Cull cruelty on camera

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

CHICAGO –Steve Hindi and Chicago
Animal Rights Coalition colleagues used remote-con-
trolled miniature night-vision cameras in January to
get rare video footage––aired by many local TV sta-
tions––of DuPage County Forest Preserve staff catch-
ing deer in rocket nets and killing them with a captive-
bolt gun.
“One animal was seen jumping as the net
was fired, only to fall on her back. Another deer was
dragged by three others in a net as they tried to escape.
Her head was pulled under her body. Still another
deer suffered for at least 35 minutes,” Hindi said.
Shown the video on January 18, the DuPage
commissioners voted 11-10 to suspend the rocket-net-
ting. But on February 7 they allowed it to resume “for
research,” with the deer thus caught to be radio-col-
lared. Only deer injured by the rocket-netting would
be dispatched with the captive bold gun. Culling con-
tinues via sharpshooting.

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Wildlife & People

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

A hungry hippopotamus,
rampaging through rice fields and
upsetting canoes in the Selingue dam
district of Mali, was said to have
magical powers in January after elud-
ing vigilantes for more than a month.
Alaska Department of
Fish and Game officers shot a
mama moose because of “ill disposi-
tion” on January 14 at the University
of Alaska campus in Anchorage, after
she tried to kick professor Bruce
Kappes as he sprinted to class. A few
days earlier the moose fatally stomped
Myung Chin Ra, 71, when he tried to
pass her to enter a building.

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Beaver-bashing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

ALBANY, N.Y.––The New York
Department of Environmental Conservation
plans to ease beaver trapping rules in
Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties, per-
haps as early as March. The beaver trapping
season officially ends April 16, but in the
two-county “nuisance zone” landowners
will be allowed to trap beaver year-round
without a permit; will be allowed to use
cable snares, which are cheaper and there-
fore easier to place in large numbers as well
as more easily replaced if they get lost; may
set traps on dens, rather than at least five
feet away; and will be allowed to bait
beavers to specific areas before setting traps.

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Hunting

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:
Robert “Buzz” Barry, 64, assis-
tant executive director of the Sportsmen’s
Alliance of Maine, told reporters on January
21 that he’s giving up hunting mammals after
40 years because of second thoughts he’s had
since a TV debate with an anti-hunter in
November; because his anti-abortion convic-
tions have caused him to review his attitudes
toward the sanctity of life; and most of all
because of the pain and fear he’s seen in the
eyes of animals he’s killed. He asserted, how-
ever, that he isn’t an “anti,” and said he hadn’t
yet decided if he’ll quit shooting birds.

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Animals in laboratories

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

The USDA hopes to soon replace the present system of
classifying animal dealers, Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service officer Steve Smith told ANIMAL PEOPLE on January 3.
All commercial animal breeders other than farmers now receive Class
A permits; those who sell animals they do not breed themselves are
issued Class B permits. A common misperception is that “Class B
dealer” is synonymous with shadowy characters who sell stolen pets to
laboratories, but in fact about three-fourths of the 1,280 current Class
B permit holders are in the pet trade; no more than 75, according to
Smith, sell dogs and cats to labs, and of those, fewer still sell “ran-
dom source” animals. Under the anticipated regulatory amendment,
there will be nine different permit categories, each of which is specific
to the nature of the permit-holder’s business.

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Coast Guard

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

Responding to reports that the
U.S. Coast Guard shoots the pets of
refugees picked up in the Caribbean,
USCG public affairs chief Captain E.J.
Blanchard writes, “We make every effort
to provide for the safety of life at sea,
including animals. However, the rescue
of human life remains our foremost prior-
ity. In July and August the USCG res-
cued over 56,000 Haitians and Cubans
from flimsy overloaded boats, rafts, and
inner tubes. An unknown number of ani-
mals were also rescued. Our most diffi-
cult moments came during the early days
of the Cuban exodus. On one day alone,
over 3,300 people on 600 different rafts
were rescued. Some of our 110-foot cut-
ters had over 400 boat people each on
their decks. Our commanding officers
were making life-and-death decisions on
a minute-by-minute basis. Unfortunately,

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Willy may be freed

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

MEXICO CITY––Keiko, the orca star of the 1993 film
Free Willy!, will be relocated to a new facility under construction at
the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport by November, Free Willy-
Keiko Foundation president David Phillips announced on February
6––and this time, after many false alarms, the deal was confirmed by
Oscar Porter, general director of Keiko’s present home at the Nuevo
Reino Aventura amusement park in Mexico City.
Keiko, believed to be about 16, will be accompanied by
some of the Nuevo Reino Aventura staff, Porter said, praising him
for having “developed a very special sensitivity, intuiting and perceiv-
ing people. Keiko is very affectionate,” Porter continued, “especially
toward children, ‘showering’ them constantly with his outstanding
jumps. He is so intelligent that he has been able to learn more than 54
different routines.”

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MARINE LIFE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

Biologist Macarena Green of Quito, Ecuador, on January 12
issued an Internet SOS for marine life in the Galapagos islands. On
October 15, 1994, she said, the Ecuadoran government opened the region
to sea cucumber collection for the first time, setting a quota of 550,000 to
be picked over the next three months. “However, in two months the take
exceeded seven million,” Green stated. “Fishermen were not only collect-
ing sea cucumbers, but also sea horses, snails, sea urchins, and black
coral. Also, one fisherman admitted he had already sent to Japan sea lion
penises as a try-out for a new aphrodisiac. The Japanese buyer paid $50 for
each penis.” The sea cucumber season was closed due to the abuse on
December 15, but, “The people involved during the lucrative yet devastat-
ing enterprise were not about to accept that. During the first days of
January they took over installations of the Park Service and Darwin Station.
They kept all the people inside as hostages, including the wives of many of
the workers and children. They threatened to kill all the tortoises in captivi-
ty at the station, and they threatened to start fires on little islands,” which
would also kill endangered tortoises. Green begged that letters on behalf of
keeping the sea cucumber season closed, permanently, be sent to Arq.
Sixto Duran Ballen, Presidente Constitucional de la Republica de Ecuador,
Palacia de Gobierna, Quito, Ecuador.

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Be kind to your web-footed friends, by Lewis G. Nierman

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

Other than a small number of dedicated wildlife rescuers, few Floridians care about
the state’s remnant population of Muscovy ducks. Misinformation and outright propaganda
from people in positions of responsibility meanwhile foster contempt and hatred for
Muscovies, who are termed “unattractive” and thereby condemned to abuse.
Muscovy ducks were brought to Florida from Central and South America more than
a century ago, to be raised for meat. Believed to have been first domesticated, as pets, by
Peruvian natives, they were imported into England as early as 1550, spreading from there to
Holland, Flanders, and France. They appear in the paintings of these nations’ 17th century
masters. The origin of their name is either in the Muscovite company which brought them
from South America, or in the name “musco duck,” by which they are known on the
Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua, where they first were found.

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