A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:
MILWAUKEE––A Milwaukee
jury on June 10 convicted veal calf
feed dealer Jannes “James”
Doppenberg and his company, Vitek
Supply Corporation, on 12 counts
each of smuggling and illegally distributing
the banned drug Clenbuterol
and other illicit chemicals
intended to expedite calf growth
between 1988 and 1994, at possible
risk to the health of human vealeaters.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:
CHATHAM, Massachusetts– –
Three stories simultaneously moving on the
newswires at the beginning of June called to
mind the late Rachel Carson, author of Silent
Spring, the expose of chemical poisons and
their effect on birds that 35 years ago marked
the start of environmental militancy.
Carson would have applauded an
eight-state program of cooperation with state
government and private industry that the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service credited with cutting
the number of major illegal bird poisoning
cases in the central and northern Rockies
last year to just three, down from nine in
1994. As in Carson’s time, eagles who
allegedly prey on lambs remain the primary
targets, but the victims can now be counted
in the dozens, not the hundreds, and bald
eagles, then apparently headed toward
extinction, are now off the Endangered
Species List––which was created as part of
the Endangered Species Act, a measure
Carson advanced but which was not passed
until nine years after her 1964 death.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:
KEY WEST, Florida––It’s all over now but the blame-throwing. Bogie and
Bacall, the former Ocean Reef Club dolphins, are back at large in the Indian River Lagoon,
where they were captured in 1987, unidentifiable because someone on the night of May 17
cut the plastic fence forming their sea pen to release them just before they were to be freezebranded
to facilitate follow-up study of their progress.
Luther and Jake, two former Navy dolphins, are back in the Navy, and Buck, the
third of that group, will rejoin the Navy marine mammal program when and if he recovers
from an infected deep cut of unknown origin. Luther had a similar but less serious cut.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:
Worthy of a film expose in the tradition of Reefer Madness,
the hyperbolic 1936 documentary that alerted the world to the perils of
marijuana, PUMA PANIC!!! could be coming soon to a suburb near you!
Causes include the possible presence of a puma within a few
dozen miles; public reminders that pumas eat pets and people; hunting
advocates blaming the problem on an alleged lack of people using
hounds and telemetry to track pumas, then blow them out of trees in
such a manner as to save intact heads for the wall; and wildlife officials
engaging in bizarre rituals to avert the threat, sometimes reminiscent of
animal sacrifice to appease an alleged dragon.
For instance, with the approval of Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife biologist John Thiebes, volunteer trapper Richard Stahl
circa May 13 live-trapped a purported feral cat, fed the cat for three
days, and then staked him out in a small cage as live bait for a puma
who purportedly stalked two boys near Medford on April 3, six weeks
earlier; killed several other cats; and killed a dachshund on April 29.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:
Crimes vs. humans
The “Lords of Chaos,”
charged May 4 with the April 30
thrill-killing of music teacher Mark
Schwebes at his home in Pine Manor,
Florida, began a two-week spree of
arson, robbery and mayhem by burning
two large macaws alive in their
cage at The Hut, a local restaurant.
Facing murder charges are K e v i n
Foster, 18; Christopher Black, 18;
Derek Shields, 18; and P e t e r
Magnotti, 17. A fifth gang member,
Christopher Burnett, 17, is
charged only with conspiracy to commit
armed robbery.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:
HARRISON, Arkansas––The already tangled case of alleged
exotic cat collector Catherine Graham Twiss, 48, twisted again on May
15 when Boone County sheriff’s deputy Jim Clement found 10 big cats in
tiny cages without food or water at Twiss’ rented home in Hill Top,
Gaither Mountain. A dead leopard was found in the same cage as a starving
lion. Twiss was charged with 11 counts of cruelty to animals and
jailed for lack of a bond variously reported as either $2,500 or $25,000.
Twiss and her husband Lawrence Twiss were already involved in
the bankruptcy of an Arkansas tire store, and were facing cruelty charges
filed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by Doll Stanley-Branscum of In
Defense of Animals over the treatment of 46 lions, 21 tigers, six
lion/tiger hybrids, five pumas, five bears and a variety of other animals on
an 800-acre rented farm. Landowner Manuel Goforth ordered the animals
removed about a month later. IDA bid on the animals at the Twiss’ bankruptcy
proceeding, but was outbid by Jim Cook, of Oxford, Mississippi,
whom Stanley then offered to assist. Twiss meanwhile fled on May 5
with apparently as many of the big cats as she could pack into her vehicle.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:
DILLEY, Texas – – The
USDA Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service announced on May
10 that “Arashiyama West Primate
Center/South Texas Primate Observatory
director Lou Griffin and assistant
director Tracy Wyman, of Dilley,
Texas, agreed to surrender its registration
as a research facility” certified by
the Animal Welfare Act, and to
“cease engaging in activities that will
designate them as a covered dealer,
exhibitor, or research facility under
the Act, and, for Arashiyama and
Griffin, pay a combined civil penalty
of $15,000 which is suspended providing
no further violations of the Act.”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:
A year and a half after tiger keeper
Trevor Smith, 32, was fatally mauled at the
Howletts Wild Animal Park in Canterbury, England,
main keeper Nick Marx on May 10 led the staff back
into the cages. A Bengal tiger named
Dodhwa ran to Marx and lay at his feet
for 15 minutes while he stroked her
head and talked to her. Owner John
Aspinall, 70, met a similar reception
the following day. After Smith’s
death, which came 15 years after a
female tiger named Zeya killed two
young keepers within a month and 11
years after an elephant killed another
keeper, Aspinall temporarily barred
his staff from entering the cages, and
the Canterbury city council made the
ban binding. However, an occupational
safety tribunal ruled in February
that the keepers may enter the cages in
pairs, and to Aspinall’s delight the
ruling was upheld on appeal in April.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:
PHILADELPHIA––Philadelphia Zoo
president Pete Hoskins remains on the job despite
multiple calls for his resignation.
Zoo vice chair Marsha Perelman, treasurer
Frank Reed, and investment subcommittee head
J. Barton Riley all resigned in early May, after which
Hoskins announced the $247,000 the Philadelphiabased
zoo consulting firm CLRdesign, which has reportedly
worked with 50 other zoos worldwide, to
help remedy longstanding problems.
Hoskins and other senior management have
taken multiple hits from probes of the Christmas Eve
fire that killed 23 endangered primates, but so far the
only staff fired have been security guards Joe Villaloz
and Edith Henry, sacked in January for allegedly
making 14 personal telephone calls instead of doing
their rounds during the first two and a half hours of
the blaze. The guards reportedly admitted faking log
entries to show that they visited the World of
Primates as required, when in fact they did not.