From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:

Rats, mice, birds, Bush and Gore

WASHINGTON D.C.--Rats, mice, and birds were not a U.S. federal
election issue, yet the fate of millions may hang on the outcome of the
lawsuits and ballot recounts underway in Florida.
If U.S. Vice President Albert Gore gains the lead in electoral
votes to go with the popular vote lead that he won on November 7, Gore
will succeed President Bill Clinton in Jan-uary. Senator Joseph Lieberman
would become Vice President.
Gore led the White House defense of the Endangered Species Act
after wise-use Republicans gained majorities in both the House of
Representatives and the Senate in 1994.
Lieberman, who as Vice President would break tie votes in the
Senate, could be depended upon to vigorously protect both the ESA and the
Animal Welfare Act. According to the legislative scorecards kept by the
Fund for Animals, Friends of Animals, and Humane Society of the U.S.,
Lieberman in two terms as U.S. Senator from Connecticut had one of the best
records on animal issues of any member of Congress.
Should Texas governor George W. Bush win the electoral count,
however, the U.S. President and Vice President will both be avid hunters
and outspoken opponents of strict endangered species protection. Bush is
the reigning Safari Club International "Governor of the Year," was
endorsed by the National Rifle Association, and was fined $130 in
September 1994 for shooting a protected killdeer he had mistaken for a dove
during a Texas gubernatorial race photo opportunity.
Neither Bush nor running mate Dick Cheney have any visible positive
history on animal protection.
The Stephens kangaroo rat, Prebles jumping meadow mouse, and
California gnatcatcher are only a few of the endangered rats, mice, and
birds whose species might be put at risk of extinction if a Bush/Cheney
administration hampers ESA enforcement as the Bush gubernatorial
administration has done in Texas.
Neither would Bush interfere if the Republican majorities still
holding the House and Senate move to weaken the ESA.
Further, Bush is expected to appoint as his Interior Secretary
either of two notorious foes of the ESA: Alan Simpson, former U.S.
Senator from Wyoming, or Representative Don Young (R-Alaska), the only
licenced trapper in Congress.
A less controversial choice mentioned when Bush appeared unlikely
to win the presidency with the popular vote as well as the electoral vote
in his favor would be John Turner, who headed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service under Bush's father, former U.S. President George H. Bush.
Less noticed than their endangered kin are the 20 million or more
rats, mice, and birds (mostly chickens) used each year in U.S.
laboratories. These rats, mice, and birds have officially been
considered non-animals under the Animal Welfare Act enforcement regulations
in effect since 1970.
The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in early
October agreed in settlement of a lawsuit brought by the Alternatives
Research & Development Foundation that the AWA enforcement regulations
should be extended to rats, mice, and birds, but the apparent victory
was soon deferred, and could even be overturned by the 107th Congress.
ARDF is an affiliate of the Philadelphia-based American Anti-Vivisection
Society.
"We can expect the National Association for Biomedical Research to
make a run at the AWA," ARDF president John McArdle told ANIMAL PEOPLE on
October 11.
Earlier that day a last-minute amendment to the USDA appropriations
bill submitted by Senate Appropriations Committee chair Thad Cochran
(R-Mississippi) ordered the USDA to spend no funds during the 2001 fiscal
year "to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking, to promulgate a proposed
rule, or to otherwise change or modify the definition of 'animal' in
existing regulations persuant to the Animal Welfare Act."
The amendment postponed for at least a year and perhaps nullified
the ARDF-vs.-USDA-APHIS settlement.
The settlement was endorsed by the American Association of
Laboratory Animal Science, the Association for Assessment and
Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International, and the Scientists'
Center for Animal Welfare.
However, the settlement was opposed not only by NABR and the
affiliated Foundation for Biomedical Research, but also by the Association
of Medical Colleges. AMC vice president for research Anthony Mazzaschi
told Rick Weiss of the Washington Post that the paperwork cost of just
tracking use of rats, mice, and birds would cost researchers $200 million
per year, or $10 per animal.
Mazzaschi also contended that other existing regulations already
adequately protect rats, mice, and birds, even though they are not
covered by the Animal Welfare Act.
But Mazzaschi's assurance came toward the end of a year in which
the USDA cited two of the 82 animal research labs at the University of
Connecticut main campus in Storrs for "serious" and "disturbing" violations
of the AWA; the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory
Animal Care International put the Health Science Center of the University
of Florida in Gainesville on a two-month probation due to multiple failures
to meet voluntary animal care standards; and University of Kansas
veterinarian James Bresnahan and animal care and use committee chair
Stephen Benedict warned that the ventilation system in three laboratory
buildings is so decrepit that in one of them, "The failure that is likely
to occur will probably cause the loss of animals, loss of data, and shut
down most research involving animals."
In short, even at major institutions and even where the AWA covers
the animals in custody, lab animals are not always given adequate routine
care and facilities.
Further, there are indications from institutions which voluntarily
report the numbers of rats, mice, and birds used in experiments that
their numbers have been going up, even as the numbers of regulated species
used come down. Mice have become the preferred species for genetic
research, for instance, in part because the regulatory requirements
involved in using them are few and weak.

Caught with pants down

U.S. Federal Court Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on October 6 threw out an
application by NABR and Johns Hopkins University for an injunction against
the USDA settlement with the Alternatives Research & Development
Foundation.
But NABR representatives apparently then enlisted help from the
University of Mississippi Medical Center to win Representative Cochran's
immediate attention.
"We went through the system and followed the rules," complained
McArdle to Dan Vergano of USA Today. "They went through a sneaky back door
way to put off a judicial decision."
Added McArdle to Tom Abate of the San Francisco Chronicle, "We got
caught with our pants down. But we have just as many friends in Congress
as they do."
Both the animal protection community and the biomedical research
community enjoy broad-based bipartisan support. The 2001 federal budget,
however, allocates nearly $19 billion to the National Institutes of Health
to fund research, which translates into hundreds and in some instances
thousands of highly paid jobs in the home districts of most U.S. Senators
and Representatives.
Historically, researchers and other major animal use industries
easily get their way with legislation whenever either the Republicans or
the Democrats hold the House, Senate, and White House. Humane concerns
fare better when strong opposition at one level forces legislation to go
through extended discussion and debate.
Then, at request of particularly influential members of key
legislative committees, animal protection measures such as the Pet Theft
Act of 1990 may be incorporated into omnibus bills to help ease compromise.

Relatively few animal protection bills have been passed as
stand-alone legislation.

Passed into law

Animal protection bills passed by the 106th Congress and signed
into law by President Clinton include the Great Ape Protection Act (see
page 1), a ban on imports of dog and cat fur which was accepted as an
amendment to a trade bill (see page 7), and a bill by Senator Robert Smith
(R-N.H.) and Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) to provide adoptive
retirement as an alternative to euthanasia for trained dogs who are taken
out of federal service.
Previously, retired federal government dogs with special skills
were sometimes transferred to civilian law enforcement agencies or to
Lackland Air Force Base, in San Antonio, for use in training human
handlers. The old rules forbade adoption into homes on the presumption
that most government dogs were trained for guarding or war-related duties.

That presumption became obsolete with the growing use of sniffing
dogs to detect contraband, fire hazards, and even termites. Sniffing
dogs are typically trained through play; "sic 'em" usually isn't in their
vocabulary.
Clinton signed the dog retirement bill on November 8 --just two
months after dog lover Tom Johnston of Louisville, Kentucky, persuaded
Bartlett to introduce it.
Passed by both the Senate and the House, but needing final Senate
ratification before going to Clinton was a bill by Representative Randy
Cunningham (R-California) to prohibit taking only the fins from sharks
caught in Pacific waters. Similar regulations have been in effect since
1993 in the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Two major appropriations bills adopted in the last two weeks before
the election pertain to wildlife habitat.
The much publicized Conservation and Reinvestment Act of 2000,
proposed by House Resources Committee chair Don Young (R-Alaska) and
Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), was dropped in favor of the less
costly and less long-reaching Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations
Act.
As passed and signed by Clinton, the Interior bill provides $12
billion in mostly new funding over the next six years for the federal Land
and Water Conservation Fund. Formed in 1964 to help states and the federal
government acquire property for recreation and conservation, the fund has
been considered chronically underendowed.
Awaiting Clinton's signature, or veto, is the Water Resources
Development Act, introduced in the Senate as funding for a $1.4 billion
restoration of the Everglades, to occur in stages over 36 years. By the
time the bill cleared both the House and the Senate, it called for
spending $7.8 billion on various water projects around the U.S., including
$400 million on items favored by House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee chair Bud Shuster (R-Pennsylvania).

Benighted riders

A potentially problematic rider to the USDA appropriation bill,
signed by Clinton on October 28, orders the Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service to "intensify efforts in both research and operations to
control migratory fish-eating birds, such as the double crested cormorant,
which are causing serious problems to the Southeastern aquaculture
industry."
The rider also funds a USDA Wildlife Services plan to
"experimentally" poison two million blackbirds in the Dakotas to benefit
sunflower growers. USDA Wildlife Services has already poisoned about
750,000 blackbirds per year in the Dakotas since 1994. The expanded plan
was thwarted in the year 2000 because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
refused to grant USDA Wildlife Services a required permit.
USDA Wildlife Services deputy administrator Bill Clay told
Washington Post staff writer Ben White [not to be confused with Animal
Welfare Institute staffer Ben White] that the funding would be used "to
further study and analyze the birds' movements, particularly what they do
after being rousted from their nests."
As ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press on November 15, Senate
Appropriations Committee chair Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was reportedly
pushing a rider to the Commerce Department appropriation bill which would
suspend Endangered Species Act protection of Stellar sea lions in the
waters surrounding the Aleutian Islands. The rider, if accepted, would
overturn an August order by U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly that halted
fishing for pollock in areas where Stellar sea lions are in rapid decline
due to apparently inability to compete for pollock successfully against
trawlers.
Half the fish caught by Alaskan vessels are pollock, according to
Stevens--and since the advent of big trawlers in the 1970s, the Stellar
sea lion population has fallen by 80%.
The Stevens rider was just one of 26 that were expected to be
grafted to last-minute spending bills if the post-election political
climate favored wise-use, according to the Endangered Species Coalition
electronic newsletter.
A rider by Senator Craig Thomas (R-Wyoming), for instance, would
attempt to prohibit the National Park Service from keeping snowmobiles out
of wildlife habitat.
A worrisome rider from a less familiar direction was expected from
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Representative Jerry Lewis
(R-California), who seek to enable Fort Irwin to expand military training
exercises into 87,000 acres of habitat for the endangered Mojave desert
tortoise.

Congress

But the election results were unclear, in part because
Congressional voting on animal and habitat issues rarely follows party
lines. In general, Republicans are less likely to vote in an
animal-friendly pattern; however, many Democrats vote in a less
animal-friendly pattern than most Republicans.
The balance of power in the Senate and perhaps for animal issues
appeared to depend on the outcome of the Presidential race and--almost as
much--upon the outcome of the also too-close-to-call race between incumbent
Senator Slade Gorton (R-Washington) and challenger Maria Cantwell.
The Washington Senate race is particularly important because Gorton
has historically favored the timber, fishing, mining, and biomedical
research industries, and has been a ringleader of efforts to weaken the
Endangered Species Act.
Cantwell has relatively little public history on animal issues,
but--opposite to Gorton--did support Washington Initiative 713, which
banned the recreational or commercial use of body-gripping traps and two
especially deadly poisons.
If the Presidency goes to Albert Gore, Lieberman as vice president
would preside over the Senate, but the Republican governor of Connecticut
would appoint a Republican to Lieberman's Senate seat.
If Gorton retained a narrow edge over Cantwell in the final count,
not due until December 7, Republicans could then have a two-vote majority.

If Gore loses, Lieberman would return to the Senate, cutting the
Republican lead to one vote in the event of a Gorton victory, or creating
an even balance if Cantwell picked up the 4,500 extra absentee votes she
needed to edge Gorton.
Ousted in the November election were three Republican Senators with
completely negative voting records on animal issues: Rod Grams of
Minnesota, Spencer Abraham of Michigan, and John Ashcroft of Missouri.
But Representative Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Atlanta) survived $10,000
worth of television advertisements placed by the Humane USA political
action committee, headed by Humane Society of the U.S. vice president
Wayne Pacelle.
The ads targeted Barr's opposition to a federal law banning the
interstate sale of videotapes which pornographically depict humans in the
act of killing or torturing animals. The ads featured a clip from such a
pornographic video. After they aired in October, one Atlanta cable
station was reportedly warned by National Republican Congressional
Committee general counsel Donald F. McGahn that, "By continuing to air
this ad, your network is placing footage of animal cruelty in interstate
commerce, which appears to be illegal. You may be held criminally
liable," under the statute that Barr fought against.
At press time the Republican edge in the House of Representatives
appeared to have declined slightly, to 221-212 over the Democrats, with
two independents.
Don Young (R-Alaska), stepping down as chair of the Resources
Committee, was according to the Salt Lake Tribune "99% certain" to be
succeeded by Representative Jim Hansen (R-Utah), who declared that if
appointed his first priority would be weakening the Endangered Species Act.


Ballot initiatives

The outcome of voting on animal-related state initiative petitions
was approximately the same as the outcome of the races for President and
control of the Senate: almost a dead-even split, with mostly favorable
results in the big-population states but mostly negative results in rural
regions.
Humane USA called the initiative results a 5-3 split in favor of
animals, discounting the passage of Oregon Measure 3 by 66% of the voters
and Utah Initiative B by 70%.
Neither Measure 3 nor Initiative B directly addressed animal
protection. Both asked voters to strengthen property rights by preventing
the seizure and sale of property in advance of a criminal conviction.
Neither initiative drew national attention, but both were opposed by
humane organizations.
Animal Legal Defense Fund director Stephan Otto explained to Judy
Fahys of the Salt Lake Tribune before the election that Oregon Measure 3
might force animal shelters to sell animals seized in cruelty cases at
auction, or oblige the return of animals to abusive homes--or bankrupt
shelters by forcing them to hold animals throughout long legal processes
instead of putting them up for adoption.
Utah Humane Society executive director Gene Baierschmidt feared
similar consequences from Initiative B--although Janet Jenson, who drafted
it, said it would not affect the Utah Animal Protection Act.
While overwhelmingly approving Measure 3, Oregon voters crushed a
proposed ban on body-gripping traps called Measure 97 by almost as lopsided
a margin: 39% in favor, 61% against.
Measure 97 was almost identical to the anti-trapping initiatives
approved by the voters of neighbor states California in 1998 and Washington
this year. Washington Initiative 713 drew 54% of the vote, even though
one of the two biggest television stations in the state, KING-TV of
Seattle, refused to air advertisements for the trapping ban which showed a
coyote with his head in a Conibear beaver trap.
The Washington Fish and Wildlife Department objected that the
Conibear trap could only be legally set underwater under the existing state
trapping rules--as if the injured coyote could not have been caught when he
dipped his face into a pond to drink.
In any event, the water levels of ponds, streams, and ditches
frequently fluctuate during the winter trapping season, depending on the
volume of snowmelt and runoff, and a trap set a foot underwater at dusk
can easily be a foot above the water level by dawn.
The Washington and Oregon anti-trapping initiative campaigns both
involved infusions of out-of-state money. Preliminary estimates were that
outside money funded as much as 75% of the pro-trap ban advertising, and
about 60% of the anti-trap ban ads.
The anti-trap ban efforts were led by the Virginia-based Ballot
Issues Coalition, headed by Steve Boynton.
"An attorney, Boynton became a minor figure in the Whitewater
scandal when he was hired by National Spectator magazine to seek evidence
of misbehavior by President Clinton," Spokane Spokesman Review staff
writer Dan Hansen reported. "Boynton in the past has represented the
National Trappers Association, foreign whaling interests, and hunters who
feel persecuted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. USFWS fined Boynton
$190 in 1993 for hunting doves drawn to bait in Maryland. Boynton argued
that the grain was sowed to grow wheat, not birds, and successfully
lobbied Congress for changes to the law," Hansen added.
Funded by the National Rifle Association, Safari Club
International, "and other groups that represent hunters and gun and bow
manufacturers," according to Hansen, Boynton and the Ballot Issues
Coalition also pushed initiatives in Alaska, Arizona, North Dakota, and
Virginia.
The Alaska and Arizona initiatives sought to amend the state
constitutions to require that future initiatives about wildlife management
to pass with at least two-thirds of the vote to take effect. Utah voters
approved a similar amendment in 1998. HSUS, the Initiative & Referendum
Institute, and individual coplaintiffs on October 23 filed a federal court
suit in Salt Lake City, seeking to overturn the amendment for allegedly
violating First Amendment rights.
There won't be such a suit in either Arizona or Alaska. Only 38%
of Arizona voters favored the proposed supermajority requirement, and just
36% of Alaska voters favored it.
Alaskans also dumped the attempt of the state legislature to
overturn a 1996 initiative ban on so-called land-and-shoot wolf hunting,
53% for the wolves to 47% against them.
As the results became apparent on election eve, the Alaska Board
of Game voted 5-2 to close 29 square miles of state land around Denali
National Park to wolf hunting and trapping for the next two years, to
protect the Toklat pack, who are viewed and photographed by an estimated
20,000 tourists per year. One negative vote came from Chip Dennerlein,
who sought to make the closure permanent.
The Ballot Issues Coalition won lopsided victories for
right-to-hunt state constitutional language in North Dakota (77%, against
no organized opposition) and Virginia (60%).
However, many Virginia voters may not have known what they were
favoring. The ballot asked only, "Shall the constitution of Virginia be
amended by adding a provision concerning the right of the people to hunt,
fish, and harvest game?" Not stipulated was the nature of the provision.

The Fund for Animals and HSUS on October 19 unsuccessfully sought
an injunction against either putting the question before voters or counting
the outcome, depending on what was feasible. Circuit Judge Melvin R.
Hughes Jr. ruled on October 27 that such an injunction could not be issued
without overwhelming evidence in support of the plaintiffs' contention that
the question would eventually be found illegally vague.
Neither the Ballot Issues Coalition nor national animal advocacy
groups actively campaigned in Montana, where Initiative 143 banned new
game farms, the transfer of existing game farm licenses, and so-called
canned hunts. It passed 53% to 47%, in a fight seen essentially as
wilderness hunting outfitters against proprietors of hunting ranches.

Grey2K vs. MSPCA

A major disappointment for animal defenders was the loss of a
proposed ban on greyhound racing in Massachusetts, 51% to 49%.
National humane organizations and the Massachusetts SPCA refused to
back the petition drive by a grassroots coalition of greyhound rescuers
called Grey2K when it began, judging the cause unwinnable. However, the
petitioners did gain substantial support from the Animal Rescue League of
Boston and got the question onto the ballot after many observers had
already called the effort dead.
Even then, Grey2K was a distinct underdog, raising just $712,000
to fight against the Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere and the
Raynham-Taunton Greyhound Park in Rayham, which spent $1.7 million to beat
them.
The Massachusetts SPCA, with $77 million in cash and securities
reserves, did almost nothing visible until nearly a month after ballots
were printed with summary arguments in which the greyhound industry
claimed, "animal welfare regulations [at tracks] are enforced by...police
as well as state-approved veterinarians and the MSPCA."
On October 30, MSPCA president Gus Thornton finally did endorse
the Grey2K initiative, in a joint statement coauthored by Animal Rescue
League of Boston president Arthur G. Slade, published in the Boston Globe.
But if the MSPCA ever put significant resources into the struggle,
Grey2K backers agreed, they never saw any evidence of it.
Splitting from Grey2K after the election, National Coalition of
Greyhound Advocates founder Kitty Granquist told Scott Van Voorhis of the
Boston Herald that she would challenge the election results in court, on
unspecified grounds. If that failed, she said, she hopes to push a
similar initiative to be considered on the next state ballot.

--M.C.