News from abroad

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

A ferocious spring battered central Asia into May––and got
worse when Mongolia officials seeded clouds to produce unseasonable snow,
hoping would help quell at least 288 simultaneous grassfires that killed 17
people, injured 62, burned 31,000 square miles of forest and pasture, forcing
the immediate relocation of more than 1,600 families and 436,000 cattle,
with the evacuation of another 1,600 people and 588,000 cattle anticipated.
The snow––almost the first to hit Mongolia in more than a year––put out only
a few of the fires, but froze or drowned at least 4,900 cattle, along with two
shepherd boys and their 150 sheep. Just to the south, in China, 700,000 cattle
and yaks reportedly froze to death in February during a natural cold snap.
Cyprus SPCA president Toula Poyiadjis on May 18 led 100
CSPCA members and their dogs, donkeys, and a chicken to the palace of
Glafcos Clerides, president of Cyprus, demanding enforcement of humane
laws. “Cyprus lags behind other countries in its treatment of animals,”
Poyiadjis explained. “There is prejudice, fear, and an inexplicable mania for
killing animals.”

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.”

Strange but true tales of attitude

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Nearly a year after refusing to
pay the Humane Society of Greater Akron
$150,000 annually for animal control service,
the Akron city council is reportedly moving
to set up a municipal animal control
agency––spurred by public outrage over an
April 12 incident in which health officials
boarded up the home of Bill Woolridge, 77,
with 27 dogs inside. The home was sealed
due to alleged unsanitary conditions discovered
by paramedics who responded to an
emergency call when Woolridge’s wife died.
Volunteers rescued the dogs the next day.
Akron city service director Joseph Kidder
called the HSGA request for $150,000
“exhorbitant,” but at 67¢ per capita, it would
have come to 43% less than the U.S. average
of $1.18 per capita paid for basic animal pickup
and impoundment. Akron had been paying
just $19,600 a year, less than 10% of the
cost of running the HSGA shelter.

THE LATEST ON ISAR

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

ANIMAL PEOPLE reported in the
May Court calendar that the Internal Revenue
Service “is said to be investigating information
from former International Society for Animal
Rights staff and volunteers” that Henry Mark
Holzer, longtime confidante and attorney of ousted
ISAR president Helen Jones, “received substantial
sums from ISAR on a regular basis via his
Brooklyn-based Institute for Animal Rights Law,
which were not reported on the ISAR filings of
IRS Form 990––although ISAR newsletters published
since 1991 make frequent reference to supporting
IARL.”
While Holzer didn’t return messages of
inquiry before we went to press, he did call a
week later, and then faxed the record of ISAR
contributions to IARL: $400 in 1991, $20,000 in
1992, $35,000 in 1993, $5,000 in 1994, and
$5,000 in 1995, total of $65,400 over the five
years in question.

Horse bills

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Illinois governor Jim Edgar on
May 17 signed into law a ban on horsetripping,
a routine practice of charro-style
rodeo. The ban cleared the Illinois Senate
53-1 and the state House 94-13.
Pending in California and likely
to pass, says Sherry DeBoer of Animal
Health & Safety Associates, AB2347
“says that if you win a horse race and your
horse was drugged, the California Horse
Racing Board can allow you to keep the
purse if they decide that the drugging
probably did not affect the outcome of the
race.” DeBoer asks protest letters be faxed
to her for forwarding, at 510-743-9268.

New anti-pet theft bills introduced in House

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Two bills
to crack down further on pet theft for laboratory
supply were introduced into the House of
Representatives in early May.
The pair are among the first of an
anticipated series of proposed amendments to
the Animal Welfare Act sections pertaining to
pets and the pet trade, discussed in April during
four days of hearings that were held in St.
Louis and Kansas City.
The Family Pet Protection Act of
1996, introduced on May 6 by Representatives
John Fox (R-Pa.) and Tom Lantos (DCalif.),
was reportedly drafted by In Defense
of Animals. It would abolish all Class B animal
dealers, an Animal Welfare Act permit
category which currently includes about 1,600
pet dealers as well as about 75 suppliers of
random-source animals to laboratories.

Underfunded ESA back in force

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Unwilling to drop
a year-long moratorium on the listing of species as
either “threatened” or “endangered” under the
Endangered Species Act, but facing more presidential
vetoes of the 1996 budget if the moratorium remained
in the budget bill, Congress on April 26 allowed Bill
Clinton to exercise a waiver amounting to a line item
veto of the ESA moratorium and several other riders
Clinton deemed unacceptable.
Clinton exercised the waiver soon after the
bill cleared the House and Senate––but it wasn’t all
good news for endangered species. Of symbolic
import, a rider allowing the construction of a third
telescope site on Mount Graham, Arizona, could not
be waived despite possible risk to the endangered
Mount Graham squirrel. Less noticed but of greater
significance, the budget bill cuts the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service budget for researching endangered
species proposals 39%, cuts the total USFWS budget
by $12.5 million, and cuts U.S. funding of the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species in half, from 25% of the total (about $1.4
million) to 12% ($700,000). CITES is the major
instrument for regulating the global traffic
in exotic animals.

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.”

Canada plans protection for bears

June 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

“The Ontario government intends to prohibit the commercial
sale of black bear parts, regardless of their origin, and limit each hunter
to one license for the animals each year,” the Toronto Globe and Mail
reported on April 4, two days after the Calgary Herald reported that,
“The Alberta government is considering a ban on recreational hunting of
grizzly bears because they are considered to be an ‘at risk’ species.”
Continued the Herald, “The proposal to outlaw grizzly hunting
could also be extended to wolverine trapping,” a species extirpated by
trapping from Hudson’s Bay east––not so much for pelts as because trappers
resent the wolverine habit of raiding traplines. “The hunt will proceed
this spring. I wouldn’t bet it will be there next spring,” the Herald
quoted provincial wildlife biologist John Gunson.
“We still have to deal with the spring bear hunt, the use of
dogs, and the use of baits, but we’re off to a good start,” said Barry Kent
MacKay, a director of both the Animal Alliance of Canada and Zoocheck
Canada, and program director for the Animal Protection Institute.

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