Author: Dylan Forest

HUNTING & FISHING

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

The Illinois Department of Agriculture in June
banned captive pigeon shoots on advice of the state attor-
ney general, bringing its policy into line with the state
Humane Care for Animals Act of 1973 and a January 1992
amendment to the state Conservation Code. The ban was a
major victory for anti-pigeon shoot activist Steve Hindi, of
Plano, Illinois, who has struggled since 1990 to get
enforcement of the laws against pigeon shooting.
The Fund for Animals has announced that it
will not protest against the annual Fred Coleman Memorial
Labor Day Pigeon Shoot in Hegins, Pennsylvania, this
year. Major protests orchestrated by the Fund and PETA in
1991 and 1992 backfired when they became confrontational.
Nearly twice as many shooters and shoot supporters attend-
ed the Hegins shoot last year as before the Fund got
involved, possibly attracted by the chance an activist might
get killed in the act of rescuing a bird. The Coalition
Against Live Bird Shoots in Pennsylvania will hold a small-
er protest this year; details have not yet been announced.

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Wildlife

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

British and Danish mammologists have con-
firmed the discovery of a previously unknown hooved ani-
mal in the Vu Quang Nature Reserve of northwestern
Vietnam, along the Laotian border. Dubbed Psuedoryx
nghetinhensis, the animal resembles a cow, is about the
size of a goat, and has antelope-like horns. Psuedoryx
nghetinhensis is the biggest new land animal to be found in
more than 50 years.
An investigation of the cash value
Pennsylvanians would assign to various wildlife-related
experiences, upcoming in The Journal of Environmental
Management, found a day of fishing assessed at from
$4.80 to $53.40, depending on the site, while a day of
bird-watching would go for $15.00, and the chance to
view an elk at close range would fetch $24.52. The prices
are over and above the actual cost of the activity.

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Wolf Hollow

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

IPSWICH, Massachusetts––One of the newest and smallest
of the groups fighting to save Alaskan wolves is the North American
Wolf Foundation, the lifelong dream of retired clamdigger Paul
Soffron and his wife Joni. Incorporated in 1988, NAWF opened a 5-
acre wolf sanctuary two years later in the back yard of the coastal
Massachusetts home where Paul grew up. Funding thus far comes
mainly from the Soffrons’ savings, sympathetic relatives, and the sale
of Paul’s art prints and other wolf-related merchandise to the visitors
who crowd the facility every afternoon throughout the summer to see
and learn about the only grey wolves in New England.

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Guest column: Supreme Court did not okay animal sacrifice

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

by Gary L. Francione and Anna E. Charlton
ANIMAL RIGHTS LAW CENTER
On June 11, 1993, the Supreme Court issued its
decision concerning animal sacrifice in Church of the
Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah. The next
day, most major newspapers carried headlines proclaim-
ing that the Court had held that animal sacrifice is protect-
ed by the First Amendment freedom of religion clause.
Typical of those proclamations was the one splashed
across the entire front cover of New York Newsday: “Top
Court OKs Animal Sacrifice.” Reading the comments of
major humane organizations in reaction to the decision,
including those such as the American Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals which have the police
power to stop the infliction of cruelty on animals, we have
been distressed to realize that the decision has been read
far too broadly, and that there is the mistaken impression
that humane officers are now powerless to stop the brutali-
ties of animal sacrifice.

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Guest column: Breeding regulation, not moratoriums by Petra Murray

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

A moratorium on the breeding of
dogs and cats may initially seem to be an
easy and effective solution for companion
animal overpopulation. However, if we
think beyond a moratorium we will come up
with an even more precise and effective
solution––albeit not the only solution.
A moratorium refers to a tempo-
rary cessation of activity, and therein lies
part of the reason that a moratorium will not
be the answer to pet overpopulation.
To be sure, good breeders should
pause for a week or two or a month or more
to become educated about overpopulation.
They should visit their local pounds and
shelters and look at the homeless animals.

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Letters [July/Aug 1993]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

Breeding ordinances
As an animal control officer, I am impressed
by the emphasis on accuracy your publications demon-
strate. Your May article on overpopulation legislation
quite correctly avoided a mistake that San Mateo
County and Denver seem to have made, namely com-
bining a broad-based neutering requirement with differ-
ential licensing fees. To determine what license fee to
charge, the prospective licensee must be asked if the
animal in question is surgically sterilized. An honest
answer may be a confession of unlawful possession of a
fertile animal, which may explain the alleged drop in
license revenue in San Mateo County. Additionally,
courts may rule that the question cannot be asked if it
compels self-incrimination. I am told that Hayes v. U.S.
(1968) contains a ruling that convicted felons cannot be
compelled to register their guns, since such registration
would incriminate them on an unlawful possession
charge. If so, similar reasoning would seem to apply to
mandatory sterilization.

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Editorial: No place for a saint

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

Almost every day we hear from an animal rescuer in desperate trouble. Today it
was an elderly woman who had to relocate, and couldn’t take 50 feral cats she’d been feed-
ing with her. Only a handful of the females had been neutered; she lacked the funds to fix
the rest. She wanted us to recommend a shelter that could take them all in, guarantee they
would be socialized, and see to it that they were adopted into good homes.
“I don’t believe in euthanasia,” she warned us.
A few days ago there was the woman who’d purchased a farm and kennel with the
idea that the kenneling operation would support an all-species no-kill sanctuary. She got as
far as obtaining nonprofit status and acquiring a menagerie of 15 dogs, 14 cats, and 150
chickens, ducks, geese, and guinea hens before discovering that her income couldn’t come
close to meeting the mortgage payments. “All I need is $150,000,” she begged. “But it’s
coming down to where I have no choice but to put the animals down, and I know that when
I do, I will have a stroke and die.”

Editorial: You get more flies with honey than vinegar

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

“We appeal once again for stronger ordinances for companion animals,” the
address to the city council began. “It looks as if more will be killed this year than last year.”
So far, so good: a succinct statement of the problem by a humane group with an estab-
lished record of accomplishment. The councillors were at attention, awaiting the statistics
and the proposed solution. But instead the humane society director mounted a figurative
pulpit, her voice rising to fill the room.
“Deciding that death for other beings is preferable to a risk-filled life is not
euthanasia in its traditional form,” she lectured, “but rather a lethal manifestation of
speciesism that projects our own fears and values onto another species.” As the perplexed
council members glanced at each other and scratched their heads, she raised her voice
another decibel and continued. “Mass killing manages an animal control problem for soci-
ety, but only a morally bankrupt community would continue to participate in such institu-
tionalized slaughter. Humane euthanasia may be indeed the lesser of evils facing aban-
doned animals in a hostile world, but it is still an evil. Instead of confronting the sources of
injustice, as represented by public ignorance, apathy, and cruelty, we have chosen to
punish the victims. Our city shelter is not much more than a killing machine.”
And then, as her supporters climbed up on their chairs to cheer, she asked for
$30,000.

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Alaska resumes wolf killing; SUES FRIENDS OF ANIMALS FOR CALLING TOURISM BOYCOTT

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

FAIRBANKS, Alaska––As
many as 450 Alaskan wolves will be
trapped, snared, and shot during the next
three winters to make more moose and
caribou available to hunters, under pro-
posals adopted July 1 by the Alaska
Board of Game.
ANIMAL PEOPLE waited to
go to press until the Board of Game deci-
sion became final—a week after the nor-
mal deadline––because of the signal
importance of the wolf issue in the ongo-
ing clash between ecology-based and
hunter-driven philosophies of conserva-
tion. The board was expected to revive
the wolf control strategy scrapped last
winter under threat of a tourism boycott,
but the details were obscured in a blizzard
of 92 wolf management proposals on the
summer meeting agenda, two of them
from the Alaska Department of Fish and
Game and many others from influential
hunting associations.

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