We all live in a yellow submarine

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

The Mirage, Paul Watson’s yellow

submarine, drew more note from some U.S.

media than whaling issues––even though it

apparently wasn’t used. Watson caught flak

from both Ric O’Barry of the Dolphin

Project and Mark Berman of Earth Island

Institute for accepting much of the $200,000

price of the submarine as a donation from

Steve Wynn, owner of the Mirage hotel and

aquarium in Las Vegas. Wynn has helped to

fund Sea Shepherd projects since 1988.

MARINE LIFE

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Canada is secretly among the

nations trying to overturn the U.S. ban on

imports of tuna netted “on dolphin” as a

violation of the General Agreement on Trade

and Tariffs, according to a Canadian govern-

ment document disclosed by Michael

O’Sullivan of the Humane Society of Canada.

Canada has only a small tuna fleet, but seeks a

precedent toward overturning the pending

European Community ban on imports of fur

caught with leghold traps. Intended to take

effect in January, that ban has reportedly been

put off for another year, and is already subject

of a protest to the GATT tribunal by the U.S.-

based National Trappers Association.

Editorial: Table manners

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

In 1987 the Iowa state legislature created the Iowa State University Bioethics

Institute, with a mandate to study the ethical issues involved in farming––and to prepare

ISU College of Agriculture graduates to meet the evolving ethical requirements of the gen-

eral public. Central to the ISUBI program is an annual week-long seminar for ISU scientific

researchers, at which all meals are vegetarian.

ISUBI has not forgotten where its funding comes from. Iowa is in fact more eco-

nomically dependent upon animal agriculture than any other state. Of the 36 million acres

of land surface in Iowa, 61% are used to grow fodder crops, while 11.4% of the private

workforce in Iowa is employed, directly or indirectly, by the cattle and hog industries.

Promoting vegetarianism is not an ISUBI objective. Yet ISUBI considers introducing farm-

ers and scientists to vegetarianism essential, because for a variety of ethical and health-

related reasons, it is an increasingly popular lifestyle that they must understand and reckon

with. Farmers and scientists who do not appreciate the reality of vegetarianism will not be

well-equipped to make important ethical and economic judgements. ISUBI therefore prac-

tices temporary immersion in vegetarianism much as foreign language seminars practice

immersion in the cultures of other nations.

Whale-meat and brain damage

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

A comparison of the pilot whale

consumption of pregnant Faroese women

with amounts of methyl mercury found in

umbilical cords and maternal hair has

discovered that those who eat whale meat

often pass mercury to their fetuses at lev-

els which may cause brain damage.

Conducted by biochemists Christine

Dalgard, Philippe Grandjean, Poul

Jergensen, and Pal Weihe, of Odense

University, Denmark, the study was

published in the June/July 1994 issue of

Environmental Health Perspectives.

Ignoring the international ban on com-

mercial whaling, Faroe Islanders kill

circa 2,000 whales a year. The Faroes are

a Danish protectorate.

Did Japan quit killing hawksbill turtles to resume killing whales?

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

TOKYO, Japan––More than

three years after former U.S. president

George Bush warned Japan to quit dealing in

hawksbill sea turtles or face trade sanctions

under the Convention on International Trade

in Endangered Species, Japan on July 15

banned the import of the rare turtles and/or

their parts––after importing circa 30 tons of

hawksbill turtleshell during the first half of

1994 alone. The shells are used to make var-

ious ornamental sundries. The Bush warn-

ing, never followed up, was the first-ever

U.S. move to enforce CITES, although

Congress gave the President the authority to

do so in 1977. Japan is believed to have

imported parts of more than two million sea

turtles since 1971, according to Earth Island

Institute, including the shells of at least

234,000 hawksbills during the 1980s.

Sea Shepherd, Greenpeace take on Norwegian whalers; JAPAN IGNORES SANCTUARY; RUSSIA MAY FOLLOW

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

NORTH SEA, TOKYO–––As a

summer of intense whaling and anti-whaling

activity off Norway closed, Japan announced

on August 12 that it too would flout the

International Whaling Commission by taking

an “exception” to the Southern Ocean Whale

Sanctuary, created in May. A similar

announcement was expected from Russia.

While Norway for the second year

unilaterally set a commercial whaling quota,

breaking the IWC moratorium on commercial

whaling in effect since 1986, Japan formally

objected to the inclusion of minke whales as a

protected species within the newly created

sanctuary, which includes 80% of the known

minke whale habitat: all waters south of the

40th parallel except for a dip around South

America. The objection means Japan will

proceed with plans for a so-called scientific

hunt of 300 minke whales within the sanctu-

Free Willy––or breed him? MORE AT RISK THAN MONEY IN OCEANARIUMS

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

A surfacing fin whale probably didn’t inspire the

Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C.––but she might

have. She rises from the trench between waves like a glisten-

ing black wall, low at first, easing up out of the water until

her fin breaks the horizon and she looms for a moment as big

in life as in symbol. Then she spouts, arches her back, and

slides out of sight. Her broad tail never breaks the surface.

Just 15 seconds with a wild whale, after a 330-mile

drive and a three-hour cruise, can unforgetably confirm the

mystique of whales. Add to that half an hour of observing the

dolphins who often surf the wakes of whale-watching vessels,

and it’s no surprise that whale-watching draws 1.5 million

people per year in New England alone, pumping $317 million

into the local economy. Globally, says the British-based

Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, whale-watching is

now worth more than whale-killing ever was––perhaps even

in Japan, the leading market worldwide for whale meat.

MARINE MAMMAL NOTES

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

The U.S. Navy plans to shut down

14 of its 18 Sound Surveillance System

(Sosus) underwater listening posts, perma-

nently disabling much of a $16 billion network

of more than 1,000 microphones linked by

30,000 miles of seabed cables. The Sosus

budget has been cut from $335 million in fis-

cal year 1991 to just $60 million for fiscal year

1995; staffing is to drop from 2,500 in 1993 to

750 in 1996. Set up 40 years ago to monitor

Soviet submarines, the system was used in

1992-1993 to track whale migrations––and

proved sensitive enough to follow one blue

whale for 1,700 miles. Hoping to keep using

Sosus to help check compliance with interna-

tional fishing and whaling treaties, Commerce

Secretary Ron Brown on May 17 asked the

Defense Department to keep what remains of

Sosus intact, pending completion of a joint

study into retaining it via interdepartmental

cost-sharing. However, The New York Times

reported on June 12, a National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration internal memo

indicates NOAA is not willing to contribute to

the upkeep costs.

Endangered Species Act package includes wolves for Yellowstone

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The Fish-

eries and Wildlife subcommittee of the U.S.

Senate Environment and Public Works

Committee opened discussion of reauthorizing

the Endangered Species Act on June 15 amid

a flurry of actions by the Clinton administra-

tion designed to mitigate objections to the

ESA from landowners while convincing envi-

ronmentalists that the key goals of the act will

not be yielded for political advantage.

Most notably, Interior Secretary

Bruce Babbitt announced June 14 that effec-

tive upon publication of new ESA regulations

in the Federal Register, it will institute peer

review of species listing and recovery deci-

sions by panels of three independent scien-

tists; produce multispecies listings and recov-

ery plans for species sharing the same ecosys-

tem, to expedite the regulatory process; pub-

lish land use guidelines spelling out what is

and isn’t allowed in the habitat of each new

species listed; and most symbolically impor-

tant, add landowners and business representa-

tives to endangered species recovery planning

teams. The latter comes close to building into

the listing process the cost/benefit analysis

that the George Bush administration argued

should be part of endangered species decision-

making back when the ESA first came up for

renewal in 1992.

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