Wildlife serial-killing

June 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service has proposed
opening the Cape May National
Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey to
migratory bird hunting. Targeted
would be rails, gallinules, woodcock,
common snipe, ducks, geese,
coots, and mergansers. The rationale,
from the official impact statement:
“The demand for additional
public hunting areas increases as
more and more land is developed.
Providing the hunting public with
areas in which to hunt helps assure a
safe and quality hunting experience.”

Ghosties, goblins, and bumping off whales in the night

June 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

ABERDEEN, Scotland– – The
June 24-28 annual meeting of the
International Whaling Commission might
appropriately open with the ancient Scots
prayer, “God keep us from ghosties and goblins
and things that go ‘bump’ in the night.”
Resurrecting the ghost of whaling
from longboats last done more than 70 years
ago, the Makah tribe of the outermost tip of
the Olympic peninsula in Washington will bid
to claim a subsistance quota on grey whales
and become the first legal whalers along the
Pacific coast of the U.S. mainland since the
whaling station at Point Richmond,
California closed more than 20 years ago.
The Makah will be supported, for reasons
pertaining to political correctness, by Greenpeace
and the U.S. government––and Japan,
whose whaling industry has cultivated a close
relationship with Makah minister of fisheries
Daniel Green.

BOOKS: Alligators & Crocodiles

May 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

Alligators & Crocodiles, by Eric
D. Stoops and Debbie Ly n n e
Stone. Sterling Publishing (387 Park
Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-
8810), 1996. 80 pages, illustrated,
$13.95 paperback.

At about age four, I was terrified
of a mummified baby Cuvier’s Dwarf
Caiman belonging to a student who roomed
with us––in part because he was dead. I
sensed that the caiman no more wanted to be
among us than I wanted him to be there.
Alligators & Crocodiles brought that 40-
year-old memory back with a photo, captioned
“Studies of the contents of the stomach
of the Cuvier’s Dwarf Caiman suggest
that these caimans sometimes eat their
young.” Adds a second caption, “Probably
the Cuvier’s Dwarf Caiman is the rarest.”
Small wonder. Most other crocodilians are,
if nothing else, devoted mothers. And this
book tells everything any child is likely to
want to know about them.

BOOKS: The Flight of the Red Knot

May 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

The Flight of the Red Knot, by
Brian Harrington with Charles
Flowers. W.W. Norton & Company,
Inc. (500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
10110), published in association with
WGBH–Boston and Manomet
Observatory, 1996. 192 pages; $29.95.

Subtitled “A natural history
account of a small bird’s annual migration
from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South
America and back,” this is a beautifully
illustrated book about the remarkable yearly
journeys of a species of sandpiper known as
the red knot. Measuring approximately 10
inches long and weighing about 20 ounces,
this hardy traveller migrates nearly 18,000
miles every year––an awesome distance by
any reckoning.

Moving fast for turtles to stay ahead of Tauzin

May 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––Manhattan is a long
way from Louisiana, but expert intervention by the
New York Turtle and Tortoise Society on March 21
brought 10,000 Louisiana box turtles their biggest break
since they hatched.
As a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service memo put
it, “The Office of Scientific Authority is unable to find
that export of Gulf Coast box turtles and three-toed box
turtles collected in Louisiana will not be detrimental to
the survival of either subspecies. Therefore OSA advises
that an export quota of zero be set for 1996 for box
turtles,” who previously could be taken only from
Louisiana.

ESA revision bill unlikely to go to vote

May 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

WASHINGTON, D.C.––
The Biodiversity Legal Foundation
on April 1 led a coalition of grassroots
groups in filing suit against
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
for alleged violation of the
Endangered Species Act and
Administrative Procedures Act on
February 27, when in keeping with
the moratorium on listing new
endangered species agreed to by
President Bill Clinton and
Republican Congressional leaders,
about 4,000 species were dropped
from consideration as “formal candidates”
for protection.

International wildlife news

May 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

Africa
Rangers at Garamba
National Park in Zaire on March
28 reported the poaching kill of a
10-year-old pregnant female northern
white rhino, one of under 30 in
existence and the second to be
poached in 12 days. “This is a tragic
loss,” said World Wildlife Fund
director-general Claude Martin from
Geneva. As of February 14, when
WWF announced the vulnerability
of the rhinos to media, no endangered
animals of any kind had been
poached at Garamba since 1984,
despite heavy poaching of elephants
and hooved stock, blamed on
Sudanese rebels and refugees,
whose camps flank the park.

Sea Turtles

May 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

Earth Island Institute, The Fund for
Animals, and the Humane Society of the U.S. o n
April 19 announced the formation of a 30-organization
“consumer-powered campaign to end the slaughter” of
sea turtles in shrimping by seeking “turtle-safe shrimp
eco-labelling,” patterned after the dolphin-safe labeling
campaign of 1990.
Ecologist Paul Robertson, executive director
of Bat Conservation International 1988-1989 and
field director at the Center for Rainforest Studies in
Queensland, Australia, 1991-1995, is new executive
director of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation,
sponsor of the Sea Turtle Survival League, founded in
1959 by the late sea turtle advocate Archie Carr.

Salmon

May 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

Canadian fisheries minister Fred Mifflin
on March 30 declared that the government would cut
the British Columbia salmon fishing fleet of 4,400
vessels in half over the next three years, via license
buy-backs. Fishing industry representatives said the
plan wouldn’t do much to help depleted salmon
recover, however, because 75% of the catch is taken
by the 20% of the fleet most likely to stay active.
Also to protect salmon, the Canadian
Department of Fisheries and Oceans the same day
announced the closure for this year of the commercial
sockeye fishery on the mouth of the Fraser
River, and said native and recreational fishing might
be closed there as well. This year’s Fraser River
salmon run is expected to be the lowest on record.

« 1 … 121 122 123 124 125 … 173 »