Whale-watching

January 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1997:

University of Queensland PhD. candidate Ilze
Brieze reported in late October, after a year of study, that the
dolphins of Moreton Bay, off Brisbane, Australia, and at the
Australian Sea World are behaviorally unaffected by human
contact, even though the bottlenose dolphins at Sea World
appear to enjoy swimming with humans and being hand-fed.
Studies by other researchers have indicated that the wild dolphins
who interact with humans at Monkey Mia in western
Australia may have become excessively dependent upon handfeeding,
and that one result is dolphin mothers who so fixate
on humans that they neglect their infants. Studying the same
Moreton Bay dolphin population as Brieze, Mark Orams of
Massey University joined her in warning that even when there
are not obvious ill effects from contact, wild dolphins should

SIRENIANS

January 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1997:

Fewer than 2,000 dugongs persist along the
Australian east coast and southern Great Barrier Reef, as
numbers have crashed from 50% to 80% in recent years,
partly due to storms and coastal development which have
devastated the sea grass that Australian dugongs depend on
for food, but to greater extent as the result of gillnetting,
which accounted for 15 of 30 recent dugong deaths at Great
Barrier Reef Marine Park, according to Helene Marsh of
James Cook University. Shark nets alone caught 654
dugongs off central Queensland in 1995, along with 651 dolphins
and 4,059 sea turtles. Only 45 dugongs, 31 dolphins,
and 1,420 turtles survived. Nine newly established protection
zones off Queensland may not help, warns North Queensland
Conservation Council coordinator Jeremy Tager. “The reality
is, there is no new protection from human threats to
dugnongs in these areas,” he said.” Gill netting, hunting,
coastal development, vessel traffic, and even the use of
explosives will continue in the proposed protection areas.”

Sirenians

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Swamped in extra work by the
deaths of at least 370 manatees during the
first 10 months of 1996, nearly twice the
next highest toll of the past 20 years, the
Florida Bureau of Protected Species in
October sought an emergency allocation of
$500,000 to get through the year. The Save
The Manatee Trust Fund has raised $15.6
million since 1990 by selling more than
345,000 commemorative license plates, but
expenditures for 1996 alone will total nearly
$4 million. The fund employees 17
researchers in St. Petersburg and 16 people
in Tallahassee to review land use permits for
possible impact on manatees and develop
local manatee protection plans.

Cetaceans

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

South Australia on September 25
proclaimed the Great Australian Bight Marine
National Park. The long discussed park will
bar fishing and mineral exploration during the
six months of each year when the waters are
used by about 60 rare southern right whales.
Federal judge Douglas P.
Woodlock on September 26 ruled that
Massachusetts is breaking the Endangered
Species Act and other federal law in issuing
permits to fishers who use equipment known
to kill highly endangered right whales.
Woodlock ordered the state to develop a right
whale protection plan by December 16.
Hearings on how to protect right whales from
fishing gear were already underway, but
Massachusetts attorney general Scott
Harshburger immediately appealed on behalf
of the state’s 1,686 lobster trappers, likely to
be the fishers most affected. A federal appellate
court upheld Woodlock’s verdict on
October 17. Max Strahan, of Greenworld,
who filed the suit against Massachusetts,
pledged to next pursue a similar case in Maine.

Sickness in Australia

November 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

SYDNEY, LONDON– – Intro-
ducing a pest to control a pest, against
much scientific and humane advice,
Australian agriculture and wildlife authorities
in mid-October released millions of calicivirus-carrying
Spanish rabbit fleas at 280
sites, expecting to kill up to 120 million of
the nation’s estimated 170 million rabbits.
The rabbits are accused of outcompeting
endangered native marsupial species
for habitat––though they also draw predation
by feral foxes and cats away from marsupials––and
of costing farmers $23 million
to $60 million a year, chiefly by eating fodder
that would otherwise go to sheep.
Calicivirus induces internal hemorrhage,
killing about 90% of the rabbits
who contract it within 30 to 40 hours. It
spreads at about 25 miles per day.

Marine mammals

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Small whales
The Sacramento Bee warned in
June that the vaquita whale is “on the verge
of extinction, a victim of commercial gill net
fishing” in the Sea of Cortez, and that the
reserve set up to protect the vaquita may be “a
sanctuary in name only.” The vaquita is a
small toothed whale, a class not protected by
the International Whaling Commission.
Romanian Institute for Marine
Research scientist Alexandru Bologna says
only 10,000 dolphins remain in the heavily
polluted Black Sea, down from 70,000 in
1970, and one million in 1950, when the former
Communist regime began “economic capitalization
of dolphins,” i.e. slaughter.

Down on the farm

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

WELLINGTON, N.Z.––Farm animals
have no right to freedom from discomfort, disease,
injury, or pain, say the Federated Farmers of New
Zealand.
Expecting the Animal Welfare Advisory
Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture to soon publish
a proposed code governing the treatment of farm
animals, the Federated Farmers’ annual conference on
June 16 moved quickly to undo a 1988 endorsement
of “five freedoms” for farm animals propounded by
the Farm Animal Welfare Council of Britain.

ORGANIZATIONS

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Overseas
Royal SPCA members on June 22 voted 432-2 according to the London
T i m e s and 459-2 according to the Daily Telegraph to require members to pledge
that they will not “participate in any activity which is considered by the society to
involve avoidable suffering to animals.” The requirement is subject to the approval
of the Charities Commission, however, which in May obliged the RSPCA to drop
a 19-year-old antivivisection policy on grounds that a charitable organization may
not oppose activities undertaken “for the good of man.” An estimated 3,000 members
of the 88,000-member British Field Sports Society recently joined the 28,000-
member RSPCA in an attempt to reverse the RSPCA position against hunting, but
were not yet eligible to vote. The Irish Masters of Foxhounds Association i s
attempting a similar hostile infiltration and takeover of the Irish SPCA, The Irish
Times reported on June 27. Already five local affiliates have amended their policies
to endorse fox hunting. The ISPCA hopes to thwart the effort by adopting a membership
requirement similar to that adopted by the RSPCA.

Reptiles

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Herp traffic
The 72 Malagasy ploughshare tortoises
stolen from a captive breeding project at
the Amphijoroa Forest Park in Madagascar in
May have turned up “for sale in Prague,”
reports Allen Salzberg of the New York Turtle
and Tortoise Society. But due to corrupt
authorities, herpetologists “have little hope of
getting them or the people selling them,”
Salzberg adds. The Austrian Chelonical
Society warned in June that any members who
buy any of the stolen tortoises will be expelled.
German customs officials on July
8 announced the arrest of a 32-year-old man
caught at Augsburg with 328 tortoises
“stacked up like plates” in his luggage. The
man, who may get up to five years in prison,
reportedly “admitted selling around 3,000 rare
and protected tortoises since 1991,” either
caught or bought cheaply in Serbia.

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