NO SURPRISES––ESA FIGHT RESUMES

July 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––With CITES over, the
endangered species spotlight shifts back to the ongoing battle
over reauthorizing the Endangered Species Act.
An indicative early round had a promising outcome
on May 7, when the House of Representatives killed a measure
to give flood control projects precedence over protecting endangered
species. Since most endangered species occupy wetlands
or water, this might have effectively dismantled the ESA. The
final vote count showed 172 Democrats, 54 Republicans, and
one independent among the 227 opposing votes, of 423 cast.
House wise-users next tried to amend the Disaster
Relief Bill with a rider to expand right-of-way claims in roadless
areas. That too was defeated.
The Bill Clinton/Albert Gore administration might
have helped tip the balance on April 22, announcing a $125-
million-a-year scheme to both protect fish and wildlife and promote
the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest. The timber
industry praised the deal, but 37 environmental groups
demanded changes. “There is a heavy reliance on logging to
fix problems that logging caused,” objected Rick Taylor of the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

“He’s an oxymoron”

June 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

LOS ANGELES––Hired circa February 1, according
to Last Chance for Animals executive director David
Meyer, program staffer Luke Montgomery was on the job a
month before Washington Times columnist John McCaslin
noted his presence and his background; another month passed
before other activists called ANIMAL PEOPLE, accusing
him of trouble-making and asking, “Who is he?”
Gay activists previously asked the same question.
According to an October 6, 1995 posting by commentator P.
Del Grosso on a Gay:Stories:Gay Life World Wide Web site,
Montgomery “came to Washington D.C. a few years ago and
made a big fuss about changing his name to Sissyfag. He
claimed to be an AIDS activist and chased Bill Clinton around
for not doing enough about AIDS.”

British close to banning fox hunts–– if Labour keeps deal

June 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

LONDON––Did International Fund for Animal
Welfare founder Brian Davies retire from the IFAW board of
trustees after the election of the new Labour government of
Britain to put himself in line for a high-level appointment, or
because his million-pound gamble that Labour will halt hunting
might not pay off?
Or was it really all just as he said, to focus on his
work with the Political Action Lobby, PAL for short, an independent
pro-animal organization claiming 50,000 supporters?
Davies gave Labour the equivalent of $1.5 million on
September 1, 1997, after Labour leader Tony Blair pledged to
permit a free vote in the House of Commons to ban hunting
with hounds. Blair seemed to retreat, however, as the May 1
election approached and hunting supporters formed a trade
union, The Union of Country Sports Workers. Eventually
Blair appeared to indefinitely postpone the free vote, in which
Members of Parliament would be allowed to vote their consciences
instead of a particular party line.

Shelby bill would turn National Wildlife Refuges into hunting preserves

June 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Alabama Senator Richard
Shelby, a Tuskaloosa Republican, on May 15 introduced legislation
to declare all federal land open to hunting and fishing,
except if used for national security or other purposes which
cannot accommodate hunting and fishing. The bill would also
state that Congress intends for federal agencies to support, promote,
and enhance fishing and hunting opportunities when
making decisions regarding federal land use; require that all
excise taxes on hunting and fishing equipment be spent for
wildlife management to benefit hunting and fishing; and give
hunters and fishers the right to intervene in any civil lawsuit
that might impose limits on hunting or fishing on federal land.

NORWAY OFFERS DEAL TO AFRICA: “You kill elephants, we’ll kill whales.”

June 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

HARARE, Zimbabwe––Hosting the
10th triennial conference of the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species,
June 9-23, Zimbabwe intends to press the
home advantage, seeking to lift the 1989
CITES moratorium on international ivory sales.
With Namibia and Botswana, and with South
African endorsement in principle, Zimbabwe
hopes to move the southern African elephant
population from CITES Appendix I, the list of
endangered species barred from trade, to
Appendix II, meaning a species warrants monitoring
but may be traded.
South Africa, as in 1994, wants to
resume selling white rhino horn––but if CITES
agrees to such sales in principle, will settle for
a temporary “zero quota,” giving demand a
chance to rise in anticipation, even as the political
flak settles.

The meat mob muscles in

June 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

Poorly educated women, often of ethnic minorities,
many of them immigrants, do the hardest, dirtiest, most dangerous
work––until their bodies fail them.
Pushers on almost every busy street corner stoke the
addictions that already kill more Americans than any other
cause, and have created the world’s deadliest drug problem.
Their suppliers rank among the global leaders in
dumping toxic waste.
Kingpins of this mob, some already convicted of
political corruption reaching clear to the White House, are now
muscling into position to siphon off the hard-won economic
gains of the developing world.

BUDGET AX HITS B.C. WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT HOOK-AND-BULLET CULTURE

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

VICTORIA, B.C.––Possibly adding by subtraction,
British Columbian prime minister Glen Clark of the left-leaning
New Democratic Party has axed eight senior fish and wildlife
managers since November 1996––and has put the provincial
wildlife department under five-year director of law enforcement
Nancy Bircher, apparently the first woman to head any
Canadian wildlife department.
Clark touts the exodus as downsizing to reduce the
provincial debt. Opponents term it “proof the government is
pursuing a brown agenda,” as Mark Hume of the Vancouver
Sun put it. Altogether, about 1,500 employees of environmental
departments have been laid off or ushered into early retirement,
even as the Clark regime has allowed logging in the
Stoltman Wilderness, near Squamish, and has resisted federal
pressure to reduce the B.C. commercial salmon fleet.

CAN FISH SURVIVE IN A PORK BARREL?

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

RALEIGH, N.C.––Forced to choose between fish
and pigs, North Carolina wants both––and got state fisheries
director Bruce Freeman’s resignation on February 13 as a
slightly early Valentine to himself. For $83,000 a year, he
decided, the job wasn’t worth the pfiesteria headache.
Freeman, a North Carolina native who previously
served as New Jersey fisheries director, was North Carolina’s
sixth fisheries director in 15 years, only one of whom stayed
longer than two years. He took office just four months before
the June 1995 destruction of the Neuse River by 20 million gallons
of hog slurry from a ruptured farm lagoon. That alone
killed as many as 40 million fish––and that spill was followed
by more than 100 others, both on the Neuse and other rivers.
There were hints that similar smaller spills had occurred for
years, to little notice, as the North Carolina hog industry rapidly
expanded over the past decade with strong government influence
at both the state and federal levels.

BIG FISH EAT LITTLE FISH

May 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

The cynical might believe fisheries
negotiations are about who gets to kill the last
fish––after starving, bludgeoning, shooting,
or drowning marine mammals and sea birds to
extinction––on purpose if their remains can be
sold or they are considered competitors, by
accident if not.
Scientists repeatedly warn governments
and international rule-makers that as
former National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration science chief Sylvia Earle puts
it, “The ocean cannot sustain the massive
removal of wildlife needed to keep nations
supplied with the present levels of food taken
from the sea.”
Caught between the bedeviling verity
that cancelling fishing jobs costs elections,
and the biological fact of a depleted deep,
public officials tend to acknowledge harm
done by other nations, denying harm done by
their own. Thus the object of fish treaties,
time and again, becomes not conservation but
rather grabbing the most of what fish are left.

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