Puma panic

July 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Worthy of a film expose in the tradition of Reefer Madness,
the hyperbolic 1936 documentary that alerted the world to the perils of
marijuana, PUMA PANIC!!! could be coming soon to a suburb near you!
Causes include the possible presence of a puma within a few
dozen miles; public reminders that pumas eat pets and people; hunting
advocates blaming the problem on an alleged lack of people using
hounds and telemetry to track pumas, then blow them out of trees in
such a manner as to save intact heads for the wall; and wildlife officials
engaging in bizarre rituals to avert the threat, sometimes reminiscent of
animal sacrifice to appease an alleged dragon.
For instance, with the approval of Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife biologist John Thiebes, volunteer trapper Richard Stahl
circa May 13 live-trapped a purported feral cat, fed the cat for three
days, and then staked him out in a small cage as live bait for a puma
who purportedly stalked two boys near Medford on April 3, six weeks
earlier; killed several other cats; and killed a dachshund on April 29.

COURT CALENDAR

June 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Crimes vs. humans
The “Lords of Chaos,”
charged May 4 with the April 30
thrill-killing of music teacher Mark
Schwebes at his home in Pine Manor,
Florida, began a two-week spree of
arson, robbery and mayhem by burning
two large macaws alive in their
cage at The Hut, a local restaurant.
Facing murder charges are K e v i n
Foster, 18; Christopher Black, 18;
Derek Shields, 18; and P e t e r
Magnotti, 17. A fifth gang member,
Christopher Burnett, 17, is
charged only with conspiracy to commit
armed robbery.

BOOKS: Wildlife Conservation, Zoos, and Animal Protection: A Strategic Analysis

June 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Wildlife Conservation, Zoos, and
Animal Protection: A Strategic Analysis
Center for Animals & Public Policy
(Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine,
200 Westboro Road, North Grafton, MA
01536), 1996. 254 pages, $30.00, paperback.

Wildlife Conservation, Zoos, and Animal
Protection: A Strategic Analysis, combines the proceedings
of the 1994 White Oak Conservation Center
conference by the same title with original commentary
by Center for Animals and Public Policy director
Andrew Rowan, wildlife expert Jennifer Lewis of the
Massachusetts SPCA, and John Robinson of the
Wildlife Conservation Society, formerly known as the
New York Zoological Society.

Birds

June 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service on May 18 commenced poisoning
5,700 seagulls at the Monomoy
National Wildlife Refuge, off Chatham,
Cape Cod, to protect an estimated 35
endangered piping plovers from predation.
The killing proceeded after U.S.
District Judge George O’Toole denied a
request for an injunction against it filed
by the Massachusetts SPCA and the
Humane Society of the U.S.
The Ngatihine Maori, of
Whangarei, New Zealand, on May 16
welcomed home the two survivors of four
endangered kiwis, tested along with six
bats at the government’s Wallaceville
Animal Research Centre to see if the rabbit
calicivirus disease currently ravaging
the Australian rabbit population might
harm native species. The February
killing and dissection of the other two
kiwis provoked protest from Ngatihine
leaders, who charged that they were misled
when they authorized the birds’ use.

Safe at last!

June 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Marine mammologist Ignacio Agudo, left, posed for
one quick photo with Alice Dodge of Pet Search, right, on their
way down the gangplank to Aruba after the first leg of his dramatic
February escape from Venezuela––where Agudo and fellow
ecologist Aldemaro Romero have been wanted for alleged
treason since February 1994, because they videotaped fishers in
the act of killing a dolphin for bait one full year before. The
video, aired on both U.S. and Venezuelan television, severely
embarrassed the Venezuelan government in their effort to undo
the U.S. “dolphin-safe” standard for imported tuna.
Romero escaped earlier, along with his family, and
now lives in Miami. “It is hard for me to recognize Ignacio
without his beard,” he laughed when shown the photo. “I have
never before seen him without it.”

Underfunded ESA back in force

June 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Unwilling to drop
a year-long moratorium on the listing of species as
either “threatened” or “endangered” under the
Endangered Species Act, but facing more presidential
vetoes of the 1996 budget if the moratorium remained
in the budget bill, Congress on April 26 allowed Bill
Clinton to exercise a waiver amounting to a line item
veto of the ESA moratorium and several other riders
Clinton deemed unacceptable.
Clinton exercised the waiver soon after the
bill cleared the House and Senate––but it wasn’t all
good news for endangered species. Of symbolic
import, a rider allowing the construction of a third
telescope site on Mount Graham, Arizona, could not
be waived despite possible risk to the endangered
Mount Graham squirrel. Less noticed but of greater
significance, the budget bill cuts the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service budget for researching endangered
species proposals 39%, cuts the total USFWS budget
by $12.5 million, and cuts U.S. funding of the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species in half, from 25% of the total (about $1.4
million) to 12% ($700,000). CITES is the major
instrument for regulating the global traffic
in exotic animals.

KAIMANAWA WILD HORSES COME UNDER FIRE

June 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

New Zealand conservation minister Denis Marshall on May 14 lifted the 1981 protection
order safeguarding the Kaimanawa Wild Horse Range, a primary training area for the
New Zealand Army, and ordained that 1,000 resident wild horses are to be shot or sold. “Five
hundred wild horses have a stay of execution for three years,” horse advocate Ellen Lee posted
to the AR-News e-mail list, “while their impact is assessed. If anyone can find suitable
land, another 300 can be moved to it, but the DoC will not fund any part of this, and it would
be almost impossibly expensive. At the end of three years,” she continued, “either the relocated
herd or the remnant on Army land will be exterminated, or both,” depending on the
DoC findings. “The final toll may be the entire herd. The shooting is to be ground-based.

Coyotes

June 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Representatives of
seven national and regional
animal protection
groups on May 13 picketed
the Home Savings of
America annual shareholders
meeting because
the savings-and-loan permits
fox and coyote hunting
on the Ahmanson
Ranch, which it owns,
in the West San Fernando
Valley. Explained a joint
release, “The hunts drive
coyote and other animals
off the ranch into adjacent
urban communities,”
where they are “killed or
captured by animal regulation
officers.”

Canada plans protection for bears

June 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

“The Ontario government intends to prohibit the commercial
sale of black bear parts, regardless of their origin, and limit each hunter
to one license for the animals each year,” the Toronto Globe and Mail
reported on April 4, two days after the Calgary Herald reported that,
“The Alberta government is considering a ban on recreational hunting of
grizzly bears because they are considered to be an ‘at risk’ species.”
Continued the Herald, “The proposal to outlaw grizzly hunting
could also be extended to wolverine trapping,” a species extirpated by
trapping from Hudson’s Bay east––not so much for pelts as because trappers
resent the wolverine habit of raiding traplines. “The hunt will proceed
this spring. I wouldn’t bet it will be there next spring,” the Herald
quoted provincial wildlife biologist John Gunson.
“We still have to deal with the spring bear hunt, the use of
dogs, and the use of baits, but we’re off to a good start,” said Barry Kent
MacKay, a director of both the Animal Alliance of Canada and Zoocheck
Canada, and program director for the Animal Protection Institute.

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