MURDER & MURDERING MOST FOWL

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

“Kids need to be careful that they don’t
shoot anything but a starling, pigeon, or English
sparrow,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent
Doug Goessman recently told the Billings Gazette.
Goessman was asked to comment on the
July arrest of Terry McMinn, 25, of Bozeman,
Montana, who allegedly shot a federally protected
magpie with a BB gun in a Pizza Hut parking lot.
“People need to be aware that they can be
fined for this,” added Bozeman animal control
officer Kathy Ham.
If either Goessman or Ham mentioned
that the apparent gratuitious cruelty of the shooting
might be the most serious aspect of it, the observation
wasn’t reported––although Ham was considering
filing cruelty charges.

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ENFORCEMENT FOR THE BIRDS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

CARROLLTON, Texas;
HENDERSON HARBOR, N.Y.––
Responding to citizen complaints
about noise, stench, and filth, city
officials in Carrollton, Texas said,
they revved up a bulldozer before
dawn on July 23 and flattened an
egret rookery in mid-nesting season.
Neighbors wakened by the
machinery and falling trees discovered
the damage was mostly done.
Hundreds and perhaps thousands of
cattle egret chicks were crushed,
along with mothers who didn’t leave
their nests. Rescuers saved an estimated
300 chicks.
Egrets are protected undernder
the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty
Act. Carrollton was supposed to
have a permit from the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service before touching the
site. It did not. Neither did
“Operation Remove Excrement,” as
Carrollton officials called it, make
the neighborhood more sanitary.
Instead, warned Dallas County
Health and Humane Services
Department medical director Karine
Lancaster, the bulldozers might
have spread the fungal spores that
cause histoplasmosis.

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LIVE MARKET CRUELTY LEGAL, SAYS JUDGE; JUST DUCKY, SAY POLITICIANS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

SAN FRANCISCO––In effect
endorsing cruelty to animals as perceived by
much of the rest of America, albeit not by
blind justice, the San Francisco Board of
Supervisors on August 3 adopted a series of
resolutions commending Chinatown live markets
for their July 20 courtroom victory over
the Coalition for Healthy and Humane
Business Practices, organized by attorney
Baron Miller.
Miller had sued Never Ending
Quails and 11 other live markets in an attempt
to oblige city and state agencies to enforce a
variety of anti-cruelty and public health
statutes, which he held should have forbidden
the methods the live markets commonly use to
keep and slaughter a variety of birds, reptiles,
and amphibians.
He argued that if the live markets
can’t meet humane standards, they should not
be allowed to operate at all.”

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Proposed zoo standards would violate sovereignty, says EC president Senter

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

BRUSSELS––Fourteen of the 15
environment ministers representing European
Union member nations on June 17 approved a
draft directive advanced by Great Britain
which sets a framework for certifying and
licensing the European Union’s estimated
1,000 zoos, animal parks, and menageries.
“The (proposed) law is also backed
by leaders of the European Parliament,”
reported Charles Bremner of the London
Times, “which voted overwhelmingly this
year for binding measures to insure the wellbeing
of captive wild animals.”
But the plan is reportedly strongly
opposed by European Commission president
Jacques Senter, as an example of allegedly
unnecessary intervention in national sovereignty.
Taking the same position, Germany
abstained from the vote by the council of environment
ministers. The EC killed a previous
British effort to set EU zoo standards in 1991.

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DIRECT ACTION

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Convicted Animal Liberation Front arsonist
Douglas Joshua Ellerman, 19, remains at large after failing
to appear for sentencing in Salt Lake City on May 6, but a
sweep by five agencies seeking Ellerman on June 18 and 19
nabbed four Salt Lake City men who were charged on June 23
with releasing mink from the Beckstead Mink Farm in West
Jordan, Utah, on June 22, 1996 and July 17, 1996. The
actions allegedly did more than $200,000 in property damage.
The accused include Jacob Lyman Kenison, 19, and
Brandon James Mitchener, Alexander David Slack, a n d
Sean Albert Gautsch, all 22. Also charged was a fugitive
John Doe, believed to be Ellerman.
The Natrona County Sheriff’s Department, in
Casper, Colorado, said on June 21 that persons claiming to
be “Islamic Jihad Ecoterrorists” had done $100,000 in damage
to local ranchers during the preceding week by cutting fences
dividing federal, private, and state lands in Natrona,
Fremont, and Carbon counties in more than 150 locations.

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Witch doctors tell Swiss voters what to say: “Ooh-ee ooh ah ah!”

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

GENEVA, JOHANNESBURG,
WINDHOEK, LONDON, ATLANTA– –
Swiss voters on June 7 rejected a proposed
moratorium on research involving genetically
modified animals by a 2-to-1 margin.
Swiss referendums have historically
favored animals. The very first, held more
than 100 years ago, banned the slaughter of
livestock without prestunning. However,
Swiss-based multinational drug firms reportedly
spent more than $35 million to defeat the
proposed genetic research moratorium. The
coalition of 50 animal protection groups who
backed the measure spent only $1.3 million.
Swiss citizens may have relatively
little concern about the outcomes of genetic
research, but in Eehama-Omulunga, Angola,
sensational reports of transgenic experiments
fed rumors that goats kept by Mateus Shihelp
and Ricardina Otto have given birth––twice
since March––to creatures with goat-like bodies
but human heads. Neither survived.

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Saving frogs saves rupees

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

AHMADABAD, RAJASTHAN,
INDIA–– Gulabchand Kataria, minister of
education for Rajasthan state, India, in late
May banned frog dissection in sub-university
level exercises, saving about 100 million
frogs a year––and the cost of obtaining them.
Some rural frog-collectors may
lose seasonal livelihoods, but the business of
providing frogs for laboratory use is now
largely centralized, dominated by a relative
handful of factory-style growers who employ
relatively few people.
Kataria acted in response, he said,
to petitioning from members of Mahjanam,
an anti-violence group founded in 1994 by
retired businessman Phoolchand Gandhi.

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WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

BROWNSVILLE , Texas– – T h e
U.S. Customs Service and Fish and Wildlife
Service on May 29 wrapped up Operation
Jungle Trade, a three-year undercover sting,
with the arrests of 37 alleged wildlife traffickers
in Texas, Colorado, Tennessee, and
Missouri, issuance of warrants against several
others, and simultaneous press conferences
at the Gladys Porter Zoo in
Brownsville and the San Antonio Zoo.
The sting apprehended 654 animals
in all, including 635 tropical birds, among
whom were macaws, yellow-headed Amazon
parrots, Mexican red-headed parrots,
conures, and toucans.
Among the mammals were 14 spider
monkeys, a kinkajou, a Mexican lynx,
and a puma.

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Liability

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Carolyn Pollock, widowed
when Bill Pollock, DVM, of
Kingsville, Texas, died on October
30, 1991 after suffering for two weeks
from the herpes B virus, was on May
19 awarded $515,000 in settlement of
a lawsuit alleging that the Texas
Primate Center insufficiently warned
Bill Pollock of the risks of working
with macaques and inadequately
responded when he fell ill. Her juvenile
daughter, Elizabeth Grace
Pollock, born on January 1, 1992,
received $26,780 in trust, The Texas
Primate Center supplies nonhuman primates
to research institutions. Codefendants
included Spohn Health
System Inc., Spohn Kleberg
Hospital, Hazleton Laboratories,
Metpath Inc., and Corning Lab
Services, as well as four individuals.

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