CAN HUMAN-RAISED CHIMPS FIND HAPPINESS?

July 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

Experiments of markedly contrasting
intent in raising young chimpanzees are underway
at the Primarily Primates sanctuary in San
Antonio, Texas, and the New Iberia Primate
Center on the campus of the University of
Louisiana at Lafayette.
In San Antonio, Primarily Primates
president Wally Swett is trying to hand-raise two
young chimps whose mothers were too psychologically
and physically scarred by use in biomedical
research to be able to rear them. His goal
is to produce happy, healthy adults who will be
able to live without maladjustment for the rest of
their lives in a sanctuary setting.
The first infant chimp, Deeter, is a
male who “was born at Primarily Primates on
May 28, 1999, after his mother Betty, a former
member of the NASA colony at Holloman Air
Force Base in New Mexico, arrived pregnant,”
Swett explains. “Sadly, Betty had deformed
breasts and couldn’t feed him.”

Seals & sealing

July 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

The Atlantic Canada seal hunt
closed on June 15 with about 94,000 seal carcasses
landed, 184,000 short of quota.
Claiming the harp seal population is near an
all-time high, the Canadian Department of
Fisheries and Oceans said bad ice conditions
caused the shortfall. Blaming seals for collapsed
fish stocks, Atlantic Canadians from
1996 to 1999 killed more than a million seals.
British Columbia fish farmers,
said the Canadian DFO, in 1999 killed 470
harbor seals, 133 California sea lions, and
87 Stellar sea lions. Stellar sea lions are listed
as endangered in nearby U.S. waters.

Sea change in Hawaii

July 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

HONOLULU––Federal District Judge David Ezra on June 23 effectively closed the Hawaiian longline fishery if the National Marine Fisheries Service cannot achieve “100% coverage” of the fleet with onboard observers within 30 days to insure protection of endangered species.

If the ruling is not amended or overturned on appeal, 115 vessels with 600 crew will be idled.

Fourteen NMFS observers monitored 3% to 5% of longliner sailings from 1995 through April 2000. On May 9, however, 12 of the 14 observers were laid off.

Whaling or sanctuary?

July 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

ADELAIDE, Australia– – Japan
was to introduce a plan to expand its “scientific
whaling” program to kill 10 sperm whales
and 50 Bryde’s whales next year as well as
more than 500 minkes at the 52nd annual
meeting of the International Whaling
Commission, to be held July 3-6 in Adelaide.
The Japanese fleet killed 439 whales
out of a self-allocated quota of 440 this year.
Against intense Japanese opposition,
including direct mailings to Adelaide residents,
Australia and New Zealand were to
seek designation of a South Pacific Whale
Sanctuary.
The new sanctuary would extend the
protection zone for southern hemisphere
baleen whales to encompass their breeding
areas, as well as the feeding locations already
protected within the existing Southern Ocean
and Indian Ocean sanctuaries.

Endangered great apes seek life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

July 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

KAMPALA, Uganda; LISLE ,
Illinois––Can another group seeking to save
wild African primates make a difference?
Already, more nonprofit would-be
saviours are trying to save nonhuman primates
than there are members of some rare
species jeopardized by logging and the bushmeat
trade.
Sketchy Panafrican News Agency
reports about the June 22 debut of Friends of
the Mountain Gorilla Society at the International
Conference Centre in Kampala,
Uganda, hint that it may be among a small
but growing number of African conservation
groups founded and run by Africans of
African descent. At deadline no other information
was available.

FIGHTING U-BOAT FOR ENDANGERED SEA TURTLES LANDS VISAKHA SPCA FOUNDER IN HOT WATER

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

VISAKHAPATNAM, India– – A brave commander and two soldiers defending women and children huddled on a beach against invasion by submarine is the stuff of action movies.

But soft-spoken Visakha SPCA founder Pradeep Kumar Nath, of Visakhapatnam, India, is trying to defend endangered olive ridley sea turtle females and their hatchlings from the navy of his own nation. His weapon of last resort, after all efforts at gentle persuasion failed, was to seek a High Court writ protecting the Visakhapatnam beach against Indian Navy incursion.

Now Nath himself and two Visakha SPCA employees are formally charged with criminally handling wildlife, falsifying evidence, and attempted extortion.

Rumors accuse them of worse.

Two-strokes are out in parks

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Recognizing that the most invasive of all species are humans on vehicles with noisy exhaust-spewing two-stroke engines, the National Park Service on April 28, 2000 banned recreational use of snowmobiles at 29 National Parks, National Monuments, and National Recreation Areas.

The ban will be implemented by enforcing existing prohibitions on off-road vehicle use, adopted in 1972, and other disruptive vehicular activity, adopted in 1977.

Exempted from the Park Service edict are only Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota and 11 sites in Alaska, including Denali National Park, where specific legislation permits snowmobiling.

SEALS, DOLPHINS, AND WHALES

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans on May 9 extended the Atlantic Canada offshore seal hunt until the end of May. Between low pelt prices and poor ice conditions, sealers had killed only 86,000 seals out of quotas of 275,000 harp seals and 10,000 hooded seals.

The Vancouver Public Aquarium announced on April 26 that it will cease exhibiting orcas. Opened in 1956, the aquarium in 1967 became first in the world to keep an orca. The last resident orca, Bjossa, 23, is to be transferred to Sea World, which has 20 orcas among four facilities, each offering many times as much tank space. Bjossa has lived at the Vancouver Aquarium since 1980. Finna, her longtime male companion, died in 1997, and the aquarium staff was unable to find a replacement.

PREDATORS’ MEAT AND USDA POISON

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Opposing environmental priorities as well as the long-running conflict between wildlife advocates and ranchers are again on the line in Congress.

Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and Charles Bass (R-New Hampshire) announced in mid-May that they would seek an ammendment to the Agriculture Appropriations bill for fiscal 2001 which would cap the USDA Wildlife Services budget at $28.7 million.

This would eliminate subsidized predator control for ranchers, consisting chiefly of killing coyotes, but would not interfere with killing wildlife under contract from other government agencies––for instance, to protect airports, endangered species, and golf greens on public land.

DeFazio and Bass sought a cut of $10 million from the Wildlife Services budget in 1998, when their bill was approved on first reading, 229-193. The vote was reversed the next day, however, after a night of frantic lobbying by Wildlife Services senior staff and representatives of the livestock industry. It stood little chance of passage by the U.S. Senate in any event, where members friendly to western ranchers chair all the key committees it would have to clear.

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