ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

NOVEMBER 2005

ESA rewrite author Pombo took junket funding from anti-animal welfare front

WASHINGTON D.C.–– Central California rancher and House of Representatives Resources Committee chair Richard Pombo (R-Tracy) enjoyed the biggest victory of his political career on September 29, 2005, when the House passed his “Threatened & Endangered Species Recovery Act” 229-192, with 96 co-sponsors and little debate, just eight days after introduction.

Richard Pombo (Center for Public Integrity)

Rolling back the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the chief feature-of the Pombo rewrite is a requirement that property owners must be compensated for any loss of land use that results from protecting animals or habitat.

“It establishes an extraordinary new entitlement program for developers and speculators that requires taxpayers to pay them unlimited amounts of money,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) told Zachary Coile of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Playing a perceived hot hand, Pombo followed up his ESA rewrite by introducing a draft bill to sell 15 National Parks for “energy or commercial development,” and to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other coastal areas to more oil drilling, both perennial goals of Congressional “wise-use” Republicans.

Backed by U.S. President George W. Bush, the Pombo ESA rewrite may run into more opposition in the U.S. Senate, where the ESA has much stroger and better positioned Republican support.

Bob Williams of the Center for Public Integrity and Steve Henn of the American Public Media radio program Marketplace interrupted Pombo’s momentum by disclosing on October 18 that Pombo “may have broken the law by not paying taxes on at least two foreign trips costing more than $23,000, paid for by the nonprofit International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources.”

The misleadingly named IFCNR is a wise-use front that “received donations from nearly three dozen funders from 2000 to 2004,” Williams and Henn said. “Most of the money came from the food, agriculture, or fur industries.”

The top listed IFCNR donor was Darden Restaurants, owners of Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurant chains, contributing $574,000. Red Lobster sales of Canadian snow crabs are under boycott by the Humane Society of the U.S. and other groups as a pressure tactic in opposition to the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt.

The next three largest IFCNR donors were the National Trappers Association, $143,890; the International Fur Trade Association, $120,000; and Monsanto Corporation, the leading maker of bovine somatotropin, a synthetic hormone used to artificially boost milk production, $115,000.

“Other big donors to the IFCNR include the Japan Whaling Association, the Maryland Trappers Association, Caspian Star Caviar, the [food service provider] Sysco Corporation, Smithfield Foods, Strauss Veal Company, and the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory,” Willians and Henn added.

The top individual donor, contributing $47,022, was Lori J. White, a former IFCHR director according to Williams and Henn. White is wife of David Wills, who was listed as the chief contact for the IFCNR on their 2004 filing of IRS Form 990, and was listed as an IFCHR director in 2000.

IFCNR President Emeritus Stephen Boynton told Williams and Henn that Wills is not an IFCNR employee or officer, and called the listing in 2000 a mistake.

But Boynton said that Wills “is responsible for the IFCNRs financial affairs,” Williams and Henn summarized.

“Repeated phone calls to Wills seeking comment were not returned,” Williams and Henn said. “Boynton at one point agreed to set up a meeting between the Center, Wills and himself to discuss the foundation, but he later withdrew that offer, saying he didn’t think it would be in IFCNR’s best interest.”

Lori J. White, former wife of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals cofounder Alex Pacheco, married Wills in June 1995. Wills was at the time vice president for investigations with the Humane Society of the U.S. The wedding was jointly performed in Mexico City by then-HSUS president John Hoyt and then-HSUS vice president Paul Irwin, both former clergymen.

A longtime Hoyt protégé, Wills was hired in 1972 at Hoyt’s recommendation to head the New Hampshire Humane Society. Wills reportedly left in 1978 just before the board discovered that funds were missing. Hoyt then recommended Wills to the Michigan Humane Society, where Wills was executive director, 1979-1989. Wills resigned from Michigan Humane when the board began inquiring into the disappearance of $1.6 million. Book-keeper Denise Hopkins was eventually convicted of embezzling $56,000 of the missing sum.

Wills next founded the National Society for Animal Protection, but dissolved it when he took the HSUS position. Longtime Michigan Humane Society volunteer and employee Sandra LeBost of Royal Oak, Michigan, in June 1995 won a $42,500 judgement against Wills for nonrepayment of loans he solicited in connection with starting NSAP. She was never able to collect the money.

In August 1995, three HSUS employees sued Wills for alleged sexual harrassment and embezzling. Suspended by HSUS soon afterward, Wills was fired in November 1995, after ANIMAL PEOPLE detailed his history in three-edition series of exposes.

Wills countersued the HSUS employees who sued him. Those cases were settled out of court in mid-1998.

In June 1999 Wills pleaded guilty to one count of embezzling $18,900 from HSUS between 1990 and mid-1995; agreed to pay restitution of $67,800 to HSUS; and accepted a six-month jail sentence. HSUS and the State of Maryland agreeed to drop six other counts of embezzlement, alleging thefts of $84,128.

“There are several transactions in IFCNR’s filings that might raise flags as possible self-dealing,” Williams and Henn suggested, citing “A $55,000 grant in 2000 to the now-defunct People, Ethics, Ani-mals, Truth Institute. The PEAT Institute was run by Wills,” Will-iams and Henn explained. “It contributed $13,500 to IFCNR in 2001 and $4,315 to the group in 2003. Wills himself also contributed $8,000 to IFCNR in 2003. A successor entity to PEAT Institute called Sustainable Resources Inter-national, also run by Wills, contributed $10,000 to IFCNR in 2004.”

Council on Foundations attorney Andrew Schultz, of Washington, D.C., pointed toward another possible instance of self-dealing, for which nonprofit foundations may be fined and lose their tax exempt status. Making grants to substantial contributors or foundation officials is typically considered self-dealing.

“IRS records show that the vast majority of the grants made by IFCNR from 2002 through 2004 have gone to David Sollman, of Heltonville, Indiana, for “biodiversity study of fur trade.” Sollman received a total of $119,153 in such grants from IFCNR from 2002 through 2004,” Williams and Henn reported. “Sollman is the executive administrator of the National Trappers Association, which in turn has been a major contributor to IFCNR, giving the foundation a total of $143,890 in 2003 and 2004.”

Schultz told Williams and Henn that those transactions appeared to have been made in direct violation of the IRS rules governing private foundations.

New State Laws

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on October 7, 2005 signed into law a bill by state senator Jackie Speer (D-Hillsborough) that allows local governments to enact breed-specific dog sterilization ordinances. Cities and counties including San Francisco are reportedly rushing to have mandatory sterilization of pit bull terriers and other breeds commonly used in fighting in place when the state law takes effect on January 1, 2006.

North Carolina Govern-or Mike Easley in late September 2005 endorsed into law a felony penalty for anyone who is convicted in any way of participating in a cockfight, including spectating. Cockfighting is now illegal in 48 states and a felony in 32 of them.

New York Governor George Pataki and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm in September 2005 signed into law bans on hunting via web sites.

U.K. cruelty act update introduced

LONDON––British junior environment minister and minister for animal welfare Ben Bradshaw on October 14, 2005 introduced a long awaited new draft Animal Welfare Bill, which if passed by Parliament would be the first major update of the U.K. anti-cruelty statute since 1910.

Summarized Amanda Brown of The Independent, “The bill introduces a duty on those responsible for animals to do all that is reasonable to ensure the welfare of the creatures in their care––a duty which for the first time applies to non-domestic animals. The bill simplifies animal welfare legislation by bringing more than 20 pieces of legislation into one, strengthening penalties and eliminating loopholes. Those causing unnecessary suffering to an animal will face up to 51 weeks in prison, a fine of up to £20,000 or both.”

Added Guardian political correspondent Matthew Tempest, “The bill applies to all vertebrates owned by people, except farmed animals and animals used for scientific experimentation.”

The draft animal welfare bill was lauded by Royal SPCA director general Jackie Ballard, herself a former Member of Parlia-ment for the Liberal Democratic Party, but Daily Telegraph environment editor Charles Clover fretted that, “Keeping wild animals in circuses, docking the tails of dogs and some aspects of keeping game birds could be ended by stealth.”

Horse slaughter moratorium weakened

U.S. President George W. Bush on November 4, 2005 endorsed into law an eight-month suspension of federal funding for inspecting horse slaughterhouses, included as a rider to a USDA appropriation bill. As originally passed by both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, the moratorium was to start immediately, having the effect of suspending horse slaughter for human consumption, and was to run for a year, but House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture chair Henry Bonilla (R-Texas) won a 120-day delay of implementation in conference committee. “Bonilla managed to sneak in confusing language that may allow horse slaughterhouses to hire their own meat inspectors and continue their operations,” added Gannett News Service correspondent John Hanchette.

INTERNATIONAL ANIMAL LEGISLATION

Twenty-three nations with native chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans on September 9, 2005 signed a Declar-ation on Great Apes in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, committing themselves to protecting great apes and ape habitat in terms similar to the language of the 1982 global moratorium on commercial whaling and the 1997 Kyoto protocol on climate change. The treaty was brokered through four years of negotiation by the Great Apes Survival Project, formed by the United Nations Environment Program and the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. “GRASP has convinced nearly all of the range states that saving great apes is very much in their interests, by stressing that apes can bring enormous economic benefit to poor communities through eco-tourism,” summarized Michael McCarthy, envronment editor of the London Independent. “The new agreement places ape conservation squarely in the context of strategies for poverty reduction and developing sustainable livelihoods.”

The Director General and Inspector General of Police and Commissioner of the Department of Hindu Religious Institutions & Endowments in Tamil Nadu state, India, in mid-October 2005 warned that “slaughtering animals, offering their organs, spilling their blood, exhibiting their flesh or bones, selling, or cooking them in the name of religion, deity, fair, festival, house warming, vehicle sanctification, etc., is punishable under the Karnataka Animal Sacrifice Prohibition Act of 1959.” Enforcement of the 46-year-old law has often been weak and sporadic. At request of the federal ministry of environment and forests, however, the Tamil Nadu Director General of Police in September 2005 signaled a crackdown by ordering all city and district police departments to form units mandated to enforce anti-cruelty laws.

A 59-point pet care bylaw taking effect on November 9, 2005 in Rome, Italy, reportedly bans keeping goldfish in small round bowls, requires that dogs be walked at least once a day, bans displays of live animals in storefront advertising, forbids the use of choke collars and electrical shock collars, bans tail-docking, ear-cropping, and declawing of dogs and cats, and officially recognizes feral cat caretakers. Similar bylaws have been adopted lately by other Italian cities, wrote Barbara McMahon of The Guardian. “Reggio Emilia, near Bologna, banned boiling live lobsters,” McMahon said, “and birds such as budgerigars and parrots must be kept in pairs.”

The Bulgarian Council for Electronic Media on November 8, 2005 ordered that Bulgarian TV channels must not broadcast “psychological or physical violence against humans or animals” between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.

The 577-member French National Assembly on October 17, 2005 unanimously resolved that foie gras, produced by force-feeding ducks and geese until they develop unnaturally distended livers, is “part of the cultural and gastronomic patrimony, protected in France.” The Israeli Supreme Court in August 2003 banned foie gras production as unconstitutionally cruel.