Birds

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Hard-pressed sturgeon, sharks, and

rays got a break courtesy of the birds in May when

the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge

closed a popular fishing road to protect the nests of

threatened snowy plovers. Killed mainly for kicks,

not eating, the sturgeon, sharks, and rays are less

protected than the plovers but perhaps in greater

jeopardy of extinction because of their rapid deple-

tion and slow reproductive rate.

Oregon State University professor

Morrie Craig has received an award from the

American Racing Pigeon Union for developing a

way to test guano to detect the use of performance-

altering drugs. Doping has lately become a prob-

lem in pigeon racing, as the top prizes in interna-

tional competition have soared above $200,000.

Horses

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Jean R. Strothenke, town jus-

tice for Schroon, New York, on April

20 fined horse hauler David A. Carper, of

Frank Carper & Sons, $11,100 for ille-

gally taking 40 horses to slaughter in a

double-decked trailer, lacking individual

stalls and insulation. He was caught on

January 27, en route from New Jersey to

Canada, when the truck broke down in a

snowstorm. The fine was by far the

toughest since New York adopted legisla-

tion to cover horse transport in 1980.

Spectacles

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Florida attorney general Bob

Butterworth on May 6 ruled that so-

called hog-dog rodeos violate the state

animal cruelty law. The rodeos pit dogs

against hogs in an enclosed arena. The

dog who corners a hog fastest is the win-

ner. Videos of dogs biting pigs’ snouts,

ears, and legs have been widely broadcast

in recent weeks, as members of United

Bay Pens Association, a hog-dog rodeo

front group, have defended the events as

“good clean family fun,” and Hardee

County sheriff Rickey Dick has refused to

arrest either organizers or participants.

State attorney Joseph D’Alessandro

promised on May 13 that no one would be

arrested if the rodeos cease, but a UBPA

spokesman said they would continue until

arrests were made.

Laboratories

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Residents of Cranberry and

Hampton Township, Pennsylvania, got a

close-up view of the realities of vivisection on

May 7 when the tailgate of a truck taking 2.5

tons of dead rats from Zivic-Miller Laboratories

to a landfill broke twice, littering two streets

with rat remains. Zivic-Miller, of Zelienople, a

Pittsburgh suburb, sells rats to research institu-

tions. The dead rats were unsold surplus, owner

Bill Zivic told Associated Press.

1990 University of Minnesota animal

intake records obtained by the Animal Rights

Coalition under the Minnesota Data Practices

Act indicate that the university purchased for

research use at least 139 of 248 dogs who were

individually identified in a 1992 USDA com-

plaint filed against Class B animal dealers Julian

and Anita Toney, of Lamoni, Iowa, for failing

to keep records on animal acquisitions. The

USDA charges, now four years old, are still

pending, while the Toneys remain the primary

suppliers of dogs to the university––which has

been suspected of using stolen dogs ever since

the late Lucille Moses traced dog thefts through

local suppliers to UM in the early 1960s.

Concessions to hunters win assault rifle ban

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

WASHINGTON D.C.––

The National Rifle Association took

the biggest defeat it has ever suffered

at the federal level in the House of

Representatives on May 5, as Indiana

Democrat Andrew Jacobs Jr. switched

his “no” vote to a “yes,” passing into

law a ban on 19 types of assault rifle,

which though backed by the Clinton

administration, had been expected to

fail by at least 15 votes.

Clinton bought the victory

with a string of concessions to the

hunting lobby. The assault rifle ban,

for instance, names 650 hunting

weapons and mandates that none shall

be outlawed during the 10 years the

assault rifle ban is to be in effect.

MARINE MAMMAL NOTES

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

The Marine Mammal Protection Act was

reauthorized on schedule on April 29, including loop-

holes to let hunters to import polar bear trophies and to

allow the killing of seals and sea lions who eat threat-

ened fish runs at locks and fish ladders. Other provi-

sions include a total ban on intentionally shooting

marine mammals who interfere with fishing, and a pro-

gram to cut accidental kills during fishing to near zero

over the next seven years.

The Liberal Party of Canada convention on

May 15 overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling

for the resumption of offshore seal hunting, halted in

1983 after two decades of international protest. The

Liberals form the Parliamentary majority. Claiming

“the concerns of animal rights lobby groups should not

be put before the concerns of the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador,” the resolution claims

sealing is needed to create jobs because the fishing

industry has collapsed––making no mention that the col-

lapse was caused by overfishing condoned in the name

of job creation by a succession of both Liberal and

Progressive-Conservative governments.

Save the whales! DID CLINTON SELL OUT WHALES TO SELL MISSILES?

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico––The world will

know by the time you read this whether U.S. president Bill

Clinton sold out whales to sell $625 million worth of missiles to

Norway. As ANIMAL PEOPLEwent to press, Greenpeace and

the World Wildlife Fund, goaded by Friends of Animals, were

applying last-minute leverage to head off the apparent

sellout––including joint protest on May 17 in front of the White

House, a WWF first, while Clinton and vice president Albert

Gore met with Norwegian prime minister Gro Brundtland inside.

The proposed creation of an Antarctic whale refuge and

the resumption of commercial whaling head the agenda for the

46th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission

(IWC), commencing on May 23. As every year since 1982,

when the IWC decreed the moratorium on commercial whaling in

effect since 1986, Japan and Norway will push to break the

moratorium. As last year, Japan and Norway will also fight the

creation of the sanctuary, seeking the help of Antigua-and-

Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent-and-

the-Grenadines, four tiny Caribbean nations heavily dependent

upon Japanese foreign aid, whose votes were decisive in 1993.

Philippines joins Indonesia in banning monkey business

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

MANILA, The Philippines– – A

high-ranking Philippine official confirmed

May 9 that a long-awaited Philippine ban on

wild-caught monkey exports will take effect

this year, fulfilling a promise made in 1986

and completing a phase-out begun in 1989.

Quoting a radio broadcast by

Philippine Protected Areas and Wildlife

Bureau director Corazon Sinha, the Xinhua

news service reported that the export ban will

cover both wild-caught and captive-bred mon-

keys––a significant extension of the 1989

plan, reiterated in early 1993 by Sinha’s pre-

decessor, Samuel Penafield. Ending all mon-

key exports would ease the burden of enforce-

ment, since officials would not be obliged to

determine where each monkey was born.

WILDLIFE

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Fourteen years after being

declared an endangered species and 11

years after being pronounced extinct, the

Palos Verdes blue butterfly has been resdi-

covered. University of California geography

professor Rudi Mattoni, believed to be the

last person to see the butterfly before it pur-

portedly vanished, recognized it again on a

mid-March insect collecting visit to the U.S.

Navy’s Defense Fuel Supply Point in San

Pedro. The site is protected as critical habi-

tat for the also endangered California gnat-

catcher, a small songbird.

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