Quit lynching lynx, judge orders

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler on March 27 ordered
the Fish and Widlife Service to reconsider a 1994 decision against listing the Canadian lynx
as an endangered species.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service has consistently ignored the analysis of its expert
biologists,” Kessler wrote. The decision against listing, she continued, depended upon
“glaringly faulty premises,” including the contention that the lynx still occupies much of its
historical range, despite “overwhlming evidence that the lynx has been entirely eliminated
from 17 states,” leaving some only in Maine, Montana, Idaho, and Washington.
Sought by the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Defenders of Wildlife, and 11
other groups, the proposed listing of the lynx was opposed by hunters and trappers––in part
because a listing would refute their longtime assertion that no species has become endangered.

Canada close to getting own ESA

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

OTTAWA––Overshadowed by the
CITES and ESA struggles, Canada staggers
toward adopting its first federal Endangered
Species Act, encumbered by resource industries
even stronger than their U.S. counterparts
and provincial governments with far more
autonomy than U.S. states. Canada has placed
276 species to date on an endangered species
list, but legally protecting those species has
been left to the often recalcitrant provinces.
As introduced last December 18,
the Canadian ESA would apply only to
species on federal land, or about 4% of the
Canadian land mass; includes only those
birds who are already covered by the
Migratory Birds Convention with the U.S.;

BUDGET AX HITS B.C. WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT HOOK-AND-BULLET CULTURE

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

VICTORIA, B.C.––Possibly adding by subtraction,
British Columbian prime minister Glen Clark of the left-leaning
New Democratic Party has axed eight senior fish and wildlife
managers since November 1996––and has put the provincial
wildlife department under five-year director of law enforcement
Nancy Bircher, apparently the first woman to head any
Canadian wildlife department.
Clark touts the exodus as downsizing to reduce the
provincial debt. Opponents term it “proof the government is
pursuing a brown agenda,” as Mark Hume of the Vancouver
Sun put it. Altogether, about 1,500 employees of environmental
departments have been laid off or ushered into early retirement,
even as the Clark regime has allowed logging in the
Stoltman Wilderness, near Squamish, and has resisted federal
pressure to reduce the B.C. commercial salmon fleet.

Former flyer saved sea turtles

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND,
Texas––Ila Loetscher, 92, has announced
her retirement after 35 years of patrolling
beaches in Texas and Mexico, machete in
hand, to roust sea turtle egg poachers, rehabilitating
sick and injured sea turtles, and
dressing as a turtle to lecture school children
at twice-weekly “Turtle Talks.”
Sea Turtle Inc., the nonprofit organization
Loetscher founded in 1977, continues,
planning to relocate from her beachfront
home to a state-of-the-art conservation center
as soon as funds can be raised to build it.
Loetscher with Amelia Earhart and
others in 1929 cofounded the Ninety-Nines,
an all-female flying club whose members
achieved countless records and firsts, another
of which eluded Earhart when she vanished
over the Pacific in her 1937 attempt to
become the first woman to fly around the
globe. Loetscher found her more enduring
avocation, preventing the ocean disappearance
of some of the earth’s most ancient large
species, after moving to the Texas coast in
1958 and finding a hurt turtle on the beach.

Coyote and a California proposition

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

SACRAMENTO––Varmint coyotes
may split the Coalition to Protect California
Wildlife, and the proposed 1998 California
Wildlife Ballot Initiative that the coalition
formed to present, into separate committees
and separate initiatives.
The 1998 California Wildlife Ballot
Initiative was conceived as The Big One, a
head-on confrontation with hunters, trappers,
and ranchers in the most populous state. Signed
on in hopes a California victory could build
national momentum carrying into 2000 and
beyond were the American SPCA, the Animal
Protection Institute, the Ark Trust, Friends of
Animals, the Fund for Animals, the Humane
Society of the U.S., the International Fund for
Animal Welfare, and the Mountain Lion
Foundation, which has already scored referendum
victories for pumas in three of the last four
California elections.

Saving right whales and lobsters too

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

Infuriating New England lobster fishers with recent
court victories that restrict their methods on behalf of endangered
northern right whales, Richard “Mad Max” Strahan
may save the lobsters too.
A vegetarian Buddhist tai chi practitioner, Strahan
has “no permanent address or telephone,” according to
Portland Press Herald staff writer Edie Lau, but does have
an e-mail address and self-taught expertise in marine biology
and law. As “a confrontational street person,” again in
Lau’s words, Straham last September forced the National
Marine Fisheries Service to produce rules published April 4
that as outlined in a NMFS summary, “restrict the federal
portion of Cape Cod Bay right whale critical habitat to certain
lobster gear types” from April 1 until May 15, and
“close the entire Great South Channel right whale critical
habitat to lobster pot fishing from April 1 to June 30.”

Headsplitting problem on the ice

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland––Atlantic Canadian fishers
clubbed and/or shot their way toward a quota of 285,000 harp
seals and hooded seals this spring, the most in 15 years, because
they wrongly blame seals––who don’t eat much cod––for wiping
out overfished cod stocks. When the International Fund for
Animal Welfare produced videotape of illegally killed newborn
whitecoats on ice off Iles de la Madeleine, Quebec, the perpetrators
were quickly excused by DFO area manager Roger Simon.
“They’re technically white-looking seals,” Simon said.
“When the moulting process starts, the white fur is still there as
the new grey fur coming out is underneath. It’s no longer a whitecoat,
but it may appear white.”
The Canadian government used similar logic to reauthorize
the offshore seal hunt itself in late 1995, after a decade-long
suspension due to international protest. Throughout the 1980s,
governments both Liberal and Progressive Conservative traded
generous cod quotas for votes against scientific advice, until as
predicted the cod stock crashed. Forced to halt cod fishing indefinitely
in 1992, the Progressive Conservatives lost the next election––but
Liberal fisheries minister Brian Tobin turned the crisis
to his advantage by scapegoating seals. As he did, again contrary
to most scientific advice, he left the federal government to run
successfully for premier of Newfoundland.

MORE NATIVES TO KILL GRAY WHALES

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

PORT ALBERNI, B.C.––Economically stressed
by the collapse of the British Columbia salmon industry, and
openly funded in part by Japanese and Norwegian whalers,
the 14-nation Nuu-Chah-Nulth native confederacy
announced in mid-April that it intends to join the Makah tribe
of Neah Bay, Washington, in killing gray whales.
Like the Makah, who live across the Straits of San
Juan de Fuca, the Nuu-Chah-Nulth haven’t killed whales in
more than 70 years. Unlike the Makah, who have the support
of the Clinton/Gore administration in applying for an
aboriginal subsistence whaling quota from the International
Whaling Commission, the Nuu-Chah-Nulth don’t have to
fool with external politics. Since Canada doesn’t belong to
the IWC, the Nuu-Chah-Nulth need only get a permit to kill
whales for “food or social or ceremonial purposes” from the
Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Thus the Nuu-Chah-Nulth could start harpooning
even before the October IWC meeting, if any gray whales
are within target range.
As the Seattle Times explained, “The Nuu-ChahNulth
have been asserting their traditional whaling rights in
negotiations with the Canadian government over sovereignty
and fishing rights.”

“They eat fish––kill ‘em!”

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

Sea lions had a rough fourth week of March:
In New Zealand, fisheries minister John Luxton
finally closed the Auckland Islands squid season on March
25, four days after he was advised that observed accidental
killings of endangered Hooker’s sea lions had reached 34.
Projected to the squid fleet as a whole, the indicated toll was
102, significantly more than the 73 sea lion deaths permitted
under the Fisheries Act.
In Peru, the Peruvian fisheries ministry announced
it was considering a “pilot program” to allow fishers to kill
up to 60 sea lions who allegedly tear nets, and export their
genitals to the Asian aphrodisiac market.

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