New species discovered in the jungles of Southeast Asia

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia– –Exploration teams in the

jungles of Southeast Asia reported two extraordinary finds in late

April––a small herd of kouprey, an extremely rare wild cow, and an

entirely new deer species, the giant muntjac.

Italian veterinarian Maurizio Dioli tracked the kouprey in

northeastern Cambodia from March 27 until April 7, never actually

seeing any, but collecting evidence of their presence, also observing

“one of the largest populations of Asian elephants and Sumatran tigers

in Asia,” and evidence, too, of enough poaching to “present a major

threat to the survival of the wildlife.”

Wildlife

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Hope rose for the endangered

Florida panther in late May when volunteers

from the Coryi Foundation discovered a car-

cass, a single pawprint, and clumps of fur on

the grill of a car that struck an unknown animal

in the St. Johns and Kissimmee River water-

sheds––far outside the Big Cypress Swamp

area of Lake Okeechobee, which was previ-

ously the panther’s only known habitat.

A coalition of U.S. environmental

groups has petitioned the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service to add koalas to the endan-

gered species list. The koala population of

eastern Australia has fallen lately due to habi-

tat loss, caused by the combination of devel-

opment, logging, wildfires, and drought.

MARINE MAMMAL NOTES

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

The Marine Mammal Protection Act was

reauthorized on schedule on April 29, including loop-

holes to let hunters to import polar bear trophies and to

allow the killing of seals and sea lions who eat threat-

ened fish runs at locks and fish ladders. Other provi-

sions include a total ban on intentionally shooting

marine mammals who interfere with fishing, and a pro-

gram to cut accidental kills during fishing to near zero

over the next seven years.

The Liberal Party of Canada convention on

May 15 overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling

for the resumption of offshore seal hunting, halted in

1983 after two decades of international protest. The

Liberals form the Parliamentary majority. Claiming

“the concerns of animal rights lobby groups should not

be put before the concerns of the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador,” the resolution claims

sealing is needed to create jobs because the fishing

industry has collapsed––making no mention that the col-

lapse was caused by overfishing condoned in the name

of job creation by a succession of both Liberal and

Progressive-Conservative governments.

Zoo notes

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

A deal to move Ivan the gorilla to the 17-member

colony at Zoo Atlanta has collapsed. Ivan has been kept in a

cage at a now-bankrupt shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington,

for nearly 30 years. Bankruptcy trustee Bianca Harrison claims

the obstacle was that Zoo Atlanta wouldn’t let his keepers to stay

with him during quarantine, wouldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t

be moved again, and wouldn’t promise that he wouldn’t be elec-

troejaculated. Zoo Atlanta says the real issue is that the creditors

think they can get more money for Ivan abroad than the $30,000

the Progressive Animal Welfare Society offered to send him to

Atlanta.

Four gorillas have died at the Columbus Zoo in the

past year––Oscar of a heart attack, Molly and her baby as result

of a premature birth, and Colbi, age six, of apparent severe coli-

tis on May 3. Antibiotic treatments failed.

Save the whales! DID CLINTON SELL OUT WHALES TO SELL MISSILES?

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico––The world will

know by the time you read this whether U.S. president Bill

Clinton sold out whales to sell $625 million worth of missiles to

Norway. As ANIMAL PEOPLEwent to press, Greenpeace and

the World Wildlife Fund, goaded by Friends of Animals, were

applying last-minute leverage to head off the apparent

sellout––including joint protest on May 17 in front of the White

House, a WWF first, while Clinton and vice president Albert

Gore met with Norwegian prime minister Gro Brundtland inside.

The proposed creation of an Antarctic whale refuge and

the resumption of commercial whaling head the agenda for the

46th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission

(IWC), commencing on May 23. As every year since 1982,

when the IWC decreed the moratorium on commercial whaling in

effect since 1986, Japan and Norway will push to break the

moratorium. As last year, Japan and Norway will also fight the

creation of the sanctuary, seeking the help of Antigua-and-

Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent-and-

the-Grenadines, four tiny Caribbean nations heavily dependent

upon Japanese foreign aid, whose votes were decisive in 1993.

Philippines joins Indonesia in banning monkey business

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

MANILA, The Philippines– – A

high-ranking Philippine official confirmed

May 9 that a long-awaited Philippine ban on

wild-caught monkey exports will take effect

this year, fulfilling a promise made in 1986

and completing a phase-out begun in 1989.

Quoting a radio broadcast by

Philippine Protected Areas and Wildlife

Bureau director Corazon Sinha, the Xinhua

news service reported that the export ban will

cover both wild-caught and captive-bred mon-

keys––a significant extension of the 1989

plan, reiterated in early 1993 by Sinha’s pre-

decessor, Samuel Penafield. Ending all mon-

key exports would ease the burden of enforce-

ment, since officials would not be obliged to

determine where each monkey was born.

Saving marine mammals and tigers: The balance of nature vs. the balance of terror

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The poli-

tics of wildlife protection are at the fore this

month as Congress rushes toward renewing

the Marine Mammal Protection Act on the eve

of the annual push by whaling nations to gut

the whaling ban enacted in 1986 by the

International Whaling Commission––and

everyone has something to trade but the

cetaceans and pinapeds whose fate depends on

the outcome. Simultaneously the fate of wild

tigers and rhinoceroses worldwide would

seem to depend more upon the success of

negotiations over inspection access to North

Korean nuclear power plants than upon either

economics or ecology.

A foreshadowing of the probable

compromises ahead over marine mammals

came on April 11, as President Bill Clinton

barred U.S. imports of wildlife products from

Taiwan effective in mid-May. Said Clinton,

“The world’s tiger and rhinoceros populations

remain gravely endangered and will likely be

extinct within the next two to five years if the

trade in their parts and products, fueled by

market demand in consuming countries, is

not eliminated.”

Birds

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Virtually insuring the mass destruction of spar-

rows, who provide much of China’s insect control, Beijing

Weekend magazine on April 1 published the assertion of profes-

sor Chen Wenbo of the Beijing Drum Tower Hospital of

Traditional Chinese Medicine that eating six sparrows and 15

grams of Chinese wolfberries per day for three months can cure

male sterility. The professor, 57, claimed to have cured

30,000 patients with a diet of sparrows over the past 13 years:

86% of their wives became pregnant. Since 1991 the price of

sparrows at the bird market outside the hospital has reportedly

doubled from three U.S. cents apiece to six.

Siberian cranes failed to arrive this winter at

Keolado National Park, near Bharatpur, India, for the first

time in 30 years. Only six were seen in Iran, and none in

Pakistan, marking the virtual extinction of the western flock,

which numbered 200 about 30 years ago. About 2,900 Siberian

cranes survive in the eastern flock, wintering in eastern China.

ANIMAL HEALTH

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Zoonosis

The politics of rabies took a twist

on April 1 when in all seriousness Patricia

Munoz, public health director for

Washington County, New York, told the

county public health committee that she need-

ed an infectious disease control nurse on her

staff to handle the growing rabies-related

caseload. The Washington County public

health department handled about 500 more

cases of all types during the first three months

of 1994, including 16 cases of possible expo-

sure to rabid animals. Munoz got the com-

mittee to recommend the hiring, then dis-

closed that the nurse would also handle

hepatitis and salmonella cases, both of which

are far more numerous.

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