Category: Activists & Organizations

Loving the monkeys, too

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

BASTROP, Texas––Perhaps it
was just coincidence that just as the 1999
Primate Freedom Tour got the only seriously
bad press of its first three weeks on the road,
the Disney Network began broadcasting frequent
“Vault Disney” intermission clips of
Annette Funicello singing “I love the monkey’s
uncle,” backed by The Beachboys.
Then again, from Dumbo (1941)
and Bambi (1942) on, Walt Disney Studios
has given humane causes many a big surprise
boost in the guise of innocent entertainment.
Whatever the case, the Primate
Freedom Tour had by the end of the July 4
weekend brought the cause of nonhuman primates
in laboratories more media attention
than any other event or series of events since
the 1985 passage of Animal Welfare Act
amendments requiring labs to provide for the
psychological well-being of nonhuman primates
and dogs.

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The most misleading mailing ever?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

MUDUMALAI, Tamil Nadu;
NEW DELHI––”The Story of Loki,” the
Performing Animal Welfare Society and India
Project for Animals and Nature boldly headlined
in a joint special report mailed in May
with an appeal to donors, is “the worst case of
animal abuse ever documented.”
And, PAWS and IPAN intimated,
the plight of the elephant Loki was largely the
fault of Maneka Gandhi, the Indian minister of
state for social welfare and empowerment since
April 1998, but best known as founder of
People For Animals, India’s most prominent
animal rights group.
According to the PAWS/IPAN mailing,
Maneka “published a report about Loki
which is full of incorrect information,” allegedly
covering up the purported “worst case of animal
abuse ever documented,” thwarting IPAN
founder Deanna Krantz and PAWS representative
Ed Stewart in their efforts to obtain custody
of both Loki and an orphaned elephant calf.

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Where men are mean and dogs are scared

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

SEOUL, Republic of Korea––Yet another of the
reputed international victories of the animal protection movement
during the 1980s has collapsed––and this one, the abolition
of dog-and-cat-eating in the Republic of Korea, was for
many activists the most important of all.
It was supposedly achieved in 1978, 1980, 1984,
1986, 1988, and in 1991, according to statements by Korean
officials and premature declarations of victory issued by the
International Fund for Animal Welfare, the World Society for
the Protection of Animals, and many other organizations which
joined in a threat to embarrass the Korean government with
protests against dog-and-cat-eating during the 1988 Olympic
Games, held in Seoul.
Sunnan Kum, 54, informally founded the first
Korean humane society, Koreans for Animal Protection, in
1981. The international groups backed her efforts in 1983,
after she sent them videotapes showing exactly what goes on.

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In a place where they said it couldn’t be done

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

ROSARITO, Mexico– – Disting-
uished since 1926 by the presence of the landmark
Rosarito Beach Hotel, one of the first
facilities built to draw tourists to the Baja
California coast, Rosarito recently acquired
another landmark: the first no-kill animal
shelter serving northern Mexico.
But the Baja Animal Sanctuary isn’t
yet a visible landmark, and that is perhaps the
biggest problem the two-and-a-half-year-old
shelter has. To get there from Boulevard
Benito Juarez, the main street of Rosarito,
you have to cross the tollway to Ensenada,
turn a tight hairpin turn at the old town graveyard,
and follow the bulldozed but otherwise
unimproved future route of a long-rumored
four-lane highway out through three miles of
developments that don’t yet exist. You turn
off in the middle of nowhere, continue past a
bankrupt and unoccupied condominium complex
whose scenic vistas of sea and mesa evidently
couldn’t compensate for inaccessibility
and lack of water, and descend a steep hill
down a road that threatens to become a gully. Read more

Eastern Europe and Southern U.S. cities share animal control crisis

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

WARSAW, Poland; Southern
states, U.S.––“A series of articles in the
nationally circulated newspaper Zycie
Warszawy about the Paluch animal shelter
[recently] shocked the public” with allegations
of “horrible sanitary conditions, lack of care
and rigid treatment of animals, widespread
disease, and extensive animal killing,”
Warsaw Committee in Defense of Animals
members Aniela Roehr and Anna Chodakowska
charged in a globally distributed May
17 e-mail, seeking help from the international
animal protection community.
Managed by a foundation set up in
January 1997, subsidized by Warsaw and surrounding
suburbs, the Paluch shelter reportedly
has the same conflicts of history, mission,
and public expectation as the animal care-andcontrol
apparatus in Kiev, Ukraine (page
13)––and as do the animal care-and-control
agencies in much of the U.S., as well.

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Animal testing and experimentation

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

Four months after PETA began
a campaign to reduce animal use in connection
with the High Production Volume chemical
safety testing project undertaken by the
Environmental Protection Agency,
Chemical Manufacturers Association, and
Environmental Defense Fund, at urging of
U.S. vice president Albert Gore, PETA
declared on May 4 that “The EPA has conceded
that some of the planned animal tests
were not necessary. At a recent meeting in
Fairfax, Virginia,” PETA said, “EPA officials
announced their intention to remove a
requirement for genetic toxicity tests on animals,
allowing non-animal tests instead. The
EPA also announced at the meeting that it has
agreed to pull requirements for terrestrial toxicity
tests that would have meant intentionally
poisoning birds. A giant rabbit has followed
Gore to 22 cities,” the PETA statement finished,
“with a sign that says ‘Gore: burn
bunnies, lose votes.’”

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KIEV SPA FIGHTS CITY HALL

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

KIEV, Ukraine––The future of animal
control in Kiev might have hinged on the
May 30 city election, but the results––and
consequences for animals––were unknown as
ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press.
Three-year incumbent Oleksandr
Omelchenko reportedly trailed Dynamo Kiev
football club president and member of the
Ukrainian parliament Gregory Surkis by five
percentage points in the last polls before the
vote, with 40% of the electorate undecided.

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BULLFEATHERS & SUCH

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

Told that as a shareholder
he would be given three minutes at
the May 5 annual PepsiCo shareholders’
meeting in Purchase, New York,
to tell fellow PepsiCo shareholders
about Pepsi advertising in bullrings,
SHARK founder Steve Hindi allowed
PepsiCo executives to read his speech
in advance, as required, and travelled
from Chicago to the meeting after getting
purported final approval––but on
arrival was told by PepsiCo associate
general counsel Lawrence Dickie that
he would not be allowed in because
PepsiCo had received an anonymous
call which included a bomb threat.
Recounted Hindi, “Dickie said PepsiCo
had ‘consulted the authorities,’ who
agreed I should not attend. I called the
FBI, the New York State Police, and
the White Plains and Harrison police
departments,” which have jurisdiction
in Purchase. “None of them knew anything
whatever about PepsiCo getting a
bomb threat. There was no report on
file. If PepsiCo feels it cannot defend
its relationship with bullfighting,”
Hindi added, “and I agree it cannot, it
should end that relationship. Meanwhile,
PepsiCo shareholders have a
right to know what PepsiCo is doing.
Barring me was just one indefensible
act concocted to cover up another.”

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Celestial Seasonings apologizes for poisoning prairie dogs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

BOULDER, Colorado– – Caught
poisoning prairie dogs on its 35-acre plant
site in the Gunbarrel, Colorado, a suburb of
Boulder, the tea maker Celestial Seasonings
endured two weeks of intense e-mail protest
before doing an about-face on May 27.
Wrote Celestial Seasonings president
and CEO Steve Hughes, “The response
we have received from the community,
consumers, our neighbors, and wildlife
advocates has been both overwhelming and
justified. The extent of this response, however,
has paled in comparison to the disappointment
expressed by the passionate and
dedicated employees of Celestial
Seasonings. I am deeply sorry…This is an
act that Celestial Seasonings should not have
done, and will not be involved with from

this point forward.”

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