Norwegian effort to push “trophy sealing” flops

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

OSLO–The Norwegian government opened the
2005 Norwegian sealing season to foreigners,
anticipating a trophy hunting bonanza, but “Only
17-18 foreign hunters signed on,” reported
Aftenposten on March 14, while protests against
the hunt were held outside 22 Norwegian embassies.
Pitching the hunt to tourists was not
popular with Norwegian tour promoters.
“It is completely unnecessary to provoke
world opinion with something as marginal as
tourist seal hunts,” Destination Ålesund &
Sunnmøre head of travel Terje Devol told
Aftenposten.
“If the media focus remains on the seal
hunt, we will see it in our tourist statistics,”
Norwegian Hospitality Association director Knut
Almquist told the rival newspaper Dagsavisen.

BOOKS: Astonishing Animals

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Astonishing Animals
Extraordinary Creatures & the Fantastic World they Inhabit
by Tim Flannery & Peter Schouten
Atlantic Monthly Press (841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003), 2004.
Hard cover, 203 pages. $29.95.

This absorbing book celebrates the diversity of evolution.
Flannery takes the reader through a gallery of 97 of the
strangest-looking creatures on the planet. Many appear to owe less
to nature than to a Hollywood special effects studio.
Each turn of a page brings yet another fresh delight,
sometimes enough to make one gasp.
The behaviour of some animals matches their extreme
appearance. Sea devils absorb their own skeletons in order to
procure the calcium needed for their eggs. The male net-devil eats
his way into the female and then lives off her blood, a permanent
parasite. (Some women may be tempted to make morbid comparisons).
The stoplight loosejaw has evolved a separate set of formidable
jaws–outside its body. The King of Saxony bird of paradise boasts
eyebrows three times the length of its body, bedecked with
streamers, in order to beguile the female.

Rough weather slows 2005 Canadian seal hunt

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

CHARLOTTESTOWN, P.E.I.– Pack ice and
rough weather reportedly kept Gulf of St.
Lawrence sealers from killing more than 40% of
their quota of 90,000 seals, in the first phase
of the annual Atlantic Canada seal massacre, but
the 56,000 seals they didn’t kill will be added
to the Labrador Front quota.
The full 2005 quota of 319,500 seals is
the largest in 50 years–although the sealers
overkilled their quota last year, pelting
365,971 seals in all, 97% of them under three
months old.
The 2005 protest effort, including
rallies in 27 cities worldwide, was the biggest
in 22 years, but was upstaged by nature.
“The sealing vessel Sandy Beach was
abandoned 30 miles north of the Magdalen
Islands,” recited Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society founder Paul Watson from the bridge of
the Sea Shepherd Farley Mowat on March 30, as
the hunt got started. “Her crew were airlifted
by a Coast Guard helicopter. The Yankee Point
was abandoned, is listing heavily in the ice,
and will most likely sink. The crew were rescued
by the Cooper Island. The Cooper Island is now
listing heavily with 40 sealers aboard. The
icebreaker Earl Grey is en route to rescue them.
“The Horizon I was under tow by the Coast
Guard ship Amundsen when the tow line broke. The
vessel is reported abandoned,” Watson continued.
“The Jean Mathieu has called for help. Two
distress signals came from unidentified sealing
vessels. Some sealing vessels reported having
their bridge windows blown in and their
electronics damaged.”

Galloping doubts about BLM wild horse sales ordered by Congress

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

WASHINGTON D.C.–The Bureau of Land
Management and the buyers themselves tried to
depict the first sales in a mass disposal of wild
horses mandated by Congress as “rescues,” by
“sanctuaries,” but horse rescue veterans are not
all buying the dog-and-pony show.
The sales are required by a stealth
amendment to the 1971 Wild and Free Ranging
Horse and Burro Protection Act introduced by U.S.
Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana) in November
2004. The Burns amendment orders the BLM to sell
“without limitation” any horse in custody who is
10 years of age or who has been offered for
adoption three times without a taker.
About 8,400 of the 24,000 horses already
in the BLM captive inventory were made
immediately eligible for sale, and many of the
remainder will be eligible by the end of the
year. The BLM is also continuing to capture
horses, with the stated goal of reducing the
U.S. wild horse population from about 37,000 to
circa 28,000.

BOOKS: Brushed by Feathers: A Year of Birdwatching in the West

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Brushed by Feathers: A Year of Birdwatching in the West
by Frances Wood
Fulcrum Publishing (16200 Table Mountain Parkway, Suite 300,
Golden, CO 80403), 2004.
247 pages, paperback. $16.95.

Frances Wood lives on the far side of South Whidbey Island,
about 10 miles from here, as the crow flies–along with most other
birds common to the Pacific North-west. Most resident species have
some presence here, in habitat that varies from old-growth cedar to
open fields, orchards, rocky beaches, and light-density human
development. Most Pacific Flyway migratory species stop over to feed.
Counting 20 species in 10 minutes is often no more difficult
than stepping outside, amid hummingbirds, chickadees, nuthatches,
finches, wrens, sparrows, American robins, and towhees, among
the most frequent visitors; listening for woodpeckers, with the
pileated, hairy, and downy varieties all nesting nearby; checking
the sky for great blue herons, bald eagles, redtail hawks, osprey,
northern gos-hawks, and American kestrels while walking to the car;
watching for startled owls gliding across the road between here and
the ferry landing; and observing the variety of gulls, ducks,
cormorants, and pigeons at the landing while waiting to board.
Scarcer species, requiring books to identify, appear about
once a week.

Fox hunters vow to “keep buggering on”

March 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

LONDON–A reported 300,000 people rode to hounds on February
20, a record number for one day of fox hunting in Britain, on the
first hunting date after traditional fox hunting was ostensibly
banned.
But the most publicized estimates of hunter numbers may have
been much too high. Twenty-four hours after Daniel Foggo, Karyn
Miller and Tony Freinberg of the pro-hunting Daily Telegraph put the
number of hunts in the field at 184, the most widely cited estimate
was 270. The discrepancy might have resulted from small hunting
clubs holding combined hunts, so as to boost the turnout.
The Scotsman political correspondent Jamie Lyons observed
“little discernible difference” between traditional hounding and
“flushing foxes out of a wood [with not more than two dogs] and
shooting them, before their scent is left as a trail for the
hounds,” as those who ride to hounds now must do in order to hunt
legally.
“The Countryside Alliance said 91 foxes were killed,” Lyons
continued, “most shot within the law. But there were four
‘accidents,’ and one stag was killed in the West Country,” Lyons
added.

Why hunting can’t save African wildlife

March 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

NAIROBI–Used to fighting heavily armed Somali poachers who
strike Tsavo National Park from the northeast, Kenya Wildlife
Service wardens found themselves under fire from a different
direction near Lake Jipe on January 21 when they ordered a battered
blue Toyota pickup truck to stop.
Hauling two eland carcasses, the truck appeared to be
engaged in routine bush meat trafficking. Bush meat traffickers
rarely risk their lives in shootouts. They tend to try bribery
first, then pay a small fine and perhaps spend a few days in jail.
But this time the wardens’ vehicle was quickly disabled by a
.404 slug from an elephant gun. The wardens shot back.
“Two middle-aged poachers died on the spot. Three made a
hasty escape through the scrubland, leaving their bloody cargo and a
shotgun behind,” Kenya Wildlife Service deputy director for wildlife
security Peter Leitoro told Edward Indakwa and Evelyne Ogutu of the
East African Standard.

Wolf reintroduction wins twice in federal court

March 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

ALBUQUERQUE, PORTLAND –February 1, 2005 was a good day for
wolves, at least in court.
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. District Judge Christina
Armijo dismissed an effort to force the removal of Mexican gray
wolves from southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The
wolves were reintroduced to the region in 1998. The New Mexico
Cattle Growers Association, Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties
for Stable Economic Growth, and co-plaintiffs held that the
reintroduction–debated for more than a decade–was done with
insufficient study.
Ruling for a coalition headed by Defenders of Wildlife, U.S.
District Judge Robert E. Jones of Portland, Oregon meanwhile
reversed an April 2003 ruling by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
that the gray wolves of the continental U.S. form three separate
populations, and are endangered only in the west.

Other wildlife cases

March 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

U.S. District Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz ruled on January 19,
2005 in San Diego that the Honolulu-based King Diamond II became a
fishing vessel under U.S. law when it collected 32 tons of shark fins
from 26 swordfish and tuna fishing boats between June and August
2002. The prosecution is the first under the five-year-old U.S.
anti-shark finning law. Tai Loong Hong Marine Products Ltd., of
Hong Kong, boat owner Tran & Yu Inc., and captain Chien Tan Nguyen
face up to $620,000 in fines for alleged possession of shark fins
without the bodies of the sharks, which have little sale value. The
King Diamond II operators allegedly paid $300,000 for the fins, with
an estimated retail value of $775,000. They retrieved and sold the
fins after posting bond for that amount.
District Judge David Rice of Havre, Montana, on February
12, 2005 rejected claims by three ex-game ranchers that Initiative
143, approved by voters in November 2000, was an illegal “taking”
of their property because in banning game farming, it put them out
of business. “The state does not owe compensation for injury to the
value of a business that exists only because the Legislature has
allowed it,” Rice wrote. Rice pointed out that the ex-game farmers
are “free to make other economically viable use of their property.”

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