MARINE MAMMAL NOTES

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

The Marine Mammal Protection Act was

reauthorized on schedule on April 29, including loop-

holes to let hunters to import polar bear trophies and to

allow the killing of seals and sea lions who eat threat-

ened fish runs at locks and fish ladders. Other provi-

sions include a total ban on intentionally shooting

marine mammals who interfere with fishing, and a pro-

gram to cut accidental kills during fishing to near zero

over the next seven years.

The Liberal Party of Canada convention on

May 15 overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling

for the resumption of offshore seal hunting, halted in

1983 after two decades of international protest. The

Liberals form the Parliamentary majority. Claiming

“the concerns of animal rights lobby groups should not

be put before the concerns of the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador,” the resolution claims

sealing is needed to create jobs because the fishing

industry has collapsed––making no mention that the col-

lapse was caused by overfishing condoned in the name

of job creation by a succession of both Liberal and

Progressive-Conservative governments.

Save the whales! DID CLINTON SELL OUT WHALES TO SELL MISSILES?

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico––The world will

know by the time you read this whether U.S. president Bill

Clinton sold out whales to sell $625 million worth of missiles to

Norway. As ANIMAL PEOPLEwent to press, Greenpeace and

the World Wildlife Fund, goaded by Friends of Animals, were

applying last-minute leverage to head off the apparent

sellout––including joint protest on May 17 in front of the White

House, a WWF first, while Clinton and vice president Albert

Gore met with Norwegian prime minister Gro Brundtland inside.

The proposed creation of an Antarctic whale refuge and

the resumption of commercial whaling head the agenda for the

46th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission

(IWC), commencing on May 23. As every year since 1982,

when the IWC decreed the moratorium on commercial whaling in

effect since 1986, Japan and Norway will push to break the

moratorium. As last year, Japan and Norway will also fight the

creation of the sanctuary, seeking the help of Antigua-and-

Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent-and-

the-Grenadines, four tiny Caribbean nations heavily dependent

upon Japanese foreign aid, whose votes were decisive in 1993.

Saving marine mammals and tigers: The balance of nature vs. the balance of terror

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The poli-

tics of wildlife protection are at the fore this

month as Congress rushes toward renewing

the Marine Mammal Protection Act on the eve

of the annual push by whaling nations to gut

the whaling ban enacted in 1986 by the

International Whaling Commission––and

everyone has something to trade but the

cetaceans and pinapeds whose fate depends on

the outcome. Simultaneously the fate of wild

tigers and rhinoceroses worldwide would

seem to depend more upon the success of

negotiations over inspection access to North

Korean nuclear power plants than upon either

economics or ecology.

A foreshadowing of the probable

compromises ahead over marine mammals

came on April 11, as President Bill Clinton

barred U.S. imports of wildlife products from

Taiwan effective in mid-May. Said Clinton,

“The world’s tiger and rhinoceros populations

remain gravely endangered and will likely be

extinct within the next two to five years if the

trade in their parts and products, fueled by

market demand in consuming countries, is

not eliminated.”

Zoos and aquariums

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Caught in a lobster trap in January

and donated to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

in San Pedro, California, a 58-pound octu-

pus with 12-foot arms nicknamed Octavia was

housed in a tank just six feet wide, attracting

crowds and a PETA-sponsored protest. She

suffocated overnight April 11 after yanking

the plug from her tank.

Louis Bailey, age 8, escaped seri-

ous injury on April 5 when a cheetah scaled

an eight-foot fence at the Jackson Zoo in

Jackson, Mississippi, pounced the boy, who

had wandered into a restricted area––and

raced off with his baseball cap. The 75-year-

old zoo is asking the Mississippi legislature to

approve a $16.5 million bond issue to finance

major renovation.

Ocean species

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

The National Resources Defense

Council sued the U.S. Navy on April 17 in

Los Angeles, seeking to block 270 sched-

uled underwater explosives tests near the

Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary,

slated to start April 24 and go on for five

years. The suit claims the permits issued to

the Navy by the National Marine Fisheries

Service violate the Marine Mammal

Protection Act, the National Environmental

Policy Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty

Act. Co-plaintiffs include Save The Whales,

the Humane Society of the U.S., American

Oceans Campaign, and Heal the Bay.

Endangered ocean species

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Russian whaling commissioner

Alexei Yablokov on February 21 confirmed

that Soviet whalers for decades killed far

more whales than they reported to the

International Whaling Commission. For

instance, he said, in the 1960s one ship reported

killing 152 humpbacked whales and 156 blue

whales, but actually killed 7,207 humpbacks,

1,433 blue whales, and 717 right whales, a

species protected by the IWC since 1946.

Another ship killed 1,568 humpbacks and 1,200

right whales during the winter of 1961-1962,

but reported none of the right whales while the

USSR said its entire fleet killed only 270 hump-

backs all year. Two years later the same ship

killed 530 blue whales; the USSR said the fleet

total was just 74. The revelations mean IWC

estimates of whale numbers may be far too high.

WATSON TRIAL BEGINS; SEA SHEPHERD MAY GET INTO THE SEAL WOOL BUSINESS

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland– –

Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd

Conservation Society was confident and perhaps

even exhuberant March 21, after the Canadian

government presented its case concerning four

counts of criminal mischief brought in connec-

tion with a July confrontation between The

Cleveland Amory, Watson’s vessel at the time,

and the Cuban dragnetting vessel Rio Las

Casas. Three of the counts, pertaining to

alleged reckless endangerment of human life,

could bring Watson a life term in prison.

Sealing and child sex trade

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

TORONTO, Ontario––The International Fund for Animal Welfare drew

headlines across Canada on March 7 with graphic newspaper ads depicting the penis

bone of a seal and decrying Canadian support of the slaughter of at least 50,000 seals

off the Atlantic coast, allegedly to supply penis bones to the Asian aphrodisiac trade.

As IFAW pointed out, that trade is closely associated with the forced recruitment of

children to staff brothels in Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, and elsewhere, which

cater to the belief that sex with a virgin can rejuvenate an aging man’s potency. More

than 400,000 children are currently victimized, The New York Times Magazine of

January 16 reported, many of whom contract AIDS and other serious diseases.

As many as 150,000 seals may be killed to get 50,000 penis bones, since

much of the hunting is done from small boats by men with rifles, the sexes of seals are

not obvious, and as even seal hunt defender George Wenzel has acknowledged, as

many as two out of each three shot seals who get off of ice floes into water sink before

they can be gaffed aboard a power boat. Canada contends that the penis bones are a

byproduct of hunting for meat, pelts, and seal oil, which sell for about $20 per seal;

the penis bones go for $130 apiece.

Farewell to marine mammal protections

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Only par-

tially enforced since 1988, the Marine

Mammal Protection Act appears likely to be

reauthorized with markedly less clout for

whales, seals, and dolphins than it once had.

The House version of the reautho-

rization bill, HR 2760, easily cleared the

Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee on

March 16 after adoption of an amendment by

Rep. Jolene Unsoeld and Maria Cantwell

(both D-Wash.) that would allow the govern-

ment to issue permits for killing marine mam-

mals whose predation might depress the num-

bers of a potentially threatened animal.

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