Extremism in Vancouver

September 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

VANCOUVER, B.C.––Turning 40, the Van-couver
Aquarium celebrated by granting free admission to anyone
born in 1956 for a week in June, just after alienating
supporters in the animal protection community with a
17,000-piece mailing denouncing “animal rights extremists.”
The mailing was to rally opposition to a referendum
proposal, which may be on the November city ballot,
that would ban keeping whales in Stanley Park, where the
aquarium is located. Despite offending some otherwise sympathetic
recipients, the mailing succeeded, inundating the
Vancouver Parks Board with 6,000 petition signatures,
2,000 preprinted postcards, and over 100 letters of support.

BOOKS: Track of the Coyote

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Track of the Coyote
by Todd Wilkinson
with photos by Michael H. Francis
NorthWord Press Inc.
(POB 1360, Minocqua, WI 54548),
1995. 140 pages; $14.95, paperback.

The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Hour
gets just one thing about coyotes right: someone
is always gunning for them. Todd
Wilkinson’s Track of the Coyote draws heavily
upon biologist Robert Crabtree’s recent
five-year study of the coyotes of the Lamar
Valley in Yellowstone National Park, now
extirpated by the reintroduction of wolves.

Greyhound racing goes to the dogs

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Opened in November 1995, the
Shoreline Star greyhound track i n
Bridgeport, Connecticut filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy on July 16, six days after owner
A. Robert Zeff asked a federal judge to rule
that audio tapes were illegally seized in a
June 25 police raid on his Westport home. A
state police task force is reportedly probing
allegations that Zeff bribed former Connecticut
gaming policy board chair Francis Muska
and possibly other officials, seeking to avoid
questions about his financing. Zeff was
charged on June 27 with destroying evidence
and interfering with the search.

No case in Texas probe of wild horse program

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

SAN ANTONIO––The Del Rio,
Texas grand jury probe of alleged illegal sales
of wild horses to slaughter has apparently
ended without issuing criminal charges.
Acting on the advice of Charles
Brooks, trial attorney for the Environment and
Natural Resources Division of the Department
of Justice, U.S. attorney James William Blagg
and John E. Murphy, first assistant U.S. attorney,
criminal division, on July 5 recommended
to the Department of the Interior that “the
investigation within the Western District of
Texas into the incident involving Don
Galloway and the 36 horses placed on a ranch
in Terrell County, Texas should be closed.”

Liability-and-animal care rulings

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

MADISON, Wisconsin––In a ruling
of import to shelter staff, the Wisconsin
Supreme Court by 4-3 decision on June 27
reversed a Milwaukee County Circuit Court
jury award of $81,445 to part-time worker
Cheryl Armstrong, of Thistlerose Kennels in
Greendale, who was bitten by a Siberian
husky belonging to John and Ann Mack in
January 1991. Armstrong sued the Macks
and Milwaukee Mutual Insurance. Writing
for the majority, Justice Janine Geske argued
that Wisconsin law defines a dog owner as
anyone who owns, harbors, or keeps a dog.
In boarding the Macks’ dog, Thistlerose
became the dog’s owner for legal purposes;
Armstrong became the owner’s agent.
The ownership statute “is rendered
meaningless,” said Geske, “if one who in the
course of employment exercises control over
and provides care for a dog is not found to be
that dog’s keeper.”

Humane enforcement

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

The Coulston Foundation announ-
ced June 20 that it will pay the USDA a civil
penalty of $20,000 and make $20,000 in
improvements to the Primate Biomedial
Research Center Laboratory, which it manages
at Holloman Air Force Base in New
Mexico, to settle charges resulting from the
1993 overheating deaths of three chimpanzees.
Arnim John Kudinow of Lake
Oswego, Oregon, in June drew 112 years in
prison for ramming a police car with his pickup,
throwing a knife at police, and killing a
Dutch Malinois police dog named Ronnie with
a septic bite to the nose––for which Kudinow
also was ordered to pay $595 and serve two
years on probation if he ever gets out.

Marine mammals

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Small whales
The Sacramento Bee warned in
June that the vaquita whale is “on the verge
of extinction, a victim of commercial gill net
fishing” in the Sea of Cortez, and that the
reserve set up to protect the vaquita may be “a
sanctuary in name only.” The vaquita is a
small toothed whale, a class not protected by
the International Whaling Commission.
Romanian Institute for Marine
Research scientist Alexandru Bologna says
only 10,000 dolphins remain in the heavily
polluted Black Sea, down from 70,000 in
1970, and one million in 1950, when the former
Communist regime began “economic capitalization
of dolphins,” i.e. slaughter.

Jane Goodall gets a clue

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

RIDGEFIELD, Connecticut––Vegetarianism is rapidly
gaining among the young, suggest findings by the polling firm Smith
& Co., in a market research report prepared for the Roots & Shoots
environmental education project of the Jane Goodall Institute.
The pollsters also found that attitudes of youth toward laboratory
use of animals are increasingly skeptical, while broad attacks
on zoos, aquariums, and circuses on general principle may be foredoomed
to failure because the abolitionist perspective contradicts animal
lovers’ direct experience.
The Goodall Institute, based in Ridgefield, Connecticut,
hired Smith & Co., of nearby Monroe, to survey 396 students in the
sixth, seventh, and eighth grades within 12 local school districts.
The area is reasonably representative of the U.S. as a whole in
urban/suburban/rural population balance and income level, and is
historically associated with both biomedical research and the rise of
the animal rights movement. Both Friends of Animals and U.S.

Four studies of cat ownership

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Data gathered in Las Vegas by Dr. Roger Nassar in
1983, in Santa Clara and San Diego counties of California by
Karen Johnson and Laura Lewellyn of the National Pet Alliance in
1993 and 1995, and in the Boston area by Carter Luke of the
Massachusetts SPCA, also in 1995, is arranged below by date of
survey. The findings are remarkably consistent. The decline in
number of homes keeping dogs from 1983 to 1993-1995 is about
twice as steep as other pet ownership studies indicate, but is consistent
with a 20-year national trend. The lower percentage of
owned cats who are former strays in the Boston area probably
reflects the impact of the harsh northeastern winter on the homeless
cat population.

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