Category: Environment

Senate moves on Arctic refuge, bioterror

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2001:

 

WASHINGTON D.C.–Post-September 11 concerns about
bio-security and U.S. dependence upon Middle Eastern oil boosted U.S.
Senate efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil
drilling, and to upgrade the investigative capabilities of the USDA,
including the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
U.S. President George Bush took office pledging to allow
drilling in the Arctic refuge, an issue split along party lines,
but his chances dwindled when Senator Jim Jeffords, of Vermont,
changed his affiliation from Republican to Democrat, giving
Democrats the Senate majority. The Republican-controlled House of
Representatives passed an enabling bill, however, in August.
Sensing that current events might have weakened Democratic
resolve, Repub-lican Senators tried twice in September to attach
enabling amendments to bills on defense funding and energy policy.
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) pledged to filibuster against
any pro-Arctic refuge drilling bills that reached the floor.

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September 11 brings sounds of silence to animal & habitat activism

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

WASHINGTON D.C.–Activism for animals and habitat is abruptly
quieter after the September 11 hijackings of four airliners that left
an estimated 6,333 people dead at crash sites in New York City,
Washington D.C., and Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
Both the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense
Council immediately hushed criticism of the policies of U.S.
President George W. Bush–even on Endangered Species Act enforcement
and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where their
views and those of the Bush administration are polar opposites.
“In response to the attacks on America,” said a Sierra
Club internal memo disclosed by Counterpunch columnists Alexander
Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, “we have taken our ads off the air;
halted our phone banks; and removed any material from the web that
people could perceive as anti-Bush. We are taking other steps to
keep the Sierra Club from being seen as controversial.”

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Bush rolls back animal and habitat protection

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2001:
WASHINGTON D.C.–Rolling back animal and habitat protection, especially last-minute actions of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, was a top priority for new President George W. Bush during his first month in office.

Immediately after inauguration Bush ordered the Federal Register to delay listing new regulations until after they are reviewed by his Cabinet. Listing in the Federal Register is the final stage of a regulation taking effect. The Bush order included the January 17 creation of six new national monuments, by executive order of Clinton, who created 17 new monuments in all during his term, covering 5.6 million acres.

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Editorial: The White House and one little bird

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2001:
“I am appalled,” Metro Humane Shelter founder Harrison Lloyd wrote to ANIMAL PEOPLE from Birmingham, Alabama, soon after the U.S. Supreme Court made George W. Bush the next U.S. President, “that you took a strong stand for the election of the Albert Gore/Joseph Lieberman ticket while slamming George W. Bush. You made a big issue of the fact that Bush killed one little bird in error, for which he paid a fine, but Gore and Lieberman are strong believers in murdering unborn human babies.”

Gore partisans accused us of Republicanism when from 1994 on we repeatedly pointed out his positions favoring Japanese, Norwegian, and Makah whalers. Gore backers were also ired when in 1999 we explained how many lab animals were to be killed as part of his High Production Volume chemical safety testing initiative. The HPV testing protocols were later amended, due to public protest, to use far fewer animals.

ANIMAL PEOPLE covers animal protection, as our title indicates. Abortion has never been within our scope, although we do not dismiss it as a moral issue.

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Disaster relief teams are fired up and burned out by hellish summer

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

HAMILTON, Montana––With at least five national
animal disaster relief teams now on the job, and increasingly
well-prepared local disaster relief plans covering most of the
more populated portions of the U.S., members of the United
Animal Nations’ Emergency Animal Services entered August
feeling a bit like Maytag repairmen: nobody calling, nothing
much to do except hold more seminars to train more help to
assist the 3,400 UAN-trained volunteers already available to
respond when all hell breaks loose.
”There have been no disasters where we were needed
so far,” UAN president Jeanne Westin remarked to ANIMAL
PEOPLE on August 7.
Thirteen western states were gripped by some of the
hottest droughts in years––but neither UAN nor any of the other
national animal rescue outfits do rainmaking.

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Drought, flooding cycles spell hard times even for vultures

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

 

INDIA, MONGOLIA, KENYA––Among the most
ancient of living bird species, vultures feasted at the extinction
of the dinosaurs. Cartoonists often depict them thriving on the
demise of humanity.
But even the notoriously well-fed vultures of India
are in deep trouble now, in apparent indirect consequence of
drought and flooding cycles afflicting much of the earth.
Associated with global warming, droughts and floods
should be good for vultures, littering the land with carrion.
But Bombay Natural History Society chief scientist
Vibhu Prakash reports that the total numbers of the four main
Indian vulture species are down by 97% since 1990. The
Kanpur population has dropped from 4,000 to as few as eight.
At Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, there were
2,000 resident vultures in 1986. Only 150 nesting pairs
remained by 1997. This year only eight vultures have even visited
Keoladeo––and none nested.

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Two-strokes are out in parks

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Recognizing that the most invasive of all species are humans on vehicles with noisy exhaust-spewing two-stroke engines, the National Park Service on April 28, 2000 banned recreational use of snowmobiles at 29 National Parks, National Monuments, and National Recreation Areas.

The ban will be implemented by enforcing existing prohibitions on off-road vehicle use, adopted in 1972, and other disruptive vehicular activity, adopted in 1977.

Exempted from the Park Service edict are only Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota and 11 sites in Alaska, including Denali National Park, where specific legislation permits snowmobiling.

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Invasions created the Mara, Serengetti vista

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000

KEEKORAK, Kenya––The Masai Mara National Park in southwestern Kenya and the Serengetti National Park of northwestern Tanzania together offer one of the world’s great wildlife viewing venues, punctuated by the spring and fall migrations of the wildebeests, in herds of thousands.

Yet if the bioxenophobes who dominate the conservation establishment were philosophically consistent, the great wildlife parks would represent an ecological horror show: almost all of the charismatic megafauna whom the world beats paths to see were once invasive species.

Elephants would be especially reviled––as they are, by many botanists––because their habit of breaking down trees tends to keep the savannah from evolving back into the dry forest it apparently was once, before they came.

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SEA SHEPHERDS FIGHT CAPTIVITY, EURO OIL SPILLS

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

FRANKFURT, Germany– – Lufthansa, the national airline of Germany, on December 7 agreed under pressure from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to cease transporting wild-caught whales and dolphins to marine mammal parks.

“Sea Shepherd Europe asked Lufthansa to review its policy on the transport of wild animals and also contacted other major airlines after an incident in early November in which two dolphins––one a pregnant female–– died in a Lufthansa cargo plane. They were part of a shipment of one beluga whale and four dolphins being shipped from Russia to Argentina,” Sea Shepherd spokespersons Andrew Christie, Hartmut Seidich, and Kay Trenkman explained.

“Investigations by Sea Shepherd Brazil and Sea Shepherd Europe found that the five cetaceans were flown to Frankfurt by a Russian plane. They were reloaded into a Lufthansa plane after a veterinarian at the Frankfurt airport certified that they were fit for transport,” the Sea Shepherds added.

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