MARINE MAMMALS

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Effective January 1, amendments to

the Marine Mammal Protection Act forbid fish-

ing crews to shoot sea lions and seals unless they

menace human life. A violation carries the same

$20,000 fine and up to one year in jail as deliberate-

ly harming whales, dolphins, or sea otters.

Formerly, fishers could get a permit to shoot any

seals or sea lions who stole their catches. As over-

fishing depleted coastal waters, shootings became

more common. The National Marine Fisheries

Service received 250 reports of fatal shootings of

seals and sea lions in 1993, while the Marine

Mammal Center in Sausalito, California, in 1992

treated 80 seals and sea lions wounded by gunfire,

after treating only 37 in the preceding eight years.

Animal control & rescue

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Greg Locklier of the Alabama Office of the Attorney

General, 1-800-392-5658, wants to hear from anyone who’s had dealings

with Ann P. Fields, Marge Jacobs, or Rebecca Garcia of Love and

Care For God’s Animalife Inc., a no-kill shelter in southeastern

Alabama, now soliciting funds under the name Care For Our Lord’s

Animals Inc., from an address in Cathedral City, California. Begun

circa 1983 by Fields and ex-husband Jerry, the organization has changed

names and post office boxes several times while dodging creditors, and

moved to Alabama from Georgia in 1988 to avoid closure for zoning vio-

lations. Fields has recently circulated a videotape purporting to show the

Alabama shelter, which Locklier believes was actually made at a shelter

near Palm Springs, California.

Hunting

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

An unidentified American, two Germans, and a South

African safari guide waited in Tanzania on December 15 until the old-

est bull elephant in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park and three male

companions wandered over the border, then blew them away point-

blank from a jeep. Often photographed by tourists, all four elephants

were virtually tame. The eldest, dubbed R.G.B., was 47 years old,

and had been studied by researcher Cynthia Moss since 1976. As the

killing was legal, the American will be allowed to import his trophies.

Showing similar hunting skill, John Joyce, 53, and Robert

Gerber, 70, of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, were arrested on

November 24 in connection with the baiting, trapping, and jacklight-

ing of a 494-pound bear out of season. They were caught trying to fig-

ure out how to remove the carcass from a heap of doughnuts.

DIET & HEALTH

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

From the December 5 Newsweek

cover feature: “The saturated fats in meat,

butter, and whole milk have long been demon-

ized, and for the most part rightly so. Recent

research on heart disease and several can-

cers––including colon, prostate, and

ovary––points to one overwhelming message:

eating a lot of red meat is really a bad idea.”

The article coincided with a White House

press conference at which First Lady Hillary

Clinton and former U.S. Surgeon General C.

Everett Koop announced “Shape Up

America,” a campaign against obesity, which

kills an estimated 300,000 Americans a year.

The campaign is modeled after Koop’s anti-

smoking drive. Consumption of animal-based

foods wasn’t mentioned in most news releases

about it, but Koop is known for seeming to

target one thing while hitting another, e.g.

becoming an outspoken defender of animal

experimentation in 1990 while investing much

of his own fortune in developing the “Adam”

computerized alternative to the use of animals

and human cadavers in practice surgery.

OBITUARIES

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

Brigid Brophy, 66, British author and feminist, died August 7 in London after a

12-year battle with multiple sclerosis. Best known for her successful crusade to require British

libraries to pay royalties to authors whenever their books are checked out, leading to the pas-

sage of the 1979 Public Lending Rights Act, Brophy was a vegetarian and animal advocate

throughout her adult life. Her first novel, Hackenfeller’s Ape (1954) attacked vivisection. “I

am the very opposite of an anthropomorphiser,” she wrote in Don’t Never Forget. “I don’t

hold animals superior to or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to

animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable

of imagination, rationality and moral choice––and that is precisely why we are under the

obligation to recognize and respect the rights of animals.” Later, Brophy added,

“‘Sentimentalist’ is the abuse with which people counter the accusation that they are cruel,

thereby implying that to be sentimental is worse than to be cruel, which it isn’t.” In all,

Brophy’s aphorisms on animal rights occupy six pages of The Extended Circle, Jon Wiynne-

Tyson’s “Commonplace Book of Animal Rights.”

Obituaries

AGRICULTURE

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Responding to a year-long cam-

paign against face-branding, led by the

Coalition for Nonviolent Food, the USDA on

December 22 proposed new rules to identify

Mexican cattle imported into the U.S., to take

effect January 23. The new rules require tail-

head branding, by either the hot-iron or freeze

method. Freeze branding must be done at

least 18 days before import, to give the mark

time to become visible. The Coalition, led by

Henry Spira, now seeks to halt the use of

face-branding to identify cattle with tuberculo-

sis and brucellosis. (See ad, page 10.)

The scandal over the use of the

banned synthetic steroid clenbuterol in veal

feed, revealed in December by the Humane

Farming Association and ANIMAL

PEOPLE, continues to spread, as the USDA

in early December confirmed finding traces in

feed seized from five Wisconsin dealers.

Bear farm phase-out

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

HONG KONG––Conceding that

bear-farming boosts demand for bear prod-

ucts and therefore encourages bear poach-

ing, the China Wildlife Conservation

Association, a branch of the Chinese

Ministry of Forestry, has signed an agree-

ment with the World Society for the

Protection of Animals, the Hong Kong

environmental group Earthcare, and the

International Fund for Animal Welfare to

cut bear farm production by a third within

three years; ensure no new cubs are put into

restrictive cages or tapped for their bile,

which many Chinese believe has medicinal

value; research and promote medically

approved alternatives to bear bile, including

herbal remedies; close down unlicensed

Fur

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Encouraged by rumors of a fur
resurgence that sent pelt prices soaring at
winter auctions a year ago, fur farmers

worldwide bred more foxes than they had

since 1989, producing 3.2 million pelts for

this year’s auction season. Mink production

rose too, though the 22.6 million mink pelts

to be auctioned are still barely half the 1988

volume of 41.8 million. North American fox

production held even, at 60,000 in Canada

and 25,000 in the U.S. Canadian mink pro-

duction dipped from 700,000 to 650,000, but

U.S. mink production rose from 2.5 million to

2.6 million. After the animals were bred,

auction prices fell back to 1993 levels.

ZOONOSIS UPDATE

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Rabies roundup

Because continued funding for an

experimental raccoon rabies oral vaccina-

tion program begun last spring hasn’t been

approved on schedule by the Massachusetts

legislature, the Tufts University School of

Veterinary Medicine may be obliged to lay off

project coordinator Allyson Robbins on

December 31, dean Franklin Loew told ANI-

MAL PEOPLE on December 23. It also

won’t be able to order the vaccination baits in

time to be sure of having them on hand at the

optimum time to use them, when mothers

come out of their dens with newly ambulatory

babies. The initial oral vaccination budget

came from a dormant Food and Agriculture

Department fund set up to fight equine

encephalitis. However, while the vaccination

work was underway, trying to keep raccoon

rabies off Cape Cod as a demonstration of its

effectiveness, equine encephalitis reappeared

in Massachusetts, and the Food and

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