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A lawsuit brought by the British group Breach Marine Protection and
Australians for Animals may prevent the pro-whaling faction of the Makah Indian Nation from legally killing their quota of gray whales this fall but the outcome is unknown.  If it fails:

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society will lead a flotilla of private boats to prevent the Makah from killing.  This will entail a major commitment of individuals keeping watch over Neah Bay and being ready to set off at a moment's notice.  A Makah representative recently went to Japan to meet with that country's illegal whalers, hardly a "traditional" Makah custom.  Donations to Sea Shepherd at this time would help enable the volunteers to concentrate on protecting the whales.  Address:
PO Box 628  Venice CA 90294.

Seven nations sign pact to prevent dolphin mortality.  Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela and the United States have agreed that fishing boats under a certain size will not set their tuna nets on dolphins.  Larger vessels will each have an observer on board and a set of regulations to spare dolphins from drowning in the nets.  A limit of 5,000 dolphin deaths per year was established.  The US will lift its embargo against buying tuna from all nations that sign the agreement.  While this is a very positive step in the right direction, there is still the possible threat of some non-signing nation lodging a complaint with the World Trade Organization and an unfavorable decision from its appointed panel.

Hawaiian monk seals, among the most endangered of marine mammals, continue to decline in number.  Their present population is estimated at 1,400, about half what it was in the 1950's.  Last year researchers counted 97 pups at the prime breeding ground, but 63 had later disappeared and were presumed dead.  Premature weaning, often caused by human disturbances, is thought to be the cause of this high infant mortality.  Ocean debris, particularly fishing nets, is a major mortality factor.  Biologists also blame human overfishing of lobsters, a staple in this seal's diet, for contributing to the decline in population.  The expansion of a naval airbase in the 1950's eliminated one colony and another colony declined after a Coastguard station was built nearby in 1960.  The Navy released a draft environmental impact study in April that outlined potential disturbances from construction, troop landing exercises, low-flying aircraft and missile launches.  All this in addition to the low frequency sonar tests.  Nevertheless, Lt. Comdr. Rod Gibbons claims the Navy is not going to do anything to harm an endangered species.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society puts Newfoundland Fisheries Minister on notice to stay within the law.  The minister, John Efford, has announced his desire to go outside the law and kill several million seals in a misguided effort to restore the decimated cod population despite the fact that studies have shown cod to be only an incidental item on the seal diet.  Next to humans, other predatory fish are the main consumers of cod.  Ironically 30 foreign factory ships were trawling for cod in a primary spawning ground at the same time Efford announced his wish.

Opportunity to eliminate exotic animal "canned hunts". Rep. George Brown (D-CA) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) have introduced The Captive Animal Exotic Animal Protection Act HR 1202  and S 995. which would prohibit interstate transportation of exotic animals for the purpose of allowing then to be used in entertainment or killed for trophies.
Your representative and senators could be influenced by your letter or phone call.

Arizona Game & Fish personnel have been shooting coyotes from airplanes - to enhance the pronghorn antelope population, they claim, citing the need to kill 67 coyotes in the Flagstaff area.  Coyotes not killed outright are left to die.  Pups share the same fate if their mothers are killed and the loss of a father puts a severe strain on the family's food supply as well.  Furthermore, random killing merely upsets established territories and stimulates breeding, in effect increasing the overall population.  Game & Fish point to increase in antelope population since aerial gunning began, but this is more likely due to the policy of killing only bucks because antelope population is more dependent upon its food supply than losses to predators.

Rep. Don Young (AK) killed anti-whaling resolution.  Rep. Jack Metcalf (WA) introduced a House Resolution opposing whale killing, but Rep. Young maneuvered it into the National Resources Committee, which he chairs, effectively killing it.  It seems as if the administration and Con-gress as a whole are not hearing enough from constituents about allowing whales to live out their lives unmolested by humans.  A member of the pro-whaling Makah Indian Council met in Japan to discuss marketing "mammal" products as Japan has already been doing on the sly.  Iceland has canceled whaling for this year, citing a lack of harpoons that oxymoronically cause less suffering, but more likely from pressure of fish exporters who fear loss of sales from protesters' boycott of Icelandic and Norwegian fish,

Idaho river otters will not be intentionally trapped thanks to a decision by the Idaho Fish and Game commission which sided with public opinion in rejecting an appeal by the state's trappers to permit them to sell uo to two skins a year from otters incidentally caught in traps set for beavers.  Otter skins sell for three times as much as beavers.  Otters eat fish, however, leading one to wonder how long it will be before human fishers start to side with the trappers just as they sided with hunters regarding killing cormorants.

Introduced species of fish are threatening native species in many lakes and streams.  Fishers are usually blamed for dumping live bait fish, but fish and game officials are also responsible.  Alpine mountain lakes in California, which did not have fish, have been stocked with trout who may be endangering frog populations.  In Arizona, introduced bass and catfish are crowding out native species.  The situation in Oregon's Diamond Lake is such that state game officials are considering poisoning the lake with rotenone in order to eliminate all the chub left behind by fishers who were using them as bait.  Of course the rotenone will kill every fish in the lake including the rainbow trout who have been stocked there since 1910.

Native Canadians from across Vancouver Island paddled a flotilla of war canoes to a salmon farm and posted an eviction notice on the door because the concentration of fish causes water pollution and escapees weaken the wild stock.

Vaccination did not increase urban raccoon population in Scarborough, Ontario indicating that the disease was not a limiting factor in the city's raccoon population.  The city started to vaccinate its raccoons against distemper in addition to rabies in 1991.  Distemper incidence in vaccinated zones was 1.4% compared to 8.3% in the unvaccinated zones, but the population levels remained the same.

Wild horses being rounded up in Utah.  After 29 of 200 horses rounded up on the Ute Indian Reservation tested positive for the equine infectious anemia virus, Bureau of Land Management Officials decided to test 500 wild horses on public lands in eastern Utah.  They were found to be free of the infection and those tested have been released.  One foal, whose test was not clearly negative, is being held with its mother for further testing.  Both will be killed if further testing is positive.  The disease is spread by blood-sucking insects.  Later development: The disease seems to be more widespread than originally thought.  Infected horses will be killed by injection to prevent spread of the disease.

BEAR FACTS
It's an ill wind that blows no good, and warfare in the Balkans has caused bears to work their way west in search of peace with the result that 11 brown bear cubs, all females, were born in the Alps last year, almost 150 years after the last brown bear was killed there.  This happened after a $2 million program to restore this species in the Alps had failed because the first three bears flown into Austria were accused of destroying crops.  It is especially interesting that all the cubs born were female because this is Nature's way of adjusting wild animal populations to their habitat.

Bear facts    (Continued on page 66)