Feds probe possible widespread use: Vealers caught using illegal synthetic steroids on calves

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

SAN FRANCISCO, California––Search-and-seizure affidavits filed by federal inspectors after a series of raids on
veal industry feed formula suppliers hint at widespread use of illegal drugs, including several which have been identified as
carcinogens in laboratory animals and one, clenbuterol, which is considered “acutely poisonous” to human beings, according
to Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges executive director Lester Crawford, who was formerly head of meat
inspection for the USDA.

Read more

OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

Isabelle Gronert, 79, died
September 21 in New York City. Gronert
worked tirelessly for the rights of animals,
from demonstrating against the infamous cat
experiments at the American Museum of
Natural History in 1976 right up to her death.
She wrote letters, worked the telephone,
marched, raised funds, and found homes for
abandoned animals at her own expense. The
British-born World War II D-Day veteran
sought no recognition, only justice for ani-
mals. And she had the perfect answer to the
accusatory, “Well, what do you do for
humans?” often hurled at her while tabling:
she was a longtime volunteer at Roosevelt
Hospital, working with AIDS patients.
Gronert’s love extended to other living things,
including flowers, trees, and plants. She was
a popular member of the New York
Horticultural Society, and often lectured on
the care of African violets. Her own collection
of those beautiful plants in the window of her
home reminded visitors of an English cottage,
complete with a friendly offering of a cup of
tea. Her three feline companions, Max,
Jasmin, and Topsy, will be cared for by a
close friend. Gronert’s kindness, strength, and
determination were an inspiration to all those
lucky enough to know and love her. She will
be missed by many, but her spirit will always
be with us.
––Linda Petrie

Read more

BOOKS: Circus of the Wolves & Tano & Binti

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

Circus of the Wolves, by Jack
Bushnell, illustrated by Robert
Andrew Parker. William Morrow &
Co. Inc. (1350 Ave. of the Americas,
New York, NY 10019), 1994. 34 pages,
with 16 full-page illustrations. $15.00.
Tano & Binti: Two Chimpanzees
Return to the Wild, by Andy and
Linda DaVo l l s. Clarion Books (215
Park Ave. South, New York, NY
10003), 1994. 28 pages, with 12 double-
page illustrations. $14.95.

Read more

Famine hits Puget orcas

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

The orca population of Puget Sound has
grown from just 68 in 1976 to 94 now, reports
marine mammologist Ken Balcomb, of Friday
Harbor, Washington––but may fall fast, as many
whales in the heavily fished waters show signs of
starvation. Males are apparently suffering more
than females; several are missing, presumed dead.
The famine is a blow to the hopes of
groups trying to win the release of orcas captured
from those waters, including Lolita, 30, of the
Miami Seaquarium, currently considered the best
candidate. The Seaquarium tank is unsafe, Ric
O’Barry of the Dolphin Project alleges, and could
be ruptured by displacement from Lolita’s leaps.

Read more

MARINE LIFE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

Hong Kong is building a new airport on
fill dumped into the former main feeding area for
highly endangered Chinese white dolphins, a sub-
species found only in the Hong Kong harbor area and
actually more pink than white. Of the 400 white dol-
phins counted circa 1990, only 50 to 100 survive
––many in a bay already designated for similar devel-
opment. The Hong Kong government has responded
to the dolphins’ plight by hiring biologists Lindsay
Porter and Chris Parsons to document their demise.
The Kyodo news agency reported
November 11 that the Japanese Institute of
Cetacean Research is soon to sell 65 metric tons of
meat from 21 minke whales killed last summer in the
northwestern Pacific––the first whales killed there
legally since 1986. The price is to be $17 per pound.
While nominally honoring the International Whaling
Commission moratorium on commercial whaling,
Japan has killed 300 minke whales for “research” in
the southern Pacific each year since 1987, selling the
meat after cursory study. This year Japan planned to
kill 100 minke whales in the northern Pacific as well.
Kyodo didn’t make clear how many whales of the
quota were actually killed.
Retired shrimper Cyrus Seven has pro-
posed starting a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle hatchery
near Houma, Alabama, to be funded by the shrimp
industry in lieu of using much-hated turtle exclusion
devices on their nets.
Another of the 12 former Ocean World
dolphins who was flown to the Institute for Marine
Sciences in the Honduras on September 15 has
died––Squirt, age 34, captive at least 30 years.
Doug Cook, her trainer until 1979, burst into tears
at the news. “You might as well have told me my
mother died,” he said. “Squirt was the dolphin who
kept me in the business. She had one bad eye––she
lost the sight in it in the wild––but she was just
amazing, like a person in the things she could
understand and do. She would watch you training
another animal, and all of a sudden present you with
the routine, the whole thing, and get all of it right
the first time. She would improvise during a perfor-
mance, and if you tossed her a fish, it became a per-
manent part of her act. She loved to perform.”
Squirt died seven weeks after Trouble, her seven-
year-old niece, succumbed to pneumonia. Worried
by that death, Cook went to Honduras himself for a
first-hand look at the Institute for Marine Sciences,
which is part of the St. Anthony’s Key dolphin swim
program. He found the conditions and care excellent,
he said, a few days before Squirt died, but added
that he personally would have kept the dolphins in
the same social groups they had at Ocean World, to
avoid bullying, rather than putting them all into the
same lagoon together. Two of the dolphins, Mabel
and Tiger, are reputedly bullies; Tiger, he said,
once killed a young dolphin in a fight over food after
being starved as punishment by then-Ocean World
trainer Russ Rector. After Squirt’s death, Cook spec-
ulated that both dead dolphins might have overheated
on the flight from Florida. Overheating, he said,
may not kill dolphins immediately, but can lead to
death later of problems such as cirosis of the liver
that “can look like ordinary conditions of age.”
Merlin, one of the first five dolphins
brought to The Mirage dolphinarium in Las Vegas,
died October 29 at age 30-plus. Veterinarian Lanny
Cornell said the death was due to old age. An
Atlantic bottlenose acquired in 1990 from the
Hawk’s Cay Resort and Marina in Duck Key,
Florida, Merlin sired four calves at The Mirage, of
whom one died in infancy; three remain there, along
with the other four dolphins who arrived with him.
A National Marine Fisheries Service task
force has voted 15-6 in favor of killing up to 40
California sea lions at the Ballard Locks in Seattle,
to protect threatened and endangered steelhead runs.
Protests are being coordinated by Mark Berman of
Earth Island Institute: 415-788-3666.
Indonesia on November 5 banned catch-
ing and selling the rare Napolean wrasse, a seven-
foot fish often caught through the use of poisons that
kill coral. Environment minister Sarwono
Kusumaatmadja said Indonesia would pursue a
CITES listing for the Napoleon wrasse next year.
A humpback whale freed on November
16 by British and Omani divers after spending five
days trapped in a fish net thanked them by leaping
“out of the water six or seven times in succession,
landing with thunderous splashes, as if to celebrate
its newfound freedom,” the team reported.

Animals in laboratories

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

A Call for Public Forums on the
Use of Animals in Research and Education,
issued by Jane Goodall and the Green World
Center, asks university students and faculty to
“learn about and discuss animal experimenta-
tion and its actual practice in your own com-
munity,” emphasizing exchange of perspec-
tives over confrontation. “One of the greatest
barriers to social change is the confrontational
approach,” Goodall concluded. “Many areas
of discussion do not resolve neatly into black
and white. Learning from and reasoning with
those who do not share our views is one way
we grow as people.” Mailed to university
newspapers across the U.S. circa November 1,
the call was ratified in a follow-up mailing by
the American Anti-Vivisection Society.

Read more

Elephants HSUS “saved” are still in Milwaukee

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

MILWAUKEE––The long-awaited
transfer of the former Milwaukee County Zoo
elephants Tamara and Annie to the Performing
Animal Welfare Society sanctuary in Galt,
California, originally set for September, has
been postponed until spring.
PAWS president Pat Derby said the
delay is “primarily because the trailer training
for the elephants is going very slowly. Our
consultant Ellen Leech and the zoo staff have
been working with the elephants using rewards
and positive reinforcement,” she added. “We
expect that by spring the elephants will be
ready to load without undue stress.”

Read more

Zoos

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

The Buenos Aires City Zoo
announced October 28 that it intends to sue
the pregnant mother of a two-year-old, who
claimed a loose monkey scratched and bit the
boy, attacking from behind as zookeepers
fled. The zoo says the boy was hurt after get-
ting past security barriers. Reuters described
the 104-year-old zoo as “poorly maintained.”
Friends of Animals is investigating
a lawsuit to save 30 deer who share natural
habitat at the Mohegan Park Zoo in Norwich,
Connecticut. Norwich public works director
Paul Wadja has proposed killing the deer to
save the cost of complying with federal fenc-
ing and tuberculosis testing requirements.

Read more

1 627 628 629 630 631 720