“They eat fish––kill ‘em!”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

Sea lions had a rough fourth week of March:
In New Zealand, fisheries minister John Luxton
finally closed the Auckland Islands squid season on March
25, four days after he was advised that observed accidental
killings of endangered Hooker’s sea lions had reached 34.
Projected to the squid fleet as a whole, the indicated toll was
102, significantly more than the 73 sea lion deaths permitted
under the Fisheries Act.
In Peru, the Peruvian fisheries ministry announced
it was considering a “pilot program” to allow fishers to kill
up to 60 sea lions who allegedly tear nets, and export their
genitals to the Asian aphrodisiac market.

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King salmon close to ESA listing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

SEATTLE––National Marine Fisheries Service biologists
reported on April 10 that the coveted chinook or king
salmon could qualify for Endangered Species Act
protection––four months after Canadian fisheries minister Fred
Mifflin pronounced chinook well enough recovered to reopen
sport fishing of the species off the west coast of Vancouver
Island, with a year-long limit of two per day.
The Puget Sound chinook count is down to 71,000,
NMFS said, from an estimated 690,000 in 1911. Wild-run chinook
account for under 25% of the current population. The rest
come from hatcheries.
Similar declines were reported in Oregon and northern
California rivers. But the Oregon and California coastal
populations were said to be still healthy.

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CAN FISH SURVIVE IN A PORK BARREL?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

RALEIGH, N.C.––Forced to choose between fish
and pigs, North Carolina wants both––and got state fisheries
director Bruce Freeman’s resignation on February 13 as a
slightly early Valentine to himself. For $83,000 a year, he
decided, the job wasn’t worth the pfiesteria headache.
Freeman, a North Carolina native who previously
served as New Jersey fisheries director, was North Carolina’s
sixth fisheries director in 15 years, only one of whom stayed
longer than two years. He took office just four months before
the June 1995 destruction of the Neuse River by 20 million gallons
of hog slurry from a ruptured farm lagoon. That alone
killed as many as 40 million fish––and that spill was followed
by more than 100 others, both on the Neuse and other rivers.
There were hints that similar smaller spills had occurred for
years, to little notice, as the North Carolina hog industry rapidly
expanded over the past decade with strong government influence
at both the state and federal levels.

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Cod’s walloped

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

Like the North Sea nations and Canada, New
England is combatting a cod crisis. Since 1982, the New
England cod, yellowtail, and haddock catches, combined,
are down from 86,000 tons to 17,600 tons. After the New
England fleet killed 17% more cod from May through August
last year than the New England Fishery Management Council
set as the regional quota for the year, scientific advisors recommended
a 41% cut in the cod take to protect adequate
spawning stock. Initially proposing to cut the number of
allowable fishing days per vessel from an already restricted
88 to just 14, the council eventually settled on weight limits
for catches prorated by size of vessel. Earlier limits on fishing
days and an outright prohibition of fishing in certain areas
meanwhile won a February 5 court challenge from the
Associated Fisheries of Maine.

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BIG FISH EAT LITTLE FISH

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

The cynical might believe fisheries
negotiations are about who gets to kill the last
fish––after starving, bludgeoning, shooting,
or drowning marine mammals and sea birds to
extinction––on purpose if their remains can be
sold or they are considered competitors, by
accident if not.
Scientists repeatedly warn governments
and international rule-makers that as
former National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration science chief Sylvia Earle puts
it, “The ocean cannot sustain the massive
removal of wildlife needed to keep nations
supplied with the present levels of food taken
from the sea.”
Caught between the bedeviling verity
that cancelling fishing jobs costs elections,
and the biological fact of a depleted deep,
public officials tend to acknowledge harm
done by other nations, denying harm done by
their own. Thus the object of fish treaties,
time and again, becomes not conservation but
rather grabbing the most of what fish are left.

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Clear NMFS of buyers and sellers

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

by Carroll Cox, special investigator, Friends of Animals

Entrusted with the duty of protecting marine life in
U.S. waters, the National Marine Fisheries Service is at the
same time a division of the Department of Commerce, mandated
to promote trade. This builds into NMFS a conflict of interest
similar to that within the USDA between the mandate to
promote agriculture, the first function of the agency, and the
duty to safeguard public health and animal welfare.
The much better known conflict of interest within the
USDA was subject of a 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning expose
series by the Kansas City Star, and of an expose by Marian
Burros, food editor of The New York Times, as recently as
April 9 of this year. Between exposes, at least 45,500
Americans died of food-borne diseases, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet the clout of
the meat, egg, and milk industries within the USDA,
Congress, and the White House is such that nothing has been
done to separate the functions of promotion and inspection.

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A GRAVE SITUATION FOR CHS

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

The Connecticut Humane Society in
late March announced it will replace the 50-
year-old animal health clinic at its Newington
headquarters with a new $1 million facility to be
built on the site of the CHS pet cemetery, also
about 50 years old, not used in 10 years according
to CHS president Richard Johnston, and
occupying the only buildable space left on the
CHS grounds. About 3,000 pet graves will be
moved to two new plots. Remains of animals
whose owners can’t be located––at least a third
of the total, Johnston indicated––may be placed
in a mass grave. The CHS filing of IRS Form
990 for fiscal year 1995 reportedly showed
assets of $20.7 million, income of $3.2 million,
program costs of $2 million, management costs
of $534,346, and two salaries over $50,000:
Johnston, at $87,834, and executive director
Gus Helberg, $56,276.

Humane legislation

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

The North Carolina House on
April 15 unanimously approved a bill to
make dogfighting, betting on dogfighting,
or watching dogfighting a felony. “We
want to dispell the idea of North Carolina
being a center of dogfighting because of the
laxity of our penalties,” said Rep. John
Weatherly, R-Cleveland, just before the
116-0 vote. Weatherly is also pushing legislation
to address cockfighting and potential
weaknesses in current cruelty statutes.

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Feral cats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

The British-based Mammal
Society on April 2 published findings that
a rising population of free-roaming cats
seems to coincide with a decline in the
numbers of barn owls, stoats, and
weasels, but which event is cause and
which effect remains hazy. Trying to
quantify feline killing habits, the authors
reported that Siamese cats hunt most
aggressively, while the white cats in the
study apparently didn’t hunt at all.
The East Bay Regional Park
District board, managing numerous
semi-wild recreation areas in the hills to
the eastern side of San Francisco Bay,
agreed on April 2 to study their feral cat
situation for 18 months before proceeding
with further lethal removal. When cats
are removed, Rick DelVecchio of the San
Francisco Chronicle reported, “park
rangers will work with animal rescue

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