Wild felines

April 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Reduced to a U.S. population estimated
at 350 to 700 by the trapping boom
of the early 1980s, the North American lynx
may now be the most notable casualty of the
Congressionally imposed moratorium on protecting
additional species under the
Endangered Species Act. U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service biologist Lori Nordstrom
recommended in 1994 that the lynx be given
federal protection, beyond the limited protection
already extended by 13 of the 20 states it
once inhabited. However, with the ESA up
for renewal and so-called “takings” of property
rights to protect endangered species a hot
topic in the 1994 Congressional election campaign,
the USFWS denied the listing. The
denial is contested in a recent lawsuit filed by
Jasper Carlton of the Biodiversity Legal
Foundation, with 12 other organizations as
co-plaintiffs.

Mobster lobsters?

April 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

MEXICO CITY––Homero Aridjis,
president of the influential Mexican environmental
organization Grupo de los Cien
Internacional, on March 10 hinted in an article
published in the Mexico City newspaper
Reforma that politically well-connected drug
dealers may be a “mysterious ‘third partner,’”
along with the Japanese firm Mitsubishi and
the Mexican government, in the Salitrales de
San Ignacio salt mining project. The project
is widely seen as a threat to the gray whale
calving lagoons at the northern end of the
Gulf of California. Aridjis attributed the theory
to Francisco Guzman Lazo, who for nine
years was general director of the Exportadora
de Sal, S.A. salt exporting firm jointly
owned by Mitsubishi and Mexico, and for
seven years was president of Baja Bulk
Carriers, “the Liberian-flagged company
which does all the deep-sea shipping to
Japan, the U.S., and Canada of salt produced
in Guerror Negro.”

The politics of seal slaughter by Captain Paul Watson

April 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

It isn’t easy being a Canadian. We don’t get a hell
of a lot of respect. To most of the world, especially the U.S.,
we’re a quiet people with an unremarkable history, occupying
a considerable amount of frozen geography.
They’ve heard of maple syrup, Canadian
Club––and that we host the largest single slaughter of a
wildlife species anywhere on Earth.
Our annual massacre of harp and hooded seals is
infamous internationally both for scale and for gruesome cruelty.
The seal club is better known than the rye whisky kind.
Not that it makes economic sense. It doesn’t make
money and hasn’t for decades. The sealers are glorified welfare
bums, living high on subsidies and being paid more for
who they are than what they do.

Mystery deaths

April 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Theories are many but proof lacking
concerning the causes of recent multiple
mysterious mass deaths of marine mammals
in different parts of the Atlantic. First, from
mid-January to February 22, five or six
northern right whales––the count was disputed––were
found dead in their wintering and
calving area off Georgia and Florida. On
March 11 yet another right whale washed up
at Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The current
northern right whale population is believed to
be no more than 300, and the deaths equal
the total known number of calves from 1995.
Fourteen calves are known to have been born
this year, but three were among the dead.

Marine life

April 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

As expected, U.S. President Bill
Clinton announced February 9 that the U.S.
would “vigorously pursue high-level efforts to
persuade Japan to reduce the number of whales
killed in its research program,” but stopped
short of imposing trade sanctions, as he is
authorized to do in response to a Commerce
Department advisory issued in December that
Japan is violating the intent of the International
Whaling Commission moratorium on commercial
whaling by setting “research” quotas for
minke whales so high––now more than
400––that the “research” amounts to commercial
whaling.

Animal health

April 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Amid the mad cow disease panic, Britain barely
noticed the death of an 11-year-old Moslem girl from anthrax
after a two-day stay at the Poitier’s University Hospital in
London. Anthrax, a disease of known epidemic potential, hits
about 100,000 people a year. It can be treated with antibiotics, if
recognized early, but otherwise kills through the combination of
high fever, pneumonia, and internal hemorrages. Sixteen days
before falling ill, the girl helped her father kill an infected sheep
at an unlicensed slaughterhouse during the Ramadan religious
holiday. She then ate a lightly cooked piece of the liver. The rest
of her family, fasting according to the rules of Ramadan, waited
until the end of the holidays before boiling and eating the rest of
the meat. None of them became ill.

Winter of snow and drought

April 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Severe swings in winter weather,
believed to be symptomatic of global warming,
hit animals hard around the world.
Near Bascones del Agua, in northern
Spain, more than 4,000 pigs drowned two days
after Christmas when a river overflowing with
snowmelt from the Pyranees mountains trapped
them in their barn.
At the same time, tropical fish farmers
in Hillsborough County, Florida, lost fish by the
ton to a sudden cold snap. The U.S. tropical fish
industry centers on Florida, and about 150 of
Florida’s 184 tropical fish farms are in
Hillsborough County, previously noted for climatic
stability.

Wolves

April 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

More Yellowstone releases
Yellowstone––Following the release of 28
Canadian-captured grey wolves in Yellowstone National
Park and central Idaho last spring, 38 wolves are to be
released in the Yellowstone region this spring.
The second round of the high-profile reintroduction
of wolves––extirpated by the forerunner of the
Animal Damage Control program in 1922––began in
January with the apprehension of the wolves by British
Columbia bounty trappers. The B.C. wildlife branch has
contracted to supply up to 180 grey wolves to the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service over the next four years. The
wolves will be taken out of a region overlapping the area
where B.C. wildlife branch officers killed more than 700
wolves during the mid-1980s, to make more ungulates
available to trophy hunters. The present wolf population
of the region is estimated at 300.

Missouri to trap otters: New icon for antifur drive with European ban pending

April 1, 1996 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

BRUSSELS––If Europe banned the
import of seal pelts because of the cuteness of
harp seals, just wait until they meet river
otters––not only cute, but playfully active
and insatiably gregarious.
The Missouri Department of
Conservation quietly approved the resumption
of trapping river otters in May 1995, but
word didn’t reach the public until Valentine’s
Day, when the world learned from an article
by Mead Gruver in the St. Louis River Front
Times that the Missouri Trappers aim to give
Miss Missouri an otter coat this year.
Thus alerted, the Fur Bearer
Defenders and the Sea Wolf Alliance warmed
up their fax machines. Within hours bigger
organizations including the Animal Legal
Defense Fund, Fund for Animals, and the
Humane Society of the U.S. were on the case.

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