Great escapes

October 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

The future of the Long Island
Game Farm in Manorville, New York,
remains uncertain more than three months
after the June 5 escape of Barney
Chimpanzee, 19, when a caretaker left both
padlocks on the double door to the chimp’s
cage unfastened.
According to Newsday columnist
Paul Vitello, the rampaging chimp bit
owner Stanley Novak, 63, on the head and
arm, shrugged off a man who hit him with a
fence post, and charged toward a children’s
maze. Six to eight mothers, teachers, and
assistants from the LaSalle School in
Oakdale shoved more than 100 kindergartners
and first graders into the maze; assistant
teacher Sharon Goff, mother Jill Fuchs,
and a mother identified only as Mrs. Kelly
then locked arms to block the entrance.

UNACCREDITED ZOOS

October 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

Brian Rutledge, 44, who raised
Baltimore Zoo attendance from 180,000 to
500,000 a year in a decade by making $50 million
worth of improvements, on August 12
assumed administration of the Franklin Park
and Stone Zoos in Boston, long considered
two of the worst in the U.S. The Franklin
Park Zoo is already getting a $2.5 million new
lion exhibit, and that, Rutledge promises, is
just the beginning; much renovation may be
done “with a bulldozer.”

SANCTUARIES

October 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

Three Texas cougars who were
sent to the Jim Moore hunting ranch near
Balmorhea, Texas, after use by the Florida
Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission in
a 1993-1994 test of Florida panther habitat,
were purchased on August 10 by Sumner
and Elise Matthes of Sarasota In Defense of
Animals for $3,000 apiece, and taken with
the aid of American SPCA wildlife programs
coordinator Kathi Travers to Carol
Azvestus’ Wild Animal Orphanage on the
outskirts of San Antonio, for 120 days of
rehabilitation. The longterm goal is to return
the cougars to the wild. The Florida Game
and Fresh Water Fish Commission refused to
contribute toward the cost. Nineteen Texas
cougars were used in the experiment all told,
of whom eight were eventually sold to
canned hunts via resellers in Florida, South
Carolina, and Missouri. Moore acquired
seven, of whom another, named Waldo,
was returned to Florida earlier. Moore,
Sumner Mathis reported, “will not say what
he did with the three others.”

It’s all happening at the zoo

October 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

Convincing the American Zoo Association that it
has rectified the many problems noted by media, the public,
the USDA, and AZA itself over the past decade, the Los
Angeles Zoo on September 17 won reaccreditation, 18 months
after getting a “shape up or else” order. Changes have included
hiring Manuel A. Mollinedo as director, removing the zoo
from administration by the Los Angeles City Parks
Department, winning voter approval of a $23 million bond
issue, and breaking ground for a $4.5 million new chimpanzee
habitat. The zoo’s 14 chimps are to get a waterfall, along with
climbing trees and a triple-tiered shelter.

PRIMATES IN RESEARCH

October 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

Jan Moor-Jankowski, MD, founder and for 30 years
director of the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery
in Primates at New York University, and Louis Dinetz, former
LEMSIP assistant director, on August 13 sued seeking $20 million
damages from NYU and the USDA for allegedly covering up
“scientific misconduct and fraud” and violating federal whistleblower
protection laws, by terminating them both last year and
turning LEMSIP over to primate dealer Frederick Coulston, after
Moor-Jankowski went public with allegations of negligent care in
the primate laboratory of NYU addiction researcher Ron Wood.
The allegations were upheld; NYU was ordered to pay a
$450,000 civil penalty for violations of the Animal Welfare Act.
However, while USDA investigators reported that NYU had illegally
retaliated against Moor-Jankowski by shutting down LEMSIP,
other USDA officials rejected his administrative complaint,
forcing him to court to seek redress. Moor-Jankowski is represented
by Philp Byler, who also represented him in his landmark
1991 libel case victory over the Austrian pharmaceutical firm
Immuno AG, which had sued him for publishing a letter by
International Primate Protection League president Shirley
McGreal, in his capacity as editor of the Journal of Primatology.

Feces-flinging in the Texas sun

October 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

SAN ANTONIO––Figurative feces-flinging escalated
around Primarily Primates over the summer, apparently
stimulated by a sniff of government funding for laboratory
chimpanzee retirement.
Language authorizing funding for investigation of
chimp retirement was in the version of the National Institutes
of Health budget bill approved by the Senate on September
12. Earlier, the House Committee on National Security and
the Senate Committee on Armed Services recommended that
retirement be considered as an option for disposing of the 150
chimpanzees now kept at the Primate Research Complex at
Holloman Air Force Base in Arizona, managed under contract
by the Coulston Foundation.

Dangerous dogs

October 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

Dogbite data published by
Jeffrey J. Sacks, M.D., of the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention,
shows 109 Americans were killed by
dogs 1989-1994, including 11 infants
under four weeks old who were killed in
their beds. Of all the victims, 57% were
under age 10; of these, 45% were killed
by an unrestrained dog on the owner’s
property, while 29% were killed after
wandering too close to a chained dog.
Of 41 fatal attacks in which the sex of
the dog was known, 25 were by male
dogs, and 20 of those dogs had not been
neutered. Pit bulls killed 57 people;
Rottweilers killed 19.

Animal control & rescue

October 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

The Whidbey Animal Shelter, of
Coupeville, Washington, is staggering under a
77% increase in owner-surrendered cats and kittens
this year, and a 48% overall increase in feline
intakes, despite the apparent huge popularity of
the Whidbey Animals’ Improvement Foundation
low-cost neutering, fostering, and supervised
neuter/release programs. In Louisiana, the
Jefferson Animal Shelter, of Jefferson Parish,
with a 6% rise in dog and cat intakes after a 10%
decline in 1994, and the New Orleans SPCA,
with an 11% rise after a 10% decline in 1995, are
experiencing similar, amid publicity about a 28%
increase in adoptions in Jefferson Parish and the
expansion of neutering programs at both shelters.

A tough week for the North Shore Animal League

October 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y.––The
North Shore Animal League was named in late July
along with 78 for-profit firms in a Federal Trade
Commission lawsuit filed on behalf of the Connecticut
attorney general’s office, alleging violations of
direct mail sweepstakes laws, and was simultaneously
rapped by the Council of Better Business Bureaus
Philanthropic Advisory Service for failing to meet the
CBBB requirement that “Soliciting organizations’
financial statements shall present adequate information
to serve as a basis for informed decisions.”
Neither matter is as serious as it sounds,
North Shore president John Stevenson told ANIMAL
PEOPLE. North Shore was wrongly included in the
FTC lawsuit, Stevenson said; as a nonprofit, North
Shore isn’t covered by the same law as the other
defendants, and holds a legal opinion issued by the
Connecticut attorney general’s office just two years
ago agreeing that North Shore sweepstakes mailings
comply with the applicable law.

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