Missing the link in Georgia––and Wisconsin, and Washington, too

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

ATLANTA, EVERETT, MILWAUKEE––T.J.
Solomon, 15, who wounded six fellow
students with gunfire at Heritage High School in
Conyers, Georgia on May 20, and threatened to
shoot himself, “was a trained marksman who often
went hunting with his stepfather,” a family friend
told New York Times reporter David Firestone.
ANIMAL PEOPLE has now logged 12
mass homicides or attempted mass homicides by
teenaged hunters and/or animal torturers in recent
years, including the April 20 killings of 15 people
at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
Yet no other major news media discussed
Solomon’s hunting background.

Eastern Europe and Southern U.S. cities share animal control crisis

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

WARSAW, Poland; Southern
states, U.S.––“A series of articles in the
nationally circulated newspaper Zycie
Warszawy about the Paluch animal shelter
[recently] shocked the public” with allegations
of “horrible sanitary conditions, lack of care
and rigid treatment of animals, widespread
disease, and extensive animal killing,”
Warsaw Committee in Defense of Animals
members Aniela Roehr and Anna Chodakowska
charged in a globally distributed May
17 e-mail, seeking help from the international
animal protection community.
Managed by a foundation set up in
January 1997, subsidized by Warsaw and surrounding
suburbs, the Paluch shelter reportedly
has the same conflicts of history, mission,
and public expectation as the animal care-andcontrol
apparatus in Kiev, Ukraine (page
13)––and as do the animal care-and-control
agencies in much of the U.S., as well.

Animal testing and experimentation

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

Four months after PETA began
a campaign to reduce animal use in connection
with the High Production Volume chemical
safety testing project undertaken by the
Environmental Protection Agency,
Chemical Manufacturers Association, and
Environmental Defense Fund, at urging of
U.S. vice president Albert Gore, PETA
declared on May 4 that “The EPA has conceded
that some of the planned animal tests
were not necessary. At a recent meeting in
Fairfax, Virginia,” PETA said, “EPA officials
announced their intention to remove a
requirement for genetic toxicity tests on animals,
allowing non-animal tests instead. The
EPA also announced at the meeting that it has
agreed to pull requirements for terrestrial toxicity
tests that would have meant intentionally
poisoning birds. A giant rabbit has followed
Gore to 22 cities,” the PETA statement finished,
“with a sign that says ‘Gore: burn
bunnies, lose votes.’”

BULLFEATHERS & SUCH

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

Told that as a shareholder
he would be given three minutes at
the May 5 annual PepsiCo shareholders’
meeting in Purchase, New York,
to tell fellow PepsiCo shareholders
about Pepsi advertising in bullrings,
SHARK founder Steve Hindi allowed
PepsiCo executives to read his speech
in advance, as required, and travelled
from Chicago to the meeting after getting
purported final approval––but on
arrival was told by PepsiCo associate
general counsel Lawrence Dickie that
he would not be allowed in because
PepsiCo had received an anonymous
call which included a bomb threat.
Recounted Hindi, “Dickie said PepsiCo
had ‘consulted the authorities,’ who
agreed I should not attend. I called the
FBI, the New York State Police, and
the White Plains and Harrison police
departments,” which have jurisdiction
in Purchase. “None of them knew anything
whatever about PepsiCo getting a
bomb threat. There was no report on
file. If PepsiCo feels it cannot defend
its relationship with bullfighting,”
Hindi added, “and I agree it cannot, it
should end that relationship. Meanwhile,
PepsiCo shareholders have a
right to know what PepsiCo is doing.
Barring me was just one indefensible
act concocted to cover up another.”

EQUINES

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

PMU mares & foals

Touring western Canada during 1998-1999 to assess recent changes in the pregnant mares’ urine industry, Enzo Giobe and Staci Wilson of the International Generic Horse Association/HorseAid reported on May 22 that the number of active accredited PMU farms has dropped from 553 to 439, and that the number of foals they sell to slaughter each year has fallen from 75,000 to between 37,000 and 43,000, depending on how many foals are used for other purposes.

PMU is the source stock for the Wyeth-Ayrst estrogen drug Premarin. As world demand for estrogen supplements is up, Giobe and Wilson link the decline of PMU production partly to the advent of rival products made from soy, yams, and other non-animal estrogen sources, and partly to growing awareness of how PMU-producing mares and their foals are treated. Premarin has been made since 1942, but the industry was first extensively exposed by A N I M A L PEOPLE in early 1993, based on research by Tom Hughes of the Canadian Farm Animal Concerns Trust in 1991-1992.

Wildlife management

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

U.S. Representatives Peter
DeFazio (D-Oregon) and Charles Bass ( R –
New Hampshire) announced in late May that
they plan to offer an amendment to the $61 billion
USDA appropriations bill to cut $7 million
from USDA Wildlife Services– – about
what the agency spent in 1997 to kill 82,000
coyotes on behalf of ranchers. DeFazio and
Bass contend the coyote-killing unfairly subsidizes
ranchers who don’t adequately protect
their livestock. A similar DeFazio amendment
cutting $10 million from the Wildlife Services
budget won House approval on first reading in
1998, but was rescinded a day later. Leading
the opposition to the proposed amendment is
House Appropriations agriculture subcommittee
chair Joe Skeen (R-New Mexico), whose
15,000-acre ranch Wildlife Services visited 99
times between October 1991 and July 1996.

Furriers whistle past the graveyard

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

BEVERLY HILLS, LONDON– –
Furriers rejoiced twice in three days in midMay.
Sixty-four percent of an unusually high
special election turnout in Beverly Hills,
California, on May 12 rejected a proposed
bylaw that fur garments priced at $50 or more
be labeled to tell how the animals whose pelts
they use were killed. Then, in London,
Conservative backbenchers on May 14 “talked
out” a bill which would have bought and
closed the last 11 mink farms in Britain.

Celestial Seasonings apologizes for poisoning prairie dogs

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

BOULDER, Colorado– – Caught
poisoning prairie dogs on its 35-acre plant
site in the Gunbarrel, Colorado, a suburb of
Boulder, the tea maker Celestial Seasonings
endured two weeks of intense e-mail protest
before doing an about-face on May 27.
Wrote Celestial Seasonings president
and CEO Steve Hughes, “The response
we have received from the community,
consumers, our neighbors, and wildlife
advocates has been both overwhelming and
justified. The extent of this response, however,
has paled in comparison to the disappointment
expressed by the passionate and
dedicated employees of Celestial
Seasonings. I am deeply sorry…This is an
act that Celestial Seasonings should not have
done, and will not be involved with from

this point forward.”

Shocked! Shocked! by gambling

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

HOUSTON, LITTLE ROCK– –
All the money in breeding race or show horses
is gambling money.
Figure that out, and it’s no surprise
that jockey Billy Patin allegedly used an electrical
shocking device to boot the horse
Valhol home in the April 10 Arkansas Derby,
beating 30-to-1 odds.
Patin, 36, appeared––briefly––to
have won his first big race in 20 years of
competition.
Then an Oaklawn Park worker
found a shocking device on the track near the
finish. A video replay showed Patin dropping
a black object at about that point.

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