Roger Rabbit and the facts of life

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

NEW YORK––Seriously asserting in
his 1996 book A Perfect Harmony that rabbits are
capable of immaculate conception, American
SPCA president Roger Caras reached for another
miracle of harmony as regards pet reproduction in
the summer edition ofASPCA Animal Watch.
At issue: the clash between advocates
of traditional “full service” shelters, which do
dog and cat population control killing, and converts
to the separation of animal control from
other humane services, as in San Francisco.
Inspired by the success of San Francisco
in becoming the first “no-kill” city in 1994, Caras
himself in 1995 led the ASPCA in breaking from
a century-long tradition of serving as the New
York City animal control agency.

More trouble in Montreal

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

MONTREAL– – Canadian
SPCA executive director Pierre Barnotti
admitted at the organization’s June 15
annual meeting that he augmented his
$49,000 annual salary in 1995 and 1996
by taking cuts from his fundraising campaigns
of $14,000 and $25,000.
Reported Lisa Fetterman of the
Montreal Gazette, “The former real
estate broker, who has declared bankruptcy,
acknowledged that he takes 10%
of the net profit from any fundraising
that costs the CSPCA some money to
mount, and 15% of the net profit if it
does not cost the organization anything.”
Under Barnotti, CSPCA revenue
rose from $1.7 million in 1995 to
$3.2 million last year. At peak in the
late 1980s and early 1990s, the CSPCA
raised $4 million a year, but incurred
debts exceeding $1 million by subsidizing
the animal control contract, 1991-
1993. It finally lost the contract anyway
in 1994 to a private firm, Berger Blanc.

WILD TIME FOR THE WAYSTATION

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST,
Calif.––The California Fish and Game Commission
on June 12 reportedly put off until August a decision
on a Department of Fish and Game request that
it should impose a moratorium on the acceptance of
animals by the Wildlife Waystation sanctuary until
it meets DFG requirements.
DFG director Jacqueline E. Schafer told
the commission on May 16 that the DFG has
refused to renew the Wildlife Waystation permits to
exhibit and keep “detrimental species,” which
expired on February 15, because “the Waystation
continues to possess unpermitted animals, allows
breeding, and houses animals in substandard cages.
Twenty-six unauthorized wild animal births have
taken place at the Waystation since June 1994,”
Schafer charged. She further stated that 23 cages,
mostly housing big cats or bears, have been officially
out of compliance with state regulation since
May 16, 1995.

McDonald’s “wins” McLibel case ––but is “culpably” cruel to animals

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

LONDON – – Justice
Roger Bell technically found for
McDonald’s on June 19, ending
the second longest trial in British
history, but the $98,000 defamation
award against penniless defendants
Dave Morris, 43, and Helen
Steel, 31, cost the fast food firm
$16 million to win, enabled Morris
and Steel to distribute millions of
copies of the 1990 London
Greenpeace pamphlet Whats
Wrong With McDonald’s? that
started it all, and established that
several of their many allegations
against McDonald’s were true.

CHARC APPEALS WAUCONDA RODEO VIOLENCE TO THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

WAUCONDA, Illinois––
Demonstrating more faith in the
court of public opinion than in the
justice system of Lake County,
Illinois, the Chicago Animal Rights
Coalition is challenging the
Wauconda Rodeo and all rodeos this
summer with a 40-minute video,
Bucking The Rodeo, by Robyn
Douglas of Earth Network News.
Wwhatever an authoritarian-leaning
viewer might say about
the allegations the video raises of
police brutality against anti-rodeo
protesters, the arrogance of police
who incorrectly claim it’s illegal to
videotape them, and the perjury of
police whose courtroom testimony
the cameras belie, the violence
toward animals is self-evident.

Odd Bodkin II

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

ANCHORAGE––Responding to “substantial new information”
pertaining to the application of National Biological
Service sea otter project leader James L. Bodkin to kill up to 20
endangered sea otters, reported on page 17 of the June edition of
ANIMAL PEOPLE, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has
announced intent to reopen the public comment period.
Documents obtained by ANIMAL PEOPLE indicate
that Bodkin, working out of the Alaska Science Center in
Anchorage, may be seeking a pretext to open sea otter hunting.
Heavily hunted for fur in the 19th century, sea otters
were believed to be extinct early this century, but remnants of two
subspecies were found off California and Alaska in the late 1930s.
Resenting competition from sea otters for lucrative and now depleted
abalone and sea urchins, fishers held a decade ago that the
otters had recovered enough to be removed from the federal endangered
species list. The campaign lost momentum when oiled sea
otters became the icon species of the clean-up effort after the 1989
Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Bombed birds can’t be found

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field supervisor
for ecological services Brooks Harper on May 16
issued a new Biological Opinion for Gunnery and
Aerial Bombardment Practice at Farallon de
Medinilla, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands. As Friends of Animals special investigator
Carroll Cox described on page 17 of the March edition
of ANIMAL PEOPLE, Farallon de Medinilla is a
tiny island north of Guam, uninhabited by humans but
heavily used by protected sea birds and sea turtles
––between U.S. Navy bombing and strafing.
The new Biological Opinion, issued preliminary
to more bombing and strafing, notes that the most
endangered bird on the island, the Micronesian
megapode [ovenbird] is “likely to remain underneath
brushy cover, and therefore, deaths or injury from
either direct strikes or indirectly from shrapnel would
be difficult to detect from aerial surveys,” as if finding
anything left of a bird the size of a robin who’s been
hit by a bomb might be likely anyway.

NO SURPRISES––ESA FIGHT RESUMES

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––With CITES over, the
endangered species spotlight shifts back to the ongoing battle
over reauthorizing the Endangered Species Act.
An indicative early round had a promising outcome
on May 7, when the House of Representatives killed a measure
to give flood control projects precedence over protecting endangered
species. Since most endangered species occupy wetlands
or water, this might have effectively dismantled the ESA. The
final vote count showed 172 Democrats, 54 Republicans, and
one independent among the 227 opposing votes, of 423 cast.
House wise-users next tried to amend the Disaster
Relief Bill with a rider to expand right-of-way claims in roadless
areas. That too was defeated.
The Bill Clinton/Albert Gore administration might
have helped tip the balance on April 22, announcing a $125-
million-a-year scheme to both protect fish and wildlife and promote
the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest. The timber
industry praised the deal, but 37 environmental groups
demanded changes. “There is a heavy reliance on logging to
fix problems that logging caused,” objected Rick Taylor of the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

Scientists say Canada falsified data

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

NEWFOUNDLAND– – Memorial
University biologist Edward Miller, host of a
February 1997 workshop on how harp seals
affect the Atlantic Canada cod fisheries,
charged on June 24 that one of the four participants
from the Canadian Department of
Fisheries and Oceans had privately disclosed
data indicating that as many as 500,000 seals
were killed in the 1996 offshore hunt, nearly
double the official count of 262,402.
Twenty-nine scientists from seven nations
took part in the workshop.
“DFO personnel found several
sealing vessels carrying the same number of
male seal genitals as pelts,” Charles Enman
of the Ottawa Citizen reported. “But the
number of pelts should have been roughly
double the number of male genitals, since
male and female seals are impossible to distinguish
before they are shot. This suggested
that sealers were collecting genitals and pelts
from the males, but discarding entire female
carcasses, pelts and all,” as there is little
market for pelts and reporting kills of females
would just deplete the sealing quota faster.

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