Category: Marine Animals

Oceanariums

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

Sea World took a high profile
in marine mammal rescue
efforts at opposite corners of the U.S.
in early April:
• In Florida, Sea World
Orlando biology staff led efforts to
discover the cause of 238 wild manatee
deaths––more than ever before
recorded even over a full year––during
the first third of 1996. The toll of 100
through the first 90 days of the year
was already considered alarming,
when 138 more died between March 5
and April 20. About 2,600 manatees
inhabited Florida waters when the
deaths began. Strangely, all of the
victims have been adults. The deaths
roughly coincide with a toxic red tide
that hit 150 miles of Florida’s South
Gulf Coast in April, and red tides can
be lethal to manatees: a red tide in
1982 killed 39 manatees. However,
forensic examination of remains hasn’t
found any direct link between the red
tide and the deaths.

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U.S., Peru split on dolphins

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The House Resources Subcommittee on
Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans on April 18 approved HR 2823, a bill by
Representative Wayne Gilchrest (R-Maryland) to implement the 1995
Declaration of Panama. Endorsed by the Clinton administration, Greenpeace,
the World Wildlife Fund, and the Center for Marine Conservation, HR 2823
and a Senate companion bill, S 1420, change the definition of “dolphinsafe”
to allow the resumed import of tuna netted “on dolphin,” if the number
of “observed” dolphin deaths is less than 5,000 for the fleet for the year.
Proponents of the bill argue that netting “on dolphin” is less harmful
to sea turtles, sharks, and other endangered marine species. Opponents
disagree, including the Humane Society of the U.S., the Sierra Club, and
most other animal and habitat protection groups. “HR 2823 is deadly to dolphins,”

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I was a fish killer by Steve Hindi

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

I first fished at age five, with my
brother Greg, who is one year younger.
Each of us caught a perch out of a lake in St.
Paul, Minnesota. Fascinated, we watched
the two perch swim around in a small bucket
until first one and then the other died. I don’t
remember what happened to their bodies, but
I know they were not large enough to eat.
Perch are plentiful, and easy to
hook, and are therefore considered to be a
good species for practice fishing.
Many members from both sides of
my family were fishers, as well as hunters,
trappers, and ranchers. A couple of dead
perch didn’t rate much concern. Like most
children, we learned what we were taught,
setting aside whatever qualms we may have
felt. Our mother raised us to care for cats and
dogs, and we regularly took in strays,
despite housing project rules which forbade
it. However, we were told that fish had no
feelings, and we killed them with abandon.

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Overkill in overdrive: Canada halts, then resumes seal massacre

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND––
The good news was that on April
12, a month early, the Canadian Department
of Fisheries and Oceans halted the bloodiest
seal massacre since 1983, claiming––
though few believed it––that the quota of a
quarter million harp seals had been filled.
The bad news was that on April 16
the DFO told the sealers that it had overcounted,
and to go kill another 60,000.
At that, Canadian Sealers Association
executive director Tina Fagan said her
members might ask for an additional quota of
37,000. Newfoundland fisheries minister
John Efford said the additional quota ought to
be 150,000.

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Mobster lobsters?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

MEXICO CITY––Homero Aridjis,
president of the influential Mexican environmental
organization Grupo de los Cien
Internacional, on March 10 hinted in an article
published in the Mexico City newspaper
Reforma that politically well-connected drug
dealers may be a “mysterious ‘third partner,’”
along with the Japanese firm Mitsubishi and
the Mexican government, in the Salitrales de
San Ignacio salt mining project. The project
is widely seen as a threat to the gray whale
calving lagoons at the northern end of the
Gulf of California. Aridjis attributed the theory
to Francisco Guzman Lazo, who for nine
years was general director of the Exportadora
de Sal, S.A. salt exporting firm jointly
owned by Mitsubishi and Mexico, and for
seven years was president of Baja Bulk
Carriers, “the Liberian-flagged company
which does all the deep-sea shipping to
Japan, the U.S., and Canada of salt produced
in Guerror Negro.”

The politics of seal slaughter by Captain Paul Watson

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

It isn’t easy being a Canadian. We don’t get a hell
of a lot of respect. To most of the world, especially the U.S.,
we’re a quiet people with an unremarkable history, occupying
a considerable amount of frozen geography.
They’ve heard of maple syrup, Canadian
Club––and that we host the largest single slaughter of a
wildlife species anywhere on Earth.
Our annual massacre of harp and hooded seals is
infamous internationally both for scale and for gruesome cruelty.
The seal club is better known than the rye whisky kind.
Not that it makes economic sense. It doesn’t make
money and hasn’t for decades. The sealers are glorified welfare
bums, living high on subsidies and being paid more for
who they are than what they do.

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Mystery deaths

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Theories are many but proof lacking
concerning the causes of recent multiple
mysterious mass deaths of marine mammals
in different parts of the Atlantic. First, from
mid-January to February 22, five or six
northern right whales––the count was disputed––were
found dead in their wintering and
calving area off Georgia and Florida. On
March 11 yet another right whale washed up
at Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The current
northern right whale population is believed to
be no more than 300, and the deaths equal
the total known number of calves from 1995.
Fourteen calves are known to have been born
this year, but three were among the dead.

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Marine life

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

As expected, U.S. President Bill
Clinton announced February 9 that the U.S.
would “vigorously pursue high-level efforts to
persuade Japan to reduce the number of whales
killed in its research program,” but stopped
short of imposing trade sanctions, as he is
authorized to do in response to a Commerce
Department advisory issued in December that
Japan is violating the intent of the International
Whaling Commission moratorium on commercial
whaling by setting “research” quotas for
minke whales so high––now more than
400––that the “research” amounts to commercial
whaling.

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Missouri to trap otters: New icon for antifur drive with European ban pending

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

BRUSSELS––If Europe banned the
import of seal pelts because of the cuteness of
harp seals, just wait until they meet river
otters––not only cute, but playfully active
and insatiably gregarious.
The Missouri Department of
Conservation quietly approved the resumption
of trapping river otters in May 1995, but
word didn’t reach the public until Valentine’s
Day, when the world learned from an article
by Mead Gruver in the St. Louis River Front
Times that the Missouri Trappers aim to give
Miss Missouri an otter coat this year.
Thus alerted, the Fur Bearer
Defenders and the Sea Wolf Alliance warmed
up their fax machines. Within hours bigger
organizations including the Animal Legal
Defense Fund, Fund for Animals, and the
Humane Society of the U.S. were on the case.

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