Marine Mammal Bills

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

WASHINGTON D.C. ––

Rep. Michael Bilirakis (R-Fla.) and 19

co-sponsors have introduced a bill to

restrict dolphin exports, institute an

identification and tracking system,

limit lethal research on marine mam-

mals, and impose a moratorium on cap-

tures pending a review and revision of

care standards. If the bill, H.R. 656,

wins sufficient Congressional support,

language from it may be incorporated

into the Marine Mammal Protection

Act, which is up for renewal this year.

HUNTING

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

The Federation of Ontario

Naturalists reports that 95% of spring bear

hunters in the province are Americans, from

states that ban spring bear hunting. In 1991,

Ontario spring bear hunters killed 6,760 bears,

9% of the estimated provincial population. A

third of the bears were females. Only 30% of

cubs who lose their mothers live to age one.

“All too many Alaska hunters are

lazy, ill-mannered, beer-guzzling, belly-

scratching fat boys, or girls,” Anchorage

Daily News outdoors editor Craig Medred

opined recently, “who want nothing more

than to ride around on their favorite piece of

high-powered machinery until they find some-

thing to shoot full of holes with their high-

powered rifle.” Medred also attacked the

Zoos & Aquariums

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

The World Society for the Protection of Animals recently liberated Flipper, the

last captive dolphin in Brazil, near where he was captured in 1982. Before the release,

Flipper was reaquainted with life in the ocean under the supervision of Ric O’Barry of the

Dolphin Project––who also trained his namesake, the star of the Flipper TV program. Brazil

banned keeping marine mammals in captivity in 1991. The Brazilian Flipper spent the past

two years in solitude at an abandoned amusement park near Sao Paulo, and was kept alive

by the local fire department, who used their pumper truck to change his water after the filtra-

tion system in his tank deteriorated beyond repair.

Colorado’s Ocean Journey, the proposed aquarium to be built in Denver,

recently tried to head off protest by claiming it would include “only third generation captive-

born dolphins.” Pointed out David Brower, president of Earth Island Institute, “There are

no third-generation captive-born dolphins anywhere.” The Coors Brewing Company recent-

ly retreated from the dolphin controversy. According to a prepared statement issued

February 15, “Contrary to rumors and recent advertisements, Coors does not ‘want to bring

dolphins to Denver.’ Our support of this project is not focused on, nor dependent on,

cetaceans.”

ANIMAL HEALTH

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Ohio Veterinary Medical Board member George Wenning, DVM, resigned March 11 under pressure

for having called filing horses’ teeth “nigger work” during a board meeting. The governor’s office ordered another

member, Tom Liggett, DVM, to take a one-day course on cultural diversity at his own expense––and made the

annual course mandatory for all 400 members of state boards and commissions. Liggett reportedly routinely

inquired as to whether applicants for veterinary licenses were “Americans.” The situation came to light when for-

mer board president Linda Randall, DVM, an Afro-American, told media that her private complaints to Governor

George Voinovich had gone unanswered for six months.

Diet & Health

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

Responding to public panic over

tainted meat, President Bill Clinton on

February 11 ordered the USDA to hire 160

more meat inspectors, while Agriculture

Secretary Mike Espy promised a complete

overhaul of the meat inspection

system––which the Ronald Reagan and

George Bush presidential administrations

had streamlined by reducing the number of

inspectors. The panic began in December

when a six-year-old girl in San Diego

County, California, died after eating a

tainted Jack-in-the-Box hamburger, and

escalated January 22, when a two-year-old

boy died in Seattle, Washington, from the

same cause. More than 400 people who ate

Jack-in-the-Box hamburgers developed E.

A fish named Alice by Margaret Hehman-Smith

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

I have an unusual animal I’d like to tell

you about: a fish named Alice who does tricks.

You don’t believe it? Everyone says that until they

see my fish for real. Then they admit they have

never seen a fish do that before; and then they

don’t know what to say or do. On the one hand

here is a koi fish who performs learned behaviors

on cue, and on the other, there is the suggestion

that we should regard fish as intelligent, sentient

beings, who don’t belong grilled on a plate.

My Japanese Imperial koi fish is sleekly

beautiful, pearl-white, 24 years old, about the

size of a small dog. She lives in a 100-gallon tank

in my den. She has been taught to ring a bell, go

through a hoop, react to hand signals, push a ball,

Books In Brief

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

Care of Reptiles and Amphibians in

Captivity, by Chris Mattison. 1992. 317 pages,

paperback. $17.95 ($23.95 Canadian). Blandford, distrib –

uted by Sterling Publishing Co., 387 Park Ave. South, New

York, NY 10016-8810. If you run an animal shelter,

inspect pet stores, rehabilitate wildlife, or answer nuisance

animal complaints, you’re going to need this reference. You

may never pick it up until you find an unidentified lizard in

your overnight dropoff box, or get a call about a python in

a chimney. Then it’ll be a lifesaver, for you and the reptile.

BOOKS: Animal Rights & Human Rights: Ecology, Economy and Ideology in the Canadian Arctic

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

Animal Rights Human Rights: Ecology,

Economy and Ideology in the Canadian

Arctic, by George Wenzel. 1991. 206 pages,

paperback. University of Toronto Press.

Animal Rights Human Rights author George

Wenzel, says the back cover, “is an anthropologist and geo-

grapher,” who has been working among the Inuit (Eskimos)

of Baffin Island since 1972. His book “is both a careful aca-

demic study and a disturbing comment on how environmen-

tal activity may oppress a whole society.” To wit, Wenzel

supposedly shows how anti-seal hunt protesters’ “own cul-

tural prejudices and questionable ecological imperatives

brought hardship, distress, and instability to an ecologically

balanced traditional culture.”

Wildlife

March 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill contin-

ues to kill Alaskan wildlife, researchers revealed

February 5 at a symposium hosted by the

University of Alaska and the American Fisheries

Society. Among the victims are 14 orcas, who dis-

appeared and are presumed dead; 300,000 murres,

a bird species that hasn’t nested successfully since

the spill; and sea otters and ducks, who are still

being poisoned by mussels who in turn have been

poisoned by oil.

Zimbabwe is trying to raise $2 million

to spend on culling 5,000 elephants from a nation-

al herd officially estimated at 80,000.

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