Habitat

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

Eighty percent of the remaining old growth
forest in the Pacific Northwest would be protected from
logging under a plan to protect endangered spotted owls
and salmon runs unveiled July 2 by President Bill Clinton
in response to rulings by Federal District Judge William
Dwyer of Seattle that have restricted logging for nearly
three years. During the halt, the logging workforce has
declined from 145,000 to 125,000. The protected zones
would run along watersheds. Loggers would be allowed
to cut about 1.2 billion board feet of old growth per year
in less sensitive areas, down from five billion board feet
in the mid-1980s. While most of the plan does not
require Congressional approval, it must be ratified by
Dwyer before any old growth logging on the land covered
by his decisions can resume. Dwyer’s decision, based on
the provisions of the Endangered Species Act, is due in
mid-July. The Clinton plan, drafted with heavy input
from Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, drew immediate
flak from House Speaker Thomas Foley, who indicated
he might cross party lines in an attempt to gut the ESA
when it comes up later this year for renewal.

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HUNTING & FISHING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

The Illinois Department of Agriculture in June
banned captive pigeon shoots on advice of the state attor-
ney general, bringing its policy into line with the state
Humane Care for Animals Act of 1973 and a January 1992
amendment to the state Conservation Code. The ban was a
major victory for anti-pigeon shoot activist Steve Hindi, of
Plano, Illinois, who has struggled since 1990 to get
enforcement of the laws against pigeon shooting.
The Fund for Animals has announced that it
will not protest against the annual Fred Coleman Memorial
Labor Day Pigeon Shoot in Hegins, Pennsylvania, this
year. Major protests orchestrated by the Fund and PETA in
1991 and 1992 backfired when they became confrontational.
Nearly twice as many shooters and shoot supporters attend-
ed the Hegins shoot last year as before the Fund got
involved, possibly attracted by the chance an activist might
get killed in the act of rescuing a bird. The Coalition
Against Live Bird Shoots in Pennsylvania will hold a small-
er protest this year; details have not yet been announced.

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Wildlife

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

New head of USFWS
faces fight to renew ESA
LAND USE CONFLICTS ERUPT ALL OVER
WASHINGTON D.C.– Nominated
by President Bill Clinton to head the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, forester Mollie Beattie
of Grafton, Vermont is expected to be Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s chief mapmaker, as
the administration seeks to secure renewal of a
strong Endangered Species Act by reorienting
the law to protect critical habitat rather than
individual species.
Her main duty, she told Burlington
Free Press reporter Nancy Bazilchuk upon
receiving word of her nomination, will be to
“map and inventory the country’s ecosystems,
so we know which ones are scarcest and need
more protection.”

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Habitat

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Over the past 28 years, the Land and Water
Conservation Fund financed by offshore oil and gas
drilling royalties has raised more than $9 billion, the
revenues from which––$900 million a year––were sup-
posed to have been spent on acquiring land for national
parks and wildlife refuges. However, the Ronald
Reagan and George Bush administrations gradually
diverted the money elsewhere. The current federal bud-
get, Bush’s last, allocated only $284 million for land
acquisition, and Bill Clinton’s proposed budget cuts that
24%, to just $208 million.
China has set aside 77,000 square miles in
northern Tibet as a wildlife sanctuary––an area the
size of South Dakota. More than 125,000 square miles
of the remote Himalayan nation had already been
reserved for wildlife. Nearly 40% of Tibet is now offi-
cially protected habitat for yaks, snow leopards, rare
high-altitude sheep, and a vareity of antelope species.
New York City has announced plans to sepa-
rate the Central Park Reservoir from the city water
system later this year. The reservoir, one of the critical
habitats for New York’s urban wildlife, may be added to
the park area intact––or may be drained, filled, and
converted into athletic fields.

Agriculture

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The Food and Drug Admini-
stration held hearings May 6-7 on whether
to approve the sale of milk produced with
the aid of the genetically engineered hor-
mone bovine somatotropin (BST), and if
sale is approved, whether the milk should
be specially labeled. Four chemical
firms––Upjohn, Monsanto, American
Cyanamid, and Eli Lilly––have reportedly
spent $500 million to develop and introduce
BST, which boosts milk production per cow
by up to 20%. BST is opposed by con-
sumer groups concerned about the possible
effects of the drug on human health, which
may include altering the growth rate of
bone and liver cells; animal protection
groups worried that BST may increase the
stress on cows; and dairy farmers anxious
that many of them could be put out of busi-
ness, since BST enables fewer cows to pro-
duce more milk, which is already in over-
supply. The same debate is underway in
Canada, where a multi-department review
of the possible effects of BST is to be com-
pleted later this year.

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Wildlife

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1993:

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit announced April
15 that Georgia Pacific, the largest U.S. forest products com-
pany, has agreed to leave at least 10 acres of woods standing
around each colony of endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers
found on company land in Arkansas, the Carolinas, Louisiana,
and Mississippi. The deal protects 50,000 acres while allowing
Georgia Pacific to log the remainder of its 4.2 million acres of
southern timber.
The World Wildlife Fund has agreed to hire mem-
bers of the impoverished Hoopa tribe in northern California to
restore logged-out forests and eroded stream beds. The Pacific
Gas & Electric Co. has already provided 30,000 trees to the pro-
ject, which is expected to benefit bald eagles, peregrine fal-
cons, and northern spotted owls.

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ANIMAL HEALTH

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1993:

Massachusetts SPCA veterinari-
ans Michael G. Aronsohn and Alicia M.
Faggella recently published protocols for
anesthetizing and neutering 6-to-14-week-
old kittens in the Journal of the American
Veterinary Medical Association, vol. 202,
#1, pp. 53-62.
The USDA announced April 1
that from now on it will require environ-
mental impact statements filed in connec-
tion with animal disease eradication activi-
ties to include identification of any pesti-
cides that might be used; any chemicals
used for sanitation; and a protocol for dis-
posing of carcasses and contaminated
manure and debris.

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Making a home for magical migrating monarchs by Nicole Kraft

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

There once was a time when millions of monarch
butterflies dotted the skies each fall, the eastern band
migrating south to Mexico and the western population fly-
ing to the coastal regions of central California. That was a
time before development ruined much monarch habitat,
leaving them struggling to find the safe haven of a milk-
weed field in which to lay the eggs of their next generation.
Judith Levicoff, a habitat educator in Jenkintown,
Pennsylvania, has worked for the past two years in class-
rooms throughout the Delaware Valley to help children
restore monarch numbers, by creating their own butterfly
gardens, and by raising and releasing their own butterflies.

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WILDLIFE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Babbitt moves on endangered species
Newly appointed Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt lost no time
demonstrating a new approach to endan-
gered species protection. As President Bill
Clinton scheduled a Forest Summit for
April 2, in hopes of resolving the long
impasse over northern spotted owl habitat
and old growth logging in the Pacific
Northwest, Babbitt on March 13 appointed
noted conservation biologists Thomas
Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution and
Peter Raven of the Missouri Botanical
Garden to set up a national biological sur-
vey, which will map animal and plant habi-
tat much as the U.S. Geological Survey
maps topographical features. The habitat
map will be the first step toward reorienting
Endangered Species Act enforcement to
focus upon critical ecosystems, instead of
trying to save species on a slow, costly
case-by-case basis.

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