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AR-NEWS Digest 405
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Factory pig farming increases deadly bacteria
by Andrew Gach
2) More on Medicine and Compassion
by Andrew Gach
3) Rat research
by Andrew Gach
4) Penguins threatened by poultry virus
by Andrew Gach
5) (HK) Cholera alert at 200 food outlets
by Vadivu Govind
6) (HK) Fowl feet blamed for cholera
by Vadivu Govind
7) [CA] Vancouver Protests
by David J Knowles
8) [UK] Europe-wide ban on offal planned
by David J Knowles
9) Newsday: Animal Rights in the Age of Cloning (US)
by Marisul@aol.com
10) Newsday: Scientists Goals May Not Be Ours (US)
by Marisul@aol.com
11) (US) Humans Bring Virus to Antarctica
by allen schubert
12) Please Share (AR PaulMac Video on VH1, net chat)
by allen schubert
13) (IN) New veterinary, animal sciences varsity soon
by Vadivu Govind
14) Circus Demo in Florida
by ric
15) Admin Note
by allen schubert
16) Crimes of Shell
by "radioactive"
17) (US) Horseman Found Guilty of Animal Cruelty
by allen schubert
18) tuna-dolphin bill compromise
by "radioactive"
19) greenpeace/taiwan/north korea nuclear plan
by "radioactive"
20) chile denies harassment of US eco-millionaire
by "radioactive"
21) [US] Migratory Bird Treaty Act Imperilled
by "Forrest M. Brownell"
22) (US) Oklahoma's Museum Debate
by JanaWilson@aol.com
23) (US) SEXY VEGETARIAN "INVITES" CONTROVERSY AT STATE
LEGISLATURE
by allen schubert
24) (US) WESTBROOK HIGH STUDENT--A PRINCE FOR FROGS
by allen schubert
25) (US) CARROLLTOWN MAYOR ASKED TO BAN ANIMAL ACTS
by allen schubert
26) (US) PETA: Urge the NFL to Issue a Policy Statement Against
Animal Cruelty
by allen schubert
27) (US) PETA: Maryland Snapping Turtles Need Your Help
by allen schubert
28) [CA] "Our eggs are safe," says Canadian government
by David J Knowles
29) [CA] B.C. government announces new Fish Protection Act
by David J Knowles
30) [UK] Earth's =?iso-8859-1?Q?=A320?= ,000,000,000,000 a year
handout to the human race
by David J Knowles
31) (US) Accord expected to keep grizzly bears protected
by allen schubert
32) Herbeck case addresses...etc.
by "Alliance for Animals"
33) Admin Note--Attachments
by allen schubert
34) WSJ article on Cochineal
by "H. Morris"
35) (NZ) Update on Kaimanawa Wild Horses
by allen schubert
36) (US) WSJ article on Cochineal
by allen schubert
37) (US) Hillary on Fox News Channel Tomorrow
by allen schubert
38) [CA] Summer Tips for Companion Animals
by David J Knowles
39) [US] 2 Greenpeace Protesters Arrested At Canadian Embassy in
Nation's
by David J Knowles
40) [UK] Greenpeace Calls for an End to Oil Exploration and Fossil
Fuel P
by David J Knowles
41) [CA] Swan Hills ban lifted
by David J Knowles
42) Fwd: From Bombs to Birds: Agreement Between Army and U.S. Fish and Wildlife S...
by LMANHEIM@aol.com
43) (US) Bird Deaths Up at Fouled Salton Sea
by allen schubert
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 21:39:24 -0700
>From: Andrew Gach
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Factory pig farming increases deadly bacteria
Message-ID: <337A937C.4E8@worldnet.att.net>
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Researcher says deadly organism thrives in warm waters
The Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (May 13, 1997 4:37 p.m. EDT) -- Vibrio vulnificus is
best known for its potentially deadly effects when it is found in
oysters.
Now, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte says
the bacteria found in U.S. coastal waters could be increasing as
nutrient pollution worsens.
In a yearlong study, UNCC biology professor James Oliver found that
bacteria levels rise with water temperatures in summer and with nutrient
levels.
Vibrio vulnificus is common in saltwater, including the coastal rivers
and sounds of North Carolina.
Oliver discovered that concentrations of the bacteria shot up when a hog
waste lagoon overflowed into the Neuse River during Hurricane Bertha
last September.
State officials asked Oliver, who has studied vibrio vulnificus for 15
years, to help determine whether environmental factors such as hog
wastes influenced its levels.
He presented the results of his study last week at the American Society
for Microbiology's annual meeting in Miami. He was scheduled to speak
Tuesday night to a medical society in New Bern.
Vibrio vulnificus most often effects peopple when found in oysters.
People who eat raw oysters which have accumulated enough of the bacteria
can die. Sixty percent of people infected by eating raw oysters die.
Cooking oysters kills bacteria.
Much rarer are people attacked by the bacteria while swimming. But when
it infects skin wounds, it can quickly do enough damage to force
amputation. While the fatality rate is lower, about 25 percent, it can
quickly cause massive tissue damage.
"This is a tremendously bad bacterium," said Oliver, a microbiologist.
"On the other hand, it's important to understand that most people are
not susceptible."
Dr. Greg Smith, a state medical epidemiologist, said at least two vibrio
fatalities have been reported on the North Carolina coast in the past
year.
Because vibrio infection is not a reportable disease, there is no sure
way of knowing how often the bacteria attacks people. Oliver estimates
perhaps 100 cases a year nationwide. Florida reported 125 infections,
including 44 deaths, from 1981 to 1992.
"We have seen in the past 10 to 15 years an increasing number of
outbreaks associated with vibrio vulnificus, primarily along the Gulf
Coast states and California," said Tom Skinner of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
State officials recommend that people with open wounds not swim or fish
in North Carolina estuaries where nutrient levels are high, and have
published information on the risks of eating raw oysters.
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 21:54:42 -0700
>From: Andrew Gach
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: More on Medicine and Compassion
Message-ID: <337A9712.37CC@worldnet.att.net>
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BIOETHICS: What would you have done in this doctor's position?
Scripps Howard
(May 13, 1997 00:13 a.m. EDT) -- About 9:30 on a fall morning in the
pediatric intensive care unit of a San Francisco hospital, a
pediatrician injected a 9-year-old girl with an overdose of potassium
chloride.
Within minutes the youngster's heart stopped beating.
Why would a doctor with 16 years of loving service to children do such a
thing?
Look for the answer in legal documents of the state Medical Board, as
they describe the last 15 days of the patient's short life. Ask not
only, "Why?" but "What would I have done?"
The patient -- let's call her Kim -- had been suffering since birth with
a nerve-and-muscle disease. She had come to the hospital for surgery on
her jaw.
After the surgery, Kim didn't regain strength. Days went by, and she
couldn't breathe without help from a mechanical ventilator.
After five days, the youngster's troubles took a terrible turn: When the
ventilator tube was removed from her throat, she suffered cardiac
arrest. Resuscitation took a long time, and lack of oxygen caused severe
damage to the girl's brain.
The next five days were crucial: Tests showed how serious the damage
was, and Dr. C was rotated to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU).
Kim showed no signs of coming out of the coma. Finally, 11 days after
the operation, Dr. C called together Kim's pediatrician, an
anesthesiologist and a pediatric neurologist.
They agreed: There was no evidence that Kim would regain consciousness.
They talked with Kim's mother, who agreed to a "Do Not Resuscitate"
order. If Kim's heart stopped again, nobody would try to revive her.
Four days later the same four doctors met. It was a solemn gathering.
The neurologist confirmed "profound, irreversible brain damage," and
suggested that life support was no longer appropriate treatment.
Kim's mother agreed, and the next day asked Dr. C to withdraw the
ventilator.
About 4 p.m., Dr. C complied.
As often happens, Kim went right on breathing, but raggedly, gasping for
air.
Although Kim showed no other sign that she could feel pain, Dr. C tried
to insure her comfort with regular doses of pain-killing medicines -- an
opioid, Fentanyl; a central nervous system depressant, Versed; a
barbiturate, Nembutal; and a relaxant, Valium.
As the evening wore on, Kim became very pale; her lips turned blue. But
the hard part was her breathing. Doctors call it "agonal" breathing, and
it's no coincidence that the word "agony" comes from the same source.
Even though she was comatose, and heavily sedated on top of that, the
pattern of hoarse gasps gave the impression of a little girl suffering.
In the words of the Medical Board's legal charge, Kim's mother became
"more and more distraught" as the night dragged on. Finally, at 1 a.m.,
she asked the resident on duty to give Kim a large shot of "something"
to end the suffering.
The resident refused a deliberate life-ending act, but did step up the
pain-killing medications. She ordered morphine to be given as often as
every 15 minutes, at the request of either the nurse or Kim's mother.
Still, rasping, gasping breathing filled the dim bay of the ICU.
The next morning, before she could get her coat off, Dr. C was
confronted by a nurse, pleading that she "do something" for Kim.
The doctor found the girl "ashen, moribund, with agonal gasping."
Kim's mother then said she "couldn't take (Kim's) suffering any more"
and implored Dr. C to "please do something to end this."
Dr. C stepped up the doses of Fentanyl and Versed. There was no change.
Again the mother, weeping, standing beside the little girl who had
suffered almost from the day of her birth, pled: "Isn't there anything
you can do?"
(Here is the place you might ask yourself, "What would I have done, if
I'd been the doctor?")
Dr. C said, "Well, I suppose we could use potassium."
Almost before her sentence was finished, a nurse was filling a syringe
with potassium chloride. It's a substance usually given to patients with
dangerously low potassium levels, but a large, rapid dose can cause a
heart attack.
A few minutes after the injection, the little girl's heart stopped.
Dr. C, charged by the state with "gross negligence," waived her right to
a hearing and accepted a year's probation. She'll lose her license if
she violates the terms: practice under a designated overseer; take a
course in ethics; break no laws, file quarterly reports with the
Medical Board and be willing to be interviewed by the board at random
times; and pay the $4,000 cost of the investigation and the $1,200 cost
of overseeing her.
Her year's probation started January 17, 1997.
By BRUCE HILTON, director of the National Center for Bioethics
============================================================
The AMA is adamant to prolong the death throes of the dying. To show
compassion and to help to end the agony, on the other hand, is a crime
for which the medical establishment metes out heavy penalties.
Is their stand a matter of ethical principles or business interests?
Perhaps it's not a mere coincidence that medical and hospital charges
incurred by the dying in their agonizing last days and weeks, feeds
billions of dollars into the coffers of doctors and hospitals.
When medicine will be rooted in common humanity, instead of scientific
curiosity and ruthless money grabbing, mountains of human and animal
suffering will be ended. Unfortunately, that day is nowhere on the
horizon. It will take genuine public outrage to change the system.
Andy
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 22:13:01 -0700
>From: Andrew Gach
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Rat research
Message-ID: <337A9B5D.1889@worldnet.att.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Nerve gas causes memory loss, study suggests
N.Y. Times News Service
WASHINGTON (May 14, 1997 11:31 a.m. EDT) -- The Defense Department said
Tuesday that a Pentagon-sponsored research project had produced
"important" results suggesting that exposure to low levels of nerve gas
and some pesticides can lead to memory loss, a common complaint among
veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
The Pentagon, which acknowledged last year that tens of thousands of
American troops may have been exposed to nerve gas shortly after the
war, cautioned in a statement that it was too early to draw conclusions
from the research, which was conducted on rats. Some
scientists suspect that wartime stress is more likely to be the cause of
the health problems of gulf war veterans.
But one of the researchers on the study, Mark Prendergast, a
neuropharmacologist at the Medical College of Georgia, said the tests
had been designed specifically with gulf war veterans in mind. "I
believe there is definitely a relevance of our data to the illnesses of
gulf war veterans," he said.
The Pentagon statement was issued as the newly elected British
government of Prime Minister Tony Blair announced this week that it
would approve several new research projects to determine the cause of
health problems among British veterans of the gulf war, who have
complained of memory loss, digestive problems and other symptoms common
to American veterans.
The experiments in Georgia, which were financed with a $380,000 grant
from the Defense Department, showed that rats who were exposed to low
levels of organophosphates -- the family of chemicals that includes the
nerve gas sarin and many pesticides -- experienced brain damage similar
to that found in humans with memory loss.
"I don't think it's too early to draw conclusions," Prendergast said in
an interview. "The type of exposure regime that we employed in the
animals and the type of exposures that our troops experienced in the
gulf are analogous, and the types of memory deficits that we've
seen in the animals and those reported by gulf war patients are
extremely similar."
Dr. Frank Duffy, an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical
School, said he considered the study to be an "an essential piece of the
picture." He said it "establishes without question that there are
long-term effects" from exposure to low levels of nerve gas.
"It confirms the common knowledge of people who are working in the
field, and perhaps this will give birth to more research in this area,"
he said.
In its statement Tuesday, the Pentagon praised the experiments as
"important" and said they "expand previous DOD research efforts."
But the department said "these initial findings require replication in
other species, including non-human primates" before it would be possible
to draw larger conclusions about the effect of nerve gas on humans.
The experiments, it said, "are non-primate, laboratory animal studies
and have the limitations of all such studies when extrapolation to
humans is attempted."
The Pentagon also questioned whether the experiments, in which the rats
were injected with the chemicals over a two-week period, offered many
clues to the health problems of the veterans. "This route of
administration and duration of exposure does not parallel any known
human exposures to troops," it said.
The results of the study were published in January in the journal
Psychopharmacology but were not publicized at the time by the Defense
Department.
That same month, a White House experts panel released a report
suggesting that wartime stress -- and not chemical weapons -- was a
major factor in many of the ailments reported by thousands of gulf war
veterans.
Still, the White House panel called for more research on the health
effects of chemical weapons, especially in light of the Pentagon's
acknowledgement last year that more than 20,000 American troops may have
been exposed to low doses of the nerve gas sarin after the demolition of
an Iraqi ammunition depot in March 1991.
A group of scientists at the University of Texas reported earlier this
year that exposure to combinations of chemicals, including pesticides
and low levels of nerve gas, were probably responsible for the health
problems of gulf war veterans, an assertion immediately questioned by
the Pentagon and by other researchers.
But Pentagon officials may find it more difficult to argue over the
conduct and conclusions of the research done at the Medical College of
Georgia since the experiments, unlike those conducted at the University
of Texas, were authorized and paid for by the Defense
Department.
By PHILIP SHENON, N.Y. Times News Service
=================================================================
NOTES.
"The Pentagon, which acknowledged last year that tens of thousands of
American troops may have been exposed to nerve gas shortly after the
war, cautioned in a statement that it was too early to draw conclusions
from the research, which was conducted on rats."
If the Pentagon doesn't believe that rat studies prove anything, what
was the point of spending $380,000 of taxpayer money on rat research?
-----------
"I don't think it's too early to draw conclusions," Prendergast said in
an interview. "The type of exposure regime that we employed in the
animals and the type of exposures that our troops experienced in the
gulf are analogous, and the types of memory deficits that we've
seen in the animals and those reported by gulf war patients are
extremely similar."
What's neither "analogous" or "similar" is the human nervous system and
that of rodents. You can't expect people Prendergast who make a living
on vivisecting animals to pay attention such an insignificant detail.
------------
"It confirms the common knowledge of people who are working in the
field, and perhaps this will give birth to more research in this
area..."
This is the point of the whole story: "give us more money so we can
experiment on yet other animal species..." That will undoubtedly
contribute to the well-being of animal researchers - with no benefit
whatsoever to the Gulf War victims.
Andy
Dr. Frank Duffy, an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical
School, said he
considered the study to be an "an essential piece of the picture." He
said it "establishes
without question that there are long-term effects" from exposure to low
levels of nerve gas.
he said.
In its statement Tuesday, the Pentagon praised the experiments as
"important" and said they
"expand previous DOD research efforts."
But the department said "these initial findings require replication in
other species, including
non-human primates" before it would be possible to draw larger
conclusions about the
effect of nerve gas on humans.
The experiments, it said, "are non-primate, laboratory animal studies
and have the
limitations of all such studies when extrapolation to humans is
attempted."
The Pentagon also questioned whether the experiments, in which the rats
were injected with
the chemicals over a two-week period, offered many clues to the health
problems of the
veterans. "This route of administration and duration of exposure does
not parallel any
known human exposures to troops," it said.
The results of the study were published in January in the journal
Psychopharmacology but
were not publicized at the time by the Defense Department.
That same month, a White House experts panel released a report
suggesting that wartime
stress -- and not chemical weapons -- was a major factor in many of the
ailments reported
by thousands of gulf war veterans.
Still, the White House panel called for more research on the health
effects of chemical
weapons, especially in light of the Pentagon's acknowledgement last year
that more than
20,000 American troops may have been exposed to low doses of the nerve
gas sarin after
the demolition of an Iraqi ammunition depot in March 1991.
A group of scientists at the University of Texas reported earlier this
year that exposure to
combinations of chemicals, including pesticides and low levels of nerve
gas, were probably
responsible for the health problems of gulf war veterans, an assertion
immediately
questioned by the Pentagon and by other researchers.
But Pentagon officials may find it more difficult to argue over the
conduct and conclusions
of the research done at the Medical College of Georgia since the
experiments, unlike those
conducted at the University of Texas, were authorized and paid for by
the Defense
Department.
By PHILIP SHENON, N.Y. Times News Service
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 22:14:20 -0700
>From: Andrew Gach
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Penguins threatened by poultry virus
Message-ID: <337A9BAC.13D1@worldnet.att.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Poultry virus brought to penguins through humans
Reuter Information Service
LONDON (May 14, 1997 2:02 p.m. EDT) - Visitors to the Antarctic may have
carried a potentially deadly chicken virus to the penguins that thrive
there, Australian scientists said Wednesday.
They said tests showed that colonies of both emperor and Adelie penguins
showed they had antibodies to infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV),
which can weaken and kill domestic chickens.
"This raises concern for the conservation of avian wildlife in
Antarctica," Heather Gardner and colleagues at Tasmania's environment
department wrote in a letter to the science journal Nature.
The disease affects chicks, weakening their immune systems and leaving
them open to infection. Strains vary but a new, virulent strain can kill
off many of the chicks in a flock.
Gardner's group said tests had shown 65 percent of the chicks in one
flock of emperor penguins had antibodies to the virus. A flock of
Adelies had about a two percent prevalence -- while another flock, in a
more remote location, had none.
"A potent source of environmental contamination in Antarctica could be
from careless or inappropriate disposal of poultry products," they
wrote.
Those visiting the continent could be the biggest threat yet to the
species there, they added.
They said there was no evidence yet that any of the penguins had died or
become ill from the virus.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 14:11:45 +0800 (SST)
>From: Vadivu Govind
To: ar-news@envirolink.org, veg-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (HK) Cholera alert at 200 food outlets
Message-ID: <199705150611.OAA19385@eastgate.cyberway.com.sg>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Hong Kong Standard
15 May 97
Cholera alert at 200 food outlets
By Ella Lee and Patsy Moy
Tonnes of contaminated poultry feet are dumped.
HEALTH authorities were last night contacting 200 food outlets that bought
tonnes of cholera-infected fried chicken and duck feet from a licensed Yuen
Long food factory.
The Dai Yick food factory at Shek Po Road in Hung Shui Kiu was traced as
the source of four of the cholera infections in the latest outbreak that
has so far felled nine people.
The Department of Health said Dai Yick employees cooled food and washed
utensils with well-water that might have been contaminated by human
excrement seeping from two nearby latrines.
The factory has been asked to suspend operations and instructed to fill up
or disinfect the well on its premises.
A summons was issued on Tuesday.
About 4.3 tonnes of poultry feet were seized and destroyed while health
inspectors took water and environmental swabs for testing on Wednesday.
Licensed since 1986, Dai Yick has been classified as Category C, the lowest
hygienic standard, and is subject to inspections at least once every two
weeks. It has been prosecuted four times in the past 10 years and fined
from $350 to $1,000.
Asked why a licensed food factory was allowed to have have such an
``unacceptable'' hygiene condition, Director of Health Dr Margaret Chan
Fung Fu-chun said: ``I believe that it is just an individual case, we
should not be overly panicky.''
``It is impossible to send someone there for 24 hours a day.''
The latest victim, a woman aged 40, was transferred from Tuen Mun Hospital
to the Princess Margaret Hospital infectious disease ward on Wednesday
where she was in stable condition.
A woman, 81, was discharged on Wednesday while a 76-year-old was still in
critical condition at Tuen Mun Hospital.
Meanwhile, health officials are also tracking down a Tuen Mun food factory
suspected of being the source of an elderly man's cholera infection.
The Dai Yick food factory is a major distributor of processed food in Hong
Kong producing at least 20 tonnes of chicken feet, duck feet and ox stomach
a month.
Dr Chan said her department was contacting the 200 outlets patronising Dai
Yick to order them to stop selling the contaminated food.
``Six patients gave a history of having consumed processed food,'' Dr Chan
said.
``The chicken and duck feet consumed by at least four patients were traced
to the (Dai Yick) factory.''
Some patients consumed the food in restaurants but no big supermarket chain
is involved.
Dr Chan said her department would see if it could charge Dai Yick for
producing food unfit for human consumption under health laws.
The factory has had four convictions for failing to keep its premises clean
since December 1987 under Regional Council laws.
Dr Mak Kwok-hang, the department's community medicine consultant, said the
owner of Dai Yick admitted that it had used the well water to clean
utensils and staff could also have used it to prepare food.
Dr Mak said the well was just four metres away from two dry toilets _ which
used big septic tanks for disposal _ just outside the food preparation
area. ``There is a strong evidence that the well water, which is so close
to the toilets, has been contaminated by (human) discharge from the tanks.
If the water is used to cool the chicken feet after they are fried and
boiled, then the bacteria will get the chance to get into the chicken feet
and then to consumers.''
It is not known for how long the practice has been going on or for how long
hygiene inspectors have known about the well.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 14:11:51 +0800 (SST)
>From: Vadivu Govind
To: ar-news@envirolink.org, veg-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (HK) Fowl feet blamed for cholera
Message-ID: <199705150611.OAA18168@eastgate.cyberway.com.sg>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>South China Morning Post
Internet Edition
15 May 97
Fowl feet blamed for cholera
JANE MOIR and RHONDA LAM WAN
Chicken and ducks' feet contaminated with human excrement were yesterday
blamed for Hong Kong's cholera outbreak.
Water used to defrost meat and wash utensils at a Yuen Long food processing
business became a breeding ground for the deadly bacteria after sewage from
staff toilets seeped into the factory well, health chiefs said.
Director of Health Dr Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun warned people to dump any
purchases or cook them thoroughly as it is not known which supermarkets sold
produce from the Chun Yuen factory in Hong Shui Kui.
At least six out of the eight cholera victims were found to have eaten
chicken or ducks' feet processed at the factory.
One of the victims, a 76-year-old man, is still in a coma at Tuen Mun Hospital.
A prosecution order was served on the owner of the factory by the Regional
Services Department yesterday, after inspectors found the premises to be in
"very poor" condition.
Officers said the factory floor was littered with discarded chickens' feet
which were blanketed with flies. Ninety buckets of feet, totalling 4,500
kilograms, were taken from the premises and dumped.
Department of Health consultant Dr Mak Kwok-hang said: "We found buckets
and tanks filled with water used to defrost chicken and ducks' feet.
"According to the owner, they defrost items overnight, take them out in the
morning, then fry or boil them.
"We have strong evidence the well water, which is near the toilets, had
been contaminated by the discharge tanks. This water was then used to wash
utensils, to process food, especially after the feet were cooked, the water
was used to cool [them] down," he said.
"Bacteria had the chance to get into the chickens' feet. Then if the item
gets into the consumer, there's a risk of various forms of infectious diseases."
The factory has been prosecuted four times for failing to maintain
satisfactory hygiene standards, resulting in fines of $350 to $1,000.
Hong Kong Medical Association representative Dr So Kai-ming urged more
vigilant monitoring of hygiene standards.
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 23:54:30 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [CA] Vancouver Protests
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970514235458.3dffd08a@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Here are some upcoming protests planned for the Vancouver area in the near
future.
1 - There will be a demo outside the Cloverdale Rodeo, in Cloverdale,
Surrey, B.C. at 1:00 pm on Sunday, May 18th.
Meet outside the large parking lot (Gate 3) of the rodeo grounds.
Anyone interested who will be in the area is welcome to attend. If you
require directions, please e-mail me privately.
The protest is being organized by Voices For The Animals & Animal Allies
For further information, contact Tara Carter at (604) 988-7176.
2 - There will also be a another demo against the rodeo on Friday, May 16th
at 6:00 pm.
This event is being organized by For The Love Of Animals. For further info,
contact Larry Ashdown at (604) 576-8708.
3 - There will be a protest outside the Vancouver Public Aquarium to mark
International Marine Mammal Freedom Wekend and to protest the transfer of
Nanuq, one of the captive belugas, to another prison tank at Sea World in
San Diego.
The protest will be held on Sunday, May 25th at 12 noon, outside the main
entrance to the aquarium.
This protest is organized by Voices For The Animals and Whale Save/Coalition
For No Whales In Captivity. For futher information, please contact Tara
Carter at (604) 988-7176 or Annelise Sorg at (604) 736-9514
Hope as many of you as possible are able to attend, and please accept my
apologies for the short notice.
[Animal Voices will be covering both the Sunday protest at the rodeo and
also the aquarium protests, and will try to get coverage of the Friday rodeo
protest as well. We will post something as soon after the events as possible.]
David J Knowles
Animal Voices News
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 02:17:21 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [UK] Europe-wide ban on offal planned
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970515021750.3e778f16@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>From The Electronic Telegraph - Thursday, May 15th, 1997
Europe-wide ban on offal planned
By Toby Helm, EU Correspondent in Brussels
FRANZ Fischler, the EU Agriculture Commissioner, yesterday announced plans
to protect the public from mad cow disease, including a proposal for an
EU-wide ban on all offal from human and animal food chains.
Mr Fischler wants a complete removal of high-risk offal - generally nervous
tissue - of cattle, sheep and goats. The proposal, which was rejected by EU
governments last December as too draconian, will be put to EU veterinary
experts in June.
The European Commission reimposed a total ban on gelatine produced from
British cattle, although this will have no direct effect on British
producers who extract their materials from overseas animals.The decision was
taken because conditions for lifting the ban laid down last June, including
heat-treatment controls, were found by experts to have been inadequate.
British producers found that the cost of meeting the conditions would have
been too great.
Gelatine is extracted from cattle for use in food, animal feedstuffs,
cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. The 100 tons a month exported from Britain is
all from non-UK cattle.
Mr Fischler confirmed that the export of Irish beef from Britain is allowed,
despite the closure of the Hard Rock Cafe in Paris, which bought beef from
Ireland via the UK, where it was processed. The new EU controls to protect
consumers from mad cow disease were
welcomed last night by the National Farmers' Union of England and Wales.
The NFU said because the controls would have to be implemented throughout
the EU, it would end the injustice of beef being exported to Britain from
European meat plants that did not meet the same tight controls enforced here.
Sir David Naish, president of the NFU, said: "For too long beef has been
imported into this country which does not meet the same BSE controls as in
the UK."
He also welcomed an EU Commission statement that it would rely on scientific
advice, not political judgments, when making a decision on whether the
export ban on British beef should be lifted.
© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 07:33:48 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Marisul@aol.com
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Newsday: Animal Rights in the Age of Cloning (US)
Message-ID: <970515073348_-765909114@emout10.mail.aol.com>
Copyright 1997 Newsday, Inc.
Newsday; May 13, 1997, Tuesday, NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION; SECTION: HEALTH
& DISCOVERY; Page B27
ANIMAL RIGHTS IN THE AGE OF CLONING. HOW NUCLEAR TRANSFER WORKS
BYLINE: By Paula Cohen. SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
It's 3:30 on a Wednesday in a nondescript building on the Amherst campus
of the University of Massachusetts. A graduate student is peering into an
elaborate microscope, maneuvering with his left hand an instrument that
resembles a joystick. He performs microsurgery on cells from two cows,
transferring DNA from one to another. After some manipulation, an embryo
should result, and if it survives, it will be shipped to Texas and implanted
in a third cow. With some luck, in nine months or so that tiny embryo will be
a full-fledged, wobbly, newborn calf. W HILE THE world gasped a collective
breath at news that a sheep had been made from an adult animal's gene set,
and while pundits debated the significance of the event, researchers at a
number of institutions, using various techniques, were quietly cloning
mammals with little fanfare. In university labs around the world, professors
and grad students were reprograming nuclei, turning back the clock on the
progression of animal development, to a greater or lesser degree, and making
duplicate animals. And, they had been doing it for years.
In 1977 researchers at Genentech Inc. ushered in the "Age of
Biotechnology" when they cloned a human growth protein. Since then the race
has been on to develop animals, and parts of animals, for man to use.
Scientists have cloned frogs, mice, rabbits, pigs and, finally, cows and
sheep, usually from embryonic cells.
In the early days, clones were the result of embryos split to make twins,
or more copies, of the same animal. But since the late 1980s scientists have
been using a technique that involves the transfer of genetic material between
cells, called nuclear transfer. A donor animal's DNA is inserted into a
DNA-emptied egg taken from a second animal, then the resulting embryo is
implanted into a third, which eventually gives birth to a clone.
Scottish scientist Dr. Ian Wilmut, who led the project that created the
ewe clone, Dolly, took nuclear transfer technology one step further to
produce the first mammal developed from the genetic material of one adult
cell, an udder cell in this case.
"Dolly is exceptional, scientifically, because she was cloned with adult
cells, but they will be using embryos in commercial cloning ," explained Dr.
Lisa Geller, a Harvard neurobiologist and bioethicist specializing in issues
related to technology.
Whether cloned from embryonic or adult cells, the end product is an animal
that genetically matches the donor animal. The donor provides genetic
material that is inserted into an egg, and that egg is artificially
stimulated into dividing and maturing without being fertilized by a sperm, a
matched set of different genetic material.
According to the Feb. 27, 1997, issue of Nature magazine, the same one
that announced Dolly, other species have been cloned from early-stage (8-16
cells) embryos, and viable offspring also have been produced from nuclei
taken from short-term cultures of somewhat more mature cells. At the
University of Massachusetts, researchers say they have cloned two-dozen
rabbits through nuclear transfer in the last 10 years.
"We have been doing nuclear transfer for about fourteen years, and many
cloned animals have been produced with this process . . . Wilmut used a cell
from an adult animal. The basic procedure, however, was the same," said Dr.
James Robl of the animal sciences department of UMass and consultant to
Advanced Cell Technology Inc.
Cloning and its spinoff research are also being conducted at the
University of Wisconsin, the University of California at Davis and other
universities with large animal-science programs; at Genzyme Transgenic Corp.
in Framingham, Mass.; at the Roslin Institute and PPL Therapeutics, in
Scotland, and other places. Scientists from those institutions and others
will meet next month in Washington to share information on mammalian cloning,
and in California in August to discuss agricultural uses of genetic
engineering.
A brisk discussion has begun of the moral and ethical issues surrounding
cloning technology, but the debate has revolved, for the most part, around
the possibility of human clones. Responding to a public outcry, President
Bill Clinton in March banned the use of federal funds for research on human
cloning, saying, "Each life is unique, born of a miracle that reaches beyond
laboratory science." In the United Kingdom an advisory panel cautioned the
government against proceeding with experiments in species-to-species organ
transplants, one of the goals of cloning research, and has ruled out primates
as a possible source of organs for humans.
However, animals are used in cloning research. For that reason, ethicists,
researchers and animal-rights advocates agree that the rights of animals, as
species, must be included in the public discussion. Few have protested
research using yeast, fungi, fruit flies and worms, but many say larger
species, especially those in close contact with man, must be protected from
exploitation and abuse through cloning.
Important questions remain. Do the moral issues that dominated the human
clone debate pertain to animals, as well? Do species have rights? Will
cloning weaken species? What will be cloned, and why?
"We have had the technology for cloning in our midst for a long time, then
something happens to make people pay attention," said Geller. "Some of us
have been trying to get people to think about the ethical issues, but it took
Dolly to capture the public interest."
Meanwhile, 5-year-old Phillipe, a mixed-pigment rabbit clone made from an
embryo cell, sits in a cage in an adjoining animal-science building at UMass.
With him are his mate, Kate, a pretty, white, California-New Zealand mix, and
a half-dozen seemingly normal offspring conceived by the usual means.
Phillipe is one of the two-dozen rabbits cloned at UMass over the last
decade.
Dr. Michael W. Fox, who is a veterinarian and the vice president for
bioethics and farm animals for the Humane Society of the United States,
dislikes cloning. He says we are experiencing the "second Creation."
"DNA is a fingerprint of the Creator," he said. "We are playing God."
He also is concerned with animal welfare in commercial cloning ventures,
and he has asked Clinton to appoint a member of the society to the National
Bioethics Advisory Commission.
"Manimals" like Dolly or Phillipe, as Fox calls them, are being created by
"little simians seeing what they can do to rearrange genes and, if
profitable, rush out and get it patented."
It is true that the long-term aim of cloning research is to use the
technology for commercial purposes. Robl sees the potential for billions of
dollars to be made from the sale of products these animals can produce. For
now, however, the aim is basic research.
"We are learning what causes a cell to differentiate or mature into a cell
that performs a distinct function , from cloning," said Geller. "It might
teach us something more about certain cancer cells, and getting cells to do
what we want them to."
"What's really being studied here is how genes are being turned on and
off. It should help us learn how to prevent things like birth defects," said
Dr. Duane Davis, professor of animal sciences at Kansas State University.
When the technology is perfected enough for clones to be produced
commercially, they will be used to create pharmaceuticals and biologic
material. Drugs already are tested on or produced from genetically altered
cells and tissues, without use of the whole animal. Having large groups of
identical laboratory animals will allow researchers to test new drugs and
procedures with the only variables being environmental, such as diet. The
animals also will be used for food production and development of recreational
animals, such as fancy dogs or horses, predicts Dr. Arthur Caplan, director
of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
"The animals we're most likely to clone will not be Lassie or Dolly, but
cows, pigs, goats and sheep we want to use to make specific proteins or
enzymes," he said.
Through genetic engineering, scientists, including Wilmut, Dr. Neal First,
who led the first studies on mice at the University of Wisconsin 30 years
ago, and his colleague Robl, are interested in creating new and useful
products, such as human insulin or antigens to control auto-immune diseases,
that could be extracted from an animal's milk or meat.
Domestic animals have been used to make products to keep humans healthy
for thousands of years, long before genetic engineering was available.
According to Jim Weber of ABS Global Inc. of DeForest, Wis., which is one
of the largest providers of bovine genetics and related animal products in
the world, artificial insemination has been used to develop American herds
for milk production for more than 50 years. Weber says that as a result of
genetic improvement, primarily through artificial insemination, it is not
uncommon today for herds of cows to produce from 25,000 to 30,000 pounds of
milk per cow per year.
"We're interested in cloning because it could allow a dairyman to get more
consistency throughout his herd," explained Weber. "If he found a desirable
trait, we could replicate it and help him improve production. But the use of
cloning is still a long way off."
But will herd consistency lead to problems?
"There is a two-edged sword here. If you clone an animal that is resistant
to one or more diseases, such as salmonella, it won't be resistant to some
other organism. Resistance is only as good as the original animal," said Jim
Doherty, general curator of the Bronx Zoo. "In the wild, where there is
genetic diversity, your animals have a wider resistance to a whole bunch of
things."
Fox echoed concern over the spread of disease through limited genetic
diversity. "Cloning will move us toward genetic uniformity, which is already
in place through selective breeding. When you have uniformity, you have much
greater potential for epidemic disease wipeouts. This is a serious concern,"
he said.
"There's a tendency to think that somehow the manipulation or modification
of genes is unnatural, but that's what sex is all about," said Caplan. "Part
of our problem in understanding cloning is so few of us have any contact with
agriculture. It is impossible to find anything in our supermarkets that isn't
the product of genetic engineering directly or indirectly."
It is a short leap from food to biological components that can be used as
drugs or transplanted into humans. Mammalian transgenics, or the introduction
of foreign genes into animals to make them produce something specific for
human use, is the parallel technology that goes hand in hand with the
evolution of cloning. Both will be valuable to agriculture and the
pharmaceutical industry.
"We might turn some animals into pharmaceutical factories in ways that
won't harm animals, while they make things that are useful to us," Caplan
added.
Genzyme Transgenics Corp. already has successfully produced more than a
dozen proteins in transgenic animals. These substances are useful for
treating blood clots, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, heart attacks,
AIDS, diabetes, some forms of cancer and other diseases, according to
statements made in March at the Senate subcommittee hearings on cloning. That
same month, Genzyme announced it would create and commercialize transgenic
human serum albumin, an important protein involved in maintaining the balance
of fluids in the blood. Genzyme expects the product will be used to replace
blood volume in emergency surgery, treating shock and serious burns, and in
AIDS and cancer therapy.
Geller points out that adult human cells, if ever cloned, might create
transplantable organs, such as kidneys. If a person has kidney disease, for
example, and will someday require a new kidney, cells could be extracted from
the patient to build a new organ on a matrix, a 3-D structure that supports
the developing organ. Hopefully, the kidney would be ready when the patient
needed it.
Matrix research is being done today, she said, in anticipation of such a
possibility. At Brown University, researchers are attempting to develop heart
valves from a combination of sheep and human tissue. Advanced Tissue Sciences
of California is using newborns' foreskins, which are usually discarded, to
design a method for mass-producing valves, and at the University of
Washington, scientists are trying to stimulate the heart to repair damaged
valves without surgery.
Pig heart valves have been used for the last 25 years, according to the
Bioethics Bulletin newsletter at the University of Alberta, Canada. Each year
60,000 Americans get new heart valves, some from pigs, says Dr. Arvind
Koshal, director of cardiothoracic surgery at the unversity. Koshal said the
"ethical arguments against the use of a few thousand pigs each year for the
purpose of transplantation certainly have been muted." About 90,000 pigs are
slaughtered each year in North America for food consumption.
"Pigs can produce organs that might be useful to humans. What's the
difference to the pig if they are producing organs or pork chops?" asked
Davis.
Though pigs can be raised for medical purposes in pathogen-free
conditions, there are many unknowns, including pathogens that have not been
detected. We do know pigs can harbor retroviruses, and some scientists worry
organ transplants into humans from animals, even clones, could initiate a
plague of retroviruses that would not appear until years after initial
infection, and that man would have no resistance or drugs to combat them.
The Humane Society is worried that diseases can be spread from species to
species through xenotransplantation, or the transfer or grafting of tissue
from an animal of one species into an individual of another. Humane Society
spokesman Fox warns that humans could become "walking time bombs" for new
viruses contracted from contaminated animal organs.
Fox is not alone. The UK Department of Health recently called for caution
with xenotransplantation, saying it had "serious questions relating to the
transmission of viruses from animals to humans," which made the procedure
"too risky to attempt yet, even experimentally." In this country, the
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine warned in 1995: "Baboons are
infected with CMV cytomegalovirus , Epstein-Barr and several other
potentially dangerous viruses." In a statement issued shortly before a
baboon's bone marrow was transplanted into a human with AIDS, the committee
said, "The likelihood that viruses will be passed from baboon bone marrow to
the human recipient is virtually 100 percent." The patient died several weeks
after the procedure.
Last year, transplant pioneer Dr. Thomas Starzl called for a moratorium on
xenotransplants as permanent replacements for organs. Since then, research
centers at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina and
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York have reported making "great
strides" in understanding the molecular basis of the immune system and the
rejection process. Dr. Jeffrey Platt, a Duke immunologist, has said that pigs
are the safest animals to use for human xenografts and that the transfer of
diseases from pigs to humans is "minimal."
"We need to put our hearts in pigs and not pigs into ourselves," countered
Fox. "I would rather people become one with animals than animals' parts and
products becoming a part of our own bodies."
Fox said he has a disturbing vision: "I can see myself making house calls
to people's surrogate animals - whole herds all crowded into the backyard,
there for the sole purpose of providing their owners with the biologics they
need."
Fox calls the use of animals for organ transplants and medicine
"dysgenics, not eugenics," and he fears the practice will create an
increasing dependence on animals. He dismisses all genetic manipulation as a
sign of man's arrogance and domination.
"We had the same dreams when we split the atom and had power over matter.
We now have power over life, but in order to use these powers we need
biological constraints put in place," warned Fox.
Could cloning be used to stem the loss of endangered species? Bronx Zoo
curator Doherty thinks not. "Zoos are interested in diversity. A healthy
population is one that is not highly inbred. Besides, cloning is so far down
the line for rare or endangered species it's almost science fiction. There's
more we don't know about the animals in our care than we know about them."
The Rev. Richard Devine, associate professor of medical ethics and moral
theology at St. John's University, has no trouble with cloning animals "if
there is a bona fide scientific or commercial benefit to gain . . . The
problem is the temptation will be to move on to human beings."
Are animal "rights" being transgressed? Davis of Kansas State University
offers, "I don't think there are any rights of animals unless we give them to
them. I don't think cloning will cause harm or have negative effects on
animals, any more than breeding cows to give more milk."
Davis sees no new issues raised by cloning regarding how an animal is
treated in research or agriculture. "All animal products are taken through
slaughter. If you think it is all right to use animals for food production, I
don't see what the difference is. If not, you won't like any of this."
Robl reminds us that cattle were not roaming the countryside when European
settlers landed here in the early 17th Century. The first cow was brought
over from England in 1624, according to National Fluid Milk Processor
Promotion Board.
"In this country alone, man has propagated a hundred and ten million
cattle. There wouldn't be any farm animals at all if man hadn't brought them
here and propagated them for his use," says Robl. "Cattle provide man with
food and clothing and, in the future, they will be used to treat man's
diseases. In return, man provides them shelter, food and treats their
diseases. It is a symbiotic relationship between the two, not a slave
relationship."
How Nuclear Transfer Works
WHILE IT IS less complicated to clone a mammal from a cell that is young
than from one that has advanced to the point where it performs a specific
function, both procedures are fraught with complications and risk.
Dr. Ian Wilmut reportedly made 277 tries using the nucleus of an adult
cell to make Dolly; Dr. James Robl uses closer to 30 tries with young cells
to get a viable embryo in his work for Advanced Cell Technologies Inc., which
collaborates with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. So far, Robl
and his staff have produced several hundred cow fetuses, all of which are in
various stages of gestation in surrogate-mother cows.
Six scientists, including Robl, Dr. Neal First and team leader Dr. Randall
Prather, then of ABS Global Inc. in Wisconsin, won the first patent on
nuclear transfer or nuclear transplantation technology. The U.S. patent for
"the multiplication of bovine embryos by nuclear transfer" was obtained in
1987 by the WR Grace Co., which funded the work.
Here's how nuclear transfer works in Amherst: Researchers purchase bovine
eggs that have been aspirated from cow ovaries in an Iowa slaughterhouse. A
glass tube of live eggs is shipped by overnight mail in a heat-controlled
container that looks remarkably like a household toolbox.
The next day, the cells arrive in Massachusetts, where they finish
maturing in a small incubator. DNA is surgically removed from the eggs
through microsurgery and discarded. Meanwhile, somatic cells, or tissue cells
with desirable DNA taken from a cow fetus, have been cultured and maintained
in the same incubator. A somatic cell is placed adjacent to one of the eggs
and both are given a high-voltage electrical charge, which punches holes
between the two opposing membranes separating the donor cell from the egg.
When the holes reseal, the two cells are connected and fused into an embryo.
The embryo is then chemically treated to initiate cell division without being
fertilized by sperm.
"There's an important difference between nuclear transfer and embryo
splitting. With splitting, the cells are not reprogramed but continue to
develop on their own schedule. With transfer, the cell is reprogramed and
made to function like an embryonic nucleus," explained Robl.
Completed embryos are put in culture for a week and then put back in the
toolbox, so they can be shipped to Texas, where they are transplanted into
recipient cows. "This means we can do a lot of research on cows that are
1,500 miles away," said Robl. - Paula Cohen
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 07:33:56 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Marisul@aol.com
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Newsday: Scientists Goals May Not Be Ours (US)
Message-ID: <970515073355_-1030018298@emout14.mail.aol.com>
Copyright 1997 Newsday, Inc.
Newsday; May 13, 1997, Tuesday, ALL EDITIONS SECTION: VIEWPOINTS; Page
A37
SCIENTISTS GOALS MAY NOT BE OURS
BYLINE: By Daniel S. Greenberg. Daniel S. Greenberg is editor and publisher
of Science & Government Report, a Washington newsletter.
IS THE BROOKHAVEN debacle an aberration, or is there something in the
culture of science that winks at rogue behavior to get the job done?
Most laboratories are good neighbors and most scientists are good
citizens, just like other organizations and their workers. But the record
shows that the scientific establishment has its own hierarchy of values and a
tradition of haughty indifference to the fears of mere laymen.
After defaulting on its safety responsibilities for decades, the
Department of Energy conceded as much in reporting that at Brookhaven, it
"found a perception that freedom and creativity needed for scientific inquiry
are stifled by the discipline needed to prevent accidents or environmental
problems."
Wow! That proclaims science over everything, even at the risk of
endangering trusting and unwitting bystanders. Given the vast extent of
America's scientific enterprise, there's no way of knowing the prevalence of
that attitude. But, on the basis of bits and pieces of evidence that have
come out in recent years, it's not rare.
The record, in fact, is appalling, starting with the nuclear and chemical
contamination of Energy Department sites throughout the country, at cleanup
costs estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. As builder and
custodian of the bomb, and possessor of a long tradition of secrecy dating to
its World War II antecedent, the Manhattan Project, the Energy Department is
an exemplar of scientific hubris. But it's not without competition in that
respect. Let's look at some cases elsewhere in research.
Strict federal rules for the protection of humans enrolled in medical
experiments were adopted in the 1970s, following the disclosure of the
notorious Tuskegee experiment, in which black syphilis patients were denied
treatment so that government researchers could study the progression of the
disease.
Among today's medical researchers, the rules are generally regarded as a
nuisance that warrants minimal adherence, since the chance of being caught in
wrongdoing is close to zero.
The General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress' investigative service, took
a look at the monitoring system last year and found university scientists
serving as members of committees reviewing the safety of their own projects.
At the National Institutes of Health, the main bankroll for medical
research, 28 employees were responsible for monitoring 16,000 projects. NIH's
Office for Protection from Research Risks averages about five visits a year
to medical-research centers to check on compliance with its rules.
The university committees that review proposals for human experimentation
sometimes whiz through 200 applications in a single meeting, the GAO noted,
spending a minute or two on each. The GAO reported that it found cases in
which volunteers were not told that they would receive experimental drugs.
It also found forged signatures on consent forms and falsification of
records to make patients eligible for experiments. The monitoring system at
the Food and Drug Administration was described as "a passive one."
Reminiscent of the findings of DOE's Brookhaven inquest, it appears that
some medical researchers feel that "freedom and creativity needed for
scientific inquiry are stifled" by the rules for patient protection.
Another case, the little-known Bion project at NASA, provides a further
example of scientific chutzpah. For many years, Bion scientists have launched
tightly restrained monkeys with electrodes drilled into their brains and
muscles, orbited them for a week or two and then recovered them for studies
intended to illuminate the biological effects of weightlessness on humans.
Animal rights zealots denounced the experiments as needlessly cruel and
scientifically insignificant, given that humans now undergo careful
monitoring during months in orbit. NASA responded that the Bion experiments
had successfully passed ethical and scientific review by expert committees.
In January, however, a monkey on the 11th flight in the Bion series died
shortly after it was anesthetized for postflight removal of bone and muscle
tissue.
The image-conscious space agency assigned a postmortem to a committee of
university scientists. They concluded that the "death is not acceptable," and
NASA should reexamine its animal-welfare procedures.
Scientists are crucial members of our society, and they merit our
gratitude for their indispensable contributions to health, security and
prosperity.
But let's remember: No one ever won a Nobel prize for safe disposal of
laboratory waste, or for meticulous adherence to regulations for human and
animal safety.
It's an old formulation, but let it be said again: Science is too
important to be left to the scientists. The press, the informed public and
scientists with loyalties that extend beyond narrow professional interest
must be the guardians in these matters. But too often, they are slow to
challenge the reassuring lullabies of researchers who simply want to get on
with their work - as in the case of the Brookhaven reactor that leaked
tritium.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 08:23:29 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) Humans Bring Virus to Antarctica
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515082326.006ccf84@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
from AP Wire page:
------------------------------
05/15/1997 05:32 EST
Humans Bring Virus to Antarctica
By PETER JAMES SPIELMANN
Associated Press Writer
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Antarctica's Emperor and Adelie penguins have been
infected by a poultry virus brought to the icy continent by humans,
researchers
announced today.
``Antarctica looks so pristine, you don't think of disease. But it is
nature's refrigerator,
and things survive,'' said Dr. Heather Gardner, the lead researcher with the
Australian Antarctic Division.
``This raises concern for the conservation of avian (bird) wildlife in
Antarctica,'' the
scientists from the Antarctic Division and Australia's federal science
agency reported
in the journal Nature.
``The potential for expeditioners and tourists to be vectors (carriers) of
the disease
as they move around the Antarctic may pose the greatest threat yet to its
avian
fauna,'' they said.
The scientists said that although no disease was evident in the penguins,
further
investigation was warranted. The disease does not infect humans.
The Australian government reacted swiftly, announcing a workshop will look at
monitoring programs and ways of responding to possible disease outbreaks.
The discovery will also be raised at the Antarctic Treaty meeting in New
Zealand next
week, said the parliamentary secretary for the Antarctic, Sen. Ian
Macdonald.
The highly contagious Infectious Bursal Disease Virus causes immune
deficiency
and sometimes death in young fowl by hemorrhaging and breathing obstruction.
But although the virus is widespread in poultry throughout the world, the
Australians
are the first to discover its antibodies in Antarctica.
The researchers tested 52 Emperor penguin chicks and 133 adult Adelie
penguins
at three sites 25 to 37 miles from Australia's Mawson base between December
1995 and February 1996.
Up to two-thirds of the Emperor penguins checks had virus antibodies.
Significantly, only a far more remote site was free from infected penguins.
The researchers suggested careless disposal of poultry products, swooped
on by
scavenging birds, as an explanation for the spread of the disease.
``Spread within Antarctica could be facilitated through the movement of
people
carrying the virus on contaminated footwear, clothing, equipment or
vehicles,'' they
said.
Migrating birds could not have brought the disease into Antarctica because
only
chicks suffer from it, and they do not fly in and out of Antarctica,
Gardner said.
Strict controls over disposal of poultry products in Antarctica were first
imposed in the
1980s, including a ban on eating chicken outside bases.
Macdonald noted it was too early for the researchers to conclude what
proportion of
penguins had been exposed to the virus or what effect the disease may have.
Antarctic is home to millions of Emperor and Adelie penguins, which are not
regarded as endangered.
But researchers are studying them to gain insight into how influences such
as the
ozone hole, warming oceans, changing food supply patterns, viruses and
other new
stresses affect penguins.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 08:37:17 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Please Share (AR PaulMac Video on VH1, net chat)
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515083715.00690bf4@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
from private e-mail:
--------------------------------------------------
Subject: Graphic AR McCartney video on VH1 (US, UK, Europe)
VH1, the music channel is having a week long McCartney festival, which
has included many references to animal rights and a vegetarian diet. During
the 2-hour "Paul Is Live" special on Wednesday (9PM and Midnight EST-US) the
plight of earth and animals was especially well-represented.
Concert video footage shows Paul's AR song "Looking For Changes" with
footage of various objectionable animals acts. An hour and 43 minutes into
the special, McCartney launches into a sweet rendition of "Bluebird", which
is abruptly silenced by footage of birds being blown of out the air by
hunters, and of a deer being shot. A medley of "Live And Let Die" and
"Helter Skelter" is interspersed by footage of rabbits being clubbed, Thomas
Edison's infamous botched electrocution of an elephant, cats with
brain-data-collection units, whales being hunted, brutal rodeo acts, primate
experimentation, etc. The closing scene is of a crippled monkey dragging
itself on a floor, while the piano crescendo from "A Day in the Life" plays.
Perhaps as a message to animal-abusers, the segment concludes with the
musical riff "and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you
make". The closing graphic shows the logos for Greenpeace, PETA and Friends
of Earth.
CPEA would like to remind activists of McCartney's first-ever global
internet chat at 1PM EST-US on Saturday. A record-breaking 2.5 Million
questions were submitted in advance before VH1 systems finally broke down,
apparently from the heavy load. All indications are that this is going to
be a huge event, monitored via simultaneous net and a satellite-TV linkup.
This publicity, and the McCartneys' well-known positions on ecology,
animal rights and vegetarianism make this a wonderful opportunity to raise
awareness among those who watch on TV and participate during in online chat.
Already, one of VH1's VJ's has said he's going to ask McCartney "if he
really likes that vegetarian stuff, or if it's just because of his wife's
`big business'". I have notified Ed Evans of VH1 of their technical problem
with the McCartney question-submissions, and it should be working by the
time you read this. To submit your (AR/Veg oriented) questions, go to
http://vh1.com
The first hour of the 90 minute chat will be televised live, and the event
will be rebroadcast at least 4 times during that same weekend alone (see
schedule below). Please don't miss this opportunity to bring the issues
before the public on a global scale.
** Also as the McCartneys will be net-chatting in London on the same
weekend as the "World of Amiga" show, _PLEASE_ make a point of encouraging
the McCartneys to visit the two-day "World of Amiga" show at the Novotel
Exhibition Centre in Hammersmith, London, on Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th
May. Paul rarely "does" computers, but as long as he's in a tech-mood, it
would be ideal to have them present for the planned announcement regarding
the future of the "vegetarian computer". The Amigas (and compatibles, CD32,
CDTV) are the only platform CPEA has endorsed. CPEA continues to support
the Amiga despite grave concerns that Amiga Technologies new parent company
is Gateway2000. McCartney's presense at the announcement would help insure
more media coverage about this ethical computer. Also consider suggesting
that Paul stop by the PIOS booth and talk with Vegetarian engineer
extraordinaire, Dave Haynie.
For details, see: http://www.amiga.org/news/1997/0402-woalondon.html
VH1 McCartney Video and "Town Hall Meeting" Schedule
All times are EST-US
Thursday, May 15th
9:00 - 11:30 PM McCartney Week:"Rockshow"
11:30 - 12:00 PM 8-Track Flashback:Solo Beatles
Overnight
12:00 - 2:30 AM McCartney Week:"Rockshow"
Friday, May 16th
9:00 - 10:30 PM Paul McCartney and the World Tonight
10:30 - 12:00 PM McCartney Week:Wings Over The World
Overnight
12:00 - 1:30 AM Paul McCartney and the World Tonight
1:30 - 2:30 AM Paul McCartney:Video Collection
Saturday, May 17th
** 1:00 - 2:00 PM * McCartney's Internet Town Hall Meeting Live from London
2:00 - 2:30 PM Internet-only chat with Paul
2:00 - 3:30 PM Paul McCartney and the World Tonight
3:30 - 4:00 PM McCartney Videos
* 4:00 - 5:00 PM McCartney's Town Hall Meeting Live from London (repeat)
7:00 - 8:30 PM Rock N Roll Picture Show:The Beatles The 1st U.S. Visit
* 9:00 -10:00 PM McCartney's Town Hall Meeting Live from London (repeat)
10:00-11:00 PM Paul McCartney:Video Collection
Overnight
12:00 - 1:30 AM Rock N Roll Picture Show:The Beatles The 1st U.S. Visit
1:30 - 2:00 AM Beatles Video Collection
Sunday, May 18th
1:00 - 1:30 PM Beatles Video Collection
1:30 - 2:00 PM Beatles Today
2:00 - 2:30 PM Beatles Video Collection
* 3:00 - 4:00 PM McCartney's Town Hall Meeting Live from London (repeat)
4:00 - 5:30 PM Paul McCartney and the World Tonight
Evening
5:30 - 7:00 PM McCartney Week:Wings Over The World
* 7:00 - 8:00 PM McCartney's Town Hall Meeting Live from London (repeat)
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 20:57:41 +0800 (SST)
>From: Vadivu Govind
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (IN) New veterinary, animal sciences varsity soon
Message-ID: <199705151257.UAA05132@eastgate.cyberway.com.sg>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
[THE HINDU]
Thursday, May 15, 1997
New veterinary, animal sciences varsity soon
Date: 15-05-1997 :: Pg: 06 :: Col: d
By S. Rajendran
BANGALORE, May 14.
A university dedicated to veterinary and animal sciences
is to be set up in the State on more or less the same
pattern as the ones in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and
Punjab.
The new university will be formed out of the
Universities of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) in Bangalore
and Dharwad. Unlike as in the agriculture sector, where
there is a well-knit scheme to transfer research
findings to the field, popularly known as the
lab-to-land programme, there is no such programme in the
animal sector.
The Minister of State for Animal Husbandry and
Veterinary Services, Mr. B. B. Ningaiah, has been
responsible for the formation of the Veterinary
University. With the formal approval of the State
Cabinet, the new university is likely to start
functioning from the coming academic year. The Minister,
who has already held consultations with several of his
colleagues including the Deputy Chief Minister, Mr.
Siddaramaiah, apart from the Chief Minister, Mr. J. H.
Patel, will be meeting the Chief Minister to give final
shape to the university. It will, then be placed before
the Cabinet for its approval.
Speaking to The Hindu here on Tuesday, the Minister said
the State stood to gain by creating this university.
Apart from the funds allocated in the State budget, the
university would be eligible for direct funding by the
Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), the
Union Government and other agencies. The two
universities of Agricultural Sciences in the State were
drawing funds from the ICAR, but what was being made
over to the veterinary colleges was meagre going by the
latter's contribution to the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP).
For several years now, the State has been toying with
the idea of establishing a veterinary university, but
the modalities were never worked out until recently. An
expert committee of the Government, constituted for
establishing the veterinary university, had recently
visited the Tamil Nadu Veterinary University, and had
submitted an exhaustive report. The Committee was also
likely to visit the West Bengal Veterinary University,
which was said to be well-managed.
Mr. Ningaiah said the Department of Animal Husbandry and
Veterinary Services had introduced a fee for artificial
insemination in all the veterinary hospitals to raise
funds for the proposed university. In the six months
after the fee of Rs. 5 per dose was introduced the
department has already netted Rs. 50 lakhs, and it was
felt that it would not be a problem to net a collection
of Rs. 1 crore per year.
Apparently owing to the cash crunch, the authorities
concerned had stated that the veterinary university
could be established only if Rs. 50 lakh could be
mobilised for it. With the Animal Husbandry Department
raising the required funds it should not be difficult
for the Government to reappropriate the amount in favour
of the university.
An analysis of the allocations made for Veterinary and
Animal Sciences including fisheries in the Budget of the
Agriculture Universities has shown that the funds
earmarked for it was only 10 per cent. Thus, the
field-oriented research in tackling problems of health
cover, breeding, nutrition and management skills has not
kept pace with the demand. Any increase in the
productivity of livestock would accrue additional
economic benefits to the farmers since nearly 65 per
cent of them owned livestock.
Mr. Ningaiah said apart from the host of benefits for
the rural people, the new university would not entail
any additional expenditure for the Government. The
existing Veterinary College in Bangalore had the
infrastructure to house the university. Three new posts
_ Vice Chancellor, Registrar and Controller _ would have
to be created, and all the modalities for the University
had been worked out in consultation with the Director of
Instruction (Veterinary) of the UAS, Bangalore.
The veterinary university would have under its ambit the
Veterinary Colleges in Bangalore and Bidar which,
together have an intake of 120 students. The Fisheries
College at Mangalore and the Dairy Science College in
Bangalore, would also be under it. The UAS, Bangalore
has already shifted its headquarters from the Hebbal
campus to the GKVK campus near Jakkur further away on
the same road.
T.N. varsity a leader
The expert committee, which visited the Tamil Nadu
Veterinary University, has stated that the progress made
in the field of research in breeding, nutrition and
management in that State was impressive and worth
emulating. The Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences
University comprised two veterinary colleges at Chennai
and Namakkal, a fisheries college at Tuticorin, five
research stations, 16 University Training and Research
Centres, three Farmers Training Centres and a Krishi
Vigyan Kendra.
Mr. Ningaiah said owing to the rapid expansion of the
Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services
including the upgradation of a large number of
veterinary dispensaries, the Government would have to
recruit doctors. The Karnataka Public Service Commission
had already been asked to recruit 200 doctors. The
establishment of an independent university would go a
long way in producing quality doctors.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 10:12:45 -0400
>From: ric
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Circus Demo in Florida
Message-ID: <337B19DD.3B51@mail.flipag.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
The Animal Rights Foundation of Florida and the ADL are demonstrating
against the Shrine Circus at the West Palm Beach Auditorium on Saturday,
May 24, at 11:00A.M.
Are any activists on this list from Florida?
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 10:36:05 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Admin Note
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515103603.006cb088@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Routine reminder to all........
Please do not post commentary or personal opinions to AR-News. Such posts
are not appropriate to AR-News. Appropriate postings to AR-News include:
posting a news item, requesting information on some event, or responding to
a request for information. Discussions on AR-News will NOT be allowed and
we ask that any
commentary either be taken to AR-Views or to private E-mail.
Continued postings of inappropriate material may result in suspension of
the poster's subscription to AR-News.
Here is subscription info for AR-Views:
Send e-mail to: listproc@envirolink.org
In text/body of e-mail: subscribe ar-views firstname lastname
Also...here are some websites with info on internet resources for Veg and
AR interests:
The Global Directory (IVU)
http://www.veg.org/veg/Orgs/IVU/Internet/netguid1.html
World Guide to Vegetarianism--Internet
http://www.veg.org/veg/Guide/Internet/index.html
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 12:17:16 -0400
>From: "radioactive"
To: "Animal Rights"
Subject: Crimes of Shell
Message-ID: <199705151618.MAA08770@mail.mia.bellsouth.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
CRIMES OF SHELL
The Shell oil corporation has blood on its hands, and a worldwide
boycott of Shell products is under way. Two recent reports[1,2]
on the Shell subsidiary in Nigeria, Africa, have documented
massive environmental destruction in the Niger River delta
region, where Shell has spilled some 56 million gallons of oil
onto farmlands and into community water supplies.[1,pg.45] The
destroyed land and water formerly provided sustenance for an
indigenous people, the Ogoni. A recent video confirms these
reports of Shell's environmental abuse and mismanagement in
Ogoniland.[3]
But Shell's crimes are deeper still. When Ogoni activists
organized to demand that Shell clean up spilled oil, and share
oil profits more equitably with the Ogoni people, the Nigerian
military dictatorship --with financial assistance, logistical
support, and guns provided by Shell[1,pgs.23,43,91-92]
--conducted a campaign of terror in which at least 1800 Ogoni
people were murdered, some of them tortured to death.[1,pg.95]
The Ogoni peoples' struggle against Shell burst into headlines
November 10, 1995, when the Nigerian dictatorship executed 9
Ogoni environmental activists, including Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Saro-Wiwa had received the Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa
April 17, 1995 in recognition of his environmental work on behalf
of the Ogoni people. Saro-Wiwa had also received the Right
Livelihood Award December 9, 1994.[1,pg.95] Both awards are said
to carry prestige equivalent to the Nobel peace prize. In
addition to being an environmentalist and community leader,
Saro-Wiwa was well-known in his homeland, and internationally, as
a poet and essayist.[4] His last words, just as he was executed
by hanging, were, "Lord, take my soul but the struggle continues!"
Within weeks of the executions, Shell contracted with the
Nigerian dictatorship to build a large liquefied natural gas
plant, thus sending a signal that it was business as usual for
Shell and that Shell was continuing to support the military
dictatorship.[2,pg.10]
According to the World Council of Churches, key witnesses for the
prosecution at Ken Saro-Wiwa's trial have signed sworn affidavits
saying they were bribed by Shell to testify against
Saro-Wiwa.[1,pg.43]
Since late 1995, the dictatorship has been holding 19 more Ogoni
environmental activists, charged with the same crime for which
the Ogoni 9 were executed. The World Council of Churches
reported in late 1996 that, "...as a result of the inhuman
treatment, torture, denial of medical care, starvation and poor
sanitary conditions, most of the detainees are in very poor
health."[1,pg.75]
The Ogoni people --500,000 of them[1,pg.8] --inhabit a
404-square-mile-area called the Rivers State in Nigeria in west
Africa. They represent 0.05% of the Nigerian population, so they
are a tiny minority. Ken Saro-Wiwa compared the Ogoni to other
indigenous people around the world: the Aborigines of Australia,
the Maori of New Zealand, and the native people of North and
South America. "Their common history is of the usurpation of
their land and resources, the destruction of their culture, and
the eventual decimation of the people," he wrote.[1,pg.19] Since
1958, $30 billion worth of oil has been taken from beneath the
land of the Ogoni, yet essentially zero benefits have accrued to
the Ogoni themselves. When the World Council of Churches sent
observers to Ogoniland in 1995, they found no piped water
supplies, no good roads, no electricity, no telephones, and no
proper health care facilities.[1,pg.24] Further, they reported
that, in oil-rich Ogoniland, gasoline is hand-pumped from a
cement holding tank into large plastic containers, then poured
into a smaller can with a long neck, from which the gasoline is
finally poured into a vehicle's gas tank. Such is the state of
modernization made possible by Shell's post-modern colonial
venture.
Shell, a Dutch company, is the 10th largest corporation in the
world, and No. 1 in profitability.[2,pg.4] Shell has 96 oil
production wells in Ogoniland, 5 flow stations (large pumping
stations), and numerous gas flares which have operated
continuously for 35 years.[1,pg.31] In addition, Shell maintains
many high-pressure oil pipelines criss-crossing Ogoniland,
carrying oil from other parts of Nigeria to the shipping terminal
at Bonny.[1,pg.32] In response to growing pressure for reform in
Ogoniland in 1993, Shell ceased oil production there, but
retained its network of pipelines carrying oil produced elsewhere
in Nigeria. (The World Council of Churches finds evidence that
Shell has not in fact ceased oil production in
Ogoniland,[1,pgs.31-33] but Shell insists its production wells
are idle.)
Between 1976 and 1980, Shell operations caused 784 separate oil
spills in Nigeria.[1,pg.45]. From 1982 to 1992, 27 additional
spills were recorded. Since Shell "ceased oil production" in
Ogoniland in 1993, Shell admits another 24 oil spills have
occurred there.[1,pg.33]
Shell operates in 100 countries, but 40% of all its oil spills
have occurred in Nigeria.[1,pg.28] Shell says the spills result
from "sabotage" but the World Council of Churches reports "there
has not been one single piece of evidence produced by Shell to
back up its claims that oil spills in Ogoniland were caused by
sabotage."[1,pg.39]
Shell controls at least 60% of all the oil reserves in Nigeria
and oil accounts for 80% of Nigeria's total revenues and 90% of
its foreign exchange earnings.[1,pg.44] As a result, Shell is an
extremely powerful political force in Nigeria. The World Council
of Churches has described a revolving door --Shell executives
becoming Nigerian political officials, and Nigerian political
officials becoming Shell employees.[1,pg.44] However, Shell
maintains that it has no political influence and cannot affect
the fate of political prisoners in Nigeria.
Shell admits to 3000 polluted sites affected by oil operations on
Ogoni soil. According to the World Council of Churches, Shell
also admits to flaring 1.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas each
day for 35 years, causing acid rain in the Niger delta during
about 10% of the days each year.[1,pg.41] Furthermore, the
flares produce a rain of fine particles, a cancer-causing soot
that permeates everything --land water, homes, lungs.
Shell's environmental abuses in Ogoniland came as a shock to
observers sent by the World Council of Churches. They wrote,
"Having followed all the events in Ogoniland, reading all the
reports and seeing the videos such as DRILLING FIELDS and DELTA
FORCE3, did not prepare us for the devastation we saw at the
numerous spill sites we visited," they wrote.[1,pg.24]
Observers from the World Council of Churches describe a site
where Shell had spilled oil in 1969: "Even though this spill
occurred 26 years ago, its devastating impact is still very
apparent," they wrote.[1,pg.34] "The soil and oil are caked
together into a thick black crust which covers the area. Liquid
crude oil is still present in deep crevices (2 to 3 feet deep),
formed in spots where trees once stood.... The air remains
polluted by the vapour from the spilled crude oil; this becomes
particularly noticeable when the south-west wind blows. The oil
spill seems to have polluted the creek nearby. The oil flowed
into the body of water and we were told that it can still be seen
floating on the surface of the creek water that people still
drink. We were unable to move near the creek as the earth was
dangerously soggy with a combination of soil, oil, and water....
It is amazing that so much devastation exists after 26
years."[1,pg.34]
Since the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, his brother, Dr. Owens Wiwa,
has been touring the world describing the Ogoni peoples' struggle
against the combined forces of Shell and the military dictators
of Nigeria. Dr. Wiwa, an articulate, soft-spoken physician, was
himself held prisoner (without charges) by Nigerian authorities
on more than one occasion.[1,pg.93] He is now a political exile
living in Toronto, Canada, though most of his time is spent on
the road, urging people to boycott Shell products.
In late March of this year, U.S. environmental justice activists
met in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss environmental justice
struggles across the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Wiwa gave the keynote
address. "Our people are dying at the hands of our government
and Shell Oil," Dr. Wiwa told the assembled activists in Atlanta.
Dr. Robert D. Bullard, a well-known environmental justice leader
and author of CONFRONTING ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: VOICES FROM THE
GRASSROOTS, told the Atlanta meeting, "the quest for healthy and
sustainable communities and environmental justice does not stop
at U.S. borders... we have a moral and ethical obligation to
direct our collective action and purchasing power to respond to
Dr. Wiwa and the Ogoni's struggle in Nigeria, just as we
responded to the oppression of apartheid in South Africa."
Asked recently what Americans could do to help the Ogoni people,
Dr. Wiwa gave four recommendations:
1. Boycott Shell. Do not buy ANY Shell products.
2. Encourage selective purchasing contracts, such as the one now
in force in Oakland, California. Last fall the Oakland City
Council passed a city-wide ordinance prohib-iting the city from
doing business with Nigeria. Dr. Wiwa is urging all city
councils to adopt selective purchasing laws to prevent their city
from investing in or trading with Nigeria OR ANY COMPANIES
CARRYING OUT BUSINESS IN NIGERIA.
3. Pressure Congress to impose sanctions against Nigeria, just as
the U.S. has recently done against Burma for human rights abuses.
4. Contact the president of Shell's U.S. subsidiary: Philip J.
Carroll, Shell Oil Company, P.O. Box 2463, Houston, TX 77252;
(800) 248-4257; fax (713) 241-4044.
Mr. Carroll may respond that Shell's U.S. subsidiary has nothing
to do with what's happening in Nigeria. But 10% of Shell's
profits come from its U.S. operations, so the U.S. subsidiary has
major clout with its Dutch parent corporation. Refusal to
exercise that clout is a moral failure. Up to now, Mr. Carroll
himself has blood on his hands, in our view.
Even if Mr. Carroll cannot understand the moral argument, you
could tell him you will be boycotting Shell's products until they
clean up their environmental mess in Nigeria and fully compensate
the Ogoni people for past damages and injustices. Mr. Carroll
will certainly understand the meaning of "boycott."
To get breaking news about the campaign to end Shell's
environmental and human rights abuses in Ogoniland, you could
join the internet discussion group, Shell-Nigeria-action. To
subscribe to the list, send email to listproc@essential.org with
the message: subscribe shell-nigeria-action .
To post information to the list, address your message to:
Shell-Nigeria-Action@essential.org.
For further information, contact:
1) Dr. Owens Wiwa: owens@igc.apc.org
2) Stephen Mills at Sierra Club in Washington, D.C. Telephone
(202) 675-6691. Mr. Mills has organized a petition campaign that
could use more volunteers.
3) Ann Leonard, Essential Action, P.O. Box 19405, Washington, DC
20036. Telephone (202) 387-8030. An important source of
information.
What is the top priority? BOYCOTT SHELL.
--Peter Montague
(National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO)
===============
[1] Deborah Robinson and others, OGONI, THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
(Geneva, Switzerland: World Council of Churches, December, 1996).
Available from World Council of Churches, P.O. Box 2100, 1211
Geneva 2, Switzerland; telephone (+41) 22 791-6111; fax: (+41) 22
791-0361.
[2] PEN Center USA West, FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS, SHELL AND
NIGERIA (Los Angeles, California: PEN Center USA West, March,
1997). Available from: PEN Center USA West, 672 South Lafayette
Park Place #41, Los Angeles, California 90057; telephone (213)
365-8500. PEN is a worldwide association of professional writers.
[3] The most recent video, DELTA FORCE, is available for $10 from
Ann Leonard, Essential Action, P.O. Box 19405, Washington, DC
20036. Telephone (202) 387-8030.
[4] Ken Saro-Wiwa, A MONTH AND A DAY: A DETENTION DIARY (London:
Penguin Books, 1995). Ken Saro-Wiwa, ON A DARKLING PLAIN (Port
Harcourt, Nigeria: Saros International Publishers, 1989). Ken
Saro-Wiwa, OGONI MOMENT OF TRUTH (Lagos, Nigeria: Saros
International Publishers, 1994).
Descriptor terms: shell; petroleum industry; boycotts; nigeria;
ken saro-wiwa; owens wiwa; africa; oil; videos; ogoni people;
ogoniland; indigenous people; world council of churches;
netherlands; oil spills; fine particles; air pollution; robert
bullard; oakland, ca; philip carrol; ann leonard; stephen mills;
sierra club;
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 12:45:26 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) Horseman Found Guilty of Animal Cruelty
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515124522.006c0970@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
from WashingtonPost.com:
----------------------------------------
Horseman Found Guilty of Animal Cruelty
Judge Suspends Fine Against Virginian, but Defense
Lawyer Will Appeal
By Louie Estrada
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 15 1997; Page D04
The Washington Post
For 30 years, Nathaniel "Nat" Morison has offered his
543-acre farm in the shadows of the Blue Ridge as a
retirement home for horses. The old, the lame and the
no-longer-sleek came to live out their days in the quiet
stillness surrounding Middleburg.
Love of horses runs deep in Loudoun County. So it came
as something of a shock to many of Morison's neighbors
when he was charged with animal cruelty for allegedly
denying food and water to one of the 79 horses he was
boarding at his Welbourne Farm. Yesterday, he was found
guilty of the misdemeanor count.
General District Court Judge James D. Forsythe, saying
he believed that the 60-year-old horseman had not been
intentionally negligent, fined Morison $500 and then
suspended the fine. Even so, Morison's attorney, David
H. Moyes, said he will appeal the case in Circuit Court.
The charge could have landed his client a year in jail
and a fine of as much as $2,500.
Morison, who did not take the stand during his two-day
trial, has denied mistreating any of his horses, saying
some of them appeared thin simply because of their age.
From the time game wardens began investigating the
animal cruelty complaint in February, the Morison case
has touched a nerve among farmers in western Loudoun.
Some saw it as another government intrusion into their
lives and livelihoods; others used the case to push for
tougher enforcement of laws against animal cruelty.
Erskine Bedford, whose horse farm borders Morison's
property, said the government should not dictate how
people treat their livestock. "I think this is pure
idiocy," Bedford said. "Before you know it, they'll be
seizing old horses from people's back yards for no other
reason than looking old."
However, Robert Montgomery, the county's director of
animal care and control, said his agency simply was
doing its job when it investigated the complaint against
Morison, which was filed by an owner who had been
boarding her 31-year-old horse at Welbourne for about
eight months.
Montgomery said it's rare for an animal cruelty
complaint to lead to criminal charges. Of the 31 such
complaints involving livestock in Loudoun last year,
only one wound up before a judge. Most such cases are
resolved short of the courtroom, Montgomery said.
Montgomery warned that the sour taste left by Morison's
trial might obscure the real issue underlying the case:
differing approaches to caring for old horses. With the
trial over, Montgomery said his agency will pursue
educational programs with farmers to teach them about
such care. "A lot of times, it's ignorance, not
intentional mistreatment, that is the major problem," he
said.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 12:56:31 -0400
>From: "radioactive"
To: "Animal Rights"
Subject: tuna-dolphin bill compromise
Message-ID: <199705151657.MAA15564@mail.mia.bellsouth.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
----
>From: radioactive
To: RPM
Date: Thursday, May 15, 1997 12:55 PM
Subject: Full Story
07:57 PM ET 05/14/97
White House rejects tuna-dolphin bill compromise
By Vicki Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The Clinton administration Wednesday
rejected a compromise designed to break a congressional deadlock
over a White House proposal to lift the U.S. embargo on imports
of tuna caught in nets that also may trap dolphins.
Two Senate Democrats suggested they would back a plan to
lift the embargo, but continue the U.S. program for
''dolphin-safe'' labeling of tuna cans for at least three years.
``I think we should let the marketplace work. Let anybody
import anything they want, but don't change the label,'' Sen.
Joseph Biden of Delaware said at a Senate Commerce subcommittee
hearing.
Cans containing tuna caught by setting huge nets that
frequently snare dolphins cannot carry the ``dolphin-safe''
label.
But Assistant Secretary of State Eileen Claussen said
continuing the labeling program would unravel a deal among
Mexico, Venezuela and other countries that agreed to take
measures to greatly reduce dolphin deaths as a way to get back
into the U.S. market.
``There's no question in my mind that the idea of keeping
the label for three years would cause the whole thing to fail,''
Claussen said.
The White House is pushing to lift the embargo and change
the label to allow cans to be labeled dolphin-safe as long as
shipboard observers did not spot any dolphins killed in the
fishing process.
The White House bill would put into law a deal to reduce
dolphin deaths reached by Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and other
countries that fish the Eastern Tropical Pacific, where tuna
tend to swim below dolphins.
Some 100,000 dolphins used to be killed annually in the tuna
fishing process, but deaths have dropped to about 3,000 because
the countries agreed to use more careful measures.
However, critics say the method of encircling dolphins to
set the nets injures and endangers dolphins, and likely results
in higher mortality.
Biden said it would be ``consumer fraud'' to label tuna
caught that way as ``dolphin-safe.''
Greenpeace, one of the few environmental groups that
supported the White House's bill, suggested the compromise to
keep the current definition for the dolphin-safe label for three
years while a dolphin population study was done.
^REUTER@
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 12:57:46 -0400
>From: "radioactive"
To: "Animal Rights"
Subject: greenpeace/taiwan/north korea nuclear plan
Message-ID: <199705151659.MAA15702@mail.mia.bellsouth.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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charset="iso-8859-1"
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--Greenpeace asks Taiwan to drop N.Korea nuclear plan
By Kevin Chen
TAIPEI, May 15 (Reuter) - Environmental group Greenpeace on
Thursday intensified its call for Taiwan to junk plans to ship
nuclear waste to impoverished North Korea, saying the transfer
``cannot be sanctioned by a responsible government.''
But Taiwan scoffed at Greenpeace's demand and pledged anew
that dumping waste in North Korea would create no safety or
environmental hazard on the divided Korean peninsula.
Greenpeace, fresh from a covert inspection of Taiwan's main
waste storage site on the offshore island of Lanyu, accused
state-run Taiwan Power Co of lying about the danger level of the
waste it plans to ship to Pyongyang.
``This cannot be done by a responsible company, and this
cannot be sanctioned by a responsible government. This deal must
be broken,'' Dima Litvinov, a Greenpeace campaigner who sneaked
into the Lanyu compound through drainage pipes, told Reuters.
``Taipower clearly understands that this deal is very
questionable,'' Litvinov said in an interview. ``They also know
very well that the information they've been putting out does not
reflect the truth.''
Litvinov said he and Greenpeace colleagues entered the waste
site covertly because Taipower refused to let them inspect it.
Taipower denied that Greenpeace had even sought permission
to inspect Lanyu, and vowed to press ahead with a controversial
deal to ship up to 200,000 barrels of waste to North Korea.
``As we have always maintained, we wouldn't have signed the
deal to ship waste to North Korea if we knew it wasn't perfectly
safe,'' Taipower spokeswoman Huang Huei-yu told Reuters.
Greenpeace said its secret inspection showed that the waste
in Lanyu -- most of it earmarked for shipment to Pyongyang --
was not the low-radiation variety that Taipower claims.
``Lanyu does not store low-level waste,'' said John Large,
an independent nuclear engineer from Britain who was contracted
by Greenpeace to inspect the Lanyu waste storage.
``It stores each and every stream of waste...from the
nuclear power stations in Taiwan,'' Large said as he and
Litvinov showed pictures and videotape shot inside the storage
facility.
``This material is so dangerous that you wouldn't want to be
standing 50 metres (yards) from a barrel,'' Litvinov said.
Taipower said it was unaware that Greenpeace had penetrated
the high-security waste site.
But it denied the allegation the site contained waste with
radioactive levels higher than had been disclosed.
Taiwan's Atomic Energy Commission, the cabinet-level nuclear
safety watchdog, stood by Taipower. It said Lanyu complied fully
with strict International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
regulations.
``There is a 24-hour surveillance camera operated by the
IAEA at the Lanyu site. There is no possibility of any
irregularity,'' commission spokesman Yieh Chin-shun told
Reuters.
Yieh noted that his commission had not yet approved
Taipower's proposed shipment to North Korea and would review its
proposal further before making a decision.
``We have to make sure that the shipment project is safe and
that it follows international standards,'' Yieh said.
Taipower's January deal with Stalinist North Korea, worth
some US$230 million, has sparked bitter protest from Pyongyang's
long-time rival South Korea, which backs environmentalists'
claims that the waste would pollute the Korean peninsula.
Greenpeace said Taipower was exploiting an economic and
agricultural crisis in North Korea, with total disregard for the
possible effects on the two Koreas' environment and people.
International aid agencies say North Korea, still largely
closed to the outside world, stands on the brink of widespread
famine due to two years of severe flooding and crop failures.
^REUTER@
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 12:58:54 -0400
>From: "radioactive"
To: "Animal Rights"
Subject: chile denies harassment of US eco-millionaire
Message-ID: <199705151700.NAA15937@mail.mia.bellsouth.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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--Chile denies harassment of U.S. eco-millionaire
(Adds that Tompkins' house was buzzed last year)
By Roger Atwood
SANTIAGO (Reuter) - The Chilean government denied
Wednesday it was harassing a U.S. millionaire who is trying to
create a huge nature preserve in southern Chile.
U.S. clothing magnate Douglas Tompkins charged Tuesday that
he was the victim of a ``campaign of accusations and
harassment,'' including death threats and phone taps, for buying
an area the size of Rhode Island to create a park.
His lawyer said military planes and helicopters repeatedly
swooped low over Tompkins' house in a remote valley late last
year. Chilean military officers do not like the idea of a
foreigner owning so much land on the border with Argentina.
Tompkins says he will donate the spectacular expanse of
fjords, glaciers and virgin forests to a Chilean environmental
foundation that would open it to the public for tourism.
Deputy Interior Minister Belisario Velasco said he knew of
no campaign against Tompkins and denied the government had
tapped his phone. But the official said he saw nothing wrong
with the military flying planes over Tompkins' land.
``This is our national territory, not Tompkins' territory,
and the Air Force can fly wherever it wants inside our
borders,'' Velasco told reporters. ``The government is not
harassing or behaving in a hostile way toward him and is only
making sure that laws are obeyed.''
Chile air force's commander denied buzzing Tompkins' house
but reiterated that the air force will fly wherever it wants.
``There is concern (in the air force) because he has
acquired a highly extensive area in the south,'' said Commander
Fernando Rojas Vender. ``The air force has the right to operate
in its country and wherever it wants. But regarding the
accusations which people close to Tompkins have made, that we
are harassing him, it's absolutely false.''
Some military quarters view Tompkins as a threat to Chile's
security because his land stretches across this narrow nation
from the Pacific to the Argentine border.
They have joined forces with Chile's powerful and deeply
conservative business community, which claims Tompkins is
funding the environmental movement and putting up obstacles to
the development of Chile's vast natural resources. Timber and
mining companies covet his land.
Chile's top environmental groups expressed support for the
American millionaire, accusing opponents of the nature reserve
of trying to bully Tompkins into abandoning the project.
``It has been a surprise for me to see so many detractors.
As a foreigner I don't want to offend anyone and I only want to
devote myself to building this park,'' said Tompkins, 54.
The quiet-spoken Californian, who made his fortune as
co-founder of the Esprit clothing line, said he was a
misunderstood philanthropist.
A long-time contributor to anti-nuclear and green causes, he
sold his stock in the late 1980s for what U.S. news reports said
was $125 million and began buying vast tracts of Chilean forest
between the coastal towns of Puerto Montt and Chaiten.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 12:08:33 -0500
>From: "Forrest M. Brownell"
To: AR-News
Cc: Barry Kent MacKay
Subject: [US] Migratory Bird Treaty Act Imperilled
Message-ID: <337B4311.66BC@northweb.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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The following is forwarded from the Audubon-News list.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ATTENTION ALL ECOLOGISTS, CONSERVATIONISTS,
AND ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We Need Your Organization/Name+Title
on the Following Letter Denouncing Recent Decision to
Downgrade Protection for Migratory Birds!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Administration has recently decided to exempt all
federal agencies from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act's
regulations and prohibitions. On May 7th, John Flicker,
President of the National Audubon Society, sent a letter to
both Vice President Gore and Interior Secretary Babbitt
urging the Administration to rescind their decision (see
following).
Please take a moment to read the letter. If you or your
organization would like to sign on, send your name, title/
organization, and contact information to me, Steve
Daigneault, via email , voice mail
(202)861-2242, or fax (202)861-4290. I will collect names
until 6/6/97. If you'd like to send your own letter,
consider sending us a copy to the above fax number/email
address, or to: 1901 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, #1100;
Washington, DC 200009.
National Audubon Society Chapter Presidents have been sent a
hard copy of this letter via mail.
Thank you for your support.
Steve
________________________________________________
| |
| Steve Daigneault, sdaigneault@audubon.org |
| Grassroots Communications Specialist |
| National Audubon Society |
| 1901 Pennsylvania Ave., #1100 |
| Washington, DC 20006 |
| ph (202)861-2242 fx (202)861-4290 |
| |
| To subscribe to Audubon-News and receive |
| timely press releases, action alerts and |
| other news items, send a message to: |
| listserv@list.audubon.org |
| Leave the subject line blank, and in the |
| body of your message, write: |
| SUB audubon-news |
| |
| Visit us on the World Wide Web! |
| http://www.audubon.org/ |
|______________________________________________|
We the undersigned are writing to state our strong
opposition to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's (FWS)
Guidance Document on "Take Under the Migratory Bird Treaty
Act." We urge you to direct the FWS to rescind this
guidance document and to initiate a rulemaking process to
create an effective procedure to insure federal government
compliance with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA).
The Guidance Document represents a sweeping reversal of
the FWS's long standing interpretation of the MBTA. It
exempts the federal government from the MBTA's regulations
and prohibitions, overturning a policy that had been the
cornerstone of the government's management of migratory
birds for more than 80 years. Since the enactment of the
MBTA, the FWS has never taken the position that the MBTA
does not apply to federal agency activities. Instead, the
FWS has regularly issued permits to federal and quasi
federal agencies whose activities would have resulted in the
"take" of migratory birds. For example, the Department of
Defense annually receives permits for a wide variety of
activities. The Department of Agriculture receives permits
for avian pest control. And the Federal Aviation
Administration receives permits for taking migratory birds
at airports and airfields.
Working under this regime, the FWS has been able to
approve a wide array of federal agency activities, while at
the same time carrying out its responsibilities to protect
migratory birds. The permitting program allows the FWS to
monitor "takes" of migratory birds, and to assess the impact
of federal and private activities on bird populations.
Although chronically underfunded, the permitting program is
neither burdensome nor complicated.
We understand that the Guidance Document was developed
so that the FWS's permitting program would be consistent
with the position that the Justice Department was taking in
other federal court proceedings regarding the applicability
of the MBTA to the Forest Service. We believe that the
Justice Department, in defending the Forest Service, erred
when it asserted that the MBTA does not apply to the Forest
Service or any other federal agency. This position is
simply inconsistent with historic implementation of the
MBTA, and does a disservice to all those concerned about the
conservation of migratory birds. Although the Eleventh
Circuit recently ruled that the MBTA does not apply to the
federal government, we intend to urge other Circuits to find
that federal agencies are bound by the Act's provisions.
For almost 80 years, the MBTA has provided the FWS with
the authority to protect migratory birds and to monitor the
"take" activities of federal agencies and individuals alike.
To alter such a fundamental regime without any public
comment or review is particularly troubling. Moreover,
granting a special exemption to federal actions while
requiring private citizen compliance is equally unjustified.
We look forward to working with you on this important
issue.
Sincerely,
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 13:17:35 -0400 (EDT)
>From: JanaWilson@aol.com
To: Ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) Oklahoma's Museum Debate
Message-ID: <970515131726_54429847@emout07.mail.aol.com>
A/w today's Oklahoma City news:
Actress Rue McClanahan wants a museum dedicated to the life
of an Oklahoma fur trader to show the animals' point of view.
An animal rights group on Wednesday publicized a letter it said
"The Golden Girls" star wrote about the Chouteau Memorial Museum
which is scheduled to reopen on June 21.
The letter which is addressed to the head of the Oklahoma Historical
Society states "I've read that you intend to curate a fur museum. As
a native Oklahoman, I'd like to suggest you choose a less violent
part of our past to glorify." Ms. McClanahan was born in Healton,Okla.
She also suggests the museum create an exhibit that tells the
animals' side of the story.
The letter also says that leg-hold traps used in the fur industry are
cruel and barbaric and that animals may linger in agony for days
before dying. The Historical Society Executive Director, Mr. Blake
Wade, said that the museum focuses on the trading empire that
Auguste Pierre Chouteau built in northeastern Oklahoma.
"It is not our intent to glorify fur trading or trapping, but our mission
is to intepret Oklahoma history," Wade responded in a letter to
McClanahan. "Certainly there are aspects of our history such as
slavery, bootlegging, corruption and many others that should not
be glorified. Nevertheless, they remain a part of our history," he
continued.
PETA distributed McClanahan's letter to the media. The actress's
manager did not immediately respond to a phone call asking for a
comment on wednesday.
The Chouteau family, who were prominent St. Louis fur merchants,
had traded with the American Indians in the Three Forks region of
the Arkansas, Grand and Verdigris rivers. Auguste Chouteau, who
came to Oklahoma in 1822, operated a trading post at Salina.
The museum which was closed in 1993 because of funding cuts,
will reopen with an exhibit that includes the hides of two buffalo,
beaver and a deer. A fur press will also be displayed in a replica
of a trading post.
As far as focusing on something other than the fur trade, Wade said
"It would be silly since Chouteau was a fur trader."
In an exhibit space of 800 square feet, the museum will also tell the
story of ballerina Yvonne Chouteau Terhekov, the Osage Nation's
interaction with the Chouteaus and river travel.
According to Wade there no plans fo include an exhibit to show the
animals' point of view.
For the Animals,
Jana, OKC
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 13:19:37 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) SEXY VEGETARIAN "INVITES" CONTROVERSY AT STATE
LEGISLATURE
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515131934.006c1664@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
from PETA web page:
----------------------------------
SEXY VEGETARIAN "INVITES" CONTROVERSY AT STATE LEGISLATURE
Racy "Lettuce Ladies" Postpone Party for General Assembly
For Immediate Release:
May 7, 1997
Contact:
Michael McGraw 757-622-7382, ext. 310
Raleigh, N.C. -- The General Assembly has put the wraps on PETA's
"Lettuce Ladies." Party
invitations bearing a sexy vegetarian wearing strategically placed
lettuce leaves proved too racy for
the House, prompting PETA to postpone the event.
The Lettuce Ladies--a hit at parades and festivals in Virginia--had
planned a lunchtime "pig out"
for the General Assembly tomorrow, serving up vegetarian "bacon" and
"ham" sandwiches to
thank lawmakers for supporting a bill declaring a moratorium on all
new hog farms in North
Carolina. But when a PETA volunteer tried to deliver the invites for
the event, the Speaker of the
House's office called them inappropriate and refused permission to
distribute them. Undeterred,
PETA is redesigning the invitations and is scheduling the luncheon
for a later date.
North Carolina is facing an environmental crisis, as enormous growth
of the factory farm pig
industry, and the massive amount of manure and waste products it
produces, threaten the state's
natural waterways and ground water. Of the more than 3,600 pig waste
lagoons in North Carolina,
hundreds have either spilled feces and urine into state waters or
have reached dangerously high
levels.
"The Lettuce Ladies are thrilled about the support for the moratorium
on new hog farms and
want to let the General Assembly know that the best way to stop
suffering of animals and the
pollution of rivers, lakes, and streams is to stop eating pigs and
other animals," says PETA's
Tracy Reiman.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 13:21:30 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) WESTBROOK HIGH STUDENT--A PRINCE FOR FROGS
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515132127.006c1664@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
from PETA web page:
--------------------------------
WESTBROOK HIGH STUDENT--A PRINCE FOR FROGS
PETA Donates Computer Program to Replace Dissection
For Immediate Release:
May 7, 1997
Contact:
Michael McGraw 757-622-7382, ext. 310
Westbrook, Maine -- Thanks to the perseverance of a Westbrook High
School senior, students
opposed to dissecting animals will have no reason to dread their
biology classes next year: A new
school policy allows students to choose an alternative project to the
animal labs.
With the support of 600 of his classmates, Westbrook's Dan Davis
developed and helped
implement the school's new "choice policy." Now, teachers of any
course that involves cutting up
animals are required to let students know they may "opt out" of the
dissections, without
jeopardizing their grades.
PETA has donated a CD-ROM computer program called DissectionWorks to
Westbrook that
includes interactive dissections of frogs, pigs, worms, and fish,
allowing students to pursue
science education without violating their ethical or religious beliefs.
"We're thrilled that Dan was successful in helping to cut out
dissection," says PETA's education
manager, Bobbi Hoffman. "His commitment to animals is inspiring and
will help students across
the country stand up for their right not to dissect."
PETA's investigation of dissection-supply companies documented cases
of frightened animals
being crudely gassed, then injected with formaldehyde. Some cats
processed for dissection wore
collars and name tags--evidence that they had been someone's
companion animals.
Nationwide, students are taking a stand against dissection, a
practice long banned in European
schools. Most non-animal tools and lessons last for many years and
cost far less than preserved
animal bodies, which are used once and thrown away. The typical
science lab at many schools
now offers computer models as an alternative to animal cadavers.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 13:23:12 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) CARROLLTOWN MAYOR ASKED TO BAN ANIMAL ACTS
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515132309.006d623c@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
from PETA web page:
--------------------------------
CARROLLTOWN MAYOR ASKED TO BAN ANIMAL ACTS
Request Follows Fatal Mauling of Trainer
For Immediate Release:
May 9, 1997
Contact:
Lisa Lange 757-622-7382, ext. 602
Carrolltown, Pa -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
is calling on the mayor of
Carrolltown, Pa., James Ertter, to ban exotic animal acts following
the death of a trainer who was
attacked by a tiger during a performance at St. Benedict Catholic
School yesterday.
A "tiger" holding a sign reading, "Ban Animal Acts," will appeal to
the mayor outside the
Carrolltown Borough office:
Friday, May 9
2 p.m.
140 E. Carroll St.
Wild animals like tigers, lions, elephants, and bears are beaten and
deprived of food so they will
perform unnatural circus acts. Increasingly, the animals are turning
on their trainers and the
public.
Within the last eight months, PETA has documented more than seven
attacks by exotic cats in
the United States alone, two of them fatal. Just last month, a woman
was killed by a leopard at an
exotic animal zoo in Oklahoma City.
"As injuries to both humans and exotic animals increase, the public
is recognizing that exotic
animals do not belong in circuses," says PETA's director of Public
Affairs, Lisa Lange. "We're
hoping Carrolltown will join cities like Hollywood, Fla.; Quincy,
Mass.; and Takoma Park, Md. in
banning exotic animal acts."
Broadcast quality footage of big cats being beaten during training is
available.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 13:26:26 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) PETA: Urge the NFL to Issue a Policy Statement Against
Animal Cruelty
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515132624.006d623c@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
from PETA web page:
--------------------------------
Urge the NFL to Issue a Policy Statement Against Animal Cruelty
In December 1996, Todd McNair, a running back for the Kansas City Chiefs
was found guilty of 17 counts of
animal cruelty for his treatment of pit bulls. PETA spoke with the director
of corporate communications for the
National Football League after the incident, urging the NFL to issue a
policy statement concerning players who
engage in such criminal behavior. While the justice system has fulfilled
its role by prosecuting, convicting, and
sentencing McNair for his crime, the National Football League (NFL) has
failed to address the seriousness of
animal abuse on a league-wide basis.
Please urge the NFL to issue a policy statement against cruelty to
animals. Write to:
Mr. Christopher Widmeyer
Director of Corporate Communication
National Football League
410 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10022
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 13:27:44 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) PETA: Maryland Snapping Turtles Need Your Help
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515132741.006d623c@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
from PETA web page:
--------------------------------
Maryland Snapping Turtles Need Your Help
A bill that would legalize the capture of snapping turtles with baited
hooks is waiting for Maryland Governor
Parris Glendening's signature. Delegate Michael H. Weir, a duck hunter,
introduced House Bill 672. He has
publicly stated his dislike for snapping turtles and has said that he
prefers ducklings, who are sometimes
eaten as part of a turtle's diet. However, duck populations are threatened
more by hunters than by snapping
turtles.
When turtles swallow the sharp baited hooks, their mouths, throats, and
internal organs are painfully torn, and
they may suffer for hours or days before the line is checked. Snapping
turtles live long lives but are slow
reproducers, so any increased killing may result in a dramatic and
irreversible decline in their populations.
Before May 22, please respectfully request that Governor Glendening
veto House Bill 672:
The Honorable Parris Glendening
Governor
State House
100 State Cir.
Annapolis, MD 21401
Tel.: 410-974-3901
Toll-free number in Maryland only: 800-811-8336
Fax: 410-974-3275
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 12:57:37 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [CA] "Our eggs are safe," says Canadian government
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970515125807.3da732a2@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
VANCOUVER, B.C. - Reacting to news that the Center for Science in the Public
Interest had called for warning labels on eggs because of the high risk of
salmonellla infection due to eating undercooked U.S. eggs, Agriculture &
Agri-Foods Canada says that the egg supply in Canada is safe.
In a statement to BCTV, they say that the inspection methods used in Canada
and the U.S. are different, that Canadian standards are much stricter than
those in the U.S. and that the dangers of contracting salmonella from eating
a Canadian egg are "very slim".
[This is the usual response of A&AFC to any critical reports about food
safety. The only bit missing this time was that "Canada has the safest food
supply in the world. "]
David J Knowles
Animal Voices News
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 12:57:35 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [CA] B.C. government announces new Fish Protection Act
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970515125806.3da76b32@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
BURNABY, B.C. - In a news conference held in Burnaby Lake Regional Park this
morning, provincial premier Glen Clark announced that the provincial
government would pass a Fish Protection Act which would provide protection
for fish habitat within B.C.
The act would ban the development of land next to streams, ban the building
of further dams on any of B.C.'s major river systems, such as the Fraser
River, and would legislate protection of flow rates of waterways to ensure
the viability of habitat.
Clark, announcing that the act would be the first of its kind in Canada,
also said that the government would consider removing some existing dams,
which were no longer useful, and return fish to the areas concerned.
Clark also praised the efforts of North Vancouver Council, whose efforts in
protecting streams he called "good", and Burnaby Council, whose efforts he
called "excellent."
David J Knowles
Animal Voices News
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 12:57:32 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [UK] Earth's £20 ,000,000,000,000 a year
handout to the human race
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970515125803.3da75eea@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>From The Electronic Telegraph - Thursday, May 15th, 1997
Earth's £20,000,000,000,000 a year handout to the human race
By Aisling Irwin, Science Correspondent
AFTER 15 years pondering the worth of an acre of desert or ocean scientists
have announced that the Earth is worth £20 trillion a year.
The price is twice the global gross national product. It represents the
goods that Earth - or "Global Ecosystem Services" as the researchers call it
- hands out to humans for free. These include rivers, plants, aquifers and
soils.
Scientists said that the figure had been extremely difficult to calculate.
It caused the scientitsts so much work that their scientific paper was too
long for the journal Nature, and the overspill has had to be been posted on
the Internet. Yet great swathes of Earth, including mountains, tundra and
smaller areas such as urban parks, have not been accounted for in their
calculation.
The researchers say that the resources they have studied are ignored by
other economists, who consider only products that are easier to value, such
as human-made goods. The result is that major contributions to human
welfare, such as breathable air, are not considered in important political
and economic decisions.
The ecologists and economists in the study divided the benefits provided by
Earth into 17 categories. These range from watering crops and regulating
climate to providing pretty scenes for artists to draw, categorised as
cultural value.
The researchers, led by Prof Robert Costanza of the University of Maryland,
then split Earth into 16 constituent regions - or biomes - such as oceans,
estuaries, swamps and forests. They assigned them a value based on their
contribution to the 17 essential services. Dr
Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at the University of Tennessee, said in a separate
article in Nature that such calculations were extremely complex.
To calculate the financial damage of cutting down a hectare of forest, for
example, involved many items. One must include the drop in the price of
nearby houses; the destruction of nearby fish when soil that was retained by
the forest drifts into local river; and the damage in
the oceans when the soil sediment finally reaches them and smothers fish,
corals and "the obscure invertebrate containing clues to the cure for cancer".
The scientists' results ranged from a value of £141 per hectare for
grasslands to £14,000 per hectare for estuaries.Coral reefs earned
themselves a cultural value of only 60p per hectare but were awarded the
highest recreational value, of £1,800 per hectare. No one has yet worked out
the cultural value of ice, desert or rock.
The values can be broken down into local areas. The British, for example,
are sitting on the relative poverty of temperate forest (£185 per hectare)
and cropland (£56 per hectare). Prof Costanza said he hoped the figures
would be used for making local decisions. "The
environment is a big contributor to the economy," he said.
© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 17:08:50 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) Accord expected to keep grizzly bears protected
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515170848.006cdce4@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
from idahonews.com:
--------------------------------
Accord expected to keep grizzly bears protected
By Associated Press
JACKSON, Wyo. _ A settlement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and 20
environmental groups will require more exhaustive study before grizzly bears
can be removed from federal protection.
The Fund for Animals said the settlement ends a lawsuit challenging the
federal
agency's guidelines on how it would determine when grizzly bears no longer are
a ''threatened species.''
The suit claimed a recovery plan revised by the agency in 1993 failed to
ensure
long-term survival of the grizzly bear because it ignored habitat loss and
relied
on inaccurate methods to calculate grizzly numbers.
Eric Glitzenstein, attorney for The Fund for Animals, called it the first
time that a
species recovery plan has been successfully challenged in court.
He said the settlement requires the agency to base its recovery plans ''on
scientific data and objective evidence of real recovery _ not on the
desires of
those who wish to hasten delisting for their own purposes.''
It comes as the service presses ahead with its grizzly reintroduction plans
for
the central Idaho wilderness.
The agency and the environmental groups said in a joint statement that the
settlement was drafted to avoid a lengthy court battle that would divert cash
from wildlife resources.
In September 1995, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman endorsed parts of the
recovery plan but ruled that the government had failed ''to establish
objective,
measurable criteria'' for when the bear can be removed from the threatened
species list.
Under the plan, the agency would draw its conclusions based on the number of
female grizzlies seen with cubs each year, the distribution of females with
cubs
in an area and the annual number of grizzly deaths caused by humans.
But the environmental groups argued the plan did not take into account the
quantity and quality of grizzly habitat.
Friedman agreed. He also said the plan failed to consider threats posed by
disease, human-caused grizzly deaths that could occur when the bears prey on
livestock or geographic and genetic isolation of bear populations.
Grizzly bears have been listed as threatened in the lower 48 states since 1975
and currently occupy less than 2 percent of their original range.
Only Alaska allows grizzly bear hunting, Fund for Animals spokesman Michael
Markarian said, but ''Montana and Wyoming have already signaled their interest
in resuming trophy hunting of grizzly bears, and delisting would have spelled
disaster for these creatures.''
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 15:03:41 -0600
>From: "Alliance for Animals"
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Herbeck case addresses...etc.
Message-ID: <199705152017.PAA18910@mendota.terracom.net>
Hello everyone...
So sorry!! I did not send the listing of important addresses with my
Herbeck abuse case update yesterday. Please use the attached list of
names and addresses. The letters are still very important. They
will hopefully be used during sentencing. When that time comes, it
will be important for Scott Dirks, the Assist. DA prosecuting this
case to show how strongly the public feels about Herbecks' crimes
against animals and children. (he killed animals in front of his
young daughter and was in jail in 1989 for 1st Degree Sexual Assault
of a Child (6 yr old) ).
Thank you all for your concern about this case. Let's not lose
momentum. The Attorney for Barry Herbeck, Kelly Mattingly is
counting on the 'buzz' around this case to die down....and we don't
want to see that happen.
Tina Kaske
Executive Director
Alliance For Animals
Madison, WI
608 257-6333.
P.S.
Please call me if you have any questions, or if you have trouble
getting the attachment.
-------------- Enclosure number 1 ----------------
* This message contains the file 'write.inf', which has been
* uuencoded. If you are using Pegasus Mail, then you can use
* the browser's eXtract function to lift the original contents
* out to a file, otherwise you will have to extract the message
* and uudecode it manually.
begin 660 write.inf
***SNIP***
end
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 17:39:44 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Admin Note--Attachments
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515173941.006d41d8@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Please avoid attaching files to posts to AR-News.
While many subscribers may have no problem handling attachments, some do.
For some people, an attached file is downloaded as gibberish, gibberish
that takes time to download. For others, it may be a useless thing that is
"forgotten" after the message was deleted--however, the "attachment" may
still be on the hard drive.
And...depending on the attachment, it *might* contain a virus if it uses a
"template" (this type of virus is known as a "macrovirus"). (For virus
information, there are a number of sources on the web.)
So...please offer to send the attachment via private e-mail (for those
subscribers who reply privately).
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 17:47:34 -0400
>From: "H. Morris"
To: "ar-views@envirolink.org"
Subject: WSJ article on Cochineal
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515174723.0073b064@pop01.ny.us.ibm.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- May 15, 1997
Why Do They Call Fruit Punch
Bug Juice? Here's a Possibility
By ELIZABETH SEAY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
As a vegetarian, Lucy Peluso says she's "neurotic about
reading labels." So when the 28-year-old law clerk was
working late at her judge's chambers in Hauppauge, N.Y.,
one night last week, she checked the ingredients of her
Ocean Spray Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice Drink.
Unfamiliar with the word "cochineal," she grabbed a
dictionary and was horrified at the definition: "a red dye
made from the dried bodies of female cochineal insects."
Her call to Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. in Middleboro,
Mass., quickly rousted a customer-relations manager, who
confirmed that the color does come from an insect -- albeit
one approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Ms.
Peluso says she still sees red when she thinks about it. She
feels that vegetarians and meat-eaters alike should know
about the bug. "I'm sure they don't want to eat insects," she
says. "It's just not normal."
Ocean Spray counters that it is quite normal. "We use
cochineal because it's natural and completely safe," says
John Lawlor, a spokesman. Ocean Spray puts cochineal --
or its close cousin carmine -- in its Ruby Red, Ruby Red &
Tangerine, Kiwi Strawberry and Island Guava juices.
Indeed, colors extracted from cochineal give a magenta
hue to dozens of products, from aperitifs to lipsticks to pill
coatings and fruit yogurt. The insect, found on cactuses in
Central and South America, has a brilliant history; it has
made bright stripes on Mayan cloaks, Mexican serapes and
early U.S. flags. The very words "crimson" and "carmine"
stem from a Sanskrit term for a dye-yielding bug.
Dye makers stress that the red is extracted from the bug.
"Some people have the misconception that it's a ground-up
insect," says Harry Meggos, vice president of technical
service at Universal Foods Corp.'s Warner-Jenkinson.
"You consume a molecule that gives a color."
Even so, the North American Vegetarian Society of
Dolgeville., N.Y., plans to alert readers about cochineal in
its next Vegetarian Voice. While it's not strictly an animal
product, says co-director Brian Graff, "it's not the kind of
thing you'd expect to see in your drink."
Others are concerned for religious reasons. Susan Krasner,
president of Cinema Beaute cosmetics, has put out a line of
lipsticks that don't contain cochineal or other animal
products forbidden by Jewish law. "Insects are not kosher,"
she says.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 19:49:02 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (NZ) Update on Kaimanawa Wild Horses
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515194900.006dc0c0@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
posted for (and send replies to) Sandy Brown
:
-----------------------------------------------------
THE MUSTER AND SLAUGHTERING ARE DUE TO START IN THREE DAYS TIME.
WE HAVE
TO ACT NOW.....BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
Update on Kaimanawa Wild Horse, New Zealand: The Situation as MAY 7 1997
by Wild Horse Advocates (WHOA
Background:
First the Good News....Last year, just 12 hours out from the Department of
Conservation's deadline to open fire on the herd in the North, completely
exterminating all horses within more than 50,000 hectares, the Prime
Minister, Mr Jim Bolger called a halt to the madness.
As a politicain facing a general election, he had little choice.The massive
wave of protest and outrage which had seen 500 letters and faxes arrive on
his desk in
just one morning echoed what sources within the Government told TV3: that they
were receiving more letters on this subject than on any other. The National
Party's own polling suggested that 100,000 votes would be lost to them if
the shooting went ahead.
The horse lobby celebrated, but only briefly, as we all recognised that
this eleventh hour stay of execution was just that, the herd is still in
desperate danger.
Now for the Bad...
Instead of shooting their way down to a total of 500 Wild Horses, the
Department of Conservation is determined to muster down to that figure.
There will be talk of 'finding good homes' but the awful reality will be
capture for slaughter at a meat works, with the majority of the horses
going as in the past for human consumption in Japan and Europe. And the
promise of relocating 300 wild horses on to wilderness near-by has vanished
without trace.
Whilst many domestic horses are slaughtered for meat either for human or
animal consumption, and this process is by and large conducted humanely, we
consider that by their very nature, wild horses will inevitably suffer
unnecessarily when treated this way.
Not only will they have to be mustered extremely long distances over very
steep rugged country, something which has been opposed by veterinarians
associated with the last muster, but we know from their reports that in the
past there have been serious breaches of good horse management practices,
e.g. stallions, mares and foals were transported together, horses were held
without adequate food or shelter and no clean water for up to four days,
and there was no provision for humane destruction of horses severely
injured by bad management during loading and transportation.
DoC's ultimatum, "take them away or they're dead meat'
The horse lobby's reply: "No way". We totally reject the reasoning behind
the decision to muster. We do not accept that the horses must be found
"good homes." We think that they already have a good home living wild
and free in the grasslands of the Kaimanawas.
Nor do we feel that we have to prove our concern for the herd by taking
them home anymore than people who campaign to save the whales, the dolphins
or the fur-seals have to domesticate and own the animals they wish to see
remain
unmolested in the wild.
No legal basis for mustering option
We contend that the DoC has no legal basis upon which to make any decision
as they do not own the land the horses run on, they have lifted the
Protection Order under which they managed the horses in the past, and they
are aware that a registered claim over the horses and their habitat is
awaiting hearing before the Waitangi tribunal. Some of the horses' range
was taken from Maori as recently as the Second World War.
What's the hurry?
We reject the DoC case for urgent removal of the horses, especially in the
North where the density is one horse per 700 hectares, and contend that
immuno-contraception and simple fencing would solve any impact problems.
The DoC has been advised that this would entail 200 doses per year of the
immuno-contraceptive PZP at US$14 per mare and US$30,000 for fencing.
This compares with the US$245,000 they have budgeted for reducing the herd
to 500.
The Wild Horse lobby is at present lobbying the Government to allow us to
have a role in managing the Wild Horses so that all parties have their
legitimate interests fairly addressed, from environmentalists, through
Maori to animal welfare organisations.
We want to thank everyone who responded to our earlier plea for help to
save our wild horses. At the darkest hour, victory looked impossible. We
still marvel that we stopped the bullets from flying. Together we can and
must do it one more time. Stay tuned.
The Wild Horses need meaningful protection immediately. At the moment they
can and are being hunted "for kicks" and in mid August 1996 snipers in an
Army helicopter shot at least 13 (including 3 heavily pregnant mares and a
foal) for 'endangering' their Army base.
The Maori claim guardianship over the horses and their habitat. Natural
justice requires that their claim be heard before the future of the Wild
Horses is jeopardized.
Experts in Wild Horses management, whose advice has been ignored up till
now, must be involved closely in all future management.
You can contact any or all of the following people and let them know
your outrage:
The politicians to contact are the Ministers of:
Conservation, Mr Nick Smith, fax 04 473 3446
Agriculture, Dr. Lockwood Smith, fax 04 471 1765
Trade, Mr Don McKinnon fax
Tourism, Mr Mr Murry McCully fax
The Prime Minister, Mr James Bolger, fax 04 473 2508
The opposition spokesmen are:
Conservation, Mr Pete Hodgson
Agriculture, Mr
Trade, Mr
Tourism, Mr
The leader and deputy leader of the Alliance Party (inclusive of
major Green and Maori parties) are:
Mr Jim Anderton and Ms Sandra Lee, fax 03 365 6173
The postal contacts for all of these politicians is:
c/o Parliament, Wellington, New Zealand
The Bureaucrats are:
The Director General of Conservation
The Department of Conservation (DoC)
PO Box 104 20
Wellington
Fax 04 471 1082
The Director General of Agriculture
Mr
The Ministry of Agriculture and Fish (MAF)
PO Box 2526
Wellington
Fax 04 272 9071
The Chief of Defence
Wellington
Fax 04 527 5966
The bureaucrats who hatched this whole scheme are:
Bill Carlin and Bill Fleury
Department of Conservation
Private Bag 3016
Wanganui
Fax 06 345 8712
Media contacts which might be worthwhile:
The Holmes Show
Attention: The Producer
PO Box 1910
Wellington
Fax 04 495 0043
Ph 04 499 9777
The Dominion
Attention: The news editor
PO Box 1297
Wellington
Fax 04 474 0350
North and South
Attention: Robyn Langwell
Fax 09 308 9498
(Note: check with your telephone company whether you delete the zero before
the area code, in the fax numbers.)
Action alert submitted by:
Ellen Lee
Wild Horse Advocates (WHOA)
fax (NZ) 03 479 2211
ellenl@es.co.nz
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 19:59:48 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) WSJ article on Cochineal
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515195946.006d5144@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
posted for "H. Morris" :
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- May 15, 1997
Why Do They Call Fruit Punch
Bug Juice? Here's a Possibility
By ELIZABETH SEAY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
As a vegetarian, Lucy Peluso says she's "neurotic about
reading labels." So when the 28-year-old law clerk was
working late at her judge's chambers in Hauppauge, N.Y.,
one night last week, she checked the ingredients of her
Ocean Spray Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice Drink.
Unfamiliar with the word "cochineal," she grabbed a
dictionary and was horrified at the definition: "a red dye
made from the dried bodies of female cochineal insects."
Her call to Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. in Middleboro,
Mass., quickly rousted a customer-relations manager, who
confirmed that the color does come from an insect -- albeit
one approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Ms.
Peluso says she still sees red when she thinks about it. She
feels that vegetarians and meat-eaters alike should know
about the bug. "I'm sure they don't want to eat insects," she
says. "It's just not normal."
Ocean Spray counters that it is quite normal. "We use
cochineal because it's natural and completely safe," says
John Lawlor, a spokesman. Ocean Spray puts cochineal --
or its close cousin carmine -- in its Ruby Red, Ruby Red &
Tangerine, Kiwi Strawberry and Island Guava juices.
Indeed, colors extracted from cochineal give a magenta
hue to dozens of products, from aperitifs to lipsticks to pill
coatings and fruit yogurt. The insect, found on cactuses in
Central and South America, has a brilliant history; it has
made bright stripes on Mayan cloaks, Mexican serapes and
early U.S. flags. The very words "crimson" and "carmine"
stem from a Sanskrit term for a dye-yielding bug.
Dye makers stress that the red is extracted from the bug.
"Some people have the misconception that it's a ground-up
insect," says Harry Meggos, vice president of technical
service at Universal Foods Corp.'s Warner-Jenkinson.
"You consume a molecule that gives a color."
Even so, the North American Vegetarian Society of
Dolgeville., N.Y., plans to alert readers about cochineal in
its next Vegetarian Voice. While it's not strictly an animal
product, says co-director Brian Graff, "it's not the kind of
thing you'd expect to see in your drink."
Others are concerned for religious reasons. Susan Krasner,
president of Cinema Beaute cosmetics, has put out a line of
lipsticks that don't contain cochineal or other animal
products forbidden by Jewish law. "Insects are not kosher,"
she says.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 20:01:41 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) Hillary on Fox News Channel Tomorrow
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515200139.006d5274@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
posted for "H. Morris" :
-------------------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow, Friday morning at 10:10 a.m., I will be on the Fox Cable News
Channel to opine on whether food labeling is sufficient. The forum is
being arranged in response to an article in the Wall Street Journal today
(which I have yet to see) in which a woman went nuts upon realizing where
cochineal came from.
I hope to speak about some other "hidden animal ingredients".
I will be on with a man from Food Industry Labeling Association (or
something like that). The segment is short, only 6-8 minutes, and I would
appreciate someone recording it for me as Fox Cable News is not available
in Brooklyn.
Wish me luck.
Hillary Morris
Vegan Standards and Certification Project, Inc.
91 Joralemon Street
Suite 4
Brooklyn, NY 11201
email: VeganStandards@ibm.net
http://www.veganstandards.org
718-246-0014
fax: 718-246-5912
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 19:03:07 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [CA] Summer Tips for Companion Animals
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970515190338.3ac75526@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Well, the sun is streaming in through patio doors; the fans are whirring,
the cats have taken to the cooler spots in the apartment, and we're in mid-May.
As some may recall, Animal Voices provided a fact sheet for animals during
the winter months, and we felt it was appropiate to do the same now for summer.
Due to the huge response last time, I am posting this direct to the list,
rather than asking for personal requests via private e-mail.
If you have comments, or think that anything else should be added (or
deleted), please let me know via e-mail
(Please feel free to distribute as you wish. All I ask is for proper
attribution).
Thanks,
David J Knowles
Animal Voices News
________________________________________________________________________
Summer Tips for Companion Animals
1 - Heatstroke is a killer. Watch out for the signs: rapid panting; hot
skin; twitching
muscles; and a dazed look.
If your companion animal shows any of these signs, be prepared to take action
immediately.
- To cool off the animal quickly, wrap them in a towel soaked in tepid- not
cold water. In
a severe case, immerse the animal in a tub of cool water. Seek veterinary
care as soon as
possible.
2 - NEVER leave an animal in a parked car, even on for a few minutes.
Temperatures can
rise rapidly to 150 Degrees Fahrenheit (66 Degrees Celsius) even if the
window is left
slightly open. This is the number one cause of heatstroke and results in
many needless
deaths every year.
3 - Always make sure your companion animal has plenty of fresh drinking
water available.
Unlike humans, dogs can only perspire through the pads of their feet or by
panting.
4 - Be aware of hot sidewalks and sand. Paws can be easily burned.
5 - Remember that your animal can also get sunburn - especially those with
short hair and
fair skin. Ears are particularly sensitive areas. Sunburn can be very
painful and can serious
complications. If the UV index is high, think about your companion as well
as yourself.
6 - Do not exercise your dog during the hottest part of the day. This is
also a leading
cause of heatstroke.
7 - Ensure that indoor animals have a good source of air circulation -
either a child-proof
fan or air-conditioning.
Outdoor animals should have access to an area of shade, with a supply of
drinking water,
where they can cool off .
8 - Be aware that not all dogs are good swimmers, and do not allow a dog to
drink sea
water - it can be fatal if drunk in large enough quantities. Always
supervise your dog when
in or near water.
9 - Spring and summer can be allergy season for your companions as well as
humans.
Common animal allergies include: pollen, grass, weeds and fleas. If you
notice your animal
is scratching excessively or showing other signs of irritation such as
chewing an area of
their body, seek veterinary advice.
Check your dog carefully for ticks after exercise - especially in a wooded
area. Seek
veterinary advice regarding removal of ticks.
10 - Watch out for heartworm. Symptoms include: weight loss; coughing;
listlessness and
rapid tiring. Heartworm are transmitted to dogs by mosquito bites and can
damage the
heart, lungs and other organs. Seek veterinary advice if you suspect your
companion
animal has become infected.
11 - Do not allow your animal to travel in the back of a truck unless they
are in a crate or
cage, which as been secured to the back of the truck. If providing a crate
is not possible, a
proper body harness should be used. Never tether your dog by their neck.
They can fall
out and be dragged along or hanged.
12 - Be aware that although many dogs may appear to enjoy the wind blowing
in their
face, this can be potentially dangerous. Hazards include inhalation of
insects, which can
block the animal's windpipe; irritation of the eyes from dust causing
permanent damage;
and irritation of the mucous membranes.
13 - Wherever possible, leave your companion animal at home.
14 - If you are planning on a vacation with your human family, ensure that
your non-
human family is also taken care of.
Check out boarding kennels beforehand, and ensure they are aware of any dietary
restrictions or health problems that your companion has.
If you prefer leaving your animal at home, please ensure that you leave them
with
someone responsible. This can be a neighbor, family member or a professional
pet sitter.
Ask professional sitters for references and check them out.
If you wish to take your companion animal with you on vacation, ensure that
you have
sufficient food and water is available for a car journey, and that regular
exercise breaks are
scheduled.
If flying, check out the airline's policy on handling live animals - most
will treat them as
cargo. If your animal is being flown in the cargo hold, you may want to ask
the flight
attendant to ensure the captain has the cargo-hold heater on (the switch for
this is known
in the aviation circles as the "dead dog handle".) [One airline recently
made an emergency
landing, costing it several thousand dollars, after a warning light showing
the heater wasn't
working came on. The captain took the decision after a he conducted a show
of hands
among the passengers all of whom voted in favour of a diversion. Not all
airlines are
willing to incur the cost.]
Summer can be a fun time for both humans and non-human companions, but a few
simple
precautions can prevent it from turning into a tragedy.
(Some of above information courtesy of National Human Education Society; Dr.
Christine Welch and Cordie Davis; Electronic Telegraph; and Unfriendly Skies.)
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 20:21:08 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [US] 2 Greenpeace Protesters Arrested At Canadian Embassy in
Nation's
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970515202139.196fc0aa@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>From The Greenpeace Press Release List
TWO GREENPEACE PROTESTERS ARRESTED AT CANADIAN EMBASSY IN
NATIONS CAPITAL
May 15, 1997 WASHINGTON, D.C. (GP) - Two Greenpeace activists were arrested
today and charged with misdemeanor trespassing for scaling the 50 foot
columns in front of the Canadian Embassy and deploying banners, that read
"Canada's Clearcut Rainforest, We Won't Buy It," protesting the
destruction of the most important temperate rainforest region left in North
America - British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest. The two climbers, J. Weis
26 of Austin, TX and Pat Keyes 23 of Dallas, TX are being held at the
third district police headquarters.
"They might have pulled us off of the pillars, but they are not going to
stop us from protecting this rainforest and informing U.S. consumers to
B.C's destructive practices." said Marc Evans, a U.S. Forest Campaigner for
Greenpeace. "Concerned citizens were protesting in LA yesterday and today in
Boston and Seattle to bring greater awareness to the plight of the
rainforest." Currently B.C. is exporting approximately 50% of their
old-growth products to the U.S.
In British Columbia this week, the Greenpeace vessel MV Moby Dick sailed
into the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest to begin a summer of blockades
against logging and road building planned for the B.C. coast's pristine
watersheds. The announcement of this action and the release of the
Greenpeace report detailing the mismanagement of B.C.'s rainforests "Broken
Promises," prompted B.C. Premier Glen Clark to declare Greenpeace "Enemies
of B.C." When seventy prominent Canadian environmental groups and
individuals stood by Greenpeace in full-page ads and a press conference,
stating that they too had concerns about the management of B.C.'s forests,
the Premier sweepingly denounced them as well.
In 1993, over one thousand people were arrested in efforts to protect
Vancouver Island's Clayoquot Sound, the largest act of civil disobedience in
Canadian history. During the controversy, the Provincial Government of B.C.
and the Canadian Federal Government swore to the world that B.C would "stop
the chop" and "dramatically change the way B.C.'s forests are managed." Yet
of the original 353 large rainforest valleys that once existed in B.C., only
69 coastal valleys are still intact. Half of the remaining valleys on the
central coast are scheduled to be roaded or clearcut in the next five years
even though the B.C. Ministry of the Environment has reported that one in
ten plants and animals in the province is threatened or "at risk" of
extinction, with logging being one of the leading cause, the rate of cut in
B.C. has declined by less than 1% in the past 5 years.
Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on logging or road building in the
remaining large (over 10,000 acre) watersheds in the temperate rainforest,
an end to clearcutting in the
rainforest. Greenpeace also calls on Canada to enforce its responsibility
as a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity (by implementing
endangered species legislation that
covers all of its territory), and calls on the U.S. to eliminate clearcut
rainforest products from its own marketplace.
Video available via satellite: 3:30 - 4:00 (EST) on Galaxy 3 Transponder 21
Photos avaiable: AFP Agency France Press -202-289-0700
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Marc Evans, Greenpeace Forest Campaigner, on site - (202) 531-5841/ beeper
(202) 801-6467 Terri Johnson, Greenpeace Press Officer - (202) 319-2542
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 20:21:11 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [UK] Greenpeace Calls for an End to Oil Exploration and Fossil
Fuel P
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970515202143.196f9aac@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>From the Greenpeace Press Release List
GREENPEACE CALLS FOR AN END TO OIL EXPLORATION AND A PHASE OUT OF
FOSSIL FUELS
London, May 15, 1997 - In a report published today the environmental
organisation Greenpeace has challenged the UK Government to stop oil
exploration in the Atlantic Frontier as the first step in a global phase
out of fossil fuels.
"Putting the Lid on Fossil Fuels" adopts ecological limits for temperature
and sea level rises identified by scientists working for the United Nations
(UN). 1 Keeping to these limits
produces a budget of 225 billion tonnes of carbon.2 The report points out
that, to keep within these limits (a 1.oC rise in temperature and a 20 cm
rise in sea levels) the world cannot
afford to burn more than a quarter of known fuel reserves.
This represents only 5% of all the fossil fuel resources thought to exist
beneath the earth's crust. To explore for yet more oil in these
circumstances, the report argues, is not only
unsustainable but dangerous and contradicts the objective and obligations of
the Climate Convention.3Going beyond these limits may result, the UN has
warned, in "rapid, unpredictable and non-linear responses that could lead to
extensive ecosystem damage".
The report, an overview of Greenpeace's objections to the Atlantic
Frontier oil development in the UK and to the global approach to handling
climate change, highlights the hypocrisy
of governments in putting CO2 emissions on the climate agenda but not fossil
fuel: it says, "Governments are talking environmental protection but when it
comes to oil, gas and coal,
they are doing business as usual".
Deputy Executive Director of Greenpeace and author of the report Chris Rose
said, "There is no alternative to a phase out of fossil fuels if we are to
prevent climate change. Since we
cannot burn all that we already have, to explore for more oil is not only
futile but extraordinarily irresponsible. The UK Government must stop the
oil exploration in the Atlantic Frontier and as Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook shouldn't cook the planet but lead an international
negotiation for the orderly phase out of fossil fuel.
".The report points out that the Atlantic oil development was first planned
under Labour and Conservative governments before the reality of climate
change was realised. The plan is now out of date.
MORE
/2_ _Greenpeace calls for an end to oil exploration/2The report also
assesses the bio diversity of the Atlantic Frontier and its vulnerability to
exploitation for oil and from new deep
sea fishing techniques, arguing that it should be preserved for its own
sake. In addition to a section on the wider consequences of oil exploration
(including pollution and oil politics) and on the positive economic benefits
of investing in a solar industry, the 65-page report ends with a series of
recommendations. These include in the UK: a halt to the Atlantic Frontier
exploration; a programme to generate 50,000 solar powered homes in the UK
and a switch in subsidies from oil to solar.
And in Europe: prevention of further identification of unconventional oil
and gas reserves; a phase out of fossil fuels; the removal of all direct and
indirect subsidies for the use and development of fossil fuels; the setting
of a binding, ambitious target for renewable energies to be agreed at the
May 19th Energy Council meeting.
ends
References:
1. Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases and IPCC (1990) Climate Change, The
IPCC Impacts Assessment report prepared for IPCC Working Group II, edited by
W.J McTagart et al. Australian Government Publishing Service.
2. 225 gtc/billion tonnes of carbon: see accompanying briefing. This figure
can be calculated by converting CO2 ppm (atmospheric carbon dioxide)
levels in IPCC climate scenarios, to carbon by weight. This can then be
connected to carbon in fossil fuels. At current rates of use, a global 225
gtc budget would run out in 40 years or 30 years at present growth if energy
use continues.
3. The Climate Convention signed in Rio requires signatories to take
'precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimise the causes of
climate change and mitigate its adverse effects'. The Objectives of the
Convention which is to stabilise climate changing gases at levels 'that
would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system'
to be 'achieved within a timeframe sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt
naturally to climate change to ensure that food production is not threatened
and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner'.
For further information please call the Greenpeace Press Office on 0171-865
8255/6/7/8 or 0171-359 4837
Rob Wiltzen
Greenbase Information Services
Greenpeace International
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 20:21:15 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [CA] Swan Hills ban lifted
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970515202147.0a9f1734@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>From The Calgary Herald
Swan Hills ban lifted
EDMONTON - Extensive tests of humans, fish and deer near a northern Alberta
hazardous wastes treatment plant have confirmed contamination by some of the
most toxic substances known, the provincial health officer said Thursday.
But despite the confirmed presence of PCBs, dioxins and furans in game
samples, Dr. John Waters has eased a five-month-old ban on eating fish and
animals taken in the area around the plant in Swan Hills, Alta.
Waters advised the thousands of affected residents - most of them native
hunters and trappers - can now eat up to 370 grams - one or two meals - a
month of game caught within 30 kilometres of the plant.
The ban still applies to young children, pregnant or breastfeeding women,
nor are residents to eat fish from the affected area. Organ meats and fat
from game should also be avoided.
The results of tests on fish and humans won't be known for another two months.
The plant was the site of a toxic leak last October. Plant owner Bovar Inc.
has been charged with several counts under provincial environment laws.
In December, in response to concerns about more leaks at the plant, Waters
advised that no game be eaten from the contamination zone.
"All four (deer) tested specifically for this study had detectable PCBs,
dioxins and-or furans," Waters said Thursday.
"The levels in those animals were significantly higher than those taken
elsewhere in the province."
He said the level of contamination rose the closer the test animal lived to
the waste treatment plant.
"Because the animals eat vegetation that may have been contaminated as a
result of the activities of the plant, they will pick up the (poisons). We
pick it up only from eating those animals which eat (the contaminated
vegetation)."
Waters said it is not his responsibility to blame the contamination on
Bovar. He said that is up to the Environment Department.
[In an interview on BCTV tonight, the Mayor of Swan Hills said he didn't
think there was much danger and that Waters was "blowing this out of all
proportion."]
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 23:42:39 -0400 (EDT)
>From: LMANHEIM@aol.com
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Fwd: From Bombs to Birds: Agreement Between Army and U.S. Fish and Wildlife S...
Message-ID: <970515234239_-1902211760@emout18.mail.aol.com>
In a message dated 97-05-15 23:04:58 EDT, AOL News writes:
<< Subj:From Bombs to Birds: Agreement Between Army and U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service t
Date:97-05-15 23:04:58 EDT
From:AOL News
BCC:LMANHEIM
FORT SNELLING, Minn., May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Bird songs are replacing
the
sound of exploding ordnance at Jefferson Proving Ground (JPG), a 55,000-acre
Army installation in southern Indiana, closed in 1995 under the Base
Realignment and Closure Act. Under an agreement recently forged between the
Army and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, experts with the Service will
assist the Army in assessing and managing the base's impressive array of
fish
and wildlife resources.
"Jefferson Proving Ground, as a part of America's arsenal, has
served a
key role in the preservation of democracy and the freedoms we so richly
enjoy," said Major General John Longhouser, Commanding General, U.S. Army
Test
and Evaluation Command. "It is time to begin the process to convert this
real
estate to more peaceful purposes. This agreement provides the opportunity
for
an enhanced level of ecosystem-based management and study while the Army and
the Service address long-term natural resource management."
"While an active base, Jefferson Proving Ground served a critical
role in
safeguarding the people of the United States. It is now serving an equally
important function in safeguarding the natural heritage of this country,"
said
John Blankenship, Assistant Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. "This agreement represents a one-of-a-kind opportunity to conserve
and manage some of the Midwest's finest forest and grassland habitats. I
commend the Army for its vision in recognizing the value of the resources
within the borders of Jefferson Proving Ground."
Under the agreement, over the next three years, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife
Service will have responsibility for evaluating the status of fish,
wildlife,
and habitats on about 51,000 acres of JPG. This portion of the
installation,
used as a firing range while the base was active, is not well-suited for
commercial or other uses due to the presence of unexploded ordnance.
Funding for the Service's activities will be provided by the Army,
which
retains ownership of this portion of JPG. Part of this area is still used
by
the Air National Guard for training exercises. The remaining 4,000 acres,
at
the southern end of the base, are being converted to other private and
commercial uses.
Public use of the firing range is limited due to the danger posed
by an
estimated 1.5 million rounds of unexploded ordnance. However, the Army, the
Service and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources are already at work
discussing options for possible use in the future by recreational users.
More
information on public use will be provided as it is available.
As part of the agreement, the Service will manage the base's
forests and
grasslands, develop a plan for Indiana bats and other endangered species,
manage and enhance aquatic habitats, and promote public understanding and
awareness of JPG's natural resources.
Jefferson Proving Ground is considered by wildlife managers to
contain an
extraordinary diversity of wildlife and habitats. The Army regularly used
controlled fires to reduce the chance of wildfires touched off by exploding
ordnance. These periodic burns mimicked the natural processes that create
and
maintain prairies. Thus, Jefferson Proving Ground, while not a native
prairie, contains exceptionally productive grasslands that support a wide
diversity of prairie-dependent birds and other wildlife.
The disappearance of native prairies throughout the country is
prompting
alarming declines in many grassland-dependent species. Some of these
species,
many of which are in decline around the country, have found a haven at JPG
and
are beginning to thrive. One example is the Henslow's sparrow, considered
endangered by the State of Indiana and a migratory bird of concern
nationally.
Jefferson Proving Ground, with 5,000 acres of grasslands in several tracts,
supports one of the four largest known populations of Henslow's sparrows,
with
more than 900 pairs counted during the 1996 breeding season.
Jefferson Proving Ground also contains one of the largest
unfragmented
blocks of mature forest in the lower Midwest. Such forested areas are
increasingly hard to find in this heavily agricultural region, although they
provide vital habitat for many wildlife species, including those considered
endangered. JPG's forests provide summer habitat for the Federally
endangered
Indiana bat. In addition, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources has
released the state-endangered river otter along waterways within Jefferson
Proving Ground.
Jefferson Proving Ground operated from 1941 to 1994 as a
munitions
testing facility for cartridges, propellants, bombs, grenades, and high
explosives. Use was highest during World War II and the Korean Conflict. In
1989, Jefferson Proving Ground was identified for closure, and testing
operations ceased in 1994.
CO: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
ST: Minnesota
IN: ENV
SU:
To edit your profile, go to keyword NewsProfiles.
For all of today's news, go to keyword News. >>
---------------------
Forwarded message:
Subj: From Bombs to Birds: Agreement Between Army and U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service t
Date: 97-05-15 23:04:58 EDT
>From: AOL News
FORT SNELLING, Minn., May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Bird songs are replacing the
sound of exploding ordnance at Jefferson Proving Ground (JPG), a 55,000-acre
Army installation in southern Indiana, closed in 1995 under the Base
Realignment and Closure Act. Under an agreement recently forged between the
Army and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, experts with the Service will
assist the Army in assessing and managing the base's impressive array of fish
and wildlife resources.
"Jefferson Proving Ground, as a part of America's arsenal, has
served a
key role in the preservation of democracy and the freedoms we so richly
enjoy," said Major General John Longhouser, Commanding General, U.S. Army
Test
and Evaluation Command. "It is time to begin the process to convert this
real
estate to more peaceful purposes. This agreement provides the opportunity
for
an enhanced level of ecosystem-based management and study while the Army and
the Service address long-term natural resource management."
"While an active base, Jefferson Proving Ground served a critical
role in
safeguarding the people of the United States. It is now serving an equally
important function in safeguarding the natural heritage of this country,"
said
John Blankenship, Assistant Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. "This agreement represents a one-of-a-kind opportunity to conserve
and manage some of the Midwest's finest forest and grassland habitats. I
commend the Army for its vision in recognizing the value of the resources
within the borders of Jefferson Proving Ground."
Under the agreement, over the next three years, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife
Service will have responsibility for evaluating the status of fish, wildlife,
and habitats on about 51,000 acres of JPG. This portion of the installation,
used as a firing range while the base was active, is not well-suited for
commercial or other uses due to the presence of unexploded ordnance.
Funding for the Service's activities will be provided by the Army,
which
retains ownership of this portion of JPG. Part of this area is still used by
the Air National Guard for training exercises. The remaining 4,000 acres, at
the southern end of the base, are being converted to other private and
commercial uses.
Public use of the firing range is limited due to the danger posed
by an
estimated 1.5 million rounds of unexploded ordnance. However, the Army, the
Service and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources are already at work
discussing options for possible use in the future by recreational users.
More
information on public use will be provided as it is available.
As part of the agreement, the Service will manage the base's
forests and
grasslands, develop a plan for Indiana bats and other endangered species,
manage and enhance aquatic habitats, and promote public understanding and
awareness of JPG's natural resources.
Jefferson Proving Ground is considered by wildlife managers to
contain an
extraordinary diversity of wildlife and habitats. The Army regularly used
controlled fires to reduce the chance of wildfires touched off by exploding
ordnance. These periodic burns mimicked the natural processes that create
and
maintain prairies. Thus, Jefferson Proving Ground, while not a native
prairie, contains exceptionally productive grasslands that support a wide
diversity of prairie-dependent birds and other wildlife.
The disappearance of native prairies throughout the country is
prompting
alarming declines in many grassland-dependent species. Some of these
species,
many of which are in decline around the country, have found a haven at JPG
and
are beginning to thrive. One example is the Henslow's sparrow, considered
endangered by the State of Indiana and a migratory bird of concern
nationally.
Jefferson Proving Ground, with 5,000 acres of grasslands in several tracts,
supports one of the four largest known populations of Henslow's sparrows,
with
more than 900 pairs counted during the 1996 breeding season.
Jefferson Proving Ground also contains one of the largest
unfragmented
blocks of mature forest in the lower Midwest. Such forested areas are
increasingly hard to find in this heavily agricultural region, although they
provide vital habitat for many wildlife species, including those considered
endangered. JPG's forests provide summer habitat for the Federally endangered
Indiana bat. In addition, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources has
released the state-endangered river otter along waterways within Jefferson
Proving Ground.
Jefferson Proving Ground operated from 1941 to 1994 as a munitions
testing facility for cartridges, propellants, bombs, grenades, and high
explosives. Use was highest during World War II and the Korean Conflict. In
1989, Jefferson Proving Ground was identified for closure, and testing
operations ceased in 1994.
CO: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
ST: Minnesota
IN: ENV
SU:
To edit your profile, go to keyword NewsProfiles.
For all of today's news, go to keyword News.
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 23:42:13 -0400
>From: allen schubert
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) Bird Deaths Up at Fouled Salton Sea
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970515234211.006de214@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
from AP Wire page:
-----------------------------
05/15/1997 22:16 EST
Bird Deaths Up at Fouled Salton Sea
By MATTHEW FORDAHL
Associated Press Writer
CALIPATRIA, Calif. (AP) -- Lifeless nests and skeletons covered in
feathers littered
the rocky shore of a barren Salton Sea island Thursday, confirming the
return of the
season of death.
The northeast side of Mullet Island -- where the Salton Sea's largest and
most
promising colony of double-crested cormorants once nested -- held only
rotting
carcasses, unhatched eggs and flies.
``We normally have some deaths, but when there are full clutches of dead
birds,
there's something wrong,'' said Ken Sturm, biologist for the Salton Sea
National
Wildlife Refuge. ``Obviously something bad happened here.''
After last summer's epidemic of avian botulism that felled more than
14,000 birds
representing 69 species, including endangered brown pelicans, biologists had
expected similar problems this year at California's largest lake.
``There was no change in the ecology of the sea,'' said refuge manager
Clark Bloom.
``We felt it was just a matter of time before this happened.''
But nobody thought death would return so soon.
By Wednesday, biologists counted at least 1,700 dead cormorants that were
last
seen alive and nesting on Mullet Island in early March. The birds' black
feathers now
sharply contrast against the island's white rocks.
``It's kind of like a Hiroshima scene,'' Sturm said.
The odor of decomposing birds overpowers the sea's rotten-egg stench. In
100-degree heat, flies stick to visitors who must wear rubber boots and
remove
them before returning to the dock to prevent the spread of disease.
The cormorants are a small part of the problem. About 2,000 birds from 38
species
have also been found dead on the sea's shore.
Also, two massive fish kills left 60,000 tilapia bobbing in the water and
rotting on the
shores.
An incinerator burns the bird remains to prevent disease from spreading. A
makeshift hospital is being built to stabilize sick birds before they are
sent to
rehabilitation centers.
So far, only four brown pelicans have died. But thousands more are
expected to fly in
over the next two months from Baja California and the Sea of Cortez, where
they
spend winter.
Tests to find out what killed the cormorants have not been finished, but
some of the
birds showed signs of avian botulism, which targets the birds' nervous
system and
leads to torturous deaths.
Even if avian botulism is determined to be the culprit, it does not
explain how the
bacteria is spread in the manmade sea's unusual ecosystem or what role the
sea's
pollution plays in the deaths.
The salty lake has become a favorite spot for birds on the Pacific Flyway as
development elsewhere in California has destroyed natural wetlands. Formed
by an
accidental break in the Colorado River in the early 1900s, it now covers
380 square
miles across Riverside and Imperial counties.
Today, it is fed only by agricultural runoff and polluted water from the
New and Alamo
rivers. Because water escapes only through evaporation, its salts and
pollutants
concentrate over time. It is now 30 percent saltier than the Pacific Ocean.
Plans developed last year to control the salinity by building massive
dikes still need
to be studied, Bloom said. It will be another three or four years before the
environmental report is completed.
|
|