DIRECT ACTION

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Convicted Animal Liberation Front arsonist
Douglas Joshua Ellerman, 19, remains at large after failing
to appear for sentencing in Salt Lake City on May 6, but a
sweep by five agencies seeking Ellerman on June 18 and 19
nabbed four Salt Lake City men who were charged on June 23
with releasing mink from the Beckstead Mink Farm in West
Jordan, Utah, on June 22, 1996 and July 17, 1996. The
actions allegedly did more than $200,000 in property damage.
The accused include Jacob Lyman Kenison, 19, and
Brandon James Mitchener, Alexander David Slack, a n d
Sean Albert Gautsch, all 22. Also charged was a fugitive
John Doe, believed to be Ellerman.
The Natrona County Sheriff’s Department, in
Casper, Colorado, said on June 21 that persons claiming to
be “Islamic Jihad Ecoterrorists” had done $100,000 in damage
to local ranchers during the preceding week by cutting fences
dividing federal, private, and state lands in Natrona,
Fremont, and Carbon counties in more than 150 locations.

HUMANE ENFORCEMENT

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Reinforcing previous verdicts, the
Kentucky Court of Appeals on May 29 ruled that
cockfighting remains illegal in Kentucky despite the
1980 state assembly ratification of a bill that exempted
birds from the definition of animals protected by the
Kentucky anti-cruelty law. Then-Kentucky governor
John Y. Brown Jr. vetoed the 1980 bill, and the prevailing
legal interpretation remained that cockfighting
was illegal, until Montgomery County cockfight promoter
Marvin Watkins and four other individuals
argued in a lawsuit that the veto was invalid because
according to a deputy state senate clerk’s affidavit it was
issued a day too late. The Kentucky Court of Appeals
previously upheld the 1980 veto in 1994. At least three
major cockfighting arrests followed the 1994 verdict.

AV activism

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Allegedly abusive animal experiments have
occasionally been halted by protest, professional
review, political intervention, and/or legal action, but
Radley Hirsch, founder and owner of San Francisco
Audio, may be the first supplier of research equipment
to delay or even stop an experiment by turning down a
customer. University of California at San Francisco
researchers Marshal Fong and Stephen Cheung want
to deafen six squirrel monkeys, then cut into their
brains to see the damage. Receiving the Fong/Cheung
order on February 11, Hirsch started to build a sound
system to their specifications, then balked upon discovering
what it was for. “It all comes back to you,”
Hirsch told Keay Davidson of the San Francisco
Examiner. “If you’re an evil person, bad things happen
to you. If you’re a good person, nice things happen.”

Wildlife management

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Accused of mismanagement resulting in a $17 million budgetary shortfall a n d
more than 100 layoffs from a staff of 1,600, Bert Shanks, 58, resigned on June 13 as director
of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, but will continue to collect his $96,000-ayear
salary until September 11. Shanks attributed the shortfall to erroneously expecting in July
1996 that fishing license sales would increase, even though a scarcity of fish had obliged cuts
in bag limits and fishing opportunities.
The Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Committee on June 1 approved a 1999 fiscal
year state Wildlife Department budget of $25.4 million, $1 million less than in 1998 due to
declining hunting and fishing license sales revenue.

NEAVS, HSUS embezzling, Center for Coastal Studies court cases

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Margaret
Hinkel on June 23 ratified a settlement of conflict among New
England Anti-Vivisection Society board factions aligned,
respectively, with PETA and the Fund for Animals, which
had paralyzed NEAVS for more than two years. Under the settlement,
Marian Probst of The Fund told ANIMAL PEOPLE,
“All members of the board resigned,” except president
Theo Capaldo, whose succession to office the PETA faction
allegedly illegally conspired to prevent. A new board was
elected by the NEAVS membership. Among the new board
members are longtime Massachusetts activist Annette Picket;
Holly Cheever, DVM; Boston judge Sarah Luick; and Spay
USA founder Esther Machler. Roberta Wright, executive
director for less than a year, who served at request of PETA
cofounder Ingrid Newkirk, resigned and is to be replaced.
Hinkle ruled on January 22, 1998, that the PETA faction under
direction of the other PETA cofounder, Alex Pacheco, had
attempted to take full control of NEAVS in order to continue
diverting NEAVS assets in support of “organizations with
which they were allied.” A PETA/Fund coalition had led
NEAVS since deposing the administration of probate judge
Robert Ford in 1988. Ford was in March 1989 convicted of
mismanaging NEAVS assets for personal gains.

More young men with guns go berserk; Illinois hunter harassment law struck down

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

EUGENE––Kipland P. Kinkel, 15,
was arraigned on June 16 in Eugene, Oregon,
on four counts of aggravated murder, 26
counts of attempted aggravated murder, six
counts of first-degree assault, 18 counts of
second degree assault, and unlawful possession
of a firearm.
Kinkel, who boasted often to classmates
of torturing and killing animals, was
arrested on May 20 at Thurston High School in
Springfield, a Eugene suburb, for alleged illegal
possession of a gun.
Released to custody of his parents,
who both taught at the school, Kinkel allegedly
shot both to death with hunting weapons the
following morning, then massacred classmates
in the school cafeteria.

USDA Wildlife Services almost gets culled

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Wiley Coyote almost won a
round on June 23, as the House of Representatives voted 229 to
193 in favor of a bill introduced by Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon)
and Charles Bass (R-New Hampshire) to cut $10 million, the
cost of predator killing programs, from the fiscal 1999 USDA
Wildlife Services budget of $28.8 million––a cut four times
deeper than President Bill Clinton proposed in January.
The funding was almost certain to have been restored
in the Senate, where the 17 western states whose ranchers most
use Wildlife Services have proportionally far more clout, but
taking no chances, Wildlife Services senior staff and livestock
industry representatives lobbied through the night.
Congressional allies then demanded a revote on June 24, which
rescinded the cut, 232-192.
Despite losing an apparent landmark victory, predator
advocates remained encouraged at retaining 53 more votes
against Wildlife Services than ever before were mustered. The
previous high of 139 votes came in 1996, when Wildlife
Services was still called Animal Damage Control.
“We’ll keep at it,” pledged Tom Skeele, executive
director of the Predator Project, an activist group headquartered
in Bozeman, Montana.

Awards, honors, and appointments

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

San Francisco SPCA president
Richard Avanzino on April 15 received the
first-ever ALPO Humane Achievement
Award, presented by Friskies PetCare
Company, Inc.
Peter Singer, author of Animal
Liberation, is relocating in August from
Australia to Princeton University, where he
is to become DeCamp Professor of Bioethics
at the Princeton Centre for Human Values.
Sangeeta Kumar, formerly outreach
director for the Toronto Vegetarian
Society, has relocated to San Diego, where
she has founded a new organization,
Compassion In Action, initially sponsored
by philanthropist Kanwar Jain.

WILL CHINA WELCOME CAPITALIST RUNNING DOGS?

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

HONG KONG––Friends of
Animals president Priscilla Feral on June 17
led about 50 demonstrators in protest outside
the embassy of the People’s Republic of China
in Washington D.C., demanding that U.S.
president Bill Clinton add cruelty to animals to
his list of topics for discussion during a late
June visit to Beijing.
“We have documented evidence that
cruelty to animals is so pervasive and conspicuous
that it must be officially sanctioned,”
Feral said. “Much of the cruelty involves the
mistreatment of companion animals destined
for slaughter.”
The Clinton administration did not
respond, amid conflicting indications of shifting
Chinese views about dogs and petkeeping.

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