Will Louisiana join the civilized world?

December 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

NEW ORLEANS––“While five states once
clung to the barbaric practice of legalized cockfighting,”
the New Orleans Times-Picayune editorialized on
November 23, saluting the referendum bans of cockfighting
passed on November 3 by the voters of Arizona
and Missouri, “now there are only three. Let New
Mexico and Oklahoma carry the stigma themselves,”
the writers continued. “It’s time for us to join the civilized
world.”
But, the Times-Picayune acknowledged,
“That’s obviously a challenge in a state where lawmakers
have defined parakeets and cocatiels as animals, but
have steadfastly refused to include chickens. That defiance
of common sense and biology prevents cockfighting
from falling under animal cruelty laws,” and
also––as the Times-Picayune did not mention––protects
factory farmers.

“Beauty without cruelty” becomes law

December 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

LONDON, NEW DELHI– –
Cosmetic product testing on animals was
banned in Britain, effective November 16,
1998, but Indian minister for social welfare
and empowerment Maneka Gandhi has
reportedly been obliged to backtrack from
proposed rules which were touted as the most
stringent regulation of vivisection anywhere.
“Maneka has unfortunately
removed most of the good features from her
rules,” Susi Weisinger of the Bombay
activist group Ahimsa told ANIMAL PEOP
LE––but Maneka herself told Indian
Express reporter Pallava Bagla on December
3 that despite research industry posturing,
she remained “satisfied with the rules.”

International briefs

November 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

The South African
Department of Agriculture
was so impressed with a recent
South Africans for Abolition
of Vivisection report called A
Call for Transparency and
Accountability in the Vivisection
Industry, the Cape Argus of
October 26 reported, that it
incorporated it into the official
government discussion document
on a proposed law which
would parallel the U.S. Animal
Welfare Act. South Africa
reportedly has no laws at present
which regulate the care and use
of animals in research.

Law

S.F. live markets dispute reheats; California may yet ban turtle and frog imports

November 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

SAN FRANCISCO––California Fish and Game
Commission assistant executive director Ron Pelzman ended an
October 2 hearing in Monterrey on the sale of live animals as
food by announcing that the commission will ask the state legislature
to require that all animals be killed before leaving the
market––and said the commission will in February again consider
banning the import of live turtles and frogs.
Pelzman said “live food” merchants would be asked
to obtain a $36 permit, revocable on evidence of violation.
The CFGC was moved toward action in part by the
mid-September seizure of 892 undersized red-eared slider turtles
who were illegally offered for sale at street fairs in
Mountain View and Berkeley.
“There is strong suspicion,” Action for Animals
president Eric Mills reported, “that the illegal baby turtles are
coming into the state in the same shipments as the currently
legal market turtles.”

COVERT INFILTRATION AGENCY?

November 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

ANIMAL PEOPLE paranoia
about suspected infiltration, disruption, and
possible use of international animal protection
organizations as cover for Central
Intelligence Agency projects surged on
October 1 when Carroll Cox of EnviroWatch
shared a set of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Division of Law Enforcement conference
notes from a meeting of May 18-20, 1993,
in Reno, Nevada.
Cox obtained the notes through a
recent Freedom of Information Act request.
Twelve attendees, none below the
rank of assistant regional director for law
enforcement, were told that “CIA has
expressed an interest in working with the
Division at the national and international levels.
A CIA section chief,” they were told,
“will speak to the agents at this summer’s
undercover school and SABS.”

Vail, the “Earth Liberation Front” and the search for the missing lynx

November 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

VAIL, Colorado––”On behalf of
the lynx,” the October 21 e-mail to KCFR-FM
Colorado Public Radio in Denver said, “five
buildings and four ski lifts at Vail were
reduced to ashes on the night of Sunday,
October 18. Vail Inc. is already the largest ski
operation in North America, and now wants to
expand even further. The 12 miles of roads
and 885 acres of clearcuts will ruin the last,
best lynx habitat in the state. Putting profits
ahead of Colorado’s wildlife will not be tolerated.
This action is just a warning.”
The e-mail was signed “Earth
Liberation Front.”
The arson came exactly one month
after U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham
dismissed a lawsuit against the Vail expansion
based on the possible presence of lynx,
brought jointly by the Colorado Environmental
Coalition, Defenders of Wildlife, the
Wilderness Society, Sinapu, the Sierra Club,
and the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project.
Lynx haven’t been seen in Colorado
since 1973, but the last one appeared in the
Vail Mountain area, and a track found there in
1991 was said to have been that of a lynx.

COURT CALENDAR

November 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

Rodeo protester Marla Rose was arrested for alleged felonious possession of a deadly weapon on October 4 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on the complaint of an as yet unidentified rodeo person, Chicago Animal Rights Coalition founder Steve Hindi report- ed. The “deadly weapon,” Hindi said, “was an electrical shocking device identical to those used by some of the stock handlers at the rodeo to jolt bulls as they exited the chutes during the bullriding events. So let’s see if I understand this, ” Hindi continued. “A prod used on defenseless animals by phony cowboys does not hurt, is not a weapon, and is not the same as a stun-gun. Conversely, the same prod in the hands of an activist who is merely display- ing it does hurt, is a weapon, and magically becomes a stun-gun? ” Rose was held overnight, then released on a signature bond.

Monsanto accused of coercion

November 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

OTTAWA––Members of the
Canadian Senate Standing Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry “sat dumbfounded”
on October 22, wrote Ottawa Citizen reporter
James Baxter, “as Dr. Margaret Haydon told
of a meeting when officials from Monsanto
Inc.,” maker of the milk production stimulant
rBST, “made an offer of between $1 million
and $2 million to the scientists from Health
Canada––an offer that she told the senators
could only have been interpreted as a bribe.
Dr. Haydon,” Baxter wrote, “also recounted
how notes and files critical of scientific data
provided by Monsanto were stolen from a
locked filing cabinet in her office.”
Reportedly responded Senator
Eugene Whelan, “I can’t even believe I’m in
Canada––what the hell kind of a system do we
have here?”

Endangered species updates

November 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

Created by a 1997 act of
Congress, the U.S. Institute for Environmental
Conflict Resolution on October 22
opened for business in Tucson––but was not
warmly welcomed by Southwest Center for
Biological Diversity executive director
Kieran Suckling, whose lawsuits seeking to
implement the Endangered Species Act were
among the major reasons the institute exists.
“It’s only when loggers and developers start
to lose their grip and environmental protection
starts to really gain that they suddenly
say, ‘Oh, let’s get out of the courts, it’s too
expensive, let’s have more discussions,’”
Suckling said. “I’m very, very cynical.
They can’t stand the legal system because it
protects the environment. Why is it expensive?
Because we win.”

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