MARINE LIFE

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

Biologist Macarena Green of Quito, Ecuador, on January 12

issued an Internet SOS for marine life in the Galapagos islands. On

October 15, 1994, she said, the Ecuadoran government opened the region

to sea cucumber collection for the first time, setting a quota of 550,000 to

be picked over the next three months. “However, in two months the take

exceeded seven million,” Green stated. “Fishermen were not only collect-

ing sea cucumbers, but also sea horses, snails, sea urchins, and black

coral. Also, one fisherman admitted he had already sent to Japan sea lion

penises as a try-out for a new aphrodisiac. The Japanese buyer paid $50 for

each penis.” The sea cucumber season was closed due to the abuse on

December 15, but, “The people involved during the lucrative yet devastat-

ing enterprise were not about to accept that. During the first days of

January they took over installations of the Park Service and Darwin Station.

They kept all the people inside as hostages, including the wives of many of

the workers and children. They threatened to kill all the tortoises in captivi-

ty at the station, and they threatened to start fires on little islands,” which

would also kill endangered tortoises. Green begged that letters on behalf of

keeping the sea cucumber season closed, permanently, be sent to Arq.

Sixto Duran Ballen, Presidente Constitucional de la Republica de Ecuador,

Palacia de Gobierna, Quito, Ecuador.

COURT CALENDAR

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Humane enforcement

Charro rodeo horse trainer Jesus

Quinonez, 24, pleaded not guilty to two misde-

meanor cruelty counts on December 7 in Denver.

Quinonez allegedly beat a 2-year-old horse with a

board on October 10. By October 14 the horse was

partially paralyzed, ostensibly from an accident, and

Quinonez kicked and punched him for not getting up.

The case has drawn national attention through a mail-

ing by Animal Rights Mobilization.

Officials in San Bruno, California, on

December 8 asked San Mateo County Superior Court

to apply a law usually used to make property owners

maintain debris-strewn land to alleged animal collec-

tor Ruth Harris, 71, who has repeatedly violated a

court order to obey the city limit of four cats per

household since 1991. More than 100 diseased cats

have been removed from Harris’ feces-saturated

home in four separate raids. To be heard January 6,

the motion if granted will bar Harris from owning

any cats and will allow authorities to spot-check the

house at random to insure compliance.

Alaska halts wolf-killing; FRIENDS OF ANIMALS VIDEO SHOCKS WORLD; FURRIERS FRET OVER SNARING EXPOSURE

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

ANCHORAGE––The latest Alaskan war against wolves officially ended

December 12, as Alaska Department of Fish and Game staff reportedly finished removing

683 snares set in October from a 1,000-square-mile “game management unit” southwest of

Fairbanks. A dozen dead wolves were retrieved, as well, bringing the winter toll to 36 and

the count since the snaring campaign began in October 1993 to 130.

Admitting that the snares were not monitored often––Alaska has no trap-checking

requirement––the ADFG said it was uncertain if the last 12 wolves were caught before or

after Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Carl Rosier halted the killing on December 1. It

was certain, however, that they died painful and probably lingering deaths. Rosier acted

under pressure from governor-elect Tony Knowles, who pledged November 30 that he would

Yukon wolf-killing goes on

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

KLUANE – –Begun at the same time as the just-

halted Alaskan wolf-killing, the Yukon’s wolf purge will

go on as scheduled for three more winters, Yukon renew-

able resources minister Mickey Fisher stated December 21.

Helicopter gunners have killed 94 wolves in the 7,722-

square-mile Aishihik region of the Yukon, adjacent to the

Kluane National Park World Heritage site, during the past

two winters. As in Alaska, the object of the killing is to

make more caribou available to hunters––and is rational-

ized as being for the benefit of indigenous people. But

again as in Alaska, the real issue isn’t meat.

“Big-game hunting outfitters are among the most

vocal promoters of the Yukon wolf-kill, for obvious rea-

sons,” fisheries technician Richard Mahoney pointed out a

year ago in the Seattle Times. “Both the territorial govern-

ment leader, John Ostashek, and his minister for renewable

resources, Bill Brewster, are former hunting outfitters.

Fish

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Chemical weapons scuttled by the

British after World Wars I and II are blamed by

local residents for the recent deaths of hundreds of

birds and some seals along the coasts of Donegal

and Antrim, Ireland. At least 120,000 tons of

nerve gases and mustard gas were sunk in the area

between 1945 and 1957, where 18 ships full of

similar materials were sunk about 25 years earlier.

A panel of 26 researchers who volun-

teer their efforts on behalf of the Monterey Bay

National Marine Sanctuary is expected to recom-

mend a ban on “chumming” in the area, to take

effect in early 1995. Chumming––dumping blood

and offal into the water to attract sharks––is used

by entrepreneur Jon Cappella to draw rare great

white sharks toward submerged cages of thrill-

seeking divers, anchored near Point Ano Nuevo.

Ano Nuevo is home of one of the world’s biggest

elephant seal and sea lion breeding colonies and is

just a mile from a popular surfing beach.

MARINE MAMMALS

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Effective January 1, amendments to

the Marine Mammal Protection Act forbid fish-

ing crews to shoot sea lions and seals unless they

menace human life. A violation carries the same

$20,000 fine and up to one year in jail as deliberate-

ly harming whales, dolphins, or sea otters.

Formerly, fishers could get a permit to shoot any

seals or sea lions who stole their catches. As over-

fishing depleted coastal waters, shootings became

more common. The National Marine Fisheries

Service received 250 reports of fatal shootings of

seals and sea lions in 1993, while the Marine

Mammal Center in Sausalito, California, in 1992

treated 80 seals and sea lions wounded by gunfire,

after treating only 37 in the preceding eight years.

Hunting

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

An unidentified American, two Germans, and a South

African safari guide waited in Tanzania on December 15 until the old-

est bull elephant in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park and three male

companions wandered over the border, then blew them away point-

blank from a jeep. Often photographed by tourists, all four elephants

were virtually tame. The eldest, dubbed R.G.B., was 47 years old,

and had been studied by researcher Cynthia Moss since 1976. As the

killing was legal, the American will be allowed to import his trophies.

Showing similar hunting skill, John Joyce, 53, and Robert

Gerber, 70, of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, were arrested on

November 24 in connection with the baiting, trapping, and jacklight-

ing of a 494-pound bear out of season. They were caught trying to fig-

ure out how to remove the carcass from a heap of doughnuts.

Friends of Animals saves elephants at CITES: YEARS OF AID TO AFRICAN ANTI-POACHING EFFORTS PAYS OFF

December 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

FORT LAUDERDALE––Facing 14 other African nations aligned as a block,

South Africa on November 15 withdrew a proposal to remove elephants from protection

under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

South Africa sought the downlisting in order to sell parts from elephants culled to

limit park populations. The funds, it claimed, would go to conservation. The most con-

tentious item on the agenda at the triennial two-week CITES conference, ended November

18, the downlisting was backed by Zimbabwe, Japan, Australia, the World Conservation

Union, the trophy hunting lobby, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service head Mollie Beattie,

striving to ingratiate herself with hunting groups which have privately lobbied for her ouster.

Officially, the U.S. and the European Union

were committed to abstain––leaving elephants

with few influential friends.

MARINE LIFE

December 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

Hong Kong is building a new airport on

fill dumped into the former main feeding area for

highly endangered Chinese white dolphins, a sub-

species found only in the Hong Kong harbor area and

actually more pink than white. Of the 400 white dol-

phins counted circa 1990, only 50 to 100 survive

––many in a bay already designated for similar devel-

opment. The Hong Kong government has responded

to the dolphins’ plight by hiring biologists Lindsay

Porter and Chris Parsons to document their demise.

The Kyodo news agency reported

November 11 that the Japanese Institute of

Cetacean Research is soon to sell 65 metric tons of

meat from 21 minke whales killed last summer in the

northwestern Pacific––the first whales killed there

legally since 1986. The price is to be $17 per pound.

While nominally honoring the International Whaling

Commission moratorium on commercial whaling,

Japan has killed 300 minke whales for “research” in

the southern Pacific each year since 1987, selling the

meat after cursory study. This year Japan planned to

kill 100 minke whales in the northern Pacific as well.

Kyodo didn’t make clear how many whales of the

quota were actually killed.

Retired shrimper Cyrus Seven has pro-

posed starting a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle hatchery

near Houma, Alabama, to be funded by the shrimp

industry in lieu of using much-hated turtle exclusion

devices on their nets.

Another of the 12 former Ocean World

dolphins who was flown to the Institute for Marine

Sciences in the Honduras on September 15 has

died––Squirt, age 34, captive at least 30 years.

Doug Cook, her trainer until 1979, burst into tears

at the news. “You might as well have told me my

mother died,” he said. “Squirt was the dolphin who

kept me in the business. She had one bad eye––she

lost the sight in it in the wild––but she was just

amazing, like a person in the things she could

understand and do. She would watch you training

another animal, and all of a sudden present you with

the routine, the whole thing, and get all of it right

the first time. She would improvise during a perfor-

mance, and if you tossed her a fish, it became a per-

manent part of her act. She loved to perform.”

Squirt died seven weeks after Trouble, her seven-

year-old niece, succumbed to pneumonia. Worried

by that death, Cook went to Honduras himself for a

first-hand look at the Institute for Marine Sciences,

which is part of the St. Anthony’s Key dolphin swim

program. He found the conditions and care excellent,

he said, a few days before Squirt died, but added

that he personally would have kept the dolphins in

the same social groups they had at Ocean World, to

avoid bullying, rather than putting them all into the

same lagoon together. Two of the dolphins, Mabel

and Tiger, are reputedly bullies; Tiger, he said,

once killed a young dolphin in a fight over food after

being starved as punishment by then-Ocean World

trainer Russ Rector. After Squirt’s death, Cook spec-

ulated that both dead dolphins might have overheated

on the flight from Florida. Overheating, he said,

may not kill dolphins immediately, but can lead to

death later of problems such as cirosis of the liver

that “can look like ordinary conditions of age.”

Merlin, one of the first five dolphins

brought to The Mirage dolphinarium in Las Vegas,

died October 29 at age 30-plus. Veterinarian Lanny

Cornell said the death was due to old age. An

Atlantic bottlenose acquired in 1990 from the

Hawk’s Cay Resort and Marina in Duck Key,

Florida, Merlin sired four calves at The Mirage, of

whom one died in infancy; three remain there, along

with the other four dolphins who arrived with him.

A National Marine Fisheries Service task

force has voted 15-6 in favor of killing up to 40

California sea lions at the Ballard Locks in Seattle,

to protect threatened and endangered steelhead runs.

Protests are being coordinated by Mark Berman of

Earth Island Institute: 415-788-3666.

Indonesia on November 5 banned catch-

ing and selling the rare Napolean wrasse, a seven-

foot fish often caught through the use of poisons that

kill coral. Environment minister Sarwono

Kusumaatmadja said Indonesia would pursue a

CITES listing for the Napoleon wrasse next year.

A humpback whale freed on November

16 by British and Omani divers after spending five

days trapped in a fish net thanked them by leaping

“out of the water six or seven times in succession,

landing with thunderous splashes, as if to celebrate

its newfound freedom,” the team reported.

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