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ANIMAL PEOPLENews For People Who Care About Animals

June 1994 Volume III, #5

POB 205, SHUSHAN, NY 12873[ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED.]

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico––The world willknow by the time you read this whether U.S. president BillClinton sold out whales to sell $625 million worth of missiles toNorway. As ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, Greenpeace andthe World Wildlife Fund, goaded by Friends of Animals, wereapplying last-minute leverage to head off the apparentsellout––including joint protest on May 17 in front of the WhiteHouse, a WWF first, while Clinton and vice president AlbertGore met with Norwegian prime minister Gro Brundtland inside.

The proposed creation of an Antarctic whale refuge andthe resumption of commercial whaling head the agenda for the46th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission(IWC), commencing on May 23. As every year since 1982,when the IWC decreed the moratorium on commercial whaling ineffect since 1986, Japan and Norway will push to break themoratorium. As last year, Japan and Norway will also fight thecreation of the sanctuary, seeking the help of Antigua-and-Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent-and-the-Grenadines, four tiny Caribbean nations heavily dependentupon Japanese foreign aid, whose votes were decisive in 1993.

The moratorium cannot be broken without the approvalof three-fourths of the 39 IWC member nations. Last year the

(continued on page 7)

pro-whaling nations were turned back 18-6, with 13 abstentions.But likewise the French-proposed Southern Whale Sanctuary, asthe Antarctic refuge is officially called, cannot be created with-out three-fourths approval. The refuge proposal has 12 co-spon-sors, including Australia and New Zealand, two of the sixnations whose waters would be most affected.

"We're pretty sure of 18 or 19 votes," said Antarcticspecialist Cassandra Phillips of the World Wildlife Fund, "and(Minke whale, courtesy of Edward Lynas,

Ocean Research Information Society.)

Save the whales!DID CLINTON SELL OUT WHALES TO SELL MISSILES?

Philippines joins Indonesia in banning monkey business

71%

INSIDESpecies survival expert

offers Bill of Rightsfor captive wildlife

Concessions to hunterswin assault rifle ban

Brian Davies Foundationinvested in vivisection

HOAXES RATTLE HUMANECOMMUNITY

Wildlife rabies vaccination takes offMad Cow Disease scare

GORILLA CASE AFRAME, SAYS MCGREAL

MANILA, The Philippines– – Ahigh-ranking Philippine official confirmedMay 9 that a long-awaited Philippine ban onwild-caught monkey exports will take effectthis year, fulfilling a promise made in 1986and completing a phase-out begun in 1989.

Quoting a radio broadcast byPhilippine Protected Areas and WildlifeBureau director Corazon Sinha, the Xinhuanews service reported that the export ban willcover both wild-caught and captive-bred mon-keys––a significant extension of the 1989plan, reiterated in early 1993 by Sinha's pre-decessor, Samuel Penafield. Ending all mon-key exports would ease the burden of enforce-ment, since officials would not be obliged todetermine where each monkey was born.However, it might also renew the adverseresponse of the U.S. biomedical researchestablishment, whose pressure via the StateDepartment delayed the proposed ban fromApril 1986, when former minister of natural

resources Ernest Maceda announced his inten-tion of barring all exports of Philippinewildlife, until April 1989, when the phase-out plans for birds, reptiles, mammals, andinvertebrates were published.

The 1990 wild-caught primateexport quota, Penafield told The PhilippineStar, was 10,000, well below the 1987 exportquota of 15,200, which was then reduced byanother 2,000 each year. Penafield estimatedthat about 80% of all monkeys exported byThe Philippines were wild-caught.

The Philippine cessation of exportswould follow a ban on rhesus monkey exportsimposed by India in 1977; a ban on all mon-key exports enforced by Bangladesh since1979; a similar ban maintained by Malaysiasince 1984; and a ban on the export of wild-caught monkeys signed by Indonesian minis-ter of forestry Djamaludin S u r y o h a d i k u s u m oon January 20 of this year.

Monkey at Kennedy Airport, New York, en route to laboratory. (Photo by Mary Bloom.)

Who needslow-cost neutering?

about how to improve low-cost neutering pro-grams to get even better results and resolvegrievances that often hamper programs.

Perceiving lack of hard data on theefficacy of low-cost neutering and consequentveterinary resistance as the two main obstaclesto the availability of low-cost programs,N S A L president John Stevenson commis-sioned the ANIMAL PEOPLE study inDecember 1993, on behalf of Spay USA, aproject of NSAL.

"We'd like to know where we shouldbe going with our programs," he said, "andwe'd like to share our findings with the wholehumane community, because what we do withSpay USA is refer callers to programs in theirown towns, all over the United States."

A total of 690 people completedquestionaires of four to six pages in length toprovide the data, among them 140 small ani-mal veterinarians picked at random fromdemographically representative zip codes onthe American Veterinary Medical Associationmembership list; 87 veterinarians known tobe participating in various low-cost neuteringprograms, from the ANIMAL PEOPLE sub-scription lists; 89 pet owners found at ran-dom within demographically representativezip codes, contacted through use of a listcompiled by a major marketing research com-pany; 127 pet owners previously known tohave patronized low-cost neutering programs;

PORT WASHINGTON, New York––Low-cost neutering doubles the number ofpoor people who get their pets fixed––and cuts animal shelter intakes in half.

Any doubts that either shelter administrators or veterinarians may have about theefficacy of low-cost neutering should be laid to rest by the results of a new national study car-ried out over the past six months by ANIMAL PEOPLE, under sponsorship of the NorthShore Animal League. The first part of the study, investigating the impact of low-cost neu-tering on pet overpopulation, is published here. The second part, a comprehensive review ofveterinary experience, will appear in our July/August issue––including veterinarians' ideas

(continued on page 9)(continued on page 16)

PART ONE OF A NEW NATIONAL STUDY

2 - ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994

U.S. World Wildlife Fund president Kathryn Fuller didn't just rattle the Clintonadministration with her May 12 declaration of opposition to any "first step toward theresumption of commercial whaling." More significant was her statement that, "Even ifcommercial whaling could be sustainable, it cannot be justified," a welcome marked depar-ture from 35 years of WWF policy, which essentially has endorsed any use of wildlife thateven promised to be sustainable.

The most influential of all animal and habitat protection groups internationally,WWF has been problematic since 1961, when founder Sir Peter Scott, a trophy hunter,recruited the leadership elite from among fellow hunters who feared that African indepen-dence would lead to the rapid loss of target species. The elite included longtime WWFInternational president Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, who escaped punishment forallegedly overshooting bird quotas in Italy in the early 1970s to resign, finally, in 1987,after being implicated in a Dutch bribery scandal. Bernhard was succeeded by another ofthe founding elite, Prince Philip, long the honorary head of the British chapter. One of theworld's most prolific tiger-killers when tigers were abundant, Philip showed his allegianceto conservation ethics that Christmas by leading his sons Charles, Andrew, and Edward inkilling 10,000 pigeons, 7,000 pheasants, 300 partridges, and several hundred ducks,geese, and rabbits––all captive-raised––in a six-week vacation bloodbath. This slightlyexceeded Philip's previous record of 15,500 captive birds killed during a five-week spree.

Early WWF U.S. chapter presidents included C.R. "Pink" Gutermuth, who dou-bled as president of the National Rifle Association, and Francis L. Kellogg, a notorious tro-phy hunter. The attitude of WWF in those days was characterized by support for seal-club-bing off the east coast of Canada, benefit fur auctions (only halted in 1988), andBernhardt's formation of the 1001 Club, a group of billionaire patrons. A 1988 probe ofthe 1001 Club by the magazine Private Eye found that the members "by and large owe theirfortunes to activities completely at odds with preserving wildlife habitat." The most notori-ous member was Mobuto Sese Soto, who ruled Zaire from 1965 until mid-1993. UnderMobuto, Zaire protected about 84,000 elephants on spacious reserves. Then, as twodecades of reckless spending and blatant corruption brought on the national crisis that final-ly toppled Mobuto, poachers slew about 60% of the elephants in just five years––whileMobuto and supporters reputedly stashed the take in Swiss banks.

Despite or perhaps because of such fancy patronage, WWF meanwhile spent somuch of its income on direct mail fundraising that in 1990 it failed to meet the NationalCharities Information Bureau requirement that it spend at least 60% on program service.Simultaneously WWF was severely embarrassed by a leaked internal study that documented20 years of massive waste. Nearly every major WWF project had failed. Even pandas, theWWF symbol species, were near extinction. WWF had bribed Chinese officials to preservepanda habitat by allowing them to use donated funds for such projects as building a hydro-electric dam––which only brought demands for still bigger bribes.

WWF turned down the heat by officially turning from a so-called "preservationist"philosophy, which in WWF practice meant only the privileged were allowed to kill endan-gered wildlife, to endorsement of "sustainable use"––interpreted to mean killing animals forthe most profitable use possible at the fastest rate each species can withstand.

What's wrong with "sustainable use"?would oppose activity, including both poaching and trophy hunting, that contributes toinstability by heightening the concentration of wealth and privilege with the well-positionedfew instead of the desperately needy many.

Instead, the sustainable use doctrine asserts that since hunting is going on, andwill go on anyway, legally or not, better to regulate it and make a buck than to merelyspend bucks trying to control poaching, as the wildlife traffickers continually jack up theprice for bootlegged animal parts and corrupt officials accept ever larger bribes to ignorepoachers who often are better equipped than their national armies––or in many cases arethemselves renegade army units, with strong clandestine ties to government leaders.

Currently, "sustainable users" point out, hunting is restricted, at least on paper,across much of Africa and Asia. Yet poachers are annihilating elephants, rhinos, and tigerswherever they can, to supply the Asiatic demand for aphrodisiacs and traditional medicinesderived from their ivory, horns, bones, and genitals. The demand increases as growth ofthe leading Asian economies comes faster than the absorption of modern medical knowl-edge, while ruthless mercantilism shoves aside Buddhist and Hindu teachings which stresshuman kinship to other species. Because the only current source of the most coveted animalparts is the international black market, and because prices climb as supplies becomescarcer, cartels such as the notorious Poon or Pong family of Hong Kong not only promotepoaching, but allegedly seek the extinction of the target species, at least in the wild, toguarantee the lasting value of their animal part stockpiles.

Species conservation programs should cash in, the "sustainable users" contend,by helping poor nations to manage wildlife reserves like huge game farms, combiningcanned hunts for culled animals with the legal sale of their remains. This would supposedlyundercut poaching in the marketplace.

Principles and practice"Sustainable use" is attractive to free marketers who don't know their wildlife his-

tory––but there is no evidence that legal traffic in wildlife parts can preserve species. Onthe contrary, legal ivory traffic provided the cover that nearly wiped out elephants in muchof Africa before 1989, when the ivory trading ban adopted by the Convention onInternational Trade in Endangered Species curtailed poaching by giving customs officialsworldwide the ability to interdict ivory shipments, regardless of purported origin.

The elephant episode duplicated the disastrous attempted international regulationof commercial whaling, begun with the formation of the International WhalingCommission in 1946: by 1986, when the current whaling moratorium began, every speciesof whale was severely depleted and some were near extinction because of ruthless poachingthat used the legal quotas for cover. Russian whaling authorities disclosed recently thatsome Soviet vessels killed from 10 to 30 times as many whales as they admittedkilling––and killed hundreds of some species which were completely off limits.

Even in the closely regulated climate of the U.S. and Canada, the "sustainableuse" theory doesn't work, as flagrant poaching continues to masquerade behind legal hunt-ing and game farming. The high rate of poaching in North America also belies the claim,

Editorial

ANIMAL PEOPLENews for People Who Care About Animals

Publisher: Kim BartlettEditor: Merritt CliftonContributing Editor: Cathy Young Czapla

P.O. Box 205Shushan, N.Y. 12873Telephone: 518-854-9436.Fax: 518-854-9601.E-mail: ANMLPEOPLE@aol.com.

ISSN 1071-0035.

Copyright 1994 for the authors, artists, and photographers.Reprint inquiries are welcome.

ANIMAL PEOPLE: News for People Who Care About Animals is pub-lished 10 times annually by Animal People, Inc., a nonprofit, charitable corporation dedi-cated to exposing the existence of cruelty to animals and to inform and educate the publicof the need to prevent and eliminate such cruelty.

Subscription rates are $18.00 per year or $30.00/two years; $12.00 per year forlibraries. ANIMAL PEOPLE is mailed under Bulk Rate Permit #7 from Shushan, NewYork. Executive subscriptions, mailed first class, are $30.00 per year or $55/two years.

The base rate for display advertising is $6.50 per square inch of page space,discounted 10% for payment received with camera-ready copy. Please inquire about oursubstantial multiple insertion discounts.

The editors prefer to receive queries in advance of article submissions; unsolicit-ed manuscripts will be considered for use, but will not be returned unless accompanied bya stamped, self-addressed envelope of suitable size.

ANIMAL PEOPLE does not publish fiction or poetry.

The WWF doctrine has huge influence. Just a month ago Tufts Center forAnimals and Public Policy director Andrew Rowan found a single difference in the respons-es of zoo and humane representatives to 12 hypothetical ethical problems he posed at theWhite Oak conference on zoos and animal protection. Most agreed that hunting is both eth-ically and pragmatically dubious as an alleged tool of wildlife management. Yet, endorsingthe WWF view, the zoo people were virtually all willing to tolerate trophy hunting as a wayto make wildlife lucrative for poor nations, and presumably therefore worth protecting.

The case for "sustainable use" holds accurately enough that poor nations usuallycan't or won't protect wildlife without both economic means and an economic incentive;notes that trophy hunters pay much more for a head than tourists do for a snapshot; andasserts that trophy hunters, armed with guns and bribes, will go places and take risks thatmost tourists won't. One might counter that since potential tourists are much more plentifulthan trophy hunters, and since tourism creates more jobs than trophy hunting, even thoughtourists spend less per capita, a wise conservation strategy would help poor nations to cre-ate the political stability and economic infrastructure that would attract more tourists, and

made in support of "sustainable use" in Africa, that the presence of hunters deters poachers."Sustainable users" contend the mandatory employment of guides will discourage huntersfrom becoming poachers––but that hasn't worked in Maine, Alaska, or Alberta, where vet-eran guides have lately been caught running poaching rings after many years of simultane-ously catering to both wealthy trophy hunters and the Asian wildlife parts market. Huntersand parts traffickers in effect subsidize each other, with corrupt guides as brokers.

Truth is, those who commit crimes against wildlife will exploit any opportunity."Sustainable use" is a one-way ticket to extinction because bloodlust and greed, onceaccepted as legitimate conduct, cannot be appeased or restrained by mere regulation.

The political argument against "sustainable use" is equally rooted. "Sustainableusers" hope to convince poor Africans and Asians that they should not kill wildlife to collectthe equivalent of several years' wages, while rich Europeans and Americans kill the sameanimals for fun––a new and dangerous idea to people whose own killing is mostly fromneed, especially when coupled with the idea that thrill-killing has a higher rationale.

"Sustainable users" argue that giving poor Africans and Asians a collective eco-nomic stock in wildlife will lead to the development of a collective ethic, whereby poacherswill become pariahs. This ignores the history of collectivism wherever it has been attempt-ed, from the failed USSR to Africa's own overgrazed grasslands. It also overlooks thepoachers' own collective ethic (perhaps a higher ethic in that it excludes mere thrill-killing).They already use the animals they kill for what they perceive as the common good, thegood of their families. Having no faith in corrupt governments that purport to protectwildlife, but in fact sell animals to the highest bidder, they see no reason why they shouldnot poach animals now, before others do and take the profits.

Finally, Africa in particular already suffers too much from the idea that whoeverhas the most money and firepower is above morality. The example of the Great WhiteHunter who receives special privileges because he has money reinforces the notion of theBig Man who is above the law because he commands a well-armed tribe.

The "sustainable use" doctrine could be applied to other Third World problems.For instance, the same newly rich and ethically alienated Asian men who buy aphrodisiacsmade from wildlife parts are also the chief patrons of the increasingly notorious brothels ofthe poorest regions of Southeast Asia, where up to 400,000 children a year are bought fromilliterate parents in remote villages and held for enforced prostitution until, diseased andoften cruelly injured, they are cast out and replaced at the advanced age of perhaps 15. Onehopes "sustainable users" would not also endorse financing schools and orphanages by let-ting well-heeled pedophiles rape selected children––even though child prostitution is report-edly a $3.77-billion-a-year business in Taiwan alone, twice the size of the U.S. retail furtrade at its peak.

Some may respond that the ethics of human welfare should not be the same asthose of species conservation. Yet the leaders of the Rwandan massacres in April and Mayrationalized their deeds with "sustainable use" rhetoric. Hutus didn't massacre Tutsis,reporters were told; they merely culled them. Then, Juliana Mukankwaya explained toMark Fritz of the Associated Press, she and other women of their village bludgeoned theorphaned children as a purported act of mercy.

WWF is not responsible for the deaths of half a million civilians in Rwanda, norfor the ongoing tribal strife elsewhere in Africa. Nor is WWF to blame for perversions ofconservation rhetoric, any more than humane societies are to blame for Mukankwaya'swarped notion of euthanasia.

Yet WWF is culpable for advancing the view that thrill-killing can beexcused––for a price. We hope Fuller's apparent turn away from "sustainable use" meansWWF is ready to take a different direction.

ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994 - 3

(Friends of Animals)

Friends of Animals777 Post Road, Suite 205Darien, CT 06820

Reference is made to theletter from Elizabeth Arvin of MoreSpays Less Strays, of Ojai,California, who referred to the sixnational animal welfare organiza-tions who decided arbitrarily to call1993 the Year of the Cat. If thoseorganizations had not spent theirmoney on throw-away glossy litera-ture and put it to better use to helpmany organizations neuter their cats,we would have more spays and lessstrays. I don't believe that literatureproclaiming 1993 as Year of the Catgot one animal adopted. What wasthe purpose anyway?

––Roseann Trezza, Asst. DirectorAssociated Humane Societies

Forked River, New Jersey

Cat licensing

Year of the Cat

Cat feeders

Hunting & molestingEditor's note: Responding to our study "Hunting and

molesting," published in our March issue, which demonstrated astatistical association between rates of hunting license sales andrates of sexual assaults on children in the 62 counties of New York,Carl E. Parker of Guilderland, New York, wrote in a letter we pub -lished in April, "Society would be better served if you investigatedthe probable link between animal extremism and mental illness." OnMay 6, he wrote again:

I received a telephoned death threat from one of yourfemale sympathizers on the night of May 3. After asking whether Iwas the Parker "who used to work for D.E.C.," this lawbreakingvixen said, "You'd better be careful when you go out because it'syour turn to die next."

We'd made no reference whatever to Mr. Parker being aretired biologist for the New York Department of Conservation. (Wedidn't know anything more about him than his address, at the time.)We wrote back that in view of the D.E.C. reference, the caller wasmore likely a poacher, or related to one, than any sort of animalperson. We noted, too, that we routinely get threats from hunters,and that our investigation of the relationship between hunting andsexual assaults on children began last November when two jeeps fullof hunters shouted sexual threats at our son Wolf, age 3, as he and Iwalked on a lonely dirt road about a quarter mile from our home.

Retorted Parker:

Only a pathological dislike of hunting and hunters canaccount for your equating a death threat from a female animalextremist and your verbal exchange with a group of allegedly rudehunters. It is certainly not rational.

We presume Mr. Parker believes it is more rational to sit inhis own home, surrounded by his arsenal, quaking over a cranktelephone call, than for a three-year-old and his unarmed daddy tobe apprehensive when six physically present armed hunters accostthem in the middle of nowhere, threatening to rape the child.

Perhaps he'd like to trade places: we'll take the calls fromwomen who hate hunting, and he'll take the gun-nuts who are intogang sodomy.

Bob Barker ad didn't tell thewhole story

4 - ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994

LettersBob Barker, through United

Activists for Animal Rights, recentlyplaced an advertisement entitled, "Whywas the American Humane Associationso desperate to avoid going to court?"The 1989 lawsuit pertained to state-ments and activities by Barker, relatingto animals in film and AHA's role in theprotection of those animals. Much ofthe text of that advertisement was mis-leading.

• Mr. Barker chose not tomention that he filed a motion inSuperior Court, asking the court tothrow out AHA's libel case against himwithout ever having a trial, based onBarker's position that AHA had novalid case. The judge found that AHAdid, in fact, have a valid case, anddenied Barker's motion.

• Barker appealed this rulingto the Court of Appeals, asking it tothrow out AHA's case without a trial.The Court of Appeals rejected Barker'sarguments.

• Finally Barker, who sup-posedly wanted to go to trial, peti-tioned the California Supreme Court tooverturn the trial court and the Court ofAppeals. The California SupremeCourt rejected Barker's petition.

Finally AHA agreed to settlethe case for $315,000. AHA acceptedthis settlement payment from Barker'sinsurance company in order to resolvethe matter and focus its attention on thetwo primary goals of AHA: preventionof cruelty to animals and prevention ofchild abuse.

Rehashing the events relatedto the lawsuit, or the settlement itself,serves no useful purpose, nor does theexpense of advertisements justifyingMr. Barker's position. It's time for both

the audit committee and more recent-ly as chairman of the board ofHumane Society International ( a nadministrative umbrella for HSUSand related organizations formed in1991––Ed. note).

Objects to HSUS coverageYour coverage of the

Humane Society of the U.S. hiringWayne Pacelle contained implica-tions which need clarification. MyMarch 15 resignation from the HSUSboard was not a part of any maneu-

I love and care for cats andI want all cats licensed and vaccinat-ed for rabies. Whether or not there isa rabies threat, I especially want allcats licensed. We should start nowcontrolling the stray cat problem.Two hours ago I trapped a seven-week-old kitten by an off-ramp ofHighway 101. I am getting tired ofspending every free moment trappingstray cats. If the state doesn't startnow, the expense will be evengreater whenever they do start.Voluntary rescuers such as myselfcannot keep up, no matter what thetalkers say.

––Carol A. ReitmeirMenlo Park, California

Humane opposition to therecently withdrawn California cat-licensing bills, led by the SanFrancisco SPCA, objects not to theprinciple of mandatory cat licensingand vaccination, but rather to thefailure of the bills to protect cat res -cuers from prosecution and feral catcolonies from mass extermination. Aclause recognizing monitoredneuter/release projects would satisfythese objections, but the NationalAudubon Society, a leading support -er of cat licensing, openly intends forlicensing laws to be a means of man -dating the killing of homeless cats.

Humane groups shouldwork with cat feeders, and I'm gladyou encourage that. I've alwaysfound feeders to be very cooperative,provided one is on the up and up andhas proved worthy of trust.

––Patty AdjamineN.Y. for Companion Animals

New York, New York

organizations to move on with theirenergies and resources devoted to thecare and protection of animals.––Robert F.X. Hart, Executive Director

The American Humane AssociationEnglewood, Colorado

Unnatural OrderSomeone just sent a copy of

P.J. Kemp's review of my new book,An Unnatural Order. Thanks verymuch. I need all the help I can get,because it is not getting any reviews inmainstream media. What a waste of 12years of research! Good luck andregards.

––Jim MasonMt. Vernon, Missouri

In my opinion Pacelle isone of the brightest, most effectivepeople in the animal rights move-ment, and his new position withHSUS is a welcome additional step intheir gradual movement toward a"rights" philosophy––a movementwhich was always slower than Iwished, but often faster than Iexpected.

––Leslie R. InglisNokomis, Florida

Inglis, like everyone elsementioned in the article to which heresponds, was offered the chance tobe quoted on the record before it waswritten. He declined.

vers by HSUS or anyone in it. Iresigned on my own initiative to havemore time to devote to my other ani-mal and vegetarian activities. Ibelieve the executives at HSUS hadno prior knowledge of my resigna-tion, and I certainly was unaware oftheir plans to hire Pacelle, a move Iwould nevertheless have wholeheart-edly supported.

Your veiled suggesting thatI might have become part of a boardconstituency behind the executives'backs is wrongheaded and wrong-hearted. I have been a strong sup-porter of HSUS before, during, andafter my service on its board. I thinkthe executives were confident of thissupport or else I would never havebeen asked to serve as chairman of

CORRECTIONSTypographical errors in our

May issue caused several embarrass-ing misidentifications. The NewYork Aquarium rehabilitated andreleased a beached pilot whale, notthe Shedd Aquarium (subject of theitem just above that one). The Fundfor Animals was begun in 1967, not1974. We confused a Great Danewith a greyhound in a photo caption(we do know the difference); con-fused a dog breeder's holding penwith a pack hunter's chase pen in try-ing to clarify Darlene Willians' letterabout Doll Stanley-Branscum; andtransposed the names of Maine stateveterinarian Chip Ridky and farmerJohn Ahern the second time we men-tioned them in connection with cruel-ty charges filed against Ahern, aftergetting their names right in both thepreceding sentence and the next sen-tence. Also, Friends of Animalswants us to note that attorney HermanKaufman works by the job, not asstaff, and that "Ross Rosenthal" isactually Ross, Rosenthal Inc., anaccounting firm, not the FoA accoun-tant. Both were briefly mentioned inour December 1993 issue.

The Warm Store - not yet paid for June

Moore & Ahlers - paid through September

Furriers don't close for summer vacationIt is nice to see that the fur industry seems to be on a steady

decline, but we must not think that our battle is over. The industry isusing every trick they have to try not to collapse. If you live in anarea with a fur store, plan protests. During the summer months wecan't let up. Fur stores don't close for summer vacation, and you bet-ter believe that the animals don't get one. During summer many ani-mals [on fur farms] die from heat exhaustion. We need to keep thepressure on; let's not get cocky.

––Kris QuaHolocaust Vegazine

Syracuse, New York

––Photo by Kim Bartlett

ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994 - 5

ON LIFE, LIBERTY ANDPURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

FOR WILDLIFE IN CONFINEMENTby John Lukas

Director, White Oak Conservation Center, Yulee, FloridaThis guest column is adapted from a cage-rattling

presentation Mr. Lukas delivered to the recent White Oak con -ference on zoos and animal protection, hosted by the HowardGilman Foundation.

Happiness is not a term zoo administrators and oth-ers who hold wildlife in confinement like to use. Many of uswere trained to think of "happiness" as a human interpreta-tion, linked with anthropomorphizing animals, and thereforeproblematic when much of what we do is oriented toward try-ing to get animals to behave in the manner appropriate to theirown species. Nonetheless, I use the term "happiness,"because even if we have trouble suitably defining it, I believewe cannot avoid having to think about it as an essential com-ponent of animal well-being.

Well-being, by dictionary definition, is the condi-tion of happiness, prosperity, and good health. In consider-ing the well-being of a confined animal, we must considerboth biological well-being, which encompasses the territorial,social, nutritional, and reproductive needs of a species, andcultural well-being, which is how we as humans understandthe well-being of animals in the context of our own percep-tions of happiness, cleanliness, safety, and how we thinkanimals ought to be treated.

There are five principle venues in which wild ani-mals may be confined to protect and/or perpetuate species.Each venue includes both inherent advantages and disadvan-tages in our efforts to insure animal well-being, includinghappiness, and it is important that their functions and capabil-ities not be confused. A zoo, for instance, cannot become aconservation center and continue to function as a zoo.Neither should a conservation center be allowed to evolveinto a zoo without making a studied choice of taking thatdirection. Each venue for holding wildlife has a different job

in semi-natural conditions, with the emphasis on scientificmanagement to aid their survival. The overriding premise isthat the needs of the animals come first. Usually, conserva-tion centers are not open to the public. Any animal observa-tion is strictly controlled.

Nature centers exhibit native species in naturalisticsurroundings to educate visitors about indigenous plants andanimals. Nature centers concentrate upon topics related toecology and human interactions with wildlife on a local level.

Z o o s exhibit animals in artificial environmentsmeant to depict each animal in a semblance of natural habitat,for both educational and recreational objectives. Progressivezoos dedicate resources to off-exhibit breeding and research,and make each exhibit as natural and representative of thehabitat of the species kept as is possible.

Biological and cultural well-beingEach species has specific biological needs that must

be fulfilled for it to survive and reproduce. For most speciesthese needs are known and documented. How well they aresatisfied determines the level of well-being for the species inconfinement.

Animals in situ enjoy the maximum degree of natur-al biological well-being. The natural biological envrionmentdeclines as we bring the animals into increasing degrees ofconfinement. As the natural sources of biological well-beingare lost, we provide substitutes to maintain biological well-being at lesser levels. For instance, we substitute hay for nat-ural grass, prepared meat diets for carcasses, culverts fordens, and concrete pools for lakes. Our success dependsupon how well we understand the biological needs of eachspecies and upon how adept we are at responding to theseneeds within the constraints imposed by the levels of confine-

happiness, and examines how well the composite of animalneeds and human perception is reflected in the animal's envi-ronment and behavior. This leads us to several troublesomecontradictions.

For example, most people believe an animal cannever have too much space: people equate space with free-dom. But when people come to view wildlife, they expect tobe able to see the animals. In a national park or wildlifereserve, this contradiction is resolved by conditioning theanimals to accept the presence of tourist vehicles or boats.This can be done because the animals are protected by lawfrom human harm, and therefore they soon become used tothe presence of another essentially neutral entity. Some ani-mals even use tourist vehicles for their advantage, as evi-denced by the cheetahs in the Masaii Mara, who use vehiclesas elevated observation points from which to look for suitableprey. Thus, even in the most natural of confinement situa-tions, where we attempt to minimize the effects of humanintrusion, animal behavior is influenced by our activity. Ourobjective is to seek the best balance for the species being con-served, including the sometimes restrictive consideration thatsomeone has to pay for the conservation effort.

In an IPZ, and to a lesser extent in conservationcenters such as White Oak, suitable space is given to eachspecies, but with little emphasis on visibility and moreemphasis on protection, since the goal is to increase andmaintain a fragmented population at all costs. Poaching, dis-ruption of behavior, and harassing the animals is strictly for-bidden; at IPZ facilities for black rhinos in Zimbabwe, sus-pected poachers are shot on sight. Because IPZs and conser-vation centers are costly, with little means of directly raising

White Oak includes the most successful breeding group ofcheetahs either wild or captive. (Photo by Merritt Clifton.)

revenue, they are not a realistic or even desirable placementfor most wildlife despite the advantages they seem to offer tothe most fragile or vulnerable species.

Zoos by contrast must provide high visibility. Theyexist to exhibit animals. Within this context, the space allo-cated to each species should nonetheless be the maximumavailable. This requires innovative and costly exhibits: agood zoo cannot be created (or recreated from a substandardexisting facility) on the cheap, without a strong ongoing com-mitment to maintaining quality care. Most important, run-ning a good zoo requires carefully selecting the species to beexhibited, making sure their allotted space is both biological-ly adequate and culturally perceived to be adequate. If thiscannot be done for a particular species, that species shouldnot be kept.

At zoos, the more that appears natural in the ani-mals' lives, the more people will perceive that the animals are

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ment.Cultural well-being is defined for most people by

the question, "Is the animal happy?" Because most conserva-tion efforts are financed either directly or indirectly by thegeneral public, the White Oak Conservation Center being oneof the few major exceptions, it is in our paramount interest tobe able to answer that question––convincingly––in the affir-mative. If we hold animals in conditions where they appear tobe unhappy, we will not hold public support for long, nomatter how well the biological needs of the animals are met.

People seem to sense that an animal is happy whenhe or she has adequate space to live in; lives in a normalsocial grouping; is in habitat resembling the natural home ofthe species; eats food resembling the species' natural diet; isin a clean environment; the environment is safe and secure;and the animal does not look or act bored.

An analysis of cultural well-being takes the biologi-cal needs of the animals, injects into them human ideas about

YES! I’M AN ANIMAL PERSON!

to do, and the better we understand the distinctions, the bet-ter adapted our responses will be to the problems of keepingwild animals.

In situ refers to keeping animals in their nativehabitat under a degree of protection that can only be insuredwithin territorial restraints. Usually this is done within anational park or wildlife reserve.

An Intensive Protection Zone is a section of nativehabitat, usually within government land, within which athreatened species is concentrated when it needs more protec-tion from humans than can be provided in situ. The IPZ isdefined by fences, guard posts, natural barriers, and thepresence of a large, well-trained unit of wildlife guards. TheIPZ connects to a larger wildlife reserve into which the ani-mals can be moved after the threats to their survival havebeen controlled or eliminated.

A conservation center is an institution outside thenative range of particular animals that maintains these species

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6 - ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994

happy and prosperous. Selecting only speciesthat can be afforded properly constructedexhibits, allowing a natural lifestyle, will gofar in presenting a positive image to visitors.

In addition to space, we must con-sider boredom. If an animal looks bored orsad or displays stereotypic behavior, the pub-lic will respond adversely. Such behavior isan unnatural response to an artificial environ-ment. Improvement in space, habitat quality,food sources, social opportunities, andhealth care usually will eliminate the negativebehavior. If not, most likely this individualor species should not be kept at the zoo levelof confinement. Such animals or speciesshould be kept in relatively close confine-ment only at conservation centers, in semi-natural habitat. In certain cases, even a con-servation center may not be sufficient toinsure well-being, and the animal shouldonly be kept in situ, despite the accompany-ing risks. These cases, where extinction ispossible, pose perhaps the most painfulmoral dilemma facing the species conserva-tion community.

Safety, security, and cleanlinessare uniquely human considerations. Animalsdo not worry about their safety, other than insituations of immediate danger. Rather, theygo about their lives concerned with living.Many mammals and birds clean and groomthemselves, and some species keep theirdens clean, but most are unconcerned withkeeping or finding a clean home range.People worry about dirt because peopleunderstand the relationship between filth anddisease. People like cleanliness, and an ani-mal in a clean environment makes us happy,so most people feel the animal also must behappy about it––although in fact the animalmay have carefully marked his or her habitatand may be quite stressed at the removal ofthe markings.

Consideration for safety, security,

and cleanliness reverse the order of whichlevels of confinement provide the best situa-tion for animals as people see them. In situareas provide little security or cleanliness.Natural factors such as predation, disease,starvation, and intra-species aggression,along with human poaching, hunting, andharassment, take a heavy toll. IPZs and con-servation centers provide protection fromsome types of harm, but zoos offer the bestoverall security and the cleanest environment.Most causes of in situ mortality can be elimi-nated through the intensive care that goodzoos provide. Thus zoo animals on averagelive much longer than wild animals.

This is both a blessing and a curse.Long-lived animals breed more offspring, ifable to breed. They also must be expensivelykept well past their reproductive years andeven past the years of their exhibit value.Here again, the perception of happinessdepends more on quality of life than on quan-tity of years. Zoos must provide quality envi-ronments and care for all of their animals fortheir entire lives, if they are to be seen asproviding well-being. Aged animals, likeaged people, deserve special care. Planningfor each animal's retirement must begin whilethe animal is young.

If people see that a confined animallives in natural surroundings, in naturalsocial groups, eating natural-looking food ina large area but remaining visible, and if thearea is clean and safe, and if the animal doesnot appear bored or sad, then the animalmust be happy. If wild animals are treated atall as we treat domestic livestock, peopleperceive cruelty.

StandardsOne way to provide well-being as

conditions of confinement become more arti-ficial is to develop appropriate standards for

confined living. Such standards should bedeveloped not only by curators, zoologists,and ethologists, but also with input fromphilosophers and humane advocates.

The Association of Zoos andAquariums, through Species Survival Plans,provides expertise in genetic and demograph-ic management of captive populations.Overlooked is what each species needs toexperience happiness.

In SSP master planning, a hus-bandry manual is formulated which describescertain basic standards to maintain a speciesin artificial environments. I have attendedseveral SSP planning sessions, and feel it isdetrimental to develop so-called m i n i m u mstandards. The idea of "minimum" as "stan-dard" is a contradiction if we define a stan-dard as a "level of excellence generallyregarded as right." In basing standards on thestatus quo, which includes some deplorablefacilities for certain species, the zoo commu-nity leaves itself open for justly deserved crit-icism. Husbandry manuals fall short becausethey describe what is done now, not whatshould be done. The standards for manage-ment of a species in captivity should stand bythemselves, should be emulated, and shouldbe goals to reach for. Let us call them opti-mum standards of confinement, or OSC. AnOSC, if set by a multi-disciplinary commi-

African rhinos pursuing happiness at White Oak. (Photo by Merritt Clifton.)course becomes steadily more costly as thelevel of confinement increases. Here iswhere hard decisions lie ahead, for if wecannot provide the standard at a certain levelof confinement, the animal should only bemaintained in situations of less confinement.Until a standard can be met at each particularlevel of confinement, efforts should be con-centrated on maintaining the species at thoselevels where the standards of well-being arealready being met.

Coming from a conservation centerbackground, I see that conservation centershave more resources available with which tosatisfy biological well-being for certainspecies than zoos. But for other species,conservation centers have significantly fewerresources than in situ programs. Every timethe White Oak Conservation Center consid-ers helping a new species, we go throughour own OSC checklist to see if we reallycan provide for that species well-being.Believe me, sometimes the answer is no.We may have to let certain species fight fortheir survival in situ because we cannot real-istically satisfy their OSC at the zoo or con-servation center level of confinement––although we can provide support to in situconservation efforts. Other species may onlybe helped by conservation centers, whichprovide the best chance to prepare species for

"If wild animals are treated at all as we treatdomestic livestock, people perceive cruelty."

(continued from page 5)

reintroduction into in situ situations.Everyone working with confined

wildlife needs to consider the well-being ofindividual animals while we consider thewell-being of species. It is easy to justify lessthan desirable programs in the name of savinganimals from extinction. However, as thehuman consciousness explores more respect-ful relationships with other species, the con-servation community needs to be leading theway in developing a new covenant withwildlife, based upon dignity and well-being,and including attention to that elusive butimportant ideal of happiness.

(John Lukas, director of the WhiteOak Conservation Center since 1982, is alsovice president of the International RhinoFoundation. He formerly served in variouscapacities with the Boston Zoological Society,the Okanagan Game Farm, and the New YorkZoological Society, gaining direct experienceat all levels of wildlife confinement.)

tee, should satisfy both the biological needsof a species and our cultural perception ofhow animals should be treated.

The decision to keep animals shouldbe linked to a percentage of compliance withthe OSC, as set by the committee. Forinstance, if the committee finds that 75%compliance with the OSC for species "A" isenough to insure the well-being of the speciesin a zoo setting, then zoos realizing that levelof compliance could exhibit animals ofspecies "A," while continuing to strivetoward complete realization of the OSC forthat species. If a zoo could only achieve 60%compliance, it could not keep species "A."

Implementing OSC standards willbe difficult and costly. But if we are to raisethe level of care of the animals we confinepurportedly for their own good, we must ded-icate new resources and new energy to devel-oping and realizing o p t i m u m standards forconfinement. Raising the standards of care of

Wild Wear ad--paid for June

Antelope at White Oak. (Photo by Merritt Clifton.)

Zoo notes––A deal to move Ivan the gorilla to the 17-member

colony at Zoo Atlanta has collapsed. Ivan has been kept in acage at a now-bankrupt shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington,for nearly 30 years. Bankruptcy trustee Bianca Harrison claimsthe obstacle was that Zoo Atlanta wouldn't let his keepers to staywith him during quarantine, wouldn't guarantee that he wouldn'tbe moved again, and wouldn't promise that he wouldn't be elec-troejaculated. Zoo Atlanta says the real issue is that the creditorsthink they can get more money for Ivan abroad than the $30,000the Progressive Animal Welfare Society offered to send him toAtlanta.

Four gorillas have died at the Columbus Zoo in thepast year––Oscar of a heart attack, Molly and her baby as resultof a premature birth, and Colbi, age six, of apparent severe coli-tis on May 3. Antibiotic treatments failed.

A 12-year-old gorilla, Casey II, scaled a 16-footwall and took a 30-minute stroll through the St. Paul Zoo on May12, peaceably window-shopping at souvenir stands and befriend-ing the resident antelopes before he was tranquilized, recaptured,and temporarily confined indoors.

In the year since former Philadelphia city streetscommissioner Pete Hoskins was appointed president of thePhiladelphia Zoo, membership has increased 14% to a record50,000, after a four-year skid, and the 1993-1994 operating lossis expected to be $300,000, down from $1.5 million in 1992-1993. The zoo has also raised $5 million toward $6.5 millionworth of planned improvements to animal care facilities, plus$5.4 million toward a $10.4 million wildlife education center.The Philadelphia Zoo, founded in 1859, is the oldest in the U.S.

Parc Safari, at Hemmingford, Quebec, reopenedMay 21 after hastily acquiring nearly 400 animals to replace 630animals who were killed during the winter by Agriculture Canadato prevent the spread of an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis.About 250 resident animals of various species not vulnerable tobovine TB were spared.

Three children, ages 4, 10, and 13, were mauled bybears at the Moscow Zoo during March. "It is a legacy of ourSoviet mentality," cheetah keeper Lena Aliskerova told HowardWitt of the Chicago Tribune. "People just do not believe any-thing written on official signs. If a sign says, 'Danger: do nottouch the animals,' they think it means it's okay." Observed Witt,"The zoo resembles an animal gulag." About 4,500 animals of800 species endure short rations in cramped quarters. "Yet theMoscow Zoo is more than a reflection of Russia's crushing prob-lems," Witt added. "Among the employees, a visitor can alsodiscover a selfless, absolute devotion to the animals in their care,a willingness to endure pitiable wages for thankless jobs, and azeal to improve conditions as quickly as possible," by learningwestern fundraising and promotional methods, to finance thenecessary changes.

The Wilds, a financially struggling 9,154-acre con-servation center for rhinos, red wolves, and seven otherendangered species in southeastern Ohio, is beginning vantours for visitors to help offset costs. Founded in 1986 as theInternational Center for the Preservation of Wild Animals, Inc.,the wilds has only managed to raise 22% of its $800,000-a-yearbudget through individual and corporate contributions.Foundations and government grants furnish the rest.

ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994 - 7

another four or five look good." Twenty-one votes will prob-ably be needed for passage. Chile and Argentina do notoppose the sanctuary, but want the northern boundary to be atthe 60th parallel rather than the 40th, which would cut theprotected waters in half, while South Africa, an abstentionlast year, has a new government, and, prodded by the Greengroup Earthlife Africa, may now join the refuge supporters.Even so, the refuge supporters are scrambling to avoid animpasse, which Japan and Norway hope to exploit in a trade-off: refuge for resumed commercial whaling.

Keeping everyone guessing, CANA radio ofDominica on May 14 reported that according to theDominican trade minister, Dominica would break with Japanand Norway to cast the apparent deciding vote for the refuge.Soon afterward, said Steve Best of the International WildlifeCoalition, “ the Dominican whaling commissioner called thestation to refute the story and say that the Dominican decisionwould be based on science,” meaning the position of theJapanese-and-Norwegian-dominated IWC ScientificCommittee––which is advancing a Revised Management Plan,a key component of a Revised Management Scheme thatwould start the process of establishing whaling quotas.

“We have also received an unconfirmed report thatAntigua-and-Barbuda have declared that they will be support-ing the sanctuary,” Best added. Their positions were stilluncertain after the first day of the five-day meeting.

Renewed Massacre Plan?The International Wildlife Coalition had threatened

all five Caribbean nations with tourism boycotts––supportedin St. Lucia by the National Trust, a conservation group, andthe St. Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association. But the boy-cotts,though widely endorsed, weren’t expected to be enoughby themselves to overcome the seduction of aid dollars. Thatthe Caribbean nations might be shifting to support the refugewas generally taken as a hint that the Clinton administrationhad cut a deal with Norway and Japan.

Explained Craig Van Nolte of Monitor, aWashington D.C.-based briefing service for animal and habi-tat protection lobbyists, “At a meeting of whaling commis-sioners from ‘conservation-minded’ countries in London dur-ing the week of April 18, the U.S. proposed that the RMP beadopted ‘provisionally.’ Heavy lobbying by the highest levelsof the governments of Norway and Japan persuaded the

among others––gradually recover from the verge of extinctionto claim ever greater shares of krill and plankton.

But krill and plankton are also depleted––both byJapanese and Southeast Asian seiners seeking the staples ofthe whale diet for use as pig feed, and by increased ultravioletradiation hitting southern waters as result of atmosphericozone depletion.

Specified an executive summary distributed by theLondon-based Environmental Investigative Agency, “Underthe RMP, commercially hunted whale populations would notreceive protection until it was proved that they had declined to54% of their pre-hunt level...The IWC and its ScientificCommittee have failed to take adequate account of the degra-dation of the marine and atmospheric environments, and thepotentially catastrophic effects on marine ecosystems.” AnEIA study to be presented to the IWC argues that whales anddolphins will be extinct within a century due to pollution andoverfishing––a direct threat to toothed whales, who eat fish.

Further, the EIA charged, “Dramatic revelations ofwidespread falsification whaling data by the Soviet Union,”which is now known to have killed from 10 to 30 times morewhales than it admitted during the 1960s and 1970s, “raisesserious doubts about current whale populations. To trulyascertain the global effects of such deceptive practices,” theEIA said, “all historical and catch records from whalingcountries must be verified and the discrepancies reconciled,thus placing the burden of proof on whalers––not whales.”

Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, where they hadexpected to find it. Wrote U.S. WWF president KathrynFuller to Gore on May 12, “It is critically important that theCommission continue the worldwide moratorium on commer-cial whaling. In our view, commercial whaling is neither sus-tainable nor justifiable. Even if commercial whaling could besustainable, it cannot be justified. Whaling is conducted bywealthy countries to provide expensive meat for a luxury mar-ket. There is no issue of providing basic needs to impover-ished human communities. There is no conservation benefit.In my view,” she affirmed, “to traffic in whales under thesecircumstances is simply wrong. For these reasons, WWFstrongly opposes any action, including further work on theRevised Management Procedure or the Revised ManagementScheme, that could constitute a first step toward the resump-tion of commercial whaling. And for these reasons, we arealso concerned to hear that the U.S. might seek to accommo-date Norway’s continued hunting of minke whales in defianceof the IWC moratorium.” Fuller concluded with a handwrittennote emphasizing her personal concern.

Fuller wrote 18 days after London Observer reporterPolly Ghazi charged that WWF, Greenpeace, and IFAW hadagreed with the Clinton administration to trade the principlethat whales should not be hunted for leverage toward securingthe Antarctic refuge. Ghazi’s expose was supported by a 13-page internal memo to the Greenpeace Whale Team, signedby seven Greenpeace executives: Peter Pueschel, Isabel

Save the whales!(from page one)

Allen Thornton and Priscilla Feral (left) and Ben White (right) protesting outside the Greenpeace USA offices on May 11.Greenpeace waffled––but came through on May 17 with a big demo for the whales outside the White House.

Clinton/Gore administration and the German government tohelp adopt the RMP, which is the first step toward overturn-ing the indefinite ban on commercial whaling. The U.S.,” headded, “which last year led the successful battle to blockadoption of the deeply flawed RMP proposal, is abandoningits criticism. Vice president Al Gore, who wants U.S. whal-ing policy to be ‘science-based,’ is studiously ignoring strongcriticisms made last year by a panel of independent scientists[the United States Marine Mammal Commission] hired by theadministration to assess the RMP. The peer review found thatthe RMP was overly simplistic, lacked a sound data base,and needs far more testing.”

The RMP would permit whalers to kill one half ofone percent of any species of whale determined by "scientific"means to be at historic population levels. Most vulnerablewould be minke whales, the smallest of the baleen whales,already targeted by the Japanese and Norwegians for “scien-tific” hunts. Japan wants a quota of 4,000, while Norwaywants 2,000. According to the official estimates, there arenow from 600,000 to 760,000 minke whales in the Antarcticand 86,000 to 114,000 in the North Atlantic. (Neither popula-tion crosses the equator.) This is presumed to be more thanthe guesstimated historic level of 490,000.

Norway killed 296 minke whales last year––160 forso-called scientific study and 136 as part of a commercial huntundertaken in defiance of the moratorium, after which atleast some of the meat was illegally sold to Japan and SouthKorea. Norway plans to kill another 127 for "science" thisyear. Norwegian commercial whaling is expected to continueas well. In March, Brundtland indicated Norway would abideby international whaling regulations as part of the price ofadmission to the European Community, but at her May 17meeting with Clinton and Gore, she insisted Norwegian com-mercial whaling is legal because, according to her, it alltakes place within Norwegian territorial waters.

Japan has killed 300 minke whales a year "for sci-ence" since 1987. Japan told the IWC on May 3 that itintends to kill 400 this year: 300 below the equator, includ-ing in Antarctic waters, and 100 above the equator, the firstlegal whaling in northern waters since 1986 (although Japandid not actually comply with the moratorium until 1988).

Under the RMP, gray whales could also soonbecome vulnerable. Protected by various treaties since 1935,gray whales now number about 18,000, just under the pre-sumed historic level of 20,000.

As Best explains, the official estimates are still littlemore than guesswork: counting whales seen and multiplyingby whatever seems to make sense. No one really knows whatwhale populations once were. There is also reason to believethat minke numbers will naturally drop as the larger baleenwhales––the blue whale, the fin whale, and the right whale,

Cover for whale-poachingFinally, warned EIA executive director Dave

Currey in a May 5 open letter, “The RMP will provide a legalwhale meat market in Japan, which will give cover to anincreased illegal slaughter.”

Concluded Van Nolte, “The spin-controllers in theClinton/Gore administration hope that the proposed whalesanctuary around Antarctica will be adopted by the IWC tolessen the impact of resumed commercial whaling elsewhere.”

Fear of poaching rose on May 17 when Japaneseprime minister Tsutomu Hata rejected an International Fundfor Animal Welfare appeal to refrain from "scientific" whalingwithin the proposed refuge. One day later Hata asked theIWC to exempt minke whales from protection. Greenpeacemeanwhile circulated photographs of a butchered sperm whalefound near the Japanese whaling port of Shimonsoseki onDecember 29, 1993. The Taipei-based Green ConsumerFoundation revealed that a Taiwanese company using foreignships has hauled whale meat of unknown origin to Japan for12 years––although Taiwan banned whaling and whale meatexports in 1981. Most tellingly, Earthtrust presented theIWC with a mitochondrial DNA analysis of purported minkewhale meat purchased last year in Japanese supermarkets.The sales were videotaped. The DNA analysis was done bynoted molecular biologists C. Scott Baker, of New Zealand,and Steve Palumbi, of the University of Hawaii, who wereco-funded by the National Science Foundation.

"Among 16 samples of meat that were successfullysequenced," Don White of Earthtrust announced, "eight wereminke, four were fin whale, one was humpback mixed withminke, two were dolphins, and one was intermediatebetween sperm whale and harbor porpoise.

Fuller opposes GoreWhen the U.S. finally introduced a resolution in

support of the RMP, cosponsors included Australia, Finland,Germany, and Switzerland. The resolution asked the IWC toadopt the RMP as “draft specifications for the calculation ofcatch limits,” and to reaffirm “its agreement that commercialwhaling shall only be permitted for populations in areas andseasons for which catch limits are in force...in conformitywith all the provisions of the Revised Management Scheme."Provisions “required to complete the RMS,” the resolutioncontinued, “include agreement upon: minimum data stan-dards; guidelines for conducting surveys and analyzing theresults; a fully effective inspection and observation scheme;(and) arrangements to ensure that the total catches over timeare within the limits.”

But Clinton and Gore didn’t get support from

McCrea, John Frizell, Leslie Busby, Arni Finnsson, JuanCarlos Cardenas, and the memo author, Clif Curtis.

Greenpeace, IFAW shockerThe memo outlined Greenpeace strategy for obtain-

ing the Southern Whale Sanctuary in detail––including whatGreenpeace was apparently willing to trade for it. Most con-troversially, the memo stated, “Greenpeace will not stand inthe way of the RMP’s ‘provisional’ adoption in its most con-servative form, as long as a clear commitment is shown toaddressing and incorporating a number of important posi-tions,” pertaining to the scientific disputes.

A page later came the real shocker: “Greenpeacedoes not oppose whaling, in principle,” followed in the nextparagraph by the declaration that, “Greenpeace is neither fornor against the killing of marine mammals.”

Receiving the memo April 26, ANIMAL PEOPLEquickly obtained corroborating statements from both WWFand Vassili Papastavrov of IFAW, who provided a 13-pagerationale for adopting the RMP along with a two-page defenseof the IFAW position by the organization’s scientific advisor,Sidney J. Holt––a member of the IWC Scientific Committee .

On April 26, meanwhile, Greenpeace media groupexecutive Desley Mather issued a damage control memoran-dum to staff, updated April 28. “From a media strategy pointof view,” Mather instructed, “the message should be clearand simple, i.e. Greenpeace continues to oppose commercialwhaling whenever and wherever it occurs [and] urgently callsfor the establishment of a whale sanctuary in Antarctica. Youshould not be drawn into answering supplementary questionson the technical issues,” namely the RMP, she advised,“unless you are absolutely clear on the Greenpeace position.”Staff were ordered to refer questions “from informed journal-ists who have a detailed knowledge of the technical issues” toPueschel, Curtis, Frizell, and/or Busby.

The references to not opposing whaling in principle,Mather said, had to do with indigenous subsistence whaling,not mentioned in the March 29 document. The RMP could beaccepted, Mather reiterated, because actual implementationmight be indefinitely delayed. While other sources includingwildlife officer Helen McLachan of the Royal SPCA predict-ed at most a two-year lag between the adoption of the RMPand the resumption of legal commercial whaling, Greenpeaceclaimed the lag could be as long as 50 years.

On May 6, Greenpeace grabbed international mediaattention by using a crane to lower a model of a bloodied,harpooned whale into the garden of the Norwegian embassy inRome, Italy. The stunt reaffirmed the Greenpeace imagewithout clarifying the Greenpeace position.

The IFAW and WWF statements closely resembledthe March 29 Greenpeace memo. All three agreed that win-

8 - ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994

ning the Southern Whale Sanctuary, not maintaining thewhaling moratorium, would be their first objective.

If the refuge is declared according to plan, the pro-tected waters would extend north to the 40th parallel, southlatitude. This would purportedly protect up to 90% of allbaleen whales up to 90% of the time. The territorial waters ofother non-whaling nations would protect most whales the restof the time––if their governments didn't opt to allow whaling.

The RMP, meanwhile, as IFAW was quick to pointout, does provide a more conservative means of estimatingwhale numbers and setting whaling quotas than the NewManagement Scheme the IWC used prior to the whalingmoratorium. The NMS is technically still in effect. Thusreplacing it with the RMP could be considered a gain ofsorts––if one was to accept the loss of the moratorium.

Clinton nukes the whalesThe major flaw in the RMP and RMS, as Humane

Society of the U.S executive vice president Patty Forkanargued, is that "There is no international police force, no willto self-enforce, and the IWC has no adequate enforcementmechanism." Whaling rules can only be enforced by tradesanctions imposed by the governments of member nations,whose economic interests may outweigh concern for whales.For instance, on October 3, 1993, Clinton acknowledgedthat Norway killed whales illegally last summer, and thattrade sanctions were warranted. Yet, with the WinterOlympics coming in Lillehammer, and the opportunity topressure Norway never better, Clinton held off.

Publishing excerpts from the leaked transcript of aSeptember 29, 1993 discussion between Gore and his “goodfriend” Brundtland in a full-page ad in the May 16 New YorkTimes, the Animal Welfare Institute suggested Brundtlandhad “dictated a reversal of two decades of U.S anti-whalingpolicy” by “hiring the powerful, influence-peddling law firmAkin, Gump, Strausss, Hamer, and Feld” to lobby forNorwegian whalers at $500,000 a year. “The senior partner atAkin Gump is Robert Strauss, former head of the DemocraticNational Committee,” the ad explained.

The AWI ad was placed just days before the actualsource of the Norwegian leverage became clear. On May 13,too late for AWI to amend the ad, the Pentagon told Congressit had negotiated a deal to sell Norway $625 million worth ofair-to-air missiles made by the financially struggling RaytheonCorporation and Hughes Aircraft, a division of General

Gundmundsson of Iceland. Already sued by Greenpeace fordefamation in Norway, Britain, and New Zealand,Gundmunsson may soon be sued again, Greenpeace says, fornew allegations recently made in Brazil.

Next, on May 3, investigative reporter Jan GunnarFunruly published an interview with IWC ScientificCommittee member Justin Cooke, of Britain, who explainedhow Norway used dubious math to estimate there are 87,000minke whales in Norwegian coastal waters when a more accu-rate guess would be 50,000.

Finally, May 11, the leading Norwegian newspaperVergens Gang revealed links between Norwegian whalers andright-wing extremists, including an open alliance betweenBastesen and Ron Arnold of the American Freedom Coalition,a front group for Sun Myung Moon and his Unified Familyrelgious cult, best known as the coordinating hub of the so-called Wise Use Movement. Also among the whalers' alliesare the Schiller Institute and 21st Century & Technology mag-azine, two projects of Lyndon LaRouche, a Ku Klux Klanassociate whose European Labor Party is suspected ofinvolvement in the 1986 assassination of Swedish prime min-ister Olaf Palme. LaRouche, 71, recently was released fromU.S. federal prison after serving five years of a 15-year sen-tence on 12 counts of fraud, involving more than $30 millionworth of defaulted loans and unpaid taxes.

Cutting a dealThe U.S. imports $97 billion worth of goods from

Japan each year, while selling Japan $48 billion worth––andhas a $130 billion trade deficit with Japan, the subject ofintense negotiations just before the IWC meeting. Thus forGore, head of the U.S. delegation, the main goal in PuertoVallarta will be to keep Japan, Norway, and perhaps otherpro-whaling nations from leaving the IWC, following Iceland,which resigned in 1992. The U.S. would technically then beobliged to impose trade sanctions. While the U.S. delegationpretends a Japanese and Norwegian withdrawal would breakthe IWC, the real breakup would come with the failure of theU.S. to respond with an all-out boycott that might bring therenegades back, at cost of domestic jobs.

To avert that political no-win situation, Clinton andGore hoped to persuade leading environmental and animalprotection groups––not just WWF, Greenpeace, andIFAW––to refrain from embarrassing them. They wouldmeanwhile try to get the Southern Whale Sanctuary proposal

The Mexican government will support the continuation of themoratorium," which he said should go on "until there are thescientific, social, economic, and political elements to ensurethe survival of the whale." Salinas said Mexico would pro-pose more work on the RMP, and would not approve it untilall elements of it are completed.

OutrageReaction from the rest of the whale protection com-

munity, as word of the RMP leaked out, was furious. “Theendorsement of any plan such as the RMP would simply makelegitimate the resumption of commercial whaling,” explainedRobbins Barstow, director emeritus of the Cetacean SocietyInternational. “We might delay it here and there, but it wouldbe inevitable once we start down that path.”

Added Paul Watson of the Sea ShepherdConservation Society, “This is the equivalent of England andFrance appeasing Hitler by giving him Czechoslovakia. Wecan understand the trade considerations that force nations tocapitulate at the expense of conservation. We cannot under-stand why conservation organizations would agree to sell outthe whales.”

“This is now a war," said Fund for Animals founderCleveland Amory. Added Fund campaign coordinatorMichael Markarian, "We are both outraged and perplexed byrecent support for the RMP given by the Clinton administra-tion and self-proclaimed animal welfare organizations. TheFund believes renegade whaling nations should be punished,not rewarded.”

The American Humane Association also issued astatement opposing the RMP.

On May 2, Friends of Animals brought the RMP topublic notice for the first time with a half-page ad in U S AToday, attacking the Greenpeace, IFAW, and WWF posi-tions. Nine days later FoA led activists from EIA, the Fund,and PETA in a seven-hour protest at the Greenpeace USAheadquarters in Washington D.C.; Markarian and BillDollinger of FoA chained themselves to the doors. Otherdemonstration leaders included Allan Thornton of EIA, acofounder of Greenpeace U.K., and Betsy Swart of FoA, aformer Greenpeace staffer. Rattled Greenpeace officialsanswered questions about the RMP for the first time in threeweeks, altering their rhetoric. Instead of declaring thatGreenpeace would neither endorse nor oppose the RMP, theyemphasized that Greenpeace would “not support” the RMP.

"We feel we've been hoodwinked." (from page seven)

Motors. The sale would bail out two major defense contrac-tors with plants based in Democratic districts, on the eve ofCongressional elections. It also would wipe out the U.S. tradedeficit with Norway. U.S. exports to Norway were previouslyworth about $1.25 billion a year; imports from Norway wereworth $1.85 billion, including $700 million worth of oil.

Gore and Brundtland discussed missiles lastSeptember––obliquely, because the negotiations were thentop secret and highly sensitive, due to simultaneous disarma-ment discussions with former member states of the USSR.

“We do feel bullied, even by you simply evaluatingthe use of sanctions, and especially after several nations inthe IWC have tried to change the organization from a whalingmonitoring mission to a forum to ban whaling outright,”Brundtland told Gore, according to a White House transcript.

Responded Gore, “Again, as in arms control nego-tiations, there are those who attempt to exploit undertainty fortheir own ends. This strengthens my argument for the need ofa scheme that will allow resumption while removing the basisof suspicion that the RMS will be violated.”

By May 17, with the missile deal almost in hand,and having received at least 30,000 messages of protestagainst whaling, Clinton was ready to dance a little sidestep.“Most mainstream environment groups have not joined theserather extreme claims,” he said, protesting that he was notselling out whales. “Give us a chance to work through this. Ihave confidence that we will be able to work through it.”

White House environmental office director KatieMcGinty said the administration would “oppose adopting theso-called Revised Management Procedure,” but “will backthe scientific underpinnings of that plan and point out areaswhere more work is needed.”

Norwegian friendsBrundtland was not helped by some leading

Norwegian media, whose criticism began February 2 after thebroadcast of a Swedish documentary on how the sealers andthe Norwegian government harassed and censored formergovernment sealing inspector Odd Lindberg, who took filmof men bludgeoning baby harp seals in front of their mothersto mass media in 1990. Lindberg acted after the Norwegiangovernment refused to enforce a law that forbids killing youngseals in front of their mothers. Rebroadcast all over Europe,the documentary prompted a closer look at Norwegian marinemammal policies in general.

On April 30 the Norwegian newspaper D a g b l a d e tlinked Norwegian whaling spokesman Steiner Bastesen to afoiled attempt to smuggle whale meat to Japan last October.The one suspect arrested in the case works for Bastesen, whodenies knowing him. Bastesen has funded a series of anti-Greenpeace documentaries produced by Magnus

adopted, not in exchange for an immediate resumption ofwhaling, which would trigger public outrage, but rather for amere break in the status quo, sufficient to keep Norway andJapan hoping. A similar U.S.-brokered deal brought theacceptance of the RMP formula in principle by a 16-1 vote inJuly 1992, with 11 abstentions while 10 of the then 38 mem-bers of the International Whaling Commission were absent.

The alleged deal, the Greenpeace memo of March29 hints, might even have won Japanese support, as theSouthern Whale Sanctuary would protect whales only fromcommercial hunting. “Japan could continue scientific whalingin the sanctuary anyway,” Greenpeace noted.

Despite the criticism of the “scientific” aspects ofthe RMP by the United States Marine Mammal Commission,a joint statement issued by IFAW and WWF argued in earlyMay that, “We consider that there are at present insufficientgrounds to argue against the provisional adoption of theRMP.” Instead, IFAW and WWF said they would fightresumed whaling on technicalgrounds–– namely the unsatis-fied provisions stipulated in the U.S. resolution.

Greenpeace and IFAW took the same line evenbefore the April meeting in London, withdrawing from theGlobal Cetacean Coalition in March along with the CousteauSociety and the Sierra Club when Forkan, as head of theGCC, attacked the RMP in an alert to membership. Signingon with HSUS in opposition to the RMP were the WorldSociety for Animal Protection, the American SPCA, theInternational Wildlife Coalition, and Earth Island Institute.

"The sacrifice of the largest animalon the planet cannot be justified by invoking national traditions."

––Grupo de 100In Mexico, meanwhile, the prestigious Group of

100 called upon the Mexican government to "categoricallyreject the RMP," and asked U.S. groups to sign on to thesame statement. The Animal Protection Institute was appar-ently the first of many to do so.

Said the Group of 100, "The sacrifice of the largestanimal on the planet cannot be justified by invoking nationaltraditions of its slaughter. Japan and Norway should beknown in the world for their culture, not as enemies ofwhales. Japanese and Norwegians alike will survive withouteating whale meat. In impoverished coastal areas of Mexico,eating turtle meat and eggs was traditional. However, in1990 the government decreed a total ban on turtle slaughterand trade."

Responded Mexican president Carlos Salinas deGortari, "Our position will be clear, and will also be firm.

Most critics were not mollified. Wrote David Day,author of The Whale War, in a column for the London DailyMail, “The leaders of Greenpeace, IFAW, and WWF havemade a huge tactical blunder, and I doubt whether more thana few people within each organization really understand thedisastrous consequences of their newly adopted position.”

Day was unaware of Fuller’s letter, written themorning after the FoA demonstration––and apparently writtenfrom the heart, as the public uproar enabled whaling oppo-nents to deal from newly realized strength. Nor was Fuller theonly WWF official to take an emphatic anti-whaling stance.“We feel we’ve been hoodwinked by the administration,”WWF staffer Mark Sutton told media.

For the first time since Clinton took office, the ani-mal protection community rallied around whales––eventhough the importance of the RMP had been so little recog-nized that it reportedly wasn’t even discussed at the Summitfor the Animals, an annual conference of animal rights groupexecutives held in Boston in early April.

“I have not seen the RMP,” said Vernon Weir ofUnited Animal Nations, a member of the Summit executivecommittee. “However, UAN would be opposed to any whal-ing whatsoever––any place, any time, and for any reason.”

U.S. seeks bowhead quotaWhatever the outcome in Puerto Vallarta, some

whales will be killed. Iceland, the Danish-held FaroeIslands, and Greenland have formed their own North AtlanticMarine Mammal Committee as an umbrella for resumed com-mercial whaling. Claiming 28,000 minke whales in coastalwaters eat as many fish as the national fleet catches, Icelandicforeign minister Jon Balvin Hannibalsson said last Octoberthat Iceland might kill 200 whales this year.

The U.S. meanwhile applied on March 22 for theextension of a three-year aboriginal subsistence quota of 41bowhead whales annually, granted in 1991 for the benefit ofnine Eskimo villages in northern Alaska. The renewal appli-cation added a 10th village, Little Diomede. The 1991 quotareferred only to “whales struck,” i.e. harpooned, not “whaleslanded.” The current application, however, assumes only75% of the whales hit will be retrieved. Thus, said CharlesKarnella of the National Marine Fisheries Service, “The U.S.will seek IWC approval to strike up to 64 bowheads [per year]in order to land 48.” The renewed quota would run through1997. The weight the Clinton administration gives the appli-cation was already clear from the January 19 appointment ofD. James Baker and Michael F. Tillman as commissioner anddeputy commissioner of the U.S. delegation. Tillman, anAlaskan native and member of the Tlingit tribe, gives indige-nous whalers their strongest voice yet in U.S. whale policy.

––Merritt Clifton

ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994 9

Anne Earle was among those charged with trespassing.(Photo by Vito Torrelli.)

NEW YORK, New York––The wolves massacred in Alaska lastwinter are dead but not forgotten––and neither are those slated for death nextwinter, as Alaska continues to kill wolves to make moose and caribou moreplentiful for hunters. To be sure the wolves are remembered, pajama-cladFriends of Animals volunteers and staffers occupied the lobby of the ABC-TV headquarters on the morning of May 19 during the broadcast of theGood Morning America show, protesting a week-long promotion ofAlaskan tourism. Six demonstrators were arrested for trespassing.

ABC had already scheduled a 30-minute segment on the wolfkilling, featuring a debate between Stephen Wells of the Alaska Wildlife

Wake-up call on behalf of wolves

The Marine Mammal Protection Act wasreauthorized on schedule on April 29, including loop-holes to let hunters to import polar bear trophies and toallow the killing of seals and sea lions who eat threat-ened fish runs at locks and fish ladders. Other provi-sions include a total ban on intentionally shootingmarine mammals who interfere with fishing, and a pro-gram to cut accidental kills during fishing to near zeroover the next seven years.

The Liberal Party of Canada convention onMay 15 overwhelmingly adopted a resolution callingfor the resumption of offshore seal hunting, halted in1983 after two decades of international protest. TheLiberals form the Parliamentary majority. Claiming“the concerns of animal rights lobby groups should notbe put before the concerns of the people ofNewfoundland and Labrador,” the resolution claimssealing is needed to create jobs because the fishingindustry has collapsed––making no mention that the col-lapse was caused by overfishing condoned in the nameof job creation by a succession of both Liberal andProgressive-Conservative governments. FormerCanadian environment minister Charles Caccia, aToronto Member of Parliament, was the only delegateto oppose the resolution. “Whenever we go after sealswe get clobbered,” Caccia said. “We look primitive.”Five days earlier, Canada announced it would move forthe first time to stop foreign vessels that break an inter-national ban on cod fishing at the edges of the GrandBanks, wiping out the fish as they leave Canadianwaters. This was the action demanded last summer byPaul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society,who now faces three possible life sentences for allegedmalicious mischief in steering his former vessel, theCleveland Amory, close to a Cuban fishing boat.

France agreed May 20 to enforce the inter-national ban on driftnetting after the current tuna sea-son. French tuna seiners have been using 1.7-mile-longdriftnets in the northeastern Atlantic.

Refusing to allow the U.S. Coast Guard toinspect Taiwanese vessels for evidence of illegal drift-netting, Taipei instead sent its own patrol boat to theNorth Pacific on May 1, to be followed by two more.Taiwan officially halted driftnetting in December 1992.

The Defense Department has postponed acontroversial underwater test that would generaterepeated 195-decibel sound waves, louder than a jettaking off, pending a study of the possible impact upon

New studies published May 20 by theWhale & Dolphin Conservation Society estimated thatwhale-and-dolphin-watching generates $300 million ayear worldwide. About four million people a year watchcetaceans, the society said. The industry has grownfastest in the Kaikoura area of New Zealand, where thenumber of whale-watchers has grown from 3,400 in1986 to 80,000 last year. Whale-watching is worth$27.5 million a year to Argentina, the society found,and $21 million a year to southern New England. Thesociety offers a free guide to watching whales and dol-phins in the Caribbean c/o Alexander House, James St.West, Bath BA1 2BT, England.

Marine World of Vallejo, California, andthe Marine Mammal Center of nearby Sausalitotogether released a longnosed common dolphin dubbedBob on May 9 in Monterey Bay, a month after hebeached himself at Morro Bay––the first time in the 20years the organizations have worked together that theydeemed a stranded dolphin ready for return to the wild.On May 13, however, Bob was picked up again, afterapparently not eating. By May 20 he seemed to be get-ting over an internal infection well enough that planswere made to introduce him to two other formerlystranded common longnosed dolphins at Sea World inSan Diego. All three might then be released together,said spokesperson Rob Iron of the Long Marine Lab, abranch of the University of California at Santa Cruz.Sean Van Sommerian of the Pelagic Shark ResearchFoundation, which had tracked Bob via a radio tag,said his understanding had been that Bob was only tohave been released into a pod of other longnosed com-mon dolphins in the first place. “We did two flyovers ofthe bay,” he said, “and didn’t see dolphins, but theyproceeded with the release anyway.”

Captivity shortens the average lifespan oforcas and beluga whales by 43 years, and the aver-age lifespan of bottlenose dolphins by 15 years,Michael O’Sullivan of the Humane Society of Canadareported on May 19. HSC, a new affiliate of theHumane Society of the U.S., studied all known cetaceancaptures from 1960 through 1992. Since wild cetaceansdie from pollution, driftnetting, and food shortages, allof which are absent in captivity, captive cetaceansshould live longer, O’Sullivan said. The study foundthat the average lifespan of a bottlenose dolphin in cap-tivity is 14 years; the average lifespan of a captive orcais 15 years.

MARINE MAMMAL NOTES

The Indonesian action came nearly twoyears after 110 monkeys died en route from Inquatex,a Jakarta supplier, to Worldwide Primates, the labo-ratory animal supply firm owned by convicted pri-mate smuggler Matthew Block (see “Gorilla case wasframe-up,” page 18). The deaths became known justas the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisectionannounced that a year-long probe had discovered a22% mortality rate among 260 monkeys imported toBritain from Inquatex; and 18% and 21% mortality,respectively, among 2,150 and 810 monkeys import-ed from two other Indonesian firms, C.V. Primatesand Primaco.

The Philippines and Indonesia were the twobiggest exporters to the United States––but only fivePhilippine dealers were still active in 1993, Penafieldsaid, down from seven in 1992, and nine as of 1987.

Explained California dealer Paul Houghtonin a 1992 letter to customers for monkeys he importedfrom Indonesia, “We are in the wind-down phase ofthe worldwide feral monkey business. Enough arebeing bred these days to more than supply the worlddemand. Further removal from the remaining wildresource is a matter of conscience, not necessity.”

Primate imports from most supplyingnations have declined in recent years:

Because of the risk of importing diseasestransmissible to humans along with monkeys broughtfrom the tropics (such as the often fatal ebola virus),the U.S. suppliers now emphasize domestic breeding.

The export bans have come largely throughthe work of the International Primate ProtectionLeague, begun by Shirley McGreal in 1973.

Alliance and a spokesperson for the state of Alaska––but it aired after thepromotion of Alaska was over with and most of the resultant travel bookings,FoA believed, would already have been made.

Preparing for further conflict, the Alaska House of Representativeson April 28 passed a bill to enable the state Department of Fish and Game towithhold data about wolf pack locations––purportedly to protect wolvesfrom poachers, but actually directed, newspaper editorials agreed, at inde-pendent wolf expert Gordon Haber, who sued to obtain such informationlast year, then embarrased officials with aerial surveys that showed many oftheir claims about wolf, moose, and caribou numbers were inaccurate.

Alaska DFG wildlife conservation director Dave “Machine-Gun”Kelleyhouse said May 14 at the annual meeting of the Western Associationof Fish and Wildlife Agencies, held in Anchorage, that Alaskan authoritieshad received more than 100,000 letters protesting their wolf-killing plans in1992 alone––when the plans weren’t even announced until November 18.

The meeting followed hearings held by the Federal SubsistenceBoard, which ruled on April 15 that trappers may not shoot wolves on feder-al lands the same day they fly in aircraft. This reverses Alaskan policy,which allows trappers to shoot wolves if they first walk 300 feet from the air-craft.

Jeanne McVey of the Sea Wolf Alliance represented the Wildlife Refuge Reform Coalition at the Federal Subsistence Board hearings.“In no other state,” she said, “is so much wilderness set aside in NationalWildlife Refuges, and in no other state do the refuges more closely resemblehunting preserves. On the other hand,” she told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “I’msurprised to find myself saying that I think the animal protectionists’ testimo-ny actually had a positive effect. At the very least, the officials received apowerful reminder that most visitors to federal lands, especially the refuges,wish to view wildlife without dodging hunters’ bullets.”

McVey also had good words for her opponents. “Never at a meet-ing like this where wildlife policy is decided and forged into law,” she said,“have I encountered enemies who are so gracious. The Alaskan natives whopicked apart my testimony––as I did theirs––approached me during thebreaks, offering to shake hands and be friends despite our disagreements.”

Wolf notes:The Clinton administration is to rule by June 4 on a U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service recommendation that wolves should be reintroduced toYellowstone National Park and central Idaho, 60 years after they were extir-pated. The wolves would be live-trapped in western Canada. Ranchers wouldbe allowed to kill any wolves caught in the act of attacking livestock.

Three or four wolf packs were expected to produce cubs this springin Sweden, continuing a recovery from extirpation that began when a smallpack roved over the border from Finland in 1983. One of the Swedish packsoccasionally wanders in Norway, which has no native wolves at present.“Many people, even among farmers in the wolf area, are more positive thanfive or ten years ago,” reports Jon Bekken of the Norwegian Society for theProtection of Carnivores and Raptors.

The Siberian wolf population is recovering, says the ITAR-Tassnews agency, because due to the Russian financial crisis, the government hasceased paying bounties equal to a typical worker’s wage for a month.

marine mammals. The experiment was to have beenstarted this summer by the Scripps Institution ofOceanography at Santa Cruz, California.

Federal authorities are investigatingreports that Russian walrus poachers are operating inAlaska, Timothy Egan of The New York Times reportedon May 13. No details were available.

Nat i on 19911993Philippines4,522 3,291Indonesia 2,9351,428Mauritius 2,051

1,202China545Kenya545

Nat i on 19 9 1

No more monkey business(from page one)

People for Animal Rights, of Kansas City,Missouri, asks that letters of protest be sent to theWorlds of Fun amusement park concerning dolphinswho are allegedly kept in a small chlorinated poolbeneath a ferris wheel. Address Gary Noble, director ofgeneral services, c/o 4545 Worlds of Fun Ave., KansasCity, MO 64161.

Shirley McGreal and friend

McGreal won theIndian ban by publi-cizing gruesome radia-tion experiments onmonkeys, who aresacred to manyIndians. Exportingmore than 100,000monkeys a year duringthe 1950s, India hadcut exports to circa20,000 a year due to depletion of the most covetedspecies, but still led the world in monkey sales.

“The U.S. government and even the WorldHealth Organization exerted pressure on India toreopen exports,” McGreal remembered recently,“but to no avail. The ban is still in place. After Indiacancelled monkey exports,” she continued, “a U.S.company announced plans to export 71,500 monkeysfrom Bangladesh over a 10-year period.” IPPL repre-sentative Dr. Zakir Husain obtained and hand-copiedthe sales agreement. McGreal responded with anoth-er publicity barrage––and got her second export ban.

“U.S. government primate procurementofficials howled,” McGreal said. “The StateDepartment made a cruel threat to cut off foreign aidunless Bangladesh renewed monkey exports immedi-ately.” The Bangladesh ambassador was summonedto the White House––but that ban too held up.

McGreal turned next to the Philippines, butwas thwarted for years by the apparent involvementin the traffic of Imelda Marcos, wife of the late dicta-tor Ferdinand Marcos. Leaked documents show sheobtained U.S. embassy involvement in trying to pre-vent an export ban. McGreal's campaign suffered afurther setback in March 1982 when Philippineteacher and activist Lusito Cuy, 25, drowned in aboating accident with six of his pupils. As thePhilippine export ban neared actuality, McGrealasked that Cuy be remembered.

Austrian scientist Dr. MartinBalluch, now at Cambridge University,reportedly may be deported from Britainbecause he opposes fox hunting. Letters ofprotest may be sent to the Right HonorableMichael Howard, Home Secretary, HomeOffice, 50 Queen Anne's Gate, LondonSW1H 9AT, United Kingdom.

The winter of 1993-1994 wasamong the harshest on record, forcing deerto yard up sooner and stay yarded longer––butearly field reports indicate that few deerstarved despite hunters' claims of deer over-population. Wild turkeys were hard-hit, how-eve––and may decline, warns National WildTurkey Federation representative Tom Baptieof Castleton, Vermont, because undigestedgrain from cow manure is a staple of theirwinter diet, but anti-pollution laws nowrestrict where and when manure can be spread.

"Panic time" has come for theU.S. and Canadian trapped fur exportt r a d e , Fur Age Weekly blared on April 25,because it hasn't developed "humane" trapstandards acceptable to the InternationalStandards Organization and the EuropeanUnion. Thus the EU will halt most trapped furimports on January 1, 1995. The fur tradehopes to either delay the halt or lift thehumane trapping requirement. The U.S.exported $40 million worth of trapped fur in1993, down from $176 million worth in 1987.

The Alliance for AnimalsLegislative Fund has introduced a bill, AB745, to ban leghold traps in Wisconsin. Asof 1991-1992, Wisconsin had 3,151 trappers,who pelted 345,472 animals––down from14,688 trappers who pelted more than a mil-lion animals in 1987-1988. About 8% of U.S.trapped fur comes from Wisconsin.

"Most competent shooters willaverage approximately two wounded birdsfor each bird bagged. The best that can behoped for is one wounded for every twobagged," computer expert Geoff Russellwrote in the February/March/April 1994 issueof the Australian magazine Animals Today,after an exhaustive study of shot patterns. "Noamount of education can change the basicphysics and mechanics of shotgun operation,which is the principal cause of wounding."

Primm Spring Pictures Inc. hasbegun filming When The Eagle Cries ,described as "a feature film set in theTennessee mountains," which exposes "thesavagery of wildlife poaching."

CHILDREN &ANIMALS"Higher levels of childhood pet keeping

were related to more positive attitudes towardpet animals and greater concerns about the wel-fare of non-pet animals and humans,"researchers J.S. Paul and James Serpell discoveredin a recent survey of 385 British university students,published by the Universities Federation for AnimalWelfare (8 Hamilton Close, South Mimms, PottersBart, Herts EN6 3QD, United Kingdom). Serpell,author of In The Company of Animals, now holdsthe Marie Moore Chair for Humane Ethics andAnimal Welfare at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Bellingham-Whatcom HumaneSociety, of Washington state, takes three or fourfifth graders per week from Columbia ElementarySchool on a shelter tour, then has them write news-paper ads for some of the animals they see. Afterthree years, the ads, accompanied by color photos,have established an outstanding placement rate.

Kindergarten teacher Leslie Taylor o fCooperstown Elementary School in Philadelphiahas received $10,000 as the first winner of theHumane Educator of the Year Award, presented bythe Pennsylvania SPCA. Taylor said she would usethe money to study whales in Baja California. Theaward is funded from the salary formerly paid toretired PSPCA humane educator Leroy J. Ellis.

Friends of Animals is trying to convincethe Capital Children's Museum in WashingtonD.C. to release a goat named Consuela to a suitablesanctuary. Now dividing time between a second-floor exhibit and a concrete-floored pen, Consuelareplaced Rosie, who was recently euthanized afterspending 15 years on exhibit.

O t t e r w i s e is seeking "the most originalbumper sticker that promotes peace from an ani-mal's point of view." Children up to age 16 maysubmit designs (accompanied by SASE) to POB1374, Portland, ME 04104.

Led by fourth grader Andrew Green,an entire class at Sleepy Hollow Elementary Schoolin Orinda, California, recently wrote letters toGillette, opposing product tests on animals.

10 - ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994

American AV ad (paid through May)

Killing wildlife for fun & profit Concessions tohunters win

assault rifle banWASHINGTON D.C . – –

The National Rifle Association tookthe biggest defeat it has ever sufferedat the federal level in the House ofRepresentatives on May 5, as IndianaDemocrat Andrew Jacobs Jr. switchedhis "no" vote to a "yes," passing intolaw a ban on 19 types of assault rifle,which though backed by the Clintonadministration, had been expected tofail by at least 15 votes.

Clinton bought the victorywith a string of concessions to thehunting lobby. The assault rifle ban,for instance, names 650 huntingweapons and mandates that none shallbe outlawed during the 10 years theassault rifle ban is to be in effect.

Another concenssion, pend-ing, would allow states to regulatebear-baiting on U.S. Forest Serviceland. Bear-baiting is now banned onForest Service land as unethical anddangerous, since it tends to lead bearsinto proximity to people, but manystates allow baiting. Comments willbe accepted until June 13, c/oDirector, Wildlife, Fish & Rare Plants(2640), Forest Service, USDA, POB96090, Washington, DC 20090-6090.

An international firefightingsquad kept a month-long brushfire on IsabelaIsland in the Galapagos away from a colony ofup to 150 rare giant tortoises––but found theblaze was set by poachers to cover their tracksafter they killed at least 42 tortoises. Tortoise-killing is illegal in the Galapagos, but persistsdue to the widespread belief that tortoise meathas medicinal value. Officials are now movinganother 400 of the tortoises off Isabel Island,to a protected reserve on a nearby island.

"You can't buy a box turtle legallyin New York state, but you can ship thou-sands of them out of Kennedy Airport,"objects New York Turtle and Tortoise Societypresident Suzanne Dohm. The U.S. exported28,583 box turtles in 1992 and 26,411 in 1993,mostly to Europe for sale as pets––where up to90% of those who survive the trip die prema-turely. "This trade is not sustainable," saysWildlife Conservation Society herpetologistDr. Michael W. Klemens. Snappers and redsliders, also taken from the U.S. for sale inEurope, have meanwhile become an ecologi-cal hazard in some areas after going feral.

TURTLES & TORTOISES

American AV ad

Commission, claiming she was the victim of anattempt to ruin her professional reputation.

The USDA apparently cannot forbidU.S. dissection supply firms from buying catswho are stolen, drowned, and preserved inMexico (see "Mexican pet thieves supply U.S.schools," May 1994), because the AnimalWelfare Act applies only to live animals. Firmsapparently involved include Fisher EducationalMaterial Division, Southwest Scientific, andSargeant-Welch––the latter apparently owned byMichael Sargeant, who offered to buy dead catsfrom the Los Angeles Department of AnimalRegulation in April via another of his firms,Sargeant's Wholesale Biologicals, after theWorld Society for the Protection of Animalsexposed the Mexican pet theft racket on March25.

The National Institutes of Healthannounced May 4 that it will scale down its$1.2-billion-a-year internal research program.The effect on animal-based research may be nil,as more work would be contracted out to otherfacilities.

The International AssociationAgainst Painful Experiments on Animals andthe American Anti-Vivisection Society s e e ksignatures on a petition asking the UnitedNations Educational, Scientific, and CulturalOrganization to hold an inquiry into both the sci-entific validity of animal-based research and thepotential of non-animal methods. Call AAVS at215-887-0816. All petitions are due by August.

The University of California at SanFrancisco has proposed to use the now-closedLetterman Army Institute of Research in thePresidio National Park as a "space to showcaseanimal experimentation and its contributions tosociety." In Defense of Animals urges oppo-nents to write to Interior Secretary BruceBabbitt, 1849 C St. NW, Washington, DC20240, and also to their federal legislators.

THE CIVIL ABOLITIONISTexplains how animal experimentshurt rather than help humans.For sample copy, send SASE toBox 26, Swain, NY 14884.

––ADVERTISEMENT––

and Anita Toney, of Lamoni, Iowa, for failingto keep records on animal acquisitions. TheUSDA charges, now four years old, are stillpending, while the Toneys remain the primarysuppliers of dogs to the university––which hasbeen suspected of using stolen dogs ever sincethe late Lucille Moses traced dog thefts throughlocal suppliers to UM in the early 1960s.

The animal care and use committeeat Northern Illinois University in DeKalb inApril recommended that two sloths held by biol-ogy professor Virginia Naples be moved to azoo. The committee found no evidence thatNaples had produced publishable researchinvolving the sloths since 1989, while theiryearly upkeep costs about $3,700. Naples thentook the matter to the Illinois Human Rights

Residents of Cranberry andHampton Township, Pennsylvania, got aclose-up view of the realities of vivisection onMay 7 when the tailgate of a truck taking 2.5tons of dead rats from Zivic-Miller Laboratoriesto a landfill broke twice, littering two streetswith rat remains. Zivic-Miller, of Zelienople, aPittsburgh suburb, sells rats to research institu-tions. The dead rats were unsold surplus, ownerBill Zivic told Associated Press.

1990 University of Minnesota animalintake records obtained by the Animal RightsC o a l i t i o n under the Minnesota Data PracticesAct indicate that the university purchased forresearch use at least 139 of 248 dogs who wereindividually identified in a 1992 USDA com-plaint filed against Class B animal dealers Julian

Invite a cuddle!(A l ap is a terribl e thing to waste.)

T-s hirt $ 12.50 Sweatshirt $23.0 0 " Love is a four-footed word" bumper stick e r(Fuschia, blue paw prints, white lett ers.) $ 2.00 Total amount due the Knox County Humane Society:

$ ______

Name Address City State Zip

___ Check enclosed __ _ Masterca rd __ _ VisaCard number _ _ _ __ _____ __ _____ __ __ Expiry da te

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Laboratories

BRIAN DAVIES FOUNDATIONINVESTED IN VIVISECTION

ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994 - 11

Dog logo The Watchdog moni -tors fundraising, spending,and political activity in thename of animal and habitatp rotection—both pro andcon. His empty bowl standsfor all the bowls left emptywhen some take more thanthey need.

TheWatchdog

LONDON, England––At deadline A N I M A LP E O P L E was still awaiting International Fund for AnimalWelfare founder Brian Davies' response to allegations by theBritish Broadcasting Corporation expose series Public Eyethat as much as 39% of the Brian Davies Foundation stockportfolio may be invested with firms that either do vivisectionor are under boycott by other major animal and habitat pro-tection groups. ANIMAL PEOPLE had, however, receivedIFAW's apparently accidental fax transmission of our requestfor comment with four handwritten notes scrawled across itby at least three different people, discussing how to respond.

The Brian Davies Foundation is a holding corpora-tion affiliated with IFAW, the sole purpose of which appearsto be managing investments.

IFAW, now under fire for announcing it would notoppose a plan that could lead to the resumption of commer-cial whaling (see page one), was just two months ago ridingthe crest of outrage over the Canadian sale of 50,000 sealpenises to the Asian aphrodisiac trade––which full-page adsplaced by IFAW in leading Canadian newspapers accuratelylinked to child prostitution in Southeast Asia. The issue wasand may still be the hottest for Davies and IFAW since 1983,when Canada suspended the offshore slaughter of infant harpseals (though the land-based phase of the killing continues).

Reluctant to seemingly help the wrong side, PublicE y e and ANIMAL PEOPLE delayed airing the allegationsabout IFAW financial matters until after this year's seal huntended. ANIMAL PEOPLE became involved when

IFAW founder Brian Davies and harp seal pup, circa 1981.environmental violations; and McDonald’s, then under boy-cott by London Greenpeace and now also by the Beyond BeefCoalition. The foundation sold the McDonald’s stock at aloss, and also sold stock in Heinz at a loss. It was unclearwhether the Heinz stock was acquired before or after the firm

obtained by Public Eye show Davies received at least$174,558 in 1993. IFAW executive director Richard Moorereceived $126,974. In 1989 Davies acknowledged payinghimself $138,000 and his wife $32,000. "It's what I'm worth,"he told Steve Wilson of Fox Television.

An even more revealing document obtained byPublic Eye showed that between July 1, 1990, and June 30,1991, the Brian Davies Foundation earned $214,494 in stocksales, $83,134 of which involved companies that either spon-sor vivisection or were under boycott for other reasons per-taining to animal and habitat protection. The IFAW non-response to our inquiry left unclear whether these sales werepart of deliberate divestment in conflicts of interest, or part ofan ongoing pattern.

Nearly $28,000 came from the sale of U.S. Surgicalholdings, whose aggressive involvement in financing anti-animal rights activity had already been public knowledge formore than a year, and whose use of dogs in terminal productdemonstrations had been a public issue since 1980.

Other holdings deeply involved in vivisectionincluded Merck Pharmaceuticals (then 6th in corporate labora-tory animal use); Eastman Kodak (9th); Abbott Laboratories(29th); Upjohn (32nd); Great Lakes Chemical Corp, (49th);and Bausch and Laumb, owners of Charles RiverLaboratories––the world's largest supplier of animals for vivi-section. The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisectionhas recently charged Charles River's British affiliate withimporting monkeys under particularly brutal conditions.

was boycotted briefly by Earth Island Institute and othergroups in early 1990 for buying tuna netted “on dolphin.”

Although IFAW has rarely addressed vivisection,Davies wrote to ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartletton July 28, 1988, that, “My intuition is telling me that ifIFAW does not play a role in the anti-vivisection issue, wewill become irrelevant within the humane movement.”

Dates & Projects lists, at nocharge, participant activities for whichthere is no more than a nominal admis -sion fee. Send details on your event toANIMAL PEOPLE, POB 205,Shushan, NY 12873.

July 9-14: Course on ethical issues ineducational animal use at KennedyInstitute of Ethics, Georgetown Univ.,Washington D.C.; $350 includes col-lege credit. Info: 202-687-6771.July 20-24: Vegetarian Summerfest,Johnstown campus, University ofPittsburgh. Info: 518-568-7970.September 3-9: "Guardian ofCreation," National EcologyApostolate Leadership TrainingConference, hosted by FranciscanFriars of the Atonement, at GraymoorChristian Unity Center, Garrison, NewYork. Speakers include Lois Gibbs,Charles Spencer, and ANIMAL PEO-P L E editor Merritt Clifton. $210includes double occupancy room andvegetarian menu. Info: 413-737-7600.

The Brian Davies Foundation also made $18,000from the sale of shares in Philip Morris, whose four decadesof animal experimentation while trying to defend cigarettesmoking are subject of an ongoing Congressional probe.

Other holdings included Wal-Mart, under boycottby PETA since 1988 for selling live animals; WasteManagement, which has been fined more than $50 million for

NEW YORK, N.Y.––Two appar-ent hoaxes in two weeks rattled the humanecommunity during late spring. Both orginatedout of New York City's Greenwich Village, alongtime hotbed of pranks executed in thename of performance art. The first, advertisedin The Village Voice, was a purported pro-vivisection group called American VivisectionDefense, with a 92¢-a-minute 900 number setup on April 29. The organization––AVID forshort––claimed to be soliciting donations of

unwanted pets for use in biomedical research.It had no connection whatever with AVIDMicrochip, of Norco, California, whichreceived a barrage of outraged calls and inshort order threatened to sue the purportedprankster, Winfield Scott Stanley III, of 304Newberry Street in Cambridge, Mass-achusetts. Both the name and the address arebelieved to be fictitious. Callers to the 900number heard a long diatribe promoting furand veal, as well as biomedical research.Stanley told the Boston Globe that he hoped tocollect 5,000 dogs, 10,000 cats, and 20,000rabbits at six New England drop-off sites.

Responded Debra Cavalier, presi-

dent of the Massachusetts Society for MedicalResearch, "They can do what they want withtheir veal recipes and fur coats, but pleaseleave biomedical research out of it. We haveenough problems." The USDA said Stanley'soperation had no permit to deal in animals forlaboratory research.

AVID Microchip's threat of lawsuitapparently ended that gag––but on May 17dozens of humane societies and some indivi-dual animal rights activists received a mailingfrom a "Kim Yung Soo," allegedly presidentof "Kea So Joo, Inc.," offering to buy dogsfor export to dogmeat dealers in SoutheastAsia. The letter claimed the firm was already

doing business with shelters in three states.Though written in pigeon English, it displayedperfect spelling and a broad vocabulary. Thelisted telephone number was a recording, imi-tative of the recording radio personality RushLimbaugh uses to introduce animal rights-related items, of a woman with a heavy accentreading from a prepared script with barkingdogs in the background. The address was aGreenwich Village maildrop.

ANIMAL PEOPLE is investigatingthe possibility that the hoaxes are related toadvertisements for a purported canine brothelin Greenwich Village that created a stir in1990. Two perforance artists recently con-

EventsFrank Zigrang ad--paid for June

approached by the BBC team for investigative help. The BBC expose included the first public revelation

since 1989 of the size of Davies' compensation, along withthat of his close associates. This has long been mysteriousbecause many of the 14 IFAW affiliates are not required tofile tax returns in the U.S., and those that do file list variousamounts for Davies as “part-time.” However, documents

CASH

Greenwich Village vivisection and dog export hoaxes rattle humane community

Diet & Health

Effective June 28, use oflive animals as prizes in drawings,lotteries, contests, sweepstakes,and carnival games is illegal inPennsylvania. The law exempts fish,as well as domestic animals givenaway in connection with state-spon-sored or sanctioned agricultural andvocational programs. The Pennsyl-vania Legislative Animal Networkand state representative Jerry Nailerhad pursued the new law since 1989.

Michigan adopted afelony cruelty law in late April.The new law eliminates the oldrequirement that an animal be ownedfor abuse to be punished, which lefthomeless animals unprotected, andweighs offenses in terms of mali-ciousness rather than in terms ofproperty damage. The maximumpenalty is now four years in jail anda $5,000 fine per offense.

Residents of Gainesville,Georgia, have reportedly posted a$2,500 reward for information lead-ing to the conviction of thievesbelieved to have taken more than 200dogs during the past five months.

Cat-feeders in SantaCruz County, California, a r eresponding with suspicion and hostil-ity to an SPCA-sponsored ordinancethat would require them to registerand neuter their colonies. The ordi-nance also regulates puppy and kittensales and giveaways.

A breeding regulationm e a s u r e modeled after the contro-versial San Mateo ordinance passedin 1992 is meanwhile under fire inMorro Bay, California, for alleged-ly attempting to impose too manyfees and too much bureaucracy. Themeasure was proposed by the WoodsHumane Society.

Euthanasias dropped bynearly half during the first month ofSan Francisco's no-kill policy,which took effect April 1. In 1993the city shelter euthanized 572 ani-mals during April; this year it eutha-nized only 309. The SFSPCA reha-bilitated 130 treatable animals fromthe city shelter during the month,while adopting out 285.

The Michigan AnimalAdoption Network, formed byMarie Skladd of Livonia just beforeChristmas 1993, consists of about 60volunteers who gather adoptable petsfrom rescue clubs, foster homes,and shelters each Saturday and dis-play them in area pet supply stores."If people see a particular dog or catthey like, they can ask for adoptionon the spot and fill out an applica-tion," Skladd told R.J. King of theDetroit News. Adoption fees rangefrom $35 to $70. MAAN keeps 10%and gives the rest to the organizationthat provided the animal. "We seethis as something that could gonational," said Jack Berry, presidentof Pet Supplies Plus, which hasdonated $10,000 in goods and ser-vices to help encourage adoptions.

Residents of SummitCounty, Ohio, are protesting as toolight a three-day suspension withoutpay given to assistant county pound-keeper Dennis J. Bozzelli for failingto call the owner of a licensed dogwho had been hit by a car. The dogsuffered for three days, then died,while the owner was notified of thepickup by certified mail. Bozzelli, acounty employee in various capaci-ties since 1988, is the son of formercounty councilman Libert Bozzelli,who served from 1986 until 1990.His current salary is $22,256, sub-stantially more than the nationalaverage for the position of $13,410.

The Toronto HumaneSociety has reportedly achievedup to 75% compliance with differ-ential dog licensing requirementsby setting a low fee ($5.00 forneutered dogs, $15 for others); giv-ing licenced dogs a free ride homewhen picked up by animal control,a service used by about 700 dogsper year; and doing door-to-doorcanvassing, passing out free leasheswith license forms. Since the pro-gram started a decade ago, shelterdog intakes are down by as much as35%, about 45% are returned totheir homes, another 45% areadopted, and only 5% are eutha-nized. Cat intakes are down 40%over the same period, but 40% ofthe cats received areeuthanized––still nearly half thenorm for North America as a whole.

Montreal, by contrast,has an 83% euthanasia rate,while city animal control servicestake in about 78,000 homeless ani-mals per year––half again more thanNew York City, which has 4.5times as many people. Montreal hasapproximately as many people asSeattle and King County,Washington, or the Santa ClaraValley of California, but has morehomeless animals than both of thosejurisdictions combined. City coun-cillor Marvin Rostrand of theminority Democratic Coalition triedto rectify the situation in mid-Mayby introducing a bill to open a city-subsidized neutering clinic––whichthe majority Montreal MunicipalCommunity (MCM) party pledgedto establish in 1980––but the billwas quickly defeated.

12 - ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994

Wise-use wiseguysFrederick Goodwin, former director of the National

Institute of Mental Health, announced in late March that he would soonbe setting up a Center of Science, Medicine, and Human Values atGeorgetown University, to promote vivisection. The announcement waspremature: on May 5, Georgetown University executive vice presidentDr. Patrick A. Heelan, S.J., stated in a letter to inquiring faculty members,"Please know that Dr. Goodwin is not coming to join the faculty." No fur-ther explanation was given.

U.S. Surgical Corporation chairman Leon Hirsch took a 97%pay cut last year, as USSC stock crashed. His wife, Turi Josefsen, tookalmost as steep a cut. Still, Hirsch drew $1.59 million, while Josefsen got$941,117, enough to enable them to keep supporting anti-animal protec-tion including the Americans for Medical Progress Research Foundation,Educators for Responsible Science, and Connecticut United for ResearchExcellence––all funded mainly by U.S. Surgical itself.

Charities administrationThe recent disclosure of outlandish salaries, a two-year-old

but seriously substandard shelter, and other problems at the AmericanSPCA has resulted in few apparent changes at the ASPCA itself since theFebruary dismissal of four longtime officials, but other shelters have beenhurt, Houston SPCA director Patricia Mercer charged in the April 19issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. "I do hope that media coverage ofthe ASPCA's gross indiscretions will force it to not only rethink its policiesregarding animal care and staff salaries," Mercer wrote, "but with regardto fundraising, as well. Because the ASPCA has long led the public tobelieve that it provides the animal protection services provided by otherSPCAs across the country, its activities will undoubtedly have a rippleeffect nationwide, with other SPCAs paying the price for the ASPCA'sindiscretions. Because donors are con-fused about who provides services andwhere, the ones who will ultimatelyfeel the negative impact of theASPCA's scandalous behavior are theanimals we strive to protect. Shame onthe ASPCA."

In the latest ASPCA scan-dal, longtime board member EdHershey posed in a fur coat ( r i g h t ) o npage 11 of the February/March issue ofE q u i d a i e, the newsletter of theNational Horseman's Network.Hershey also sits on the NHN board,and heads Hershey Communications,an advertising and direct mail firm

Woofs and growls–– Animal control & rescue

A Tale of Two Cities

Aces

based in Irvine, California.The House Ways and Means Committee's oversight subcom-

mittee has introduced proposals for charities reform that resemblethose proposed in March by the Clinton administration––but are stronger.Both the House and Clinton proposals would enable the Internal RevenueService to fine charities for paying excessive compensation, mandate thatcharities provide their tax returns to anyone upon payment of a modestcopying charge, and would allow the IRS to fine charities whose forms areincomplete or filed late. The House proposal would also enable to IRS topenalize charities for making low-interest loans to trustees or managers,penalize organizations that falsely claim to have nonprofit status, andincrease the IRS charities monitoring staff.

WarningLast Chance for Animals advises recipients of letters from Santa

Fe, New Mexico federal pentitentiary inmate Anthony Miller (a.k.a.Duane Miller, Duane Fuller, and Wayne Miller) that court records includeno evidence to support his claim that he is incarcerated for liberating ani-mals. Miller has recently solicited support from animal rights groups.

ANIMAL PEOPLEthanks you for your generous support:

Camilla Adler, Karen Baker, Cathryn Bauer, Ginger Belin, Ellen Perry Berkeley, Jerry & Susan Bolick, Sothern Boone,

Howell Bosbyshell, Lois Bowie, David & Rachelle Bronfman, Robert Burr,

Geraldine Byrnes, Barbara Casteneda, Irma Ceunis, Sue Clark, Joyce Clinton, Shirley Ann Coffey,

Brian Comerford, Eileen Crossman, John Cullen, Anne Galloway Curtis, Chris Dacus, Penelope Dawson,

Michael DeLozier, Judith Derby, Sue DiCocco, Frank Dobbs,Thomas Dominick, George Dupras, Judith Embry,Joyce Englund, Richard French, Marion Friedman,

Andrew Gach, Yanhia Gamero, the Edith J. Goode Trust, ArlenGrossman, Alison Harlow, Virginia Hillger,

Edward Hodge, Carol Hyndman, Garland Jones, Trudy Kane,Charles LaBlanc, Carmen Lasar, Mona LeFebvre,

Mitzi Leibst, Dr. Steven Levine, Eleanor Lowell, Sarah Luick,Ruth Levy & Judy Fine, Mary Mansour,

Sharon Martin, Tim & Jackie Martin, Marguerita Meister,Virgina Merry, Charlotte Montgomery, Jacqueline Munroe,

Linda Nolan, Ruth O'Brien, Bill Palmer, John Pyner,Judith Rasmussen, Elizabeth Rawsthorne, Dorothy Reynolds,

Marguerite Richter, Syed Rizvi, Charles & Lucille Roehl,Gloira Scholbe, Kenneth Schroeder, Linda Schwab,

Charles Schwamb, Jill Sedam, I.B. Sinclair, BernadetteSonefield, Jennifer Sowel, Bernard Springer, Anne Streeter,

Jack Suconik, Janis Volz, Wendy Warrington, VictoriaWindsor, Eleanora Worth, Kenneth Wuertz, and Elisabeth Zall.

Jogger's death starts puma panic COOL, California––Trail runner Barbara

Schoener, 40, a Placerville mother of two, on April 23became the first human to be killed by a puma inCalifornia since 1909, when Morgan Hill school teacherIsola Kennedy, 38, and pupil Earl Wilson, 8, weremauled by a rabid mountain lion. They survived theirwounds, but died of the rabies some weeks later.

Schoener, running alone in the Auburn StateRecreation Area, apparently unwittingly approached thepuma's den. Wildlife officials killed the puma on May 1,after several days of tracking, discovered she was a lac-tating female, and rescued a male cub on May 4, whowill be donated to a zoo or wildlife park.

Puma panic grew on May 9, when stateDepartment of Fish and Game warden Lt. Robert Turnerkilled another female puma, who reportedly rushed towithin five feet of a three-year-old boy at CuyamacaRancho State Park before the boy's father rousted herwith a stick.

The attacks gave weight to governor PeteWilson's drive to repeal Proposition 117, the 1990 voter-approved initiative that made permanent a 1972 ban onrecreational puma hunting. Hunters argue that because ofthe hunting ban, pumas have lost their fear of people.The real issue may be that California pumas purportedlykill about 250,000 deer annually. In fact, more pumasare shot now than ever before. Only five permits to kill"nuisance" pumas were issued in 1971, but 778 havebeen issued since 1990, resulting in 296 dead pumas.

True Nature Network

ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994 - 13

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia– –Exploration teams in thejungles of Southeast Asia reported two extraordinary finds in lateApril––a small herd of kouprey, an extremely rare wild cow, and anentirely new deer species, the giant muntjac.

Italian veterinarian Maurizio Dioli tracked the kouprey innortheastern Cambodia from March 27 until April 7, never actuallyseeing any, but collecting evidence of their presence, also observing"one of the largest populations of Asian elephants and Sumatran tigersin Asia," and evidence, too, of enough poaching to "present a majorthreat to the survival of the wildlife."

Scientists haven't documented a live kouprey sighting since1967, but fresh remains of animals killed for food by indigenous peo-ple have been seen at least twice in the past five years.

A World Wildlife Fund team meanwhile discovered trophiesfrom 19 giant muntjacs, who were trapped by villagers in the VuQuang Nature Reserve between July 1993 and January 1994. The vil-lagers claim giant muntjacs are common in the area––the same areawhere a previously unknown species of ox was found two years ago.The giant munjac weighs from 88 to 110 pounds, the WWF investi-gators believe, and has longer antlers than other muntjac species.

VOLCANO NATIONAL PARK, Rwanda–– As of May14, the mountain gorillas made famous by the late Dian Fossey wereunharmed by Rwandan civil strife, said Jose Kalpers, coordinator ofthe International Gorilla Conservation Program.

The IGCP is sponsored by the African WildlifeFoundation, the Fauna & Flora Preservation Society, and the WorldWildlife Fund.

Kalpers and the rest of the staff at Karasoke, Fossey's for-mer headquarters, were evacuated to Kenya shortly after theRwandan fighting broke out on April 6. Uganda closed MgahingaNational Park on May 2, fearing fighting would spill over from theVolcano National Park area of Rwanda––but it didn't. By mid-May,Kalpers said, he was able to visit Zaire, closer to Karasoke than histemporary headquarters in Nairobi. From Zaire, Kalpers fundedresumed patrols by Rwandan and Zairean park wardens.

"The main threat to gorillas," Kalpers explained, "is a pos-sible increase in wire snares set for antelope, as these snares can alsoharm gorillas." Refugees from the ongoing Rwandan massacreswere believed likely to be poaching from hunger, not for profit.

While the 300 Rwandan mountain gorillas––half the worldpopulation––may be relatively safe, Lake Victoria suffered eco-dis-aster, choked with up to 40,000 bloated corpses of Rwandan mas-sacre victims. The rotting bodies sucked the oxygen out of the water,killing millions of fish. Ugandan volunteers were unable to dragcorpses out of the lake faster than they floated down the Kagerariver. As the slaughter went on into late May, it was apparent thatthe lake, among the world's largest, might not recover for severalyears. Meanwhile, with the water unfit for drinking or bathing, andthe fish inedible, residents of all adjacent and downstream nationswere forced to realize that they too were victims of the worst geno-cide since the Cambodian massacres of the late 1970s. Sigourney Weaver as Dian Fossey in the film version of her biography.

RWANDAN GORILLAS LIVE––LAKE VICTORIA MIGHT NOT

New species discovered in the jungles of Southeast Asia

Hope rose for the endangeredFlorida panther in late May when volunteersfrom the Coryi Foundation discovered a car-cass, a single pawprint, and clumps of fur onthe grill of a car that struck an unknown animalin the St. Johns and Kissimmee River water-sheds––far outside the Big Cypress Swamparea of Lake Okeechobee, which was previ-ously the panther's only known habitat.

A coalition of U.S. environmentalgroups has petitioned the U.S. Fish andWildlife Service to add koalas to the endan-gered species list. The koala population ofeastern Australia has fallen lately due to habi-tat loss, caused by the combination of devel-opment, logging, wildfires, and drought.

The World Wildlife Fund s a i dApril 18 that the number of wildlife species atrisk of extinction in Canada increased by 19last year, and now stands at 225.

The one-horned rhino populationof Chitwan National Park in Nepal hasgrown to 450, Arup Rajauria of the KingMahendra Trust for Nature Conservationannounced May 1, up from 370 during thepast nine years despite the constant threat ofpoaching. Only Kazirange National Park innortheastern India has more. Rajauria said theChitwan carrying capacity for rhinos is about500. When that level is reached, he said,Nepal may lift a ban on exporting the rare rhi-nos to zoos.

Conservationists in the Gir Forestregion of western Gujarat state, India, areseeking new homes for small prides of scarceAsiatic lions, whose numbers are up from 180in 1974 to 284 today. Gir Forest is now theironly wild habitat. An obstacle to reintroducingthe lions to otherwise suitable habitat inMadhya Pradesh and Rajasthan states is thathuman settlements would have to be moved.

A 12-year study of the wildlife ofGuizhou province, China, has discovered8,000 native plants and 300 native animals ofeconomic value, according to the May 1 edi-tion of The China Daily. Of the animals, 68species are highly endangered.

Wildlife

Republican state senatorScott Bar , of Stevens County,Washington, has reintroduced a billto mandate the sale of animals fromshelters to biomedical research orany other commercial purpose forwhich there is demand. Sales mustbe to the highest bidder, meaningthat laboratories would have thechance to outbid prospective adop-tors. A similar bill failed last year.

PetCo., one of the sever-al major pet supply chains thatpromotes shelter adoptions r a t h e rthan selling commercially bred dogsand cats, is now selling rabbits,birds, fish, and reptiles. Letters ofprotest may be sent to BonnieBurns, public relations director,PetCo. Corp., 9151 Rehco Road,San Diego, CA 92121.

Tom Skeldon, dog war-den for Lucas County, Ohio, hasreceived $7,000 from the countyand $2,500 in private contributionsto fund making a video on theadvantages of dogs over guns as ameans of insuring home security.Local gun groups are infuriated.Skeldon, who in 1988 led the driveto obtain Ohio's ban on pit bull terri-ers, is no advocate of vicious dogs.His emphasis is on loyalty and intel-ligence: a good dog won't lie in adrawer while his/her people areassaulted or the home is robbed,and a well-treated dog cannot beturned against his or her people byan aggressive intruder.

Philadelphia has becomethe fourth major U.S. city with a

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ANIMAL PEOPLE: 518-854-9436 (telephone)

518-854-9601 (fax)

How do we stop killing pets for population control?Do enough additional spays that will not otherwise be done.

What is the right number of additional spays?For dogs, who can breed every 8 months on average:

1) Find out from shelters how many are killed each year.2) Take two-thirds to get the eight-month number.

3) Divide by six (average live litter size).This will come out to somewhat less than two additional

essential spays every eight months for every 1,000 persons in the community (1.1 is U.S.A. average).

For cats, who can breed twice a year:1) Find out from shelters how many are killed each year.

2) Take one half to get the 6-month number.3) Divide by four (average live litter size).

This will come out to somewhat less than two additionalessential spays every six months for every 1,000 persons

in the community (1.6 is U.S.A. average).

Where do we look to get this additional spaying done?Shelters that use spay/neuter deposits to insure adopted pets won't

breed find over half the deposits are unredeemed. This translates into over one quarter of their shelter intake

being traceable to their own adoptions. Eary age spay/neutering and no unaltered pets given out to the

public will solve up to one quarter of the problem.On average, it is approximately 1% of the pet owners

who must spay their pets (over what is already being done).

With the current 14% of the population living with below poverty level incomes, there are more than sufficient pet owners

who want spaying and can't afford it.How much will it cost?

Peanuts. Vets will reduce charges for those of truly low income.Each small animal vet needs to do less than two additional spays a week (one dog and one cat) to completely stop surplus births. A surplus birth, on average, costs $50 in animal control/shelter

charges. That same $50 spent on spaying a dog will save $300in animal control costs, and likewise, $50 spent on spaying a

cat will save $200. The problem is poverty, not ignorance. The remedy is enablement, not education; paying, not preaching;

helping, not fining; allowing, not banning. Why haven't low cost or free spay clinics worked in the past?

Too many disincentives (like license fees the poor don't pay,becoming afraid to use clinics from fear of fines,

alienation caused by the haves believing the have-notsshould not have pets if they can't afford them, etc).PROMOTION OF ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY

488 PEARSON ROAD, PARADISE, CA 95969

Tomahawk

support group to helpAIDS patients keep theirpets, following New YorkCity, San Francisco, andLos Angeles. Philly-PAWS, organized 11months ago by RobertMoffat, serves about 50clients, assisted by 39 stu-dents from the Universityof Philadelphia veterinaryschool.

Police set up an ambushon May 13 in Jammu, India, tryingto shoot two male rhesus monkeyswho were accused of sexuallyassaulting as many as 40 womenover the previous four days.Wildlife officials ordered that themonkeys be shot, after trappingattempts failed, over the objectionsof local Hindus who revere mon-keys as symbols of the ape-godHanuman.

Police patrolman MikeMcFadden, of Beachwood, Ohio,is a hero with local animal lovers forclimbing into a muck-filled seweron Mother's Day to rescue fiveducklings who fell through a grate.

Animal control & rescue (continued)

Safer than a gun.

14 - ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994

ANIMAL HEALTH“Often dogs show signs of lead intoxication

before children, and the signs in humans are more subtlethan in dogs,” University of Missouri veterinary toxicologistStan Casteel advises. Canine symptoms include prolongeddiarhea, vomiting, and stomach upset.

Fort Dodge Laboratories, a division ofAmerican Home Products, has introduced the first vac-cine for treating and preventing ringworm in cats. T h evaccine replaces traditional oral and topical treatments.

Michigan State University professor of veteri-nary medicine Sally Walshaw, 49, on May 1 became theninth annual winner of the Leo K. Bustad CompanionAnimal Veterinarian Award––and the first female recipient.Walshaw teaches laboratory techniques. Said RichardWalshaw, her husband and a fellow member of the MSUveterinary teaching staff, “Before Sally, few people reallyever bothered understanding laboratory animals’ feelings,and they indeed have a lot of feelings.”

Edward D. Plotka, a senior scientist at theMarshfield Medical Research Foundation in Marshfield,Minnesota, reports that a Norplant-like contraceptive hedeveloped for use with captive wildlife as a spare-time pro-ject is now used on more than 6,000 animals of 114 speciesat 140 institutions, worldwide. Plotka is now trying to per-fect a version for elephants.

The California Phamacists Association is inves-tigating possible legal action against ThomasLaboratories, of Tolleson, Arizona, for distributing a cat-alog of “Gamecock products,” including such drugs as“Cockbooster," “Cockfighter,” and “Gamecock FightingSupplement.” Cockfighting is legal in Arizona and fourother states, but is barred in the rest; many bar the sale ofcockfighting paraphernalia, as well. The CaliforniaVeterinary Medical Association is reportedly also reviewingthe case. The firm bills itself as “Distributors of veterinaryvaccines and animal health products.”

The USDA on April 26 announced yet another pro-posal to raise grazing fees on federal land. This version wouldboost the base fee to $3.96 per head-month by 1997, but wouldprovide incentive discounts for ranchers who undertake variousforms of conservation and/or rangeland improvement.Comments will be reviewed until July 28. An EnvironmentalProtection Agency impact study published May 18 estimated thatcurrent management practices would bring a 3% decline over thenext 20 years in stream quality in the affected habitat, while theproposed changes would bring a 27% improvement.

A National Agricultural Statistics Service survey ofthe 10 largest corn-producing states, which raise 80% of the totalU.S. corn crop, reports that less than 1% is lost to wildlife. Theaverage loss per acre is 0.66 bushels. Of the 35.4 million bushelseaten by wild animals, deer eat 13.9 million, while birds eat 9.6million. The 1993 crop came to 5.14 billion bushels in all.

Field officers John Walsh and Neil Trent of theWorld Society for Animal Protection reported on May 11 afterreturning from a mercy mission to Bosnia that of 750,000 cattlekept in Bosnia before the outbreak of three years of civil war,barely 700 have survived starvation, disease, and deliberateshelling by Serbians, who also destroyed all 18 Bosnian govern-ment veterinary stations. Sheep, poultry, and hogs have similar-ly suffered. Only two government-run dairy farms are still inoperation, hindered by unexploded cluster bombs in some oftheir fields, which limit grazing. WSPA has been helping tofeed the remaining dairy cattle since October 1992. WSPA hasalso supplied 25,000 doses of rabies vaccine to Bosnian veteri-narians. Rabies, always endemic in the area, is a growing threatnow because of the collapse of government vaccination programsand a large population of homeless dogs and cats mingling withdisplaced wildlife.

A shortage of sheep sent prices soaring above theofficial monthly minimum wage in Abidjan on the eve of Eidel-Adha, the "feast of the sacrifice," held on May 21 this year,which marks the climax of the annual Moslem pilgrimage toMecca. The sheep are not actually sacrificed to Allah, but areslaughtered by the halal method for a fast-breaking feast some-what resembling a Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner.

An estimated 10,000 turkeys and 30 cows were killedon April 26 in Barron County, Wisconsin, as a twister hit thePrairie Farm division of Jerome Foods––but that natural disasterwas minor beside the loss of an estimated 396,000 sheep andother livestock due to prolonged cold and a major avalanche inthe Yili region of Xinjiang province, China, which wasannounced the same day.

SCHAUMBERG, Illinois––University of SanFrancisco researchers led by Dr. Stanley Pruisiner reportedon April 22 that they have discovered how disease-carryingagents called prions replicate, a key step toward finding away to fight scrapie, a fatal brain disease of sheep andgoats, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), bet-ter known as “mad cow disease.” More than 100,000British cattle have been destroyed due to BSE since 1986,

Hartz Mountainignites a powder keg

HARRISON, New Jersey––The Hartz MountainCorporation on May 6 lit a powder keg by donating 10 caseseach of Blockade flea and tick repellent to numerous animalshelters. Blockade hasn’t been controversial recently, butsome shelter staff recalled the history of the product andresponded by not only rejecting the gift, but also setting upa telephone tree to warn other shelters.

The initial furor erupted in 1987, when Blockadewas introduced. Within a year it was blamed for 366 petdeaths, 2,700 pet injuries, and 56 “alleged unsubstantiatedhuman injuries,” according to a letter Hartz Mountain sentthe EPA in December 1987, when it took Blockade off themarket for further testing.

Concluding in 1989 that Blockade was unjustlyblamed for numerous problems it had nothing to do with,Hartz Mountain reintroduced it with additional warningsthat it should not be used in large amounts, and should notbe used at all on kittens, puppies, pregnant cats, or sickpets. Hartz Mountain also set up a poisoning hotline (800-345-4735) to field complaints. Unsatisfied, PETA and theHumane Society of the U.S. issued advisories againstBlockade. Public suspicion grew in December 1990, whenHartz Mountain paid the EPA $45,000––as the first firmever penalized for failing to report all pesticide-related ill-ness and injury complaints. The issue, however, was howHartz Mountain handled the allegations, not their substance.

Hartz Mountain vice president William Perlbergtold ANIMAL PEOPLE that the company had wronglypresumed the controversy was over. “Shelters are alwaysasking us for donations,” he said, “and we thought thatsince we know it’s going to be a bad flea and tick summer,we thought we’d help them get a jump on the situation bysending our products out before they asked.”

AVMA says mad cow disease won't hurt publicdone in the U.S.,” Farm Sanctuary continued, “has linkedBSE with the use of ‘downer’ cows... Scientists are nowconcerned that the disease currently referred to by the U.S.meat and dairy industries as ‘downer cow syndrome’ couldactually be BSE.”

Quoting an unidentified USDA source, FarmSanctuary claimed “75% of ‘downer’ cows pass inspectionfor human consumption,” and then charged that, “The

AGRICULTURE

Wildlife rabies vaccination takes off

The World Health Organization’s VeterinaryPublic Health Unit on April 20 commenced an attempt toeradicate rabies from Europe by spreading 15 to 20 fish mealballs laden with an oral vaccine per square kilometer in targetareas of Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France,Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Switzerland.The bait balls encourage foxes, the main rabies carriers inEurope, to vaccinate themselves. Developed in Switzerland, theoral vaccine was first deployed in 1978. More than 59 millionbaited doses have now been distributed in 15 nations. SinceFrance began using the vaccine on a broad scale, reported ani-mal rabies cases have fallen from 2,984 in 1990 to just 261 in1993. Germany has enjoyed similar success, with 5,572 cases in1990 but only 853 in 1993.

Progress toward introducing a variant of the oralvaccine designed to fight raccoon rabies in the eastern U.S.has been slower––largely delayed by the hunting lobby and statewildlife departments, which fear that if successful, oral vaccina-tion could eliminate a major pretext for hunting and trapping rac-coons (both of which activities actually tend to spread rabies).However, with final approval of the raccoon rabies vaccinereportedly close, volunteers from the Rabies Information Groupcoordinated by Tufts University research associate Dr. AlisonRobbins on May 2 began spreading 32,000 doses along bothsides of the Cape Cod Canal. On May 20 two Army NationalGuard helicopters joined the effort. The object is to keep rac-coon rabies off the Cape. The vaccine, called Raboral and madeby Rhone-Merieux, has now passed all requisite safety trials.The Cape Cod Canal project is the second in a series of plannedefficacy trials. A similar trial has kept rabies off of Cape May,New Jersey, since 1991.

Twelve second-and-third-graders at OhrenbergerElementary School in West Roxbury, Massachusetts,received rabies treatments beginning April 29, two weeks afterbeing bitten or scratched by a brown bat one of them found in theschoolyard. Told by the Massachusetts SPCA that the bat wouldbe killed for rabies testing, their teacher then released thebat––exposing the school to liability for the cost of the treat-ments, which could run up to $25,000, and perhaps to astro-nomical damages, since she then delayed reporting the incident.Although the treatments are expected to prevent any of the chil-dren from actually getting rabies, the first shots should havebeen given within a week of exposure.

human health implications of consuming meat from BSE-infected cattle could be staggering, but this impact will notbe realized for decades. The incubation time for CJD canextend up to 30 years, and shows symptoms similar toAlzheimer’s disease. According to a recent University ofPittsburgh study, some of the four million people in theU.S. suffering from Alzheimer’s disease may actually beinfected with the agent that causes CJD. And that raisesthis question: Has an unrecognized form of BSE infectedU.S. cattle and entered the human food chain?”

Either Farm Sanctuary had the medical scoop ofthe decade, or something was garbled. After asking FarmSanctuary for documentation and not receiving any, ANI-MAL PEOPLE referred the allegations to Franklin Loew,dean of the Tufts University School of VeterinaryMedicine, and John Boyce, assistant director of scientificactivities for the American Veterinary Medical Association.

“BSE has never been diagnosed in the U.S.,”Loew said. He was cautiously skeptical about the rest ofthe Farm Sanctuary hypothesis. “It c o u l d be a seriousissue––but not the end of the world as we know it,” headvised. “It bears watching.”

Boyce responded with a 1,500-word critique pre-pared by an AVMA staff expert. Among the key points:

• Farm Sanctuary confused several unrelatedtransmissible spongiform encephalopathies, a class of dis-ease with similar symptoms but differing causes. “Theagent of CJD is different from that of BSE and scrapie,”Boyce explained.

• Stating that BSE is transmitted by eating aninfected animal is an extreme oversimplification. A changein the chemical process of rendering during the 1970s mayhave permitted a prion transfer from sheep to cattle viamanufactured high-protein feed supplements, Boyce said,“in circumstances that somehow broke a species barrier thathad apparently resisted less severe natural challenges formore than 200 years.” These unique circumstances do notoccur in the slaughter and consumption of meat.

• “It is true that CJD was diagnosed in two indi-viduals occupationally exposed to BSE,” Boyce stated.“One dairy farmer had one BSE-infected cow, and theother had three cases of BSE in his herd. About 120,000individuals work in dairy farming in England and Wales.The cases of CJD more likely occurred by chance.”

• No U.S. research has ever linked BSE to down-er cattle, there have never been any U.S. cases to study,and a decade-old theory that an unidentified transmissiblespongiform encephalopathy may cause "downer syndrome"has largely been discredited.

In short, eating meat isn’t healthy, but probablydoesn't cause this particular kind of brain-rot.

Agricultural veterinary medicineThe trade journal Beef Today and the

Colorado Cattlemen’s Association have urged the beefindustry to join animal protection groups in urging theUSDA to abolish face-branding cattle imported fromMexico. The cattle are painfully face-branded––and cowsare spayed without anesthesia––as part of an anti-bovinetuberculosis program. Of 438 cases of bovine TB found in1993, 427 were in cattle of Mexican origin. Exposed in anongoing series of newspaper ads by the Coalition for Non-Violent Food, face-branding was also discussed recently bythe Animal Welfare Committee of the AVMA. AVMApolicy presently supports face-branding, but related pro-posed policy amendments are up for review by the AVMAexecutive board.

“The presence of New Zealand brushtail pos-sums in this country is a major threat to the health ofdomestic animals and wildlife in the U.S. because theseanimals are known to be highly infectious carriers of bovineTB,” acting USDA Animal and Plant Health InspectionService head Donald Luchsinger warned on April 28. “Weare taking emergency steps to locate all of these importedpossums,,” he continued, “to prevent them from establish-ing a population here that could become a reservoir forbovine tuberculosis.” Nearly 600 brushtail possums, con-sidered a common pest in New Zealand, have been sold inthe U.S. as pets since 1991. Imports have now been halted.

The USDA announced May 19 that psuedora-bies has been eliminated from domestic swine in Idaho,Montana, and Oregon. Twelve states are now certifiedfree of psuedorabies, which is still found in all the majorhog-farming states.

Cattle exports from the central Philippineisland of Samar were quarantined by the Philippine gov-ernment on May 20 to halt the spread of two diseases thathave killed at least 1,068 water buffalo. Details of the dis-eases were unavailable at deadline.

More than 3,000 cattle have died of pleurisy ineastern Ethiopa, the government news service said May11, suggesting the epidemic might bring still more starva-tion to the famine-plagued nation.

while isolated cases have appeared in seven other nations. The spring 1994 Farm Sanctuary newsletter

meanwhile asserted that “At least two British dairy farmerswhose cows had BSE, and who had been drinking milkfrom their herds, died from CJD, the human counterpart tomad cow disease...There is evidence to suggest that BSEhas existed in the United States for some time. In 1985,several thousand mink at a Wisconsin fur farm died oftransmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) which wascaused by their diet, primarily ‘downer’ cows. Research

ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994 - 15

Jean R. Strothenke, town jus-tice for Schroon, New York, on April20 fined horse hauler David A. Carper, ofFrank Carper & Sons, $11,100 for ille-gally taking 40 horses to slaughter in adouble-decked trailer, lacking individualstalls and insulation. He was caught onJanuary 27, en route from New Jersey toCanada, when the truck broke down in asnowstorm. The fine was by far thetoughest since New York adopted legisla-tion to cover horse transport in 1980.Previous fines have reportedly averagedaround $100 per truck. Strothenke leviedthe fine per horse. “It’s going to put meout of business,” complained FrankCarper, whose firm has reputedly special-ized in late-night horse hauling. The finecame two weeks before the HumaneSociety of the U.S. shocked Louisville onthe eve of the Kentucky Derby by pre-senting a dossier of similar cases to themedia, including evidence of horsesbeing hauled in double-decked trucks for

Horses

Birds

SpectaclesFlorida attorney general Bob

B u t t e r w o r t h on May 6 ruled that so-called hog-dog rodeos violate the stateanimal cruelty law. The rodeos pit dogsagainst hogs in an enclosed arena. Thedog who corners a hog fastest is the win-ner. Videos of dogs biting pigs' snouts,ears, and legs have been widely broadcastin recent weeks, as members of UnitedBay Pens Association, a hog-dog rodeofront group, have defended the events as"good clean family fun," and HardeeCounty sheriff Rickey Dick has refused toarrest either organizers or participants.State attorney Joseph D'Alessandropromised on May 13 that no one would bearrested if the rodeos cease, but a UBPAspokesman said they would continue untilarrests were made.

The Humane Society of theU.S. on April 21 announced it wouldask sponsors to boycott the Iditarod dogsled race, in protest of continued dogdeaths during the event. One dog died

56%

Country Joe McDonald(right) and Farm

Sanctuary led a May 11protest at the Burger

King restaurant inBerkeley, California,

demanding that meatlessburgers be added to the

menu. City councilorDona Spring presented a

letter of support for thedemand, signed by thewhole council. Local

management wants theveggie burger––but the

head office won't letthem have it.

"When people come toBurger King, they want

a hamburger," said corporate spokesperson

Michael Evans.

Hard-pressed sturgeon, sharks, andrays got a break courtesy of the birds in May whenthe San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refugeclosed a popular fishing road to protect the nests ofthreatened snowy plovers. Killed mainly for kicks,not eating, the sturgeon, sharks, and rays are lessprotected than the plovers but perhaps in greaterjeopardy of extinction because of their rapid deple-tion and slow reproductive rate.

Oregon State University professorMorrie Craig has received an award from theAmerican Racing Pigeon Union for developing away to test guano to detect the use of performance-altering drugs. Doping has lately become a prob-lem in pigeon racing, as the top prizes in interna-tional competition have soared above $200,000.

The British Ornithology Union is revis-ing its records after learning that Colonel RichardMeinertzhagen, one of the world's most prolificbird collectors, routinely misidentified birds killedabroad as having been killed in the British Isles;stole birds from other collections and relabeledthem as his own discoveries; and altered remains tocredit himself with finding new subspecies.Meinhertzhagen left his collection to the BOU in1967. It is displayed by the National Museum ofHistory, along with a second Meinertzhagen col-lection of more than half a million lice, fleas, andmites. A decorated veteran of World War I,Meinhertzhagen is perhaps best remembered neitherfor his collections, nor his wartime exploits, butfor escaping punishment after beating a groom todeath with a polo mallet because the man allegedlymistreated Meinhertzhagen's ponies.

Larry Penny, environmental protec-tion director for East Hampton, New York, isphotographing every known piping plover in thearea, trying to discover characteristics that willenable researchers to identify individual birds with-out banding them––a risky method with small birds.

Hoping to restore the Siberian cranepopulation, which has nearly vanished fromSiberia, the International Crane Foundation ofBaraboo, Wisconsin, on May 1 sent 10 Siberiancrane eggs to the Oka State Biosphere Reserve,southeast of Moscow, to form the start of a Russiancaptive breeding program.

Hong Kong imported 17.5 million edi-ble swiftlet nests in 1991, the latest year for whichfigures are available, and prices have soared since.The nests are considered a health tonic. WorldWildlife Fund trade monitoring program directorJorgen Thomson warned on May 18 that the grow-ing demand for swiftlet nests may jeopardize thespecies, a cliffdweller native to Southeast Asia.

U.S. district judge Stanley Sporkin onMay 4 removed the California gnatcatcher fromthe federal threatened species list, ruling that theU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not adequatelydocument the relationship between California gnat-catchers and other gnatcatchers living in Mexico.Saying the documentation exists, and simply hadn'tbeen turned over to the court, Interior SecretaryBruce Babbitt on May 12 asked the judge to let thegnatcatcher remain on the threatened species pend-ing presentation of the data..

SLAUGHTER:The nation's #1 killer of horses.

Over-breeding and human greed have createda surplus of unwanted horses in the U.S. with nowhere to go but to the European and Japanese meat markets.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

If you love horses and want to help protect them,but are not sure what to do, call or write us today for ourYear of the Horse campaign action kit, and help usmake 1994 the year of the liberated horse!

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this year, after six died in 1993. "Tell'em to go to hell," said Joe Redington, ofKnik, a cofounder of the 1,100-mile race.The Iditarod Trail Committee voted fivedays later to oust HSUS vice presidentDavid Wills from its animal care panel.

After viewing videotape of theTim Rivers Diving Mule Act, C o o kCounty circuit judge Everette Braden onMay 20 barred the act from performing atKiddieland, in Melrose Park, Illinois. Aday earlier, Braden held that the IllinoisCitizens Animal Welfare League lackedstanding to seek such an injunction, butwas reversed by the Illinois AppellateCourt. Humane groups have sought simi-lar injunctions in at least seven otherstates over the past six years, but havepreviously been thwarted by vague statedefinitions of cruelty.

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as long as 32 hours without food or water.HSUS estimates that about 10% to 15% ofthe 250,000 horses slaughtered in the U.S.each year are thoroughbreds.

The Sam Houston Race Park,the first Class 1 parimutual horse track inTexas, opened on April 29 in Houston.The proprietors predict average dailyattendance of 12,000, betting $133 apiecefor a daily turnover of $1.6 million.About 1,200 horses are to be stabled at thetrack, which expects to employ 1,700people. Similar tracks are under construc-tion near Dallas and San Antonio.

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16 - ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994

low income and the lack of inner city veterinary clinics.• Hispanic Americans are under-involved with ani-

mal shelters, both dropping off and adopting somewhat feweranimals than their population would indicate, but are not sig-nificantly under-represented among veterinary patrons, eitherat full or discount prices. Indeed there is a hint that HispanicAmericans may be slightly more inclined than Caucasians topay full price for veterinary care. This may suggest a greaterlatent concern for animal well-being among Hispanic peoplethan is generally recognized by Caucasian activists, who tendto notice bullfighting, cockfighting, fiestas including ritualtorment of animals, and charro rodeo, while overlooking thesemi-vegetarian nature of Mexican cookery (albeit vegetarianperhaps mainly for economic reasons), the virtual non-partic-ipation of Hispanics in hunting and trapping, and the highregard for cats evident in many Hispanic communities.

• Lower income people are more than twice as like-ly to abandon animals at shelters than middle or upper incomepeople, and expectedly make up nearly half of the low-costneutering clientele, but are not significantly under-represent-ed among either adopters or patrons of veterinary clinics ingeneral. The numbers clearly illustrate that lower incomepeople both need access to discount neutering and make useof it when it is available.

• There is a hint in the relatively high proportion ofmales who drop animals off at shelters, together with theslight over-representation of Caucasians, that Caucasianmales may account for a disproportionate share of excess petbreeding. Thus it may be that Caucasian males, who alsoaccount for 97% of the licensed hunters and trappers in theU.S., are a key group to target for humane education.However, addressing female family members might be farmore productiive. Note that nearly three out of four peoplewho adopt animals from shelters are women, and that womenalso seek veterinary care twice as often as men. This may notnecessarily mean that men care less about pets; it may simplyreflect the traditional female role as the family caregiver. A1992 Massachusetts SPCA survey of 500 households in theBoston area found that "Female pet owners appear to be twiceas likely as male pet owners to influence the spay/neuter deci-sion for their pets (74% vs. 38%). This is especially true forcats (77% vs. 38%) and for all pets in low-income households(84% vs. 25%)." [The percentages overlap.]

• About 9% of low-cost neutering patrons appear to

and the directors of 37 humane organizations in communitiesknown to have active low-cost neutering programs.

Accurately assessing the value of low-cost neuteringis not so simple as just calculating births believed to havebeen prevented over a particular period of time. It alsorequires estimating how many neutering operations might nothave been performed if the pets' owners didn't have the low-cost option. Also necessary to understand are the patterns inpet reproduction and overpopulation: which pets breed, andwhich litters end up homeless.

How many must be fixed?The best available data from a range of sources

agrees that a relatively small percentage of animals producesthe entire pet overpopulation problem. ANIMAL PEOPLEfound in a 1992 study carried out for the American HumaneAssociation, published in our May 1993 issue, that "Even ifthe actual dog and cat reproduction rate is only one 10th of1% of the possible maximum, three million irresponsible petkeepers (who do not neuter their animals) could put theeuthanasia rate back to the 1985 level (then estimated at 17million animals) as early as 1998. Three million irresponsiblepet keepers would be under 5% of all pet keepers."

L. Robert Plumb of the Promotion of AnimalWelfare Society, a neutering subsidy program in Paradise,California, has more recently estimated that dog overpopula-tion can be ended with just three more spays per year per1,000 U.S. residents, while ending cat overpopulation willtake four more spays per year per 1,000 residents. (See ad,page 14.) "On average," Plumb writes, "it is about 1% morepet owners who must spay their pets."

Thus it is possible that even if a low-cost neuteringprogram results in relatively few additional surgeries, it canhave a considerable impact upon local shelter intakes andeuthanasias. We asked responding shelters for their intakesand euthanasias in 1990 and 1993. The average intake in1990 was 2,950 dogs apiece and 3,060 cats, of whom 60% ofthe dogs were euthanized and 78% of the cats. These percent-ages compare well to the norms ANIMAL PEOPLE p u b-lished in October 1993, after totaling and averaging recentintake and euthanasia statistics for more than 900shelters––virtually every shelter in 10 states, which togetherinclude a demographically representative 40% of the entire

The falling adoption rates, which don't show up inany available state or national statistics, may also reflectprogress against pet overpopulation. As fewer dogs are born,the number of puppies coming into shelters declines––thebiggest single source of adoptable dogs. The number ofvicious, diseased, and injured dogs picked up by animal con-trol agencies also declines, but not as quickly, since most ofthese are adult dogs, typically born at least a year before theyreach a shelter. Many of the unadoptable dogs received by ashelter that began a low-cost neutering program during thepast four years were born before the program started.

Both cat and dog adoptions also decline as result ofother tactics used to fight pet overpopulation, e.g. higher neu-tering deposits and/or refusal to adopt out fertile animals.

It is possible that the apparent decline in adoptionsby these shelters is a statistical fluke, perhaps resultingbecause 25 shelters provided 1993 data while only 18 provid-ed comparable data for 1990. The addition of one or twohigh-volume shelters with low adoption rates could haveaccounted for the discrepancy––but apparently did not.

Declining adoptions due to tougher policies can beoffset by improving promotion, as described in our May 1994feature on the NSAL high-volume adoption program.

Who uses low-cost programs?To find out how many of the animals neutered by

low-cost programs might not have been neutered otherwise,we asked animal shelter directors, veterianians from theAVMA list, and veterinarians who belong to low-cost neuter-ing programs to characterize their clients by age, sex, ethnic-ity, and income level. Important deviations from the U.S.norms are highlighted; above norms are in boldface, whilebelow norms are in bold italic.

AGE U.S. SHELTERS SHELTERS AVMA LOW-COST(19+) (dropoffs) (adoptors) VETS VETS

Reg. Low<30 23% 25% 22% 22% 25% 28%30-49 41% 44% 53% 41% 40% 37%50-64 19% 25% 17% 25% 24% 20%65-plus 18% 6% 8% 12% 13% 11%

SEX M/F M/F M/F M/F M/F M/F49/51 40/60 29/71 38/62 36/64 34/66

WHO NEEDS LOW-COST NEUTERING?(from page one)

be in the upper income bracket. It may not be possible to per-suade these people that taking advantage of low-cost neuter-ing is both inappropriate and detrimental to the programs,seriously annoying the veterinarians who are sacrificing theirown income to perform surgery at cost. We have no hard datato indicate whether these people have been poor and are afraidof becoming poor again; can't resist a bargain; or are simplystingy.

ResultsDespite the participation of people who don't need

the discounts, low-cost neutering is clearly reaching a note-worthy percentage of animals who would not otherwise beneutered. Low-income people make up nearly half of theclientele of low-cost neutering programs––and neuter theiranimals at twice the rate one would expect from their numbersas a percentage of the general population when low-cost neu-tering is available.

The value of low-cost neutering is further evidentfrom pet ownership patterns, below. The columns headed"Pets" state the average number of each kind of animal kept."Fixed" states the percentage who have been neutered. Byway of further establishing the norms for neutering, addition-al columns cite the findings of the 1992 MSPCA survey and a1992 survey of residents of the Santa Clara Valley, inCalifornia, done for the National Pet Alliance.

ANIMAL PET OWNERS LOW COST MSPCA NPAPets Fixed Pets Fixed Pets Fixed Pets Fixed

Male dogs .56 66% .58 45%Female dogs .70 73% .54 62%ALL DOGS 1.26 70% 1.12 54% 1.20 73%Male cats .85 87% 1.08 71%Female cats .79 80% 1.24 65%ALL CATS 1.64 86% 2.32 68% 1.60 87% 1.65 86%

The ANIMAL PEOPLE general population samplebase reported almost exactly the same rate of neutering as theMSPCA and the National Pet Alliance found. This is encour-aging, since the ANIMAL PEOPLE sampling areas werepicked to be representative of the whole U.S., whereas bothgreater Boston and the Santa Clara Valley are well above theU.S. norms in affluence and level of education, and thereforehave been generally believed to have higher rates of neuter-ing. It is possible, however, that the questionaire samplingmethod we used tended to exclude response from the peopleleast likely to neuter animals––the poorest and least educated.

The need for neutering among low-cost clients isobvious in the numbers. While low-cost clients are evidentlyaware of the need to neuter, the percentage of their animalswho are neutered falls at least 11% below the national norms

U.S. human population. That projection found that 52% ofdogs received were euthanized, along with 76% of the cats.In September 1993 the American Humane Association report-ed norms even closer to the findings of the present study,based like the present study on random returns of a question-aire: a 61% euthanasia rate for dogs and a 75% euthanasiarate for cats.

Regardless of any achievements of low-cost neuter-ing programs, the intake and euthanasia rate among respond-ing shelters was expected to drop, as many surveys have doc-umented significant declines in intake and euthanasia duringthe past few years. Even the annual AHA surveys, whosemethodology is severely suspect, demonstrate no worse thana leveling off. The most thorough annual compilation of datais that of the Progressive Animal Welfare Society, whicheach year polls every shelter in the state of Washington. From1990 through 1993, PAWS reported a drop of 18% in dogintakes, a drop of 14% in cat intakes, and a drop of 15% inoverall animal intakes. Euthanasias fell 34% for dogs, 25%for cats, and 24% overall. Progress against pet overpopula-tion in Washington is believed to be coming more rapidly thanelsewhere largely through the efforts of PAWS, including thepassage of regulations governing dog and cat breeding byKing County, PAWS' home county, in 1992.

By 1993, the shelters responding to the ANIMALPEOPLE survey took in an average of 2,283 dogs apiece, a22% drop; euthanized an average of 1,570 dogs apiece, a35% drop; took in 2,112 cats, a 31% drop ; and euthanized1,895 cats, also a 31% drop. The euthanasia rate for dogs fellto just 49%, even as the adoption rate for dogs declined 23%.Unfortunately, the adoption rate for cats also fell, by 2%,producing an 11% rise in the feline euthanasia rate despite thedrop in hard numbers.

ETHNICITY

Caucasian 80.3% 83% 84% 76%78% 76%Afro-American 12.1% 7% 8% 9%7% 12%Hispanic 9.0% 6% 4% 10% 8% 8%Asian Am. 2.9% 2% 2% 5%4% 4%Native Am. .8% 2% 1% 2%4% 4%INCOME

Low inc. 19.6% 41% 19% 18% 21% 46%Mid. inc. 54.7% 42% 49% 54% 60%46%Up. inc. 25.7% 17% 32% 28% 19% 9%

We provided no definition of "lower income" on ourquestionaires, but defined it for analytical purposes as half ofthe U.S. median, which puts about half of the group abovethe official poverty line but close to it. Upper income isdefined as 1.67 times the U.S. median, at which levellifestyle differences from middle-income people appear.

The validity of the survey base was affirmed by theclose parallels between most of our findings and the U.S. pop-ulation norms as defined by the Bureau of the Census.

As expected:• Senior citizens are markedly less likely to drop

animals off at shelters, adopt animals from shelters, and seekveterinary care of any kind, at any price. Since the lowerinvolvement of senior citizens is consistent, not peculiar toneutering, we surmise that senior citizens simply keep fewerpets––a consequence of fixed incomes, apartment living, theanti-pet rules at many retirement communities, and anxietyover the fate of the animals after the owner's death.

• Afro-Americans both drop off and adopt dispro-portionately few animals at shelters even though the numberof Afro-Americans who use low-cost neutering indicates theydo not keep fewer pets. ANIMAL PEOPLE explored thereasons for Afro-American underinvolvement with shelters inour January/February 1993 issue, concluding that the mostimportant is the lack of effort by many humane societies toattract Afro-Americans. As anticipated, Afro-Americans arealso under-represented among veterinary clients. The explan-ation here, however, would appear to be strictly economic,as Afro-American patronage of low-cost neutering rises to thepercentage of Afro-Americans in the general public.Apparently the will and desire to combat pet overpopulationare present among Afro-Americans as much as among anyother group, even when the means to do so are restricted bylow income and the lack of inner city veterinary clinics.(Photo by Kim Bartlett.)

ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994 17

are required. Both the MSPCA study and the A N I M A LPEOPLE study show that women take the primary responsi-bility for getting animals neutered. Yet women on averageearn just 69% as much money as men and are 5.7 times morelikely to head single-parent families with children under age18. Of female-headed households in the U.S., 35% livebelow the poverty line, including 51% of those with childrenunder age 18 and 61% of of those with children under age six.Women over age 65 who live alone are also disproportionate-ly likely to be poor. In short, if either female heads of house-holds or elderly women have cats, they may justly wonderwhere the cost of neutering is going to come from, even ifthey agree 100% that neutering is needed. Many of the writ-ten comments on the ANIMAL PEOPLE q u e s t i o n a i r e s ,most offered by women, told stories of real hardship.

Curiously, no study yet has tried to define the dif-ferences in pet ownership by sex, but this seems to be wortha look with reference to neutering. In addition to the MSPCAand ANIMAL PEOPLE data above, suggesting women arefrom half again to three times more likely than men to takeanimals for neutering, both a 1981 study of cat-feeders inBrooklyn done by Carol Haspel and Robert Calhoon and the1992 ANIMAL PEOPLE nationwide survey of cat-feedersconfirmed that women are more than four times as likely asmen to feed and adopt homeless cats. These findings confirmgreater female empathy toward cats and illustrate as well amajor but little recognized means of cat acquisition. A 1987survey of people who surrendered animals to the MissoulaHumane Society reported that 55% of the cats who had beenkept as pets were adopted as strays. That study of course cov-ered only failed adoptions. However, three other studieshave found a noteworthy number of former strays in the petcat population. Rudy Nasser in a 1981 study of pet ownershipin Las Vegas found that 11% of the pet cats were adopted asstrays; the MPCA found that 20% of pet cats in the greaterBoston area were adopted as strays; and the National PetAlliance found that 32% of pet cats in the Santa Clara Valleywere adopted as strays.

Hidden obstaclesAnti-pet overpopulation crusaders also tend to dis-

miss as mere excuses the complaints of about 17% of peoplewho haven't neutered dogs and 47% of people who haven'tneutered cats that they either can't get transportation to neu-tering clinics or can't get to the clinics during regular business

National Pet Alliance that "16.3% of the owned, alteredfemale cats had a litter of kittens before they were spayed."The pre-neutering fecundity of the animals in our samplingsruns below the MSPCA norm, but above the NPA norm.

Overall, the rate of neutering by age centers on sixmonths for both dogs and cats. The first of the two tablesbelow gives the percentage of animals who are neutered a teach age. The second table gives the percentage who havebeen neutered as of each age.

PET Fixed Fixed Fixed Fixed Fixed@ 6 wks @ 3 mos @ 6 mos @ 1 yr later

Male dog 3% 11% 41% 14% 32%Female dog 1% 1% 46% 17% 30%Male cat 3% 7% 68% 10% 9%Female cat 2% 9% 54% 16% 14%ANIMAL % fixed % fixed % fixed % fixed % fixed

@ 6 wks @ 3 mos @ 6 mos @ 1 yr totalMale dog 2% 7% 29% 36% 53%Female dog 1% 2% 36% 47% 67%Male cat 2% 7% 58% 66% 76%Female cat 1% 8% 46% 58% 70%

If veterinarians decided when each animal should beneutered, the numbers would stack up quite differently:

ANIMAL P r e f e r t o f i x P r e f e r t o f i xP r e fer to f ix Prefer to f i x

@ 6 weeks @ 3 months@ 6 mont h s @ 9 mont h s

A V MA LOW A V M A L O WAVMA LO W AVMA LOW

Male dog 6% 4% 26% 35% 63% 60% 6% 1%Female dog 5% 2% 26% 37% 68% 60% <1% –Male cat 10% 5% 31% 37% 54% 56% <1% 2%Female cat 7% 4% 29% 41% 63% 56% <1% –

There is no column for veterinarians who prefer toneuter animals at one year of age because among the 227 vet-erinary respondents, not one preferred to neuter any animal atmore than nine months of age. In general, low-cost veterinar-ians prefer to neuter dogs earlier, but more veterinarians fromthe AVMA list are doing very early neutering. Both groupsare adamant about neutering dogs and cats prior to sexualmaturity, certainly before they give birth to litters.

Nonetheless, a disconcerting number of pet ownersstill seem to believe an animal should reach a particular age

––Photo by Kim Bartlett

Few vets in poor neighborhoods

in every category. The percentage of unneutered female catsowned by low-cost clients is of special concern, given theextreme fecundity of felines and the high euthanasia rate forhomeless cats. Note that low-cost clients own 21% moremale cats than the national norm; 36% more female cats;and 29% more cats overall. The greater rate of cat ownershipmay directly reflect the lower level of neutering.

ANIMAL PEOPLE considered the possibility thatsome low-cost clients may be cat rescuers and may thereforebe picking up strays and ferals who are in need of neutering.A handful of active rescuers could significantly distort thenorms––but the survey question specified pets, and the ques-tionaire data did not indicate distortion by rescuers as a gen-uinely visible factor in producing these results.

Age of neuteringWe also inquired as to the age of neutering for ani-

mals who were neutered, and the number of puppies or kit-tens born to each female animal prior to neutering:

PET OWNERS LOW-COST Litters Births % fixed Litters Births % fixedeach each by 6 mos. each each by 6 mos.

Male dog – – 41% – – 52%Female dog .15 0.38 39% .09 0.52 29%Male cat – – 75% – – 79%Female cat .14 0.40 85% .19 0.48 66%

Female dogs owned by low-cost clients have fewerlitters but produce more puppies apiece and are neutered (ifat all) later in life. These anomalies are explained by notingthat there were six deliberate dog breeders in total (7%)among the general population sample, who owned 9% of thesexually intact dogs, but were 12 deliberate dog breeders

among the low-cost clients (10%), who owned 18% of thesexually intact dogs. Because of errors in completing the sur-vey form, we can't compile statistics that exclude deliberatebreeding. However, it is reasonable to assume that thegreater instance of dog breeding among the low-cost clientsaccounts for both the higher birth rate and the lower percent-age of dogs who are neutered at age six months.

Low-cost neutering clients are probably more likelyto be deliberate breeders because backyard dog-breedinglooks to many like a low-budget way to make money. Intruth, it isn't ; income rarely equals cost, even at minimallevels of care, but the costs are spread out over severalmonths, while the returns come as several big bills all atonce, creating the illusion of profit where none exists.

The cat data once again shows the need for low-cost neutering, as low-cost clients are 22% less likely to fixcats before they reach sexual maturity, the cats they own are26% more likely to have a litter before neutering, and in con-sequence these cats are 17% more fecund. Clearly, gettingthese cats neutered sooner must become a humane priority.

Our data corresponds closely, if not precisely, tothe MSPCA finding that "Among households that eventuallyspay or neuter their pets, litters are born beforehand in 20%of the cat-owning households and in 21% of the dog-owninghouseholds." Our data also corresponds to the finding of the

hours. Instead there is a tendency to see the difference in thefrequency with which dog owners and cat owners make thesecomplaints as further presumed proof that fewer cat ownersreally care about their animals.

An alternative view is that the middle class back-ground of many humane workers blinds them to the reality ofmulti-generational poverty. There simply aren't many veteri-narians in poor neighborhoods. Poor people are less likely toown cars. People who hold minimum-wage jobs are not onlyless able to afford neutering, but also less able to afford theloss of wages if they take time off work to get an animalneutered, and are easily replaced if they take time off for rea-sons the boss considers frivolous. These factors are moreimportant for cat owners than dog owners because while nei-ther dogs nor cats are allowed on most public transportation,one can walk a dog several miles to a neutering clinic if nec-essary. Walking miles with a cat, even in a carrier, is ratherdifficult, especially if one is female and vulnerable in a badneighborhood; obliged to take small children along due tolack of access to alternative care; and/or elderly.

ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartlett learnedthe importance of physical access to neutering in early 1992,while coordinating a major cat rescue project in northernFairfield County, Connecticut. Residents of inner cityBridgeport, she discovered, were quite receptive to the ideaof neutering both their own pets and local ferals. They will-ingly chipped in to help finance neutering, contributing farmore than most residents of nearby upper middle income sub-urbs. However, the nearest veterinarian who performed low-cost neutering was nearly 10 miles away.

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently described a simi-lar situation in North Philadelphia: following the relocationof the Women's Humane Society to a distant suburb, justthree veterinary clinics remain in this whole district. TheWomen's Humane Society formerly provided discount neuter-ing and emergency pet health care. The neutering programwas so successful that over the past decade the shelter intakeof homeless animals dropped from 10,000 a year to barelyover 3,000. No institution has replaced WHS. Although thePennsylvania SPCA also serves the area, it is physicallyremote from most residents. North Philadelphia has more res-idents, mostly impoverished Afro-Americans, than all butabout 20 U.S. cities. Of the three North Philadelphia veteri-narians who remain in business, all are reportedly losingmoney because of frequent break-ins by drug addicts; noneadvertise widely; and at least one is within a year of retire-ment. That will leave veterinary care in North Philadelphia atthe Third World level. And obviously the rate of neutering inNorth Philadelphia will drop.

Opinion was split as to whether adequate low-costneutering was already available in respondents' communities.

and/or have a litter prior to neutering. Once again the ANI-MAL PEOPLE findings are compared and contrasted withthose of the MSPCA and the NPA. Many major discrepanciesresult because the MSPCA and NPA surveys asked pet ownersto identify just one reason per animal, whereas we askedrespondents to identify every reason applicable.

WHY NOT FIXED? M al e Fem. M S PCAM al e Fem. M S PCA N P A

dog dog dog catcat c at c at

Intend to breed 26% 42% 27% 8% 12% 17%18%Too young 5% 12% 13% 6% 18% 44%36%Too old 9% 9% 8% 2%Hasn't had litter 14%10%Costs too much 35% 37% 0% 62% 74% 22%12%Hard to get to a vet 7% 9% 27% 24%5%Can't see vet in day 5% 12% 25% 18%4%Not necessary 12% 5% 32% 4% 14% 4%Neutering isn't healthy 2% 2%Neutering violates rights 1%Negligence 11% 6%18%

The ANIMAL PEOPLE, MSPCA, and NPA sur-veys asked somewhat different questions, which may alsoaccount for differences in the answers. The biggest differencemay be in the initial assumptions of the surveyors. ANIMALPEOPLE didn't even try to find negligence: negligent peoplewouldn't be likely to return a written questionaire, and evensomewhat negligent people tend to have an excuse. Our inter-est was not in pinning blame, but rather in finding the prob-lems and then finding a way to eliminate them.

Further, ANIMAL PEOPLE suspects that somegenuine reasons for failure to neuter are mistaken for excusesby many humane organizations. For instance, the MSPCAexplained the greater importance of cost and convenience indeciding whether to fix cats as a result of a presumed preju-dice against cats. ANIMAL PEOPLE found even more con-cern over the cost of neutering cats than the MSPCA did––butwe also found substantial cause for it. Most obviously, cat-owners who have not neutered all of their animals tend to havemore cats. The typical low-cost client has 29% more cats thanthe average pet owner. This means more neutering operationsare required. Both the MSPCA study and the A N I M A L

Jane Cadbury

Crimes Against Humans

Jailed on February 18 forrefusing to testify to a Spokane federalgrand jury investigating alleged AnimalLiberation Front actions, Kim Trimviewand Deborah Stout could remain in cus-tody until April 1995. Last Chance for

18 - ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994

COURT CALENDAR

Activism

Animal collectors

The Fund for Animals,Biodiversity Legal Foundation, theSwan View Coalition, and numerousindividuals on May 10 sued the U.S. Fishand Wildlife Service for allegedly failingto properly protect grizzly bear habitat.

MIAMI, Florida––Victor Bernal, 57,director of zoos and parks for Mexico state,Mexico, was convicted on May 18 of trying tobootleg a gorilla from Florida who was actually aU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent in disguise.Bernal paid $97,500 for the “gorilla,” in one oftwo stings set up by convicted primate traffickerMatthew Block of Worldwide Primates as part ofan attempted plea bargain. The other stingnabbed alleged bird's egg smuggler ClementSolano.

Bernal is to be sentenced on July 18. Inthe most recent similar case, a Texas exotic birddealer who was convicted of smuggling parrotswas on April 28 fined $10,000 and sentenced tofive years in prison.

Block is currently appealing a 13-month sentence issued for his part in the 1990“Bangkok Six” orangutan-smuggling case, andwas recently fined $16,000 for multiple AnimalWelfare Act violations, also dating to 1990. Amajor laboratory primate supplier, whose cus-tomers include most of the laboratories whosework on primates has become controversial,Block may escape jail time entirely, according toInternational Primate Protection League presi-dent Shirley McGreal, who exposed theBangkok Six case, because key documents havedisappeared.

McGreal has asked the American CivilLiberties Union to investigate the entrapmentaspects of both of the Block-arranged stings,pointing out that neither Bernal nor the otherarrestees had previous criminal records. Further,she said, "No animals were shipped, and no ani-mals suffered or died, as happened in theBangkok Six case." The defendants were neveroffered the chance to plea-bargain, as Blockwas; they spent 10 days in jail while trying toarrange bond, while Block has never been jailed;

Norma Stevenson, 47, of CongressTownship, Ohio, pleaded innocent on May 3 to37 counts of keeping dogs without a license, inconditions Wayne County Humane Society direc-tor LuAnn Bonewitz and county dog wardenMary Poole said were even worse than those theyfound in March 1993. Stevenson, a candidatefor Wayne County commissioner in the May 4Republican primary, claimed the charges––filedon April 15––were a political conspiracy.Stevenson was acquitted of last year’s crueltycharges in August, apparently because the prose-cution failed to prove intent as well as animalsuffering, but she was convicted in November ofhaving menaced Bonewitz with a gun and wassentenced to spend 45 days in jail. Her appeal ofthe sentence is pending. Stephenson also refusedto pay a boarding fee of $12,000 to the humanesociety, which eventually returned the dogs toher after holding them for five months as evi-dence. Stevenson currently maintains that Pooleimproperly refused to sell her a kennel license inJanuary. Since last November, Wayne Countyrequires all kennel license holders to have a busi-ness permit to breed dogs; kennel licenses are nolonger sold to hobbyists.

Convicted of cruelty last September,Frances Palermo, 60, of East Meadow, LongIsland, was ordered as a condition of probationto get rid of all but three of more than 200 catsfound in her apartment. Evicted from that site,she was arrested again on May 4, when policefound her living with about 120 cats in an oldhouse without electricity or running water.

The Department of Social Services inFond du Lac, Wisconsin, on April 27 ordereda woman who was not named to remove her chil-dren, ages 5 and 6, from her home until it meetssanitary requirements. The Fond du Lac CountyHumane Society removed 36 cats from the feces-strewn house and also found a severely neglectedbasset hound plus large numbers of bats andpigeons on the property. The children were pre-viously removed from the home in June 1992,when humane authorities confiscated 60 cats.

Brian Carey, 48, of Brodhead,Wisconsin, agreed on April 19 to pay $1,500 inrestitution to the Rock County Humane Societyand $1,000 to the Wisconsin Federated Humane

Gorilla casewas frame-up––McGreal Odd jobs man Joseph Bales,

33, and Helene LeMay, 31, a mail-order vegetarian diet consultant, werecharged April 19 with illegally disposingof their 10-week-old infant's remains inthe woods near Eastman, Quebec, ashort drive from their St. Romain home,and then filing a false kidnapping reportin New York City to cover up for thebaby's death. Their story fell apart withinhours. An autopsy seemed to confirmtheir story that the baby died of naturalcauses, as there were no evident signs ofabuse or malnutrition. They did notreport the death, they said, because theyfeared they would be charged with abuse,after having been accused last year ofabusing a mentally retarded foster child.Devout Seventh Day Adventists, Balesand LeMay blamed those charges on per-secution by the Catholic and conservativeSt. Romain community. Although thereare now many vegetarians in Montrealand the Eastern Townships (just south ofSt. Romain), during the 1950s the gov-ernment of longtime Quebec premierMaurice DuPlessy routinely removedchildren from the homes of both vegetari-ans and evangelical Protestants.

Serial killer and avid deerhunter Danny Rolling, 39, drew thedeath penalty on April 26 in Gainesville,Florida, for the 1990 dismembermentmurders of four young women and ayoung man who tried to intervene.

Four men and a woman drew60 years in prison apiece on May 4 inMexico City for the murders of 13 peopleduring voodoo ceremonies performed inassociation with drug smuggling. Themurders, carried out between August1988 and April 1989, followed a string ofanimal sacrifices. The five also killed thetwo cult leaders, on their own orders, aspolice arrested them in May 1989.

A media blackout is in effecton the trial of Toronto accountant PaulBernardo, 29, for the prolonged torturemurders of two teenaged girls in 1992.The trial began on May 4. The chief wit-ness against Bernardo is his wife, KarlaTeale, a veterinary technician who wasrecently convicted of manslaughter inconnection with the same killings. Tealeprovided Bernardo with veterinary drugsand surgical instruments used in thekillings––and revealed during her owntrial that they had also killed her sister,14, with an accidental drug overdosewhile they raped her. Bernardo is thechief suspect in at least five other rapes.

Stanford psychiatry professorSeymour Levine, 69, whose monkeyexperiments have attracted sporadicprotest since 1972, has been sued foralleged sexual harassment by researchassistant Helen Bae, 24. Bae's suitalleges a pattern of sexual harassment ofother young women dating back to 1977.

Wildlife

Animals has instructions for correspond-ing with them, c/o 18653 Ventura Blvd.,#356, Tarzana, CA 91356.

The Wisconsin state court ofappeals for the 3rd district on May 10rejected a suit by Waupun Correction-al Institution inmate David Hatch, 29,demanding vegetarian meals. The courtruled that not serving Hatch meatlessmeals did not infringe upon his religiousfreedom because his views are “idiosyn-cratic to himself.” Hatch, serving a 77-year sentence since 1985 on two counts ofattempted murder and kidnapping, toldthe court that he believes “using animalsfor food is the moral equivalent of theaverage American using his fellow manfor food,” based on readings of Plato,Ovid, and the Bible.

Society in nearby Delavan, settling 53 counts ofabuse and neglect brought against him afterhumane workers found numerous dead animals onhis farm. Carey said he was innocent because theanimals actually belonged to his mother, whodied without a will last December.

In a parallel case, the MarathonCounty Humane Society on April 21 chargedfarmer Norman E. Peterson, 63, of Spencer,Wisconsin, with allowing 41 cattle to starve todeath, although he had plenty of hay and grain onhand.

Melinda Powers, of East Bethel,Vermont, was charged with cruelty on April 11for allegedly allowing two horses and 23 sheep tostarve to death. The same day the AddisonCounty Humane Society found a dog and ninechickens dead of apparent starvation outside thehome of Teresa Curtis, in nearby RochesterHollows. The Curtis family had been watched byhumane authorities for several years. The thirdVermont animal collector raid in a month came onMay 7, when the Humane Society of GreaterBurlington took 26 dogs, six cats, and four bur-ros from a barn owned by Betty Roig and ArthurNorth, of nearby Fairfax. The animals had nofood or water and the dogs were crusted withfeces, police said. Roig was defended, however,by Franklin County Humane Society humane offi-cer David McWilliams, who said he visited thesite on April 30 in response to a complaint aboutdead livestock, but found nothing amiss.

The plaintiffs are concerned that theUSFWS will soon drop grizzly bearsfrom the endangered species list. TheFund obtained the endangered designa-tion for grizzlies in 1975, and the samecoalition of plaintiffs stopped grizzly bearhunting in Montana with a 1991 lawsuit.

Thirteen environmentalgroups led by the Wilderness Societyfiled suit on May 20 in response to BillClinton's Northwest Forest Plan, claim-ing it inadequately protects endangeredsalmon runs, northern spotted owls, andother endangered species dependent uponold growth forests. The suits are intendedto amend the Northwest Forest Plan,Wilderness Society Northwest regionaldirector Steve Whitney said––not stop it.

and one defendant, Maria Villada, lost a babyshe had tried to conceive for seven years whenshe miscarried at her arraignment.

Ironically, former Belgrade Zoo volun-teer Milka Knezevic-Ivaskovic, who helpedexpose the Bangkok Six case by revealing howher boss, Vukosav Bojovic, helped set it up,may become the only person to serve time in con-nection with it. A Serbian court on January 26upheld her three-month jail sentence and fine forpurportedly libeling Bojovic–––who is underindictment in the U.S. as result of the same evi-dence. Knezevic-Ivaskovic has appealed again.

TraffickingIn recent Animal Welfare Act cases,

Michael G. Melbye and Wayne and DorothyLouise Smith, of Lebanon, Oregon, were fined$5,000, $5,000, and $10,000, respectively, forselling animals without a license, and were barredfrom getting a license for 10 years. Rare FelineBreeding Inc. and proprietor Robert A. Baudy,of Center Hill, Florida, were jointly fined $5,000for multiple care and sanitation violations, involv-ing both exotic cats and monkeys.

New charges of animal dealing withoutrequisite permits have been filed against J a m e sJoseph Hickey Jr., of Albany, Washington,already convicted multiple times of related offens-es, and Jerry R. Branton, of Carson,Washington. The new charges pertain to 46 ran-dom-source dogs and cats whom Hickey boughtfrom Branton between October 1989 and June1990. Hickey said the charges were timed to makehim look bad just as he pursued a libel suit againsta former neighbor whose testimony helped bringthe previous convictions.

Cracking down to avoid U.S. tradesanctions announced in early April, Taiwan raid-ed 5,623 of the estimated 9,000 traditional Chinesemedicine shops on the island between April 19 andApril 30, arresting 37 people for allegedly sellingabout 12 ounces of rhino horn and 10 pounds oftiger bone. U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbiton April 21 showed reporters similar amounts ofthe same substances that he said were found inU.S. stores––now under investigation.

Daniel Doney, 17, and anunidentified 15-year-old are chargedwith killing a swan from the municipalpond on April 30 in Manius, New York.The case drew wide publicity after Doneystopped going to school because ofalleged threats from fellow students.Doney claims he was just a witness as the15-year-old stabbed the swan up to 40times after breaking both of her legs.Said Doney’s father, Floyd, “All thisover a duck.”

Richard Eugene Griffith Jr.,36, of Fountain Valley, California,was charged May 7 with two counts offelony cruelty after a neighbor showedpolice a video of Griffith allegedly kick-ing a one-year-old collie, throwing rocksat her, and beating her with a gardentool––after taping her mouth shut. Thedog was taken into protective custody.Griffith was released on $5,000 bail.Claimed his lawyer, Mark N. Phillips,“That dog was not being mistreated inany way, shape, or form.”

Police and the Sevier CountyHumane Society in Tennessee are seek-ing a rabbit serial killer, who first killedindividual rabbits at the Bunnyland MiniGolf Course, then killed 10 in one night,and finally bludgeoned and partiallyskinned 58 on the night of May 19.

Michael Silverman, ofPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 27was jailed for 30 days for not vaccinatinghis pets and ignoring fines accruing to$879 since 1991. The jailing, an appar-ent first, will cost taxpayers $1,860. Itcame as raccoon rabies reachedPittsburgh, showing the need for vaccina-tion.

Legislation In Support ofAnimals and the Louisiana SPCA led aprobe of cockfighting in New Orleansthat brought the arrest of more than 40participants on May 15 by New Orleanspolice, public health officials, and agentsof the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, andFirearms––who seized a substantial quan-tity of cocaine at the site.

Sheriff Norman Hooten ofKinney County, Texas, was among 23attendees arrested at a May 23 high stakesdogfight near Bastrop, Texas. Two seri-ously injured dogs were seized in the raid.

Father and son Mario andNick Mazzeo, of Lake George, NewYork, were arraigned on May 12 forallegedly killing a neighbor's Siamese catwith a pitchfork, claiming they mistookher for a rabid raccoon. They are report-edly suspected in the disappearance ofother cats.

Humane enforcement

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ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994 - 19

Keeping and Breeding Cockatiels, and Popular Parakeets: Australasian andAsian Species in Aviculture, both by Dulcie and Freddie Cooke. Sterling PublishingCo. (387 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016-8810), 1987, updated 1993, and 1989,updated 1993, respectively. 159 and 149 pages, $14.95 each, paperback.

Cockatoos in Aviculture, by Rosemary Low. Sterling PublishingCo. (387 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016-8810), 1993, 270 pages.$24.95, paperback.

Rosemary Low is a highly respected aviculturist, who is also involved inparrot conservation with the World Parrot Trust. In this informative volume sheemphasizes the intelligent nature of cockatoos and the importance of treating themwith respect. She writes, "The best aviculturists are those who try to put them-selves in the place of their birds and consider what they would like if they had tochange places."

Ms. Low provides detailed descriptions of each species of cockatoo,their natural history, and their needs in captivity. The status of cockatoos in theirnative lands of Australia and Indonesia is discussed at length. Conservation ofcockatoos is strongly urged, as several species are now endangered due to trapping,exporting, and deforestation––especially in Indonesia. Cruel Australian methodsof "controlling" cockatoos who are considered to be agriciultural pests are alsoexposed, and humane alternatives are suggested.

––Eileen Crossman

––Robert Harrison

––Eileen Crossman

A newcomer to birdcare would not bewell-guided by these books, which are orientedtoward aviculture in England. Their contents areessentially identical. Each addresses basic avianhealth, nutrition, and reproduction. Each containsa chapter on avian disease by veterinarian AlanJones. Each omits much important information.The need for companionship, integral to a bird'swell-being, is overlooked almost entirely, as arethe avian needs for routine, consistency, andsecurity. Avian behavior is not addressed at all.

Each book also presents much misleadinginformation. The Cookes encourage use of largeaviaries rather than cages in keeping and breedingcockatiels, yet state that a cockatiel can be housedin a cage as small as 15" long, 10" wide, and 18"high––certainly too small to be humane.

Birds are called livestock, indicating alack of regard for them as unique, intelligent indi-viduals. In each book the authors state that birdbreeders "cannot, in the nature of things, rush offto the veterinarian every time something happensto make it advisable to humanely destroy a bird,"recommending instead a procedure in which the

bird is force-fed pure whiskey and drowned in abucket of water. Obviously this is not an accept-able practice.

Other noteworthy misinformationincludes the suggestion that rats who live near theaviary should be poisoned, while mice should behumanely trapped and released. Spraying forinsects and mites is suggested, though no aerosolspray of any kind should ever be used aroundbirds. Routine worming is encouraged; wormingshould only be done under veterinary supervision.Treating scaly legs with olive oil is advised; infact oil should not be applied to birds.

The authors also recommend hand-feed-ing baby birds various foods manufactured forhuman babies. This method of feeding does notprovide all the nutrients birds need for healthygrowth and development. Available in the U.S.are many complete bird formulas for hand-feeding.

The Cookes give some good advice, e.g.to routinely provide fresh foods and branches forchewing. The positive aspects of these manuals,however, are overshadowed by the errors.

––Eileen Crossman

The Best Cat Ever, by Cleveland Amory. Little Brown & Co., (1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020), 260 pages, $19.95 hardcover.

The Best Cat Ever, the third and finalvolume of Cleveland Amory's trilogy which alsoincludes The Cat Who Came for Christmas and TheCat and the Curmudgeon, eulogizes Polar Bear andthe warm relationship Amory enjoyed with him for15 years. Since an aging, arthritic cat, howeverpersonable, cannot supply enough material alonefor an entertaining book of this length, Amoryincludes a lot of gossipy humor about his schooldays and Harvard years, recalled as he takes PolarBear to his major reunions. He recounts for us alsohis career as a TV critic, his attempts to endure theDuchess of Windsor as an employer for the biogra-phy she wished him to write, and similar tidbits.

Amory himself has suffered physicalproblems in recent years. Readers will warm to hisstory about Polar Bear's smuggled night within hos-pital walls and Amory's bed––and his attempts to

guard his master from nurses he presumed to becruel in administering unpleasant pills and takingblood samples. Many will recognize the unfortu-nate truth of Amory's conclusion that little can bedone to ease the pains of aging, either for humansor cats. For felines the final foe is often kidneyfailure, and so it was with Polar Bear.

Amory concludes with a sensitive discus-sion of handling grief over a pet, including copingwith the insensitive comments of those who do notunderstand love for a creature of another species.He asks if what happens to animals after death dif-fers from whatever happens to humans. Finally, heacquired another pet, and I like his rationale forwhy this was a proper deed from several perspec-tives. May he write about his new Tiger Bear atgreater length, in good health for both.

––Phyllis Clifton

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Watertown, New York, has anew humane natural habitat zoo.Many thanks to all who helped. Forcards and material on needed federalzoo and circus law, contact POB 428,Watertown, NY 13601-0428. Specifiynumber.

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MEMORIALSShanti and Rousseau. (Photo by Kim Bartlett.)

Amory and Polar Bear

Aida Fleming, founder of theKindness Club, died on January 25 at age 97.A longtime animal rescuer, inspired by theexample of Albert Schweitzer, Fleming beganthe Kindness Club in 1959 with an essay contestfor school children. The pledge children take tojoin has for many become a lifelong creed: "Ipromise to be kind to animals, as well as peo-ple, and to speak and act in defense of all help-less living creatures." Eulogized Paul Watsonof the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, "Mybrothers, sisters, and I were greatly influencedby the Kindness Club. I attribute what I do,and the fact that my brothers and sisters are alsoanti-hunting, anti-fur coats, and very pro-ani-mals, to the fact that we were all members ofthe Kindness Club." [The Kindness Club oper-ates from 65 Brunswick Street, Frederickton,New Brunswick, Canada E3B 1G5.]

Alice Herrington, 75, founder ofFriends of Animals and the Committee forHumane Legislation, died on April 26 of can-cer at the DeKalb Medical Center in Decatur,Georgia. Formerly active in the Gotham CatClub, Herrington commenced FoA in 1957 asthe first national group to promote low-costneutering of dogs and cats. Neutering clinicswere established in Neptune, New Jersey, andMiami, Florida, along with FoA's still activecoupon program. Herrington began CHL a fewyears later to lobby against slaughterhouse abus-es, hunting, and the fur trade.. Retiring fromFoA in 1986, she devoted much of the rest ofher life to unsuccessful lawsuits, seeking toregain control of the organization.

New York animal protection attor-ney Jolene Marion died on May 22. In themid-1970s, Marion, Joyce Tischler, andEsther Dukes rescued cats while attendingQueens College. In 1984 they cofoundedAttorneys for Animal Rights, which in 1985became the Animal Legal Defense Fund.Marion left ALDF in 1987 to form Legal Actionfor Animals, sharing offices until her illnesswith United Action for Animals. "After a three-and-a-half-year battle with cancer, she passedaway, still working on a laptop computer in herhospital room," said fellow attorney DavidStein. "Her life was dedicated to the legal pro-tection of animals and activists."

NORTH SHORE ANIMAL LEAGUE IS...Lady with dog in cast –– enlarge 15%.

Lady with kit-ten––reduce 27%.

Whether it's a newborn orphaned kitten who must be bottle-fedaround the clock, a rescued pet who needs a "private nurse" while

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FLICKINGERS NURSERYSagamore, PA 16250; 1-800-368-7831.

Whether it's a newborn orphaned kitten who must be bottle-fedaround the clock, a rescued pet who needs a "private nurse" whilerecuperating from surgery, illness, or injury, or an abandoned pregnant dog needing some "T.L.C." until the birth of her litter,we pride ourselves in the quality of care given by the Foster Carestaff here at North Shore Animal League.

Our state-of-the-art Medical Center includes a Foster Care unitstaffed with special people to meet a pet's special needs. In addi-tion, the League has a unique Off-Premise Foster Care Programwhere Foster Care parents open their homes and their hearts tothese"little guys" who need that extra care.

• This on-going Foster Care Program continues to grow––and in 1992, more than 3,500 mistreated,

injured, ill and pregnant animals wereand cared for through the Program.

• Currently, there are 25 specially trained, off-premise fos-ter parents tending to those animals needing home careuntil they are ready for adoption.

YOU CAN VOLUNTEER TO:

• Contact your local shelters or humane societiesand see if they have such a program. Then,offer to help.

• Begin foster care programs in your area.

• Recruit others to become foster parents, too.

NORTH SHORE ANIMAL LEAGUE, INC.LEWYT STREET

PORT WASHINGTON, NY 11050

As Manager of the League's Foster CareDepartment, Gladys Schurkman (pictur ed above wi th one of her special charges) takes care ofhundreds and hundreds of theLeague's "babies."

And bei ng a mom is j ust what Gladys does best. She gives justthe right dose of "tender, loving care"to each of her four-footed fri ends. "I bring my bottle babies back and for thwi th me to work because they have to be fedevery t hree to four hours depending on theirage," says Gladys. "I think the hardest part of my job is saying good-bye to the babies I've helped raise. But, I feelgood knowi ng that, thanks to the League, these lit tle guys have gotten a second chance."

WHY WAS THE AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATIONSO DESPERATE TO AVOID GOING TO COURT?

In 1989, the American Humane Association and Betty Denny Smith, AHA’s Los Angeles Director, filed a$120,000,000 lawsuit for slander, libel, and assorted other charges against Bob Barker, United Activists for AnimalRights, U.A.A.R. Director Nancy Burnet, the City of Los Angeles, former Director of the Los Angeles Departmentof Animal Regulation Bob Rush, and Kenneth Williams, of the Department of Animal Regulation.

This lawsuit dragged on for almost five years with the American Humane Association and Smith makingoccasional settlement offers involving the payment of money, all of which were rejected outright by the defen-dants.

At long last, a trial date was set for April 11, 1994, and the defendants were delighted. They eagerly antici-pated the opportunity to meet the American Humane Association and Smith in court. Under discovery, the defen-dants had accumulated material which they were prevented by a protective order from revealing. Any ofthis material introduced at trial would have become available to the public. Also, former AHA employeeshad contacted the defendants and offered to testify in court against the American Humane Association andSmith. The defendants wanted very much to go to trial so that American movie goers would become aware of whatthe defendants had learned. The defendants were supremely confident of victory in the trial that was scheduled tobegin on April 11, 1994.

AHA and Smith, on the other hand, were prepared to make every effort to avoid going to court. As April 11approached, the plaintiffs accelerated their efforts to obtain an out-of-court settlement.

When Barker and Burnet declined even to discuss settlement with them, the American Humane Associationand Smith went directly to an insurance company that was paying a portion of Barker’s legal fees.

Although the insurance company had repeatedly expressed confidence in a court verdict favorable to thedefendants, its obligation to its stockholders to seek the most economical conclusion of the case possible requiredthat it listen to what the AHA and Smith had to say.

After filing a lawsuit for $120,000,000, the American Humane Association and Smith decided that $1,000,000would be quite enough. No deal. How about $850,000? No deal. AHA and Smith decided that they would drop

the suit for $650,000. No deal. During the years of litigation, the city’s Attorneys had left no doubt that they fully expected to trash AHA and

Smith in court. However, to avoid the cost of a trial, the City indicated that it would come up with $15,000and not a penny more. Insulting to AHA and Smith? Don’t bet on it.

After fantasizing about huge settlements, the bubble was burst for AHA and Smith when the insurance com-pany chose $300,000 as a figure that would be less expensive for the company than going to court.

AHA and Smith had sued for $120,000,000. AHA had paid for almost five years of litigation with moneythat could have been used for animal protection. Surely AHA and Smith would never accept $300,000. Oh,yes, they would. They did not want to go to court. AHA and Smith took the money and ran.

With a court date of April 11 only weeks away, AHA and Smith were offered the perfect forum to dis-prove any allegations against them. But, they took the money and ran.

Barker requested that the insurance company give him the $300,000 instead of the plaintiffs for which hewould have given the company a policy release. Unlike AHA and Smith, Barker wanted his day in court. But, tono avail. Over the objections of Barker and Burnet, AHA and Smith agreed to dismiss the suit against them withprejudice as a result of arrangements between the insurer and the plaintiffs alone.

After almost five years of costly litigation, the plaintiffs ended up with only $300,000 to be shared by AHA,Smith and their attorneys. This could not be considered a good financial investment.

Incidentally, AHA, Smith and their attorneys were not so insulted that they didn’t take the $15,000 from theCity. Still a bad investment.

If AHA had hoped this lawsuit would silence its critics, it has failed utterly to do so. The same questions arebeing asked and now there is a new one. Why was the American Humane Association so desperate to avoid goingto court?

If you have information concerning animal abuse in television or movies contact:

United Activists for Animal RightsThe Coalition to Protect Animals in Entertainment –– a division of UAAR

P.O. Box 2448, Riverside, CA 92516-2448 • (909) 682-7872

Among pet owners at large, 64% said yes; 36% said no. Low-cost neutering clients took almost the opposite view: 34% yes, 62% no. Since the samples were not matched by community,both groups might be right. However, people from each group who live in the same community often gave opposing answers, a hint that even where low-cost neutering is readily available,many pet owners don't know about it. There may also be a difference of perception as to what "low-cost" means, especially evident in New Jersey, which has had a well-publicized neuteringsubsidy program funded by dog licensing for more than a decade. During the past two years the program was temporarily cut back, as funding was diverted to rabies control. Reduced-cost andeven free neutering remained available to the most serious hardship cases, but was harder to find for people above the poverty line. Written comments from New Jersey sometimes asserted thatno low-cost neutering was available locally, as may have been the case for many needy residents whose incomes are less than half the U.S. median but above the poverty line––a bracket includ-ing just under 10% of the total U.S. population.

(Coming in July/August: the veterinary perspective.)