Category: North America

Sexually exploiting horses for fun, profit, and advancement of science

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

WAUPACA, EL CAJON––
The rare sentencing of two serial
sexual assailants of mares in less
than six weeks leaves horse people
less relieved than fearful.
Found not guilty by reason of
insanity or mental defect of sexually
assaulting a pregnant mare on June
1, 1996, Sterling Rachwal, 33, of
Weyauwega County, Wisconsin,
was on May 13 sent to a state mental
institution for up to 18 and a half
years––two thirds of the 28-year
maximum for conviction.

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Editorial: White hats and black hats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley executive director Vicki Crosetti has for a
year now endured a nightmare of harassment, just for doing her job.
Until mid-1996, Crosetti was best known as an early leader in borrowing adoption
techniques from the North Shore Animal League, including opening a downtown adoption center
that displays animals more attractively and conveniently than the aging HSTV shelter, and
sending adoptable puppies for whom there was no local demand to the North Shore adoption
center on Long Island. Adopting through satellite facilities and transporting animals to meet
demand in lieu of killing are fast becoming standard procedure, but just five years ago were so
controversial that some conventional shelter operators derisively accused Crosetti of trying to
turn HSTV into a “no-kill,” meaning either an overcrowded, diseased animal collection, or a
“turnaway,” which would not help problem animals.
It is thus ironic that Crosetti is now routinely sizzled by Knoxville tabloids and talk
shows as a purportedly needle-happy animal killer hellbent on an anti-no-kill vendetta, and has
been sued for euthanizing animals whom she as a veterinary technician believed to have little or
no chance of being recoverable within the limits of HSTV resources.

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CITES BEATING LEAVES ANIMAL PROTECTION GROUPS TO REGROUP

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

HARARE––The 10-year global ivory
trafficking ban fell on June 19, as Zimbabwe,
Botswana, and Namibia won approval from the
1997 Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species triennial in Harare,
Zimbabwe, to sell 59 tons of elephant ivory to
Japan in early 1999, after 18 months of refinement
of safeguards supposed to prevent the sale
from providing cover to ivory poachers.
The sale, involving about a third of
the ivory stockpiled by the three southern
African nations, is the first legal crack in the
ban, imposed by CITES in 1989. The ban
braked the collapse of the African elephant population
from 1.3 million circa 1980 to just
600,000 a decade later.

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Suit vs. BLM horse program keeps an ace for wild jacks

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

RENO––Suing the Bureau of Land
Management on June 19 for alleged maladministration
of the 1971 Wild and Free-Roaming
Horse and Burro Act, the Fund for Animals
and Animal Protection Institute dropped at the
last minute a much discussed request for an
injunction to halt BLM wild horse and burro
roundups pending program reform.
As filed, Fund attorney Howard
Crystal told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “The pending
motion before Judge Howard McKibben
strictly concerns the matter on which Judge
McKibben ruled [in favor of the Fund and
A P I ] ten years ago––the adoption program.
Plaintiffs are requesting that the Court modify
its longstanding permanent injunction against
the BLM to require the agency to affirmatively
inquire into the intentions of adopters, rather
than continuing to implement a policy which
one Justice Department attorney refers to as
‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ In addition,” Crystal
said, “plaintiffs are seeking other changes in
the adoption program to help ensure that adopted
animals end up in the hands of people who
intend to care for them, rather than sell them.”

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Choosing between tanks and The Nature Conservancy

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

Lethal as bombs and guns are, noman’s-land
designated for military training is
often the last refuge for wildlife, because sporadic
warfare disrupts habitat less than either
peaceful development or recreational hunting
and fishing, which inherently disturb the food
web. But wildlife use of no-man’s-land often
brings another kind of conflict, in the courts,
when the shooting starts.

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Friends of Animals, Predator Defense Institute sue feds over coyote killing, refuge grazing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

TACOMA, Washington––Accusing the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service of mismanaging the endangered Columbia whitetailed
deer to the verge of extinction at the southern Washington
refuge created for the species 34 years ago, Friends of Animals and
the Predator Defense Institute on May 27 sued Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt, the Interior Department, and Julia Butler Hansen
National Wildlife Refuge manager James Hidy in the U.S. District
Court for the Ninth Circuit.
Friends of Animals, of Darien, Connecticut, has more
than 100,000 members nationwide, and partners with the Interior
Department in projects including wolf reintroduction and protection
of African elephants from poaching. The Oregon-based Predator
Defense Institute, involved in wildlife policy review, is best
known for exposing allegedly misrepresented Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife reports of puma activity.

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River dolphin capture plans

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

DALLAS––Rumors flying since November
1996 that major aquariums are conspiring to capture
Amazon river dolphins, boto for short, were partially
confirmed by the mid-April disclosure that the Dallas
World Aquarium, not associated with the Dallas Zoo
and Aquarium and not accredited by the Alliance of
Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums, has applied to
the National Marine Fisheries Service to import four
boto for display.
Representatives of at least 13 groups from the
U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Columbia, and Finland
had protested to NMFS and the aquarium itself by April
21––but as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press on May
28, the application had yet to be formally accepted for
publication, after which it will go through a 30-day
public comment period before NMFS announces
approval or rejection. NMFS spokesperson Catherine
Anderson said the application was “under review” to see
if it was complete, and that it would be released for
comment “possibly within the next few weeks.”

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World Week demonstrations go ape

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

Rowdy World Week for Laboratory Animals protests made headlines
in four nations––but only the April 25 sledgehammering of a steel
baboon cage at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa seemed
to draw broad public sympathy. Isaac Mavundla, 16, struck the first blow
after spending 17 days inside the cage to publicize cruel experiments.
The London Daily Telegraph and London Times headlines on April
21 read, respectively, “Pro-animal activists smash family home” and
“Mother and two children cower as house is stormed,” after brick-and-bottlehurling
hooded demonstrators the previous day broke just about everything
that could be broken and extensively vandalized the family car at the residence
of Consort Kennels manager Adam Little, 30, his wife Alison, 28,
four-year-old son Lawrence, and seven-month-old daughter Amber. Consort
Kennels breeds beagles for laboratory use. Adam Little was at the kennels at
the time, beseiged by about 250 demonstrators who managed to take one
puppy, later recovered, before police cleared the scene with tear gas. One
officer was knocked unconscious, several others were injured, and 24
demonstrators were arrested.

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Sealing doesn’t pacify Canadian fishers

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland––The final
toll isn’t in yet from the 1997 Atlantic Canada seal
hunt, believed to be near the quota of 275,000, but the
only evident protest as it ended came from unemployed
fishers, whose militancy escalated with a May 12 occupation
of Canadian fisheries minister Fred Mifflin’s
office, seeking longer payments for loss of fishing privileges,
suspended since 1993 due to depleted stocks.
Moving to quell unrest on the eve of a federal
election, Mifflin on May 18 opened an experimental
commercial cod season in Placentia Bay and the northern
Gulf of St. Lawrence, against the advice of fisheries
biologists. The move was unlikely to win him as
much favor as his predecessor Brian Tobin curried by
reopening the seal hunt in 1995, just before resigning
to successfully run for premier of Newfoundland: more
than 5,000 fishers exhausted the 16,000-metric-ton limit
within four days.

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