Two-strokes are out in parks

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Recognizing that the most invasive of all species are humans on vehicles with noisy exhaust-spewing two-stroke engines, the National Park Service on April 28, 2000 banned recreational use of snowmobiles at 29 National Parks, National Monuments, and National Recreation Areas.

The ban will be implemented by enforcing existing prohibitions on off-road vehicle use, adopted in 1972, and other disruptive vehicular activity, adopted in 1977.

Exempted from the Park Service edict are only Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota and 11 sites in Alaska, including Denali National Park, where specific legislation permits snowmobiling.

U.S. Supreme Court raps ranchers & other big farm cases

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

Ruling 9-0 against the wise-use orie n t e d Public Lands Council, t h e A m e r i c a n Farm Bureau Federation, t h e A m e r i c a n Sheep Industry Association, the Association of National Grasslands, and the N a t i o n a l Cattlemen’s Beef Association, t h e U . S . Supreme Court on May 15 upheld the authority of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt under the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act to impose grazing reform rules governing the use of 170 million acres of leased federal property in 13 states. The Supreme Court ruling finalizes changes Babbitt ordered in 1995 which ended quasi-automatic grazing permit renewal for approximately 20,000 tenured leaseholders; allowed non-ranchers to bid on grazing permits, including for the purpose of holding land as wildlife habitat; and stipulated that fences, wells, and other improvements made on federal land by leaseholders become property of the federal government. A further effect of the ruling is that banks may no longer feel confident in making business loans to ranchers, accepting their grazing leases as collateral in lieu of owned real estate. The net outcome is expected to be more wildlife and fewer cattle and sheep on western rangeland.

MACHO SPORTSMEN

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

The Ohio Division of Wildlife has lifted a three-year-old rule limiting access to the Milan Wildlife Area to hunters, fishers, and trappers. “The Division of Wildlife closed the woods to discourage sexual activity by people, mostly homosexuals, who took the wildlife area’s Lover’s Lane address literally,” wrote Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Michael Sangiacomo.

British hunting writer G e o f f r e y Allen, 45, of Worcestershire, was imprisoned for four years in February on charges of buggery, indecent assault, and gross indecency against two 13-year-old boys, according to H o w l , the magazine of the Britishbased Hunt Saboteurs Association.

H o w l also reports that, “Tory finance spokesman Glyn Davies,” a defender of fox hunting, “was stopped by police driving a load of sheep,” wearing only boots, undershorts, and a jacket. “Refusing the stereotype of Welsh farmer + Tory politician = sheepshagger,” H o w l c o n t i n u e d , “Mr. Davies explained he had fallen in manure, so had to take his clothes off.”

People Energetically Teasing Abusers

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

As encore to its brief “Got beer?” c a m p a i g n parodying the National Dairy Council’s “Got milk?” ads, PETA placed a parody ad asking “Got zits?” in the May 31 edition of the student newspaper at Central High School in Brookfield, Illinois. The ad argued milk can aggravate acne. High school papers in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, California, and Vermont refused the ad, said PETA campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich.

Irritating cowpokes too, PETA asked Wyoming governor Jim Geringer to remove from the state’s license plates the bucking rodeo horse which has been the state symbol since 1936.

25% of top U.S. charities say they get something for nothing

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.––More than 25% of the U.S. charities which collectively rake in more than 90% of all donated dollars are declaring expeditures of zero on fundraising, revealed the Chronicle of Philanthropy in a May 18 cover feature.

A Chronicle of Philanthropy analysis of Internal Revenue Service data for tax year 1996 “found that more than one fourth of the 4,889 nonprofit organizations that received $500,000 or more in gifts from private sources reported spending nothing on fundraising,” the authors stated. Their findings were affirmed by the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy.

Examining IRS Form 990 filings from tax years 1997 and 1998, the Urban Institute found that between 25% and 35% of charities with at least $500,000 in contributions from private sources declared that they had spent nothing on fundraising.

PREDATORS’ MEAT AND USDA POISON

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Opposing environmental priorities as well as the long-running conflict between wildlife advocates and ranchers are again on the line in Congress.

Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and Charles Bass (R-New Hampshire) announced in mid-May that they would seek an ammendment to the Agriculture Appropriations bill for fiscal 2001 which would cap the USDA Wildlife Services budget at $28.7 million.

This would eliminate subsidized predator control for ranchers, consisting chiefly of killing coyotes, but would not interfere with killing wildlife under contract from other government agencies––for instance, to protect airports, endangered species, and golf greens on public land.

DeFazio and Bass sought a cut of $10 million from the Wildlife Services budget in 1998, when their bill was approved on first reading, 229-193. The vote was reversed the next day, however, after a night of frantic lobbying by Wildlife Services senior staff and representatives of the livestock industry. It stood little chance of passage by the U.S. Senate in any event, where members friendly to western ranchers chair all the key committees it would have to clear.

INVASIVES IF HUMANIACS HAD THEIR WAY

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – The 32-member Invasive Species Advisory Committee appointed in January 2000 by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt may have excluded humane representatives because Invasive Species Council members Babbitt, Commerce Secretary William Daley, and Agriculture Secretary Daniel Glickman feared that concern for preventing animal suffering might interfere with their mandate to kill all ferals.

Prevailing belief among mainstream conservation biologists and wildlife managers is that if socalled “humaniacs” had their way, the whole of North American would be overrun by even more feral species than it has now in no time.

But a look at actual species introductions tells a different story. Most would never have come if hunting, meat-eating, animalfighting, vivisection, and other cruel practices had been adequately proscribed by public policy.

Feds find out that force-feeding white phosphorous to mute swans kills them

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

LAUREL, Md. – – “ T h i s has been proclaimed the year that mute swans will be eliminated from North America,” warns swan defender Kathryn Burton of Old Lyme, Connecticut. “A directive to get rid of all mutes on federal property came from the Interior Department in 1997,” endorsed by many state wildlife agencies as well, “with the goal being total eradication in 2000,” Burton adds.

Eradicating mute swans could become a symbolic first victory for the Invasive Species Council, created by executive order of President Bill Clinton in early February 1999 with a mandate to destroy all wild animals and plants not native to the U.S.

Mute swans are easy targets because they are few, are large, are conspicuous, remain together as pairs even when one partner is gravely wounded, and are hated by wildlife managers who blame them for 13 years of failures to re-establish huntable populations of native trumpeter swans.

Golf: Facing nature with a club

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

SEAL BEACH, AUBURN, SANTA BARBARA, California; LAKEWOOD, Colorado––Already poisoning cottontail rabbits at the Leisure World golf course in Seal Beach, the exterminating firm California Agri-Control in early May asked the Seal Beach Police Department for permission to shoot rabbits as well. Seal Beach police chief Mike Sellers on May 9 refused to waive the city policy against firing guns within city limits––which meant that the poisoning would continue.

In Defense of Animals offered to relocate the rabbits to a privately owned 40-acre site near Lake Elsinore, without much hope that the offer would be accepted.

“In 1992, an offer to relocate rabbits” from Leisure World “was rejected by the California Department of Fish and Game,” IDA representative Bill Dyer said. “Yet for $40,000, the cost of building one green” claimed by Leisure World, “all of the rabbits could be trapped, sterilized, and released.”

« 1 … 147 148 149 150 151 … 321 »