FUR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

A frequent target of animal
rights protesters for keeping marine mam-
mals in captivity, Marine World/Africa
USA is also under fire from the California
Fur Industry Inc. for describing the near-
annihilation of wild serval cats by the fur
trade during educational presentations at the
amusement park’s Wildlife Theatre.
“Fur trade officials are now
receiving Indian Affairs funds, which
should be going to First Nations,” the
Aboriginal Trappers Federation of Canada
charged in a public statement at the recent
North American Fur and Fashion Exposition
in Montreal. The statement referred to the
allocation of funds from Indian and Northern
Affairs Canada to the Wildfur Council of
North America, a pro-trapping group with
little Native American representation.

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Did AmEx renege on “no fur” pledge to Roddick?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

Did or did not American Express pledge to drop fur from
its catalogs, to secure an endorsement from Body Shop skin and
hair care products founder Anita Roddick?
Catching flak for appearing in AmEx television commer-
cials while the firm is under boycott by PETA and other groups,
Roddick issued a written statement on April 15 asserting that,
“Before agreeing to do the commercial, I had a meeting with
American Express where I was assured that the current catalog
would be the last one to include fur.” Receiving Roddick’s state-
ment directly from The Body Shop, ANIMAL PEOPLE pub-
lished it in May.

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Animal Health & Behavior

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

CDC goes to rat-@#$%
The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention blame an unknown Hantaan virus probably
transmitted by rodents for causing flu-like symptoms that
killed 19 residents of the Four Corners region of New
Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado during May and
June. Most of the victims were Native Americans.
Hantaan viruses are typically transmitted through inhala-
tion, after becoming airborne with evaporated urine.
The transmission route for this as yet unidentified virus
has not been found, and investigators have been thwarted
by the reluctance of Navajo victims’ families, in particu-
lar, to speak either of the dead or of matters involving
their religion and rituals. However, Nevada paleoenvi-
ronmental researcher Peter E. Wigand, who seeks clues
to ecological history in ancient deposits of crystalized rat
urine, may have unwittingly provided a clue to the out-
break last January, before it actually occurred. Wigand

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Diet & Health

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

Thirty of 90 beef slaughterhouses inspected by
the USDA during last winter’s outbreak of E. coli bacterial
poisoning of hamburger were temporarily closed for clean-
up, Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy announced May 27.
Twelve plants were put in a special enforcement program,
with which they must comply or lose USDA certification.
The last of 143 people who were hospitalized during the E.
coli outbreak, 10-year-old Brianne Kiner, was released as
an outpatient from Children’s Hospital in Seattle on June 29.
Stricken after eating a Jack-in-the-Box hamburger on
January 13, Kiner spent 41 days in a coma and lost her
large intestine. Four children died––three in the Seattle area
and one in San Diego.

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CHILDREN & ANIMALS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

Lucinda Randolph Benjamin of the 4-H Club
and Margaret Barker of the Cornell Laboratory of
Ornithology are coordinating a study of inner city pigeon
life, funded by the National Science Foundation and actu-
ally carried out by 15 young residents of the Bedford-
Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. The partici-
pants, ages 9-14, are to closely observe the pigeons in
their neighborhood, documenting everything the birds do.
Carol Stevenson, principal of the Ladera del
Norte Elementary School in Farmington, New Mexico,
rewarded a class of 23 second graders for reading 7,000
pages of library books during May by eating six live worms
in front of them. The geek show was apparently the chil-
dren’s idea, inspired by one of the books they read.

Horse Tips

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

Prairie Bayou, the pre-race favorite in the
June 5 Belmont Stakes, suffered a shattered foreleg
while running 11th in the backstretch among a field of
13––an indication of exhaustion or injury––and was eutha-
nized half an hour later. Prairie Bayou placed second in
the Kentucky Derby five weeks earlier, and won the
Preakness Stakes two weeks earlier as another top-ranked
horse, Union City, collapsed and was destroyed due to
similar fractures. The loss of the horses drew attention to
the theories of several experts about horse racing injuries.
Veterinarian James Rooney of the Maxwell H. Gluck
Equine Center in Lexington, Kentucky, argued that the
back-to-back collapses of Prairie Bayou and Union City
were, “Pure bloody coincidence,” claiming that only 2%
of North American races result in fatal breakdowns––but
that would still mean the deaths of 1,600 horses a year.

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Estrogen therapy fills horsemeat slaughterhouses

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

BRANDON, Manitoba––Two new reports from
the Canadian Farm Animal Care Trust affirm that the fast-
growing estrogen drug market is driving the equally fast
expanding Canadian horsemeat export trade––as ANIMAL
PEOPLE reported in April, based in part on earlier CAN-
FACT publications.
The Manitoba Animal Rights Coalition is asking
other animal protection groups to join it in an international
campaign to publicize the source of the increasingly popular
“natural” estrogen replacement drug Premarine: PMU, the
urine of catheterized pregnant mares, who are kept standing
in barns from September to April of each year. This is the
peak period for equine estrogen yield, coming in the fourth
through tenth months of the mares’ 11-month gestation
cycle. Draft breeds are preferred because of their placid
nature and greater capacity for producing urine.

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Cats & Dogs

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

The older men who get the most emotional benefit
from keeping pets are those who have the least free time, the most
difficulties in personal relationships, and the most financial trouble,
according to a newly published study by Ohio State University psy-
chology professor Sara Staats––whereas the women who derive the
most satisfaction from pets are those with the most free time and
the most satisfactory relationships with other people. Staats’ data
came from a survey of 250 people over age 50. The findings appar-
ently reflect the role of pet as family member for women, contrast-
ed with the role of pet as surrogate for family among many men.

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Further gains against pet overpopulation

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

Continuing to refine the data on pound and shelter admissions and
euthanasias as more complete state statistics become available, Phil Arkow of the
Humane Society of Pike’s Peak has revised his estimate of the current U.S. euthanasia
toll, reported here in June, upward slightly to 5.7 million dogs and cats per year. This is
still the lowest total ever discovered––and reflects the most thorough research. Arkow’s
estimate is based on the 1991 totals, the most recent available in most instances, from
California (717,000); Colorado (69,766); Iowa (48,653); Massachusetts (79,500);
Maryland (90,000); New Jersey (75,263); Oregon (79,713); Texas (597,591); and
Washington (109,274). Together, these nine states include more than a third of the U.S.
human population, and are demographically almost identical to the U.S. as a whole.

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