Guest columnists: SUNNAN KUM ON SOUTH KOREA (Page 5) Bush policy CHRIS MERCER ON SOUTH AFRICA (Page 6) PETER LI ON FAST-CHANGING CHINA (Page 8) & bushmeat WASHINGTON D.C., NAIROBI– – Wildlife policy changes proposed in both the U.S. Four shelters serve Beijing and Kenya––and backed by much of the same money––threaten to replace the principle of protect- B E I J I N G ––What Beijing tive, meanwhile, might encourage the ing rare species with the notion that even endan- dog and cat rescuers need most may be Beijing shelters to cooperate to maxi- gered wildlife should “pay for itself” by being hunt- PETsMART and a coordinated master mize their strengths and opportunities. ed or captured alive for sale. plan like those required of U.S. humane Among them, the China The proposed amendments represent such coalitions before they can apply for a Small Animal Protection Association an extreme interpretation of the “sustainable use” Maddie’s Fund grant. has the only centrally located shelter. It philosophy advanced since 1936 by the National The U.S.-based PETsMART is relatively small, but could serve as Wildlife Federation and since 1961 by the World Squirrel monkeys. (Bonny Shah) animal supply store chain does not yet the primary collection point for lost ani- Wildlife Fund that even WWF endangered species the door for American trophy hunters to kill the do business in China, despite persistent mals, rescued animals, and animals program director Susan Lieberman was quick to endangered straight-horned markhor in Pakistan, rumors that executives are looking in surrendered by the public. denounced the U.S. versions. license the pet industry to import the blue fronted that direction, and Maddie’s Fund does From there, the animals “Money doesn’t always mean conserva- Amazon parrot from Argentina, permit the capture not fund projects outside the U.S. could be relayed for long-term care and tion,” Lieberman told Washington Post staff writer of endangered Asian elephants for U.S. circuses Just a few well-located adop- rehabilitation, if necessary, to the out- Shankar Vedantam. “To me, the theme is allowing and zoos, and partially resume the trade in African tion centers like the PETsMART Luv- lying facilities of the Beijing Human & industry to write the rules.” ivory,” Vedantam revealed. A-Pet adoption boutiques, however, Animal Environmental Education “The George W. Bush administration is “This will mean it will be possible to could rehome almost every animal now Center, the Animal Rescue Branch of proposing far-reaching changes to conservation shoot any endangered animal and just say the entering the four major Beijing shelters. the Environmental Protection Assoc- policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the money goes to conservation,” wild chimpanzee Even if each adoption center placed iation, or the Association for Small pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on researcher Jane Goodall told the Wildlife dogs and cats at just a fraction of the Animal Protection. Each could then the brink of extinction in other countries,” Conservation Expo in Los Altos Hills, California. typical U.S. volume, the cumulative furnish pets to the adoption centers. Vedantam warned on October 11, 2003––less than “It stinks, quite honestly.” effect would be to undercut the pet Beijing is big enough to need a week before the public comment period was to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service assistant breeding industry before it becomes big all of them, and to support them all expire on the first of a series of pending amend- director for international affairs Kenneth Stansell enough to produce a greater surplus. when they develop more fundraising ments to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service regula- “said there has been a growing realization that the A Maddie’s Fund-like incen- (continued on page 18) tions for enforcing the Endangered Species Act. ESA provides poor countries no incentive to protect Together, the amendments would “open (continued on page 16) ANIMAL PEOPLE News For People Who Care About Animals October 2003 Volume XII, #8 White Pekinese are the most common dogs in Beijing shelters. (Kim Bartlett) Mute swan defenders make their voices heard in court WASHINGTON D.C.––The U.S. mute swans in Maryland,” Markarian contin- Fish & Wildlife Service on September 17, ued, “the state’s own experts have character- 2003 agreed to withdraw all permits allowing ized the bay-wide impact of mute swans as state and federal agencies to kill mute swans, negligible.” settling a lawsuit brought by the Fund for Mute swans have also long been Animals. blamed for allegedly displacing trumpeter The settlement agreement also swans from parts of their range. The Fund for requires the Fish & Wildlife Service to with- Animals and the Biodiversity Legal Found- draw the Environmental Assessment and ation have contended in a series of lawsuits in Finding of No Significant Impact that endorsed recent years that the real problem is failure to killing mute swans in 17 states. adequately protect trumpeter swans from being “It began with an ill-conceived per- killed accidentally by tundra swan hunters, mit to kill mute swans in Maryland’s especially in the Yellowstone region. Chesapeake Bay, but now the outcome has “In 1978, at a Trumpeter Swan national implications for tens of thousands of Society conference held in Anchorage, Sleeping lion at Tsavo National Park, Kenya. (Kim Bartlett) these graceful and majestic birds,” Fund for Alaska,” recalls mute swan defender Kathryn Animals president Michael Markarian said. Burton, of Old Lyme, Connecticut, ”a plan Wild lions hunted to the verge of extinction “The federal government has pulled the plug was begun to supplant the mute swan in the L O N D O N ––Wild African lions ple,” Frank continued, “but that they kill live- on Governor Robert Ehrlich’s attempt to bow wild with trumpeter swans, coast to coast,” have been hunted to the brink of extinction, stock. Bullets and poison are always cheaper down to Maryland’s corporate polluters and including the introduction of trumpeter swans warn researchers Laurence Frank of the than good husbandry,” while selling the right the massive factory farms––the real causes of to “areas far outside its historic range. University of California and David Macdonald to kill a so-called problem lion can become a damage to Chesapeake Bay––and to turn Trumpeter swans were never further east than of the Oxford University Wildlife Conserv- windfall for whoever brokers the deal. defenseless swans into corporate patsies.” Wisconsin in modern times, certainly never in ation Research Unit. Macdonald, lecturing at the Zoolog- The Ehrlich administration in July New England or Pennsylvania,” according to Frank, writing in the September 18 ical Society of London three weeks later, 2003 proposed opening a hunting season on the conferees’ own published proceedings. edition of New Scientist, has investigated strongly reinforced Frank’s message with his mute swans, which would require U.S. Fish & “Within a short time,” Burton con- African lions, hyenas, and other large preda- own findings and those of associates. Wildlife Service approval. Meanwhile, char- tinues, “park staff were breaking the necks of tors in Kenya for more than 20 years. “Of the adult males his team tagged acterizing the allegedly non-native mute swans mute swans at Yosemite,” waterfowlers were Macdonald, editor of the Encyclopedia of or collared,” summarized BBC News Online as a threat to the ecological integrity of encouraged to shoot mute swans nearby, and Mammals, directed a recent five-year study of environment correspondent Alex Kirby, “63% Chesapeake Bay, Maryland obtained U.S. an effort was also begun to extirpate mute lion conservation in Zimbabwe and Botswana. were shot by hunters. The resulting low densi- Fish & Wildlife Service permission to kill up swans from Yellowstone. The wild African lion population has ty of male lions is exascerbated by the hunters’ to 3,000 mute swans during the next 10 years. “Note,” says Burton, “that trum- fallen from 230,000 to 23,000 in under 20 habit of shooting juvenile males when they That authorization is now revoked. peters were introduced to Yellowstone. Mute years, said Frank. Cheetahs have fallen to find no mature adults. This means males “As U.S. District Judge Emmett swans arrived there naturally.” Participants in 15,000 and wild dogs to 5,500 over the same move widely, and may have ranges about Sullivan pointed out in granting a preliminary the “war on mute swans” (declared in so many time, but were far fewer to begin with. three times the size of a lioness’s range. So it injunction to block the killing of hundreds of (continued on page 9) All are in trouble, Frank explained, is likelier they will leave the protection of a but lions are declining the most rapidly, as the park and move into hunting areas.” most dangerous of the large African predators Macdonald et al found that there are and the species most coveted for a trophy. about 42 male lions within their Zimbabwe “People know about elephants, research area, but the hunting quota for the gorillas, and rhinos,” Frank told Robert Uhlig region from 1998 to 2000 was set at 63 lions. of the Daily Telegraph, “but they seem bliss- “This unprecedented decline of lions fully unaware that these large carnivores are is devastating!” commented Youth for nearing the brink. People have always killed Conservation cofounder Josphat Ngonyo. “In predators,” for defense of lives and property, Kenya we are battling to keep ours alive.” and for status, “but there is only so much Ngonyo was able to confirm the bad damage you can do with spears and shields. news, however, from direct observation. Now everyone has rifles and poison.