Monkey wars

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

The German airline Lufthansa, the world’s leading

international wildlife hauler, announced May 11 that it will no

longer book cargoes of monkeys and apes destined for labora-

tory use, and will entirely cease transporting nonhuman primates

for laboratory suppliers as soon as it is authorized to do so by the

German transport ministry––probably by mid-June. The decision

was attributed to humane concerns, and comes after years of

protest over alleged high death rates among monkeys flown to

Europe and the U.S. from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Africa.

The British Union Against Vivisection charged in 1992 that the

transport mortality rate for monkeys from Indonesia averaged 19%,

while mortality among monkeys from the Philippines averaged 6%.

Monkey shipments from Africa dwindled after 1989 due to concern

over the accidental importation of the Ebola virus to a laboratory in

Reston, Virginia. While the Lufthansa announcement made no

mention of Ebola virus, it did coincide with rising global concern

over the current Ebola outbreak in Zaire. It also came six weeks

after two monkeys en route to the U.S. from Sudan were found to

have both AIDS and tuberculosis upon arrival in New York, and

were flown back to Cairo, Egypt, before being euthanized.

Bird strike testing

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

CINCINNATI––General Electric Aircraft Engines pub-

licist Jim Stump recently contacted ANIMAL PEOPLE to set the

record straight about the methodology of bird-strike testing, the

subject of letter campaigns by various groups based on somewhat

garbled accounts in a variety of newspapers and trade publications.

The first misconception of the letter-writers, Stump

pointed out, is that GE is at liberty to halt the testing. “Bird-strike

testing is conducted, with other often rigorous testing, during the

development of a new engine,” he explained, “in accordance with

requirements established by agencies such as the U.S. Federal

Aviation Administration and the International Civil Aviation

Organization. Flight safety is a primary objective, but some of the

testing relates to such matters as reducing noise and emissions.”

While the regulatory agencies still require some bird-

strike testing, GE favors the principles of reduction, refinement,

and replacement, Stump indicated. “GE Aircraft Engines pays

$15,000 annually to support and participate, with other manufac-

turers and agencies associated with the aviation industry, in the

International Bird Strike Research Group,” he wrote, “which is

trying to develop artificial birds that will be universally acceptable

for use in engine testing. Under the auspices of the Group, the

actual research on critical areas such as body density is being con-

ducted by the Central Science Laboratory, an executive agency of

Great Britain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food.”

Ebola virus hits Zaire

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

KINSHASA, Zaire––An outbreak of an Ebola-type

virus generated global panic after becoming known to media in

mid-May, two months after it started. The disease is believed to

have spread to humans from green vervet monkeys, as in previ-

ous outbreaks, but where, when, and how is unknown.

As of midnight on May 15, there were 76 confirmed

cases with 64 dead, said Kinshasa University professor Jean-

Jacques Muyembe, the leading Zairean authority on the disease.

Most of the deaths came in Kikwit, a town of 500,000, about 300

miles from Kinshasa, the national capital. Three other towns

were affected, including Kenge, less than 125 miles from

Kinshasa, which has five million people but limited medical and

sanitation facilities. Kinshasa governor Bernadin Mungul Diaka,

desperately rotated troops in an attempt to thwart bribery that

undercut his attempt to impose a prophylactic quarantine.

There seemed little chance that people fleeing the out-

break would run the opposite way, as that would put them into

head-on collision with more than a million refugees from the

ongoing ethnic fighting in Rwanda and Burundi.

Animal racing

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Alaska governor Tony Knowles on

May 2 signed a bill to allow the 1,049-mile

Iditarod Trail dog sled race to raise an estimated

$1 million a year via “mushing sweepstakes,”

i.e. betting on aspects of the race that purportedly

can’t be fixed, such as the number of dogs who fin-

ish or the best and worst times. The sweepstakes

are to replace sponsorship lost due to protest––

meaning that the net effect of activism led by the

Humane Society of the U.S. since circa 1988 has

been to bring the Iditarod unprecedented economic

independence. Some types of gambling on dog sled

races were already legal, and are used to support

other races that don’t attract big sponsorship.

The Cult of Animal Celebrity by Captain Paul Watson

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Within the animal protection movement, there are

two types of animals: those with individual names and those

without. The movement is accordingly split between advo-

cates for animals with names, and advocates for all the rest.

Free Keiko, free Lolita, free Corky, free Hondo.

These are wonderful and appealing ideals––but not all captive

cetaceans can or should be freed. Not all facilities holding

marine animals are the enemy. And the huge sums raised to

free a few individuals could be more positively directed

toward ending the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of

nameless whales, dolphins, and seals on the world’s oceans.

The amount of money raised for the cause of freeing

marine mammals with names may exceed $45 million a year,

from the thousands raised to aid local seals and dolphins in

distress to the $14 million estimated cost of someday, maybe,

freeing Keiko, the orca star of the film Free Willy!

LETTERS [June 1995]

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Banana republic

The Agudo-Romero case is a good example of how

environmentalists and their claims, however well substantiat-

ed, are treated in many Latin American countries, including

my own––Brasil––to a great extent. However, as I understand,

the situation in Venezuela is even worse because of the wide-

spread disregard for civil rights.

The banana republic-like attitude of the Venezuelan

ruling bureaucracy, denying facts and launching a witch hunt

against these two persons, cannot be tolerated. It has expand-

ed the issue of dolphin-killing into a matter of human rights,

including the right of researchers to challenge government rul-

ings. It may not affect many of you in the U.S. and Europe,

but it certainly is a matter of daily concern for me and my col-

leagues in Latin America. Let’s not forget Romero and Agudo!

––Jose Truda Palazzo Jr.

Brazil

Letters

Editorial: Low-status primates & chicken-manure

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

In hindsight, the Oklahoma City bombing seems predictable, as a reversion of

low-status males to a form of basic animal behavior observed to varying degree among most

primates, as well as some canine, feline, avian, and fish societies:

Excluded from mating opportunities and other currency of the animal world, the

low-status males form a parallel troop of their own at the fringe of the tribe. Within that all-

male troop, obsessed by status, the low-ranking males establish and defend a superficially

rigid but fragile hierarchy of their own. Eventually, emboldened by numbers, they risk

raids on the main tribe, killing the offspring of low-status females who are not well-defend-

ed by the males of dominant and secondary rank. The vulnerability of the young is indeed

often how the low-status males determine which females may be accessible to them,

through a mating strategy amounting to psychologically coerced rape, if not overt rape.

The equation of often only momentary vulnerability with lower status is indicative

of the low-status males’ frequent inability to read more subtle social cues, which in turn

often explains why they are low-status males to begin with. Certainly there is no reason to

believe the victims in Oklahoma City were of lower status in our society in any respect

except in the eyes of their attackers, to whom their vulnerability to a truckload of refined

chicken manure signified expendability in the pursuit of power. Note that Henry Kissinger,

another enthusiastic bomber at the zenith of his own influence, once defined power as the

ultimate aphrodisiac. The only other indication of lesser status one could assign to the

Oklahoma City victims, with a certain sensitive reluctance, would be the need of many for

government-sponsored workplace daycare, since upper-rank families in our society enjoy

the luxury of being able to provide their children with in-home care. It is worth pointing out

in this regard that the daycare provided in the blast-shattered Alfred P. Murrah building was

considered to be of an elite quality, as workplace daycare goes.

NGOs ask IWC to boost whale-watching, not whaling

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

DUBLIN, Ireland––There’s scant

chance the International Whaling

Commission will revise its 47-year-old char-

ter at the annual meeting commencing May

29, to formally promote regulated whale-

watching rather than regulating whaling, but

Cetacean Society International president

emeritus Robbins Barstow thought he might

as well ask.

With the Southern Oceans Whale

Sanctuary approved a year ago and little like-

lihood the technical obstacles to approving

quotas for renewed commercial whaling will

be cleared away, non-governmental organiza-

tions are in a position to seek further goals.

Japan and Norway, the only IWC member

nations with an expressed yen to go whaling,

have a choice of either playing by IWC rules

or pulling out and risking repercussions––

probably more with consumers than with gov-

ernments, but at a time when trade relations

for both are a bit shakier than a year ago. The

strength of the Japanese currency and the

Norwegian rejection of membership in the

European Community both work against their

ability to export, and both nations are

embroiled in international conflicts over fish-

ing rights, as well, worth far more to their

economies than whaling.

CAN FEDS MAKE A CASE? Bombing compounds enforcement crisis

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Bracing for attack from budget-slashers and deregulators

in Congress, federal animal protection law enforcement took a deadly hit of a different kind

on April 19. Seven of the 167 people killed by the truck bomb that devasted the Alfred P.

Murrah building in Oklahoma City were USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

staffers, including Richard Cummins, 56, senior investigator assigned to the Midwest Stolen

Dog Task Force and a 30-year veteran of the department, who left behind a wife, two daugh-

ters, and a son. Three more APHIS staffers were seriously hurt. Two escaped with only

minor injuries, after being marooned on the seventh floor of the shaky ruins for most of the

day. Three staffers were out of the office when the bomb went off.

Having only 75 inspectors to cover more than 8,000 federally licensed facilities,

APHIS in a split second lost 10% of its staff––and also suffered extensive loss of case files.

As ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, 26 days after the blast, APHIS officials in

Washington D.C. were still trying to piece together and reasign the Oklahoma City work-

load––and were still putting together strategy, as well, for the upcoming battle over the 1995

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