A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:
Running for the Green Party,
seeking a senate seat in Victoria, Australia,
Animal Liberation author Peter Singer won 3%
of the vote on March 2.
Antonio Shaw has replaced former
American SPCA executive vice president
John Foran, who left after a November clash
with law enforcement chief Robert O’Neill.
O’Neill reportedly departed on March 4.
Longtime ASPCA Animal Watch editor Cindy
Adams meanwhile resigned in January to
attend nursing school.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:
Amid the mad cow disease panic, Britain barely
noticed the death of an 11-year-old Moslem girl from anthrax
after a two-day stay at the Poitier’s University Hospital in
London. Anthrax, a disease of known epidemic potential, hits
about 100,000 people a year. It can be treated with antibiotics, if
recognized early, but otherwise kills through the combination of
high fever, pneumonia, and internal hemorrages. Sixteen days
before falling ill, the girl helped her father kill an infected sheep
at an unlicensed slaughterhouse during the Ramadan religious
holiday. She then ate a lightly cooked piece of the liver. The rest
of her family, fasting according to the rules of Ramadan, waited
until the end of the holidays before boiling and eating the rest of
the meat. None of them became ill.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:
Improvements
Four months after giving the Los
Angeles Zoo one year to make improvements
necessary to keep accreditation,
American Zoo and Aquarium Association
representive Stephen McCusker credits interim
zoo administrator Manuel Mollinedo, 49,
with accomplishing many of the goals. “He’s
worked miracles,” adds Los Angeles city
council member Rita Walters, a member of
the Ad Hoc Committee on Zoo Improvement,
indicating that Mollinedo could soon be
given the top zoo job on a permanent basis.
A longtime Parks and Recreation official,
Mollinedo took the interim post with no
background in either zoo management or veterinary
science. His hand was strengthened
by a recent report to the Ad Hoc Committee
by Los Angeles chief legislative analyst Ron
Deaton and chief administrative officer Keith
Comrie, who argued that the zoo should
become an independent branch of the city
government, with greater authority over the
Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, the
private fundraising organization that runs the
zoo concessions. Zoo attendance has fallen
since 1990, while the concessions lost
money in both 1993 and 1994.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:
ADELAIDE, S.A.––Australian
officials admitted November 27 that the premature
release of calicivirus into the outback
of New South Wales and South Australia
state in October was an accident.
Apparently carried to the mainland
by insects after deployment at a test site on
Wardong Island, the disease soon killed
850,000 rabbits––22 an acre––in Flinders
Ranges National Park alone. Ranger David
Peacock said that was counting only rabbits
who died in the open; experts predicted
most afflicted rabbits would die underground.
Farmers eager to get rid of rabbits
were reportedly paying $75 apiece for
infected rabbits to release on their property.
Australia has been trying to eradicate
rabbits for more than a century.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:
Waterfowl
Migrating ducks overloaded airport radar
s y s t e m s across the midwest on November 2. “It was
one of the most compressed migrations we’ve seen in
the past 25 years,” Ducks Unlimited chief biologist Jeff
Nelson told Ken Miller of the Gannett News Service.
“It was more than I’ve ever seen.” Explained Federal
Aviation Administration spokesperson Sandra
Campbell, “The primary radar system in Omaha picked
up so many targets, 29,000 to 39,000, that it shut itself
down. Ten minutes later, the same thing happened in
Des Moines. Three hours later, it occurred at Kansas
City.” This year’s total waterfowl migration is estimated
at 80 million, up from 56 million in 1990.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:
The Australian Nature Conservation
Agency on September 18 recommended
restricting whale-watching in breeding areas,
accrediting tour operators, and forming a
code of ethics for whale-based tourism. The
Australian whale-watching industry grew
13% from 1991 to 1994, as more than
500,000 people spent up to $70 million a year
to see whales. Protecting whales from whalewatchers
became a public issue on June 2,
1994, when Andrew Curven of New South
Wales was photographed standing on the back
of a right whale. On September 1, Curven
was fined $500 (Australian currency). He
faced a maximum penalty of two years in jail
and a fine of $100,000 for allegedly violating
the 1974 National Parks and Wildlife Act––
aimed at industrial polluters, not individuals.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1995:
A wide-ranging new anti-cruelty bill
introduced in Victoria state, Australia, on
September 7 by agriculture minister Bill McGrath
would give greater powers of intervention to prevent
cruelty to police, Royal SPCA, and state government
inspectors; extend the definition of animals to cover
fish and crustaceans; apply to the use of animals in
reasearch; remove religous-based exemptions to
existing laws governing the humane slaughter of fowl;
and ban the transport of untethered dogs in the backs
of trucks and trailers unless they are helping to move
livestock. The provisions pertaining to aquatic life,
McGrath said, are “not intended to intrude on existing
commercial practices in the fishing industries, but
will enable inspectors to investigate the transport and
display of crayfish and the preparation of fish and
crustaceans for the table.”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995: