Horses

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Wild Horse Annie (right), the first

wild horse to be protected by the Bureau of

Land Management, died on January 27 at the

International Society for the Protection of

Mustangs and Burros sactuary near Scottsdale,

Arizona. Named after Velma “Wild Horse

Annie” Johnston, the Nevada secretary who

worked for more than 20 years to secure feder-

al wild horse protection (and inspired the last

film of Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, The

Misfits), the horse was tattooed U.S. #1 after

she was rescued as a starving foal on

September 4, 1970, in the Pryor Mountains

––a year before the Free Ranging Wild Horses

and Burros Act took effect.

Bangkok Six attorney kills himself

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Attorney Michael Metzger, 57, of St.

Helena, California, shot his wife Kyle in the

legs on March 3, then killed himself. He had

reportedly been depressed and drinking since

federal judge Saundra Armstrong suspended his

right to practice for six months in late 1992, after

he allegedly challenged two prosecutors to fist-

fights and asked a female prosecutor for tissue

samples “to see what species you are.”

The San Francisco Chronicle described

Metzger as “a generous, gentle man who loved

dogs and cats as well as the deer that roamed

near his home and vineyards.” As a member of

the Animal Legal Defense Fund, he defended,

on several occasions circa 1990, activists who

had been arrested while trying to stop legbreak-

ing experiments on greyhounds at Letterman

Hospital, a military facility in San Francisco.

COURT CALENDAR

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Wildlife and habitat

The U.S. Court of Appeals in

Washington D.C. on March 11 upset jurispru-

dence concerning endangered species protec-

tion by ruling in a case pertaining to timber rights

and spotted owl protection in the Pacific

Northwest that the government lacks authority to

protect wildlife habitat on private land. The U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service said that pending further

clarification of the ruling, perhaps by the U.S.

Supreme Court, it would make no policy changes.

The March 11 ruling directly contradicts the out-

standing precedent in such situations, established

by the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals in San

Francisco.

Birds

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

The Clinton administration on

February 23 unveiled a management plan

for 24 million acres of public land in the

Pacific Northwest that cuts the rate of log-

ging to 20% of the pace in the 1980s. Most

of the 5.3 million acres of old growth on the

public lands will be off limits, to protect

spotted owls and more than 1,000 other old

growth-dependent species. Although the

plan will make permanent the layoffs of

about 9,500 forest products workers, it is

expected to be what The New York Times

called “the final blueprint” for settling the

spotted owl crisis. Studies of the impact of

logging on spotted owls go on; critics of owl

protection may enjoy the March 13 disclo-

sure that the Seattle Center for Wildlife

Conservation is getting $107,000 from the

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to check spot-

ted owl guano from logging areas for hor-

monal signs of stress.

Fur

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Canadian environment minister Sheila Copps,

whose gracelessness earned her the nickname “Leader of

the rat pack” during her years as a Parliamentary back-

bencher, disrupted a meeting of top environmental offi-

cials from the seven major Western industrialized nations

on March 12 by denouncing the European Community ban

on seal pelt imports, the pending EC ban on imports of

pelts trapped by cruel methods, and opposition to the cur-

rent Canadian seal hunt. Copps claimed an alleged popula-

tion explosion of seals is causing the collapse of the

Atlantic Canada fishing industry, despite strong biological

evidence that seals do not eat many fish of the most com-

mercially valued species.

Splatt back

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

DERRY, New Hampshire––Dr.

Splatt’s Roadkill Monitoring Project is under-

way for the second year. Sixty secondary

schoolrooms are keeping an online log of

roadkills for nine weeks, starting March 14.

Thirty classes last spring compiled

the biggest data base on roadkills to date,

finding apparent peak times of vulnerability

for grey squirrels, raccoons, birds, beavers,

skunks, and rats, which may coincide with

when young leave their parents, the growth

of favored food plants, moon phases,

and––for scavengers––peaks in roadkills of

other species.

ANIMAL HEALTH

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Epidemiology

New York and Rhode Island

health officials said February 24 that a mys-

terious hantavirus caused the January 20

death of Rhode Island School of Design stu-

dent David Rosenberg, 22, who may have

become infected via rodent droppings while

sweeping out a warehouse in Queens. The

case is among the first known human cases in

the U.S. that apparently does not involve deer

mice. Four days earlier, the Centers for

Disease Control confirmed that the hantavirus

afflicts Florida cotton rats, and announced

the death of three Kansans from suspected

hantavirus infections. Of the 60 known U.S.

human victims, 27 have died; 23 have

recovered after suffering debilitating illness.

What makes a scandal?

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Over the past decade, the following issues have become the

focus of 219 public scandals involving 101 U.S. animal shelters, of

which 60 were municipal animal control facilities; 18 were convention-

al humane societies, some of which held animal control contracts; 14

were no-kill shelters; and eight fell into other categories.

The total number of scandals is quite small, considering that

there are more than 6,000 shelters and animal control holding facilities

in the U.S. However, an evident pattern of repeated scandals at the

same shelters reflects a combination of administrators unwilling to rec-

tify problems and a resulting growth of public mistrust, so that eventu-

ally even relatively minor problems become scandals.

Getting a leash on no-kills

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

PHOENIX, Arizona––”As a volunteer at a no-

kill animal sanctuary in Utah,” Lynda Foro wrote to 230 no-

kill shelter directors last summer, “and as a supporter of no-

kill sanctuaries in the Phoenix area, I believe a directory of

the no-kill animal sanctuaries in the U.S. will be a useful

tool for communication and support.”

Foro compiled her mailing list from a combination

of personal contacts and responses to a classified ad in ANI-

MAL PEOPLE. About half the addressees responded,

enabling her to publish the 1994 No-Kill Directory i n

January. Sales were brisk enough, at $10 apiece, to meet

most of her expenses. (Order from POB 10905, Glendale,

AZ 85318-0905.) Already she’s assembling a 1995 edi-

tion––and is attracting notice from those who research trends

in humane work. Stereotypes of no-kills abound, but hard

data is lacking, largely because no one has had the roster of

such facilities necessary to do serious surveying.

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