ESA update

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

WASHINGTON D.C. ––Senators

Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), with co-sponsors

Bennett Johnston (D-La.), and Richard Shelby

(R-Ala.), on May 9 introduced the first of three

expected Republican drafts of a revised

Endangered Species Act. Largely authored by

timber industry lobbyists, the Gorton bill would

end the federal obligation to try to save all

endangered species. Instead the Secretary of the

Interior would be allowed to rule that a species

should go extinct. The bill would also lump

together captive and wild animals in counting

populations, meaning for instance that hatchery-

bred salmon, with little ability to survive in the

ocean, would count toward meeting the conser-

vation goals of endangered runs. In addition, the

bill would virtually preclude the designation of

protected critical habitat, and require taxpayers

to cover costs of routine corporate compliance.

LAB SHORTS

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Using pigs to grow spare parts

for humans came closer to reality with

the late April announcements that a team

at the Lahey Hitchcock Clinic in

Burlington, Massachusetts, had trans-

planted pig tissue into the brain of a 59-

year-old man in hopes of reversing

Parkinson’s disease, while a team at Duke

University created genetically engineered

pigs whose bodies include two human pro-

teins that prevent hyperacute tissue rejec-

tion. “In societies where animals are

killed in the tens of millions for food,”

wrote Dr. John Favre of the London

University Institute of Child Health, in a

Nature Medicine editorial accompanying

publication of the Duke data, “it would be

difficult to argue on ethical grounds for a

proscription on the killing of a tiny num-

ber of pigs to save the lives and restore the

health of sick and dying patients.”

PETA, Romero court updates

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

The Nevada Supreme Court has

withdrawn their January 27, 1994 reversal

of the $4.2 million libel verdict won by

orangutan trainer Bobby Berosini in August

1990 against PETA, PETA director of inves-

tigations Jeanne Rouch, the Performing

Animal Welfare Society, PAWS executive

director Pat Derby, and dancer Ottavio

Gesmundo. An FBI probe of alleged conflicts

of interest in other Nevada cases found that

8th Judicial District Judge Jack Lehman is an

advisor to the Animal Foundation of Nevada,

a Las Vegas low-cost neutering organization.

Lehman was appointed by Governor Bob

Miller to serve on the three-judge panel that

heard the PETA appeal of the Berosini ver-

dict, after Chief Justice Robert Rose with-

drew and two other justices were occupied

GROWLS

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Wilderness Society president Jon

Roush, who makes $125,000 a year, in

February and March sold $140,000 worth

of old growth timber from an 80-acre tract on

his 763-acre Montana ranch, bordering the

Bitteroot National Forest. “The area he cut,”

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair

reported in The Nation of April 24, “is less

than two miles from a national wilderness area

and well within the boundaries of the

Salmon/Selway Ecosystem ––the largest com-

plex of wild land in the Lower 48 and home to

elk, black bears, mountain lions, and grey

wolves.” Roush in 1983 successfully sued the

U.S. Forest Service, contending that logging

and roadbuilding would irrevocably harm the

watershed. The roads built then were used to

remove the logs from his own land.

People

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Esther Mechler, founder of the

low-cost neutering referral service Spay/USA

and the Focus on Animals video library, has

won the first annual Geraldine R. Dodge

Humane Ethics in Action Award, a prize of

$10,000 to be used as the winner sees fit.

Begun in 1990, Spay/USA made circa 1,500

referrals a year through 1993; taken over by

the North Shore Animal League in mid-1993

and now run as part of the NSAL-affiliated

Pet Savers Foundation, it made 8,640 refer-

rals, resulting in 14,002 neutering opera-

tions, during the first three months of 1995.

Dennis White, former head of the

American Humane Association animal pro-

tection division, has left, after 19 years, for

undisclosed personal reasons.

Hunting

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Johnie Young, treasurer of a group trying to repeal the

ban on bear and cougar hunting with dogs approved by Oregon

voters last November, pleaded no contest in November 1990, along

with his wife Diana, to poaching bears and trafficking in bear paws

and gall bladders. State police records indicate Young killed 32 black

bears, including cubs, between April 1987 and June 1989––along

with three cougars and a bobcat. A police undercover video showed

Young leading several hunting parties who used dogs to tree bears,

shot the bears out of the trees, and allowed the dogs to maul the bears

after they fell.

Fund tries to save bison, mountain goats

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

As ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, the Fund

for Animals was scrambling to prevent the shooting of

from 80 to 150 bison who had wandered from Yellowstone

National Park into the Gallatin National Forest, north of

West Yellowstone, Montana. Montana state veterinarian

Clarence Siroky said state wardens would try to chase the

bison back into Yellowstone with helicopters, but would

shoot them to prevent the spread of brucellosis, a disease

causing stillbirths in cattle, if that tactic failed. Although

there is no evidence that bison can transmit brucellosis to

other species of cattle under natural conditions, and only a

small portion of the Yellowstone herd is believed to be

infected, Montana officials shot 420 bison who left the

park during the winter.

Agriculture

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Twelve activists were arrested and

two hurt at Brightlingsea, England, on

April 18, as they failed to halt the export of

1,200 sheep to Belgium, following an April 12

ruling by the High Court that local authorities

had no right to ban live animal exports. The

ruling undid export bans won through a winter

of protest at all major British cattle ports.

Australia’s effort to resume sheep

sales to Saudi Arabia after a four-year hiatus

hit a snag on May 8 when Saudi inspectors

diverted the first cargo of 75,000 sheep to

Jordan because they didn’t think the sheep

were healthy enough to be unloaded at Jeddah.

A second ship carrying 30,000 sheep changed

destinations voluntarily. Australia sold up to

3.5 million sheep a year to Saudi Arabia before

1991, when the frequent arrival of diseased

sheep caused the Saudis to cut off the trade.

WARRANTS TIE PROVIMI VEAL, LAMB TO ILLEGAL DRUGS

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

MILWAUKEE––Newly unsealed

search warrants executed in September 1994

by U.S. Customs Service special agent Steve

Sutherland allege the closest links yet

between the Provimi Veal Corporation, of

Waukesha, Wisconsin, the largest distribu-

tor of milk-fed veal and lamb in the U.S.,

and the illegal use of clenbuterol, a banned

steroid. The drug speeds the growth of calves

and lambs––but humans who eat clenbuterol-

tainted meat may suffer an accelerated heart

rate, muscle tremors, headaches, dizziness,

nausea, fever, and chills.

According to the warrants, copies

of which were obtained by Humane Farming

Association investigator Gail Eisenitz, the

clenbuterol traffic directly involved Aat

Groenvelt, who founded Provimi in 1962,

introduced the use of the veal crate to North

America, and was also instrumental in pro-

moting the popularity of “milk-fed spring

lamb,” essentially the meat of lambs raised

like veal calves.

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