Artful Dodge gets Agudo family out of Venezuela

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

GLENCOE, Missouri––Wanted for treason by Venezuela, because in February
1993 he and colleague Aldemaro Romero videotaped fishers in the act of killing a dolphin,
Professor Ignacio Agudo is safe in Brazil, after two years on the run. His daughters Esther,
seven, and Lina, 15 months, are with him.
Romero too is alive and well, having escaped to Miami in February 1994. His wife
followed soon after. But Agudo’s wife Saida, Esther and Lina’s mother, died in hiding on
April 26, 1995, at age 36, because she couldn’t get medication she needed for a chronic
heart condition. Their grandfather, Agudo’s father, repeatedly interrogated by Venezuelan
police, shot himself in December 1994, to avoid giving away their location.

Activism

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

The Louisiana-based Coalition to
Abolish the Fur Trade said on January 22 that
it had received an Animal Liberation Front communique
claiming credit for the release four
days earlier of 200 to 400 mink from a fur farm
owned by Robert Zimbal, of Sheboygan,
Wisconsin. The release came three days after
the release on their own recognizance of 17 of
22 anti-fur activists who had refused to pay bail
and had gone on a three-day hunger strike, following
their January 13 arrest for trespassing at
a CAFT-led protest against the International
Mink Show in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Two
juveniles were released immediately and three
arrestees posted bail. Hitting fur farms in
British Columbia, Washington, Minnesota,
and Tennessee, the ALF claims to have
released 6,800 mink, 30 foxes, and a coyote in
six raids since October 1995, as well as spraypainting
$75,000 worth of furs at the Valley
River Center Mall in Eugene, Oregon, on Fur
Free Friday. Virtually all the released mink
were quickly recovered. The other releases
haven’t been acknowledged in fur trade media.

Most recent data shows shelter euthanasias down to 5.1 million a year

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

In October 1993, ANIMAL PEOPLE projected from about half of the data below that the annual U.S. shelter euthanasia toll could be as low as 5.1 million dogs and
cats per year––approximately a third of the then-prevalent guesstimates by national organizations. Adding in additional shelter-by-shelter intake and euthanasia statistics, compiled
over the past five years by a variety of different groups and individuals, confirms the estimate; of states for which multiple counts are available, only Indiana shows a rising
euthanasia toll, and that trend may have been reversed since the most recent available data was collected. Because not all the surveyors asked the same questions, figures are missing
from some of the columns. Dog and cat intake add up to a slightly different figure than total intake in some cases because some shelters report rounded numbers for some categories
rather than exact figures, producing a minor cumulative distortion. The New York data represents all shelters serving 87% of the human population, projected to cover the whole population
of the state. The Ohio data represents animal control shelters covering 34% of the state, projected to cover the whole population of the state.

Animal control & rescue

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Taking over the New York City
animal control contract from the American
SPCA on January 1, 1995, the Center for
Animal Care and Control provided pickup and
rescue service to 5,448 dogs and 4,753 cats
during the year, nearly double the ASPCA
norms, according to CACC director Marty
Kurtz. In consequence, dog intakes rose to
24,536, with a euthanasia rate of 73%, while
cat intakes rose to 26,266, with a euthanasia
rate of 78%. Returns-to-owner were achieved
at about the same rate the ASPCA managed,
but still at only half the rate managed by
Chicago and less than a third the rate of San
Diego, the apparent RTO leader among major
U.S. cities. To boost RTO, the CACC in
November began microchipping all animals
placed. Overall, the CACC adopted out 4,975
cats, 222 more than were picked up in distress,
along with 4,561 dogs. Combined adoptions,
all species, came to 9,616––slightly
less than the ASPCA norm, but the ASPCA is
still doing adoptions, dividing the traffic.

WOOFS & GROWLS

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

>>MARMAM@Uvvm.Bitnet<<, the online Marine
Mammals Research and Conservation Discussion hosted by
Robin Baird of the University of Victoria, in January appealed
for $5,000 toward operating costs. The Whale and Dolphin
Conservation Society started the kitty; ANIMAL PEOPLE
sent $100 and challenged other institutional users to proportionally
match it. As of February 2, MARMAM had raised just
half the amount, including gifts from Japanese whaling industry
flak Alan Macnow and Georg Blichtfeldt of the pro-sealing/whaling
High North Alliance, who may be the two least
popular users; William Burns of the GreenLife Society North
American Chapter; the International Marine Mammal
Association; Paul Nachtigall of Aquatic Mammals; Leslie
Strom of Wide Angle Productions; Phoebe Wray of the Center
for Action on Endangered Species; and private citizens
Andrew Morse and Keith Ronald. Paul Watson of the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society promised to donate as soon as
he resolved a modem-link problem. Absent were major animal
and/or habitat protection groups––including HSUS, the heaviest
single user––and any marine mammal exhibition facilities.

Activists & Organizations

Charity begins at home

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

“The Elinor Patterson Baker Foundation makes
grants for the general charitable purposes of organizations
that fulfill the airms, principles, goals, and purposes of the
Humane Society of the U.S.,” proclaims the purpose statement
filed with the foundation’s 1994 IRS Form 990-PF.
Indeed it does: of 129 grants made in the fiscal
year ending May 31, 1995, totaling $1,390,000, the six
largest were $250,000 to HSUS itself; $100,000 to the
Humane Society International, the umbrella for HSUS and
subsidiaries; $50,000 to the National Association for
Humane and Environmental Education, an HSUS subsidiary;
$50,000 to EarthKind USA, another HSUS subsidiary;
$35,000 to the World Society for the Protection of Animals,
whose vice president is John Hoyt, HSUS/HSI chief executive
officer since 1970, with HSUS board secretary Murdaugh
Madden as treasurer; and $25,000 to the Center for
Respect of Life and Environment, an HSUS subsidiary. The
Animal Rescue League of Fall River also got $25,000. Other
grantees with which HSUS had no representation got an average
of $7,008 each.

ADDENDA: WHO GETS THE MONEY?

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

This second addenda to our sixth annual
report on the financial affairs of the major national animal
and habitat protection groups and opposition
groups includes those whose IRS Form 990 didn’t
reach us before either our December or January/
February issue deadline. As a bonus this time, we’re
also including several small all-volunteer groups with
noteworthy prominence relative to expenditures.
Groups are identified in the second column
by apparent focus and philosophy: A is for advocacy,
C for conservation of habitat via acquisition, E f o r
education, H for support of hunting, L for litigation,
P for publication, R for animal rights, S for shelters
and sanctuaries, V for antivivisection, and W for animal
welfare. The R and W designations are used only
if an organization makes a point of being one or the
other.

Whistleblowers fight back

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Jan Moor-Jankowski, M.D., founder and director for 30 years of the
Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates at New York University,
raised $1.2 million to retire the 225 LEMSIP chimps, coincidental with his own
retirement––but NYU last year froze the funds, closed LEMSIP, and ousted both MoorJankowski
and his lieutenant, James Mahoney, after they resigned from the NYU Institutional
Animal Care and Use Committee, and filed complaints of primate care negligence with the
USDA that obliged the suspension of the NYU addiction research unit run by Ronald Wood.
The USDA probe of the Wood case is reportedly now complete; whether charges will be filed
or Wood will resume his work is yet to be seen. NYU president Jay Oliva and NYU Medical
Center associate dean David Scotch meanwhile sold the LEMSIP chimps to the Coulston
Foundation, a New Mexico-based research supplier, which is to take possession of the chimps
on March 15. Moor-Jankowski in 1991 won a landmark Supreme Court verdict for press freedom
against the Austrian pharmaceutical giant Immuno AG, which sued him for libel, as editor
of the International Journal of Primatology, after he published a letter-to-the-editor by
International Primate Protection League founder Shirley McGreal. Coulston filed a brief backing
Immuno. Investigating whether Moor-Jankowski was illegally punished for whistleblowing,
the USDA on December 22 subpoenaed Oliva, Scotch, and all related records.

Sea Shepherds want to herd Hondo

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

SEATTLE––Hondo, the California sea lion
who ambushes salmon and steelhead at the base of the
Ballard Locks near Seattle, was back for the start of
this winter’s spawning runs, with others, and when
the National Marine Fisheries Service said it had no
money to capture and hold him throughout the spawning
season, as it did last year, at cost of $120,000,
shooting seemed imminent. But on January 25 the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society put the killing on hold
by formally proposing to relocate Hondo and friends to
San Francisco Bay.
“Sea Shepherd has offered to pay this year’s
costs of temporary housing and immediate translocation
of sea lions to California,” said Sea Shepherd
Pacific Northwest coordinator Michael Kundu. “We
have legal permission from the San Francisco Bay
Commission to return these sea lions to California,”
their native waters.

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