Vealers under scrutiny in Europe, too

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

BRUSSELS––Concerned about the
use of illegal growth hormones in livestock
generally, and increasingly aware, as well,
of animal welfare issues, the European
Union moved recently to address both issues.
EU Farm Commissioner Franz
Fischler on November 29 convened a threeday
conference to review the EU rules on the
use of illegal meat growth hormones. On the
one hand, there is strong sentiment for maintaining
stiff standards and cracking down on
a “hormone Mafia” whose activity last year
included the assassination on the job of
Belgian animal health inspector Karrel Van
Knoppen.

Federal grand jury indicts top veal feeder REND LAKE, Illinois– – C h i c a g o Animal Rights Coalition president Steve Hindi, a licensed pilot, on December 16 startled the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, hunters culling deer at the Renn Lake Wildlife Refuge, and fellow protesters by soaring up in a paraglider to videotape the action from above––as deer fled from the sound of the aircraft, away from the hunters. “This is going to change everything,” Hindi told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “Air power revolutionized warfare, and it’s going to revolutionize protest. No longer can the DNR and the hunters hide anything from us.” Hindi’s flight was brief, due to technical problems with the brand-new equipment. By the time repairs were made, the wind had become too strong to attempt further flights. However, Hindi said, CHARC expects to have two paragliders in the air over future major events, each able to stay aloft for two hours at a time. The only significant problem, he reported, is that he’s put so much time into developing the CHARC remote video and airborne capabilities that fundraising has lagged. National activist groups make extensive use of the CHARC videos, but none have funded the equipment acquisitions. [Support for CHARC may be addressed to POB 66, Yorkville, IL 60560.] Ironically, the Rend Lake protest was backed by deer hunters who believed the cull was unethical. “I couldn’t believe how well we were treated by most of the local hunters,” Hindi said. Local hunters and activists joined on the night of December 14- 15 to drive hundreds of deer out of the Rend Lake refuge before the cull hunters were allowed in. Noise grenades set off by alarm clocks kept the deer from returning to the refuge during the three-day hunt. In consequence, Hindi said, the cull hunters killed only eight or nine deer total, compared with an expected bag of 12-plus deer per day. “It was a complete defeat for the DNR,” Hindi said. Steve Hindi and Dan Green: the Flying CHARC Squadron: ILLEGAL DRUG MAY HAVE TAINTED MEAT

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

MILWAUKEE––In the first of an expected series of indictments striking at the
brain trust and bankroll of the crate-raised veal and milk-fed spring lamb industries, a federal
grand jury empaneled in Milwaukee on December 6 charged the Vitek Supply Corporation,
Vitek president Jannes Doppenberg, and Vitek office manager Sherry Steffen with 12 counts
of conspiracy, smuggling unapproved drugs into the U.S., and illegally adding the drugs to
feed mixtures told to veal and lamb producers throughout the country.
A prepared statement from U.S. Attorney Thomas P. Schneider said, “It is alleged
in the indictment that the unapproved drugs were shipped to feed companies and growers in
Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Over 1.7 million
pounds of Vitek product containing unapproved drugs, valued at over $1.3 million dollars,
were sold by Vitek between 1988 and April 1994.”

The price of meat

December 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:

WASHINGTON D.C.–– Eating
meat costs Americans $28.6 billion to $61.4
billion per year in extra health care, Dr. Neal
Barnard, Dr. Andrew Nicholson, and Jo Lil
Howard of the Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine reported in the edition
of the peer-reviewed journal Preventive
Medicine published November 21. The
PCRM team based their estimate on studies
of large groups of Americans, mostly
Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists,
whose living habits differ chiefly in eating or
not eating flesh. In every such study to date,
meat eaters have had more health problems.
About 29% of all heart disease is related to
meat consumption, the PCRM team calculated,
costing $9.5 billion a year––but meatrelated
diabetes costs even more, they said,
at $14 billion to $17 billion per year.

FUR

December 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:

The European Union Commission on November 22
announced yet another postponement of the European Union
ban on imports of furs that may have been caught by leghold
trapping. The ban, originally to take effect on January 1, 1995,
is vigorously opposed on behalf of the fur trade by the U.S. and
Canadian governments. EU officials were reportedly moved by
visits from Canadian Native Americans, who claimed the ban
would harm their people without mentioning that Native trappers
account for less than 5% of Canadian trapped pelts and less than
1% of total North American trapped pelts. Great Britain broke
with the rest of the EU, moving to impose the ban unilaterally.
The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility
for releasing 2,400 mink from the Dargatz farm in Chilliwack,
British Columbia, on October 23, and 4,000 mink from the
Rippin farm in Aldergrove, B.C., on November 14. Most were
quickly recaptured, but at deadline about 140 remained at large
in Chilliwack and about 600 in Aldergrove. Canadian wildlife
officials predicted that some, at least, might survive the winter.
The Canadian Mink Breeders Association posted a reward of
$50,000 for the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

ADC does damage control–– could be killed by Farm Bill

December 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Caught in a political trap, the
USDA Animal Damage Control program is battling for survival.
The ADC still has powerful friends, including western Senators of
both major parties, but the forthcoming Farm Bill debate could kill
it, after 65 years.
Conservative Republicans are queasy about the ADC
because it’s a federal subsidy for private enterprise: of the $19.6 million
1994 ADC budget, $10 million went to protect livestock.
Eastern politicians of both parties see the ADC as
expendible because it does little for their constituents: $9.7 million––97%––of
the livestock protection funds were spent in the 17
western states.
Environmentalists hate the ADC because it helps keep cattle
on federally owned land.

Sanctuary at Angel Canyon: Animal rescue mission settles in the desert

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

ANGEL CANYON, Utah––As The Outlaw Josie Wales,
Kansas/Missouri border country farmer Clint Eastwood came home
to find his wife and family massacred by Jayhawkers, picked up a
gun, and swore bloody vengeance. The Civil War was over, but not
the fighting. Killing whoever crossed him, Eastwood fought his
way west, reluctantly gathering misfit sidekicks as he went––a
horse, a dog, an Indian, an abused woman, a child. Struggling to
stay focused on murder, he found himself sidetracked by the effort
of keeping them all sheltered and fed.
The bounty hunter sent to kill Eastwood or drag him back
for a public hanging caught up with him at Angel Canyon, scoping
out the situation before Eastwood knew he was there. Rather than
risk involving his newfound second family in a shootout, Eastwood
rode to Kanab, five miles south, to meet the bounty hunter in the
town saloon.

Humane enforcement

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Alan Roberts, 29, of
Westminster, California, was on October
16 aquitted of a cruelty charge for beating an
eight-month-old Akita/chow mix to death with
a baseball bat last July, an hour after the freeroaming
dog mauled his 19-month-old son
Andrew in a Huntington Beach parking lot as
the boy waited for his mother, Stacy Morton,
32, to unlock the family car. The jury deliberated
for three hours. Andrew, who had done
modeling work, required 60 stiches, plastic
surgery, and psychological counseling. The
dog’s owner, April Wyld, 28, leashed the
dog to a nearby fence afterward, and again left
him unattended. Wyld, charged with negligence,
has rallied Orange County People for
Animals in her support. ANIMAL PEOPLE
has received no response to inquiries as to why
animal control didn’t impound the dog for
rabies observation in the hour between the
attack on Andrew and Alan Roberts’ return to
the scene after rushing Andrew to a hospital.

Fur notes

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Depressed global fur markets have reportedly kept a large percentage
of Russian pelt production on the domestic market, bringing a
domestic fur boom. Russian fur exports dropped last year from $62 million
in 1992 and $64 million in 1993, to just $30 million worth in 1994.
IBAMA. the Brazilian wildlife protection agency, intercepted
an average of 26,000 poached pelts per year on Amazon tributaries, 1975-
1979, but just 184 in 1992 and none this year, says enforcement chief Jose
Leland Barroso, whose staff boards and inspects 1,300 boats a month.
FoA sent a rubber backbone to John Kennedy Jr., publisher of
the fashion magazine George, after he vetoed publication of the same antifur
ad, “How fur looks before the gassing, clubbing, and electrocution,” that
appeared in the October ANIMAL PEOPLE. “We have to wonder why
compassion for animals is too controversial for a magazine which features
cigarette ads, Cindy Crawford in male drag, and an article on Madonna as
president,” wrote FoA president Priscilla Feral. “While this backbone is
only made of rubber, we thought it would be better than none at all.”

RELIGION & ANIMALS

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Brigitte Bardot “was the picture
of elegance,” for a September 27 audience
with Pope Jean Paul II, a day before her
61st birthday, Reuter correspondent Jude
Webber reported, “clad in a tight brown
trouser suit, low-cut pink top, wearing flowers
in her upswept long hair.” Said Bardot
after visiting the Pope, “We talked of animals,
of course. He told us he thought of
them, and they need our help.” Bardot quit
her film career in 1973 to devote herself to
animal protection.
Monsoon floods inundated the
temple at Pathum Thani, Thailand, in
early October, revealing to newspaper
photographers an elephant named
D i a m o n d whom abbot Pra Kru Udom
Pawana-pirat has kept chained to a tree for
nearly 20 years to attract worshippers. The
temple sells the visitors food to give
Diamond––but he rarely gets enough.
Diamond “is skinny, bony, and not healthy,
especially mentally,” said Friends of the
Asian Elephants Foundation representative
Leutchai Kladsri, who tried unsuccessfully to
buy him. Objected Pawana-pirat, “I never torture
him.”
Radio “sex doctor” Ruth
Westheimer read from a prayer book in
Brooklyn on October 3 while a friend swung a
live chicken over his head in a Hassidic Yom
Kippur rite called “shlug kaporos.” After the
swinging, the chickens are killed according to
kosher law and given to the poor.
Faith healers caught a male and
female crocodile on September 30 in
Yaounde, capital of Cameroon; dressed the
male in a fake beard and pants; painted the
female’s claws with red nail polish; and
burned both alive as “bewitched.”

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