Crimes against wildlife

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

June 12, 1996 was a day to
remember in the international fight against
wildlife traffickers:
• In Chicago, bird smuggler
Tony Silva, 36, was jailed pending sentencing,
after prosecutors Sergio Acosta a n d
Jay Tharp argued that he was likely to jump
bail. Silva, who ran a wild-caught bird
smuggling ring while posing as an outspoken
foe of the wild-caught bird traffic, in January
pleaded guilty to reduced charges of conspiracy
and tax evasion, but on May 17 sought
unsuccessfully to withdraw the plea, after
former Playboy Mansion animal keeper
Theodora Swanson, 36, in April drew a
lighter sentence for conviction on contested
charges than her confederates got after copping
pleas.

Meeting to beat bush meat

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

BERTOUA, Cameroon–– In
March ANIMAL PEOPLE shocked the
animal protection community with
Kenyan wildlife photographer Karl
Amman’s expose essay “The Great Ape
Project and the bush meat trade,”
describing the “overwhelming evidence
that the bush meat trade is one of the
biggest, if not the biggest, primate conservation
issues facing Africa today.”
Amman frustratedly described
how major conservation and animal protection
groups ignored his findings
through six years of field research. A
two-year association with the World
Society for the Protection of Animals
brought some exposure, but no substantive
action from other players.
“Is there any time left for theoretical
debates on great ape rights?”
Amman concluded. “Would the chimpanzees,
bonobos, and gorillas of Africa
not benefit more if the combined talent,
energy, and influence of the scientific
community now engaged in the Great
Ape Project took some time to devise a
strategy on how to keep these animals
out of the cooking pot?”

ZOONOTIC DISEASE

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Ebola
The Philippines on June 10 lifted
a ban on monkey exports in effect since
March 21, when Ebola virus was discovered
in two out of 50 crab-eating macaques sold to
the South Texas Primate Center in Alice,
Texas, as one shipment of a lot of 100, by the
Philippine firm Ferlite Scientific Research Inc.
One macaque died of the disease, another was
definitely infected, and the remainder were
killed to keep the lethal virus from spreading.
Of the five Philippine monkey breeding companies,
only Ferlite remains under quarantine.
Ferlite, exporter of about 400 of the 2,500
monkeys the Philippines sells each year, was
also the source of the only previous Ebola outbreak
in the U.S., which was contained at a
primate center in Reston, Virgina, in 1989.

Law & order

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Law-and-order advocate Senator
Charles Williams (R-Fla) on October 13, 1995 hosted the Second Annual
Predators Dove Hunt in Dixie County, Florida. Eighty-eight hunters
reportedly slew more than 440 doves who were drawn to fields and nearby
roads littered with corn, millet, wheat, and milo. Three hours into the
event, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cited all participants.
Thundered House Resources Committee chair Don Young (RAlaska),
as he opened a May 16 hearing into the incident, “While I do not
know whether this was a good or bad bust, a number of those cited strongly
believe that the only thing baited, trapped, tried, and fined on that hot
October day were law-abiding citizens. Among those cited were three
county sheriffs, a regional commissioner of the Florida Game and
Freshwater Fish Commission, mayors, clerks of the court, Florida prison
officials, and city and county commissioners.”

Wildlife serial-killing

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Legislation
California state senator
Milton Marks on May 22 introduced
SB 2171, to require that
trapped animals either be released or
be killed promptly and humanely.
Explains Camilla Fox, executive
director of The Fur-Bearer
Defenders, “Currently California
laws are silent on how a trapped animal
must be killed.” However,
according to the Department of Fish
and Game manual Get Set to Trap,
“Adequate tools are a heavy iron
pipe or an ax handle. Most furbearers
can be killed by first sharply
striking them on the skull. It is highly
recommended that the animal be
struck two times. To ensure death,
pin the head with one foot and stand
on the chest of the animal for several
minutes. Do not step off an unconscious
animal until it is dead.”

Puma panic

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Worthy of a film expose in the tradition of Reefer Madness,
the hyperbolic 1936 documentary that alerted the world to the perils of
marijuana, PUMA PANIC!!! could be coming soon to a suburb near you!
Causes include the possible presence of a puma within a few
dozen miles; public reminders that pumas eat pets and people; hunting
advocates blaming the problem on an alleged lack of people using
hounds and telemetry to track pumas, then blow them out of trees in
such a manner as to save intact heads for the wall; and wildlife officials
engaging in bizarre rituals to avert the threat, sometimes reminiscent of
animal sacrifice to appease an alleged dragon.
For instance, with the approval of Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife biologist John Thiebes, volunteer trapper Richard Stahl
circa May 13 live-trapped a purported feral cat, fed the cat for three
days, and then staked him out in a small cage as live bait for a puma
who purportedly stalked two boys near Medford on April 3, six weeks
earlier; killed several other cats; and killed a dachshund on April 29.

BOOKS: Tools for humane work

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Many useful and interesting publications don’t come from
major publishers––because their topics are considered “too special –
ized,” or their authors are too obscure to attract commercial atten –
tion. These low-budget, do-it-yourself books could never become
bestsellers, but ANIMAL PEOPLE readers may wear them to tatters
with repeated reference:

Fishing: An Activist’s Guide. Price: “a small donation”
to the Animal Rights Coalition, POB 862, Chanhassen, MN
55317. 20 pages, 1996.
Chicago Animal Rights Coalition cofounder Steve
Hindi––whose similarly named group is not the same as the publisher
of Fishing: An Activist’s Guide––shocked ANIMAL PEOPLE readers
in May with his guest column outlining, as a former fisher, the
inhumanity of fishing. The shock for too many was not that Hindi had
done things he now finds appalling, but that he now finds appalling
things routinely done to fish, that even most people who care about
animals haven’t thought about deeply.

KAIMANAWA WILD HORSES COME UNDER FIRE

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

New Zealand conservation minister Denis Marshall on May 14 lifted the 1981 protection
order safeguarding the Kaimanawa Wild Horse Range, a primary training area for the
New Zealand Army, and ordained that 1,000 resident wild horses are to be shot or sold. “Five
hundred wild horses have a stay of execution for three years,” horse advocate Ellen Lee posted
to the AR-News e-mail list, “while their impact is assessed. If anyone can find suitable
land, another 300 can be moved to it, but the DoC will not fund any part of this, and it would
be almost impossibly expensive. At the end of three years,” she continued, “either the relocated
herd or the remnant on Army land will be exterminated, or both,” depending on the
DoC findings. “The final toll may be the entire herd. The shooting is to be ground-based.

Coyotes

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Representatives of
seven national and regional
animal protection
groups on May 13 picketed
the Home Savings of
America annual shareholders
meeting because
the savings-and-loan permits
fox and coyote hunting
on the Ahmanson
Ranch, which it owns,
in the West San Fernando
Valley. Explained a joint
release, “The hunts drive
coyote and other animals
off the ranch into adjacent
urban communities,”
where they are “killed or
captured by animal regulation
officers.”

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