Bush, Gore, and muzzling

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

AUSTIN, NEW YORK, WASHINGTON D.C.––Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush is an unabashed friend of wise-use wiseguys, an avid hunter, and was Safari Club International’s 1999 “governor of the year.”

Vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Albert Gore aided and abetted the 1993 resumption of Norwegian commercial whaling, the May 1999 resumption of Makah whaling after a 72-year hiatus, and the October 1999 resumption of international elephant ivory sales after a 10-year suspension––and is reputedly chief architect of the Invasive Species Council, the cabinet committee named in February 1999 by President Bill Clinton to pursue the extermination of non-native wildlife.

But Bush and Gore have distinctly different levels of tolerance for criticism.

Great gray beasts win in Kenya

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

NAIROBI, Kenya––Elephants and whales are safer, if still far from saved, as outcome of the April 10-20 eleventh triennial meeting of the 151 member nations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The CITES triennial was still underway as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press. On April 15, however, the delegates rejected a Japanese proposal to reopen legal traffic in gray whale products, 63-44 with 16 abstentions.

On April 17, Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa cut a five-way deal which restored the 1989-1997 moratorium on international ivory sales, at least until 2002, when it is again to be reviewed.

More $$ for USDA-APHIS?

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

WASHINGTON, D.C.–– U.S. President Bill Clinton in February proposed a $5 million boost in funding for the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, charged with enforcing the Animal Welfare Act.

Congress in 1999 approved a raise of $1 million for USDA-APHIS, the first raise it had won since 1992. The USDA-APHIS then had 88 inspectors, to cover more than 10,000 federally regulated animal care facilities. It now has just 64 inspectors.

BACK IN THE (FORMER) USSR

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

MOSCOW, WASHINGTON D.C.– – Kremlin-watchers wondered, when former KGB chief Vladimir Putin succeeded Boris Yeltzin as president of Russia, if Putin could develop the political skills of democracy.

They need not have worried. Putin showed on his third day in office that he can craft an image of standing for one thing while doing the other just as well as any American counterpart.

Putin on January 5 vetoed an animal protection bill which had cleared the Russian parliament 273-1, but was opposed by sealers because it would have prohibited seal-killing in order to save the diminutive and fast-vanishing Nerpa seal of landlocked Lake Baikal.

Hunters, trappers hate democracy

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

PHOENIX, DENVER, BOSTON, PORTLAND (Ore.)––Hunters and trappers rejoiced on February 4, after the Arizona House of Representatives passed a bill which would require citizen initiatives pertaining to wildlife to win a two-thirds majority in order to pass, while on the same day the Governor’s Regulatory Review Council struck down a September 1999 Arizona Game and Fish Commission ban on wildlife killing contests.

Hunters and trappers in 1998 secured passage of both a Utah state constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority on wildlife-related initiatives and a Michigan state constitutional amendment denying citizens any direct voice in changing wildlife management policy. So-called “hunters’ bills of rights” have also been adopted as amendments to the Minnesota and Alabama state constitutions.

The Arizona hunting and trapping lobby sees keeping activists from protecting wildlife by initiative as an essential first step toward reversing the 1994 Arizona leghold trap ban, which drew 58% voter support.

Panel set to draft feral hit list

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Cruelty is of no concern to the Invasive Species Council, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signified on January 26, excluding humane representation from a 32-member Invasive Species Advisory Committee named to help direct the federal war on feral wildlife.

There was no room on ISAC, as the advisory committee is called, for anyone from any of the more than 10,000 U.S. organizations formed to prevent cruelty to animals, whose donor base includes one household in four, and may be larger than the constituency who elected President Bill Clinton.

But there was room for a representative from Monsanto––a leading maker of the pesticides used in ever-growing volume against alleged “invasive species,” and coincidentally a leader in creating and introducing new species via genetic engineering.

Kenya Wildlife Service turns cor-

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

NAIROBI––Kenyan foreign minister Bonaya Godana announced on December 23 that Nairobi has been selected as host city for the permanent headquarters of the sixnation Task Force for Cooperative Enforcement Operations Directed at Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora.

The task force was created by the 1994 Lusaka Agreement. The choice of Nairobi as permanent host city amounts to an international vote of confidence in both the stability of Kenya and the capability and integrity of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

As KWS goes, so goes Kenya itself––an economic and historical lesson well known to KWS director Nehemiah Rotich.

Rotich succeeded to his office in July 1999, having previously been among the closest longtime observers and critics of KWS in his former position as founder and director of the East African Wildlife Society. Rotich had also served––twice––on the KWS board of trustees. His 1998 resignation in opposition to former KWS director David Western’s proposal to introduce trophy hunting was reportedly the beginning of the end of Western’s disastrous regime of nearly six years.

Soon thereafter, Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi replaced Western with previous KWS director Richard Leakey. But the second Leakey regime at KWS lasted only six months before arap Moi promoted Leakey to head the entire Kenyan civil service, and appointed Rotich, who never before worked in government, to succeed Leakey.

Moi: “Shoot to kill cattle rustlers.”

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

Nairobi––Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi on December 23 ordered police to shoot armed cattle rustlers on sight. Moi spoke at the Shadrack Kimalel Primary School in Baringo, while attending a goat auction held to fund education throughout the district. The sale of 3,029 donated goats fetched nearly $40,000.

Rustling and related massacres among members of the Pokot, Marakwet, Kalenjin, and Jemp tribes of the North Rift district have produced civil unrest which has in turn hurt the development of tourism and oil fields.

Moi issued a similar shootto-kill order pertaining to armed elephant and rhino poachers in 1984. It was invoked as recently as January 2, when Kenya Wildlife Service rangers killed four poachers––three of whom shot back with automatic rifles––just after the poachers killed four elephants in Kora National Park near Garissa.

Maneka meets the elephant

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

Udhagamandalam, India––Fed up with recurring allegations by the U.S.-based India Project for Animals and Nature that an elephant IPAN calls Loki is being abused, despite the findings of five different teams of investigators over a year’s time that he is not, Indian minster of state for social justice and empowerment Maneka Gandhi and federal director of animal welfare Dilip Singh visited the elephant in person at the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu state on December 30.

According to the December 31 edition of The Hindu, the largest newspaper in India, Maneka inspected the elephant, fed him sugar cane, pronounced his condition and care good, called the IPAN allegations a “non-issue,” and warned Indian media and animal protection donors about foreign advocacy groups that might make sensational claims for fundraising purposes.

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