Category: Europe

Fish stories

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

The House on October 18 approved a tougher
reauthorized edition of the Magnuson Fishery
Management and Conservation Act, 388-37. The new
version dropped a clause exempting Gulf of Mexico
shrimpers from having to immediately reduce bycatch and
sea turtle deaths. The Gulf bycatch averages four pounds of
wasted finfish for every pound of shrimp retrieved.
After three years of negotiation sponsored by
the United Nations, 99 countries agreed in August to a
treaty regulating commercial fishing in all waters, including
sovereign waters. The treaty will take effect when and if it
is ratified by at least 30 nations.

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Animal control & rescue

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Neutering
Animal Aid of Tulsa made 362 follow-up
calls to animal adopters from January 1
to July 23 to check neutering compliance. Ten
percent couldn’t be located, but 80% had
neutered their adopted pets, nearly twice the
rate of compliance that other shelters found in
studies done in the 1970s and 1980s.
John Schultz, animal warden for
Medina County, Ohio, passed out 111 certificates
good for a $20 discount on neutering
adopted dogs between July 1 and September
11, but only 10% were used by September 21.
The Fund for Animals mobile neutering
clinic was to visit the Zuni and Navajo
Indian Nations in New Mexico, Arizona, and
Utah from October 14- 29, expecting to fix
300 to 400 dogs and cats with sponsorship
from the American Humane Association, the
Houston Rockets basketball team, Solvay
Animal Health, and Holiday Inn. In addition
to the mobile unit and a fixed-site neutering
clinic in Houston, the Fund plans to open a
low-cost “super clinic” in New York City next
year, said spokesperson Sean Hawkins.

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Animal health

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1995:

Mongolian authorities on August 24 quarantined 50 people in
Mankhan county, Hovd province, after a 17-year-old trapper contracted
bubonic plague while skinning marmots.
Plague broke out simultaneously on a state farm near Bryansk,
Russia, near the Belarus border, killing 400 pigs but no people.
Nature’s Recipe in July recalled and destroyed several thousand
tons of dry dog food that caused dogs to vomit because of contamination
from a wheat fungus called deoxynivalenol, vomatoxin for short,
which appears after wet growing seasons. It isn’t lethal to either dogs or
humans, just not pleasant to have.

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Animal rescue abroad

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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.”

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Life on the farm isn’t very laid back

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1995:

Gandhi’s birthday, October 2, marks the 13th observance
of World Day for Farm Animals, declared in 1982 by the
Farm Animal Reform Movement. Unfortunately, despite steadily
increasing humane concern for farm animals, not much has
happened in the past 13 years to actually improve farm animals’
lives. There have been some victories, for example the abolition
of face-branding of imported cattle won in late 1994 by the
Coalition for Non-Violent Food, but factory farming has only
become more dominant in poultry and hog production.
Slaughtered in the U.S. each year are 7.2 billion chickens,
277 million turkeys, 88.5 million hogs, and 1.5 million
veal calves, more than 99% of whom never see the outdoors
except through slats in the sides of the truck that takes them to
their doom. The annual toll also includes 33 million cattle and
5.8 million sheep and lambs. Increasing numbers of dairy cattle
and so-called “milk-fed spring lamb,” raised in the equivalent of
veal crates, also never go outside.

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COURT CALENDAR

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:
Humane Enforcement
The USDA on July 14 announced penalties levied
against five Class B animal dealers and one exhibitor f o r
multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Pat Hoctor,
of Terre Haute, Indiana, drew a $7,500 fine and 40-day
license suspension; Ronald DeBruin, of Prairie City, Iowa,
drew a fine of $5,000 and a 30-day license suspension; David
Kanagy of Readsville, Pennsylvania, drew a fine of $6,000
and a 60-day license suspension; Clyde and Goldie Rogers
of Rogers TLC Kennel in Gassville, Arkansas, drew a
$25,000 suspended fine and a 6-month license suspension;

Larry Roney of Cougar Acrews in Naubinway, Michigan,
drew a fine of $2,000 and lost his license for five years; and
Kelly Young, of Katt Chez Enterprises in Las Vegas,
Nevada, drew a fine of $8,000 and lost her license for 30 days.
Paul Nemeth, former mayor of Bethlehem
Township, Pennsylvania, was charged on August 2 with
shooting one of 11-year-old Jeanine Chiaffarino’s two
Samoyed puppies––in front of the girl––for purportedly bark-
ing too much in anticipation of her supper. The puppy who
was barking was not the puppy Nemeth killed.
Convicted in late June of cruelly neglecting 237
r a b b i t s, 200 of whom were euthanized upon discovery last
March, San Diego “Bunny Lady” Janice Taylor walked with
five years on probation, during which she may not own ani-
mals while Animal Control may search her premises without a
warrant to ensure compliance.
Rabbit and fighting cock breeders Richard and
Carol Beckwith and their daughter Lori Clay, of Scotts
Valley, Califonia, still denying any wrongdoing, drew 300
hours of community service apiece on August 2 for allowing
Clay’s three daughters, ages 7, 3, and 2, to live amid filth,
dead animals, and rodent infestation at the Beckwiths’ San
Jose farm. They were also barred from again keeping animals.
Forty counts of negligent cruelty filed in July
against cat breeder and vet tech Laura Duffy, 37, of La
Honda, California, as result of an April 29 raid, may become
a court test of the controversial San Mateo County animal con-
trol ordinance, friends told ANIMAL PEOPLE. Five people
who knew Duffy said that while she is no spiffy housekeeper,
her animals are well cared-for, and the April 29 conditions
were caused by two weeks of heavy rain that flooded her prop-
erty and mired her horses––whose plight first brought Animal
Control to investigate. There was contrastingly no controversy
over the June 29 seizure of 16 Persian cats from Pleasanton
breeder Linda Johnston, 47, who allegedly kept them in
“filthy and inhumane conditions,” nor over the order given to
Ann Mitchell of Monte Sereno to get rid of 78 cats, who took
over her 2-story home while she lived in a trailer in the yard.

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Aquariums

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

An autopsy on a five-year-old dolphin w h o
died of lead poisoning on July 23 at the Luna Park tank
in Tel Aviv found she had ingested about 100 air rifle
bullets. X-rays found that her companion, Fiadora, 12
had also ingested several dozen bullets, and could die
soon without surgery. A third dolphin, Max, died of
unknown causes earlier in the year. All three were
imported from Russia about two and a half years ago.
Ric O’Barry, who staged an eight-day hunger strike to
get such imports stopped in early 1993, told ANIMAL
PEOPLE on August 7 that, “We will have Fiadora con-
fiscated soon, I feel. I will return to Tel Aviv to transfer
her to a sea pen at Elat, on the Red Sea. Then, when
the Sugarloaf Key project is over (page one), I will
rehab and release Fiadora back into the Black Sea off
Turkey. She will be the first Russian Navy dolphin to be
set free,” at least officially; another dolphin believed to
have been trained by the Russian Navy spent the early
summer begging for fish in the harbor at Bakar, Croatia.

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Tales from the Cryptozoologists

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

A fanged skull two boys found along a river-
bank on the edge of Bodmin Moor, England,
belonged to a leopard, but the leopard was apparently
killed and skinned years ago in India, the London Zoo
reported on August 7. The find came just a month after
an eight-month study by the Ministry of Agriculture con-
cluded that the only wild felines on the moor, contrary
to longtime rumors of black leopards on the loose, were
feral domestic cats.
Wang Fangchen, leader of a 30-member
team who spent June and July seeking a mysterious
“apeman“ in heavily wooded Shennongjia National
Park, of central Hubei province, China, says he’ll lead a
second search perhaps as early as September, “as soon
as the rainy season is over.” All he found this time was
some unidentified hair, but a 1993 video convinced
Wang that the creature exists. “It is possible that their
numbers dwindled as the environment changed in recent
years,” he said.

Zoos

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

Alleged embezzling rocked two leading animal exhibition insti-
tutions during the summer. The Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association is
officially mum about the discovery that $72,000 of the $7.5 million it
received last year from concession sales is missing. The discrepancy was
discovered in early June, but has not been reported to police, as the associa-
tion apparently hopes to resolve the case internally. In a similar but unrelat-
ed case, the International Marine Animal Trainers Association recently
found $60,000 missing; did not press charges against the former IMATA
treasurer, who acknowledged responsibility; and has informed membership
that it has received partial restitution. IMATA pledged it would not reveal
the identity of the individual in question, whose identity is nonetheless
known to ANIMAL PEOPLE. She no longer works in the animal field.
As the Missouri River rose in the Dakotas in June, a patron
donated use of a private jet to Lincoln Park Zoo (Chicago) and Milwaukee
County Zoo staffers, who collected 30 piping plover eggs then and 114
more later, along with 116 eggs from least terns. Both the plovers and the
terns are endangered, and the riverbank nesting sites of both were wiped
out. Ninety-one plovers and 67 terns hatched, the first of their species to be
successfully artificially incubated. Captive breeding may be the birds’ best
hope of survival, as they’ve lost about 80% of their habitat since 1950, and
are quite vulnerable to predation and bad weather in the remaining habitat.

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