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Flourishing Finish to the 106th Congress
A number of important bills were signed into law in the year 2000, hopefully
signaling a move in our nation’s legislative branch toward compassion
and conservation that will carry through the 107th Congress and beyond.
In December, two significant bills were enacted. 1) The Shark Finning
Prohibition Act effectively prohibits the ruthless practice of hacking off
the fins of live sharks and throwing them back into the ocean to die in
agony. 2) The Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance and Protection
Act (CHIMP Act) provides thirty million dollars from the budget of the National
Institutes of Health to establish a national system of sanctuaries to
provide for the long-term care of chimpanzees no longer needed in
biomedical research. This legislation will enable a peaceful, appropriate
retirement for chimpanzees exploited in American biomedical testing
laboratories.
 To conserve the rapidly disappearing great apes remaining in the wild, the
Great Ape Conservation Act was enacted. The bill establishes a fund to
support projects related to chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans and
gibbons. Grants distributed under this Act are intended to stabilize the
species’ populations in the wild and ensure their long-term viability.
Logging—both legal and illegal—is destroying these species’ African
and Asian forest homes. This loss of valuable habitat and the growing
trade in the flesh of great apes, the “bushmeat trade,” has already
reduced many populations to mere remnants.
Other bills signed into law would help animals engaged in law enforcement: one
ends the Department of Defense’s practice of euthanizing military
working dogs and instead facilitates their adoption; another provides for
strict penalties against anyone who harms police dogs and horses used by
Federal agencies. Still other successfully enacted legislation bans the
sale of garments trimmed with cat or dog fur and encourages acceptance of
alternatives to animal testing.
The Congressional Appropriations process also has increased funding for animal
protection by federal agencies. 1) Animal Care Inspectors for the US
Department of Agriculture had a
desperately needed budget increase of two million dollars to undertake
their essential enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act. President
Clinton’s initial budget request for this item was a five million
dollar
increase. Efforts will continue to secure this much-needed funding. 2) An
additional $500,000 was appropriated for the US Fish and Wildlife Service
to protect manatees, the marine relative of the elephant, and their
habitat. The money will be used to increase on-water law enforcement to
prevent illegal speeding by motorboats whose propellers wound and kill
manatees. 3) Fish and Wildlife also received an additional $7 million to
hire new law enforcement agents and $2 million for the wildlife forensics
laboratory in Oregon.
Many bills will be revisited in the year to come. Among them legislation to
end: 1) the despicable trade in bear gallbladders for use in traditional
Chinese medicine, 2) the sale of dogs and cats to laboratories by random
source dealers, 3) the use of the barbaric steel-jaw leghold trap, 4) the
transport of game birds for cockfighting, and 5) the unjustified practice
of paying to shoot a confined wildlife, referred to as “canned hunts.”
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