AnimalRights.Net

Russia’s Acting President,
Vladimir Putin, was in office less than a week when on January 6 he vetoed
an bill passed by the Russian Duma and the Russian Federation Council
designed by its advocates to prevent animal cruelty. The bill would have
made it illegal to use certain species of animal for food and fur, banned
the harming of animals in the making of films and television programs,
and mandated sterilization/contraception for pets according to a press
release from the Human Society of the United States.

What ultimately killed the
bill, however, were provisions which the Russian fur industry feared would
put a halt to the hunting of seals for furs. Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency
quoted spokespersons for the governors of Russia’s Arkhangelsk region
as urging rejection of the bill to protect that area’s fur industry. “More
than a thousand people involved in the hunting and skinning of seals will
lose their jobs in villages in the Arkhangelsk region,” the spokeswoman
said. “Big losses will be experienced in the fur industry and this may
lead to a mass exodus from the northern polar areas.”

According to Reuters, furs
are relatively common in Russia where the winters are extremely cold.
In the northern regions, for example, temperatures can fall below minus
30 degrees centigrade.

In an odd postscript to Putin’s
veto, the acting president sent a gushing email to animal rights activist
Brigitte Bardot who had urged Russia to pas the bill. No word of a response
from Bardot who has a habit to making extremely disparaging, often ethnocentric
comments about nations that fail to follow her policy recommendations.

It will be interesting to see
how well the animal rights movement fares outside of Western nations.
In the United States and Europe, the animal rights movement tries to piggyback
on highly influential and, in some cases, centuries old philosophical
movements interested in rights issues. Whether or not the animal rights
argument will be able to find a similar cache outside of the industrial
West remains to be seen.

Sources:

Arctic leaders oppose Russian animal rights bill. Reuters, December 23,
1999.

No revolution for Russia’s animals. Humane Society of the United States
press release, January 7, 2000.

    A December 22 press release
from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced that Easter
Seals has been given PETA’s seal of approval for signing an agreement
with the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine certifying it
“does not conduct, commission, or in any way fund experiments on animals
and will not do so in the future.”

    Oddly enough, although PETA
announced this deal, neither PCRM nor Easter Seals has any mention of
such an agreement on their respective web sites.

Reference:

Easter Seals Confirms “No Animal Tests” Policy, Gets PETA “Seal
of Approval”. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals press release,
December 22, 1999.

    A couple months ago, animal
rights activists trumpeted research providing the closest thing yet to
proof that bovine spongiform disease likely causes the human spongiform
disease CJD. Of course, the research in that case was done in mice which,
according to animal rights activists and groups, can never be accurately
applied to human beings. Now comes word of more such “useless” spongiform
research. An article in The Lancet reports that experiments in mice conducted
by scientists at the Serano Pharmaceutical Research Institute managed
to stop transplanted CJD from growing in mice.

    Spongiform diseases cause nerve
tissue proteins in the brain to fold abnormally, leading to the build
up of a destructive “beta sheet.” The Serano researchers exposed tissue
from the brains of CJD-infected mice to peptides which reversed the structure
of the proteins back to a form similar to the safe original.

Reference:

CJD treatment ‘draws closer.’ The BBC, January 14, 2000.

Several years
ago People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals created an enormous controversy
with newspaper advertisements comparing meat eaters to serial killer Jeffrey
Dahmer. Today, however, PETA seems ready to claim a more recent serial
killer as one of its own.

In the December/January
issue of Genre, PETA’s point man in the war against fur, Dan Mathews, is featured as one of the “100 Men We Love of the Century.”
At the end of its profile of Mathews, the activist lists a serial killer
as one of his favorite men of the century:

When asked who is among the most important men he loves of the
century, he replied, “Andrew Cunanan, because he got Versace to stop
doing fur.”

When the New York Daily News contacted Mathews about his
comments, the anti-fur activist was unrepentant, telling columnists Rush
and Molloy,

I would be surprised if the Versace’s are really upset. Have
you ever been to a Versace fashion show? They’re like trashy funerals.

The comments
did, however, bring a rebuke from former PETA spokes-model Naomi Campbell
who said she was “sickened” when she read Mathews’ comments,
saying she was “doubly thrilled to no longer be associated with”
PETA.

At least the animal
rights movement will continue to features its endless compassion in the
next millennium.

(Thanks to the
folks at Carnivores United,
http://carnivoresunited.webjump.com, for bringing this story to our attention)

Source:

“100 men we love of the century,” Genre Magazine,
December/January 2000

People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals seems to be letting its “Jesus Was A Vegetarian”
campaign go to its head as the organization has started preaching fire
and brimstone.

A January 3 press release from
PETA announced it was sending a person dressed the devil to the Circus
Conference 2000 taking place in Sarasota, Florida. The “devil”
will hold a placard reading, “See You in Hell, Animal Abusers.”

Reference:

“Angel” and “Devil” to appear at Circus Conference
2000, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals press release, January
3, 2000.

    Researcher are still in the
infancy-state of genetic engineering, but the advances they are making
and future technologies that might be possible are simply amazing. This
week news arrived that University of Cincinnati researchers managed to
insert a firefly gene that causes the insects to light up into the DNA
of zebrafish. The zebrafish light up when they are exposed to PCBs.

    ”These fish are much more sensitive
than current water testing systems that can detect concentrations of PCBs,” Dr. Daniel Nebert, a University of Cincinnati researcher, said.

    Aside from their sensitivity,
using zebrafish could be both cheaper and quicker for testing PCB levels
in water samples than conventional methods. Apparently the fish are not
harmed and can be used repeatedly since they will stop glowing after a
sufficient time spent away from PCB-contaminated water.

    A demonstration project to
use the zebrafish at Lake Harsha, Ohio, is currently in the planning stages.
Lake water will be pumped into tanks holding the genetically modified
zebrafish as early as this spring.

Reference:

“Researchers use genetically altered zebrafish as toxin detectors.” The
Associated Press, January 6, 2000.