Licensed to kill

September 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––You probably
think the Endangered Species Act, Marine
Mammal Protection Act, and Migratory Bird
Treaty Act protect wildlife.
What they actually do is require special
permission to kill or harass wildlife––and
spot-checking recent requests for permits and
exemptions, ANIMAL PEOPLE and Friends
of Animals’ special investigator Carroll Cox
quickly confirmed that the permitting and
exempting procedures are easily and often
manipulated.
“Permitting and exemptions are the
Achilles heel of wildlife law enforcement,”
says Cox, a former special investigator for the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and game warden
for the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife. “With the right permit or an exemption,
you can do anything.”

ESA rewrite looms

September 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Seven
years of political battling over Endangered
Species Act reauthorization appear headed
toward quick resolution.
The White House in late July signaled
eagerness to lower the profile of ESA
issues before the 1998 presidential campaign,
when both vice president Albert Gore and
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt may seek to
succeed Bill Clinton by building a similar
coalition of moderate conservative and traditional
Democratic support.
As presiding officer over the Senate,
negotiating ratification of international treaties,
Gore has pleased conservatives by favoring
trade over strict species protection under the
Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species, the International
Whaling Convention, and the Declaration of
Panama, recently implemented by repeal of
the “dolphin-safe” tuna import standard (see
page 2). Babbitt has curried conservative
favor, meanwhile, by rapidly increasing the
number of National Wildlife Refuges open to
hunting and fishing: half when he took office,
nearly two-thirds now.

BOMBING BUSTS FOLLOW BOTCHED MINK FARM RAID

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

VANCOUVER, B.C., SALT
LAKE CITY, Utah––A turning point in
the evolution of animal rights-related direct
action may have come when within days of
the airing of graphic media coverage of the
May 31 botched release of up to 9,600 mink
from a fur farm at Mount Angel, Oregon,
authorities in Vancouver and Salt Lake City
identified suspects in two apparently unrelated
strings of purportedly animal rightsrelated
violence.
Released were as many as 1,600
adult females and 6,000-8,000 kits. An estimated
400 adults and 2,000 kits either died
of exposure, killed each other in fierce territorial
fighting, were apparently trampled
underfoot by the raiders, or were missing
with little chance of survival in habitat
unlikely to sustain their metabolic needs.

Lynx sacrified to free trade and leghold trapping

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The Department
of Commerce and U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service have escalated efforts to avert the long
pending European Union ban on imports of pelts
which might be taken by leghold trapping––and
the U.S. population of Canadian lynx may
become the first species extirpated by the Bill
Clinton/Albert Gore administration defense of
free trade at any cost, as on May 23 the USFWS
ruled in that an endangered species listing of the
lynx is “warrented but precluded” by other priorities.
The ruling came in response to a
March 27 verdict by U.S. District Judge Gladys
Kessler that the USFWS did not properly weigh
the evidence that the lynx is endangered in
refusing to list it in 1994.
Officially, the so-called other priorities
precluding listing the lynx involve a backlog
of other species awaiting listing. Unofficially,
the USFWS top priority may be avoiding the
necessity of protecting the lynx from hunting,

Grisly crimes spotlight control, keeping, and the missing link

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

TRENTON, N.J.––The May 30
conviction of Jesse Timmendequas in Trenton,
New Jersey, for the July 1994 molestation
murder of Megan Kanka, 7, brought new
attention to the association of animal abuse
with child abuse. Defense lawyers testified
that Timmendequas, 36, twice before convicted
of sexually assaulting children, grew up
watching his father torture pets. His mother
broke his arm, they claimed, and his father
sodomized him.
Timmendequas’ father, Edward
James Howard, of Smoketree Valley,
California, denied the allegations in an exclusive
interview with Evelyn Nieves of The New
York Times, pointing to his present 11 dogs,
five cats, 12 chickens, two guinea hens, and
two cockatiels, along with elaborate graves
for two deceased dogs.

PETA, Procter & Gamble, and the Rokke Horror Picture Show

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

CINCINNATI––A Procter & Gamble probe of
alleged animal abuse at Huntingdon Life Sciences in East
Millstone, New Jersey, supports charges leveled on June 4 by
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
P&G that day suspended testing work contracted out
to Huntingdon, after three P&G public relations staffers
attended a PETA press conference featuring a nine-minute
covert video made by PETA undercover investigator Michelle
Rokke, a three-year staffer who obtained employment with
Huntingdon as a laboratory animal care technician.
PETA the same day introduced the Rokke video as
evidence in support of a 37-page complaint to the USDA accusing
Huntingdon of multiple Animal Welfare Act violations.
“We’re citing inadequate veterinary care, improper
training, and violation of AWA caging requirements,” said
PETA director of investigations Mary Beth Sweetland.
Reported Jeff Harrington of the Cincinnati Enquirer,
“PETA’s video shows technicians dangling monkeys, yelling
at them, throwing some of them into cages and threading tubes
down their noses. At one point a monkey displays movement
and a quickened heartbeat when a technician cuts into his chest.

Horseracing heads for the barn

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

“There is trouble here: the stench of a sport
that is dying,” pronounced the June 7 edition of
Newsweek, looking at the decline of horseracing. The
U.S. gate fell from 75 million to 39 million, 1980-
1995, while TV ratings for the Kentucky Derby,
Belmont, and Preakness dropped from 40-60% in
1960 to just 10-20% this summer despite Silver
Charm’s narrowly thwarted bid for the Triple Crown.
The New York-based Center to Preserve
Racing and track owners either blame simulcasting
and casino gambling for outcompeting live racing, or
look toward them for help, but the most evident factor
is that horseracing doesn’t attract enthusiasts
younger than the eldest Baby Boomers––who grew up
before the rise of the animal rights movement made
abuses better known than top jockeys and mounts.

PUSHING THE “DOLPHIN DEATH BILL”

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Only the threat of filibuster
by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) remained to
keep revocation of the “dolphin safe” tuna import standard
from sliding through the Senate and into law, after the House
of Representatives approved HR 408, dubbed “the dolphin
death bill” by opponents, 262-166, on May 21. Unless Boxer
succeeds in indefinitely delaying the Senate vote this year, as
last year, the revocation bill will come before the Senate for a
vote later this summer as HR 39, and is strongly favored by
the Bill Clinton/Albert Gore administration.
The revocation, to bring U.S. law into conformity
with the 1994 Panama Agreement, will allow the fleets of 11
other nations to resume selling the U.S. tuna netted “on dolphin,”
but will require that no dolphins are seen being killed.

ANIMAL CONTROL & RESCUE

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

Alley Cat Allies invites cat rescuers
to participate in the sixth of an annual
series of surveys of techniques and observations
similar to those ANIMAL PEOPLE
did in 1992 and 1995. For a survey form,
send SASE to POB 397, Mt. Rainier, MD
20712, or call 301-229-7890.
Among the encouraging data
reported in a new National Pet Alliance
paper, Do free spay/neuter vouchers work,
“Newborn kittens entering the H u m a n e
Society of the Santa Clara Valley shelter
have decreased 44%” since a voucher program
began there in 1994, “while kittens in
general have decreased 10%. The total
number of cats handled has dropped slightly,
even though the service area has been
increasing and the human population has
been increasing,” author Karen Johnson
wrote. Among the other evident results of a
lower feline birth rate, the number of cats
surrendered at the shelter because the owners
claimed to have too many cats dropped
from 51% to 35% over the same interval.
The paper is available c/o NPA, POB
53385, San Jose, CA 95153.

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