EASY TARGETS: Did HSUS expose zoo links to canned hunts or just play to the grandstand?

October 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1994:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Announcing that a three-year probe “has impli-

cated the nation’s best-known zoos as suppliers of exotic animals to hunting ranches,” the

Humane Society of the U.S. has made recent headlines across the country––but the facts fall

short of the sensational charges.

HSUS alleged that 24 zoos had sold animals to so-called canned hunts. Of the 24,

however, seven had already terminated links to canned hunts that were disclosed years ago

by other investigators. The allegations against another 10 zoos remain unsubstantiated more

than two months after they were named by the periodical HSUS Reports, despite HSUS

nvestigator Richard Farinato’s August 24

promise to ANIMAL PEOPLE that details

would be forthcoming. Several of the zoos

deny making such sales; one of them, the

Knoxville Zoo, had cancelled such a sale

before it was completed.

COURT CALENDAR

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Activism

Forty-two activists who were

arrested at the 1992 Hegins Labor Day

pigeon shoot on July 15 sued 16 employ-

ees and officials of Schuykill County,

Pennsylvania, who allegedly subjected

them to illegal strip-searches. The plain-

tiffs include PETA cofounders Alex

Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk, who claims

male guards were able to see her nude

through an open door. The suit parallels

one filed by nine female activists who won

a similar case after the 1991 Hegins shoot.

U.S. judge Franklin S, Van Antwerpen

ruled last September in that case that the

Schuykill county strip-searching policy

was unconstitutional.

Circuses & spectacles

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Cesar, a runaway circus sea lion, was

recaptured on July 22 while napping on a parked

car, ending a four-day chase in Lake Maggiore,

Switzerland, during which activists demanded that

he be allowed to live in the lake. Cesar’s brother

Otto escaped with him, but was caught earlier––and

recaught after escaping again.

The Atlantic City SPCA said August 9

that it was satisfied with improvements the Great

Moscow Circus had made to animal holding condi-

tions at the Trump Taj Mahal Hotel, and would not

file cruelty charges. An exercise cage for the bears,

built at the insistence of Eileen Liska of the

Michigan Humane Society during the Moscow

Circus tour of 1988-1989, was reclaimed from stor-

age in Canada, and was to travel with the circus

throughout the rest of the current tour. The Taj

Mahal shows were continuously picketed by the

New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance.

Animals in laboratories

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

The American Medical Association has honored Louisiana State

University researchers Michael Carey and Betty Jean Oseid (his wife) for their

“defiant and unflinching stand against animal rights extremists.” Carey spent $2.1

million shooting more than 700 cats in the head until a General Accounting Office

probe found the work dubious, influencing the U.S. Army to halt funding in

1989. A stint as a combat surgeon in the Persian Gulf War revamped his image,

Mike Wallace of CBS 60 Minutes whitewashed the cat-shooting, blaming animal

rights activists rather than the GAO for

the Army decision, and Carey has

been on the stump seeking renewed

funding ever since.

Horse notes

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

A legal parallel to the White

Sands situation came to light on the

Yakima Reservation, at Toppemish,

Washington, and the Warm Springs

Reservation near Madras, Oregon,

after horse enthusiast Sheila Herron

traced several injured horses she found

in a horsemeat dealer’s feedlot at Yelm,

Washington, back to annual roundups

authorized by the tribal councils.

Yakima councillors told Herron they

were “weeding out the crippled and

old,” but most of the horses at the feed-

lot were healthy, Herron said, and

some were foals. A Warm Springs

councillor said the Madras horses are

privately owned. “I was certainly

unaware,” Herron told ANIMAL PEO-

P L E, “that only mustangs and burros

from BLM or Forest Service lands are

protected by federal law. Mustangs and

burros from Park Service, Indian, mil-

itary or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

lands have no protection from being

rounded up and sold for slaughter.”

Horses starve at White Sands

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

WHITE SANDS, New Mexico–– Three of the four wild horse herds on the

White Sands Missile Range survived an early summer drought in good shape, but

between July 6 and July 15, when rain came and the grass grew, the Mound Spring

herd lost 122 of an estimated 400 members to starvation––49 of them shot by military

police to end their misery. Descended

from ranch horses left when the range was

expropriated in 1946, from 1,300 to

1,500 horses roam about two million

acres. The New Mexico Department of

Game and Fish says the range can support

no more than 500 horses. In 1989 protest

halted a White Sands attempt to auction

some horses for slaughter, via the state

Livestock Board, which by state law

owns all free-roaming horses not covered

by federal law. In 1990 Rep. Joe Skeen

(R-N.M.) won an appropriation of

$200,000 to enable White Sands to pay

the Bureau of Land Management to adopt

out some of the horses. The New Mexico

wild horse law stopped that.

Animal control & rescue notes

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Five months after the California

cities of Cupertino, Campbell, Los Gatos,

Saratoga, and Monte Sereno contracted

with a Campbell animal hospital for pound

service, instead of the Humane Society of

Santa Clara Valley, about one resident in

five who finds a stray still takes it to the

wrong place. The errors may erode the sav-

ings the cities hoped to gain by the switch.

The Harbor Animal Shelter in

San Pedro, California, estimates that 75%

of the animals it has received this

year––three or four a day––were left by

Navy families being transferred due to the

closure of the Long Beach Naval Air

Station. A parallel situation has developed

at the Wuensdorf barracks in Germany,

closed in August. Russian troops going

home left circa 150 cats behind, now fed by

volunteer Wilhelm Schrader, whose fund-

ing comes mainly out of his own pocket.

RODEO

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

California Assembly Bill 49x, to ban

horse–tripping––a staple of charro rodeo – – at

deadline awaited only governor Pete Wilson’s

signature to become law. Calls of support for the

bill may be made to 916-445-2864.

The Animal Rights Foundation of

Florida asks that letters protesting Dr. Pepper’s

use of rodeo themes in ads be sent to John Clark,

Senior V.P. for Advertising, Dr. Pepper USA,

8144 Walnut Hill Lane, Dallas, TX 75231.

Members of In Defense of Animals

attempted a sit-in August 12 to protest a cattle

drive through the streets of Napa, California,

held to promote the Napa Town and Country Fair

rodeo. They were nearly trampled––along with

spectators––when the supposedly expert cowboys

lost control of the herd of 25 longhorn steers

about a block before reaching the demonstrators.

Bernstein lays down LASPCA law

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

LOS ANGELES––Hired to

revamp the Los Angeles SPCA, executive

director Madeleine Bernstein is already

dodging backstabs from some of the board,

which in April pushed Bernstein’s prede-

cessor, Ed Cubrda, into retirement after 25

years. In July, American Humane

Association west coast office director Betty

Denny Smith quietly quit the board, after

11 years. Soon afterward at least one other

board member intimated to media that

Smith quit because of Bernstein’s policies,

which Smith denied, and issued other

charges about Bernstein’s activity that fact-

checking soon disproved.

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