Category: North America

Woofs and growls

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Who gets the money?
Animal and habitat protection
groups currently failing to meet the National
Charities Information Bureau’s wise giving
standards include the Cousteau Society, the
National Anti-Vivisection Society, the
National Humane Education Society and
PETA. The Cousteau Society and NAVS
flunked on criteria designed to prevent nepo-
tism and material conflicts of interest among
board members and administrators; the
Cousteau Society also flunked for excessive
fundraising expense; NHES flunked for lack
of accountability and excessive fundraising
expense; and PETA flunked for having only
three board members instead of the requisite
five. Additionally, the NCIB questions
whether Humane Society of the U.S. fundrais-
ing costs are reasonable relative to income.

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Texas to refile vs. Primarily Primates

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS– –
Texas assistant attorney general John Vinson
on January 14 filed a federal court petition
seeking to return jurisdiction over complaints
against Primarily Primates to state court, in
order to reinstate a suit seeking to remove
Primarily Primates president Wally Swett and
secretary Stephen Tello from the administra-
tion of the San Antonio-based sanctuary.
Vinson alleged that Swett hadn’t met the
terms of an out-of-court settlement reached in
November. As the terms were eventually
finalized, Swett was to undertake structural
revisions to the Primarily Primates bylaws
which would take away a defacto veto he had
held over board decisions; was to pay the
Texas attorney general’s office partial reim-
bursement from Primarily Primates of costs
incurred in handling the case, in the amount
of $15,000; and was to expand the Primarily
Primates board to nine members, including
“at least two persons from the San Antonio
area and a veterinarian or someone with for-
mal animal care training.”

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PETA wins Berosini reversal

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

RENO, Nevada––The Nevada Supreme Court
on January 27 emphatically reversed the $4.2 million libel
verdict won by orangutan trainer Bobby Berosini in
August 1990 against People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals, PETA director of investigations Jeanne Roush,
the Performing Animal Welfare Society, PAWS execu-
tive director Pat Derby, and dancer Ottavio Gesmundo.
Berosini contended that a videotape Gesmundo
secretly recorded backstage was false and defamatory.
The videotape was given to mass media by PETA, while
Derby commented upon it for Entertainment Tonight.
However, in a strongly worded 32-page opinion, the
four judges who reviewed the case concluded unanimous-
ly that, “The videotape is not false because it is an accu-
rate portrayal of the manner in which Berosini disciplined
his animals backstage before performances. The video-
tape is not defamatory because Berosini and his witnesses
take the position that the shaking, punching, and beating
that appear on the tape are necessary, appropriate and
justified for the training, discipline, and control of show
animals. If Berosini did not think that the tape showed
him doing anything wrong or disgraceful,” the decision
continued, “he should not be heard to complain that the
defendants defamed him merely by showing the tape.”

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Animals lose friends in D.C.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Bureau of Land Management chief
James Baca resigned February 3 rather than be kicked upstairs by Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who had offered to make him his deputy assis-
tant. Baca was unpopular with ranchers and miners due to his demand for
tougher environmental controls on use of the 270 million acres of BLM
land, and for reform of leasing agreements to gain market value returns
from grazing leases and mining claims. Ranchers also recall that Baca
threw the USDA’s Animal Damage Control agency out of New Mexico in
1992 for failing to inspect traps at least once every 24 hours, to reduce
animal suffering and harm to endangered speces.
Babbitt said he remained “deeply committed to getting grazing
rules worked out and also to getting reforms of the mining law of 1872
enacted,” but ousted Baca because they have “different approaches to
management style and consensus building.”

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Marine mammals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

S. 1636, the present Marine
Mammal Protection Act reauthorization
bill, has cleared the Senate Commerce
Committee and at deadline was expected to be
passed any day by the full Senate, with House
ratification likely in April. The Humane
Society of the U.S. has asked members to
write Congress opposing S. 1636 because it
“has no provisions for effective enforcement,”
and “would allow the accidental killing of
endangered species (currently prohibited) and
the intentional shooting of seals and sea lions
solely to protect fish commercially caught or
raised.” HSUS seeks amendments that will
“ensure that marine mammal mortality in com-
mercial fishing operations reaches insignifi-
cant levels approaching zero, mandate specif-
ic punitive consequences if kill reduction goals
are not met on schedule, prohibit the capture
of wild whales or dolphins for public display,
prohibit swim-with-the-dolphin programs and
petting pools, prohibit public feeding of both
captive and wild marine mammals, prohibit
the issuance of permits to kill endangered
species in commercial fisheries,” and “prohib-
it the intentional killing of seals and sea lions
solely to protect fishing gear, catch, or net
pens.” The Animal Welfare Institute has
issued a similar appeal for action.

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Guest column: Reject, isolate, abandon undisciplined ALF

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

by Paul Watson
Captain, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Much controversy has been gener-
ated over the last few years by the Animal
Liberation Front and most recently by the
attacks on the fur departments of major
department stores in Chicago. The ALF has
been condemned for terrorism and has made
itself a primary target for investigation by
the FBI. It is only a matter of time until
some serious arrests are made and perhaps it
is only a matter of time until the now
unblemished record of the animal and con-
servation movements is irreparably tar-
nished.
To date, there has not been a sin-
gle human being injured or slain by an ani-
mal rights, animal welfare, or conservation
movement person or organization. Perhaps
it is inevitable that such a thing will some
day happen, but I believe that we should do
everything in our power to keep that day far
into the future. Our strength lies in our
morality and in the ethical advantage of
remaining steadfast in our respect for life.
All life must always be of paramount con-
cern.

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Guest Opinion: In defense of the Animal Liberation Front

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

by Gary Francione
Rutgers Animal Rights Law Clinic
The January/February ANIMAL PEOPLE edi-
torial condemned the Animal Liberation Front for planting
nine firebombs in four Chicago department stores.
Although I agree completely that the cause of animal
rights is or should be a movement of peace and nonvio-
lence, and that the use of firebombs or any other action
that threatens human or nonhuman life is morally unac-
ceptable and inimical to the philosophy of animal rights, I
am concerned that ANIMAL PEOPLE’s broad condem-
nation of the ALF focused attention on the wrong topic.
First, while the condemnation did except the
clandestine information-gathering in support of Animal
Welfare Act enforcement that characterized many early
actions, it otherwise lumped together all ALF activities.
For the first decade the ALF was active in the United
States, it generally rejected any action that jeopardized
human or animal life and safety, and confined its activi-
ties to removing animals from laboratories or farms, and
on occasion, to destroying equipment used to exploit ani-
mals. The first arson attributed to ALF in the U.S. did not
occur until 1986, and there were few others before 1991.

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Editorial: Wanted: vets on wheels at combat pay

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Just over two years ago ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartlett disregarded
warnings that she was taking her life in her hands and took an experimental neuter/release
project into inner city Bridgeport, Connecticut––the city with the highest per capita murder
rate and greatest rate of drug-related violence of any in North America. Among the burned-
out, abandoned shells of factories and tenements where families lived six or eight people to
a room on welfare, Kim found a community who for the most part already knew about pet
overpopulation, were worried about the homeless animals they fed at their doorsteps, and
were readily receptive to her help in obtaining neutering and vaccination. Bridgeport had
and probably still has a high density of feral cats not primarily because anyone was ignorant
or indifferent, nor because even the poorest of the poor were unwilling to pay for neutering
their pets––albeit that most couldn’t afford to pay anything close to the going veterinary
rates. On the contrary, Kim was welcomed as “the cat lady” where even police feared to
walk. Children ran up and down the shabby side streets knocking on doors, asking neigh-
bors to bring out their animals. Elderly women without even a warm coat and third genera-
tion welfare mothers produced tattered and painstakingly preserved ten-dollar bills to make
the most generous contribution they could to assist the effort. The nun whose tiny convent
school was among the last outposts of hope in the inner city gave Kim her full support.

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