COURT CALENDAR

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Dog Crimes

The Cuyahoga County, Ohio

grand jury on April 23 indicted Jeffrey

Mann, 36, for murder, alleging that he

ordered his pit bull terrier to fatally maul his

common-law wife, Angela Kaplan, 28, on

September 2, 1992. The indictment came

as result of an eight-month probe by

Cleveland homicide detective Michaelene

Taliano, and extensive observation of the

dog’s nature by animal behaviorist Karen

Arnoff. Taliano suspected the attack was a

murder, not an accident, because the dog

bit Kaplan more than 100 times, but never

around the neck and throat, the usual sites

of fatal bite wounds. Mann pleaded inno-

cent and was freed on $25,000 bail.

“Wear the badge and the uniform.” How a small Alabama shelter wins big in court

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA––On March 12,

the Montgomery County Humane Society took a man

named Tom Green to court. His offense, testified executive

director Mary Stanley Mansour, was keeping seven

Weimeraners in “complete darkness and filth in a large

warehouse for several months.”

It was the sort of case anti-cruelty officers often

hesitate to recommend for prosecution, a case of neglect

rather than overt physical abuse, involving conditions that

in many poor communities aren’t demonstrably far from

“normal,” no matter how undesirable. Mansour was not

eager to prosecute Green, either. She gave him repeated

warnings.

Wildlife

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

New head of USFWS

faces fight to renew ESA

LAND USE CONFLICTS ERUPT ALL OVER

WASHINGTON D.C.– – Nominated

by President Bill Clinton to head the U.S. Fish

and Wildlife Service, forester Mollie Beattie

of Grafton, Vermont is expected to be Interior

Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s chief mapmaker, as

the administration seeks to secure renewal of a

strong Endangered Species Act by reorienting

the law to protect critical habitat rather than

individual species.

Her main duty, she told Burlington

Free Press reporter Nancy Bazilchuk upon

receiving word of her nomination, will be to

“map and inventory the country’s ecosystems,

so we know which ones are scarcest and need

more protection.”

Habitat

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Over the past 28 years, the Land and Water

Conservation Fund financed by offshore oil and gas

drilling royalties has raised more than $9 billion, the

revenues from which––$900 million a year––were sup-

posed to have been spent on acquiring land for national

parks and wildlife refuges. However, the Ronald

Reagan and George Bush administrations gradually

diverted the money elsewhere. The current federal bud-

get, Bush’s last, allocated only $284 million for land

acquisition, and Bill Clinton’s proposed budget cuts that

24%, to just $208 million.

China has set aside 77,000 square miles in

northern Tibet as a wildlife sanctuary––an area the

size of South Dakota. More than 125,000 square miles

of the remote Himalayan nation had already been

reserved for wildlife. Nearly 40% of Tibet is now offi-

cially protected habitat for yaks, snow leopards, rare

high-altitude sheep, and a vareity of antelope species.

New York City has announced plans to sepa-

rate the Central Park Reservoir from the city water

system later this year. The reservoir, one of the critical

habitats for New York’s urban wildlife, may be added to

the park area intact––or may be drained, filled, and

converted into athletic fields.

Alaska revives plan to strafe wolves

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

JUNEAU, Alaska––Just six months after an

international tourism boycott forced the Alaska Board of

Game to rescind a plan to strafe radio-collared wolves,

the board is ready to ratify essentially the same

plan––unless it ratifies one even deadlier.

On the agenda for the June 26 meeting of the

Board of Game are 92 separate wolf management pro-

posals, including two from the state Department of Fish

and Game that differ from last winter’s proposal mainly

in that they would encourage killing as many wolves as

possible from the ground before the air strikes begin.

Hunters and trappers would be given the radio collar

frequencies, so that they could trace each wolf pack in

the Delta and Fortymile areas, south of Fairbanks, right

to their dens. The killing could start as early as July 1.

Birds

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Trying to find out why a pair of peregrine falcons have been

unable to produce eggs in five years of nesting atop Terminal Tower in

downtown Cleveland, raptor expert Harvey Webster of the Cleveland

Museum of Natural History captured the female on April 30––and learned

she was a sterile hybrid of a peregrine and a prairie falcon, illegally bred

by a falconer whose leather tethers remained on her legs. The falcon was

sent to the University of Minnesota aviary for live study. Her mate, who

in 1988 was the first captive-bred peregrine released in Ohio, is expected

to find another female soon, as several others have recently been seen in

the area.

Jaws

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The National Marine Fisheries Service on

April 29 issued fishing quotas on 39 shark species

native along the U.S. coast from Maine to Texas, and

banned catching sharks just to cut off their fins, which

command high prices in China, Japan and Southeast

Asia. The action is intended to prevent the slow-breed –

ing and heavily hunted sharks from becoming endan –

gered. A total ban on commercial pursuit of the great

white shark, tiger shark, and black tip shark is under

consideration. West coast sharks were not protected

because, NMFS spokespersons said, they are already

covered by various state laws.

Zoos & Aquariums

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The Zoological Society of London on April 13

rejected plans by entrepreneur David Laing and New Zoo

Developments Ltd. to build a $55 million walk-through

aquarium and wildlife film theatre on the 36-acre site. The

166-year-old London Zoo, the world’s oldest, has raised

$3.8 million independently, toward the cost of $32.5 mil-

lion worth of renovations it needs to become a captive

breeding facility. Laing said he would try to situate the pro-

posed aquarium and theatre elsewhere in London.

The Pittsburgh Zoo opened an insect gallery on

April 24, featuring a $24,000 video camera that allows visi-

tors to zoom in on particular insects, magnify their view,

and follow them around a terrarium. Nineteen insect species

are featured in the gallery, and are rotated in the magnifica-

tion area.

Whaling ban holds

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

TOKYO, Japan––The 47th annual meeting of

the International Whaling Commission concluded May 14

with the 1986 ban on commercial whaling still

intact––and Japan and Norway still threatening to follow

Iceland in quitting the treaty that holds the IWC together.

Norway has already announced that it will

resume commercial whaling this summer, risking trade

sanctions from the United States. Meanwhile, Norway

and Japan are already harpooning 100 and 300 minke

whales apiece per year for “research.” The rudimentary

research ends in each nation with the whale meat on

restaurant tables. Claiming that the Southern Hemisphere

minke whale population is up to 760,000 and out of dan-

ger, Japan wants to kill 2,000 a year. The Japanese gov-

ernment is also desperately worried that the IWC will

extend its authority from minkes, the smallest of the great

whales, to smaller cetaceans such as dolphins and porpois-

es. As with the great whales, some species of dolphins

and porpoises have been driven close to extinction by

aggressive huntiing, and public opinion in most of the

developed nations favors protecting them.

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