Rats, mice, birds comment time extended

April 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

PHILADELPHIA––The USDA has extended until May 28 the comment period on a proposal announced January 29 to amend the definition of “animal” in the Animal Welfare Act enforcement regulations so as to remove the exclusion of birds, rats, and mice which has been in effect since 1970.

ANIMAL PEOPLE, in a March edition front page on the proposed amendment, a longtime goal of the animal protection community, wrongly attributed it to a petition submitted to the USDA by United Poultry Concerns.

In fact, the petition was filed in April 1998 by the Alternatives Research & Development Foundation, an affiliate of the Philadelphia-based American Anti-Vivisection Society.

WHOSE GAME ARE WILDLIFE AGENCIES PROTECTING?

April 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

ALBUQUERQUE, BOISE, SACRAMENTO,
SALT LAKE CITY–– The
Idaho Fish and Game Commission on March 5
voted 4-3 to fire state fish and game director
Steve Mealey, notorious for mooning a shoreline
statue from a boat last summer.
The New Mexico Game Commission
on January 26 cancelled a $2.8 million
black bear study, commissioned from the
Idaho-based Hornocker Wildlife Institute,
because Hornocker officials refused to meet
with them to discuss allegations by former
Hornocker biologist Jenny Cashman that she
was repeatedly drugged and raped in 1995-
1997 by co-worker Patrick F. Ryan.

Iceland to resume whaling

April 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

REYKJAVIK, SEATTLE––The parliament of
Iceland on March 10 instructed the government to begin
preparations for Icelandic whalers to resume commercial
whaling by no later than December 31, 2000––and to mount
a drive to sway world opinion in favor of whaling.
The vote came as a cold shower to whale lovers
who had hoped that the tourist-attracting presence of the orca
Keiko in an Icelandic sea pen would dissuade Iceland from
resuming hunting. Iceland last killed whales in 1989, after
three years of defying the International Whaling Commission
moratorium on commercial whaling in effect since 1986.
Iceland withdrew from the IWC in 1992
“The Makahs have already done the damage we
feared,” said Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society. “Thousand of whales are going to be
killed because of their claim of cultural necessity.” The
Makah argument is echoed by both Iceland and Norway,
which in November 1998 unilaterally set a 1999 quota for
itself of 671 minke whales. Similar rationales are expected to
be heard from other onetime whaling nations.

Predators, reintroductions, and harsh reality

April 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

DENVER, EUGENE––Three of
the first four Canadian lynx who were released
into the Rio Grande National Forest of southcentral
Colorado by the state Division of
Wildlife during the first days of February
starved to death by March 23.
C-DoW had confidently predicted
that the reintroduction would succeed, and
would keep lynx off the federal endangered
species list. C-DoW biologist Gene Byrne
even suggested that the department might reintroduce
wolverines, too, as early as next year.
By mid-March, however, C-DoW
had recaptured the last of the released lynx, to
avoid losing her to starvation, and was holding
eight more until later in the year, when
prey might be more abundant.

LETTERS [April 1999]

April 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

Shrinking stress
A few more words on the
stress endured by animal workers.
Animal helpers face both primary
traumatization, e.g. when attacked
by an irate animal hoarder or a dog,
and secondary traumatization, from
bearing witness to animal suffering.
Secondary traumatization has also
been called “compassion fatigue”
and “vicarious traumatization,” or
VT for short.
Both types of traumatization
can produce profound and toxic
changes in animal workers’ core
beliefs about themselves, others,
and life in general. Primary traumatization
needs to be treated, when it
occurs, as any other psychological
trauma. VT must be seen as an
inescapable occupational hazard.

Letters

Editorial: Building shelters won’t build a no-kill nation

April 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

On pages 12 and 13 of this edition, the Duffield Family Foundation, now doing
business as Maddie’s Fund, answers the question weighing most heavily on the minds of
ANIMAL PEOPLE readers since October 1998, when we announced that PeopleSoft
founders Dave and Cheryl Duffield had committed the entire $200 million assets of their
foundation to making the U.S. a no-kill nation, and had hired Richard Avanzino to direct the
effort, beginning at his retirement after 24 years as president of the San Francisco SPCA.
The $200 million question, bluntly put, is “How do we get on the gravy train?”
The answer, summarized, is “Build a railroad.”
As the ad explains, Maddie’s Fund wants to see animal care and control organizations
for harmonious partnerships, to reach the no-kill destination on a specified timetable.
Get there early and you might get a bonus––but crash like Casey Jones, cannonballing along
in disregard of others stalled on the tracks, and you won’t even get a ticket to ride.

Pigs blamed for Malaysian crisis

April 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

KUALA LUMPUR––The ongoing
Asian fiscal crisis, global pork price collapse,
and panic in Malaysia over lethal disease outbreaks
might matter least to the pigs taking
the brunt of the human terror. Come good
times or bad for humans, pigs get killed.
As March ended, nearly 3,000
Malaysian troops shot or gassed pigs in ditches,
in districts where as many as 900 farmers
allegedly left the animals to starve or roam.
Eleven thousand villagers were
evacuated before the shooting began.
One million pigs were to be killed
by April 1, but the massacre reportedly
progessed at a fraction of the intended speed
due to pigs putting up frantic resistance.

Seals save life, need help

April 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

ST. JOHN’S––Charlene Camburn,
30, of Cleethorpe’s, England, is one fish
processer who has only good words for seals.
Watching the colony of 400 grey
seals at the Donna’s Nook nature reserve on
February 1, Camburn became stranded by high
tide on a sand bar off the Lincolnshire coast,
along with her boyfriend, Chris Tomlinson,
36, and their son Brogan, seven. As night fell,
they decided Camburn, the strongest swimmer,
should strike for the mainland to seek help––but
the current swept her into the bitterly cold, fogshrouded
North Sea.
“I kept going under toward the end.
It seemed much easier to die than stay alive,”
Camburn told Steve Dennis of the London
Mirror. “I thought Chris and Brogan had died.
But I could feel the seals going under my feet.
They nudged my legs and feet and kept diving
beside me, and I kept bobbing back up.

Can mercenary management stop poaching in Africa?

April 1, 1999 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

GENEVA, HARARE, JOHANNESBURG,
NAIROBI––The Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species on February 10 authorized Namibia and
Zimbabwe to sell 34 metric tons of stockpiled elephant tusk
ivory to Japan, as agreed by CITES members at the June 1997
CITES triennial meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe.
CITES withheld permission for Botswana to sell up
to 25 metric tons of ivory, pending improvement of security
arrangements including protection of wild elephants from
poachers, but the government of Botswana was optimistic,
according to the Pan-African News Service, that it too would
soon get the go-ahead.
Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana hope to collect
from $100,000 to $200,000 a ton for the ivory, which is used in
Japan for making ceremonial signature seals. Such seals are
customarily used in finalizing contracts.

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