WAR IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN: Saving Children and Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

WASHINGTON, D.C. –– The
press dispatches should have warned the
world. “Rivers and water holes have
dried up for the first time anyone can
remember, starving and burning to death
some 400 hippos,” Associated Press cor-
respondent Angus Shaw wrote from
Zimbabwe in mid-July. “Dead birds have
dropped out of shriveled trees, tortoises,
snakes, rodents, and insects have disap-
peared, and predators are killing more
weakened animals than they can eat… As
southern Africa suffers its worst drought
ever, thousands of animals have died and
officials are continuing to shoot many
more to feed the increasingly desperate
human population. The meat from the
culled animals has been targeted for chil-
dren showing signs of malnutrition.”

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Seeking The truth about feral cats and the people who help them: NEW STUDY YIELDS CONTROVERSIAL FINDINGS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

BOSTON, MASS. –– The leading cause of death among homeless cats may be
humane euthanasia. Homeless cat colonies exist in almost every American neighborhood––but
four out of 10 homeless cats live in just 6% of the colonies, and two-thirds live in only 16%.
Over half of all stray and feral female cats are pregnant at any given time. Yet attrition is so high
that despite local fluctuations, the national homeless cat population is remarkably stable.
These and other challenges to conventional thinking about homeless cats emerge from
data gathered by ANIMAL PEOPLE and the Massachusetts SPCA, in the first-ever national
survey of cat-feeders and cat-rescuers. The controversial nature of the findings and the complex-
ity of interpreting the data in light of experience became apparent when even the ANIMAL
PEOPLE editors strongly differed over what some of the numbers may mean.

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A voiding roadkills: Secrets of animal behavior that can save your life!

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

You’re cruising near the speed limit late one night,
tired from a long drive. You catch a glint of eyes in your
headlight beams, a dark shape breaking from the shadows
to your right, an oncoming car to your left––
Do you jam on the brakes? Speed up to get past
before the animal bolts? Risk swerving? Take your foot off
the gas?
Combat pilots memorize silhouette cards and air-
craft specification sheets, in order to recognize every other
plane in the sky even if all they see is a fleeting glimpse of
something on radar. They need to know instantly what’s out
there: whether it’s hostile, how fast it can go, how far it
can shoot. At Mach 2, there isn’t time for second-guessing.
But at 60 miles an hour your car is outracing the
focal distance of your headlights even faster than a fighter
pilot outraces radar range. And like most other drivers, you
haven’t had any training in how to respond to an animal in
the roadway.

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Rethinking Our Bargain With Cats by Jessica Bart-Mikionis

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:

Growing up, I always wanted to be a cat. My
very first pet was a dog, though, named Heather. I
don’t remember her, nor the accident that killed her. I
was in my stroller, I have been told, with my mother,
when Heather bolted into the street perhaps in pursuit of
a cat and got hit by an oncoming car. A while later,
when I was three or four, came Mehitabel, named after
Don Marquis’ tale archie and mehitabel.. I remember
Mehitabel vividly. We used to explore the world togeth-
er, sleep together, and play hide-and-seek and tag, until
one time she ran under my legs, I stumbled and fell on
her, and broke her leg. I don’t think I was ever the same
after that. Mehitabel sported an elaborate splint for sev-
eral months, and my mother and I would support her
when she used her litter pan in the beginning of her recu-
peration.

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BOOKS BRIEFLY NOTED

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

The Myth of Wild Africa:
Conservation Without Illusion,
by Jonathan Adams and Thomas
McShane. W.W. Norton & Co., 1992.
266 pages; hardback; $21.95.
Adams and McShane, both offi-
cials of the World Wildlife Fund, advance
the WWF view that only hunting and
“culling” marketable species can provide
impoverished African nations with suffi-
cient economic incentive to insure that the
animals will otherwise be protected. The
case of the African elephant demonstrates,
however, that the presence of a legal market
for wildlife parts in one nation only stimu-
lates poaching in others where there is no

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BOOKS: Harmony With Horses

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

Harmony With Horses. By Maurice Wright.
J.A. Allen Horsebooks (1 Lower Grosvenor Place,
Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0EL, United
Kingdom). 1991. 127 pages. Inquire for current
U.S./Canadian price.
If more of us understood the generous and willing
spirit of horses, fewer horse people would approach them
as “a gladiator, not an educator,” as horsetamer John
Solomon Rarey put it nearly 150 years ago––and fewer ani-
mal rights activists would attack the use of horses for work,
pleasure, and performance. Strangely, however, despite
the prominence of horses in human culture since prehistory,
understanding horses hasn’t been a priority even for many of
those most involved with them. There was a gap of nearly
2,000 years between Xenophon’s instructions to cavalry
masters to treat horses gently, without whips, and the 1550
publication of Federico Grisone’s book on horse training,
which emphasized dominance, and became the basis for
many of the myths, misunderstandings, and downright cru-
elties afflicting horses today. It was only within the last few
years, for example, that the veterinary profession banned
“firing,” the medieval practice of applying hot irons or
caustics to an ailing horse. Tail-docking is still commonly
performed.

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Fur

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

Fur Free Friday is November
27—the day after Thanksgiving, the tradi-
tional start of the peak fur sales season. Get
details on demonstrations in your region
from either Friends of Animals at 212-247-
8120, or Animal Rights Mobilization at
303-388-7120.
The Fur Council of Canada
announced a $1 million publicity blitz on
October 20, aimed at reviving the strug-
gling Canadian retail fur market––one of
the last markets left to the Canadian fur
industry, following the collapse of fur sales
in Europe and the U.S. The campaign
argues that furs are reuseable and
biodegradable, and that the fur trade is an
essential part of controlling animal popula-
tions––which contradicts earlier industry
claims that the majority of animals killed
for fur are ranched especially for the pur-
pose.

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Bred and abandoned–– but now there’s hope for potbellied pigs! (and they even have mud to root in)

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

The headlines tell the story:
October 1, 1991, St. Louis Post-Dispatch––
‘Super Pig’ Credited With Saving
Banking Executive, Wife In Fire
October 30, 1991, The Daily Oklahoman––
Council Advised To Keep Pig Law
December 4, 1991, Detroit Free Press––
Pet Pig Prompts Court Confrontation
June 7, 1992, The New York Times––
This Little Pig’s Market Plunged
June 30, 1992, Los Angeles Times––
Pet Potbellied Pig Craze Goes Belly Up

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Dogs And Cats

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

Starting in January and incorporated just
last July under the name Every Creature Counts, Lisa
Booker, Pat Peluso, and Joy Skow of Lyons, Colorado,
had rescued an estimated 400 cats among them by the end
of September, picking up strays and ferals from Loveland
to Denver. They practice a combination of neuter/release
and pick-up-for-adoption,
Eighteen of 38 cats whose pictures are on cat-
food boxes or cans in the supermarket closest to ANI-
MAL PEOPLE are orange toms.

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