Fish stories

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

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.

Animal health

October 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1995:

Mongolian authorities on August 24 quarantined 50 people in
Mankhan county, Hovd province, after a 17-year-old trapper contracted
bubonic plague while skinning marmots.
Plague broke out simultaneously on a state farm near Bryansk,
Russia, near the Belarus border, killing 400 pigs but no people.
Nature’s Recipe in July recalled and destroyed several thousand
tons of dry dog food that caused dogs to vomit because of contamination
from a wheat fungus called deoxynivalenol, vomatoxin for short,
which appears after wet growing seasons. It isn’t lethal to either dogs or
humans, just not pleasant to have.

Tales from the Cryptozoologists

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

A fanged skull two boys found along a river-

bank on the edge of Bodmin Moor, England,

belonged to a leopard, but the leopard was apparently

killed and skinned years ago in India, the London Zoo

reported on August 7. The find came just a month after

an eight-month study by the Ministry of Agriculture con-

cluded that the only wild felines on the moor, contrary

to longtime rumors of black leopards on the loose, were

feral domestic cats.

Wang Fangchen, leader of a 30-member

team who spent June and July seeking a mysterious

“apeman“ in heavily wooded Shennongjia National

Park, of central Hubei province, China, says he’ll lead a

second search perhaps as early as September, “as soon

as the rainy season is over.” All he found this time was

some unidentified hair, but a 1993 video convinced

Wang that the creature exists. “It is possible that their

numbers dwindled as the environment changed in recent

years,” he said.

RELIGION & ANIMALS

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

Self-styled Santerian priest Rigoberto

Zamora, 58, was charged July 18 with four counts

of felony cruelty for killing 11 birds, three goats, and

a lamb in his Miami Beach apartment on June 26,

1993. Zamora, whose priestly credentials are chal-

lenged by other Santerians, staged the slaughter to

celebrate a U.S. Supreme Court ruling two weeks ear-

lier that bans on animal sacrifice per se violate the

First Amendment right to freedom of religion. The

court left intact anti-cruelty statutes, which may

affect where and how sacrifices are made, without

prohibiting them outright.

Afflicted with an inflamed stomach,

Shin, a 10-year-old Himalayan snow leopard who

lives at the San Francisco Zoo, hadn’t eaten in two

weeks as of June 10, when she was visited by 11

Tibetan monks from Gyuto Tantric University in

Tenzin Gang, India. The monks performed a five-

minute puja for her––a healing chant. Reported Jorge

Aquino of Religion News Service, who photographed

the event, “As the monks began their blessing, Shin

came down from her 15-foot perch and sat down to

face the monks. She watched and listened, apparent-

ly transfixed.” Shortly after the chant ceased, she

resumed eating her regular rations.

Zoos

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

Alleged embezzling rocked two leading animal exhibition insti-

tutions during the summer. The Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association is

officially mum about the discovery that $72,000 of the $7.5 million it

received last year from concession sales is missing. The discrepancy was

discovered in early June, but has not been reported to police, as the associa-

tion apparently hopes to resolve the case internally. In a similar but unrelat-

ed case, the International Marine Animal Trainers Association recently

found $60,000 missing; did not press charges against the former IMATA

treasurer, who acknowledged responsibility; and has informed membership

that it has received partial restitution. IMATA pledged it would not reveal

the identity of the individual in question, whose identity is nonetheless

known to ANIMAL PEOPLE. She no longer works in the animal field.

As the Missouri River rose in the Dakotas in June, a patron

donated use of a private jet to Lincoln Park Zoo (Chicago) and Milwaukee

County Zoo staffers, who collected 30 piping plover eggs then and 114

more later, along with 116 eggs from least terns. Both the plovers and the

terns are endangered, and the riverbank nesting sites of both were wiped

out. Ninety-one plovers and 67 terns hatched, the first of their species to be

successfully artificially incubated. Captive breeding may be the birds’ best

hope of survival, as they’ve lost about 80% of their habitat since 1950, and

are quite vulnerable to predation and bad weather in the remaining habitat.

Animal control & rescue

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

New legislation

An update of Louisiana animal

protection laws long sought by

Legislation In Support of Animals, the

Coalition of Louisiana Animal Advocates,

and other state groups includes the stiffest

felony cruelty statute in the U.S., mandat-

ing a fine of not less than $1,000, up to

$25,000, plus from one year in prison up

to 10 years at hard labor; fines for misde-

meanor cruelty of up to $1,000 and 48

hours of community service plus jail time;

the extension of the cruelty law to cover

parrots, parakeets, and lovebirds (but not

fighting cocks); the extension of the state’s

anti-dog theft law to cover other pets, with

stiffer penalties; and the creation of a fund

to help save the scarce Louisiana specta-

cled bear, funded by sales of a special

license plate. Known for gung-ho effica-

cy––on a budget of just $50,000/year––

LISA celebrated by bringing the

Spay/Neuter Assistance Program mobile

clinic from Houston to New Orleans for a

weekend of providing free neutering to

low-income families.

ANIMAL HEALTH

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

RABIES NOTES

Post-exposure shots for 665 people

who came into contact with a rabid kitten in a pet

store in Concord, New Hampshire, last October,

together with other essential follow-up, cost $1.5

million, says the CDCP.

The Pet Savers Foundation has pro-

posed establishing a National Rabies Awareness

D a y. “Letters to Congress supporting Rabies

Awareness Day would be very helpful,” Charlie

McGinley of Pet Savers told ANIMAL PEOPLE.

Get details c/o 14 Vanderventer Ave., Port

Washington, NY 11050; 516-944-5025.

Two residents of San Rafael,

California, were bitten by rabid bats in June,

including a 5-year-old boy playing near a backyard

pool and a woman who was swimming. The bats

in each case were apparently attracted by insects

hovering over the water.

A laborer from Anhui province,

China, bit four people including a pregnant

woman on July 19 in the city of Suzhou, a month

after he was bitten by two rabid dogs.

Agriculture

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

The National Cattlemen’s

Association, National Live Stock and

Meat Board, parts of the Beef Board, and

the U.S. Meat Export Federation a r e

reportedly uniting under one umbrella as the

Beef Industry Organization. Member groups

claim to have already trained 1,600 volun-

teers to help promote beef.

Pork King of Illinois on July 25

applied for a permit to reopen the defunct

Kenosha Beef slaughterhouse in Hebron,

Illinois––and nine days later withdrew the

application amid a storm of opposition from

residents, who said they no longer want a

slaughterhouse in their community.

Feral cats & Singapore animal advocacy

July 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1995:

SINGAPORE––The first feral cat in Singapore may

have been the animal for whom the island city-state is named.

He was reputedly a big one, with a red body and

black mane. When he lived and who saw him is mysterious.

Singapore in the fifth century A.D. was known to

Chinese sea farers as “Pu-luo-chung,” meaning “little town at

the end of a peninsula.” From the seventh century to the 10th

century the little town was Temasek, a Buddhist city-state.

After several centuries of obscurity, Temasek rose as

a regional power in the 14th century, passing from Buddhist to

Islamic rule, but was eventually destroyed by warfare. The

ruins were sparsely inhabited until 1819, when Sir Stamford

Raffles rebuilt the ancient palace grounds as the seat of British

government in Southeast Asia.

By then, the former Temasek was already S i n g a –

pura, meaning in Malay and Sanskrit “The lion city.”

Singapore mythology holds that the name Singa-pura

was conferred in the early14th century by the Sri Vijayan

prince Sang Nila Utama, who had sailed from Sumatra seeking

a place to build an empire.

« 1 … 78 79 80 81 82 … 95 »