Author: Dylan Forest

Vealers under scrutiny in Europe, too

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

BRUSSELS––Concerned about the
use of illegal growth hormones in livestock
generally, and increasingly aware, as well,
of animal welfare issues, the European
Union moved recently to address both issues.
EU Farm Commissioner Franz
Fischler on November 29 convened a threeday
conference to review the EU rules on the
use of illegal meat growth hormones. On the
one hand, there is strong sentiment for maintaining
stiff standards and cracking down on
a “hormone Mafia” whose activity last year
included the assassination on the job of
Belgian animal health inspector Karrel Van
Knoppen.

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LETTERS [Jan/Feb 1996]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Who gets the money?
At last! The issue I’ve been waiting for! Too bad I didn’t
have this at my fingertips when I was sending all my waitressing tips
from two long shifts at a restaurant in Seattle and another in Bellevue
to fat steak-eating businessmen who ran animal protection groups to
get fatter on, while I starved. Then in the later years I was one who
fell for those direct mail appeals––until I saw some of the big groups
actually claiming victory and responsibility for a march, demo,
event, etcetera, which I had organized with local grassroots animal
rights activists or some small hardworking group like the Animal
Crusaders, run by three literal little old ladies and a handful of radical
students I’d recruited by my own tabling and conversations.
The ultimate slap in the face came when I put on a fundraiser
for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society at Pier 10 circa 1981.
The major humane society in the area decided they could not help in
any way due to their own local projects and priorities. They wouldn’t
even commit to sending a couple of volunteers down to shuttle crew
members to a local laundromat or to do some laundry for the small
Sea Shepherd staff. When I asked for volunteers at the fundraiser or
an endorsement, I was told by the whole board that the Sea
Shepherds would be gone in a few weeks, so they had to look out for
what was here, and would remain here––their group, their projects.

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Editorial: The King, the Duke, and who gets the money

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

North Shore Animal League president John Stevenson spends more money on animal
sheltering, neutering, and adoption promotion than anyone else ever. He spends more,
too, to help other animal shelters, through North Shore’s Pet Savers Foundation subsidiary.
To support $33 million a year in animal rescue work, Stevenson further spends $10 million on
fundraising––more than any other hands-on animal care organization.
Stevenson strongly favors donor accountability and strict public oversight of
fundraising, to ensure that charities do the work they claim to be doing. The North Shore and
Pet Savers IRS Form 990 filings are among the most detailed of the many we monitor. But,
as a nationally respected expert on nonprofit law long before assuming his present post, who
spends much commuting time contemplating how to make charities in general more honest,
Stevenson admits to being perplexed by donor attitudes. The most important number in the
annual ANIMAL PEOPLE charts on animal protection spending, he believes, should be not
the percentage of receipts an organization spends to raise more money, but rather the amount
of money actually spent to fulfill charitable purposes.

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The Wright stuff

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

REND LAKE, Illinois– – Chicago
Animal Rights Coalition president Steve
Hindi, a licensed pilot, on December 16 startled
the Illinois Department of Natural
Resources, hunters culling deer at the Renn
Lake Wildlife Refuge, and fellow protesters
by soaring up in a paraglider to videotape the
action from above––as deer fled from the
sound of the aircraft, away from the hunters.
“This is going to change everything,”
Hindi told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “Air
power revolutionized warfare, and it’s going
to revolutionize protest. No longer can the
DNR and the hunters hide anything from us.”

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Federal grand jury indicts top veal feeder REND LAKE, Illinois– – C h i c a g o Animal Rights Coalition president Steve Hindi, a licensed pilot, on December 16 startled the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, hunters culling deer at the Renn Lake Wildlife Refuge, and fellow protesters by soaring up in a paraglider to videotape the action from above––as deer fled from the sound of the aircraft, away from the hunters. “This is going to change everything,” Hindi told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “Air power revolutionized warfare, and it’s going to revolutionize protest. No longer can the DNR and the hunters hide anything from us.” Hindi’s flight was brief, due to technical problems with the brand-new equipment. By the time repairs were made, the wind had become too strong to attempt further flights. However, Hindi said, CHARC expects to have two paragliders in the air over future major events, each able to stay aloft for two hours at a time. The only significant problem, he reported, is that he’s put so much time into developing the CHARC remote video and airborne capabilities that fundraising has lagged. National activist groups make extensive use of the CHARC videos, but none have funded the equipment acquisitions. [Support for CHARC may be addressed to POB 66, Yorkville, IL 60560.] Ironically, the Rend Lake protest was backed by deer hunters who believed the cull was unethical. “I couldn’t believe how well we were treated by most of the local hunters,” Hindi said. Local hunters and activists joined on the night of December 14- 15 to drive hundreds of deer out of the Rend Lake refuge before the cull hunters were allowed in. Noise grenades set off by alarm clocks kept the deer from returning to the refuge during the three-day hunt. In consequence, Hindi said, the cull hunters killed only eight or nine deer total, compared with an expected bag of 12-plus deer per day. “It was a complete defeat for the DNR,” Hindi said. Steve Hindi and Dan Green: the Flying CHARC Squadron: ILLEGAL DRUG MAY HAVE TAINTED MEAT

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

MILWAUKEE––In the first of an expected series of indictments striking at the
brain trust and bankroll of the crate-raised veal and milk-fed spring lamb industries, a federal
grand jury empaneled in Milwaukee on December 6 charged the Vitek Supply Corporation,
Vitek president Jannes Doppenberg, and Vitek office manager Sherry Steffen with 12 counts
of conspiracy, smuggling unapproved drugs into the U.S., and illegally adding the drugs to
feed mixtures told to veal and lamb producers throughout the country.
A prepared statement from U.S. Attorney Thomas P. Schneider said, “It is alleged
in the indictment that the unapproved drugs were shipped to feed companies and growers in
Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Over 1.7 million
pounds of Vitek product containing unapproved drugs, valued at over $1.3 million dollars,
were sold by Vitek between 1988 and April 1994.”

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Out of cod, Canada tells fishers “kill seals”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland––Blaming harp seals for a
99% decline in the mass of spawning cod off the Atlantic coast of
Newfoundland, Canadian Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin on
December 18 moved to appease out-of-work cod fishers in his
home province by expanding the 1996 seal killing quota to
250,000––actually higher than many annual quotas during the peak
years of the seal hunt in the 1970s and early 1980s.
In effect resuming the all-out seal massacres that prompted
international protest until clubbing newborn whitecoats and
hunting seals from large vessels was suspended in 1983, Tobin
also pledged to maintain a bounty of about 15¢ U.S. per pound for
each dead seal landed, and said he would encourage the revived
use of large vessels to help sealers attack seal breeding colonies on
offshore ice floes.

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OBITUARIES

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:

Jo Stallard, 74, remembered by
the San Jose Mercury-News as “one of the
most determined environmentalists, conservationists,
and animal rights activists ever to
grace the Monterey Peninsula,” died
November 10 of cancer in a Monterey hospice.
Stallard “rarely let anything distract her from
her commitment to animals,” the Mercury-
News continued, “which she said deserved
first consideration because they preceded
humans on the planet. She always had an
SPCA-special dog or cat in her home, often a
canary, too,” and a tortoise, E.T., with a
warning sign in her window: “Patrolled by
attack-tortoise.” An officer of the Monterey
County SPCA, Stallard also co-founded the
Animal Rights Council and at various times
led the Monterey Peninsula Chapter of the
National Audubon Society, the Big Sur

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BOOKS FOR GIVING

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:

Really Radical Reptiles & Amphibians and
Mind-Blowing Mammals, both by Leslee
Elliott. Sterling Publishing Co. (387 Park Avenue
South, New York, NY 10016-8810), 1995. 64 pages
each, $9.95 paperback.
If it’s from Sterling, you can bet it’s fact-filled and
copiously illustrated. Really Radical Reptiles and M i n d –
Blowing Mammals, the lead titles in Sterling’s new Amazing
Animals series, are print peers of the acclaimed National
Geographic Really Wild Animals videos, sure to fascinate
adolescents because they’re as entertaining as they are authoritative.
My only complaint about the Amazing Animals series
concerns the titles––especially the conclusions that the folks
who censor school libraries may jump to upon seeing them
spelled out on catalog cards. The word “radical,” lately
associated with Mutant Ninja Turtles, has not otherwise been
linked with reptilians since the eastern timber rattler ornamented
the “Don’t Tread On Me!” flag during the American
Revolution. Even worse, the phrase Mind-Blowing Mammals
implies the silverback gorilla on the cover could be in a crack
rage, while the title page lemur’s eyes may be dialated from
smoking marijuana. What’s next, Frenzied Fish? Sexy
Insects? Or Rock-and-Rolling Robins & Other Weird Birds?

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