Killing wildlife for fun & profit

June 1, 1994 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Austrian scientist Dr. Martin

Balluch, now at Cambridge University,

reportedly may be deported from Britain

because he opposes fox hunting. Letters of

protest may be sent to the Right Honorable

Michael Howard, Home Secretary, Home

Office, 50 Queen Anne’s Gate, London

SW1H 9AT, United Kingdom.

The winter of 1993-1994 was

among the harshest on record, forcing deer

to yard up sooner and stay yarded longer––but

early field reports indicate that few deer

starved despite hunters’ claims of deer over-

population. Wild turkeys were hard-hit, how-

eve––and may decline, warns National Wild

Turkey Federation representative Tom Baptie

of Castleton, Vermont, because undigested

grain from cow manure is a staple of their

winter diet, but anti-pollution laws now

restrict where and when manure can be spread.

BOOKS: Cockatoos in Aviculture

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Cockatoos in Aviculture, by Rosemary Low. Sterling Publishing

Co. (387 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016-8810), 1993, 270 pages.

$24.95, paperback.

Rosemary Low is a highly respected aviculturist, who is also involved in

parrot conservation with the World Parrot Trust. In this informative volume she

emphasizes the intelligent nature of cockatoos and the importance of treating them

with respect. She writes, “The best aviculturists are those who try to put them-

selves in the place of their birds and consider what they would like if they had to

change places.”

COURT CALENDAR

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Crimes Against Humans

Odd jobs man Joseph Bales,

33, and Helene LeMay, 31, a mail-

order vegetarian diet consultant, were

charged April 19 with illegally disposing

of their 10-week-old infant’s remains in

the woods near Eastman, Quebec, a

short drive from their St. Romain home,

and then filing a false kidnapping report

in New York City to cover up for the

baby’s death. Their story fell apart within

hours. An autopsy seemed to confirm

their story that the baby died of natural

causes, as there were no evident signs of

abuse or malnutrition. They did not

report the death, they said, because they

feared they would be charged with abuse,

after having been accused last year of

abusing a mentally retarded foster child.

Gorilla case was frame-up ––McGreal

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

MIAMI, Florida––Victor Bernal, 57,

director of zoos and parks for Mexico state,

Mexico, was convicted on May 18 of trying to

bootleg a gorilla from Florida who was actually a

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent in disguise.

Bernal paid $97,500 for the “gorilla,” in one of

two stings set up by convicted primate trafficker

Matthew Block of Worldwide Primates as part of

an attempted plea bargain. The other sting

nabbed alleged bird’s egg smuggler Clement

Solano.

Bernal is to be sentenced on July 18. In

the most recent similar case, a Texas exotic bird

dealer who was convicted of smuggling parrots

was on April 28 fined $10,000 and sentenced to

five years in prison.

Birds

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Hard-pressed sturgeon, sharks, and

rays got a break courtesy of the birds in May when

the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge

closed a popular fishing road to protect the nests of

threatened snowy plovers. Killed mainly for kicks,

not eating, the sturgeon, sharks, and rays are less

protected than the plovers but perhaps in greater

jeopardy of extinction because of their rapid deple-

tion and slow reproductive rate.

Oregon State University professor

Morrie Craig has received an award from the

American Racing Pigeon Union for developing a

way to test guano to detect the use of performance-

altering drugs. Doping has lately become a prob-

lem in pigeon racing, as the top prizes in interna-

tional competition have soared above $200,000.

AGRICULTURE

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

The USDA on April 26 announced yet another pro-

posal to raise grazing fees on federal land. This version would

boost the base fee to $3.96 per head-month by 1997, but would

provide incentive discounts for ranchers who undertake various

forms of conservation and/or rangeland improvement.

Comments will be reviewed until July 28. An Environmental

Protection Agency impact study published May 18 estimated that

current management practices would bring a 3% decline over the

next 20 years in stream quality in the affected habitat, while the

proposed changes would bring a 27% improvement.

A National Agricultural Statistics Service survey of

the 10 largest corn-producing states, which raise 80% of the total

U.S. corn crop, reports that less than 1% is lost to wildlife. The

average loss per acre is 0.66 bushels. Of the 35.4 million bushels

eaten by wild animals, deer eat 13.9 million, while birds eat 9.6

million. The 1993 crop came to 5.14 billion bushels in all.

New species discovered in the jungles of Southeast Asia

June 1, 1994 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia– –Exploration teams in the

jungles of Southeast Asia reported two extraordinary finds in late

April––a small herd of kouprey, an extremely rare wild cow, and an

entirely new deer species, the giant muntjac.

Italian veterinarian Maurizio Dioli tracked the kouprey in

northeastern Cambodia from March 27 until April 7, never actually

seeing any, but collecting evidence of their presence, also observing

“one of the largest populations of Asian elephants and Sumatran tigers

in Asia,” and evidence, too, of enough poaching to “present a major

threat to the survival of the wildlife.”

Wildlife

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Hope rose for the endangered

Florida panther in late May when volunteers

from the Coryi Foundation discovered a car-

cass, a single pawprint, and clumps of fur on

the grill of a car that struck an unknown animal

in the St. Johns and Kissimmee River water-

sheds––far outside the Big Cypress Swamp

area of Lake Okeechobee, which was previ-

ously the panther’s only known habitat.

A coalition of U.S. environmental

groups has petitioned the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service to add koalas to the endan-

gered species list. The koala population of

eastern Australia has fallen lately due to habi-

tat loss, caused by the combination of devel-

opment, logging, wildfires, and drought.

RWANDAN GORILLAS LIVE–– LAKE VICTORIA MIGHT NOT

June 1, 1994 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

VOLCANO NATIONAL PARK, Rwanda–– As of May

14, the mountain gorillas made famous by the late Dian Fossey were

unharmed by Rwandan civil strife, said Jose Kalpers, coordinator of

the International Gorilla Conservation Program.

The IGCP is sponsored by the African Wildlife

Foundation, the Fauna & Flora Preservation Society, and the World

Wildlife Fund.

Kalpers and the rest of the staff at Karasoke, Fossey’s for-

mer headquarters, were evacuated to Kenya shortly after the

Rwandan fighting broke out on April 6. Uganda closed Mgahinga

National Park on May 2, fearing fighting would spill over from the

Volcano National Park area of Rwanda––but it didn’t. By mid-May,

Kalpers said, he was able to visit Zaire, closer to Karasoke than his

temporary headquarters in Nairobi. From Zaire, Kalpers funded

resumed patrols by Rwandan and Zairean park wardens.

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