Author: Dylan Forest

Mountain lion mix-up

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Last October, Predator Project Newsletter extensively
quoted and paraphrased from a letter by Michael Horan of Eagle’s
Nest, New Mexico, protesting the relocation of 13 mountain lions
as part of a study of their population dynamics which has yielded
strong evidence that the species should not be hunted. Horan linked
the relocation to older and ongoing mountain lion killing projects
undertaken to protect livestock.
Various animal protection groups picked up and echoed
Horan’s claims, condensing his account each time, dropping source
identification, and eventually adding appeals for letters of protest to
be addressed to the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.
Then someone, remembering that the original item had been pub-
lished on newsprint, wrongly cited ANIMAL PEOPLE as the
source, although the first issue of ANIMAL PEOPLE hadn’t even
gone to press yet when Horan wrote his letter.

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It’s to make you turn green

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The United Conservation Alliance,
an association of hunters and trappers whose
name only sounds like an environmental group,
teamed with the Fur Information Council of
America to distribute 100 public service
announcements to 50 leading TV stations just
before Earth Day. The 30-and-60-second
announcements ––which apparently were not
aired by most of the stations––quoted Greg
Lincombe of the Louisiana Department of
Wildlife and Fisheries, claiming, “Commercial
trapping through the fur industry is the only
viable solution to keep muskrat and nutria in
check.” Actually, Louisiana alligators eat a lot
more muskrat and nutria than trappers catch, and
they’d eat even more if Linscombe’s department
didn’t remove as many as 75,000 alligator eggs a
year for resale to alligator farmers––but it’s the
sale of trapping permits (down 90% in five years)
that keeps him in a job.

Freedom of speech

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Janet Fontenot, new editor of The Southern
Utah Spectrum, a newspaper circulating 50,000 copies
daily, recently dropped a weekly column by Lester Wood
of Citizens for Humane Animal Treatment, and according to
Wood, “initiated a policy of censorship against environmen-
talists, refusing to print letters to the editor with a pro-ecolo-
gy viewpoint.” In place of Wood’s column, Fontenot is now
publishing a column called “Maverick Country,” which
Wood describes as “a rabid anti-ecology column.” Other
Utah journalists essentially confirm Wood’s account, noting
that Fontenot has praised cattleman Met Johnson as
“Legislator of the Year.” Johnson is among the members of
the Utah legislature who have advanced open seasons and
legal jacklighting of skunks, raccoons, and red foxes, plus
a 20% increase in the sale of puma permits, in the erroneous
belief that killing predators will make more game available
on depleted rangeland. The state wildlife agency and even
some hunting groups are against the proposals.

But it was a great appeal

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

A firm called In Vitro International enlisted the aid of
the Doris Day Animal League and the Animal Welfare Institute in
late April as it awaited a ruling from the U.S. Department of
Transportation as to whether a non-animal test it developed to mea-
sure chemical corrosivity could be used as a substitute for the tradi-
tional skin burn test on rabbits. Literature apparently originating
with IVI, reprinted verbatim by AWI and colorfully amplified by
DDAL, suggested that “tens of thousands of rabbits” would be sub-
jected to the painful skin burn tests this summer so that U.S. chemi-
cal manufacturers could comply with a voluntary international
labeling standard recommended by the United Nations and ratified
by DOT, to take effect on October 1.

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Diet & Health

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The USDA on May 5 announced
that it will begin requiring labels on raw
meat and poultry to include cooking and
handling instructions, explaining how to
prevent health hazards such as the growth of
E:coli bacteria, which in January and
December killed four children who had just
eaten undercooked hamburgers. The label-
ing rules are to be formally proposed by
August 15. The new requirement comes in
settlement of a lawsuit brought by Beyond
Beef and the parents of one of the January
victims. U.S. trade representative Mickey
Kantor meanwhile denied in a series of press
releases and public statements that such
strengthened food labeling laws could be
overturned under that General Agreement on
Trade and Tariffs and/or the North American
Free Trade Agreement, as alleged obstacles
to international commerce. Last year, the
two agreements were invoked to overturn the
use of U.S. dolphin protection legislation to
exclude imports of tuna netted “on dolphin,”
at considerable cost in dolphin lives.

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Trapping not necessary for rabies control, says N.Y. wildlife official

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation Bureau of Wildlife official Gordon Batcheller rattled readers of Fur Age
Weekly on May 17. “Although the harvest of raccoons is one way of reducing the risks of
contact,” Batcheller wrote in a guest article, “the relationships between hunting or trapping
and population size are too complex to make a simplistic statement like: hunting and trap-
ping is a necessarymeans of control.”
Batcheller went on to describe progress in developing means of vaccinating rac-
coons to halt the mid-Atlantic raccoon rabies pandemic, now in its 14th year. His remarks
were a sharp departure from the traditional position of state wildlife agencies, whose
income is derived in part from the sale of trapping licenses, and were a direct rebuttal to
recent claims by several Fur Age Weekly columnists.

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ANIMAL HEALTH & BEHAVIOR

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Chinese authorities have begun
purging officials of Shenqui county in
Henan province for collaborating with
Wang Zhiqiang, an entrepreneur who built
a rural empire around a factory that manu-
factured fake veterinary medicines––among
them “antibiotics” made of talcum powder
and cornstarch, and “intravenous solution”
made of monosodium glutamate dissolved
in water. Wang allegedly bought off police
and politicians, held investigators for ran-
som, and tortured witnesses. Federal
authorities finally arrested Wang and shut
down his No. 1 Veterinarian Medicine
Factory, as he styled it, last

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Agriculture

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The Food and Drug Admini-
stration held hearings May 6-7 on whether
to approve the sale of milk produced with
the aid of the genetically engineered hor-
mone bovine somatotropin (BST), and if
sale is approved, whether the milk should
be specially labeled. Four chemical
firms––Upjohn, Monsanto, American
Cyanamid, and Eli Lilly––have reportedly
spent $500 million to develop and introduce
BST, which boosts milk production per cow
by up to 20%. BST is opposed by con-
sumer groups concerned about the possible
effects of the drug on human health, which
may include altering the growth rate of
bone and liver cells; animal protection
groups worried that BST may increase the
stress on cows; and dairy farmers anxious
that many of them could be put out of busi-
ness, since BST enables fewer cows to pro-
duce more milk, which is already in over-
supply. The same debate is underway in
Canada, where a multi-department review
of the possible effects of BST is to be com-
pleted later this year.

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Euthanasias down–– but by how much? ANIMAL PEOPLE PROJECTS ANNUAL TOLL OF CIRCA 6 MILLION

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado––A new
estimate of euthanasia rates produced by Phil Arkow of the
Humane Society of Pike’s Peak indicates the pet overpopu-
lation problem may be only half as bad as the most opti-
mistic previous projections. Factoring in additional infor-
mation apparently unknown to Arkow, ANIMAL PEO-
PLE extrapolates a current annual euthanasia rate of about
six million dogs and cats per year––half again higher than
Arkow’s figures, but still significantly lower than older
estimates, which ranged as high as 20 million per year 20
years ago, and have gradually fallen to below 10 million.

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