Hogwash

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Pork barrel politics came into the American lexicon
through the political campaigns of North Carolina-born lawyer and
war hero Andrew Jackson, U.S. President 1829-1837, who helped
Tennessee break off from North Carolina and then built a political
empire by allegedly passing out salt pork at the polls.
Off the pig! popped up in the 1960s. In inner city slang,
it meant “kill the police,” but when ANIMAL PEOPLE asked
activists at the recent Midwest Animal Liberation Conference if
they recognized it, none under age 35 did. They guessed, instead,
that it had something to do with living downwind or downstream of
a hog farm.
In the old days, before antibiotics, almost every farm
kept a hog or two, who ate slops––a mixture of kitchen wastes and
barnyard offal––and wallowed at will in a mucky outdoor pen.
Hardly anyone imagined that hybrid corn, motor vehicles, and
penicillin might make possible the use of standardized methods in
rearing the creatures who inspired the expression, “Independent as
a hog on ice.”

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COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Crimes against humans
Preliminary hearings began
January 30 in Chicago in the case of Marsha
Norskog, of Palos Hills, vs. Roger and Gayle
Pfiel, of Crete Township. In October 1995 the
Pfiel’s son Steven, 19, drew 100 years for the
July 14, 1993 thrill-killing of Norskog’s daughter
Hillary, 13, and the March 1995 bludgeoning/slashing
murder of his brother Roger, then
19. Norskog contends in a potential landmark
case that Steven Pfiel’s history of sadistic animal
killing gave his parents ample warning that
their son was a threat to commit murder, but
that instead of dealing with his violent tendencies,
they encouraged him to hunt and gave
him the car and hunting knife he used to kill
Hillary. Roger Pfiel is a meatpacking executive.

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Activism

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

The Louisiana-based Coalition to
Abolish the Fur Trade said on January 22 that
it had received an Animal Liberation Front communique
claiming credit for the release four
days earlier of 200 to 400 mink from a fur farm
owned by Robert Zimbal, of Sheboygan,
Wisconsin. The release came three days after
the release on their own recognizance of 17 of
22 anti-fur activists who had refused to pay bail
and had gone on a three-day hunger strike, following
their January 13 arrest for trespassing at
a CAFT-led protest against the International
Mink Show in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Two
juveniles were released immediately and three
arrestees posted bail. Hitting fur farms in
British Columbia, Washington, Minnesota,
and Tennessee, the ALF claims to have
released 6,800 mink, 30 foxes, and a coyote in
six raids since October 1995, as well as spraypainting
$75,000 worth of furs at the Valley
River Center Mall in Eugene, Oregon, on Fur
Free Friday. Virtually all the released mink
were quickly recovered. The other releases
haven’t been acknowledged in fur trade media.

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Sportsmen

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Philadelphia Inquirer photographer
Vicki Valiero’s image of bowhunter
Rex Perysian astride a dead pig just about
told the story on February 2 of her visit to a
canned hunt in Cheboygan, Michigan, on
assignment with staff writer Alfred
Lubrano––but if the picture wasn’t graphic
enough, there were Perysian’s words: “I’ll
grab it like I grab my women,” he told his
pals. Then Perysian dropped the animal’s
head and bellowed into the woods, boasting
that the kill had sexually aroused him.”
The article went on to detail, first-hand, the
exercise in sadism that brought Perysian and
pals to that climax.
Michael Nunn, manager of the
Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge,
in Oregon, on January 31 advised Friends of
Animals that he would recommend that the
refuge “back off” from a proposed aerial
coyote shoot, and instead do two years of
data collection before deciding on any
course of action. Refuge staff blamed coyotes
for a low rate of young pronghorn survival,
but outside biological expertise identified
other more likely causes, including
overgrazing. FoA attacked the coyotekilling
plan in newspaper ads that reportedly
sparked more than 1,200 letters of protest.

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Marine mammals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Nets and dolphins

EDINBOROUGH––The Royal
SPCA and World Wide Fund for Nature
head a nine-group coalition protesting a proposal
by Scots Office Minister Raymond
Robertson to make Scots fishers more competitive
by lifting a ban on the use of
monofilament gil nets which might drown
harbor porpoises. Such nets are used in the
waters of other European nations.
Eleven dolphins apparently
drowned in fishing nets washed up in
Cornwall between January 4 and January 11,
prompting Cornwall Wildlife Trust chair
Nick Tregenza to apply to the European
Commission for funds with which to develop
an alarm to warn dolphins away from
nets. The EC is already funding a similar
project called CETASEL, formed under the
1994 Agreement on the Conservation of
Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North
Seas, a.k.a. ASCOBANS. “The project
started in the beginning of 1995, and the
first sea trials were carried out in March
1995,” said CETASEL coordinator Dick de
Haan. “The first enclosure trial, on a
stranded harbor porpoise, showed the animals’
sensitivity to ‘chirp and sweep’
sounds. In 1996 two sea trials are planned
off the southwestern coast of Ireland.”
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Horse notes

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Nationally ranked equestrian
and heir to millions George Lindemann
Jr. drew 33 months in prison on January 18
for killing a horse to collect $250,000 in
insurance. His trainer, Marion Hulick,
drew 21 months. The two were among the
most noted defendants among 18 people
convicted to date in connection with a horsekilling
ring that also included the killers of
13 humans over 25 years. The last victim
was heiress Grace Brach, who vanished in
1977 after becoming suspicious of horse
transactions arranged by Richard Bailey,
convicted in connection with her murder last
year. His close associate, stable owner Jerry
Farmer, on January 22 drew 10 years for his
part in selling Brach and other wealthy
women worthless horses at premium prices.
Brach’s estate formed the Brach Foundation,
a major sponsor of animal-related projects.
The crime ring was exposed by a federal
reinvestigation of her disappearance.

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More Canadian wildlife traffic–– with government support

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

WINNIPEG––”Vowing to
upset Manitoba government plans to
privatize the province’s wild elk and
transform it into antler farms to supply
the international wildlife parts
trade,” People for Animal
Liberation coordinator James
Pearson announced February 6,
“PFAL has sent a team of activists to
the Swan River Valley to shield wild
elk from capture.”
Already, Pearson said,
activists had vandalized a corral and
squeeze chute used to hold the elk as
their antlers are cut off. “Highly
veined and innervated,” he charged,
“the antlers are sawn off at the most
sensitive stage of their development.
Elk ranchers involved with the plan,”
Pearson continued, “want to see the
government begin trade in bear gall
bladders, a logical next step.”

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No arrests, no charges, but lawsuit in Petaluma shelter case

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

PETALUMA, Calif.––Sonoma County district
attorney J. Michael Mullins on December 1 said there was no
evidence to support criminal charges pertaining to the operation
of the Petaluma animal shelter by Thunder and Lightning’s
Cause, but as 1995 ended, the shelter remained under interim
administration by the Humane Society of Sonoma County.

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported on
December 22 that the Petaluma city council “is considering terminating
TLC’s contract because of lingering concerns over
finances and recent complaints of animal mistreatment.”
Attorney Richard Day, representing TLC, reportedly
demanded after charges were not filed that TLC be put back in
charge of the shelter, that Petaluma compensate TLC for lost
income and legal fees, and that the city apologize for ousting
TLC from the shelter on November 8. According to the Press
Democrat, “The city’s settlement proposal apparently does not
include putting TLC back in control of the shelter.”
TLC won a three-year contract to run the shelter in
July, bidding $200,700; HSSC bid $226,000. TLC backers
allege that claims of mismanagement were concocted by city
officials who favored HSSC, which resumed running the shelter
on November 9.
ANIMAL PEOPLE heard of the eviction on
November 13 from Patricia Zimmerman, of Petaluma, who
said she and other TLC backers were calling media and animal
protection groups on behalf of TLC director Janet Coppini.
Requesting coverage, Zimmerman stated repeatedly that
Coppini had been “arrested” without charges and the shelter
shut by police. Zimmerman acknowledged “severe overcrowding”
at the shelter, but said a mobile unit to house cats was to
have been “plugged in” on November 9, and blamed cases of
kennel cough on the previous administration by HSSC.
ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton advised
that Coppini and TLC should get legal counsel. Zimmerman
said they were having difficulty finding a local attorney who
didn’t have a business relationship with Petaluma. Clifton
asked if Coppini and/or TLC had called either animal law specialist
Larry Weiss, who has a background in criminal law, or
the Animal Legal Defense Fund, both with offices in nearby
towns. At Zimmerman’s request, Clifton provided their telephone
numbers.
Clifton requested TLC’s IRS Form 990; shelter statistics;
copies of the shelter contract bids; local press coverage;
and copies of any statements from either Coppini or TLC.
Zimmerman said she would ask Coppini what items could be
sent. While she did, Clifton faxed Weiss, advising him that
Zimmerman or Coppini might call. Already aware of the case,
Weiss confirmed by fax the particulars as stated in Clifton’s
note. Zimmerman called back to say Coppini had found a
lawyer, and that as much of the requested information as possible
would follow. She declined to give Coppini’s telephone
number, saying Coppini had been advised not to talk to media.
The promised information from Zimmerman and/or
Coppini never came, but based on extensive discussion of the
“arrest” and surrounding circumstances with Zimmerman, both
before and after her interruption of the conversation to call
Coppini, together with confirmation of many of the circumstances
via other sources, ANIMAL PEOPLE took brief
notice of the situation on page 17 of our December edition.
ion which said Coppini’s “attempt at no-kill animal
control apparently ended with her arrest over unspecified
alleged financial irregularities amid complaints about overcrowding
and disease in the shelter.” According to Noel, “Ms.
Coppini was not arrested, either as your article states or for any
other charge.” Noel concluded, “Please have your insurance
carrier contact me immediately. If a satisfactory resolution is
not concluded by noon, San Francisco time, December 29,
1995, we will file suit against you for compensatory and punitive
damages in San Francisco Superior Court.”
ANIMAL PEOPLE had been contacted for other reasons
by other people claiming to represent Coppini and/or TLC,
including Day earlier the same day, and was aware that Mullins
had ultimately decided not to file any charges against either
Coppini or anyone else involved with TLC. However, Noel’s
demand was our first information from any source that contrary
to Clifton’s understanding from Zimmerman, Coppini had not
been arrested.
ANIMAL PEOPLE responded, “We welcome Ms.
Coppini’s written statement, including as to the particulars of
her apparent disagreement with the statements of Ms.
Zimmerman on her behalf to ANIMAL PEOPLE.”
At deadline, ANIMAL PEOPLE had received no
statement from Coppini, but was notified by fax that Noel did
on December 29 file a defamation suit claiming, “Plaintiff had
not been arrested; plaintiff had not been arrested over alleged
financial irregularities; plaintiff had not been arrested over
alleged financial irregularities amid complaints about overcrowding
and disease in the Petaluma Animal Shelter.”
ANIMAL PEOPLE has retained a nationally noted
attorney to defend if the suit is actually served.
–––CORRECTION–––
An independent source has confirmed that Janet
Coppini was not arrested. We are pleased to correct the statement
that Janet Coppini was arrested, which, though erroneous,
was made in good faith, according to the best information
available to us at that time.
Recently obtained copies of coverage of the Petaluma
shelter dispute published by the Press-Democrat and the
Petaluma Argus-Courier confirm that the police seizure of the
shelter was due to unspecified alleged financial irregularities
amid complaints about overcrowding and disease. Both papers
discussed an ongoing criminal investigation of business practices
from their editions of November 10 until after Mullins’
December 1 decision not to file charges. Public discussion of
overcrowding and disease in the Petaluma Animal Shelter surfaced
in the A r g u s – C o u r i e r of November 10, and continued
intermittently in both papers at least through December 22,
when the Argus-Courier reported that according to a statement
by TLC veterinarian Jona Sun Jordan, “accusations by HSSC
director Dan Knapp that animals were improperly kenneled,
sick animals were put in with healthy ones, two dogs had kennel
cough, kennels weren’t cleaned and were overcrowded are
not true.” The Press-Democrat carried similar but briefer coverage
of Jordan’s statement.

COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Crimes vs. humans
Convicted rapist Lloyd Frank Millett, of
Turner, Maine, charged November 6 with killing Rachelle
Anne Williams, 33, of Gorham, New Hampshire, and
Terrie M. Lizotte, 39, of Canton, Maine, was said to be
good with cattle, as a farm hand but also reportedly had a
prevous record for cruelty to his dog, as well as for assaulting
his ex-wife. Arrested 14 times since 1987, Millett is under
investigation in connection with six other murders and disappearances
since January 1983.
Northern Territories coroner John Lowndes
ruled December 13 in Darwin, Australia, that there is
insufficient evidence to say either that a dingo snatched 9-
week-old Azaria Chamberlain from her parents’ tent on
August 17, 1980, or that her mother was involved. The
infant vanished without a trace, but her mother, Lindy
Chamberlain, screamed “A dingo’s got my baby!” to tourists
at a nearby campfire. A February 1981 coroner’s verdict held
that a dingo took Azaria, but was overturned by an Australian
Supreme Court ruling. Lindy in October 1992 drew a life
term for allegedly murdering Azaria; her husband Michael
was convicted as an accessory, but remained free on a good
behavior bond. Two appeals failed, but in February 1986 a
hiker found Azaria’s bloodstained, torn jacket in a dingo den.
Lindy was released from prison five days later, and in May
1992 received $962,000 compensation for wrongful conviction.
Lindy and Michael requested the coroner’s re-examination
of the evidence in hopes of finally clearning their names.
Du Runqiong and her son Tang Youhua, 20, of
Jinli village in southern China, drew death sentences on
December 27 for killing 18 people, 10 cattle, 300 fish, 240
pigs, and 3,100 chickens with rat poison between May and
November 1995, purportedly to rid the earth of “bad people.”
Another 160 people were poisoned but survived.

Activism
The libel suit waged by McDonald’s Corporation
against London Greenpeace activists Helen Steel, 30, and
Dave Morris, 41, on December 11 became the longest-running
civil case in British history––and is expected to continue
into summer, costing McDonald’s an estimated $8,000 a day
in legal fees. Steel and Morris, who alleged circa Earth Day
1990 that McDonald’s promotes an unhealthy and environmentally
unsound meat-centered diet, are conducting their own
defense plus a concurrent countersuit.
A jury in Roanoke, Virginia, on November 30
awarded bird-lover Ruby Campagna $135,000 for emotional
distress suffered when South Roanoke Apartment Village
building manager Judy Woody crushed a nest of wrens in front
of her. Campagna’s granddaughter, Ginny Davis Owen, a
registered nurse, found her half an hour later in a state of clinical
shock. Campagna was represented by former U.S. attorney
and state senator-elect John Edwards, who said she remains
“very sad and depressive.”
U.S. district judge James Lawrence King r u l e d
December 21 in Key West that Russ Rector of the Dolphin
Freedom Foundation and Ric O’Barry of the Dolphin Project
were responsible for their own injuries suffered during a protest
against underwater bomb tests by the U.S. Navy on August 9,
1990. Rector and O’Barry held that the Navy and civilian contractors
intentionally ran over them with boats.
British activists Sandra White, Gaynor Ford,
and Gillian Peachey were arrested Christmas Eve and charged
December 29 with a December 5 arson at a poultry farm, as
well as with conspiracy to possess explosives and commit
arson. Peachey was already under a 21-month suspended sentence
for conspiracy related to a 1994 attempted arson at a hotel
that was hosting a hunt club meeting.
A 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy have been
sentenced for their part in releasing more than 1,000 black
mink from a mink farm in Cleveland, Wisconsin, last July,
with charges pending against a 13-year-old girl. The 12-yearold
was ordered to apologize to the mink farmer. Wisconsin
media have often reported, apparently due to a typo in an early
account, that the mink were valued at $3,000 apiece; the going
price for a black mink pelt at auction is actually $30.00 or less.

Humane enforcement
Navy officers Jeffrey Scott Wilkerson, 21, and
Dennis Steven Artzer, 20, pleaded guilty to felony cruelty
in Sonora, California, on December 13, for dragging a cat
behind a car last June 18––right after sheriff’s deputy Todd
Blankenship warned them not to––but Judge William Polley
said he would reduce the charges to misdemeanors on
January 16 if he got a good probation report. The cat was
rescued by animal control officer Wynette Townsend.
Letters to the judge may be sent c/o Tuolomne County
Animal Control, 2 S. Green St., Sonora, CA 95370.
James Michael Fishburn, 18, and Robert
Francis Lipsky, 20, of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, were
charged December 26 with misdemeanor cruelty and conspiracy
for allegedly nailing a dog’s chain to a tree 10 days
earlier and using him as an archery target. Left for dead,
the dog dragged himself over a mile to animal rights activist
Doris Gitman’s porch in nearby Mechanicsville. District
Justice Andrew Zelonis of Tamaqua set bail at $10,000,
then raised Fishburn’s to $15,000 after he threatened to kick
a witness. Failing to make bail, the suspects were remanded
to Schuykill County Prison. The dog’s owners, Joseph
and Judy Harkins of Pottsville, said they didn’t want him
back, but Ruth Steinert SPCA shelter manager Diane
Reppy said more than 50 other people asked to adopt him.
Pottsville, Mechanicsville, and Tamaqua are all near
Hegins, scene of the notorious Labor Day pigeon shoot.
Jesse Bryan, 20, of Menomonie, Wisconsin,
on November 16 drew a year in jail on work-release toward
restitution, plus 10 years probation, for shooting cats,
dogs, cows, horses, and wildlife on a five-county crime
spree also including theft, burglary, and vandalism in
December 1994.
Alan Dahle, 34, of Haugen, Wisconsin, o n
November 29 drew 15 days in jail, two years probation,
and a seek-treatment order for killing his children’s dog and
fish because his 12-year-old son played hooky.
William J. Olson, 24, of Sand Springs,
Oklahoma, drew an 18-month deferred jail sentence plus
18 months probation on December 13 for abusing two tiger
cubs. A 5-month-old tiger with a broken leg and a 2-monthold
tiger who was partially blind from malnutrition were
found July 28 at Olson’s residence. Olson is not allowed to
keep exotic animals during his probation.
Allen Laboy, 37, of Miami, Florida, drew 9.5
years in prison on December 9 for brutally killing a dog in
August 1994––five years for cruelty, and 4.5 years as a
habitual offender, with priors for burglary, assault, and
drug possession. The total sentence appears to be the
longest on record for abusing a single animal.
Jay Messinger, 35, of McKeesport,
Pennsylvania, on December 4 drew 90 days in jail for beating
a dog who bit his 18-month-old daughter to death with a
hammer on November 14––28 days after Alan Roberts of
Westminster, California, was acquitted of cruelty for beating
a dog who bit his son to death with a baseball bat, in a
nationally publicized case. Messinger will get 45 days off if
he pays $210 in necropsy and court costs.
Farmer Daryl Larson, of Craig, Missouri, is to
be sentenced on January 11 for 50 counts of animal abuse
and 50 counts of improperly disposing of dead animals, all
misdemeanors. A jury on December 16 convicted Larson of
allowing an unknown number of hogs to starve in his barn.
“Estimates of the number of dead hogs ranged from several
hundred to 2,000,” reported Associated Press.
Three of seven students from McNary High
School in Keizer, Oregon––four of them football players––who
beat and burned to death an oppossum on video in
October and then showed the video as a high school class
project are now doing 60 hours of service apiece at a local
humane society, and are to do another 40 hours with other
institutions, according to the Portland Oregonian. The
other four youths are awaiting trial.

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