Too many deer

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Deer overpopulation remained a hot

issue right through the winter in at least four

states. In Pennsylvania, where the legislature

recently mandated a 6.5% cut in the deer herd,

the state Game Commission enlisted the

National Guard to plow 1,200 miles of roads

and trails to enable hungry deer to reach 875

food plots at 65 public access hunting areas.

Without the feeding, some deer might have

starved––and many pregnant does would have

reabsorbed their fetuses, achieving the reduc-

tion in herd size independent of sport hunting.

Animal Control & Rescue

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

International

Police in the East City dis-

trict of Beijing, China, beat 351 dogs

to death during the second week of

February. “Our policy is to annihilate

them,” said district deputy chief of pub-

lic security Li Wenrui. Some other dis-

trict police bureaus spared smaller pure-

breds––if their owners could find homes

for them outside the city. Still others

killed dogs by strangulation, electrocu-

tion, and dragging them behind jeeps.

Press releases said the dogs were taken

to a shelter run by the Public Security

Ministry, but Jan Wong of the Toronto

Globe and Mail’s China Bureau reported

there is no such place. The Communist

government banned dogs as a nuisance

and a waste of food when it came to

power in 1949. Dogs have been hunted

out and killed every few years since

1951. Despite the killing, stepped up

since 1986, an estimated 100,000 dogs

inhabit Beijing, where a black market

dog can cost as much as many workers’

annual income. Foreigners and others

who can get dogs licensed and vaccinat-

ed may keep them––but rabies vaccine is

so scarce that the disease has killed as

many as 60,000 Chinese since 1980,

and most license applications are denied.

Audubon muzzled criticism of hunting

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

SAN FRANCISCO, California––Desperately Seeking Sanctuary, an

hour-long National Audubon Society expose of abuses to the U.S. National

Wildlife Refuge system, aired March 6 on the Turner Broadcasting

Network––but only after senior Audubon officials cut criticism of hunting, trap-

ping, and fishing, investigative freelance Mark Dowie revealed the same day in

the San Francisco Examiner. Dowie is remembered for his 1977 revelation that

the Ford Motor Company had ruled against spending an extra $11 per car to keep

Pintos from exploding in rear-end collisions.

“In the original script and early rough cuts,” Dowie charged, “hunting,

trapping, and fishing were given equal time and treated with as much indignation

as drilling, logging, and military bombing runs. The script had special appeal

for (narrator) Mariel Hemingway, who spent much of her youth tearfully plead-

ing with her father not to hunt big game.” Her father, Gregory Hemingway, a

trophy hunter, pigeon-shooting champion, and convicted transvestite, was son

of author Ernest Hemingway––who became obsessed with hunting after his

mother forced him to wear dresses until he started school.

BOOKS: Sterling references

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

The Reptile and Amphibian Keeper’s

Dictionary, by David C. Wareham. 1993. 193 pages,

hardcover, $24.95 ($34.95 in Canada).

Dolphins & Porpoises: A World-wide

Guide, by Jean-Pierre Sylvestre. 1994. 160 pages,

hardcover, $19.95 ($25.95 in Canada).

The Greenpeace Book of Coral Reefs, by

Susan Wells & Nick Hanna. 1992, 160 pages, hard-

cover, $35.00.

All from Sterling Publishing Co. (387 Park

Ave. South, New York, NY 10016-8810).

ANIMAL WELFARE ACT ENFORCEMENT

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Matthew Block and Worldwide

Primates, of Miami, Florida, were fined $16,000

on January 27 for failure to provide primates with

adequate food, water, ventilation, and sanitation.

Block is under sentence for his role in arranging a

multinational 1990 orangutan smuggling deal,

exposed by the International Primate Protection

League and known as the “Bangkok Six” case.

The USDA has filed stiffer charges

against Class B animal dealer Jerry Vance, of

Europa, Mississippi. Charged in September with

improper recordkeeping, after the TV news program

Eye to Eye with Connie Chung documented the dis-

covery of several missing pets at his facility, Vance

is now accused of improper dog identification, fail-

ing to provide veterinary care, and failing to provide

adequate shelter.

Horses

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

The Ochoa brothers, reputedly

the world’s leading cocaine traffickers after

the death of Pablo Escobar in a shootout with

Colombian police late last year, reputedly

launder their income through their father’s

horse breeding business. Fabio Ochoa

Restrepo’s herd of 1,200 horses is reportedly

worth $25 million. The Escobar family also

breeds horses, but the value of their stock fell

shortly before Pablo Escobar was killed,

when rivals castrated a stud worth $1 million.

Poachers

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

California wardens on

January 28 broke up the Ace

Hunting Club, a bear poaching ring

allegedly run by William Jim Taek

Lee, 35. Trophy hunters paid Lee

$1,500 apiece to be guided to bears;

Lee then sold bear parts both local-

ly and to Korea. The operation

reportedly killed 30 bears and net-

ted $600,000 In a parallel but

apparently unrelated case, t h e

Pennsylvania Game Commission

five days later charged Tae-Ukand

Elaine S. Kang of Coatesville,

Pennsylvania, with illegally traf-

ficking in bear galls.

Birds

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

The January/February edition of World Watch, the journal of the

Worldwatch Institute, postulated that wild birds are the “canaries in the coal mine”

whose decline warns of forthcoming ecodisaster. The article cited studies finding that

1,000 of the 9,600 known bird species are endangered or threatened; 70% of known

species are decining in numbers; and 2,600 species are involved in international trade.

Under pressure to provide targets for hunters and faced with crashing

populations of most migratory waterfowl, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is consid-

ering lifting a ban on goose hunting along the Pacific Flyway. The ban was imposed to

protect the cackling Canada goose and the Pacific white-fronted goose, whose num-

bers dropped from 300,000 to 28,500 and from 500,000 to 93,900 during the 1980s,

but are now back up to 164,300 and 275,100, respectively.

Coyote-killing “like calling a girl”

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

GILLETTE, Wyoming––Coyote, fox,

and rabbit-killing contests and bounty programs

popped up around the west in midwinter––in

response, organizers said, to a year-old moratori-

um on coyote-killing by the federal Animal

Damage Control Program, won through a lawsuit

filed by the Humane Society of the U.S. Ranchers

argued that nonlethal coyote control hasn’t worked,

citing an American Sheep Industry Association

report that coyotes in Wyoming and Colorado have

learned to run sheep dogs to exhaustion, attack

them in packs, and split up so that some can divert

the dogs while others kill sheep. They claimed huge

livestock losses to an alleged overpopulation of coy-

otes and foxes, although killing contest participants

averaged only two dead coyotes and one dead fox

per 18 days of hunting. ASIA and other ranch lob-

bies are trying to lift the ADC moratorium––along

with a ban on the use of spring-fired traps called M-

44s that shoot poison into coyotes’ mouths. The

traps are banned to protect eagles, who likewise

may snatch the bait with fatal consequences.

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