Did Japan quit killing hawksbill turtles to resume killing whales?

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

TOKYO, Japan––More than

three years after former U.S. president

George Bush warned Japan to quit dealing in

hawksbill sea turtles or face trade sanctions

under the Convention on International Trade

in Endangered Species, Japan on July 15

banned the import of the rare turtles and/or

their parts––after importing circa 30 tons of

hawksbill turtleshell during the first half of

1994 alone. The shells are used to make var-

ious ornamental sundries. The Bush warn-

ing, never followed up, was the first-ever

U.S. move to enforce CITES, although

Congress gave the President the authority to

do so in 1977. Japan is believed to have

imported parts of more than two million sea

turtles since 1971, according to Earth Island

Institute, including the shells of at least

234,000 hawksbills during the 1980s.

Sea Shepherd, Greenpeace take on Norwegian whalers; JAPAN IGNORES SANCTUARY; RUSSIA MAY FOLLOW

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

NORTH SEA, TOKYO–––As a

summer of intense whaling and anti-whaling

activity off Norway closed, Japan announced

on August 12 that it too would flout the

International Whaling Commission by taking

an “exception” to the Southern Ocean Whale

Sanctuary, created in May. A similar

announcement was expected from Russia.

While Norway for the second year

unilaterally set a commercial whaling quota,

breaking the IWC moratorium on commercial

whaling in effect since 1986, Japan formally

objected to the inclusion of minke whales as a

protected species within the newly created

sanctuary, which includes 80% of the known

minke whale habitat: all waters south of the

40th parallel except for a dip around South

America. The objection means Japan will

proceed with plans for a so-called scientific

hunt of 300 minke whales within the sanctu-

Endangered Species Act package includes wolves for Yellowstone

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The Fish-

eries and Wildlife subcommittee of the U.S.

Senate Environment and Public Works

Committee opened discussion of reauthorizing

the Endangered Species Act on June 15 amid

a flurry of actions by the Clinton administra-

tion designed to mitigate objections to the

ESA from landowners while convincing envi-

ronmentalists that the key goals of the act will

not be yielded for political advantage.

Most notably, Interior Secretary

Bruce Babbitt announced June 14 that effec-

tive upon publication of new ESA regulations

in the Federal Register, it will institute peer

review of species listing and recovery deci-

sions by panels of three independent scien-

tists; produce multispecies listings and recov-

ery plans for species sharing the same ecosys-

tem, to expedite the regulatory process; pub-

lish land use guidelines spelling out what is

and isn’t allowed in the habitat of each new

species listed; and most symbolically impor-

tant, add landowners and business representa-

tives to endangered species recovery planning

teams. The latter comes close to building into

the listing process the cost/benefit analysis

that the George Bush administration argued

should be part of endangered species decision-

making back when the ESA first came up for

renewal in 1992.

Whales for missiles: SANCTUARY CREATED––BUT WHALING GETS THE GO-AHEAD TOO

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico, and WASH-

INGTON D.C.––As whale defenders cheered the May 26 cre-

ation of the Southern Whale Sanctuary around Antarctica, the

International Whaling Commission on May 27 unanimously

approved a U.S. motion to provisionally accept the Revised

Management Plan, a formula for setting renewed commercial

whaling quotas. Mexico, Ireland, and India voiced reserva-

tions but did not formally oppose the consensus.

The Southern Whale Sanctuary starts at the 40th par-

allel south latitude, dipping to the 55th parallel around the

lower tip of South America. It connects with the extant Indian

Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Although the IWC has no policing

power, the sanctuary designation means that whaling is per-

manently illegal in approximately half of the world’s waters,

protecting––on paper––about 80% of the surviving baleen

whales, an estimated 80% of the time.

COURT CALENDAR

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

Activism

The U.S. Supreme Court on

June 13 upheld federal court and Court

of Appeals rulings that communities

cannot consititutionally ban the display

of political signs on citizens’ own prop-

erty. Issued on behalf of anti-Persian Gulf

War protester Margaret Gilleo, of Ladue,

Missouri, who is now a Congressional

candidate, the ruling applies as well to

people who have been ordered to cease

displaying signs on behalf of animals.

Friends of Animals in early

June won a judgement against the State

of Alaska for attorney’s fees incurred in

defending itself against governor Walter

Hickel’s failed attempt to sue FoA for libel.

The Hickel suit was filed in June 1993 in

an apparent attempt to prevent FoA from

further publicizing the Alaskan plan to kill

wolves in order to make more moose and

caribou available to hunters.

Birds

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

Bald eagle recovery in New

York and New Jersey reached milestones

this spring, as the former had 24 nesting

pairs and the latter five, up from one

apiece when DDT was banned in 1972.

Before the introduction of DDT, which

built up in the food chain and caused the

females to lay brittle eggs, New York had

75 pairs; New Jersey had 20 to 25. The

current population are descended from 198

eagles imported from Alaska between

1976 and 1988, plus 60 from Manitoba,

who were released between 1983 and

1988. Of the original 198, 32 are known

dead––half of them shot by vandals––and

another 32 are known to have reached

maturity and paired at least once. Eagles

from that group have now settled in seven

states. Curiously, half of the pairs who

have nested within New York state have

chosen trees that were documented nesting

sites around the end of the 19th century.

AGRICULTURE

July 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:

At deadline Washington D.C. sources believed

a Justice Department probe of accusations that Agriculture

Secretary Mike Espy improperly accepted free travel, foot-

ball tickets, and other favors from the Tyson poultry empire

would end without charges being filed. However, Bob

Gottsch, a leading Nebraska cattle feeder, on June 14 sued

Espy for $22 million in damages, alleging Espy unfairly

favored poultry over beef in strengthening sanitary require-

ments for beef slaughterhouses without likewise regulating

poultry slaughterers. Ironically, Espy was editorially hit the

same week by The New York Times for purportedly favoring

beef by exempting hamburger from a requirement that meat

product labels must accurately describe fat content.

Despite recent improvements, the USDA meat

inspection system “is only marginally better today at pro-

tecting the public from harmful bacteria than it was a year

ago or even 87 years ago when it was first put in place,”

General Accounting Office food and agriculture chief John

Harmon told Congress on May 25.

Concessions to hunters win assault rifle ban

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

WASHINGTON D.C.––

The National Rifle Association took

the biggest defeat it has ever suffered

at the federal level in the House of

Representatives on May 5, as Indiana

Democrat Andrew Jacobs Jr. switched

his “no” vote to a “yes,” passing into

law a ban on 19 types of assault rifle,

which though backed by the Clinton

administration, had been expected to

fail by at least 15 votes.

Clinton bought the victory

with a string of concessions to the

hunting lobby. The assault rifle ban,

for instance, names 650 hunting

weapons and mandates that none shall

be outlawed during the 10 years the

assault rifle ban is to be in effect.

MARINE MAMMAL NOTES

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

The Marine Mammal Protection Act was

reauthorized on schedule on April 29, including loop-

holes to let hunters to import polar bear trophies and to

allow the killing of seals and sea lions who eat threat-

ened fish runs at locks and fish ladders. Other provi-

sions include a total ban on intentionally shooting

marine mammals who interfere with fishing, and a pro-

gram to cut accidental kills during fishing to near zero

over the next seven years.

The Liberal Party of Canada convention on

May 15 overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling

for the resumption of offshore seal hunting, halted in

1983 after two decades of international protest. The

Liberals form the Parliamentary majority. Claiming

“the concerns of animal rights lobby groups should not

be put before the concerns of the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador,” the resolution claims

sealing is needed to create jobs because the fishing

industry has collapsed––making no mention that the col-

lapse was caused by overfishing condoned in the name

of job creation by a succession of both Liberal and

Progressive-Conservative governments.

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