CLINTON BUDGET BOOSTS NIH, NPS

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – The
U.S. budget for fiscal 1999 announced by
President Bill Clinton on February 2
includes a record $170 billion for civilian
research and development over the next
five years. The National Institutes of
Health would get an immediate funding
increase of $1.15 billion, giving it a 1999
budget of $14.8 billion, and would be
scheduled to get $20 billion in 2004.
NIH head Harold Varmus told
media that the money, if allocated by
Congress, would be divided among studies
of cancer, diabetes, brain disorders,
asthma, and AIDS.

General Chatterjee and the Animal Welfare Board

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

CHENNAI––Named for the Buddhist emperor Ashoke,
who issued the first Indian animal protection law circa 240 B.C.,
Lieutenant General Ashoke Kumar Chatterjee trained to head the
Animal Welfare Board of India by commanding first the Indian
peacekeeping force in Sri Lanka and then the United Nations peacekeeping
force in the Maldives.
A former polo player, Chatterjee won the attention of
Indian humaitarians in 1976-1977 when he mobilized troops to relocate
horses and cattle away from severe drought in Rajasthan and
Gujarat. Retiring in 1990, after 38 years in uniform, he was
promptly drafted to revitalize the AWB.
Created in 1960, actually convened in 1962, the AWB
exists to implement the two sections of the Indian
constitution––unique in the world––which mandate animal protection.

Maneka, as in “manic, eh?”

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

NEW DELHI––Maneka, pronounced
“manic-eh,” is in India quite a common
first name. Yet headlines often refer just
to “Maneka,” and Indians know exactly who
they mean: Maneka Gandhi, the maniacally
energetic founder of India’s leading animal
advocacy group, People For Animals; foe of
corruption; fearless newspaper columnist; and
member of Parliament. She is lampooned
almost daily by cartoonists and fellow columnists,
but is also quoted thoroughly on subjects
that most others in public life dare not address.
“It was pyrotechnics,” the Indian
Express opened on November 1, describing a
typical Maneka speech to a local Rotary Club.
“Maneka had everyone scurrying for cover, as
she launched a loaded attack on policy makers,
parliamentarians, seminar organizers, and ‘all
those who make a big show of environmental
conservation without even understanding what
they are saying.’”

Money, influence, and wildlife

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

The Nation newspaper, of Bangkok,
Thailand, on December 18 reported that
Pavillon Massage Parlor manager Somchai
Rojjanaburapha contributed $111 of the
$222 price of a 14-month-old sun bear to save
him from sale to a Korean restaurant,
and––though the Thai economy is in freefall
collapse, the massage business with it––forty
masseuses chipped in the rest. The bear was
sent to the Khao Khieow Open Zoo, 50
miles southeast of Bangkok.

Ahimsa won’t be cowed

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

BOMBAY, JAIPUR, DELHI, JALGAON,
AGRA––We missed the fleeting chance to snap a photo, as
our driver sped through an intersection almost in the shadow of
the Taj Mahal, but won’t forget the sight of a huge Brahma
bull placidly chewing his cud amid the blaring horns of heavy
traffic, dodging around him.
We took the November edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE
to India with us. An article in it described how Chicago
Animal Rights Coalition founder Steve Hindi has repeatedly
captured on video the use of electroshocking devices by rodeo
stock contractors to make Brahma bulls buck.
We expected the revelation of bull abuse in rodeo to
shock our Indian hosts, but we didn’t expect to meet the difficulty
we did in even explaining what rodeo is. The idea that
adults of normal intelligence and sensibility might try to ride a
bull was foreign enough; the idea that others might pay to
watch the effort, over and over, stretched credulity.

Ranchers want taxpayers to keep them in clover

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt has asked President
Bill Clinton to veto a “grazing reform” bill that
House Agriculture Committee chair Bob Smith
(R-Oregon) sent to the House on September
24––if it clears Congress.
Wilderness Society lobbyist Fran
Hunt said the Smith bill “would lock in a new
subsidized grazing fee for livestock operators
on public lands, “ at about a third the federal
cost of land maintenance; “enact new hurdles
that would make it even more difficult for the
Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management
to protect and restore public rangeland”;
“limit public participation in federal decisionmaking”;
“hamper the ability of concerned
groups and individuals to appeal unsound federal
grazing decisions”; and “undercut the
multiple use management and conservation of
the National Grasslands by removing them
from the National Forest system.”

COURT CALENDAR

October 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

WILLS BANKRUPT
Former Humane Society of the
U.S. vice president David Wills on August
22 filed for personal bankruptcy. Among his
17 listed creditors were H S U S, which in
October 1995 fired Wills and later sued him
for allegedly misappropriating $93,000; John
H o y t, president of HSUS and Humane
Society International from 1970 until last year,
who is believed to have personally loaned
Wills money; Sandra LeBost, of Royal Oak,
Michigan, to whom Wills agreed in June
1995 to pay $42,500 in restitution and damages
for nonrepayment of loans; and
William and Judith McBride, also of Royal
Oak, Michigan, who are believed to have
reached an out-of-court settlement with Wills
in a similar case involving alleged failure to
repay a loan of $20,000.

CIVIL SERVICE

September 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1997:

Whistleblowers
The Professional Institute of
the Public Service, representing
Canadian public scientists, on August 7
demanded passage of a whistleblower
protection law promised by the Liberal
goverment during the 1993 election
campaign and recommended in 1995 by
Auditor General Denis Desautels, but
not yet introduced to Parliament.
Instead, the Department of Fisheries
and Oceans responded to the recent disclosure
of extensive falsification of official
data pertaining to cod, salmon, and
seals by circulating a 1982 disciplinary
code which lists public criticism of the
department as an offense on the same
level as mutiny and fraud. As A N IMAL
PEOPLE reported in July/August
(“Scientists say Canada falsified data”),
outside scientists revealed in May and
June that the DFO concealed evidence
that Atlantic cod have been overfished
to endangerment, and undercounted the
1996 offshore sealing kill, officially
262,402, by as much as 100%.

ESA rewrite looms

September 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Seven
years of political battling over Endangered
Species Act reauthorization appear headed
toward quick resolution.
The White House in late July signaled
eagerness to lower the profile of ESA
issues before the 1998 presidential campaign,
when both vice president Albert Gore and
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt may seek to
succeed Bill Clinton by building a similar
coalition of moderate conservative and traditional
Democratic support.
As presiding officer over the Senate,
negotiating ratification of international treaties,
Gore has pleased conservatives by favoring
trade over strict species protection under the
Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species, the International
Whaling Convention, and the Declaration of
Panama, recently implemented by repeal of
the “dolphin-safe” tuna import standard (see
page 2). Babbitt has curried conservative
favor, meanwhile, by rapidly increasing the
number of National Wildlife Refuges open to
hunting and fishing: half when he took office,
nearly two-thirds now.

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