SEA SHEPHERDS FIGHT CAPTIVITY, EURO OIL SPILLS

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

FRANKFURT, Germany– – Lufthansa, the national airline of Germany, on December 7 agreed under pressure from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to cease transporting wild-caught whales and dolphins to marine mammal parks.

“Sea Shepherd Europe asked Lufthansa to review its policy on the transport of wild animals and also contacted other major airlines after an incident in early November in which two dolphins––one a pregnant female–– died in a Lufthansa cargo plane. They were part of a shipment of one beluga whale and four dolphins being shipped from Russia to Argentina,” Sea Shepherd spokespersons Andrew Christie, Hartmut Seidich, and Kay Trenkman explained.

“Investigations by Sea Shepherd Brazil and Sea Shepherd Europe found that the five cetaceans were flown to Frankfurt by a Russian plane. They were reloaded into a Lufthansa plane after a veterinarian at the Frankfurt airport certified that they were fit for transport,” the Sea Shepherds added.

Blazing guns and huts as Zimbabwe ignores Kenyan lesson

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

VOI, Kenya ––The six-hour drive from Nairobi to Tsavo East National Park would be worth the bumps for Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species delegates, for the challenge the Tsavo vista pre- sents to conventional beliefs about elephants and ecology.

Hundreds of delegates and observers will soon arrive in Nairobi for workshops leading up to the April 2000 CITES triennial meeting. Whether to permit more auctions of culled elephant ivory and rhino horn will–– again––be the most contentious agenda item.

In 1997 CITES allowed Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe to auction elephant ivory and hides, and to sell live elephants. These were the first cracks in the trade bans imposed by CITES in 1989 to protect elephants and rhinos from slaughter to extinction.

Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe now want to sell more elephants and elephant parts. South Africa announced on December 9 that it wants to join the market, having 30 tons of ivory stockpiled at Kruger National Park alone. South Africa will also try again to resume selling rhino horn. Previous South African efforts to sell rhino horn were narrowly defeated in 1994 and 1997.

Poachers close in on Tsavo elephants

December 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1999:

VOI, Kenya––Alone but brave,
the half-grown bull elephant held off five
Cape buffalo all afternoon at the smaller of
two water holes below the Voi Safari Lodge.
Refusing invitations to retreat with visiting
matriarchs, the young bull left the water hole
only long enough to break up a fight among
squabbling baboons with two quick swings of
his trunk. The gesture conveyed the message.
“He acts tough now,” said Care
For The Wild managing director Chris
Jordan, “but we’ll see how tough he really is
if a pride of lions comes around tonight.”
Around nine p.m. that evening
Jordan joined soft-spoken Tsavo East
National Park warden Naphtali Kio in
responding to aggressive questioning by CNN
reporter Anthony Van Marsh. Insisting that
elephants were leaving Tsavo to find water,
running amok and killing villagers, though
all the most accessible water holes are inside
the park, Van Marsh didn’t seem to want to
hear about villagers who cut park fences as
almost a daily routine in order to graze cattle,
sheep, and goats on park land––thereby
allowing elephants to wander out at night.

Seeking concern for animals in Vietnam

December 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1999:

HANOI, SAIGON––Like U.S. soldiers who served
year-long tours of duty in Vietnam during the Vietnam War,
wondering why they were there all the while, Supriya Bose finished
a year in Saigon and flew home to Bombay recently,
questioning what she might have accomplished.
A second-generation humane worker, Bose in mid-
1998 left a prestigious job as clinic manager for the Bombay
SPCA and Bai Sakarai Dinshaw Petit animal hospital in hopes
of finding the opportunity to do humane work in Saigon, where
her huband worked for an Indian-owned printing company.
As Khumbatta later explained in a letter to ANIMAL
PEOPLE, she soon learned that Vietnam had no humane societies,
and apparently no animal shelters. The few international
conservation groups working in Vietnam are all based in Hanoi,
a three-day train ride to the north over tracks never fully
repaired after multiple U.S. air strikes, 1964-1975 (and now
temporarily washed out by flooding that hit the Hue region hard
in early November 1999).

BOOKS: STERLING REFERENCES

November 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment