Zoo & aquarium notes

October 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1994:

The Granby Zoo, in Granby, Quebec, will

begin building a new monkey house next spring, to

open in 1997. In 1989, as described in the April 1994

issue of ANIMAL PEOPLE, zoo director Pierre Cartier

demolished the old substandard monkey house and sent

all the monkeys to other institutions––even though they

were the zoo’s most popular exhibits––to oust the “old

zoo” atmosphere and clientele. The move worked;

while the peanut-tossers vanished, overall attendance

quadrupled. After three years with no primates on exhib-

it, the zoo brought back a family of macaques and

returned its aged silverback gorilla to display last year.

EASY TARGETS: Did HSUS expose zoo links to canned hunts or just play to the grandstand?

October 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1994:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Announcing that a three-year probe “has impli-

cated the nation’s best-known zoos as suppliers of exotic animals to hunting ranches,” the

Humane Society of the U.S. has made recent headlines across the country––but the facts fall

short of the sensational charges.

HSUS alleged that 24 zoos had sold animals to so-called canned hunts. Of the 24,

however, seven had already terminated links to canned hunts that were disclosed years ago

by other investigators. The allegations against another 10 zoos remain unsubstantiated more

than two months after they were named by the periodical HSUS Reports, despite HSUS

nvestigator Richard Farinato’s August 24

promise to ANIMAL PEOPLE that details

would be forthcoming. Several of the zoos

deny making such sales; one of them, the

Knoxville Zoo, had cancelled such a sale

before it was completed.

COURT CALENDAR

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Activism

Forty-two activists who were

arrested at the 1992 Hegins Labor Day

pigeon shoot on July 15 sued 16 employ-

ees and officials of Schuykill County,

Pennsylvania, who allegedly subjected

them to illegal strip-searches. The plain-

tiffs include PETA cofounders Alex

Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk, who claims

male guards were able to see her nude

through an open door. The suit parallels

one filed by nine female activists who won

a similar case after the 1991 Hegins shoot.

U.S. judge Franklin S, Van Antwerpen

ruled last September in that case that the

Schuykill county strip-searching policy

was unconstitutional.

Killing for the hell of it

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

A federal anti-hunter harassment statute

tucked into the Crime Bill is likely to stay there––and

pass––as the Clinton administration strives to get

around National Rifle Association opposition to the

Crime Bill as a whole, which would ban 19 types of

assault rifle. The NRA on August 10 claimed credit

for temporarily defeating the Crime Bill on a proce-

dural vote in the House of Representatives.

The Senate version of the California

Desert Protection Act, passed in April, would cre-

ate an East Mojave National Park between the Joshua

Tree and Death Valley National Monuments, which

are to be upgraded to National Park status––meaning

a ban on hunting. However, in a move of symbolic

import to the NRA, the House version passed on July

27 downgrades East Mojave to the status of a

National Preserve, to allow hunting. National Park

Service director Roger Kennedy pointed out that

because preserves require more staff than parks, the

House version will cost $500,000 more per year to

run. Since hunters kill an average of only 26 deer and

five bighorn sheep per year in East Mojave, Kennedy

said, this amounts to “a subsidy of $20,000 per deer.”

A House/Senate conference committee must reconcile

the conflicting versions before the bill goes back to

both the Senate and House for final passage.

Circuses & spectacles

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

Cesar, a runaway circus sea lion, was

recaptured on July 22 while napping on a parked

car, ending a four-day chase in Lake Maggiore,

Switzerland, during which activists demanded that

he be allowed to live in the lake. Cesar’s brother

Otto escaped with him, but was caught earlier––and

recaught after escaping again.

The Atlantic City SPCA said August 9

that it was satisfied with improvements the Great

Moscow Circus had made to animal holding condi-

tions at the Trump Taj Mahal Hotel, and would not

file cruelty charges. An exercise cage for the bears,

built at the insistence of Eileen Liska of the

Michigan Humane Society during the Moscow

Circus tour of 1988-1989, was reclaimed from stor-

age in Canada, and was to travel with the circus

throughout the rest of the current tour. The Taj

Mahal shows were continuously picketed by the

New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance.

Animals in laboratories

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

The American Medical Association has honored Louisiana State

University researchers Michael Carey and Betty Jean Oseid (his wife) for their

“defiant and unflinching stand against animal rights extremists.” Carey spent $2.1

million shooting more than 700 cats in the head until a General Accounting Office

probe found the work dubious, influencing the U.S. Army to halt funding in

1989. A stint as a combat surgeon in the Persian Gulf War revamped his image,

Mike Wallace of CBS 60 Minutes whitewashed the cat-shooting, blaming animal

rights activists rather than the GAO for

the Army decision, and Carey has

been on the stump seeking renewed

funding ever since.

Horse notes

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

A legal parallel to the White

Sands situation came to light on the

Yakima Reservation, at Toppemish,

Washington, and the Warm Springs

Reservation near Madras, Oregon,

after horse enthusiast Sheila Herron

traced several injured horses she found

in a horsemeat dealer’s feedlot at Yelm,

Washington, back to annual roundups

authorized by the tribal councils.

Yakima councillors told Herron they

were “weeding out the crippled and

old,” but most of the horses at the feed-

lot were healthy, Herron said, and

some were foals. A Warm Springs

councillor said the Madras horses are

privately owned. “I was certainly

unaware,” Herron told ANIMAL PEO-

P L E, “that only mustangs and burros

from BLM or Forest Service lands are

protected by federal law. Mustangs and

burros from Park Service, Indian, mil-

itary or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

lands have no protection from being

rounded up and sold for slaughter.”

Horses starve at White Sands

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

WHITE SANDS, New Mexico–– Three of the four wild horse herds on the

White Sands Missile Range survived an early summer drought in good shape, but

between July 6 and July 15, when rain came and the grass grew, the Mound Spring

herd lost 122 of an estimated 400 members to starvation––49 of them shot by military

police to end their misery. Descended

from ranch horses left when the range was

expropriated in 1946, from 1,300 to

1,500 horses roam about two million

acres. The New Mexico Department of

Game and Fish says the range can support

no more than 500 horses. In 1989 protest

halted a White Sands attempt to auction

some horses for slaughter, via the state

Livestock Board, which by state law

owns all free-roaming horses not covered

by federal law. In 1990 Rep. Joe Skeen

(R-N.M.) won an appropriation of

$200,000 to enable White Sands to pay

the Bureau of Land Management to adopt

out some of the horses. The New Mexico

wild horse law stopped that.

AGRICULTURE

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

The central event at the American Humane Association annual confer-

ence, Sept. 28-Oct. 1, is to be an already controversial “Livestock forum,” at which

four university livestock experts, often critical of industry norms, are to outline for

humane officers “which current farming practices are acceptable, which can be chal-

lenged, and how” under existing laws, and “which desperately need to be changed.”

Claiming the speakers are too close to the livestock industry, representatives of the

Humane Farming Association, Humane Society of the U.S., and Fund for Animals

have offered themselves as speakers instead. Responded Adele Douglass of AHA,

who set up the forum, “This session is not to talk about ideals; it’s to inform people

about what’s being done now, why it’s being done that way, and what kind of farm-

related cases a humane officer can hope to prosecute successfully under today’s laws.”

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