Marine mammals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

S. 1636, the present Marine
Mammal Protection Act reauthorization
bill, has cleared the Senate Commerce
Committee and at deadline was expected to be
passed any day by the full Senate, with House
ratification likely in April. The Humane
Society of the U.S. has asked members to
write Congress opposing S. 1636 because it
“has no provisions for effective enforcement,”
and “would allow the accidental killing of
endangered species (currently prohibited) and
the intentional shooting of seals and sea lions
solely to protect fish commercially caught or
raised.” HSUS seeks amendments that will
“ensure that marine mammal mortality in com-
mercial fishing operations reaches insignifi-
cant levels approaching zero, mandate specif-
ic punitive consequences if kill reduction goals
are not met on schedule, prohibit the capture
of wild whales or dolphins for public display,
prohibit swim-with-the-dolphin programs and
petting pools, prohibit public feeding of both
captive and wild marine mammals, prohibit
the issuance of permits to kill endangered
species in commercial fisheries,” and “prohib-
it the intentional killing of seals and sea lions
solely to protect fishing gear, catch, or net
pens.” The Animal Welfare Institute has
issued a similar appeal for action.

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Guest column: Reject, isolate, abandon undisciplined ALF

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

by Paul Watson
Captain, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Much controversy has been gener-
ated over the last few years by the Animal
Liberation Front and most recently by the
attacks on the fur departments of major
department stores in Chicago. The ALF has
been condemned for terrorism and has made
itself a primary target for investigation by
the FBI. It is only a matter of time until
some serious arrests are made and perhaps it
is only a matter of time until the now
unblemished record of the animal and con-
servation movements is irreparably tar-
nished.
To date, there has not been a sin-
gle human being injured or slain by an ani-
mal rights, animal welfare, or conservation
movement person or organization. Perhaps
it is inevitable that such a thing will some
day happen, but I believe that we should do
everything in our power to keep that day far
into the future. Our strength lies in our
morality and in the ethical advantage of
remaining steadfast in our respect for life.
All life must always be of paramount con-
cern.

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Guest Opinion: In defense of the Animal Liberation Front

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

by Gary Francione
Rutgers Animal Rights Law Clinic
The January/February ANIMAL PEOPLE edi-
torial condemned the Animal Liberation Front for planting
nine firebombs in four Chicago department stores.
Although I agree completely that the cause of animal
rights is or should be a movement of peace and nonvio-
lence, and that the use of firebombs or any other action
that threatens human or nonhuman life is morally unac-
ceptable and inimical to the philosophy of animal rights, I
am concerned that ANIMAL PEOPLE’s broad condem-
nation of the ALF focused attention on the wrong topic.
First, while the condemnation did except the
clandestine information-gathering in support of Animal
Welfare Act enforcement that characterized many early
actions, it otherwise lumped together all ALF activities.
For the first decade the ALF was active in the United
States, it generally rejected any action that jeopardized
human or animal life and safety, and confined its activi-
ties to removing animals from laboratories or farms, and
on occasion, to destroying equipment used to exploit ani-
mals. The first arson attributed to ALF in the U.S. did not
occur until 1986, and there were few others before 1991.

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Letters [March 1994]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Iditarod
Whether I have skeletons
in my closet does not matter. I pro-
vide information on the Iditarod to
humane and animal rights groups so
that they can take action. If I am
bad, then all the more reason to
protest, right? Only through protest
will the Iditarod Trail Committee
clean up its act. The more protest,
the cleaner the race will be. What
more would you want?

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Editorial: Wanted: vets on wheels at combat pay

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Just over two years ago ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartlett disregarded
warnings that she was taking her life in her hands and took an experimental neuter/release
project into inner city Bridgeport, Connecticut––the city with the highest per capita murder
rate and greatest rate of drug-related violence of any in North America. Among the burned-
out, abandoned shells of factories and tenements where families lived six or eight people to
a room on welfare, Kim found a community who for the most part already knew about pet
overpopulation, were worried about the homeless animals they fed at their doorsteps, and
were readily receptive to her help in obtaining neutering and vaccination. Bridgeport had
and probably still has a high density of feral cats not primarily because anyone was ignorant
or indifferent, nor because even the poorest of the poor were unwilling to pay for neutering
their pets––albeit that most couldn’t afford to pay anything close to the going veterinary
rates. On the contrary, Kim was welcomed as “the cat lady” where even police feared to
walk. Children ran up and down the shabby side streets knocking on doors, asking neigh-
bors to bring out their animals. Elderly women without even a warm coat and third genera-
tion welfare mothers produced tattered and painstakingly preserved ten-dollar bills to make
the most generous contribution they could to assist the effort. The nun whose tiny convent
school was among the last outposts of hope in the inner city gave Kim her full support.

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Will Pennsylvania humane officers lose their badges?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania––
Five bills before the Pennsylvania state legis-
lature, a court case pending in Ohio, and a
political fracas in Wisconsin together signal
that humane enforcement is no longer a
backwater of police work, easily left to ama-
teurs and the bottom of the court calendar.
It is almost certain that before 1994
is over, the structure of humane enforcement
in Pennsylvania will either be reinforced or
demolished, depending upon which mea-
sures from the competing bills best survive
the process of committee review and amend-
ment––and how one interprets the results. It
is possible that the Ohio court decision,
expected this summer (separate story, page
15), could spark a similar burst of legisla-
tive activity. In Wisconsin, rules governing
search warrants could be amended. In all
three states the humane community is wor-
ried because opponents are all but salivating
at the prospect of forcing “activist” anti-cru-
elty officers off the beat. Some of the pro-
posed Pennsylvania legislation would
exempt farmers from humane enforcement;

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Sea Shepherd sinks another pirate whaler: ACTED TO ENFORCE INTERNATIONAL LAW, WATSON SAYS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

GRESSVIK, Norway––Responding to the slaughter of 296 minke whales last
summer, in contravention of international agreement, the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society sunk the pirate whaler Senet during the predawn hours of January 24.
The S e n e t was one of 28 vessels that took part in Norway’s first commercial
whale hunt since the International Whaling Commission declared a moratorium on com-
mercial whaling in 1986. The Senet crew killed five of the 160 whales massacred under
Norway’s unilaterally declared commercial quota, while 12 other vessels killed an addi-
tional 136 whales in the name of scientific research. Mostly sold to Japan, the whale meat
brought the whalers about $12.5 million. The Norwegian government reputedly spent near-

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NEW YORK STATE STATISTICS SHOW LINK: Hunters and molesters

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

ALBANY, New York–-As a team of 165 volun-
teers shoved snow from the frozen forest floor near
Raquette Lake, where hunter Lewis Lent Jr. said he’d killed
and buried 12-year-old Sara Anne Wood last summer,
ANIMAL PEOPLEconfirmed through a county-by-county
comparative analysis of 1992 New York state hunting, trap-
ping, and crime statistics that children in upstate New York
counties with more than the average number of hunters per
capita are three times more likely to be sexually assaulted
than children in the notoriously crime-ridden Bronx district
of New York City. (Statistics begin on page 6.)
Lent, 43, of North Adams, Massachusetts, was
arrested January 7 after attempting to kidnap 12-year-old
Rebecca Savarese as she walked to school in nearby
Pittsfield. Within hours Lent became the primary suspect in
a string of at least eight kidnap/rape/murders of children in
Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, and in an
attempted kidnapping in Bennington, Vermont, only days
before his capture.

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OSTRICH AND EMU SPECULATORS: Will they get rich quick or just get the bird?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

DALLAS, Texas––More than 115,000 giant flightless
birds––ratites––roam North American pastures, including 80,000
ostrichs, 35,000 emus, and the occasional rhea. Ratite numbers
have doubled since last year and quadrupled since 1991. At the
present rate of breeding, stoked by speculation, the ratite popula-
tion could double again this year, and perhaps next year, too.
But many of those “pastures” are little more than back yards.
There is as yet no significant market for ratites other than specula-
tion in breeding stock. When no one else wants to cash in insur-
ance policies, mortgage property, and drain life savings to buy
ratites at spectacularly inflated prices, the pyramid of breeders,
dealers, franchisers, and support service vendors will col-
lapse––maybe not this year, but almost certainly soon.

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