Farm bills

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

A joint House/Senate committee
was working to reconcile differences in
their respective editions of the new Farm
Bill as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press.
Of perhaps most importance to animal protection,
the final version is likely to phase
out all dairy subsidies by 2000, which may
accelerate the demise of the small dairy
farm––and the reduction of the national
dairy herd, as genetically engineered
“supercows” take over from those of simple
selective breeding. This in turn would
reduce the number of calves available to the
veal industry, already declining for 50
years. Controversial parallel actions
include a Farm Bill rider introduced by
Senator Hank Brown (R-Colorado), which
would eliminate Forest Service authority
over stream flow below either public or private
lands, and S. 1459, the “Public
Rangelands Management Act” introduced
by Senator Pete Domenici (R-Utah), to
make grazing the primary purpose of leased
public lands. The latter was approved by
the Senate, 51-47, and is expected to clear
the House, but may be vetoed by President
Bill Clinton because it would end the longstanding
doctrine of multiple use.

Mad cow disease panic hits beef-eaters

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

LONDON––British health secretary
Stephen Dorrell touched off global panic on
March 20, telling the House of Commons that
an advisory scientific committee had advised
him that consumption of cattle afflicted with
bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) a
decade or more ago was “the most likely
explanation” of the origin of a seemingly new
variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Both
diseases cause the formation of sponge-like
holes in the brain.
Within days British government officials
seriously discussed the possible costs and
consequences of slaughtering the entire national
herd of 11 million cattle, in a gamble that
this would facilitate the recovery of the British
beef industry rather than its demise.
BSE, also known as “mad cow disease,”
has killed more than 160,000 cattle in
Britain since 1985––some directly, most in
government-ordered slaughters intended to
keep BSE from spreading. Over the same
time, British beef sales have fallen 12%; 40%
of Britons say they have cut down on meat
consumption; 11% say they don’t eat red
meat; and 4.3% are now vegans.

STANDARDS OF CARE

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

The European Commission on
January 24 proposed a veal crate ban with a
12-year phase-in. Starting from January 1,
1998, minimum space allowances would apply
to all new or renovated veal barns, sufficient
that each calf “should be able to groom itself
properly, turn around, stand up, lie down normally,
and lie with its legs stretched out,” as a
European Commission advisory committee
recommended last December. All veal operations
would have to be in compliance with the
EC standards by 2008. The EC member
nations currently raise about 5.8 million veal
calves per year. Per capita consumption has
fallen from about 2.8 kilograms per capita i n
1987, two years before the first of two previous
attempts to ban veal crating failed, to 2.3
kilograms per capita now––still twice the U.S.
per capita consumption.

Poultry

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

U.S. frozen chicken
exports to Russia soared from
marginal significance in 1992 to
$500 million worth last year, making
Russia the biggest export market
for the American chicken
industry, and infuriating Russian
poultry producers, who are contending
with soaring grain prices in
the wake of the worst harvest in
1995 since 1965. On February 7,
Russia warned the U.S. that the
traffic might be halted on March
16. Said Russian Agriculture
Department chief veterinarian
Vyacheslav Avilov, “We need
guarantees that these birds are disease-free––that
there is no salmonella,
no bad chemical additives,
or the like.” Reported Lynnley
Browning for Reuter, “The U.S.
birds are on the same market as
Russian ones, which are scrawny,
grey, and unappealing. Chickens
from both countries are often sold
from barely refrigerated containers
or on the street in cardboard
boxes.” Browning described a
salesgirl separating frozen chicken
parts by stomping on them. The
Clinton administration, with reputed
close ties to the Tyson chicken
empire, applied diplomatic muscle,
and on March 6 announced that
Russia would not interfere with the
chicken sales. Related negotiations
began March 22.

Hogwash

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Pork barrel politics came into the American lexicon
through the political campaigns of North Carolina-born lawyer and
war hero Andrew Jackson, U.S. President 1829-1837, who helped
Tennessee break off from North Carolina and then built a political
empire by allegedly passing out salt pork at the polls.
Off the pig! popped up in the 1960s. In inner city slang,
it meant “kill the police,” but when ANIMAL PEOPLE asked
activists at the recent Midwest Animal Liberation Conference if
they recognized it, none under age 35 did. They guessed, instead,
that it had something to do with living downwind or downstream of
a hog farm.
In the old days, before antibiotics, almost every farm
kept a hog or two, who ate slops––a mixture of kitchen wastes and
barnyard offal––and wallowed at will in a mucky outdoor pen.
Hardly anyone imagined that hybrid corn, motor vehicles, and
penicillin might make possible the use of standardized methods in
rearing the creatures who inspired the expression, “Independent as
a hog on ice.”

Animals in entertainment

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

On the screen
PETA on December 5 asked the USDA to
investigate alleged Animal Welfare Act violations by
Tiger’s Eye Productions, of Orlando, Florida, which
trains animals for use in TV commercials and rock
videos. “Our investigator witnessed facility owner
David McMillan beating tigers in the face, ramming
ax handles down their throats, and depriving them of
food and water as punishment,” charged PETA
researcher Jennifer Allen. “Animals have also been
left outside without shade in searing heat, or without
shelter from raging thunderstorms, and have been
denied necessary medical attention when sick.”
Finding venues for his diving mule act
scarce, Tim Rivers has turned to Hollywood, training
many of the animals used in Ace Ventura: When
Nature Calls, the second of a comedy film series starring
Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura, pet detective and animal
rights militant. Because Rivers’ role was entirely
off-set, his involvement eluded American Humane
Association observers, whose contractual role in
supervising the use of animals in films is limited to on
set action. As the November 28 edition of T h e
National Enquirer put it, Rivers’ diving mule act “is
so hideous that Rivers has been arrested on cruelty
charges in Alabama, his act is banned in Illinois, and
he was thrown out of Atlantic City by Donald Trump.”

Marine Animals

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Cetaceans

Captain Paul Watson honors
Captain James Waddell, commander of the
Confederate warship Shenandoah, in the
3rd/4th Quarter 1995 edition of The Sea
Shepherd Log. Waddell in 1865 sank 38 of
the 85 Yankee whalers in the North
Pacific––fighting on for seven months after
the Confederacy surrendered––without either
taking or losing a human life. His official
goal was doing economic harm to the Union,
but crewman Joshua Minor told one whaling
captain, “We have entered into a treaty
offensive and defensive with the whales. We
are up here by special agreement to disperse
their mortal enemies.” Watson credits
Waddell and crew with preventing the extinction
of bowheads and grey whales.

Racehorses on a PMU line? Don’t bet on it

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

LOUISVILLE, Ky.––The
North American Equine Ranching
Information Council, representing
more than 450 PMU farms, has
opened a breed registry to promote
the use of Thoroughbred stallions in
impregnating PMU-producing
mares.
PMU stands for “pregnant
mare’s urine,” and is the basic
ingredient of Premarin, the most
often prescribed estrogen supplement
for relief of menopausal symptoms––and
the only estrogen supplement
made from an animal product.

NIH: investigate mad cow disease link to human illness

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C., LONDON
––Leading researchers from the National
Institutes of Health and other biomedical
research institutions worldwide are calling for
intensive investigation of a long hypothesized
link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE), afflicting 53% of British cattle
herds during the past decade, and CreutzfieldJakob
disease (CJD), a once rare degenerative
condition chiefly afflicting the elderly.
In the past three years CJD has killed
three British cattle farmers in mid-life––and in
1995 killed an 18-year-old part-time cowhand
and a 16-year-old girl who ate cow’s brains in
Cyprus. The boy lived with CJD for nine
months to a year; the girl survived for 14
months. Only four other cases of teenagers
developing CJD had ever been reported––in
France, Canada, Poland, and the U.S. None
of the teen victims to date had known exposure
to cattle with BSE, but the disease has a latency
factor of up to 30 years in humans and at
least six or seven years in bovines.

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