COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Collector suits plague humane groups
LOS ANGELES––The July 3,
1993 seizure of nearly 100 animals from
alleged Los Angeles animal collectors Wayne
and Barbara Chronister continues to have
ramifications, as the Chronisters on July 30
of this year sued the Humane Task Force, the
Pet Assistance Foundation, Last Chance for
Animals, and 13 individual rescuers for purportedly
defaming them and illegally depriving
them of property.
At least one defendant, realtor
Carole Ellis, promptly countersued for
defamation and libel.

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Fur notes

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Depressed global fur markets have reportedly kept a large percentage
of Russian pelt production on the domestic market, bringing a
domestic fur boom. Russian fur exports dropped last year from $62 million
in 1992 and $64 million in 1993, to just $30 million worth in 1994.
IBAMA. the Brazilian wildlife protection agency, intercepted
an average of 26,000 poached pelts per year on Amazon tributaries, 1975-
1979, but just 184 in 1992 and none this year, says enforcement chief Jose
Leland Barroso, whose staff boards and inspects 1,300 boats a month.
FoA sent a rubber backbone to John Kennedy Jr., publisher of
the fashion magazine George, after he vetoed publication of the same antifur
ad, “How fur looks before the gassing, clubbing, and electrocution,” that
appeared in the October ANIMAL PEOPLE. “We have to wonder why
compassion for animals is too controversial for a magazine which features
cigarette ads, Cindy Crawford in male drag, and an article on Madonna as
president,” wrote FoA president Priscilla Feral. “While this backbone is
only made of rubber, we thought it would be better than none at all.”

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Coloradans seek trap ban initiative

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

DENVER––Colorado People Allied With
Wildlife will on Febuary 1, 1996 begin seeking the
54,000 signatures needed to put an anti-trapping, snaring,
and wildlife poisoning initative on the 1996 state
ballot. A Colorado State University survey commissioned
by the Colorado Division of Wildlife found earlier
this year that 61% of the electorate would favor
such a ban, with 28% opposed and 11% undecided.
Addresss CPAW c/o Robert Angell, 702 S. Corona
St., Denver, CO 80209; 303-722-3966.
“The decision to try a ballot initiative was
made after all other avenues were exhausted,” said
Angell in an October 9 appeal. “In 1990 an anti-trapping
bill was shredded in the state senate natural
resources committee. Last year a bill to appoint
wildlife commissioners in a different manner and to
reorganize and reorient the activities of CDOW met a
similar fate in the state senate agriculture committee.

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Sea Wolf seeks to spare foxes

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

SAN RAFAEL, Calif.––The Sea
Wolf Alliance is seeking final U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service approval for an experiment
in the nonlethal humane extirpation
of non-native blue foxes from Elma and
Inikla islands in the eastern Aleutians, to
be supervised by Alaska Maritime National
Wildlife Refuge senior biologist Ed Bailey.
“If the immuno-contraceptive
which is the subject of our study proves to
be permanent in blue foxes,” reports Sea
Wolf Alliance president Jeanne McVey, “it
will be used by the USFWS in place of
lethal methods of fox removal, such as
leghold traps and cyanide. On some of the
larger, more rugged islands, our immunocontraceptive
will, we hope, be used in
place of poisoned drop-baits.”

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European trapped fur import ban closer––maybe

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

DENVER – –The likelihood Europe
will finally implement a 1991 ban on the
import of U.S. and Canadian trapped fur––if
only as a gesture––increased October 2 when
International Standards Organization technical
committee on trap standards chair Neal
Jotham, of Canada, acknowledged that,
“There is no possibility of reaching a consensus”
on what constitutes a “humane” trap.
The ISO concession enables the
enforcement of European Council Regulation
32254/91, adopted five years ago as an ultimatim
to the fur industry to either end cruel
trapping or cease the import of trapped fur.
Under the regulation, use of leghold traps
will simultaneously be banned throughout the
EC nations, effective on January 1, 1996.
As much as 70% of all fur trapped
in the U.S. is exported to Europe. Thus the
import ban, if it sticks, could cripple the
already declining trapping industry.

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ELEPHANTS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

The Smithsonian Institution
and Malaysian National Parks and
Wildlife Protection Department o n
October 5 began an attempt to track rogue
elephants by satellite. The idea is to head
the rogues––believed to be just a few individuals
among a wild herd of about
2,000––away from potentially lethal conflicts
with farmers and villagers. The
Smithsonian has used the same technology
to track mountain goats in India and Tibet,
and turtles in the Philippines. The transmitter/collar
each elephant must be made
to wear costs $6,000, project coordinator
Michael Stuwe said, and the annual cost
of tracking could be as high as $10,000
per elephant.

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RELIGION & ANIMALS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Brigitte Bardot “was the picture
of elegance,” for a September 27 audience
with Pope Jean Paul II, a day before her
61st birthday, Reuter correspondent Jude
Webber reported, “clad in a tight brown
trouser suit, low-cut pink top, wearing flowers
in her upswept long hair.” Said Bardot
after visiting the Pope, “We talked of animals,
of course. He told us he thought of
them, and they need our help.” Bardot quit
her film career in 1973 to devote herself to
animal protection.
Monsoon floods inundated the
temple at Pathum Thani, Thailand, in
early October, revealing to newspaper
photographers an elephant named
D i a m o n d whom abbot Pra Kru Udom
Pawana-pirat has kept chained to a tree for
nearly 20 years to attract worshippers. The
temple sells the visitors food to give
Diamond––but he rarely gets enough.
Diamond “is skinny, bony, and not healthy,
especially mentally,” said Friends of the
Asian Elephants Foundation representative
Leutchai Kladsri, who tried unsuccessfully to
buy him. Objected Pawana-pirat, “I never torture
him.”
Radio “sex doctor” Ruth
Westheimer read from a prayer book in
Brooklyn on October 3 while a friend swung a
live chicken over his head in a Hassidic Yom
Kippur rite called “shlug kaporos.” After the
swinging, the chickens are killed according to
kosher law and given to the poor.
Faith healers caught a male and
female crocodile on September 30 in
Yaounde, capital of Cameroon; dressed the
male in a fake beard and pants; painted the
female’s claws with red nail polish; and
burned both alive as “bewitched.”

Still no sweetness and light at Sugarloaf

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

SUGARLOAF KEY, Fla.–– Controversy
over the Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary flared again on
October 4 when marine mammal veterinarian Joseph
Geraci, brought from Canada by the National Marine
Fisheries Service to do yet another of many inspections
of the site in recent months, flunked Sugarloaf health
care in a four-page report to Dale Schwindaman,
USDA Deputy Administrator for Regulatory
Enforcement and Animal Care. Geraci called for either
“a major overhaul of SDS philosophy, program and
resources,” or “relocating the dolphins to one or more
facilities with strong established health care programs.”
At issue: Geraci believes the Sugarloaf dolphins
should be kept sling-trained to enable close
inspection and blood-drawing to make sure they do not
transfer disease to the wild population. Sugarloaf director
of rehabilitation Ric O’Barry––who was away at the
time of the inspection––believes all response to human
command must be extinguished, to insure that the dolphins
pursue a wild way of life upon release instead of
hanging around harbors begging.

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Fish stories

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

The House on October 18 approved a tougher
reauthorized edition of the Magnuson Fishery
Management and Conservation Act, 388-37. The new
version dropped a clause exempting Gulf of Mexico
shrimpers from having to immediately reduce bycatch and
sea turtle deaths. The Gulf bycatch averages four pounds of
wasted finfish for every pound of shrimp retrieved.
After three years of negotiation sponsored by
the United Nations, 99 countries agreed in August to a
treaty regulating commercial fishing in all waters, including
sovereign waters. The treaty will take effect when and if it
is ratified by at least 30 nations.

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