MARINE MAMMAL NOTES

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

The Marine Mammal Protection Act was

reauthorized on schedule on April 29, including loop-

holes to let hunters to import polar bear trophies and to

allow the killing of seals and sea lions who eat threat-

ened fish runs at locks and fish ladders. Other provi-

sions include a total ban on intentionally shooting

marine mammals who interfere with fishing, and a pro-

gram to cut accidental kills during fishing to near zero

over the next seven years.

The Liberal Party of Canada convention on

May 15 overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling

for the resumption of offshore seal hunting, halted in

1983 after two decades of international protest. The

Liberals form the Parliamentary majority. Claiming

“the concerns of animal rights lobby groups should not

be put before the concerns of the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador,” the resolution claims

sealing is needed to create jobs because the fishing

industry has collapsed––making no mention that the col-

lapse was caused by overfishing condoned in the name

of job creation by a succession of both Liberal and

Progressive-Conservative governments.

BRIAN DAVIES FOUNDATION INVESTED IN VIVISECTION

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

LONDON, England––At deadline ANIMAL

PEOPLE was still awaiting International Fund for Animal

Welfare founder Brian Davies’ response to allegations by the

British Broadcasting Corporation expose series Public Eye

that as much as 39% of the Brian Davies Foundation stock

portfolio may be invested with firms that either do vivisection

or are under boycott by other major animal and habitat pro-

tection groups. ANIMAL PEOPLE had, however, received

IFAW’s apparently accidental fax transmission of our request

for comment with four handwritten notes scrawled across it

by at least three different people, discussing how to respond.

The Brian Davies Foundation is a holding corpora-

tion affiliated with IFAW, the sole purpose of which appears

to be managing investments.

IFAW, now under fire for announcing it would not

oppose a plan that could lead to the resumption of commer-

cial whaling (see page one), was just two months ago riding

the crest of outrage over the Canadian sale of 50,000 seal

penises to the Asian aphrodisiac trade––which full-page ads

placed by IFAW in leading Canadian newspapers accurately

linked to child prostitution in Southeast Asia. The issue was

and may still be the hottest for Davies and IFAW since 1983,

when Canada suspended the offshore slaughter of infant harp

seals (though the land-based phase of the killing continues).

Zoo notes

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

A deal to move Ivan the gorilla to the 17-member

colony at Zoo Atlanta has collapsed. Ivan has been kept in a

cage at a now-bankrupt shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington,

for nearly 30 years. Bankruptcy trustee Bianca Harrison claims

the obstacle was that Zoo Atlanta wouldn’t let his keepers to stay

with him during quarantine, wouldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t

be moved again, and wouldn’t promise that he wouldn’t be elec-

troejaculated. Zoo Atlanta says the real issue is that the creditors

think they can get more money for Ivan abroad than the $30,000

the Progressive Animal Welfare Society offered to send him to

Atlanta.

Four gorillas have died at the Columbus Zoo in the

past year––Oscar of a heart attack, Molly and her baby as result

of a premature birth, and Colbi, age six, of apparent severe coli-

tis on May 3. Antibiotic treatments failed.

Save the whales! DID CLINTON SELL OUT WHALES TO SELL MISSILES?

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico––The world will

know by the time you read this whether U.S. president Bill

Clinton sold out whales to sell $625 million worth of missiles to

Norway. As ANIMAL PEOPLEwent to press, Greenpeace and

the World Wildlife Fund, goaded by Friends of Animals, were

applying last-minute leverage to head off the apparent

sellout––including joint protest on May 17 in front of the White

House, a WWF first, while Clinton and vice president Albert

Gore met with Norwegian prime minister Gro Brundtland inside.

The proposed creation of an Antarctic whale refuge and

the resumption of commercial whaling head the agenda for the

46th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission

(IWC), commencing on May 23. As every year since 1982,

when the IWC decreed the moratorium on commercial whaling in

effect since 1986, Japan and Norway will push to break the

moratorium. As last year, Japan and Norway will also fight the

creation of the sanctuary, seeking the help of Antigua-and-

Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent-and-

the-Grenadines, four tiny Caribbean nations heavily dependent

upon Japanese foreign aid, whose votes were decisive in 1993.

Who needs low-cost neutering? PART ONE OF A NEW NATIONAL STUDY

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

PORT WASHINGTON, New York––Low-cost neutering doubles the number of

poor people who get their pets fixed––and cuts animal shelter intakes in half.

Any doubts that either shelter administrators or veterinarians may have about the

efficacy of low-cost neutering should be laid to rest by the results of a new national study car-

ried out over the past six months by ANIMAL PEOPLE, under sponsorship of the North

Shore Animal League. The first part of the study, investigating the impact of low-cost neu-

tering on pet overpopulation, is published here. The second part, a comprehensive review of

veterinary experience, will appear in our July/August issue––including veterinarians’ ideas

about how to improve low-cost neutering pro-

grams to get even better results and resolve

grievances that often hamper programs.

Philippines joins Indonesia in banning monkey business

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

MANILA, The Philippines– – A

high-ranking Philippine official confirmed

May 9 that a long-awaited Philippine ban on

wild-caught monkey exports will take effect

this year, fulfilling a promise made in 1986

and completing a phase-out begun in 1989.

Quoting a radio broadcast by

Philippine Protected Areas and Wildlife

Bureau director Corazon Sinha, the Xinhua

news service reported that the export ban will

cover both wild-caught and captive-bred mon-

keys––a significant extension of the 1989

plan, reiterated in early 1993 by Sinha’s pre-

decessor, Samuel Penafield. Ending all mon-

key exports would ease the burden of enforce-

ment, since officials would not be obliged to

determine where each monkey was born.

Editorial: What’s wrong with “sustainable use”?

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

U.S. World Wildlife Fund president Kathryn Fuller didn’t just rattle the Clinton

administration with her May 12 declaration of opposition to any “first step toward the

resumption of commercial whaling.” More significant was her statement that, “Even if

commercial whaling could be sustainable, it cannot be justified,” a welcome marked depar-

ture from 35 years of WWF policy, which essentially has endorsed any use of wildlife that

even promised to be sustainable.

The most influential of all animal and habitat protection groups internationally,

WWF has been problematic since 1961, when founder Sir Peter Scott, a trophy hunter,

recruited the leadership elite from among fellow hunters who feared that African indepen-

dence would lead to the rapid loss of target species. The elite included longtime WWF

International president Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, who escaped punishment for

allegedly overshooting bird quotas in Italy in the early 1970s to resign, finally, in 1987,

after being implicated in a Dutch bribery scandal. Bernhard was succeeded by another of

the founding elite, Prince Philip, long the honorary head of the British chapter. One of the

world’s most prolific tiger-killers when tigers were abundant, Philip showed his allegiance

to conservation ethics that Christmas by leading his sons Charles, Andrew, and Edward in

killing 10,000 pigeons, 7,000 pheasants, 300 partridges, and several hundred ducks,

geese, and rabbits––all captive-raised––in a six-week vacation bloodbath. This slightly

exceeded Philip’s previous record of 15,500 captive birds killed during a five-week spree.

LETTERS [June 1994]

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Cat licensing

I love and care for cats and

I want all cats licensed and vaccinat-

ed for rabies. Whether or not there is

a rabies threat, I especially want all

cats licensed. We should start now

controlling the stray cat problem.

Two hours ago I trapped a seven-

week-old kitten by an off-ramp of

Highway 101. I am getting tired of

spending every free moment trapping

stray cats. If the state doesn’t start

now, the expense will be even

greater whenever they do start.

Voluntary rescuers such as myself

cannot keep up, no matter what the

talkers say.

––Carol A. Reitmeir

Menlo Park, California

Letters

WILDLIFE

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Fourteen years after being

declared an endangered species and 11

years after being pronounced extinct, the

Palos Verdes blue butterfly has been resdi-

covered. University of California geography

professor Rudi Mattoni, believed to be the

last person to see the butterfly before it pur-

portedly vanished, recognized it again on a

mid-March insect collecting visit to the U.S.

Navy’s Defense Fuel Supply Point in San

Pedro. The site is protected as critical habi-

tat for the also endangered California gnat-

catcher, a small songbird.

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