FROGS & TOADS

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Speakers at the American

Association for the Advancement of

Science annual meeting in San

Francisco in late February argued that

endangered species protection should

focus on species with few living rela-

tives and therefore a unique genetic

heritage. Amphibian expert David

Wake of the University of California

at Berkeley pointed out that the spot-

ted owl has many close relatives,

while a primitive tailed toad who

inhabits the same forest apparently

diverged from other frogs and toads in

the Jurassic era, 150 million years

ago. The value of spotted owl protec-

tion, he argued, lies mainly in the

spinoff value of protecting habitat for

more unique species along with the

owl habitat.

Fur

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Canadian environment minister Sheila Copps,

whose gracelessness earned her the nickname “Leader of

the rat pack” during her years as a Parliamentary back-

bencher, disrupted a meeting of top environmental offi-

cials from the seven major Western industrialized nations

on March 12 by denouncing the European Community ban

on seal pelt imports, the pending EC ban on imports of

pelts trapped by cruel methods, and opposition to the cur-

rent Canadian seal hunt. Copps claimed an alleged popula-

tion explosion of seals is causing the collapse of the

Atlantic Canada fishing industry, despite strong biological

evidence that seals do not eat many fish of the most com-

mercially valued species.

Will Clinton earn stripes on tiger boycott?

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

GENEVA, Switzerland– – The

Standing Committee of the Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species

met March 21-25 to decide whether to call a

global boycott of exports from Taiwan and

China to protest their role in wildlife poach-

ing and smuggling. Chinese and Taiwanese

demand for aphrodisiacs and other traditional

wildlife-based medicines is the source of

much and perhaps most of the money in the

illegal wildlife traffic.

Splatt back

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

DERRY, New Hampshire––Dr.

Splatt’s Roadkill Monitoring Project is under-

way for the second year. Sixty secondary

schoolrooms are keeping an online log of

roadkills for nine weeks, starting March 14.

Thirty classes last spring compiled

the biggest data base on roadkills to date,

finding apparent peak times of vulnerability

for grey squirrels, raccoons, birds, beavers,

skunks, and rats, which may coincide with

when young leave their parents, the growth

of favored food plants, moon phases,

and––for scavengers––peaks in roadkills of

other species.

Alaskans slaughter caribou “protected” from wolves

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

FAIRBANKS, Alaska––While

Alaska sponsored the slaughter of at least 92

wolves to make caribou more plentiful in the

Delta area southeast of Fairbanks, officially

known as Game Management Unit 20-A, the

caribou wandered into a free fire zone on

March 5––as they may have done for years.

Independent wildlife expert Dr.

Gordon Haber discovered while doing an aer-

ial survey on March 5 for Friends of Animals

that up to 1,500 caribou––30% of the Delta

herd––had moved out of 20-A into an area

east of Cantwell where intense roadhunting

and hunting from snowmobiles has been

underway since early January. Hunters in the

vicinity claimed a 90% success rate.

Hunting & Fishing

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

A bill to ban pigeon shoots includ-

ing the notorious Labor Day shoot in Hegins

fell three votes short of clearing the

Pennsylvania state house on March 8––and

actually drew a majority of the votes cast, 99-

93. However, 103 votes would have been

required to pass the bill from the 202-member

house to the state senate. Though the bill

would almost certainly have failed in the sen-

ate, where 38 of the 48 members have ‘A’ rat-

ings from the National Rifle Association, the

vote was a marked advance from 1989, when

the house defeated a similar bill, 126-66.

The Colorado house finance com-

mittee on February 16 killed as contrary to the

expressed intent of the electorate a bill that

would have reauthorized spring bear hunting

and hunting bears with hounds and bait––all of

which were banned by referendum in 1992.

ANIMAL HEALTH

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Epidemiology

New York and Rhode Island

health officials said February 24 that a mys-

terious hantavirus caused the January 20

death of Rhode Island School of Design stu-

dent David Rosenberg, 22, who may have

become infected via rodent droppings while

sweeping out a warehouse in Queens. The

case is among the first known human cases in

the U.S. that apparently does not involve deer

mice. Four days earlier, the Centers for

Disease Control confirmed that the hantavirus

afflicts Florida cotton rats, and announced

the death of three Kansans from suspected

hantavirus infections. Of the 60 known U.S.

human victims, 27 have died; 23 have

recovered after suffering debilitating illness.

Too many deer

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Deer overpopulation remained a hot

issue right through the winter in at least four

states. In Pennsylvania, where the legislature

recently mandated a 6.5% cut in the deer herd,

the state Game Commission enlisted the

National Guard to plow 1,200 miles of roads

and trails to enable hungry deer to reach 875

food plots at 65 public access hunting areas.

Without the feeding, some deer might have

starved––and many pregnant does would have

reabsorbed their fetuses, achieving the reduc-

tion in herd size independent of sport hunting.

What makes a scandal?

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Over the past decade, the following issues have become the

focus of 219 public scandals involving 101 U.S. animal shelters, of

which 60 were municipal animal control facilities; 18 were convention-

al humane societies, some of which held animal control contracts; 14

were no-kill shelters; and eight fell into other categories.

The total number of scandals is quite small, considering that

there are more than 6,000 shelters and animal control holding facilities

in the U.S. However, an evident pattern of repeated scandals at the

same shelters reflects a combination of administrators unwilling to rec-

tify problems and a resulting growth of public mistrust, so that eventu-

ally even relatively minor problems become scandals.

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