Horse notes

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Nationally ranked equestrian
and heir to millions George Lindemann
Jr. drew 33 months in prison on January 18
for killing a horse to collect $250,000 in
insurance. His trainer, Marion Hulick,
drew 21 months. The two were among the
most noted defendants among 18 people
convicted to date in connection with a horsekilling
ring that also included the killers of
13 humans over 25 years. The last victim
was heiress Grace Brach, who vanished in
1977 after becoming suspicious of horse
transactions arranged by Richard Bailey,
convicted in connection with her murder last
year. His close associate, stable owner Jerry
Farmer, on January 22 drew 10 years for his
part in selling Brach and other wealthy
women worthless horses at premium prices.
Brach’s estate formed the Brach Foundation,
a major sponsor of animal-related projects.
The crime ring was exposed by a federal
reinvestigation of her disappearance.

Charity begins at home

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

“The Elinor Patterson Baker Foundation makes
grants for the general charitable purposes of organizations
that fulfill the airms, principles, goals, and purposes of the
Humane Society of the U.S.,” proclaims the purpose statement
filed with the foundation’s 1994 IRS Form 990-PF.
Indeed it does: of 129 grants made in the fiscal
year ending May 31, 1995, totaling $1,390,000, the six
largest were $250,000 to HSUS itself; $100,000 to the
Humane Society International, the umbrella for HSUS and
subsidiaries; $50,000 to the National Association for
Humane and Environmental Education, an HSUS subsidiary;
$50,000 to EarthKind USA, another HSUS subsidiary;
$35,000 to the World Society for the Protection of Animals,
whose vice president is John Hoyt, HSUS/HSI chief executive
officer since 1970, with HSUS board secretary Murdaugh
Madden as treasurer; and $25,000 to the Center for
Respect of Life and Environment, an HSUS subsidiary. The
Animal Rescue League of Fall River also got $25,000. Other
grantees with which HSUS had no representation got an average
of $7,008 each.

ADDENDA: WHO GETS THE MONEY?

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

This second addenda to our sixth annual
report on the financial affairs of the major national animal
and habitat protection groups and opposition
groups includes those whose IRS Form 990 didn’t
reach us before either our December or January/
February issue deadline. As a bonus this time, we’re
also including several small all-volunteer groups with
noteworthy prominence relative to expenditures.
Groups are identified in the second column
by apparent focus and philosophy: A is for advocacy,
C for conservation of habitat via acquisition, E f o r
education, H for support of hunting, L for litigation,
P for publication, R for animal rights, S for shelters
and sanctuaries, V for antivivisection, and W for animal
welfare. The R and W designations are used only
if an organization makes a point of being one or the
other.

Whistleblowers fight back

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Jan Moor-Jankowski, M.D., founder and director for 30 years of the
Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates at New York University,
raised $1.2 million to retire the 225 LEMSIP chimps, coincidental with his own
retirement––but NYU last year froze the funds, closed LEMSIP, and ousted both MoorJankowski
and his lieutenant, James Mahoney, after they resigned from the NYU Institutional
Animal Care and Use Committee, and filed complaints of primate care negligence with the
USDA that obliged the suspension of the NYU addiction research unit run by Ronald Wood.
The USDA probe of the Wood case is reportedly now complete; whether charges will be filed
or Wood will resume his work is yet to be seen. NYU president Jay Oliva and NYU Medical
Center associate dean David Scotch meanwhile sold the LEMSIP chimps to the Coulston
Foundation, a New Mexico-based research supplier, which is to take possession of the chimps
on March 15. Moor-Jankowski in 1991 won a landmark Supreme Court verdict for press freedom
against the Austrian pharmaceutical giant Immuno AG, which sued him for libel, as editor
of the International Journal of Primatology, after he published a letter-to-the-editor by
International Primate Protection League founder Shirley McGreal. Coulston filed a brief backing
Immuno. Investigating whether Moor-Jankowski was illegally punished for whistleblowing,
the USDA on December 22 subpoenaed Oliva, Scotch, and all related records.

Sea Shepherds want to herd Hondo

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

SEATTLE––Hondo, the California sea lion
who ambushes salmon and steelhead at the base of the
Ballard Locks near Seattle, was back for the start of
this winter’s spawning runs, with others, and when
the National Marine Fisheries Service said it had no
money to capture and hold him throughout the spawning
season, as it did last year, at cost of $120,000,
shooting seemed imminent. But on January 25 the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society put the killing on hold
by formally proposing to relocate Hondo and friends to
San Francisco Bay.
“Sea Shepherd has offered to pay this year’s
costs of temporary housing and immediate translocation
of sea lions to California,” said Sea Shepherd
Pacific Northwest coordinator Michael Kundu. “We
have legal permission from the San Francisco Bay
Commission to return these sea lions to California,”
their native waters.

More Canadian wildlife traffic–– with government support

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

WINNIPEG––”Vowing to
upset Manitoba government plans to
privatize the province’s wild elk and
transform it into antler farms to supply
the international wildlife parts
trade,” People for Animal
Liberation coordinator James
Pearson announced February 6,
“PFAL has sent a team of activists to
the Swan River Valley to shield wild
elk from capture.”
Already, Pearson said,
activists had vandalized a corral and
squeeze chute used to hold the elk as
their antlers are cut off. “Highly
veined and innervated,” he charged,
“the antlers are sawn off at the most
sensitive stage of their development.
Elk ranchers involved with the plan,”
Pearson continued, “want to see the
government begin trade in bear gall
bladders, a logical next step.”

Fires hit more than zoo

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

The December 24 electrical fire at the
Philadelphia Zoo that killed 23 endangered primates
[January/February edition] was followed by a series
of other reminders of the vulnerability of animal care
facilities of all kinds to fire: not regulated as closely
as human dwellings, frequently filled with easily combustible
hay, straw, and sawdust, and usually left
unattended overnight.
Also within the Philadelphia area, a January
10 blaze at the Rocky Top Stable in North Union,
Pennsylvania, killed 13 show horses, five dogs, and
two cows. Nearby water sources were frozen, and
because of heavy snow, pumper trucks had to stop
900 feet away. Among the victims was a Paso Fino
horse rated as the top Puerto Rican show horse in the
United States.

Cutting euthanasias without conflict

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

SAN DIEGO––Can population control euthanasias be halted?
Do homeless cats breed in the woods?
New studies by the National Pet Alliance and ANIMAL PEOPLE say yes to both
questions––and confirm that the keys to success are first, going where the homeless cats are
to do neutering, and second, working to enable renters to adopt cats.
Political conflicts erupting in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Montgomery County,
Maryland, demonstrate meanwhile that harassing ordinary pet keepers with regulations and
extra fees may lower euthanasia numbers at cost of creating an eventually self-defeating backlash
against enforcement of any animal control or animal protection laws. In both cities, animal
advocates are digging in to protect nationally noted breeding control ordinances,
acclaimed when passed, but easy targets for newly elected fiscal conservatives, who recently
took over both civic administrations with a pledge to cut bureaucracy. The Fort Wayne city
council is contemplating closing the public animal control agency and contracting services

The price of Willy

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

NEWPORT, Oregon––Keiko, the orca star of the
1993 film Free Willy!, was already the costliest, most controversial
whale in history long before he splashed into his
new surroundings, a $7 million state-of-the-art tank at the
Oregon Coast Aquarium. Enjoying four times the space he
had in his 11 years at the El Reino Aventura amusement park
in Mexico City, Keiko increased his activity so much as to
double his appetite within his first week of arrival, as the
biggest package ever flown by United Parcel Service.
But the successful relocation only escalated the
debate over whether and if Keiko can––or should––actually
be freed. Moving him was the easy part. There were disagreements
over who should move him, where, for what
purpose, but even El Reino Aventura general manager Oscar
Porter readily agreed in principle that he needed better quarters.

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