufficient
that each calf “should be able to groom itself
properly, turn around, stand up, lie down normally,
and lie with its legs stretched out,” as a
European Commission advisory committee
recommended last December. All veal operations
would have to be in compliance with the
EC standards by 2008. The EC member
nations currently raise about 5.8 million veal
calves per year. Per capita consumption has
fallen from about 2.8 kilograms per capita i n
1987, two years before the first of two previous
attempts to ban veal crating failed, to 2.3
kilograms per capita now––still twice the U.S.
per capita consumption.

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