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from AP Wire page: ----------------------------------- 07/15/1997 21:37 EST Poultry Plants Shut During Testing By CHUCK BARTELS Associated Press Writer LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- At least four Arkansas poultry plants have been shut down this week because of dioxin in chicken feed, temporarily idling about 2,100 workers. Federal officials ordered producers who used the feed contaminated with dioxin to keep the chickens from being killed while they are tested. About 1 million birds are in limbo, said Travis Justice of the Arkansas Farm Bureau. Officials found unusually high levels of dioxin in two Tyson chickens last fall and traced the dioxin to ball clay from a Mississippi mine. Two Arkansas feed makers used the clay, which prevents feed from clumping, and sold it to chicken growers as well as some catfish farmers and egg producers. Dioxin is considered a probable carcinogen at high enough levels, but the Food and Drug Administration said the danger was in cumulative lifetime exposure, not in eating a few chickens raised on the feed. The chickens fed the contaminated feed may be salvageable. ``They could separate out fat where (dioxin) might be concentrated and sell the portion below the acceptable level,'' Jacque Knight, spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture in Washington, said Tuesday. At Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc., Archie Schaffer III said the company is still waiting to hear from USDA on what to do with the birds. Two Tyson kill houses in Pine Bluff are closed due to the dioxin problem. ``Those chickens were fed that feed a month or more ago. You can't get that feed out of them once they eat it,'' Schaffer said. Two of 80 chickens tested in September were found to have three to four parts per trillion of dioxin; the acceptable standard is less than one part per trillion for meat. Tyson is the world's largest poultry producer and Arkansas is the nation's leading poultry-producing state. About 35,800 people are employed in the poultry production in the state. A ConAgra plant in Batesville that makes frozen dinners stopped production on Monday but its 1,300 employees were back at work Tuesday making non-chicken meals. The company's plant in El Dorado remained open but idled 100 slaughter workers, said ConAgra spokeswoman Lynn Phares. A Townsends of Arkansas plant in Batesville also closed Monday. It is expected to reopen Wednesday. Catfish and egg producers who used the contaminated feed were also instructed not to ship affected products, but catfish was later exempted. Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:45:45 -0400 From: allen schubert <alathome@clark.net> To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (US) Groups Battle Over Olestra Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970716134542.006b4b90@clark.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" follow-up on earlier olestra posting from AP Wire page: -------------------------------------- 07/15/1997 19:04 EST Groups Battle Over Olestra By RICK CALLAHAN Associated Press Writer INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The food fight over the fat substitute olestra resumed Tuesday with accusations and counter-claims being slung across the central Indiana test market. In dueling news conferences an hour apart, Procter & Gamble Co. and the Center for Science in the Public Interest continued their months-long battle over the fat substitute used in a variety of snacks. CPSI claimed olestra snacks have left thousands of local consumers complaining of stomach cramps, diarrhea and other unpleasant side effects. But P&G, which makes olestra under the brand name Olean, says the claims are based on emotion. ``That's clearly the case of people falsely attributing their ailments to olestra products. Just because they got sick doesn't mean it was because of the product,'' said Dr. Greg Allgood, a senior P&G researcher. Allgood said a recent P&G study found no difference in the rate or severity of digestive ills between people who ate full-fat snacks and those who consumed olestra snacks. Olestra is a synthetic chemical made of sugar and vegetable oil that contains molecules too large for the human body to digest. The Food and Drug Administration required P&G to label olestra products with the warning that they ``may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools.'' P&G is building a factory in Cincinnati, where it is based, to make olestra. But it isn't the only company producing olestra products. Last year, Dallas-based Frito-Lay began test-marketing olestra chips in three Midwestern cities. To make its case about olestra's safety, P&G enlisted former Gov. Otis Bowen, a medical doctor and former secretary of Health and Human Services, as a paid consultant. Bowen said he and his wife, Carol, regularly eat olestra products without any side effects. ``I have no question that the people who've complained were sick, but I question that they are putting the right cause to it,'' said Bowen, who served as governor from 1973-81 and in the second-term cabinet of the Reagan administration. CSPI, best known for attacking the fat in movie theater popcorn and Chinese food, says olestra is dangerous, acts as a laxative and robs the body of nutrients. For its part, the group tapped Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., who has asked the FDA to appoint a new, independent commission to review the safety of olestra. Carson wants more prominent warning labels on olestra products. ``My position is that if it makes one person sick, we need to take a hard look at what this is doing on the market in the first place,'' Carson said from her Capitol Hill office. CSPI says a telephone survey of 543 Indianapolis adults found that about a third had tried Fat-Free Pringles, P&G's olestra-containing chips. About 7 percent of those reported digestive ailments after eating the chips. Based on that survey, CSPI estimates that 18,000 to 54,000 Indianapolis area residents have experienced symptoms after eating olestra products. ``Business people have had to leave work, some children couldn't go to school, some people defecated in their clothing,'' said Michael Jacobson, CSPI's executive director. Still, Jacobson admits that short of a scientific study, it's impossible to link any particular digestive ailment to olestra products. Nancy Sixsmith, a Noblesville resident who spoke at CSPI's news conference, says she has no doubt that the Fat-Free Pringles she ate caused a bout of diarrhea she suffered while driving home from work. ``I can tell you I'll never eat them again,'' she said. Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:54:16 -0400 From: allen schubert <alathome@clark.net> To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (US) Turner Plans To Breed Wolves Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970716135414.006bbb30@clark.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" from AP Wire page: ----------------------------------------- 07/15/1997 13:48 EST Turner Plans To Breed Wolves TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. (AP) -- Ted Turner plans to breed endangered Mexican gray wolves on a ranch he owns. Mike Phillips, executive director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, said three to five pens could be completed on the Ladder Ranch by the end of the year. The pens, each one-third to one-half acre, would be designed to breed wolves for possible release into the wild or to house wolves that have been recaptured for some reason. Turner hired Phillips to promote conservation on the media mogul's properties, which include three ranches in New Mexico. Phillips oversaw the release of Canadian gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park during the past 2 1/2 years. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt earlier this year approved the eventual reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf on public land in Arizona and New Mexico. Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:10:11 +0800 (SST) From: Vadivu Govind <kuma@cyberway.com.sg> To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (SG) Mac-perks for hospital Message-ID: <199707160910.RAA19924@eastgate.cyberway.com.sg> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Singapore: >The Straits Times JUL 16 1997 Mac-perks for hospital TUMINAH SAPAWI MENTION a stay in hospital and a child is likely to cringe in fear. But tell him that McDonald's will be there and his eyes will surely light up and all fear of needles will most likely be erased. This is what McDonald's hopes to achieve at the Kandang Kerbau Women's and Children's Hospital, where colourful murals adorn the walls of the Day Therapy and Diagnostic Imaging deparments. The life-sized illustrations of animals are aptly named Ronald McDonald Enchanted Forest and Ronald McDonald Zoo Adventure. Miss Fanny Lai, director of marketing of McDonald's restaurants, says: "Livening up the wards is one of the ways to help minimise what may otherwise be a frightening experience for some. "For the Day Therapy room, we chose Ronald McDonald Enchanted Forest as we wanted to capture the element of magic in a child's imagination. "The Diagnostic Imaging department has the latter, to convey the element of sunshine and fun. By livening up the rooms with the zoo concept, we certainly hope to make the rooms less sterile." Dr June Lou, clinical head and senior consultant (paediatrics) at KK Hospital, agrees: "For a child to be hospitalised, it can be a traumatic experience as he is in an unfamiliar environment. "By enhancing the physical environment to make it friendly and cheerful, it will help him to feel at ease when seeking medical treatment and take his mind away from his illness. This will help contribute to the overall recovery of the child." Besides the murals, McDonald's has also sponsored specially-produced admission kits for the children's wards at the hospital. Each Healing Through Happiness admission kit contains an assortment of items including a plush toy and toiletries. Packaged in a colourful box with recognisable McDonaldland characters, the kits are aimed at lifting the spirits of young patients. Another of the fast-food chain's efforts towards making a hospital stay less unpleasant for children is their McCare programme, in which McDonald's staff and crew organise regular visits to the children's wards at the National University Hospital to organise games and activities. For some kids, however, the murals alone are not good enough. "They're fun to look at. But maybe McDonald's should think of opening their outlets at the hospitals. That would be more fun," said 10-year-old Kenneth Yeo, who was visiting his sick cousin at KK Hospital, when asked what he thought of the mural. Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:10:18 +0800 (SST) From: Vadivu Govind <kuma@cyberway.com.sg> To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (MY) Two tiger cubs saved from brink of starvation Message-ID: <199707160910.RAA18884@eastgate.cyberway.com.sg> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The Star Online Wednesday, 16 July, 1997 Two tiger cubs saved from brink of starvation By Syed Azhar KUANTAN: Two three-month-old male tiger cubs on the brink of starvation were found by several Indonesian plantation workers in an oil palm plantation at Gambang here on Sunday. The cubs wolfed down a chicken each in under five minutes after they were captured and taken to the plantation office, said estate supervisor Chan Teck Ngoh. "The cubs were so hungry that they continued eating for at least one hour and lapped up two bowls of water," said Chan, 52. One of the workers, who only wanted to be known as Marsini, stumbled upon the cubs while looking for a branch to tie up a broken sprayer. "While I was looking for the branch in the belukar at about 10am, I heard growls from among the bushes and saw the cubs huddled together. "I quickly ran away as I was afraid that their mother could be nearby," said Marsini, 19, adding that he went back with his co-workers after making sure the mother was not around. "We organised ourselves into two groups and set out to capture the cubs," he said at the AI plantation site office here yesterday. Marsini said they had to use a palm oil frond to lure the 20kg cubs out. "It took us at least 30 minutes to capture the cubs and we were lucky as they were too weak to give any resistance apart from the occasional growl," he added. The cubs were then brought to the plantation's main office about 1km away and kept in separate cages. After ensuring the cubs had not been injured, Chan said he alerted plantation owner Tee Keng Sing, who then attempted to call the Wildlife Department in Temerloh on the same day. However, Tee only succeeded in getting through on Monday, and five officers from the department came to check on the condition of the cubs yesterday. According to one of the Wildlife Department officers, Shamsudin Darus, the cubs were still suckling. He said the cubs were of the Panthera tigris species, also known as the Malayan tiger. They were taken to the Malacca Zoo yesterday. Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:10:23 +0800 (SST) From: Vadivu Govind <kuma@cyberway.com.sg> To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (MY) Animal beauty contests Message-ID: <199707160910.RAA12382@eastgate.cyberway.com.sg> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >The Star Online Wednesday, July 16, 1997 Looking for beauty among the beasts ALOR STAR: A national-level animal beauty contest is likely to be organised this year following Tan Sri Sanusi Junid's plan to hold a state-level contest next week as an alternative to beauty pageants. State executive councillor Ahmad Lebai Sudin said Kedah would hold its first animal beauty contest on July 24, adding winners stood a chance to represent the state at the national-level contest to be held later. Ahmad said the state-level contest, to be held in conjunction with Farmers Day celebrations here at the Pokok Sena Agro-Tech Exhibition site, would see dozens of "beauties" vying for cash prizes totalling RM10,000, trophies and certificates. Among the categories are locally bred and artificially inseminated cattle and goat and poultry. "Animals which are well-trained and obey the command of their owners will receive bonus points," he added. The three-day celebrations will also see the revival of the coconut tree climbing competition ù another of Sanusi's "pet projects" when he was agriculture minister. Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:10:36 +0800 (SST) From: Vadivu Govind <kuma@cyberway.com.sg> To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (HK) Aquarium fish in hot water Message-ID: <199707160910.RAA20348@eastgate.cyberway.com.sg> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >South China Morning Post Wednesday July 16 1997 Aquarium fish in hot water ALEX LO Faulty aquarium appliances can cook your fish and start a fire, the Consumer Council warned yesterday. They cause an average of one fire every three days, according to Fire Services Department statistics. In a survey of 33 electrical air and water pumps and fluorescent lamps for tanks, the council found only five met international safety standards. "Our tests affirm the fire hazard these accessories pose to users. They can also cause electric shocks when users come in contact with water," the council's Dr Michael Tsui Fuk-sun said. He added that 27 samples tested had cords, plugs, fuses and thermostats wrongly wired or designed. Nine had sub-standard power supply cords. The council had two complaints this year. One claimed a device used to regulate aquarium water temperature had overheated and cooked the fish. The council also called on owners of 120,000 unsafe air-conditioners in public housing estates to fix them. Date: Wed Jul 16 06:27:08 1997 From: Michael Garner <GAP@envirolink.org> To: ar-news@envirolink.org Cc: gap@envirolink.org Subject: Great Ape Project WWW Update Message-ID: <199707161027.GAA11333@envirolink.org> Dear AR people, The Great Ape Project's WWW pages have moved to: http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/gap/gaphome.html The pages are updated regularly. Comments and questions to gap@envirolink.org are welcome. Regards, David Pearson GAP-UK Coordinator. --- The Great Ape Project Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 07:32:54 -0400 From: allen schubert <alathome@clark.net> To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (US) Olestra snack chips draw more consumer complaints Message-ID: <199707161054.GAA12490@envirolink.org> Of interest for reasons of health and those against P&G.... from CNN web page: ----------------------------------- Olestra snack chips draw more consumer complaints July 15, 1997 =20 Web posted at: 10:36 a.m. EDT (1436 GMT) From Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen (CNN) -- Food companies in the United States are preparing to go nationwide with snack chips made with the fat substitute olestra. But ahead of the sales campaign there have been more complaints by consumers that these chips cause severe stomach problems. Recent documents from the Food and Drug Administration show that more than 800 consumers have called in to complain that they got sick from chips made with olestra. One woman said she suffered from cramps about two hours after eating a one ounce bag of olestra chips, and that the snack caused severe diarrhea. A man complained of severe abdominal cramps. "After about one hour of eating ... I could hardly walk," he said. And another consumer reported that he woke up in the middle of the night with severe cramps and was unable to make it to the bathroom. Some scientists say they are not surprised by the number of complaints about olestra. Dr. Meir Stampfer of the Harvard School of Public Health says olestra works in such a way that it passes right through a person's gastrointestinal tract. Stampfer said the FDA should take snacks made with olestra off the market. So far the olestra snacks have been available only in test markets in Ohio, Indiana and Colorado. "It's causing these gastrointestinal "It's causing these problems, it's a mistake gastrointestinal to let it go into our problems, it's a food supply and they mistake to let it go should admit the mistake into our food supply and just remove it," and they should admit Stampfer said. the mistake and just just remove it." The FDA declined to comment. However, Procter =97 Dr. Meir Stampfer & Gamble, which makes olestra, said 800 complaints were not much considering that millions of people had eaten the chips. "It's important to understand this is a very low rate of response, it's less than 0.01 percent," said the company's Greg Allgood. Allgood said olestra chips were very popular in the snack market. "Most people tell us this is a product that works for them and they really enjoy," he said. Procter & Gamble also asked some of the people who complained about the chips to try them again. The company claimed that when people did eat them again, they felt no different than when they ate regular chips. The olestra manufacturer now hopes to take the chips nationwide sometime next year. But one consumer group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said it will try to make sure that won't happen. It has set up its own toll-free line (1-888-OLESTRA) and said it has received 800 additional complaints. (US) Olestra snack chips draw more consumer complaints Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:10:23 +0800 (SST) From: Vadivu Govind <kuma@cyberway.com.sg> To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (MY) Animal beauty contests Message-ID: <199707161054.GAA12492@envirolink.org> >The Star Online Wednesday, July 16, 1997=20 Looking for beauty among the beasts ALOR STAR: A national-level animal beauty contest is likely to be organised this year following Tan Sri Sanusi Junid's plan to hold a state-level contest next week as an alternative to beauty pageants.=20 State executive councillor Ahmad Lebai Sudin said Kedah would hold its first animal beauty contest on July 24, adding winners stood a chance to represent the state at the national-level contest to be held later.=20 Ahmad said the state-level contest, to be held in conjunction with Farmers Day celebrations here at the Pokok Sena Agro-Tech Exhibition site, would see dozens of "beauties" vying for cash prizes totalling RM10,000, trophies and certificates.=20 Among the categories are locally bred and artificially inseminated cattle and goat and poultry.=20 "Animals which are well-trained and obey the command of their owners will receive bonus points," he added.=20 The three-day celebrations will also see the revival of the coconut tree climbing competition =97 another of Sanusi's "pet projects" when he was agriculture minister.=20 (MY) Animal beauty contests Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 07:39:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Jean Colison <jcolison@CapAccess.org> To: Ar-news <ar-news@envirolink.org> Subject: Conflict Between Creatures Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91-FP.970716073620.1829B-100000@cap1.capaccess.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII (don't miss last sentence) A Conflict Between Creatures As Humans Move Into Predators' Habitat, Both May Be Under Attack By Tom Kenworthy Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 13, 1997; Page A01 The Washington Post DENVERùMoses Street, a photographer from Estes Park, Colo., was jogging near dusk on a popular trail in Rocky Mountain National Park in the fall of 1995 when, by chance or instinct, he glanced over his shoulder and felt a stab of primal fear few humans ever experience. A cougar was directly behind him, on its hind legs, in the final stage of attack. Waving his arms and yelling, Street managed to get the cougar to back off. He fended off a second approach with a large tree branch. He climbed atop the ruins of an old cabin and warded the lion off a third time by again swinging the branch. Street then scurried up a tree and hunkered down for a frigid overnight, dressed only in a T-shirt and running shorts. In the dead of night, the mountain lion began climbing the tree. "I could just hear him," Street said. "If you've ever heard a squirrel scramble up a tree, magnify that. He'd put a claw in and there would be a crunch." Swinging blindly with his branch, Street hit the lion and it retreated. Park rangers, called by Street's girlfriend when he failed to return from his jog, came to his rescue about 2 a.m. Street's encounter is part of a growing phenomenon, involving not just mountain lions here along the front range of the Rocky Mountains, but other large predators such as bears, alligators and wolves in numerous areas throughout the nation. With hunting on the decline and prey species such as deer on the increase, with the success of wildlife conservation programs, and with more people moving into once-remote areas, humans and large, potentially dangerous, predators are seeing a lot more of each other. Sometimes there are frightening and costly results: In Florida, alligator attacks on humans are becoming more common, as the once-endangered reptile has bounced back from near extinction, and the state's burgeoning human population encroaches on its habitat. Although there have been only eight fatal attacks in the last half century, three of them have come in the last four years, including the death in March of 3-year-old Adam Binford, who was snatched by an 11-foot alligator while wading in the shallow waters of a placid lake to pick a water lily for his mother. Fatal attacks by cougars are also on the increase. A study by Northern Arizona University wildlife ecologist Paul Beier found that there were more fatal attacks (five in all) by cougars on humans from 1970 to 1990 than there were in the previous 80 years. And that study was completed before a fatal attack in 1991 on a Colorado jogger and two more fatal attacks in California in 1994. Wolf conservation efforts in the upper Midwest have been so successful that an animal once hounded to near extinction by government bounty programs is now taking up residence close to major metropolitan areas, with an accompanying toll on domestic pets and livestock. Aided by government restoration programs, wolves are also beginning to thrive again in the northern Rockies and are occasionally preying on cattle and sheep. "Critters are showing up where they didn't used to show up," said Bill Berg, a wildlife biologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. "And it's because they're adapting more and more -- to people, to highways, to new ways of life." People, however, are not always adapting so readily to predators in their midst. When William J. Elder moved from Omaha to an upscale foothills community a half hour west of Denver, he was attracted by the magnificent views of the Continental Divide and by the abundant wildlife, including mule deer and elk. Nobody warned him about the mountain lions frequenting the back yards of $500,000 homes. Out walking early one morning in a light snow, the 42-year-old attorney was beginning a second loop around his neighborhood when he saw fresh mountain lion tracks -- following right behind the footprints he had left on his first lap. Turning to Bill Anderson, his walking companion that morning, Elder said: "I don't know about you, Anderson, but I'm heading home." As a parent of young children, Elder became even more concerned when an 18-year-old high school senior was killed by a cougar while running in Idaho Springs, just 15 miles from Elder's house. Elder bought a handgun for protection, but gave it up after his first trip to the firing range when a badly aimed shot ricocheted into his leg. Perplexed that both his neighborhood association and state officials seemed more interested in the lions' welfare than in his and his children's, Elder fired off an angry letter to the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "Remove this beast from my community," Elder pleaded. "I am unable to see any benefits whatsoever that this animal confers upon my community or upon the ecosystem where I live." To Colorado wildlife officials, it was a familiar refrain. "Every time we get a new influx of people, a new development and people moving in from out of state, we go through it again," said Bob Davies, a wildlife biologist for Colorado's Division of Wildlife. "Basically they freak out and they want something done immediately." More often than not, the animal loses. Late last month, a 175-pound black bear had to be shot after breaking into as many as 10 houses in Douglas County, Colo., south of Denver. The bear was destroyed by sheriff's deputies shortly after emerging from one home with a tortilla dangling from its mouth. Bear populations, and complaints about nuisance bears, are also on the rise in Virginia and Maryland. Forty years ago there were estimated to be only a dozen black bears in western Maryland; today there are roughly 200. Virginia, with more suitable habitat, has a bear population of about 3,500. In the Southwest, coyote attacks on humans are occurring more frequently as the coyote population grows and communities expand into the desert. In April the Arizona Game and Fish Department shot two coyotes after two boys were bitten in Scottsdale, and in February a 4-year-old girl sustained more than 30 cuts and puncture wounds from a coyote attack in South Lake Tahoe. In Florida, where 1,000 people a day move into the state, officials are struggling with demands for immediate action as people and alligators compete for shrinking wetland habitat. Wildlife officials estimate the state is now home to about a million adult alligators, a tribute to the success of the federal Endangered Species Act and state-sponsored conservation programs. More gators and more people have meant more conflict. Alligators are attacking people about 18 times a year in the 1990s, double the rate of the previous decade. With large, sometimes menacing alligators showing up in backyard ponds, swimming pools, and even pushing through screen doors, the state is fielding about 15,000 "remove this alligator" calls a year. Under contract to the state, trappers round up and kill about 4,000 problem alligators a year. "When I was a kid, an alligator would occasionally wander into town," said Henry Cabbage, of the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission. "Now the town is wandering into alligator habitat. New residents who move to Florida are unfamiliar with alligators, so they buy a house in a subdivision with a retention pond. An alligator moves in, the residents name him old Joe and toss him chicken parts because it's fun to watch him eat. So a 12-foot alligator with a brain the size of a thumb starts associating people with food. Pretty soon it's going to eat a dog or attack a child." An alligator who had lost its natural fear of humans may have been responsible for an incident last July, when a 7-year-old Brazilian boy was attacked when he tumbled off his rented bicycle and into a canal in Everglades National Park. The alligator relinquished his grip on Alexandre Teixeira only after the boy's mother and father rushed to his aid, grabbing the alligator by the snout and pushing on its mouth. "I took the mouth in my hand," said Helio Teixeira a few days after the incident. "I tried to open it, but it was impossible. So I tried just to keep it from moving." His wife, Maria Teixeira, then joined the dramatic struggle for their son. "I put my hand inside the gator's mouth," she told the Miami Herald. "I wanted to try and open it so it would let go of my son. I felt the alligator press down one time on Alexandre, then suddenly release its jaw. And his mouth opened." Wolves don't often attack humans, but in the northern Rocky Mountain states of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, sheep and cattle are once again being preyed upon, as natural migrations from Canada and government-sponsored reintroduction programs return wolves to areas they have not inhabited for decades. For most of this century, the federal government did everything it could to eradicate wolves: Thousands were poisoned, shot and trapped until the species was extirpated from the West. Now the government has reversed course. It has reintroduced red wolves into the Southeast, gray wolf packs into central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park and as early as next year will put another sub-species, Mexican wolves, into the Southwest. At the same time, Canadian wolves have been migrating on their own into northwestern Montana, and at least 10 packs of these immigrant wolves are thriving as far south as Missoula. Western ranchers are generally not happy about it, but in some cases they are learning new ways to co-exist. In February, for example, a transient wolf began preying on sheep on Bill Mayo's Boulder, Wyo., ranch. He called the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for assistance, but when the agency was slow in responding, Mayo dealt with the predator himself, and not in the time-honored rancher way. With his neighbor driving, Mayo roped the wolf from a speeding snowmobile, put it in a horse trailer and waited for Fish and Wildlife Service agents to arrive to transport it for release in Yellowstone National Park. An environmental group, Defenders of Wildlife, paid him $690 for his dead sheep, a payment Mayo appreciates but says does not cover the cost of other sheep that ran away in terror and were never seen again. Mayo says he has no real problem with wolf reintroduction as long as federal wildlife officials can keep them in Yellowstone and deal promptly with those that wander. "We will be able to cope to a degree," he said, "but if wolves spread out and hit all my neighbors and kill our sheep, our cattle and our horses, then we will have to figure out" how to deal with it. Western ranchers can envision their future by looking east, to Minnesota, where there are now as many as 2,500 wolves and where biologists expect enough dispersal into Michigan and Wisconsin by 1999 to remove the regional population from the endangered species list. Minnesota pays out $40,000 to $65,000 a year in compensation for wolf-killed livestock, and federal animal control officers track and destroy 140 to 170 problem wolves a year in the upper Midwest. Experts like Berg of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources are astonished at how wolves have adapted to civilization, living in one case within a couple of hundred yards of Interstate 94 west of Madison, Wis., and in another, within an hour's drive of St. Paul, Minn. "Twenty to 25 years ago, we were looking at wolves as just being residents of the pristine wilderness," Berg said. "Now we have wolves 100 miles out into the prairie and into central Minnesota where we didn't ever think they would go." The very success of wolf conservation programs is now presenting wildlife managers with a new dilemma that is likely to grow worse if state officials in Minnesota opt to open a wolf-hunting season once the animal is fully recovered. Having fought to overcome those who revile the wolf, biologists must now deal with a phenomenon that noted wolf researcher L. David Mech calls "wolf protectionism." "Those of us professionally involved with wolf recovery have traditionally been maligned by anti-wolf people," Mech wrote recently in the periodical Conservation Biology. "Now we are vilified by many wolf lovers as wolf enemies because of our acknowledgment that wolves often require control." Rich Clough, a regional supervisor for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, faces the same conflicting pressures in managing the burgeoning mountain lion population around Missoula, a small university city where cougars and bears frequently wander into residential areas. To lessen the chance of cougar attacks on people near Missoula, wildlife officials have eased hunting regulations and aggressively trapped lions that wander into town. That has eased the fears of many residents -- but angered others. Not long ago, Clough was out with his lion-hunting dogs trying to capture a cougar adjacent to the married-student housing complex at the University of Montana when an irate cougar lover stormed out of his house waving a pistol. "You have both sides of the issue within 100 feet of each other," Clough said. "It's making management more difficult." Street, the Colorado photographer who narrowly escaped a cougar attack in 1995, understands that mixture of feelings all too well. Fearful after his experience, Street no longer jogs on isolated trails, and he only recently worked up the nerve to hike again in Colorado's back country. Still, he feels enriched by his encounter, and he's more adamant than ever about preserving wilderness. "It was so neat to have been part of something wild," he said. "It was a near-death experience, a kind of spiritual experience." Not only should Colorado wildlife officials resist pressure to remove cougars from inhabited areas, Street said, but they "should be shooting the people building the houses instead." Special correspondent William Souder contributed to this report. @CAPTION: Police spotted a six-foot-long alligator, above, off Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and coaxed it to shore with help from beachgoers. Rangers posted sign at left after Moses Street was chased by a mountain lion while jogging in Estes Park, Colo. @CAPTION: Fish and Game wardens Mike Conely, left, and Mark Jeter bag a dead mountain lion behind a home in Valencia, Calif. @CAPTION: Mary Avila, of Albuquerque, and Sheryl Colyer, of Washington, check out a five-foot alligator captured on fifth green at Miami Shores Golf Course in Miami. ⌐Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 07:01:00 UTC From: SDURBIN@VM.TULSA.CC.OK.US To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: Dog Is Considered Personal Property: No Animal Cruelty Charges Filed Message-ID: <199707161207.IAA16172@envirolink.org> (Tulsa World, Tulsa, OK, USA): Because a dead dog is considered the personal property of its owner, the man who killed a pit bulldog and then beheaded it will be charged not with animal cruelty for the beheading, but with malicious mischief, the city prosecutor has decided. Riley Johnson, 38, was defending himself when he shot two pit bulldogs in his yard on June 30, City Prosecutor Patrick Boulden said. But he will face a charge of malicious mischief for beheading one of the dogs after it died. "A dog is considered personal property," he said. "When he cut the dog's head off, he damaged someone's property." Johnson's arraignment on the misdeameanor charge, which carries a maximum penalty of $500 and 90 days in jail, is set for 8:30 a.m. Wed. He has said he will fight any charges brought against him. The dogs' owners, Rodney and Cynde Payton, have until Wednesday to pay a $60 fine or plead not guilty to a charge of having dogs at large. Animal Control Officers focused on the shootings throughout the investigation. The beheading was done after the dog died and therefore can't be considered animal cruelty, he said. When the case was forwarded to the City Prosecutor's Office, no evidence existed to support an animal cruelty charge, so the charge was amended to malicious mischief. The District Attorney's Office can pursue felony animal cruely charges in extreme cases, Boulden said. Rodney Payton has said he will file a civil suit against Johnson. -- Sherrill Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 14:15:39 -0400 (EDT) From: MINKLIB@aol.com To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: Hunters Prepare Their Own Ballot Initiatives Message-ID: <970716141426_-157491206@emout10.mail.aol.com> >From the Wildlife Legislative Fund of America home page: WLFA Embarks on Ambitious Constitutional Amendment Campaign The Wildlife Legislative Fund of America has launched a major offensive to protect sportsmen's rights and to prevent the escalating use of the voter initiative process to dictate wildlife management policy. WLFA wildlife law specialists have drafted a prototype constitutional amendment to be used as a model for states wishing to protect sportsmen and women from ballot box game management. Since 1990, anti-hunting ballot initiatives have been brought forth 13 times, with sportsmen proving victorious on only three occasions. In the past 20 years, hunting and wildlife management issues have been decided by popular vote 18 times. Last year alone accounted for eight. It is obvious that this serious trend will continue unless something is done to stop, or impede, the momentum of the anti-hunting organizations. Last year, these groups pumped more than $4 million into eight states, eliminating hunting privileges and overruling state wildlife agencies. Currently, the ballot initiative process may be used to determine wildlife issues in 24 states. "Sportsmen must take the offensive in these 24 states," said WLFA vice president, Rick Story. Story recently outlined the WLFA effort and model language before the nation's sporting journalists at the annual conference of the Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA). "Wildlife management by public whim is wrong because it takes wildlife professionals and elected officials out of the picture," Story said. "It is therefore wasteful and not in keeping with either the American system of democracy or the best tenets of wildlife management." On the heels of the 1996 initiative assault, sportsmen's coalitions and legislators in several citizen initiative states began to look toward constitutional amendments for protection. Though initial efforts proved unsuccessful in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming for varied reasons, the WLFA is confident the concept is valid and the tack is achievable. In Michigan, amendment legislation is pending in House Committee, while Colorado, Idaho and several other states have shown interest in introducing new wording in the next legislative session. Understanding that the needs to protect sportsmen's pursuits are unique in every state, the model is designed to adapt to the drafting requirements and needs of any one of the 24 initiative states. "Our plan is to circulate this proposed language to sportsmen, wildlife agencies and interested lawmakers and to work with anyone who seriously wants to end emotionally-driven, citizen-initiated ballot issues about wildlife," Story said. In the late 1980s, The WLFA similarly provided states with hunter harassment bill language which was used as a model for legislation. As a result, today hunters in all 50 states are protected from harassment while afield. WLFA Model Constitutional Amendment Draft The state of ______'s fish and wildlife belong to the people and shall be utilized and maintained on a sustained yield basis. Laws shall be passed to provide for the conservation of the fish and wildlife resources of the state, including laws to empower an agency specializing in the study, protection, use, and scientific management of fish and wildlife and their habitat. Such laws, and such agency, shall not permit any taking which will reduce the population of any species authorized for taking as a game species below that level essential to its continued health and existence. No laws or regulations which permit, limit, or prohibit that taking of any species of fish and wildlife shall be valid, except laws enacted by the General Assembly and regulation adopted by the agency specializing in the study, protection, use, and scientific management of fish and wildlife and their habitat. Notwithstanding the provisions of (insert appropriate section(s) of state constitution), the initiative and referendum shall not be used to enact or reject any laws which permit, limit, or prohibit the taking of any species of fish and wildlife. Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 15:44:54 -0000 From: shadowrunner@voyager.net To: <ar-news@envirolink.org> Subject: All cotton wearers take notice Message-ID: <199707161942.PAA28177@vixa.voyager.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" 100-YEAR FIGHT WITH BOLL WEEVIL TAKES BIG STEP FORWARD ABILENE, Texas, July 14, 1997--The long-running battle with the boll weevil, a tiny creature that has played havoc with American cotton crops since before the turn of the century, took a major step forward today with the approval of U.S. Department of Agriculture funding from a new loan program for the expanding boll weevil eradication effort in Texas. "This assistance, along with the efforts of the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation and our other partners at the Texas Farm Credit Bank, the National Cotton Council and the State of Texas, brings us closer to saying goodbye to one of the most persistent threats ever to a major segment of our farm economy," said Randy Weber, Associate Administrator of USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA). "A lot of credit is also due to Rep. Charles Stenholm for his continuing interest and strong support." Carolyn Cooksie, FSA Deputy Administrator for Farm Loan Programs, also stressed the importance of the program: "Because weevil eradication means a great deal to cotton producers, it is a very high priority for the FSA. In a few months, the agency developed a loan program from scratch to support the eradication foundations. Ordinarily, a complex project like this could take a year or more, but the FSA farm loan staff really pushed themselves to the limit to implement this program in time to keep the eradication efforts going in 1997." Weber said that "when this undertaking in Texas is completed, it will mark the end of a journey begun as a trial in 1978 in Virginia and North Carolina in a cooperative State-Federal-Industry effort to finally remove the boll weevil as a threat to cotton growers. In those 19 years, the boll weevil has been systematically eliminated in many cotton-growing regions of the United States, including both coasts and part of Mexico." Added Bill Grefenstette, senior operations officer for UDSA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service: "We have been working with the cotton growing community for years, and it's exciting to see that we now have in the loan program a financial mechanism that allows the program to be more affordable to growers...a mechanism that helps bring the cost of the program more in line with the realities of their cash flow." Weber, Cooksie, and Grefenstette were in Abilene to help put the final touches on a $25 million loan to keep the eradication program moving forward in Texas. The loan will be used for term debt financing and allow the Farm Credit Bank to provide a line of credit to meet the foundation's operating needs. USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has provided about $9 million this fiscal year to assist eradication efforts. The eradication program relies primarily on a combination of intensive trapping and careful spraying to eliminate the cotton-eating beetles. Since the program began, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, most of Alabama, central Tennessee, California, Arizona and adjacent areas of Mexico have completed the eradication program. Only the mid-South, Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma are left, with grower referenda scheduled in several large areas this fall. Once eradication is completed, the need for pesticides is drastically reduced. The boll weevil originally found its way into the United States from Mexico around 1892. Costing producers over $ 12 billion over the years, it resisted all attempts to get rid of it until the current program began moving across the Cotton Belt in 1978. Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 16:33:15 -0700 From: Lawrence Carter-Long <LCartLng@gvn.net> To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: Sympathetic Fur Story on MSNBC's WWW Site Message-ID: <33CD5A3B.29A1@mail-1.gvn.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Check it out at: http://www.msnbc.com/news/84222.asp Nice Links too!!! Lawrence Carter-Long Coordinator, Science and Research Issues Animal Protection Institute phone: 916-731-5521 LCartLng@gvn.net "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." - Galbraith's Law Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 22:28:54 -0700 From: Sean Thomas <sean.thomas1@sympatico.ca> To: ar-news@envirolink.com Subject: No More Monkey Business for Health Canada Message-ID: <33CDAD96.1694@sympatico.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name="Monkey fate.htm" Content-Disposition: inline; filename="Monkey fate.htm" Ottawa Citizen Hit reload or refresh if you're not getting today's Online date. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Image] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Image] [Image] [Image] [Image] National Highlights [Image]National News [Image]Across Canada [Image]News in Depth FRONT PAGE | CITY | SPORTS | BUSINESS | NATIONAL | WORLD | EDITORIALS ENTERTAINMENT | YOUR MONEY | INTERNET | COLUMNISTS | CLASSIFIED [National - Ottawa Citizen Online] Wednesday 16 July 1997 Monkeys in the middle Research colony could join victims of federal downsizing Randy Boswell and Chris Cobb The Ottawa Citizen A Royal Society panel Wayne Cuddington, The of scientists and philosophers has been Ottawa Citizen / Bred for appointed to consider research, these monkeys face an the fate of Canada's uncertain fate in an era of only colony of budget cuts and animal-rights research monkeys -- activism. 750 long-tailed macaques that live at a breeding centre and in laboratories throughout the Health Canada compound at Tunney's Pasture. The animals, offspring of an original brood brought to Canada from the Philippines in 1983, have been used for research into AIDS and herpes, to screen polio vaccines and probe the effects of ingesting chemicals ranging from PCBs to caffeine. Many of their forebears were sacrificed to high-profile studies that contributed to banning lead from gasoline, and the colony was recently described in an internal Health Canada report as "unique in the world" because its complete genetic history is known for two generations and its members are free of a herpes virus that taints many of the research primates in North America. Now they are monkeys in the middle of organizational upheaval at Health Canada, a federal department plagued by deep budget cuts and a recent clash over political meddling in scientific research. The inquiry into the colony -- which could be maintained as is, sold off or privatized -- emerges as Health Canada confronts its own uncertain future as a national centre for health testing and research. "With these animals, we know everything about them," said one senior Health Canada scientist, whose research career in environmental contaminants has been built around projects involving the monkeys. The scientist, who asked not to be identified, said having an in-house colony of monkeys means "the logistics are dramatically reduced" for research projects that would otherwise depend on imported animals with unknown family histories and possibly carrying viruses. The monkeys cost Health Canada about $1 million a year to maintain. Pierre Thibert, chief of the Animal Resources Division at Health Canada, said yesterday that because of budget cuts the primate colony is in financial crisis. Researchers who use the monkeys must now pay a per diem of about $17 -- a cost which is straining other budgets and in some cases pricing the monkeys out of the research market for government scientists. Thibert said the review will be key to the colony's future but restructuring of some kind is inevitable. The research with the monkeys is vital whether conducted by Health Canada, a university or private industry, he added. "If the Royal Society decides there is a need for a monkey colony to protect the health of Canadians then there has to be a certain input by the government," said Mr. Thibert. "It would be a shame to lose such expertise. We have one of the best research centres in Canada with excellent personnel and an exceptional quality of care. We have to adjust but there will be a future, hopefully, for the animal resources division." Among the many issues at play is the ethics of breeding hundreds of fellow primates, in captivity, to serve purely human interests. "In my mind, the first criteria the panel will have to weigh is the question of animal welfare," says Queen's University professor William Leiss, head of the Royal Society of Canada committee that agreed to strike the expert panel at the behest of Health Canada. "The second question we need to ask is whether we have a need for the colony that the public would support, whether there are benefits to human health we can't otherwise get," said Mr. Leiss. "And then there's the question of who's going to pay for it." A technician in the department's health protection branch, who also asked not to be identified, said the fact that the colony operation faces possible closure reflects "decisions being made from an economic point of view rather than a public health perspective." He added that if the federal government divests itself of the colony "we're going to be relying on foreign research." Steven Gilbert -- a former Health Canada researcher who continues to collaborate on studies involving the Ottawa monkeys from his current post as president Biosupport Inc. in Redmond, Washington -- says the colony "has made an unbelievable contribution to understanding the effects of lead, mercury, caffeine" and other substances. But he acknowledged that unlike some American colonies which can be housed year-round in outdoor pens, bitter Ottawa winters mean the monkeys must be kept inside in more expensive surroundings. In the States there are seven major research colonies, all attached to universities but largely funded by the U.S. government. Monkeys in the U.S. are used mostly for AIDS research. Significantly, says Mr. Leiss, two of the five Royal Society panelists who will examine the local colony's future -- philosophy professor Conrad Brunk from the University of Waterloo and professor of applied ethics Michael McDonald from the University of British Columbia -- are not scientists. "I think it suggests that some of the ethical issues involved in animal research are part of the agenda," says Mr. Brunk, named chairman of the panel. "I don't think you want only scientists involved when some of the issues could be political and ethical." Others on the panel are: Dr. Albert Clark, a biochemistry professor at Queen's University and director of research at the Kingston General Hospital; Dr. Andrew Hendrickx, director of the California Regional Primate Research Center; and Dr. Michel Klein, vice-president of research at vaccine manufacturer Pasteur MÄrieux Connaught Canada in Toronto. Three years ago there were 1,200 monkeys in the Health Canada colony but some were sold to private companies or universities. Monkeys sell for between $1,000 and $4,000, depending on their state of maturity, and monkeys in their reproductive prime are the most expensive. (Health Canada has some 8,000 research animals, mostly mice and rats, down from 25,000 a few years ago. They are all at Tunney's Pasture). Monkey research is declining everywhere, noted Thibert, largely because of the expense of keeping the animals and because scientists have grown tired of criticism from animal rights activists. One of those activists, Stephanie Brown of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, was recently part of a Health Canada committee that examined the entire Animal Resources Division. She says she's concerned that the Royal Society -- rather than a multi-stakeholder group including animal welfare activists -- was asked for specific recommendations on the colony's future. "I fear that there are no animal protectionists (on the panel)," said Ms. Brown, who has called for the closure of the colony in the past and recently urged that a jungle-like "sanctuary" be created for older monkeys that have "given their due" to medical research and deserve at least as much compassion as "an old horse being put out to pasture." Ms. Brown conducted inspections of the monkey colony in the past and once criticized cages as too sterile, crowded and boring. She says the colony's living conditions have improved since a move to larger pens and "group housing" arrangements in which the monkeys appear more relaxed and "breed like crazy." But the changes haven't altered the federation's basic view that monkeys shouldn't be used for scientific research. "If a lot of the research is ending at Health Canada, then there's even less reason to keep the colony." The report from the Royal Society panel, expected by November, will cost about $70,000 and be made public. It will not be binding on Health Canada. "Our role is to determine the most preferable option," said Mr. Leiss, "and although it isn't binding, I expect Health Canada to take it very seriously." The Royal Society is also inviting submissions from the public to its Expert Panel on the Primate Colony at fax number 613-991-6996 or mailing address 225 Metcalfe St., Suite 308, Ottawa, Ont. K2P 1P9. FRONT PAGE | CITY | SPORTS | BUSINESS | NATIONAL | WORLD | EDITORIALS ENTERTAINMENT | YOUR MONEY | INTERNET | COLUMNISTS | CLASSIFIED Praise or criticism? 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