Will the shelling stop?

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

SAN FRANCISCO––If you think
people who torture animals for alleged “cultural”
motive are as addicted to their deeds as
those who torture just for kicks, and that they
will therefore break any bargain, the Joint
Statement of Principles and Guidelines subscribed
to on March 31 by the San Francisco
SPCA and Representatives of San Francisco’s
Live Animal Markets may strike you as a
cruel and just slightly early April Fool.
You may side with the activists
now burning up the Internet with assertions
that SF/SPCA president Richard Avanzino is
the biggest fool of all, for agreeing––d e
f a c t o––to self-policing to eliminate six types
of animal abuse recognized by both the
SF/SPCA and the live marketers.

PORK BARREL POLITICS

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Manitoba “is offering Ducks
Unlimited up to $1 million over the next five
years to subsidize operations at its Canadian
headquarters,” Canadian Press reported on
March 18, “amid rumors it was planning to
relocate.” The headquarters, built in 1994 on
a former protected wetland with the help of $2
million from the Western Diversification
Fund, has reportedly become a political and
fundraising liability to Ducks Unlimited.
Word of the possible move reached the
Manitoba government via an anonymous letter
in a DU envelope.

BOOKS: Slaughterhouse

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

Slaughterhouse:
The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane
Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry
by Gail A. Eisnitz
Prometheus Books (distributed by the Humane Farming Association,
POB 3577, San Rafael, CA 94912), 1997. 310 pages, hardcover, $25.95.

Gail Eisnitz offers a nightmare view
of the meat industry. Her ten-year investigation
of meat packers, the industry’s
euphemism for slaughterhouses, depicts a
world in which cattle are skinned alive and pigs
are boiled to death in giant scalding vats.
When fully conscious cows dangle by one hind
leg from a steel shackle, workers snip off their
front legs to prevent them from kicking.

HINDU GOVERNMENT TO INCLUDE MANEKA

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

NEW DELHI––”Maneka Gandhi was re-elected as
an independent and has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party government,”
Help In Suffering executive director Christine
Townend faxed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on March 14. “It looks
likely she will be given a lesser cabinet ministry,” an analysis
confirmed by the editors of The Hindu, the nationally circulated
newspaper most closely aligned with the BJP.
Founder of People for Animals, the strongest Indian
animal advocacy group, Maneka thus for the third time in her
political career parlayed isolation into strength. Twenty-two
seats short of a majority in the 545-seat Lok Sabha, after
national elections held in stages from February 16 through
March 5, the BJP needs the support of every non-aligned delegate
it can get in order to take office. Previously in power only
once, for just 13 days, the BJP––if it can form a majority––
will represent the ascendency of Hindu nationalism over the
secular Congress Party, which had dominated Indian politics
since India won independence from Britain in 1948.

EPA WANTS TO REGULATE FACTORY FARMS AS INDUSTRIAL POLLUTERS

April 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Environ-
mental Protection Agency chief Carol Browner
on March 5 personally announced an EPA plan
to regulate livestock feedlots, hog barns, and
poultry sheds like industrial plants.
For the first time invoking the Clean
Water Act against agricultural polluters, the
EPA will require about 6,600 of the biggest
factory-style farms in the U.S. to obtain pollution
permits and undergo routine federal
inspection. Anyone keeping more than 1,000
animal units, defined as 1,000 cattle, 2,500
swine, or 100,000 hens, would fall under the
new rules, to be phased in over seven years.
Not long ago, such a notion would
have been politically decried as a bureaucratic
assault on God, Mom, fried chicken, and
hamburgers, possibly thought up by animal
rights activists.

“ALMIGHTY GOD HAS BLESSED HUNDREDS OF MILLIONAIRES.”

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

PALI MARWAR, RAJASTHAN,
INDIA––The Shri Pinjarapol Gaushala,
founded 150 years ago, has sheltered animals
for 25 years longer than any humane society in
the United States. But while older U.S.
humane societies have usually built up endowments
that guarantee at least some steady
income, the Shri Pinjarapol Gaushala staff of
21 plus 10 volunteers cheerfully describe their
finances as “A question mark before us.”
They now care for 1,201 cattle and
1,228 goats: blind, disabled, rescued from
illegal traffic to slaughter, or just abandoned
as poor milk-producers or cart-pullers. Their
upkeep costs just over $10,000 a year.

Worse out west

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

ALBUQUERQUE––At least
9,600 cattle and sheep died of cold and starvation
in deep snow that hit southeastern
New Mexico during late December and
early January, with the toll expected to soar
when spring enables ranchers to more accurately
count the victims.
The New Mexico Cattle Growers
Association predicted that 35,000 cattle and
60,000 sheep were at dire risk.
Some were saved when seven Air
National Guard C-130 cargo planes from
Texas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming airdropped
at least 465 tons of feed.
But the inability of drift-bound
livestock to find food and water was only
part of the problem. Western ranchers
aren’t used to having to round up animals in
mid-winter, nor do most have enough barn
space for more than a fraction of their stock.

FARMS ON THIN ICE

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

MONTREAL, MONTPELIER,
PORTLAND––First came the ice, and then
came the government.
A warming trend possibly resulting
from either the El Nino effect off the Pacific
coast or global warming in general ironically
froze much of the northeast in January,
killing thousands of animals. Between the
disaster and regulatory changes soon to take
effect, animal agriculture might never be the
same in southern Quebec, eastern Ontario,
upstate New York, and upper New England.
The crisis began early on January 7
when a heavy snow storm changed to rain.

In America cruelty is “culture.” Kindness may be “crime.”

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

SAN FRANCISCO––Hidden cameras have
caught live animal vendors at Asian-style markets
countless times in atrocities––not just in San Francisco,
where the markets are a heated public issue, but in virtually
every U.S. and Canadian city with a Chinatown.
The alleged offenses only begin with selling
the animals alive to assure buyers that the meat is fresh.
Reported the San Francisco SPCA to the California Fish
and Game Commission on January 23, 1998, “Frogs
are typically piled in large containers or confined in
wire cages without food or water. We have seen containers
we estimated held over 100 frogs, piled several
layers deep. Injured, bloodied, and dead frogs, some
with their sides split open, were plainly visible. We
have also witnessed turtles having their shells sliced
from their bodies while fully alive and being hacked and
pounded repeatedly with dull knives before being
decapitated. At one market, our investigator found a
turtle still moving with its carapace cut open and its
internal organs displayed in full view of shoppers.”

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