Agriculture

September 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on August 9

announced plans to hike grazing fees on 280 million acres

of public lands, from the present $1.86 per animal unit per

day to $4.28––still below market value, and half the $8.70

fee the House passed in July 1991, later killed by the

Senate. An earlier attempt by Babbitt to up grazing fees

was delayed by President Clinton until his budget cleared

Congress.

The European Commission on July 13 proposed

that horses in transport should be watered and fed every six

hours; calves under four weeks old, every eight hours; and

adult cattle every 16 hours. Horses and pigs would get 10

hours of rest after traveling 12 hours. If adopted, the new

rules will protect all animals traveling between member

nations.

COURT CALENDAR

September 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

Activism

A federal grand jury in Grand

Rapids, Michigan, on July 16 indicted fugi-

tive activist Rodney Allen Coronado, 27, on

five felony counts including arson, pertaining

to a 1992 firebombing that gutted the

Michigan State University mink ranching labo-

ratory. The fire also destroyed the files of an

MSU staffer who was developing alternatives

to the use of animals in biomedical research.

Coronado, who has acknowledged involve-

ment in other direct actions including scuttling

two Icelandic whaling vessels, was reportedly

last seen in Oregon in early November 1992.

He is also sought for questioning by grand

juries probing arsons at animal research facili-

ties in Oregon, Washington, and Louisiana,

and by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in

connection with laboratory vandalism at the

University of Edmonton, in Alberta.

MIDWEST FLOOD RESCUE EFFORT: Forty days, forty nights, and still the rain kept pouring

September 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

MISSISSIPPI BASIN––Two

months of record rainfall that brought

record flooding in nine midwestern states

probably displaced more animals than

any high waters in North America since

the glaciers melted. Of the 791 counties

in the nine states, 421 were declared fed-

eral disaster areas. Clean-up and repairs

are expected to cost more than $13 bil-

lion. But animal rescuers didn’t dwell on

the immensity of the big picture. They

just pitched in however they could, wher-

ever they were, with whatever they could

scrounge by way of equipment and sup-

plies.

Rabies victim wasn’t bitten; GIRL NEVER KNEW WHAT HIT HER––DEATH DEMONSTRATES RISK TO RESCUERS

September 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

SARATOGA SPRINGS, New York, and

MAMMOTH LAKES, California––The July 14 death of

an 11-year-old girl from rabies and a series of human deaths

from a rodent-borne hantavirus send a heads-up message to

animal rescuers and health care providers everywhere:

zoonosis, or animal diseases passed to people, can hit any-

one at any time. And the symptoms can go unrecognized.

Kelly Aherndt, an athletic would-be veterinarian,

kept a horse and a coop of pigeons; shared two cats, a col-

lie, and a variety of ducks and chickens with her brother

and two sisters; collected nature magazines; and spent

much of her time in the woods near her home in

Bloomingburg, New York, collecting fossils. Her parents

had warned her repeatedly to avoid raccoons and other

potentially rabid wildlife.

Animal Health & Behavior

July 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

CDC goes to rat-@#$%

The Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention blame an unknown Hantaan virus probably

transmitted by rodents for causing flu-like symptoms that

killed 19 residents of the Four Corners region of New

Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado during May and

June. Most of the victims were Native Americans.

Hantaan viruses are typically transmitted through inhala-

tion, after becoming airborne with evaporated urine.

The transmission route for this as yet unidentified virus

has not been found, and investigators have been thwarted

by the reluctance of Navajo victims’ families, in particu-

lar, to speak either of the dead or of matters involving

their religion and rituals. However, Nevada paleoenvi-

ronmental researcher Peter E. Wigand, who seeks clues

to ecological history in ancient deposits of crystalized rat

urine, may have unwittingly provided a clue to the out-

break last January, before it actually occurred. Wigand

New pocket (gopher and bat) books

June 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Conversations With A Pocket Gopher

And Other Outspoken Neighbors. By Jack

Schaefer. Capra Press (PO Box 2068, Santa Barbara,

CA 93120), 1978, 1992, 126 pages, paper $8.95.

Originally published in Audubon magazine, the

seven tales collected here attempt to explain ecological situ-

ations from the perspectives of individual nonhuman beings.

The late author, best known for his Western novel Shane,

deserves credit for trying, though his style too often

becomes precious and archaic when he strives hardest for

enlightenment.

COURT CALENDAR

May 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1993:

Animal Trafficking

Worldwide Primates propri-

etor Matthew Block, 31, of Miami,

drew 13 months in federal prison on April

17 for his part in arranging for six infant

orangutans to be smuggled from Indonesia

to the Soviet Union––the 1990 Bangkok

Six case. Hoping to win a plea bargain,

Block testified against three accomplices

and helped set up the January 26 arrest of

a Mexican zoo director for allegedly trying

to smuggle a gorilla. However, assistant

U.S. attorney Guy Lewis told U.S. district

judge James Kehoe that Block had never

fully cooperated with either investigation,

had lied about his degree of involvement

in the orangutan deal, and was still in

touch with smuggling associates. Block

now faces USDA action for allegedly

feeding primates at his facility spoiled

food, failing to provide water, and keep-

ing them in vermin-infested cages.

BOOKS: The Newfoundland Pony

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

The Newfoundland Pony, by

Andrew F. Fraser. Creative

Publishers (St. John’s, Newfoundland,

Canada), 1992. 213 pages. $14.95.

The Newfoundland pony is on the

cusp of extinction, no match for progress in

the form of tractors and snowmobiles.

Numbers of Newfoundland ponies have

dwindled from more than 10,000 in 1976 to

barely 400, as the greater part of its popu-

lation has been sacrified to the insatiable

Moloch of the slaughter trade––in particu-

lar, to the killing plants of Quebec, which

supply the French appetite for horseflesh.

ANIMAL HEALTH

April 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Ohio Veterinary Medical Board member George Wenning, DVM, resigned March 11 under pressure

for having called filing horses’ teeth “nigger work” during a board meeting. The governor’s office ordered another

member, Tom Liggett, DVM, to take a one-day course on cultural diversity at his own expense––and made the

annual course mandatory for all 400 members of state boards and commissions. Liggett reportedly routinely

inquired as to whether applicants for veterinary licenses were “Americans.” The situation came to light when for-

mer board president Linda Randall, DVM, an Afro-American, told media that her private complaints to Governor

George Voinovich had gone unanswered for six months.

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