Ontario bans spring bear hunt

March 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1999:

TORONTO, VICTORIA–– Foes
of shooting groggy bears as they awake from
winter hibernation won a round in tough territory
on January 14 when Ontario natural
resources minister John Snobelen announced
a long-sought ban on spring bear hunting.
Snobelen acknowledged that killing
bears in spring had orphaned about 270 bear
cubs per year, few of whom survived.
“We’ve looked at various options
to make sure that bear cubs aren’t orphaned,”
Snobelen said. “The only answer we came
up with was to end the spring bear hunt. It’s
the only acceptable way.”

Clinton declares war on ferals

March 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1999:

WASHINGTON D.C.—Declaring
war on species not native to the U.S., President
Bill Clinton on February 2 issued an executive
order creating an interagency Invasive Species
Council which within 18 months is to produce a
plan to “mobilize the federal government to
defend against” what Clinton called “aggressive
predators and pests.”
The ISC will be jointly chaired by
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Commerce
Secretary William Daley, and Agriculture
Secretary Dan Glickman. USDA Wildlife
Services, just eight months after the House of
Representatives briefly voted to rescind more
than a third of its funding, would appear to be
the chief beneficiary of $29 million for invasive
species eradication that Clinton included in his
proposed fiscal year 2000 budget, sent to
Congress in late January.

“I heard a young child scream. I thought he got a deer.”

March 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1999:

Four kinds of hunting stories involving children reach
ANIMAL PEOPLE with tedious regularity: children killed
while hunting; children killing their own fathers, brothers,
mothers, or sisters in hunting accidents; children using hunting
weapons to commit murder; and adult authorities working to
lower the minimum age for hunting.
Among the child and teen victims of legal hunting
during 1998:
Isaac Earl Reynolds, 13, of Paonia, Colorado,
killed on his first hunt by his father Earl A. Reynolds’ accidental
discharge;
Marvin Olausen, 9, of Oriska, North Dakota, killed
by an adult hunter’s stray shot as he sat with his mother in a
pickup truck;

Where elephants roam

January 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1999:

BANGKOK, Thailand; BRITS, South Africa––
The five survivors among a group of six young Asian elephants
whom Thailand exported to Indonesia in October 1997 returned
home on December 31 to floral necklaces, cheering crowds, a
welcoming banner at dockside in Ao Makham, and all the
bananas, sugar cane, and pineapples they could eat.
Presiding over the feast were prime ministerial secretary
Wattana Muangsuk, Phuket member of parliament
Anchalee Theppabutr, and Phuket governor Padet Insang.
Explained Attaya Chuenniran of the Bangkok Post,
“The five beasts, and another, who died in Indonesia, were
sent with their mahouts in October 1997 under a 10-year contract
to help their Indonesian counterparts catch wild elephants,”
who were allegedly terrorizing the countryside in the
wake of fires set to clear brush and facilitate rainforest logging.

South China tigers go the way of the Yeti

January 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1999:

BANGKOK, BEIJING––1998, the Chinese “Year
of the Tiger,” ended with an admission from Wang Menghu,
deputy secretary-general of the China Zoological Protection
Association, that the South China population of Asian tigers
has gone to the realm of the yeti––the legendary “abominable
snowman.”
On December 14, Chinese forestry and wildlife conservation
director Zhang Jianlong and colleague Lie Yongfan
told the world through the government news agency Xinhua
that official investigations underway since 1984 have found no
evidence that the yeti ever existed.
“All reported sightings were actually other wild animals,”
Zhang said.
Elaborated Yan Xun, director of the 1,800-squaremile
Shennongjia Reserve, “There are no basic primate foods
such as berries or broadleaf trees in the mountains of
Shennongjia, where most yeti enthusiasts believe the mysterious
creature lives.”

Newfoundland asks to kill 2 million seals

January 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1999:

OTTAWA––With Canadian fisheries
minister David Anderson imminently
expected to announce the 1999 seal-killing
quota, Newfoundland fisheries minister John
Efford on January 5 recommended a “onetime
cull” of two million harp seals and grey
seals––almost half the total population, by
government estimates.
Should Anderson prove unwilling
to authorize such a slaughter, Effords said he
would favor increasing the annual sealing
quota to 400,000––68% more than were
legally killed in either 1997 or 1998.
Known for his furious assertions
that seals rather than overfishing are responsible
for the economically catastrophic depletion
of Atlantic Canadian cod, mackerel,
salmon, and skates, Efford buttressed his
recommendation with a 32-page report
authored by former Canadian Department of
Fisheries and Oceans head research scientist
George Winters.

Sea Shepherds give thanks for stormy seas

December 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

NEAH BAY, Wash.; TOKYO– –
Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society celebrated Thanksgiving
ashore, tied at dockside in Friday Harbor.
A three-month symbolic blockade of
Neah Bay by his big blue boat, the Sea
Shepherd III, and his little black boat, The
Sirenian, kept the would-be whale-killers of
the Makah Tribal Commission bottled up in
port until after winter seas made just rowing a
hand-hewn wooden canoe life-threatening, let
alone trying to harpoon a gray whale from it.
The Sea Shepherd vessels didn’t
actually keep anyone from coming in or going
out of the harbor, but just knowing they were
there visibly grated the Makah would-be
whalers’ nerves.

Trapped in deep muck

December 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – – Margaret
Kolar, manager of the San Francisco Bay National
Wildlife Refuge at Redwood City, California, told
Marilee Enge of the San Jose Mercury-News i n
November that due to the November 3 passage of
the California Anti-Trapping Initiative, she has
indefinitely postponed a scheduled trapping program
which was supposed to protect endangered species at
the refuge––even though one of the framers of the
initiative question, Humane Society of the U.S. vice
president Wayne Pacelle, said the program wasn’t
affected.
“If [leghold trapping] is the only option, it
is appropriate for the protection of endangered
species,” Pacelle said.

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Not 10,000 Alaskan schoolchildren

December 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

ANCHORAGE––The pro-snaring
side won the November voting on a referendum
which sought to ban snaring wolves, but
the anti-snaring side won 53% approval from
10,000 students in grades 4-12 who took part
in a “Kids Voting” civic education exercise.
Within the six-year span of one U.S.
Senate term, those students could tip the
Alaskan electoral balance––as hook-and-bullet
columnists were quick to decry.
Both sides were heavily funded
from outside Alaska. Pro-snaring drew
$95,000 in outside contributions, while antisnaring
drew $117,000.

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