Horses

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

The Ochoa brothers, reputedly

the world’s leading cocaine traffickers after

the death of Pablo Escobar in a shootout with

Colombian police late last year, reputedly

launder their income through their father’s

horse breeding business. Fabio Ochoa

Restrepo’s herd of 1,200 horses is reportedly

worth $25 million. The Escobar family also

breeds horses, but the value of their stock fell

shortly before Pablo Escobar was killed,

when rivals castrated a stud worth $1 million.

Zoo notes

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Saved from bankruptcy two years

ago by public donations of $1.2 million and a

gift of $2.4 million from Kuwait, the London

Zoo in 1993 recorded a profit of nearly

$500,000––its first profit since 1976.

The Duke University Primate

Center on January 31 achieved the first birth

in captivity of a golden crowned sifaka, a

highly endangered lemur.

SPECTACLES

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

A group of Ecuadoran school children

in late January donated their allowances, sold toys,

and performed on street corners to raise funds to

feed polar bears, elephants, seals, and horses aban-

doned in Quito by the Circus of Czars, from St.

Petersburg, Russia. The circus manager vanished

with the receipts from a successful tour, leaving the

human performers stranded, as creditors seized

their equipment. As ANIMAL PEOPLE went to

press, help was reportedly en route from business

leaders and environmental groups.

Fur

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

While the ISO moved to accept

padded leghold traps as “humane,” a

Massachusetts judge ruled they are not on

December 27, 1993, overturning a 1989 rul-

ing by the state Division of Fisheries and

Wildlife that padded traps were not banned by

the state law that banned steel-jawed leghold

traps in 1974. “It is apparent from the opera-

tion of the Woodstream ‘soft-catch’ trap,”

Suffolk Superior Court judge Patrick King

wrote, “that it will cause injury to many ani-

mals.”

ANIMAL HEALTH

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Rabies update

New Hampshire state veterinarian

Clifford McGinniss warned January

15––after a rabid kitten was found in a

Merrimack College dormitory––that feral cats

must be exterminated to protect Hampton

Beach visitors. Disagreeing, Hampton Beach

is pursung a $24,000 cat control plan combin-

ing catch-and-kill with selective neuter/

release. The plan is also opposed by New

Hampshire SPCA executive director Bonnie

Roberts, who told the Boston Globe that the

feral cats “are going to tangle with rabid ani-

mals and spread the disease.” In fact, rabies

vaccination is a prerequisite of the Hampton

Beach plan, and of all properly managed

neuter/release programs. There are no reports

on record of any cat in any recognized

neuter/release program anywhere ever con-

tracting rabies, while several neuter/release

programs including one coordinated in 1991-

1992 by ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim

Bartlett have been credited by public safety

officials with creating an immunized barrier

between rabid wildlife and family pets.

Animal Control & Rescue

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

The Canadian SPCA

was stunned February 3 when it

lost the Montreal pound contract

to a private bidder, Berger Blanc,

for at least a two-month trial period.

Berger Blanc handles animal control

for several Montreal suburbs, but

has been accused of selling animals

to biomedical research. The

Montreal contract forbids such sales.

The CSPCA was nearly bankrupted

under its previous two-year pound

contract, loosely modeled after the

contract New York City has long

had with the ASPCA, under which

it was expected to provide pound

service at a substantial loss––

$450,000 in 1993––in exchange for

the proceeds from all dog licenses

sold after the first 10,000.

Marine mammals

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

S. 1636, the present Marine

Mammal Protection Act reauthorization

bill, has cleared the Senate Commerce

Committee and at deadline was expected to be

passed any day by the full Senate, with House

ratification likely in April. The Humane

Society of the U.S. has asked members to

write Congress opposing S. 1636 because it

“has no provisions for effective enforcement,”

and “would allow the accidental killing of

endangered species (currently prohibited) and

the intentional shooting of seals and sea lions

solely to protect fish commercially caught or

raised.” HSUS seeks amendments that will

“ensure that marine mammal mortality in com-

mercial fishing operations reaches insignifi-

cant levels approaching zero, mandate specif-

ic punitive consequences if kill reduction goals

are not met on schedule, prohibit the capture

of wild whales or dolphins for public display,

prohibit swim-with-the-dolphin programs and

petting pools, prohibit public feeding of both

captive and wild marine mammals, prohibit

the issuance of permits to kill endangered

species in commercial fisheries,” and “prohib-

it the intentional killing of seals and sea lions

solely to protect fishing gear, catch, or net

pens.” The Animal Welfare Institute has

issued a similar appeal for action.

Sea Shepherd sinks another pirate whaler: ACTED TO ENFORCE INTERNATIONAL LAW, WATSON SAYS

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

GRESSVIK, Norway––Responding to the slaughter of 296 minke whales last

summer, in contravention of international agreement, the Sea Shepherd Conservation

Society sunk the pirate whaler Senet during the predawn hours of January 24.

The S e n e t was one of 28 vessels that took part in Norway’s first commercial

whale hunt since the International Whaling Commission declared a moratorium on com-

mercial whaling in 1986. The Senet crew killed five of the 160 whales massacred under

Norway’s unilaterally declared commercial quota, while 12 other vessels killed an addi-

tional 136 whales in the name of scientific research. Mostly sold to Japan, the whale meat

brought the whalers about $12.5 million. The Norwegian government reputedly spent near-

Zoos

January 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

announced December 20 that it has indefi-

nitely ended consideration of requests to

import giant pandas. The verdict came six

months after Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt

vetoed the San Diego Zoo’s attempt to import

two pandas in exchange for a grant of $1 mil-

lion to loosely monitored “panda conservation”

projects in China, which in the past have

included such activities as building a hydro-

electric dam.

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