Letters [April 1993]

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Edison was a genius

I just received your letter

announcing your newspaper. As I

started reeading what you had to say,

I felt as if you knew my husband and

me personally. We are longtime

vegetarian/animal advocates who

write letters, take in strays, spay

and neuter, help the sick and

injured, and do what we can in gen-

eral to fight cruelty.

Letters

Editorial: Listen, talk, dicker

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Members of the ardently pro-vivisection Foundation for Biomedical Research got

quite a shock with their January/February 1993 newsletter. On pages four through six, the

editors extensively, respectfully, and congenially interviewed Henry Spira, the most effec-

tive antivivisection activist of our time and perhaps of any time. He’s not a household word,

because he doesn’t do big direct mailings touting his accomplishments, nor does he head a

multimillion dollar organization, or go on television regularly to shout about victories he

barely acknowledges, because he believes gloating is counterproductive. Still, working

virtually alone, with a miniscule budget, Spira has accomplished more over the past 17

years toward getting animals out of laboratories than any of the national animal rights

groups and antivivisection societies; perhaps more than all of them put together. The bio-

medical research establishment certainly knows his name, and significantly, some of the

most influential people in that establishment thought it was high time to open public,

friendly dialog––even if they got bashed for it by colleagues conditioned to view animal

use/protection as a war zone, a Manichean struggle between good and evil in which one

side or the other must ultimately be annihilated.

American SPCA drops New York pound contract: “Killing animals shouldn’t be the business of a humane society.”

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––The Amer-

ican SPCA announced March 25 that it will

cease providing animal control service to

New York City after September 1994, and

will begin turning operations over to the city

as promptly as possible.

Losing money on animal control

work, the ASPCA has threatened to pull out

many times since 1977, most recently in

1991. Each time, New York offered conces-

sions and the work of picking up and eutha-

nizing strays went on as usual. In 1991, for

instance, the ASPCA returned responsibility

for selling dog licenses to the city––an intend-

ed fundraising function that had become a

loser––and accepted a bigger direct subsidy

instead.

Women’s health vs. horses: ESTROGEN BOOM BRINGS BREEDING FOR SLAUGHTER

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

BRANDON, Manitoba––Rocketing demand for estrogen replacement drugs

is expected to double the number of farms producing pregnant mare’s urine (PMU) from

300 in 1991 to 600 by the end of 1993. Already, 485 farms are collecting urine from an

estimated 75,000 catheterized mares. Because the mares must be pregnant to produce a

commercially viable amount of estrogen, they will give birth to as many as 90,000 foals

this year––most of them in May. The equine gestation cycle normally runs from June to

Wildlife in no-man’s-land: Are war zones safer than refuges?

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

When the Persian Gulf War erupted in February

1991, ecologists shuddered at the probable fate of the wet-

lands at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The region, where Kuwait meets Iraq, is among the world’s

busiest corridors for migratory birds––both songbirds and

waterfowl, coming and going from Europe, Africa, Asia,

and the Indian subcontinent. The bird populations were

already in trouble. Intensive sheep-grazing had desertified

thousands of acres of vegetation. Oil-rich Kuwaiti

thrillseekers compounded the damage with reckless use of

offroad vehicles and contests to see who could shotgun the

most birds, without regard for either endangered species or

bag limits.

CHILDREN & ANIMALS

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

$40 million in public funds are

used to teach “hunter education” to

700,000 U.S. school children a year. The

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service puts up $32.2

million, while the balance comes from the

states; all 50 states participate. “They’re

teaching hunting as ‘gun safety,’ ‘physical

education,’ and any other excuse they cna

think of,” says Katherine Trimnal of

Columbia, South Carolina, who has been

investigating the program for some time.

This program is completely separate from

Project Wild, which also promotes a pro-

hunting message at cost of $23 million a

year.

Diet & Health

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

Responding to public panic over

tainted meat, President Bill Clinton on

February 11 ordered the USDA to hire 160

more meat inspectors, while Agriculture

Secretary Mike Espy promised a complete

overhaul of the meat inspection

system––which the Ronald Reagan and

George Bush presidential administrations

had streamlined by reducing the number of

inspectors. The panic began in December

when a six-year-old girl in San Diego

County, California, died after eating a

tainted Jack-in-the-Box hamburger, and

escalated January 22, when a two-year-old

boy died in Seattle, Washington, from the

same cause. More than 400 people who ate

Jack-in-the-Box hamburgers developed E.

Where horse rescue gets hot by Sharon Cregier

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

AMMAN, Jordan –– The sound of a stick on

hide summons Chris Larter to her second-story balcony.

“It’s the donkey-beaters,” Larter explains. Below, a

mare, foal at foot, plows a stony verge. Sheep and shep-

herd dodge four-lane traffic to graze the edges of con-

struction projects. And of course there are boys driving

donkeys. “Last time they were trying to cut a donkey’s

ears off,” Larter continues. She recalls braving a hail of

stones to take photos, locating the parents of the donkey-

boys, and pleading for the donkey’s welfare.

Today, courage requires police reinforcement.

Obtaining backup, Larter partially unloads a staggering

donkey, obliging the donkey-boys to make multiple trips

to finish moving their cargo.

Larter is field supervisor, publicity officer, and

photographer for the Jordanian Society for the Protection

of Animals, sponsored by the 70-year-old Society for the

Protection of Animals in North Africa. Based in England,

SPANA is among the last and most popular remnants of

the British occupation of Jordan, 1920-1946.

Gene and Diana Chontos: Helping the tough and stubborn

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

“Talking to someone about myself beyond my life

with burros seems abstract to me now,” Diana Chontos told

ANIMAL PEOPLE, “since my life has become burros and

their continued survival. I am a daughter of the pioneers of

Washington, and continue to live by many of the same val-

ues as my great-grandparents, except that during my child-

hood I found the practice of slaughtering and eating animals

abhorent. As soon as I possibly could, I became a vegetari-

an.” Her first animal rescue may have been at age 13,

when, “I rode my horse, galloping bareback, between a

gun-happy bounty hunter and a beautiful coyote I had been

watching as she caught and ate grasshoppers.”

Gene Chontos, Diana’s partner of 18 years, came

to animal rescue later in life, but no less dramatically. “I

was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1937,” he

remembers, “son to Hungarian immigrants. My father and

all his kin served the Bethlehem Steel Company as cheap

labor and resided in lower class poverty, replete with ethnic

prejudice, hatred, and violence. I escaped at age 17

through a four-year enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps.”

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