Sealers fight new Russian humane law

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

MOSCOW––Russian president Boris Yeltzin, 68, who resigned on New Year’s Day, apparently left to his successor Valdimir Putin, 47, the fate of a 22-page animal protection act approved 273-1 on December 1 by the State Duma (parliament).

Jen Tracy of the St. Petersburg Times reported on December 28 that the governors of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk had appealed to Yeltzin to veto the bill because it would have prohibited sealing.

The anti-sealing clause was apparently included in the bill mainly to protect the small Nerpa seal of landlocked Lake Baikal. Hunters have killed 5,000 to 6,000 Nerpa seals per year since 1992, and the seals are reportedly in a steep population decline.

Little is known of Putin’s views about animals. His wife and two daughters keep a pet poodle.

Canadians hunt the last seal

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

ST. JOHN, GRISE FJORD––The Inuk of Grise Fjord, Nunavet, formerly part of the Northwest Territories of Canada, marked the New Year with a “Last Seal of the Millennium” hunting contest on the ice off Ellesmere Island.

The unrestrained viciousness of Atlantic Canadian seal massacres meanwhile may get worse, as the Supreme Court of Newfoundland ruled 2-1 on December 14, 1999 that sealing is a provincial jurisdiction and that the Canadian federal government therefore had no right to charge 101 sealers with illegally killing whitecoats and bluebacks during the 1996 hunt.

The verdict, which the Crown had 60 days to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, could leave all authority over the hunt in Newfoundland waters with provincial fisheries minister John Effords. Effords vocally favors killing at least half of the Atlantic Canadian seal population, in hopes that killing seals will bring back cod.

Blazing guns and huts as Zimbabwe ignores Kenyan lesson

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

VOI, Kenya ––The six-hour drive from Nairobi to Tsavo East National Park would be worth the bumps for Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species delegates, for the challenge the Tsavo vista pre- sents to conventional beliefs about elephants and ecology.

Hundreds of delegates and observers will soon arrive in Nairobi for workshops leading up to the April 2000 CITES triennial meeting. Whether to permit more auctions of culled elephant ivory and rhino horn will–– again––be the most contentious agenda item.

In 1997 CITES allowed Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe to auction elephant ivory and hides, and to sell live elephants. These were the first cracks in the trade bans imposed by CITES in 1989 to protect elephants and rhinos from slaughter to extinction.

Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe now want to sell more elephants and elephant parts. South Africa announced on December 9 that it wants to join the market, having 30 tons of ivory stockpiled at Kruger National Park alone. South Africa will also try again to resume selling rhino horn. Previous South African efforts to sell rhino horn were narrowly defeated in 1994 and 1997.

Ivory politics killing elephants

November 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1999:

GENEVA, DUBAI––Dubai customs
officers on October 9 reportedly confiscated
41 containers holding nearly two tons of
elephant tusk ivory. Dubai airport customs
director Bouti Zafri did not disclose either the
origin or the destination of the ivory.
The seizure was believed to be the
biggest worldwide in at least 10 years. It
might have tipped opinion among the signers
of the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species in favor of reimposing the
total ban on international ivory trafficking
adopted in 1989––but the balance had already
tipped the other way.
Identified by The Namibian, of
Windhoek, as “one of Namibia’s main players
in the campaign to allow the sale of ivory
stockpiles,” Malan Lindeque in September
became CITES head of scientific coordination.

Maneka keeps ministry for animals

November 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1999:

NEW DELHI––As always prominently
including animal protection on her
platform as an independent candidate,
Maneka Gandhi on October 3 won election
for the fourth time in 10 years as Member of
Parliament for Pilibhit District, Uttar
Pradesh, India.
Defeating her only opponent by a
margin of more than two to one, Maneka is
among the most securely seated members of
the ruling coalition, headed by the Hindu
nationalist Baratiya Janata Party. The BJP
and allied parties won 297 of the 543 seats in
the Indian Parliament, substantially increasing
the strength of the second successive BJPled
government since the end in early 1998 of
nearly 49 years of rule by the Congress Party,
whose seats decreased to just 134.

Fur trapping and fashion

November 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1999:

The last chance in the present Congress
for a ban on leghold and neck snare trapping in
National Wildlife Refuges introduced by Senator
Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) and Representative Sam
Farr (D-California) was to come in a October joint
House/Senate committee meeting to resolve differences
between their respective Interior
Appropriations Bill versions. The full House of
Representatives on July 14 approved the Farr bill as
an amendment to the Interior Appropriations Bill,
259-166, over strenuous opposition from House
Resources Committee chair Don Young (R-Alaska),
who reportedly snapped a leghold trap on his index
finger and gesticulated in a seemingly obscene manner
at his opponents. Trappers then intensely lobbied
the Senate, where the Torricelli companion to the
Farr bill failed, 64-32, on September 9.

Ireland fights EU over animal welfare

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

DUBLIN––Scientists warned
Ireland in August that by mid-year it
had already exceeded the national
“greenhouse gas” emission limits set by
the European Union and United Nations
under the 1997 Kyoto Agreement to
limit global warming––despite special
dispensation allowing Ireland a 13%
increase in emissions by 2010.
Since nearly half of all Irish
“greenhouse gas” comes from cattle,
the warning meant in effect that Irish
farmers must find a way to reduce
bovine flatulence. Or else.

Kenya Wildlife chief Leakey given whole civil service

September 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

NAIROBI––Stating, “The time has come to give
public jobs to those who can deliver,” Kenyan president
Daniel arap Moi on July 20 promoted Kenya Wildlife Service
director Richard Leakey to the post of permanent secretary in
the office of the president, making him head of the entire
Kenya civil service and secretary to the cabinet.
“Leakey, 54, a third generation Kenyan who was in
his second stint as director of the KWS, has a reputation for
efficiency and thoroughness,” explained Emman Omari of
The Nation, the leading Kenyan newspaper. Leakey previously
headed KWS from 1988 until mid-1994, a year after losing
both legs in a plane crash but gaining public stature with his
swift return to duty.
Resigning in frustration with arap Moi minions who
hoped to open Kenya to commercial hunting, Leakey formed
Safina, a leading opposition party, and was elected to the
Kenyan parliament. After arap Moi personally denounced
Leakey, a pro-arap Moi mob dragged him from his car and
flogged him––but when KWS became “a staff-bloated organization
wallowing in cash flow problems,” as Nation reporter
Ken Opala put it, arap Moi put Leakey back in charge.

PETA makes animal testing Albert Gore’s albatross

September 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

WASHINGTON D.C.––People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals served
notice in July that Vice President Albert
Gore’s support of the Environmental
Protection Agency’s High Production Volume
Challenge chemical safety testing program will
be an issue in the 2000 presidential campaign––whether
he likes it or not.
In early July, PETA opened an
office in Manchester, New Hampshire, the
city where the most voters will cast ballots in
the first 2000 primary election. Covering the
windows with posters linking Gore to animal
testing, PETA was accused of violating the
office lease by property manager Patrick
Vatalaro, who had the posters removed.

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