Laboratory animals: rodent and bird verdict reversed

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

The U.S. Court of Appeals in late

May struck down a 1992 federal court ruling that

Congress meant the Animal Welfare Act to

apply to rats, mice, and birds, exempted by the

USDA since 1971. Declining to hear arguments,

the court held that the Humane Society of the

U.S. had no standing to bring the case because it

could not prove it is harmed by the USDA policy

in question. ““We intend to petition the Appeals

Court for a rehearing based on errors in the rul-

ing,” said Martin Stephens, Humane Society of

the U.S. vice president for laboratory animal

programs. Stephens dismissed the precedential

import of the verdict on standing, but Valerie

Stanley of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the

lead attorney in the case, told the Chronicle of

Higher Education that it means, in effect, that

no animal protection organization may sue to

protect laboratory animals.

Whales for missiles: SANCTUARY CREATED––BUT WHALING GETS THE GO-AHEAD TOO

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico, and WASH-

INGTON D.C.––As whale defenders cheered the May 26 cre-

ation of the Southern Whale Sanctuary around Antarctica, the

International Whaling Commission on May 27 unanimously

approved a U.S. motion to provisionally accept the Revised

Management Plan, a formula for setting renewed commercial

whaling quotas. Mexico, Ireland, and India voiced reserva-

tions but did not formally oppose the consensus.

The Southern Whale Sanctuary starts at the 40th par-

allel south latitude, dipping to the 55th parallel around the

lower tip of South America. It connects with the extant Indian

Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Although the IWC has no policing

power, the sanctuary designation means that whaling is per-

manently illegal in approximately half of the world’s waters,

protecting––on paper––about 80% of the surviving baleen

whales, an estimated 80% of the time.

GATT panel says U.S. can’t protect dolphins

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

On May 23, one week before the U.S.

Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibition on the

import of tuna netted “on dolphin” took full effect,

a General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs panel

ruled for the second time that the prohibition vio-

lates GATT because GATT does not allow trade

bans based on commodity production methods.

As in 1991, the U.S. ignored the GATT

ruling, bringing the ban on non-dolphin-safe tuna

into place as scheduled on June 1. The previous

ruling was brought on behalf of Mexico, which

did not seek enforcement to avoid jeopardizing the

North American Free Trade Agreement, then

before Congress for approval. The May 23 ruling

was brought on behalf of the European Union,

and was slightly more favorable than the 1991 rul-

ing in that it did recognize––in theory, if not in

practice––the legitimacy of national attempts to

mandate international environmental protection.

Vets talk about low-cost neutering: PART TWO OF A NEW NATIONAL STUDY

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

PORT WASHINGTON, New York––The issue is money. Most veterinarians

want to be paid more for neutering cats and dogs, most pet keepers think they already pay too

much, and most animal control and rescue workers feel caught in the squeeze, trying to talk

veterinarians into neutering for less in order to convince the public to neuter as many animals

as is necessary to stop population control killing.

That’s no news to anyone who reads ANIMAL PEOPLE. The real news, emerg-

ing from a national survey done by ANIMAL PEOPLE for the Spay USA program of the

North Shore Animal League, is that much of the friction could be reduced or ended.

COURT CALENDAR

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

Activism

The U.S. Supreme Court on

June 13 upheld federal court and Court

of Appeals rulings that communities

cannot consititutionally ban the display

of political signs on citizens’ own prop-

erty. Issued on behalf of anti-Persian Gulf

War protester Margaret Gilleo, of Ladue,

Missouri, who is now a Congressional

candidate, the ruling applies as well to

people who have been ordered to cease

displaying signs on behalf of animals.

Friends of Animals in early

June won a judgement against the State

of Alaska for attorney’s fees incurred in

defending itself against governor Walter

Hickel’s failed attempt to sue FoA for libel.

The Hickel suit was filed in June 1993 in

an apparent attempt to prevent FoA from

further publicizing the Alaskan plan to kill

wolves in order to make more moose and

caribou available to hunters.

Horses

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

Responding to an appeal from Brigitte Bardot,

Belgian interior minister Louis Tobback on June 13 banned the

controversial Krombeke trap-horse race––as well as any demon-

strations that might be held to gloat over the victory. Held on

slippery cobblestone streets, the race resulted in frequent injuries

to horses and drivers. Tobback, who said he’d always dreamed

of getting a letter from Bardot, last year banned a similar race at

nearby Sint-Eloois-Winkel.

Six-time Canadian Olympic equestrian Ian Millar,

of Perth, Ontario, on May 30 announced the retirement of Big

Ben, the 18-year-old Belgian he rode in three Olympics. Ben,

whom Millar began jumping in 1983, was the first North

American show jumper to win more than $1.5 million, achieving

40 grand prix victories; led Canada to the 1987 Pan American

Games gold medal; and won back-to-back World Cups.

Birds

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

Bald eagle recovery in New

York and New Jersey reached milestones

this spring, as the former had 24 nesting

pairs and the latter five, up from one

apiece when DDT was banned in 1972.

Before the introduction of DDT, which

built up in the food chain and caused the

females to lay brittle eggs, New York had

75 pairs; New Jersey had 20 to 25. The

current population are descended from 198

eagles imported from Alaska between

1976 and 1988, plus 60 from Manitoba,

who were released between 1983 and

1988. Of the original 198, 32 are known

dead––half of them shot by vandals––and

another 32 are known to have reached

maturity and paired at least once. Eagles

from that group have now settled in seven

states. Curiously, half of the pairs who

have nested within New York state have

chosen trees that were documented nesting

sites around the end of the 19th century.

AGRICULTURE

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

At deadline Washington D.C. sources believed

a Justice Department probe of accusations that Agriculture

Secretary Mike Espy improperly accepted free travel, foot-

ball tickets, and other favors from the Tyson poultry empire

would end without charges being filed. However, Bob

Gottsch, a leading Nebraska cattle feeder, on June 14 sued

Espy for $22 million in damages, alleging Espy unfairly

favored poultry over beef in strengthening sanitary require-

ments for beef slaughterhouses without likewise regulating

poultry slaughterers. Ironically, Espy was editorially hit the

same week by The New York Times for purportedly favoring

beef by exempting hamburger from a requirement that meat

product labels must accurately describe fat content.

Despite recent improvements, the USDA meat

inspection system “is only marginally better today at pro-

tecting the public from harmful bacteria than it was a year

ago or even 87 years ago when it was first put in place,”

General Accounting Office food and agriculture chief John

Harmon told Congress on May 25.

Captive wildlife

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

The Audubon Institute in

Algiers, Louisiana, broke ground June 1 for

the $15 million Audubon Center for

Research of Endangered Species, a high-

tech laboratory intended to complement the

adjacent Freeport-McMoran Audubon

Species Survival Center. The next planned

Audubon facility, an insectarium to be built

in the French Quarter of New Orleans, is

getting a mixed reception from future neigh-

bors, but appears certain to be approved by

municipal authorities, in part because it is

expected to attract 600,000 visitors per year.

Singapore on May 23 opened

Night Safari, a $38 million state-of-the-

art zoo for nocturnal species. The facility

has already achieved successful breeding of

18 of the 43 resident species, including the

russet-coated Asian wild dog, the fishing

cat, the Malaysian tapir, and the striped

hyena. The zoo took seven years to build.

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