Japanese whaling gives Clinton/Gore a chance to boost credentials

November 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C., TOKYO––
Aware that support of Norwegian and Native
American whaling is the one environmental
albatross around U.S. Vice President Albert
Gore’s neck in his Presidential bid, outgoing
President Bill Clinton gave anti-whaling sanctions
against Japan a high profile as the campaign
hit the home stretch.
The piece-de-resistance was a
September 13 announcement delivered by
White House Chief of Staff John Podesta that,
“The President is directing the Secretary of
State to inform the Japanese government that it
will be denied future access to fishing rights in
U.S. waters.”

EXOTICS & WOLF HYBRIDS

October 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

Wolfsong Ranch moving, tests canine chemosterilant

WILLCOX, Az.––Art and Mary Bellis, cofonders of the Wolfsong Ranch sanctuary, intend to meet a January 1, 2001 deadline for disposing of the 160 resident wolf hybrids, set by the Cohise County Planning and Zoning Commission, by moving to a 440-acre site near Rodeo, New Mexico– 11 times larger than their present site outside Wilcox, Arizona.
Art and Mary Bellis began taking in wolf hybrids in 1988, Mary Bellis told ANIMAL PEOPLE. They incorporated the Wolfsong Ranch Sanctuary Foundation and deeded their property to it in 1996, but ran afoul of neighbors whom Mary Bellis describes as “primarily a family of local ranchers and their friends, employees, and members of the local ranchers’ association.

Why Calgary has almost as many off-leash parks as dog bites

October 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

CALGARY––As an ex-cop, before
becoming director of Calgary Animal Services
back in 1975, soon-to-retire Jerry Aschenbrenner
believes strong laws and consistent
enforcement are the keys to his success.
And Aschenbrenner has been successful.
Since 1984, Calgary Animal Services
and the Calgary Humane Society have
between them never killed more than 12.8
dogs and cats per 1,000 human residents of
their service area––and that peak was reached
15 years ago, when the big-city norm was
more than twice as high. Even now the norm
is 16.6. Calgary comes in at 5.2.
Although the numbers compare well
to those of San Francisco and other no-kill
cities, Aschenbrenner and the Calgary
Humane Society don’t tout Calgary as having
achieved no-kill animal control. CHS, handling
cat impoundment under contract to CAS,
still kills about 4,000 cats per year, some of
whom might be saved with a Feral Cat
Assistance Program as vigorous as the one in
San Francisco. But Aschenbrenner sees that
on the agenda.

Mississippi sanctuarian tries to quit “sharecropping” for fundraiser

October 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

CALEDONIA, Miss.– – Cedarhill
Animal Sanctuary founder Kay McElroy, of
Caledonia, Mississipi, on September 1 notified
Virginia-based fundraiser Bruce Eberle
that she wants nothing more to do with him.
A week later, however, as A N IMAL
PEOPLE went to press, McElroy and
Cedarhill were still ensnarled in a contract
which has already paid huge sums to Eberle
and has him claiming he is owed still more,
while producing little benefit to Cedarhill.
“I haven’t had one comfortable day
since I signed with Eberle,” McElroy told
ANIMAL PEOPLE. “It has been eight
months of misery,” during which Eberle has
identified Cedarhill as Tiger Tracks in mailings
very similar to those he sent in representing
Tiger Haven, of Tennessee, and Tiger
Creek, of Texas.

Disaster relief teams are fired up and burned out by hellish summer

October 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

HAMILTON, Montana––With at least five national
animal disaster relief teams now on the job, and increasingly
well-prepared local disaster relief plans covering most of the
more populated portions of the U.S., members of the United
Animal Nations’ Emergency Animal Services entered August
feeling a bit like Maytag repairmen: nobody calling, nothing
much to do except hold more seminars to train more help to
assist the 3,400 UAN-trained volunteers already available to
respond when all hell breaks loose.
”There have been no disasters where we were needed
so far,” UAN president Jeanne Westin remarked to ANIMAL
PEOPLE on August 7.
Thirteen western states were gripped by some of the
hottest droughts in years––but neither UAN nor any of the other
national animal rescue outfits do rainmaking.

Hindi isn’t eavesdropper, Kane County judge rules

October 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

CHICAGO––Judge James T. Boyle of the
Circuit Court of Kane County, Illinois, on September 6
acquitted SHARK founder Steve Hindi of alleged felony
eavesdropping. Hindi was charged in a case drawing
widespread attention from civil libertarians for having
taped the July 1999 refusal of St. Charles County police
to lay cruelty charges against participants in the Kane
County Fair rodeo––in a public place, and making no
effort to conceal that he was recording the discussion.
The verdict came two weeks after Hindi and
SHARK videotaped extensive use of electroshock, tailraking,
and other techniques which appeared to violate
National High School Rodeo Association rules during the
NHSRA Finals in Springfield, Illinois.
The NHSRA Finals were co-hosted by the
Illinois Department of Agriculture, which also has jurisdiction
over Illinois anti-cruelty law enforcement.

Court Calendar

October 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

A Florida jury on August 18
found that WTVT Fox 13 in Tampa illegally
fired reporter Jane Akre i n
November 1997, after nine months of
forcing rewrites of an expose of human
health issues raised by the use of bovine
growth hormone to stimulate greater milk
production by dairy cows. The jury
agreed that Fox 13 had other reasons to
fire Akre’s husband, Steve Wilson, who
worked with her, and acted as his own
attorney to save money. At that, the couple
sold their home to pay the costs of
fighting Fox––after declining “a six-figure
cash offer from the station manager,” said
Wilson, to drop their objections to reporting
the story as BGH maker M o n s a n t o
I n c . wanted it to be reported.

McDonald’s to laying hens: “You deserve a break next year.”

October 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

OAK BROOK, Ill.––McDonald’s
Restaurants on August 22 ordered its 27 egg
suppliers to stop starving hens for five to 21
days at the end of their first laying cycle.
Starvation forces hens to molt, normally
within 10 to 14 days, and triggers a
second laying cycle among those who survive
the enforced famine.
After the second laying cycle, the
hens reach the state of skeletal mineral depletion
referred to in the industry as “spent,”
and are killed.
Forced molts, practiced by an estimated
90% of U.S. egg producers, are
increasingly associated with bacterial infections
among hens, which are sometimes
passed to humans. The tendency of egg producers
to try to prevent the infections with
prophylactic antibiotic dosage is believed to
have stimulated the recent rapid evolution of
antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including strains
of campylobacter and salmonella that sicken
thousands of humans per year.

Joe Lieberman brings a pro-animal record to the U.S. Presidential race

October 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

WASHINGTON, D. C.––If animal
advocates ever tip the balance in a U.S. Presidential
election, November 2000 could be it.
In a race in which the candidates previously
were distinguished mostly by the
weight of their negatives, the Democratic nomination
of Senator Joseph Lieberman of
Connecticut as Vice Presidential running mate
to Presidential candidate Albert Gore placed on
the ballot the holder one of the best pro-animal
voting records in the present Congress––among
the best ever.
During Lieberman’s current term of
office he has favored 22 of the 25 animal protection
bills that came to a vote, or 88%, and
did not take a position on two of the other three.
Lieberman conflicted with the animal protection
community only in opposing a 1995
amendment to an appropriation bill which
would have axed two space shuttle missions
that included animal research.

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