Hunting & Fishing

September 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

“We just don’t believe that

public safety is our responsibility,”

Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen direc-

tor Robert Crook told a recent Connecticut

legislative hearing on whether hunting

license fees should be raised to support hir-

ing more wardens. The CCS is backed by

the National Rifle Association.

The Texas chapter of the NRA

is up in arms over a U.S. Forest Service

proposal to limit target shooting to the

safest 500 acres of the 20,309-acre Lyndon

Johnson National Grasslands. Incidents

involving use of firearms have increased

from 286 in fiscal 1990 to 510 in 1993.

The Coalition to Ban Pigeon

Shoots will protest this Labor Day outside

a private shoot at the prestigious

Powderbourne Gun Club in East

Greenville, Pennsylvania, rather than at

the simultaneous public shoot in Hegins.

Wildlife

September 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

Hunting interests within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and recent presi-

dential administrations have kept the USFWS Division of Law Enforcement so under-

staffed and underbudgeted that senior agents admit they can’t effectively halt illegal

wildlife trafficking or even make more than a token effort to enforce the Airborne Hunting

Act, Jessica Speart revealed in the July/August issue of Buzzworm. The International

Primate Protection League has appealed for letters to Congress and the Senate in support

of H.R. 2360, a bill by Rep. Richard Lehman (D-Calif.) to create an assistant directorship

within USFWS for the Division of Law Enforcement, thereby increasing its clout in inter-

nal political struggles. However, IPPL believes the word “wildlife” should be deleted

from a phrase in Lehman’s bill that would require the new post to be filled by someone

with “wildlife law enforcement experience,” inasmuch as people with backgrounds in the

U.S. Customs Service, Secret Service, or Drug Enforcement Agency might be equally

well qualified, and would be less likely to have personal involvement in sport hunting.

Animal Control & Rescue

September 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

Animal shelters, public or private, must hold

animals at least five days including a Saturday before

releasing them to Class B dealers or researchers, under an

amendment to Animal Welfare Act enforcement regulations

that took effect August 23. Written certification that the

holding period has been met must accompany each animal.

The Bronx SPCA, recently incorporated by

American SPCA officers Stephen Zawistowski, Eugene

Underwood, and Harold Finkelstein, exists “to make sure

we would have consistent law enforcement authority” with-

in the whole of New York City, Zawistowski told ANI-

MAL PEOPLE. The ASPCA was incorporated before the

Bronx was, and therefore the charter granted to the ASPCA

by the state of New York does not specifically authorize it

as the sole animal protection law enforcement agency for

the Bronx, as it does for the other New York City boroughs.

WOOFS AND GROWLS

September 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

The Better Business Bureau has announced that the National

Anti-Vivisection Society fails to meet requirements that “an

organization provide on request an annual report containing

information on governance (such as a roster of the board of directors) and

financial activities (such as total income and a break-

down of expenses); that its financial statements present

adequate information to serve as a basis for informed

decisions; and that it substantiate on request its applica-

tion of funds, in accordance with donor expectations,

to the programs and activities described in solicita-

tions.” Exposes by ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt

Clifton recently documented the generous compensation

NAVS provides to president Peggy Cunniff and other

members of her family, who dominate the NAVS board

and payroll. NAVS told BBB that it “has changed its

accounting and auditing methods to meet the standards

for fiscal year 1993,” but recent forced resignations,

dismissals, and staff transfers have left the Cunniffs

more firmly in control than ever.

Civil war within rescue groups: Primarily Primates and Colorado Horse Rescue

September 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

by Merritt Clifton and Marcia King

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS; GOLDEN and ARVADA, COLORADO––Bitterly

contested transitions of leadership may be finalized this month at Primarily Primates and

Colorado Horse Rescue. On September 13, Texas assistant attorney general John Vinson is

scheduled to ask the 224th Judicial District Court in San Antonio to remove Primarily Primates

founder and longtime animal caretaker Wallace Swett from any position of authority within the

Peggy Larson, DVM and Doctor -of-Law: Committed, compassionate, qualified to castrate or sue

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

BURLINGTON, VERMONT––Among the

heroes and heroines of animal protection are ex-vivisectors

turned animal rights advocate, veterinarians who do low-

cost neutering, whistleblowers who challenge the meat

industry, articulate writers and speakers, and attorneys who

secure better humane enforcement.

Tough, skeptical, and able to debate any subject

she addresses, Peggy Larson is all the above and more. Her

37 years of professional research, activism, and advocacy

began with two years of neurophysiologic experiments on

cats at the University of Minnesota in 1956-1957, as one of

the first women to break into an overwhelmingly male-dom-

inated field. This work, she recalls, “was horrible. Succinyl

choline was commonly used at that time, which paralyzes

the cat but does not anesthetize him.”

COURT CALENDAR

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

Undercover probe nabs Wisconsin dog dealer; local judge lets him go

Circuit judge Donald Poppy, of

Calumet County, Wisconsin, on June 14

dismissed a felony cruelty charge against

USDA-licensed Class B animal dealer

Ervin Stebane, 72, for tying, shooting,

and disemboweling a dog he sold as meat.

Poppy claimed Wisconsin law allows peo-

ple to kill their own dogs in a humane man-

ner, called the slaughter humane, and

added, “If the legislature intended for peo-

ple not to kill dogs as food, the legislature

should pass such a law.”

BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

The premise of the hit film Jurassic Park is that

scientists might some day clone dinosaurs from bits of their

DNA, containing their genetic codes, which may be found

in the bellies of blood-sucking insects whose remains are

preserved in amber. Considered far-fetched by many, that

scenario moved closer to reality in June when a team of

California-based researchers reported in Nature that they

had extracted recognizable DNA segments from a weevil

who became caught in tree resin 120 to 135 million years

ago. The resin harrdened into amber, and was eventually

excavated near Jezzine, Lebanon. Paleontologist Jack

Horner of Montana State University topped that June 30,

announcing that his graduate assistant Mary Schweitzer had

discovered apparent blood cells in the deep interior of a

tyrannosaur bone, where the thickness of the bone protected

them from fossilization and decay. Horner’s team is now

trying to extract DNA from the blood cells.

Animal Health & Behavior

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

CDC goes to rat-@#$%

The Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention blame an unknown Hantaan virus probably

transmitted by rodents for causing flu-like symptoms that

killed 19 residents of the Four Corners region of New

Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado during May and

June. Most of the victims were Native Americans.

Hantaan viruses are typically transmitted through inhala-

tion, after becoming airborne with evaporated urine.

The transmission route for this as yet unidentified virus

has not been found, and investigators have been thwarted

by the reluctance of Navajo victims’ families, in particu-

lar, to speak either of the dead or of matters involving

their religion and rituals. However, Nevada paleoenvi-

ronmental researcher Peter E. Wigand, who seeks clues

to ecological history in ancient deposits of crystalized rat

urine, may have unwittingly provided a clue to the out-

break last January, before it actually occurred. Wigand

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