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.

Fish & Wildlife resignations

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.––U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service supervisor of Everglades
ecosystems Craig Johnson resigned in midDecember,
“after almost three years battling
for manatees, panthers, seaside sparrows,
and Key deer against higher-ups in his own
agency and other agencies supposed to be
protecting the environment,” Miami Herald
staff writer Cyril T. Zaneski reported on
December 23.
Johnson, 42, returned to a post
with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Born in Harlem, Johnson was
among the few identifiable members of racial
and ethnic minorities at high levels in the Fish
and Wildlife Service. Former Fish and
Wildlife Service special investigator Carroll
Cox charges in a pending lawsuit that racial
discrimination was involved in his 1994 dismissal,
after years of conflict with other Fish
and Wildlife Service staff over his efforts to
enforce the Endangered Species Act against
longline fishers, Chevron Oil, and Bishop
Estate, a major Hawaii landowner.

Whitetails and pronghorns

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

PORTLAND, Oregon––Just two
weeks after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
told ANIMAL PEOPLE in response to a
Freedom of Information Act request that it had
not held settlement talks with Friends of
Animals and the Predator Defense Institute re
their lawsuit against coyote-killing at the Julia
Butler Hansen National Wildlife Refuge in
southern Washington, the USFWS, FoA, and
PDI on November 17, 1997 jointly announced
an out-of-court settlement under which the
USFWS agreed to halt killing coyotes until at
least spring 1998, while writing “a supplemental
environmental impact assessment that
will analyze nonlethal alternatives for controlling
coyotes.”
However, the original USFWS plan
called for killing coyotes only in spring and
early summer.

Ha ha ha––rabies wipe out!

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

AUSTIN, Tex.––Aircraft
on January 6 began dropping 1.5
million oral rabies vaccine pellets
over 42,00 square miles in 66
Texas counties, the anticipated last
salvo in a three-year drive to eradicate
the only major rabies outbreak
among coyotes ever reported.
Canine rabies in all
species is down 98% in south
Texas since the vaccine drops
began, at cost of about $4 million a
year––a fraction of the $63 million
estimated cost of human health care
alone if the job hadn’t been done.
“We started with the
hope of containing the virus,”
Texas Department of Health Oral
Rabies Vaccination Project director
Gayne Fearneyhough told Anna M.
Tinsley of the Corpus Christi
Caller-Times, “but it soon became
obvious that we could contain and
eliminate this rabies strain from
very large geographic areas.”

Judge orders wolves to go

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL
PARK––Defenders of Wildlife and the
National Wildlife Federation on December 31
asked the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
to reverse a December 12 ruling by U.S.
District Judge William Downes of Wyoming
that either wolves introduced into
Yellowstone National Park and northern
Idaho during the past two years should be
removed, or all wolves in the greater
Yellowstone ecosystem should be fully protected
under the Endangered Species Act.
As part of a compromise worked
out in 1994 to get around political opposition
to the reintroduction of wolves to the
Yellowstone environs, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service termed the reintroduced
wolves and their offspring an “experimental,
nonessential” population, not completely
covered as an endangered species. This
enables wildlife officials and ranchers to kill
wolves who are caught allegedly preying on
livestock.

Sending out the dove

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

LOS ANGELES––Thirty circling
vultures are excellent news for the often
embattled Los Angeles Zoo and San Diego
Wild Animal Park. That’s because the vultures––California
condors, to be exact––are
now using their 10-foot wingspan to soar on
mountain air currents over southern California,
northern Arizona, and southern Utah.
Just 27 California condors remained
alive in 1987, when the last wild member of
the species was lured into captivity despite
militant protest from Earth First! and lawsuits
from the Sierra Club and National Audubon
Society––and the 1987 count was up slightly
from the low of 22, recorded in 1982. By
1985, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
decided to capture the whole population for
protected breeding, just nine wild condors
remained, along with 14 in captivity. There
are now 134 of the giant birds, some of whom
are fanning out more than 200 miles from
release sites, reclaiming habitat they haven’t
occupied in thousands of years.

Sea Shepherds announce Norwegian whaler sinkings

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

OSLO, Norway––The International
Whaling Commission on October 23 gave the
Makah tribe of Washington state the okay to
kill gray whales––or at any rate the Makah and
U.S. government claim it did. Seal penis prices
in Asia, boosted by Norwegian and Canadian
governmental marketing, are reportedly at
record highs. Steinar Bastesen, the most notorious
whaler and sealer of all, in October won a
seat in the Norwegian parliament.
Marine mammal defenders took grim
comfort and inspiration, however, from the
apparent sabotage sinking of one of Bastesen’s
ships, the 45-foot Morild. The Morild sank at
dockside on November 11 in Bronnoysund,
430 miles north of Oslo, just 12 days after
intruders purportedly dressed in Halloween
pirate costumes scuttled another Norwegian
whaling vessel, the Elin Toril, at Mortsun in
the Lofoten Islands, six months after a third
Norwegian whaling vessel, the Senet, was
allegedly firebombed while in drydock.

Great apes practice peace under fire

December 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

YAOUNDE, Cameroon––Seizing an infant
gorilla, hunter Ntsama Ondo returned home to Olamze village
triumphant in mid-October, certain he’d make his fortune
just as soon as he could sell her to international traffickers––apparently
regular visitors to Olamze, situated near the
border of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.
Her troop had another idea, the October 22 edition
of the Cameroonian newspaper L’Action reported .
Apparently following his trail, an estimated 60 gorillas
marched into Olamze single file just before midnight, ignoring
gunfire meant to scare them away as they paraded in
silent protest.
When that didn’t get the infant back, the gorillas
returned the next night. This time they battered the doors
and windows of the houses until the Olamze village chief
ordered Ondo to release the infant.
“Immediately the assailants returned to the forest
with shouts of joy, savouring their victory,” L’Action said.

One scientist who isn’t afraid

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

VANCOUVER––Most Canadian
fisheries scientists may be intimidated when
officials blame seals for fish scarcity, but not
University of British Columbia marine mammal
research director Andrew Trites.
Best known for his metabolic
experiments with sea lions at the Vancouver
Aquarium, which involve having them swim
in tanks that work somewhat like a joggers’
treadmill, Trites was outraged on October 2
when federal Department of Fisheries and
Oceans staff shot 17 seals near the mouth of
the Puntledge River, ostensibly to protect an
endangered chinook salmon run, as well as
cutthroat trout and steelhead. Another 23
seals were to be shot later.

« 1 … 98 99 100 101 102 … 173 »