The floods of ‘97

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

Animal rescuers were stretched thin from late January to St. Patrick’s
Day by flooding in northern California and twisters followed by torrential rains that
on March 4 raised the Ohio River to its highest level in 30 years. The American
Humane Association had just a boat-carrying mobile clinic to a regional training
event when the floods began, and didn’t get it into action until March 10, when it
set up in Falmouth, Kentucky. The Kentucky animal relief effort to then was
apparently led by Henry Wallace’s Henry’s Ark petting zoo, in Prospect.
The Humane Society of the U.S. reportedly published newspaper ads ballyhooing
involvement in the California animal rescue work, but according to Bob
Plumb of the Promoting Animal Welfare Society, which sent $5,000 and several
staff to the hardest-hit area, actually rescued just one bird. Four HSUS staffers and
two from AHA mostly helped the California Veterinary Medical Association emergency
team with paperwork, reports from the field agreed. United Animal Nations
Animal Rescue Service coordinator Terri Crisp meanwhile organized 600 volunteers
to rescue and care for 857 animals, housed temporarily at the Sacramento
fairgrounds, with no supply help, she alleged, from other national groups.

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Wise-use wiseguys

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

Kathleen Marquardt, just a few months after announcing the
merger of her anti-animal rights group Putting People First with the far-right
American Policy Center, was billed at a February 15 fundraiser for
Congressional Representative Rick Hill (R-Montana) as spokesperson for
something called Putting Liberty First––on the same bill as APC founder
Tom DeWeese. An extensive online data search indicates that Marquardt’s
husband, attorney Bill Wewer, may not have appeared in public or written for
PPF since July 1991, and has apparently surfaced in articles about PPF in
mass media only once since PPF moved in 1994 from Washington D.C. to
Helena, Montana––Marquardt’s home town. “I have not been as visible lately,”
Wewer said by fax, “because I have moled into a movement organization
uising an identity which, although assumed, does contain a humorous clue to
my real identity, if you know how to look for it.” From 1990 to 1994, it was
Wewer rather than Marquardt who tended to have the higher public profile.
Wewer and Marquardt were two of the four board members at the National
Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare when it ran afoul of
two Congressional investigations and was reprimanded by the U.S. Postal
Service and the Justice Department in the mid-1980s for allegedly misleading
fundraising. Wewer subsequently incorporated the Doris Day Animal League
in 1987; did legal work for the National Alliance for Animal Legislation in
1989, preparatory to the 1990 March for the Animals, after Marquardt founded
PPF; and left DDAL and the Alliance to represent PPF in early 1990.
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Congressional politics

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

The Fund for Animals Congressional Scorecard for the 104th Congress gave Senators 25 points each for opposing federal subsidies to the mink industry, opposing a moratorium on new Endangered Species listings, opposing funding of the BION space experiments on monkeys, and opposing bills that would have weakened the Endangered Species Act. Achieving 100 each were 13 Democrats and two Republicans: Dale Bumpers and David Pryor (both D- Arkansas); Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii); Tom Harkin (DIowa); Edward Kennedy and John Kerry (both D-Massachusett); Carl Levin (D-Michigan); Paul David Wellstone (D-Minnesota); J. Robert Kerrey (D-Nebraska); Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire); Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey); Ron Wyden (D-Oregon); Fred Thompson (R-Tennessee); Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and James Jeffords (R-Vermont); and Patty Murray (D-Washington). Representatives gained 25 points each for opposing mink subsidies, opposing making hunting an official purpose of the National Wildlife Refuge system, opposing funding of the USDA Animal Damage Control program, and opposing weakening the “dolphin-safe” tuna import standard. Fifty-one Representatives scored 100, among whom the only Republicans were Jan Meyers, Kansas, and Dick Zimmer, New Jersey. The scorecard is available from the Fund at 200 West 57th St., New York, NY 10019.
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Marine mammal info denied to public

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Congressional
Research Service senior analyst Gene Buck advised
online correspondents on March 5 that, “In response
to evolving CRS policy, I believe it is prudent that I
suspend providing my weekly fishery and marine
mammal summaries to non-Congressional parties, and
retract all permission previously granted for use of this
material. CRS is sensitive to perceptions that its material
is more widely available than might be helpful in
fulfilling its limited role of serving Congress. Thus I
am taking this step to terminate what could be perceived
as an inappropriate exposure of CRS material.”
Pressed for explanation, Buck insisted,
“The decision to stop posting my summaries was
entirely voluntary on my part after several meetings
with higher-level CRS management and attorneys earlier
this week. Last week, CRS received an irate letter
from several constituency groups expressing concern
that some of my work was out of bounds and should
be restricted to the legislative limits that we work only
for Congress. This related to the wide distribution of
one of my draft reports for peer review and comment.”

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Information

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

Dick Weevil, host since the 1991 inception
of the Animals & Society subsection of the Pet
Care Forum on America OnLine, and founder of a
new Rescue subsection, was fired February 17 by
the veterinary firm that owns the forum, apparently
due to conflicts over resource allocation with the
heads of subsections run by animal fanciers. Under
Weevil, also targeted for at least two years by
anonymous hunters and trappers using the screen
names “Ster600” and “MdPhdStud,” Animals &
Society was among the 50 most visited features
among the more than 5,000 AOL offerings. Weevil
indicated that he might start his own online forum.
Several Animals & Society assistant hosts and
facilitators resigned in solidarity with Weevil,
including ANIMAL PEOPLE, a regular presence
at Animals & Society since January 1994, with
compensated status since October 1996. ANIMAL
PEOPLE had declined an offer to publish our electronic
archives through Animals & Society, opting
to stay with our own web site.

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People & Organizations

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

Fred O’Regan, former director of the Office of Europe,
Central Asia, and the Mediterranean for the Peace Corps, has succeeded
Richard Moore as chief executive officer of the
International Fund for Animal Welfare. Moore moved into a consulting
role nine months ago. Best known for international campaigns
against sealing, whaling, and dog-and-cat-eating, IFAW
also issued grants to no-kill animal shelters and rescue programs
totalling $395,000 in fiscal year 1996-1997, according to field activities
correspondent and pet rescue project coordinator Kristina
Hemenway. To receive the IFAW Pet Rescue Grant Project guidelines
for fiscal year 1997, write to Hemenway at 411 Yarmouth Port,
MA 02675-1822. No grants will be made before August 1, 1997.

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ANIMALS IN ENTERTAINMENT

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

Gini Barrett, formerly senior vice president of the
Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ Public
Affairs Coalition, has succeeded the retired Betty Denny
Smith as American Humane Association western regional
director, responsible for overseeing animal use in screen entertainment.
Barrett also serves on the Los Angeles City Animal
Regulation Commission, to which she was appointed in 1993.
“The use of live tigers and other undomesticated
animals in retail store promotions conducted by our company-operated
stores” is prohibited, EXXON has advised field
managers. EXXON intends to continue using tigers in TV
advertising, along with tiger balloons and people dressed as
tigers in live store promotions, a spokesperson said.

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Catch-22 and Canadian sealing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland––Atlantic Canadian
sealers are ready to smear the ice with the blood and brains of
285,000 harp and hooded seals, the biggest sealing quota in 15
years, unleashing the frustrations of yet another year idle
because they fished cod to commercial extinction, elected
politicians who let them do it, blamed seals for falling catches,
and remain representatives of the corner of Canada with the
least economic prospects, the lowest average level of education,
and the most alcoholic violence.

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A “FINAL SOLUTION” IS PROPOSED FOR WHALES

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

REYKJAVIK, Iceland––Apparently hoping to lure
Iceland back into the International Whaling Commission, IWC
secretary Ray Gambrell on March 1 in Reykjavik proposed a
“final solution” to the stalemate within IWC over permitting the
resumption of commercial whaling. So-called “traditional and
cultural” whaling would be permitted within the 200-mile
Economic Exploitation Zones that nations maintain over fisheries,
while high seas whaling would remain forbidden.
According to High North Web News, published by
the pro-whaling High North Alliance, “Gambrell explained that
his optimism was based on the closed and informal IWC commissioners
meeting in Grenada in January.”
Politically, the Gambrell “final solution” might work.
It would authorize the present unilateral Norwegian commercial
whale hunt, a similar hunt off Iceland, the coastal hunt Japan
seeks to revive, and all existing and proposed aboriginal hunts,
including those of the Makah off Washington and the Maori off
New Zealand. If high seas fishers killed some whales too, then
transferred the corpses to whalers inside the 200-mile limit
before heading to port, no one need know about it.

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