Human obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Spetember 2004:

Dan Knapp, 49, died unexpectedly on August 1, 2004.
Longtime friend Warren Cox told ANIMAL PEOPLE that he understood
Knapp suffered a heart attack while mowing his lawn. An ordained
minister, Knapp led churches in Piedmont, San Jose, Santa Monica,
and Huntingon Park, California, and handled inventory control for a
Silicon Valley maker of mass spectrometers, before finding his
calling in 1988-1989 as executive director of the Humane Society of
Humboldt County. Moving to the somewhat larger Humane Society of
Sonoma County in 1990, Knapp achieved an economic turnaround,
markedly reduced animal control killing, and formed effective
alliances with cat rescuers, dog breed rescue clubs, local
children’s services, and animal rights groups. Knapp was recruited
in July 1998 to become general manager of the Los Angeles Department
of Animal Regulation. Knapp in March 2000 persuaded the Los Angeles
city council to adopt one of the widest differentials on record in
the cost of licensing sterilized v.s. unsterilized pets. A favorite
of animal rights activists, Knapp otherwise ran into conflict and
controversy in Los Angeles, most memorably when he attributed a
controversial mid-2000 roundup of free-roaming dogs to preparation
for the Democratic National Convention, and was rebuked by Mayor
Richard Riordan. An epileptic since 1996, Knapp was fired by
Riordan’s successor, James K. Hahn, in October 2001, after a
prolonged medical absence. He subsequently sued Los Angeles for
alleged discrimination based on his epileptic condition. In January
2002 he became executive director of the Capital Area Humane Society
in Columbus, Ohio, where–as in Sonoma County–he won praise from
all quarters. “Dan was an important advocate for animals and people
in our community,” said CAHS board president Becky Johnson. “He was
committed to preventing animal and human violence through
intervention and community education. Dan provided exemplary
leadership, and will be difficult to replace.”

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BOOKS: The Great Compassion & Holy Cow

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2004:

The Great Compassion:
Buddhism & Animal Rights
by Norm Phelps

Holy Cow:
The Hare Krishna Contribution to Vegetarianism & Animal Rights
by Steven J. Rosen

Both from Lantern Books (1 Union Square West, Suite 201, New York,
NY 10003), 2004.
169 pages, paperback. $16.00.

Norm Phelps, spiritual outreach director for the Fund for
Animals, is an angry Buddhist and animal rights activist.
Phelps’s righteous anger is primarily directed at the many
Buddhists –he estimates about half–who eat meat. Phelps regards
meat eating by Buddhists as both hypocrisy and as much a heresy as
can be committed within a religion whose teachings emphasize
tolerance. Phelps contends that western Buddhists who continue to
eat meat, when they must know of the horrors of factory farming,
offend the fundamental principle of their ancient religion, which
requires compassion for all sentient beings and preparedness to make
personal sacrifices in order to reduce others’ suffering.

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Who killed hunting profits in Zimbabwe?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2004:

HARARE–The search for someone to blame is underway in Zimbabwe.
“We have a situation where the previous hunting season earned $24
million U.S. and then suddenly the last hunting season earned only
$13 million,” fumed National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority
chief executive Morris Mtsambiwa to Isadore Guvamombe of the
government-controlled Harare Herald in mid-August 2004.
“Our question is, what happened to the other $11 million?
Investigations are in progress,” Mtsambiwa continued.
Mtsambiwa said nothing of land occupations by mobs of “war
veterans,” confiscations of especially attractive properties by
corrupt public officials, uncontrolled poaching, and the near
complete destruction of many of Zimbabwe’s renowned private wildlife
conservancies. His remarks, however, hinted at a pretext for
further seizures.
“Hunting proceeds are paid in advance to the safari
operators,” Guva-mombe wrote, “but last year many operators,
working in cahoots with white former farmers, devised methods of
circumventing foreign currency declaration procedures.”
Hwange safari operator Headman Sibanda meanwhile sued
Zimbabwean environment and tourism minister Francis Nhema for
allegedly improperly awarding a hunting concession to a company
headed by a Nhema associate named Marble Dete.

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Kenya leads opposition to lifting CITES ivory trade ban, seeks lion trophy trade ban

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2004:

NAIROBI–Kenya will again lead the opposition to lifting the
global embargo on ivory and rhino horn trafficking at the October
2004 conference of the 166 parties to the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species in Bangkok, Thailand, Kenyan
assistant minister for the environment and natural resources George
Khaniri announced on August 26.
Kenya is also proposing to ban international traffic in
African lion trophies, but the Kenyan recommendation is opposed by
the U.S. and Britain, two of the nations with the most lion hunters.
The wild African lion population is believed to have fallen
70% since 1996, to just 23,000, distributed among 89 locations.
Half live in the Masai Mara and Serengeti region of Kenya and
Tanzania, the Selous game reserve in Tanzania, Kruger National Park
in South Africa, and the Okavango Delta of Botswana.
Khaneri told The Nation that Kenya now has 28,000 elephants
and 500 rhinos, up from 16,000 and 250 since CITES imposed the ivory
and rhino horn trade bans in 1989.
Anticipating that the ivory and rhino horn embargoes might
soon be eased or lifted, poachers typically raiding from Somalia
have recently escalated their activity, as often occurs on the eve
of a CITES meeting.

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Governments push hunting the big bucks, boars, et al–for the price on their heads

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2004:

CANBERRA, JOHANNESBURG,
NAIROBI–Australian government agencies are
missing the gravy train by hiring sharpshooters
to kill non-native wildlife, University of
Queensland faculty members Gordon Dryden and
Stephen Craig-Smith reported in early September
2004 to the Rural Industries Research &
Development Corporation.
The RIRDC is a federal think-tank formed
to create jobs in the Outback. It envisions the
Outback as a tourism draw rivaling Africa–for
one type of tourist.
“Wealthy hunting enthusiasts around the
world would be happy to cull these animals that
nobody in Australia wants, and would pay for the
privilege,” Craig-Smith said. “This would be a
niche tourism market targeted at cashed-up
hunters,” he added, “not a wholesale slaughter
of animals.”

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