Five million more homes are waiting by Ruth Smiler

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

In 1997 I closed my antiques shop in Vermont and moved to California to begin a snow-free life. I neither intended nor expected to become an expert on homelessness, either human or quadruped.

When the cottage I had rented in Oakland was sold, I failed to find another apartment for me and my two dogs. The three of us movedback into the camper van in which I had crossed the country, staying with friends for a few days here and there, house-sitting once for four weeks.

Since then I have experienced apartment hunting in Miami, San Diego, and suburban New York. Renting with pets is tough. And it is not just a problem for renters. It is also a growing problem for the humane community.

“Welcome to the monkey-house” & other Y2K stories

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

As the first month of the new millennium ended, ANIMAL PEOPLE had heard of only three “Y2K crisis” items involving animal protection.

One was the usual New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July surge in numbers of dogs running at large, terrified by fireworks. But even the news on that front was unusually good, as the South African National SPCA on January 25 won agreements from the U.S.-owned retail chains Toys R Us and R e g g i e ’ s that they would no longer sell fireworks at any of their 41 South African stores.

South African campaigners were on a streak, as 51,000 South Africans reportedly signed a Beauty Without Cruelty petition asking that the legal status of animals be changed from “chattel” to “sentient beings.”

ALF, ELF suspects raided, arrested

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

Investigators from the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and U.S. Forest Service on February 2 raided the Liberation Collective house in Portland, Oregon, home of frequent direct action spokesperson Craig Rosebraugh, 27. Rosebraugh was also subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury on February 29. Rosebraugh was previously subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in September 1997. Identified by Robert Sullivan of The New York Times Magazine in December 1998 as “The Face of Eco-Terrorism,” Rosebraugh has since June 1997 often been the first person to publicize actions attributed to the Earth Liberation Front, including the October 1998 Vail ski lift arson and a New Year’s Eve fire at the Michigan State University Hall of Agriculture. Rosebraugh has also publicized some actions attributed to the Animal Liberation Front, but insists he does not know who the ELF and ALF perpetrators are. Rosebraugh served on the steering committee for the 1999 Primate Freedom T o u r, along with longtime activists Rick Bogle and Linda Howard. It was reputedly a shaky alliance, in part due to strong differences over the use of clandestine tactics. Rosebraugh’s presence on the bus is believed to have caused BATF and the Wisconsin Justice Department Division of Criminal Investigation to extensively search it when a stop at Madison coincided with two nearby alleged ALF actions against mink ranchers.

COURT CALENDAR

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

Appeals

The Tennessee Court of Appeals on February 4 overturned a 1999 Roane County chancery court ruling that Tiger Haven, of Kingston, Tennessee, is in violation of zoning. Tiger Haven aggressively raised funds during 1999 on the premise that it might soon have to move. Tiger Haven was founded in 1993 by Joseph Donovan Parker, 52, and his wife Mary Lynn Parker. Accused of skimming $50,000 in proceeds during 1986 and 1997 from charity bingo games, Joe Parker drew a reduced sentence on lesser charges after turning prosecution witness in a joint federal/state probe of alleged corruption in bingo gambling that apparently led to the December 1989 suicide of Tennessee secretary of state Gentry Crowell. Parker eventually served three months in a halfway house for conspiracy and tax evasion.

U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann on February 3 reaffirmed his own March 1999 ruling that the Bureau of Indian A f f a i r s need not do an environmental impact study of an 859,000-hog confinement farm now being built on Rosebud Sioux land by Richard Bell, of Wahpeton, North Dakota. The Humane Farming Association, South Dakota Peace & Justice Center, Prairie Hills Audubon Society, and C o n c e r n e d Rosebud Citizens had sued seeking to stop the project. But it may yet be stopped. Former Rosebud Sioux tribal council president Norman Wilson, who backed the hog farm, was ousted in late 1999, and the current Rosebud Sioux council on January 5 resolved that the work should stop pending further review.

Coyote killers

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

Seven members of the Paul and Lee-Ann Wright family, of Crawford, Colorado, whose dog was killed in March 1999 by a cyanide-firing M-44 “coyote-getter” placed on their property without their knowledge by a then-USDA Wildlife Services contract trapper, on February 2 filed a U.S. District Court suit seeking $150,000 in damages from Wildlife Services; an injunction to keep Wildlife Services off their land; and an order that Wildlife Services trappers must comply with Environmental Protection Agency rules restricting the use of poison.

A Colorado Department of Agriculture investigation found earlier that the trapper broke numerous safety rules.

The Wright case was filed just under a month after USDA Wildlife Services agents removed seven M-44s from a Christmas tree farm near Estancia, Oregon, where a cyanide bait placed by Wildlife Services trapper Mark Lytle on January 6 killed a four-year-old German shepherd named Bud. Bud had roamed only 100 yards from owner Dixie Tippett’s back door.

Hunters, trappers hate democracy

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

PHOENIX, DENVER, BOSTON, PORTLAND (Ore.)––Hunters and trappers rejoiced on February 4, after the Arizona House of Representatives passed a bill which would require citizen initiatives pertaining to wildlife to win a two-thirds majority in order to pass, while on the same day the Governor’s Regulatory Review Council struck down a September 1999 Arizona Game and Fish Commission ban on wildlife killing contests.

Hunters and trappers in 1998 secured passage of both a Utah state constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority on wildlife-related initiatives and a Michigan state constitutional amendment denying citizens any direct voice in changing wildlife management policy. So-called “hunters’ bills of rights” have also been adopted as amendments to the Minnesota and Alabama state constitutions.

The Arizona hunting and trapping lobby sees keeping activists from protecting wildlife by initiative as an essential first step toward reversing the 1994 Arizona leghold trap ban, which drew 58% voter support.

WILDLIFE IN THE CAPITOLS

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

Prairie dogs

WASHINGTON D.C. ––The Interior Department ruled on February 2 that black-tailed prairie dogs qualify for protection as a threatened species, as they now occupy less than 1% of their former range––but Interior also said it would not act soon to protect prairie dogs, calling scarcer species a higher priority.

Arizona, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming have all reportedly agreed to develop their own prairie dog protection plans.

The National Wildlife Federation, which petitioned for the threatened species designation, said it was pleased with the Interior Department action. However, NWF still has not answered repeated ANIMAL PEOPLE inquiries as to whether it has asked members of the 48 state hunting clubs for which NWF is national umbrella to refrain from participating in prairie dog shoots.

Editorial: Lassitude on attitude

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

Beginning on page one of this edition, ANIMAL PEOPLE compares Chinese attitudes about animals, as recently surveyed by professional pollsters, to the attitudes of Americans, voiced in similar surveys done in the United States.

Readers with our own penchant for tracking statistics may notice that in order to find surveys which asked Americans essentially the same questions, we had to use data gathered on 27 different occasions by 22 different polling agencies––and though some of the questions were asked just a few months ago, others were most recently asked 17 years ago.

There were some questions we could find no match for. Hired by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Animals Asia Foundation, and the Hong Kong SPCA, the Chinese pollsters asked not only about issues and practices indigenous to China, but also about forms of animal use and abuse which might be imported, to see what might take hold if allowed the opportunity. Bullfighting and circuses were of particular interest, because entrepreneurs have already brought both bullfights and western-style circuses to the Chinese mainland. Incredibly, though we combed more than six feet of files documenting U.S. activism over animal use in entertainment, we found no indication that anyone here has ever really tried to find out what Americans think about animal spectacles in any kind of detail. All the existing data allows us to say with certainty is that Americans mostly approve of well-managed zoos and overwhelmingly disapprove of cockfighting. Where Americans stand on bullfighting, circuses, and rodeo––which combines aspects of both––is presently measured only by television ratings and gate receipts.

Panel set to draft feral hit list

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Cruelty is of no concern to the Invasive Species Council, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signified on January 26, excluding humane representation from a 32-member Invasive Species Advisory Committee named to help direct the federal war on feral wildlife.

There was no room on ISAC, as the advisory committee is called, for anyone from any of the more than 10,000 U.S. organizations formed to prevent cruelty to animals, whose donor base includes one household in four, and may be larger than the constituency who elected President Bill Clinton.

But there was room for a representative from Monsanto––a leading maker of the pesticides used in ever-growing volume against alleged “invasive species,” and coincidentally a leader in creating and introducing new species via genetic engineering.

« 1 … 152 153 154 155 156 … 321 »