Wild tails about Wildlife Waystation

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST,
California––Three people from ANIMAL
PEOPLE spent nearly seven hours at Wildlife
Waystation recently, including five hours of
hiking up hill and down dale behind the seemingly
inexhaustible founder, Martine Colette,
viewing more than 1,000 animals. Yet we still
saw the most remote paddock for hooved animals
only from a distance.
The scale of the Waystation is overwhelming
to those who may be familiar only
with sanctuaries of ordinary size. Near
Sacramento, California, the Performing
Animal Welfare Society, for instance, reportedly
sheltered 38 animals as of September
1997, while the Farm Sanctuary site at Orlans,
California, had 47.

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The history of D.E.L.T.A. Rescue

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

The history of D.E.L.T.A. Rescue
Adapted from “Is This The Place?”, by Leo Grillo
[Additional editorial notes are in brackets.]

1 9 7 9 – Leo Grillo, a Hollywood
actor, found 35 dogs starving in the wilderness
outside of Los Angeles. Without food or
shelter, their lives depended on his daily
feeding. Grillo learned to medicate these
dogs in the field when they were sick.
(Oscar, the last of those dogs, died in 1995.)
1 9 8 0 – Grillo leased kennel space.
He rescued those 35 dogs and about three
dozen more who were abandoned during that
first year. He found homes for most, but
kept about 20 because they were abused and
unwanted. He realized that most shelters
would kill them, but he refused, saying
“These animals are people too!”

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ANIMAL CONTROL, RESCUE, & SHELTERING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

Former Assembly of God pastor
Dan Knapp, 42, well regarded for his
administration of the Humboldt County
Humane Society and Humane Society of
Sonoma County at past stops, in July was
named new chief of Animal Services of the
city of Los Angeles. He inherits a difficult
situation, including shelters reportedly
holding half again as many animals as they
were built for, 180 employees but an undersized
veterinary department, and a per
capita killing ratio which while good by
national and even California standards, is
still three times higher than that of San
Francisco. The job also comes with vocal
public critics of the whole Los Angeles animal
care and control apparatus.

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WHO’S FIXING PET OVERPOPULATION?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

The following table lists the number
of dogs and cats killed per thousand
human residents of North American cities,
counties, and states for which complete
recent counts are available.
Immense regional differences are
readily apparent, with the lowest ratios clustered
in the Northeast and the highest in the
South. The low Northeastern figures would
appear to be associated with high urban populations,
apartment living and resultant low
pet ownership rates; cold winters, depressing
the survival rate of feral kittens; a relatively
strong humane infrastructure to encourage
neutering; and animal control agencies which
have historically not had a mandate to pick up
free-roaming cats. The high Southern figures
conversely reflect suburban populations, high
pet ownership, warm winters, and a general
lack of access to low-cost neutering.

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India notes

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

The Marchig Animal Welfare
Trust has divided this year’s M archig
Animal Welfare Award among three refuge
projects in India: the Darjeeling Goodwill
Animal Shelter in Kalimpong, West Bengal,
under administration of Christine Townend
of Help In Suffering; a new Help In
Suffering refuge to be founded at Udairpur, in
memory of the late Annabella Singh; and the
People For Animals refuge in Delhi, founded
by Maneka Gandhi. Both Townend and
Gandhi were profiled in our January/February
1998 edition.
The summer 1998 edition of
Compassionate Friend, the magazine of
Beauty Without Cruelty India, warns Indian
animal protection groups which receive financial
aid from the British-based Royal SPCA
against following the RSPCA into promoting
meat. Since 1994 the RSPCA Freedom Food
project has marketed meat and eggs produced
according to “humane” standards. Meant to be
profitable, Freedom Food reportedly cost £2.1
million to set up, and lost money for three
years before breaking even in 1996-1997.

COMING & GOING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

Rick Obernesser, 42, chief ranger at
the Cape Cod National Seashore from 1993
until February 1998, and assistant chief ranger
at Yellowstone National Park since then, was
on August 5 elevated to chief ranger at
Yellowstone. Obernesser succeeded Dan
Sholly, 52, who was demoted and transferred
to a lesser post in south Florida for allegedly
sexually harassing his former secretary, Susan
Perkins, after her husband Rory, also a
National Park Service employee, was killed in
an accident. Perkins said the incidents began on
September 5, 1997, the morning after Sholly
and his wife took her to dinner. Assigned to
investigate the case, Glen Canyon Dam
National Recreation Area chief ranger Tomie
Lee testified at a June hearing that Sholly at first
denied Perkins’ claim that he French-kissed her,
and accused Perkins of heavy drinking, but
added that Sholly later said his tongue might
have entered Perkins’ mouth by accident.

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People & policies

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

New York Daily News correspondent Murray
Cox reported on July 28 that PETA supporters Alec
Baldwin and Kim Basinger would serve lobster salad,
yellowfin tuna, and Hudson Valley foie gras at an
August 1 reception for U.S. President Bill Clinton and
First Lady Hilary Clinton. PETA is outspoken in opposition
to lobstering and fishing, and produced a gruesome
undercover video of ducks being force-fed to make
Hudson Valley foie gras. “Web sites and Internet chat
rooms have been buzzing,” New York Post “Page Six”
columnist Richard Johnson wrote on August 6. “The
menu was published hours before the Clintons were
scheduled to arrive.” PETA president Ingrid Newkirk
called Baldwin, who called the caterer. The foie gras,
Newkirk told Johnson, “was not served.” The caterer
confirmed her account.

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Bear bladders become political football for the AZA, HSUS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

WASHINGTON, D.C.– –
Humane Society of the U.S. vice president
for legislation Wayne Pacelle
claimed a small victory on July 21
when the Senate Committee of
Environment and Public Works
approved S.263, the proposed Bear
Protection Act, which would ban sales
of U.S. bear viscera to foreign buyers.
“Unfortunately,” Pacelle
lamented, “the committee removed
one of the main provisions: a ban on
interstate trade in bear gall bladders
and bile. The weakening was pushed
by Senator Dirk Kempthorne,” also
behind numerous attempts to weaken
the Endangered Species Act, “who is
leaving the Senate to run for governor
of Idaho.”

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ALF & fur

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

British junior agriculture minister
Elliot Morley told the House of
Commons in July that he intended to introduce
legislation to close the 15 remaining
mink farms in Britain, but remembering the
Labor government’s failure to promptly pass
a ban on fox hunting, promised during the
1997 election campaign, Animal Liberation
Front members released as many as 6,000
mink from the Crow Hill Fur Farm i n
Hampshire on August 8, touching off mayhem.
About 500 were soon caught, still on
the premises, and others reportedly returned
within a few days, seeking food, but others
invaded the nearby New Forest Preserve,
devastating native wildlife and also killing a
caged owl and kestrel at the New Forest Owl
Sanctuary. Another 2,000 mink were shot or
trapped by a 20-member Ministry of
Agriculture hit squad during the next few
days, but as of August 13 at least 2,000 more

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