Religion

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

The Miami county courthouse
maintenance staff has created a “Voodoo
Squad” to pick up the dead chickens, goats,
and other relics of Santeria sacrifice found
there each morning, remnants of Caribbean
immigrants’ attempts to influence justice.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 1993
that municipalities may not ban Santeria, but
they may enforce nondiscriminatory restric-
tions on it for reasons of health, sanitation,
and prevention of cruelty to animals.
The Rabbi Mayer Krucfeld,
assistant director of supervision for Star K
Kosher Certification, of Baltimore, recently
spent two days in La Jara, Colorado,
explaining how to start a kosher slaughter-
house to about 50 potential investors.
Currently the westernmost kosher slaughter-
house in the U.S. is Empire Meats, of Iowa.

Animal Collecting

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Camille Hankins, 41, of Chester, South Carolina, was
fined $200 on March 22 for ill-treatment of animals at her Animal Save
no-kill shelter, closed last June through the intervention of PETA and
K. Jones, editor of the Charlotte-based animal newspaper T h e
Animality. Eighty animals were taken from Hankins’ trailer home and
yard, of whom about a dozen were euthanized due to illness. Hankins,
a former PETA volunteer, told ANIMAL PEOPLE she was framed
because of PETA’s opposition to no-kill shelters, after she made the
mistake of asking PETA to help her with adoptions. Responded Jones,
“I testified to the conditions I saw several months before the arrest. I
also testified that I tried to get Hankins to give me some of the animals
so that I could get them to a vet, care for them, and adopt them out. I at
one time offered to take them all. She invited PETA down a few weeks
later. I think the town of Chester gave her a fair and just trial, and had
no problem proving her guilt.”

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Birds

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

“The only good great horned owl is a dead
one,” says Minnesota state senator Charles Berg, who has
introduced a bill to allow free range turkey farmers to catch
the owls with padded leghold traps––which can easily
crush an owl’s foot––as well as a bill to allow mourning
dove hunting. Letters asking that either bill be vetoed if
passed may be sent to Governor Arne Carlson, 130
Capitol, St. Paul, MN 55155.
“Small nature preserves, which work fine for
preserving plants, don’t work for migratory birds,”
Illinois Natural History Survey scientist Scott Robinson
says, after an extensive study of the relationship between
vanishing songbirds and cowbirds, who lay their faster-
hatching eggs ino other birds’ nests. While cowbirds are a
short-term cause of species decline, the longterm cause is
shrinking habitat, as deep forests where the songbirds are
safe give way to the edge habitat that cowbirds prefer.

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ESA ROUNDUP

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Senator Slade Gorton (R-Washington)
on April 12 promised a gathering of timber indus-
try executives in Stevenson, Washington, that he
would soon introduce a bill to replace the present
Endangered Species Act mandate to save all
species with a process by which by a political
appointee––probably the Secretary of the
Interior––would decide whether and how a species
should be saved. The bill was drafted by the
National Endangered Species Reform Coalition,
representing 185 corporations and so-called wise-
use groups, who gave Gorton’s re-election cam-
paign $34,000 last fall.

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WILDLIFE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Wolves
Mandated by the state legislature to implement
predator control before cutting either the length of the moose and
caribou season or the bag limits, the Alaska Board of Game during
the week of March 27 ordered the Alaska Department of Fish and
Game to prepare wolf control plans for much of the inhabited part
of the state by October. It also extended the bear season in two
regions by four weeks, while upping the bag limit from one bear
per four years to one bear every year. “It’s impossible to say what
the ADF&G will present,” said Sandra Arnold of the Alaska
Wildlife Alliance. “We also don’t know if the Board approves a
wolf control plan in October, if that means control will begin
immediately or in October 1996. The bear control measures are
proving controversial. ADF&G refuses to comment, but are clear-
ly concerned because all their reports indicate that bears are
already being killed above sustainable levels, especially in Unit
13,” which is the heavily hunted Nelchina Basin.

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California predators under fire

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

LOS ANGELES––A bill to reinstate
recreational puma hunting in California, due for a
mid-April vote in the state assembly, got a series of
media boosts when a single puma killed both a
German shepherd and an 80-pound Akita within six
days near La Crescenta in mid-March; mountain
biker Scott Fike, 27, fought off another puma on
March 20 after being attacked on a trail outside
Altadena; and a third puma killed 37 sheep the night
of March 31, in an attack without known parallel.
Most pumas kill what they’re going to eat, eat it,
and then, like other cats, go to sleep.
All three pumas were tracked and killed by
state wardens. Only nine humans have even been
attacked by pumas within California, but three of
the attacks came in the past two years, and the two
before the attack on Fike were fatal. Recreational
puma hunting was banned by referendum in 1990.
The Los Angeles City Council meanwhile
ended a moratorium on coyote trapping within city
limits, voting 12-0 on March 15 to authorize the
Department of Animal Regulation to hire five ani-
mal control officers to help homeowners deal with
alleged coyote problems. The homeowners may
have traps set for coyotes for a $200 fee. “Our hope
is that if we hire these people, we won’t have to set
traps and will educate people,” said councillor
Jackie Goldberg.

Animal control & rescue

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Trouble
The Chicago Animal Rights
Coalition on April 13 resumed a campaign
against the use of a captive bolt gun to dis-
patch dogs and cats and the practice of killing
them in front of others at the Animal Control
Department shelter in Rock Falls, Illinois.
Neither the American Veterinary Medical
Association nor any national humane organiza-
tion recommends the use of captive bolts for
euthanizing small animals; all oppose killing
animals within sight or sound of others. Rock
Falls promised to change euthanasia proce-
dures a year ago, but broke the promise,
according to CHARC founder Steve Hindi.
Letters on shelter letterhead urging compliance
with accepted humane standards may be sent
to Rock Falls mayor Glen Kuhlemier at 603
W. 10th St., Rock Falls, IL 61071.

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ALLEGED SPORTSMEN

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Clay Peterson, age 11, wrote a
letter to the Nashville Tennesean criticizing
poachers, published on April 6. “He was
thrilled,” his mother Debra wrote to the
paper a week later. “I was immediately wor-
ried when I noticed that his address was also
printed. My fears were justified,” by a bar-
rage of hate mail, including one missive that
warned Clay, “armed force is necessary to
eliminate those who would force the issue.”
The Tennessean then published the Peterson
family address again. Tell the Petersons they
have friends c/o 1667 Highfield Lane,
Brentwood, TN 37027.

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Fishing industry fights over bones

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

“This meeting was called to fight over
the meat,” reads the caption below a popular
office calendar cartoon showing wild-eyed and
desperate Neanderthals. “There is no meat. It is
moved that we fight over the bones.”
The cartoon could describe the col-
lapse of oceanic ecosystems. Recent editions of
the journals Science and Nature warned of
crashing zooplankton and algae populations, as
result of pollution, global warming, and over-
fishing, which is taking biomass out of the
oceans faster than it can be restored. But instead
of making oceanic habitat restoration a global
priority, both fishing fleets and the political rep-
resentatives of fishing nations fight with increas-
ing fury for whatever fish remain, with ominous
implications for world peace as well as for
aquatic animals.

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