Safe at last!

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Marine mammologist Ignacio Agudo, left, posed for
one quick photo with Alice Dodge of Pet Search, right, on their
way down the gangplank to Aruba after the first leg of his dramatic
February escape from Venezuela––where Agudo and fellow
ecologist Aldemaro Romero have been wanted for alleged
treason since February 1994, because they videotaped fishers in
the act of killing a dolphin for bait one full year before. The
video, aired on both U.S. and Venezuelan television, severely
embarrassed the Venezuelan government in their effort to undo
the U.S. “dolphin-safe” standard for imported tuna.
Romero escaped earlier, along with his family, and
now lives in Miami. “It is hard for me to recognize Ignacio
without his beard,” he laughed when shown the photo. “I have
never before seen him without it.”

U.S., Peru split on dolphins

May 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The House Resources Subcommittee on
Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans on April 18 approved HR 2823, a bill by
Representative Wayne Gilchrest (R-Maryland) to implement the 1995
Declaration of Panama. Endorsed by the Clinton administration, Greenpeace,
the World Wildlife Fund, and the Center for Marine Conservation, HR 2823
and a Senate companion bill, S 1420, change the definition of “dolphinsafe”
to allow the resumed import of tuna netted “on dolphin,” if the number
of “observed” dolphin deaths is less than 5,000 for the fleet for the year.
Proponents of the bill argue that netting “on dolphin” is less harmful
to sea turtles, sharks, and other endangered marine species. Opponents
disagree, including the Humane Society of the U.S., the Sierra Club, and
most other animal and habitat protection groups. “HR 2823 is deadly to dolphins,”

Mobster lobsters?

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

MEXICO CITY––Homero Aridjis,
president of the influential Mexican environmental
organization Grupo de los Cien
Internacional, on March 10 hinted in an article
published in the Mexico City newspaper
Reforma that politically well-connected drug
dealers may be a “mysterious ‘third partner,’”
along with the Japanese firm Mitsubishi and
the Mexican government, in the Salitrales de
San Ignacio salt mining project. The project
is widely seen as a threat to the gray whale
calving lagoons at the northern end of the
Gulf of California. Aridjis attributed the theory
to Francisco Guzman Lazo, who for nine
years was general director of the Exportadora
de Sal, S.A. salt exporting firm jointly
owned by Mitsubishi and Mexico, and for
seven years was president of Baja Bulk
Carriers, “the Liberian-flagged company
which does all the deep-sea shipping to
Japan, the U.S., and Canada of salt produced
in Guerror Negro.”

Animal health

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Amid the mad cow disease panic, Britain barely
noticed the death of an 11-year-old Moslem girl from anthrax
after a two-day stay at the Poitier’s University Hospital in
London. Anthrax, a disease of known epidemic potential, hits
about 100,000 people a year. It can be treated with antibiotics, if
recognized early, but otherwise kills through the combination of
high fever, pneumonia, and internal hemorrages. Sixteen days
before falling ill, the girl helped her father kill an infected sheep
at an unlicensed slaughterhouse during the Ramadan religious
holiday. She then ate a lightly cooked piece of the liver. The rest
of her family, fasting according to the rules of Ramadan, waited
until the end of the holidays before boiling and eating the rest of
the meat. None of them became ill.

Artful Dodge gets Agudo family out of Venezuela

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

GLENCOE, Missouri––Wanted for treason by Venezuela, because in February
1993 he and colleague Aldemaro Romero videotaped fishers in the act of killing a dolphin,
Professor Ignacio Agudo is safe in Brazil, after two years on the run. His daughters Esther,
seven, and Lina, 15 months, are with him.
Romero too is alive and well, having escaped to Miami in February 1994. His wife
followed soon after. But Agudo’s wife Saida, Esther and Lina’s mother, died in hiding on
April 26, 1995, at age 36, because she couldn’t get medication she needed for a chronic
heart condition. Their grandfather, Agudo’s father, repeatedly interrogated by Venezuelan
police, shot himself in December 1994, to avoid giving away their location.

Men who beat up cattle

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Rodeo
Three years after lobbying to defeat
California state bill AB 1660, which would have
required on-site veterinarians at all rodeos, the
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association has
moved to require on-site vets at all events that it
sanctions––and to bar the use of prods in bull
riding, “without exception,” as well as in other
riding events except with animals known to have
histories of refusing to leave the chutes.
While longtime rodeo critic Eric Mills
of Action for Animals said, “Things are looking
up,” he added that even though “vets were present
at the 1995 California Rodeo in Salinas, in
which five animals died, a roping calf with a
broken back was not euthanized but was simply
trucked off to slaughter, terrified and in pain
[and in apparent violation of the 1994
California Downed Animal Protection Act],
with no pain-killers given, for ‘That would ruin
the meat,’ said the attending vet. After great
public outcry,” Mills noted, “the Salinas Rodeo
Committee’s new policy will require immediate
euthanasia, as well as a ban on the brutal and
unsanctioned wild horse race,” in which a horse
died last July.

Wildlife

January 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

The Cornell University
College of Veterinary Medicine
has begun trying to hatch and rear
threatened Blanding’s turtles in
captivity. Habitat loss and predation
has caused the loss of whole
turtle generations, says project
chief George Kollias, DVM.
Exxon has pledged to
contribute $5 million over the
next five years to the Save The
Tiger Fund, formed by Congress
in 1984 and managed by the
National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation.

WHALE-WATCHING AND SWIM-WITH

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

The Australian Nature Conservation
Agency on September 18 recommended
restricting whale-watching in breeding areas,
accrediting tour operators, and forming a
code of ethics for whale-based tourism. The
Australian whale-watching industry grew
13% from 1991 to 1994, as more than
500,000 people spent up to $70 million a year
to see whales. Protecting whales from whalewatchers
became a public issue on June 2,
1994, when Andrew Curven of New South
Wales was photographed standing on the back
of a right whale. On September 1, Curven
was fined $500 (Australian currency). He
faced a maximum penalty of two years in jail
and a fine of $100,000 for allegedly violating
the 1974 National Parks and Wildlife Act––
aimed at industrial polluters, not individuals.

Hurricane season

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Hurricanes pounding the Caribbean in September and early
October had humane rescue teams hopping.
Gerardo Huertas of the World Society for the Protection of
Animals’ Costa Rica office reported that the worst damage from
Hurricane Marilyn was on St. Maarten, where 12 Animal Welfare
Foundation volunteers expected to spend four to six weeks catching and
caring for abandoned dogs. Learning that dogs not reunited with owners
would be shot, Huertas gave the AWF 500 doses of pentobarbital
euthanasia solution, along with antibiotics and other veterinary supplies,
and arranged for dog food deliveries. Huertas also set up a relief effort
for the Antigua and Barbuda Humane Society, which had no shelter
even before Marilyn. He said he saw 72 homeless dogs foraging for food
around dawn in the Antigua hotel district, along with “many mongooses
feeding on corpses of dead animals.” About 12,000 chickens were killed
or released by the destruction of poultry barns. Cattle, sheep, and donkeys
were temporarily left to wander, but the ABHS took in 26 llamas.
The American Humane Association evacuated 15 dogs and cats
from the roofless St. Thomas Humane Society on September 28, while
Hills Pet Foods shipped nine tons of food to St. Thomas.
United Animal Nations cleaned up after Hurricane Opal,
which ripped through the Barrier Islands along the Florida Gulf Coast.
Led by Terri Crisp, the UAN team picked up more than 100 pets in three
days, working out of the Panhandle Animal Welfare Society shelter in
Fort Walton Beach.
Donations toward the relief work are welcomed by WSPA at
POB 190, Boston, MA 02130; AHA at 63 Inverness Drive East,
Englewood, CO 80112-5117; and UAN at POB 188890, Sacramento,
CA 95818.

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