India reaffirms support of Animal Birth Control program

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
NEW DELHI, ISTANBUL, BUCHAREST,
BELGRADE–The historic progress of compassionate
teachings about animals from east to west
appeared evident yet again in September 2006
rabies and street dog population control
developments.
India in September 2006 reaffirmed
neuter/return and vaccination as the official
national anti-rabies strategy.
Turkey was embarrassed by exposés of
inadequate supervision of a similar policy,
brought into effect by law in June 2005.
Several Romanian local governments,
including in the capital city of Bucharest,
appeared to be either ignoring or trying to roll
back animal control holding requirements, to
expedite killing.

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BOOKS: Cousin John: The Story of a Boy & a Small Smart Pig

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

Cousin John: The Story of a Boy
& a Small Smart Pig by Walter Paine
Bunker Hill Publishing (285 River Road,
Piermont, NH 03779), 2006. 95 pages,
paperback. $17.95.

Raised in Brookline, Massachusetts,
Walter Paine found the outdoors and nature an
endless source of interest. He was far happier
roaming the open acres he called “my magic
kingdom’” because of the many fascinating
creatures he found there, than he was playing
with school friends. He had difficulty relating
to other boys his age because he was far more
interested in picking up bugs and inspecting
anything that crawled or flew than in playing
conventional games.
Paine did once try hunting, shooting a
squirrel out of a tree with a BB gun. “As it lay
twitching pathetically at my feet, I felt a
sudden surge of shame and sorrow for taking an
innocent creature’s life,” he writes.

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Obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
Steve Irwin, 44, was killed when stabbed in the heart by a
stingray on September 4, 2006, while videotaping a series called
“Ocean’s Deadliest” at Batt Reef, north of Cairns. Irwin starred in
the Crococile Hunter television series, aired in Australia since
1992, later carried globally by the Discovery Channel. An outspoken
opponent of recreational hunting, Irwin led a successful campaign
against a government proposal to open trophy hunting for saltwater
crocodiles in the Australian Northern Territory. Irwin’s parents,
Bob and Lyn Irwin, founded the Australia Zoo, north of Brisbane,
in 1970. “In 1991, Irwin took over the zoo when his parents retired,
and began building a reputation as a showman during daily crocodile
feeding shows. He met and married Terri Raines, of Eugene, Oregon,
who came to the park as a tourist,” in 1992, recalled Brian Cassey
of Associated Press. “They invited a television crew to join them on
their camping honeymoon on Australia’s far northern tip. The
resulting show became the first episode of The Crocodile Hunter.

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BOOKS: The Ocean At Home: An Illustrated History of the Aquarium

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

The Ocean At Home:
An Illustrated History of the Aquarium
by Bernd Brunner
Princeton Architectural Press
(37 E. 7th Ave., New York, NY 10003), 2005.
144 pages, hardcover. $24.95.

Originally published in German, printed in China, newly
reissued in English, The Ocean At Home is a surprisingly fascinating
in-depth study of a seemingly esoteric topic whose evolution in the
19th and early 20th centuries paralleled the rise of the humane
movement, anti-vivisectionism, and human awareness of ecology.
Even before Charles Darwin produced On The Origin of Species,
the 19th century brought an explosion of interest in nature study,
especially among the fast-growing middle classes of Europe after the
Industrial Revolution removed large numbers of people from routine
daily immersion in raising plants and animals.

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Animal obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

Norman, 15, the pet pig for whom the White Pig Bed &
Breakfast vegan retreat in Schuyler, Virginia, was named, died on
September 18, 2006.

Sher Khan, 22, the oldest hybrid African/Asiatic lion in
India, died on September 24 at the Tata Steel Zoological Park in
Jamshedpur. The Central Zoo Authority in December 2004 ordered that
all of the 300 hybrid lions in Indian zoos should be sterilized, to
keep the captive Asiatic lion population genetically distinct. The
Chatbir Zoo in Punjab had bred nearly 100 hybrid lions.

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BOOKS: Black Market: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

Black Market: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia by Ben Davies
EarthAware Editions (17 Paul Drive, San Rafael, CA 94903), 2005.
173 pages, paperback. $29.95.

A pictorial account of the trade in Asian endangered species,
Ben Davies’ book Black Market is shocking, sickening and depressing,
yet also challenging, inspiring, well-researched, authentic, and
thought-provoking.
More than a harrowing litany of ghastly animal abuse, Black
Market offers some hope for the future by examining possible
responses, including the work done by dedicated conservationists and
animal advocates.

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BOOKS: First Light: Animal Voices in Concert

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

First Light:
Animal Voices in Concert
by Ardeth DeVries
Publishing Works (c/o Revolution Booksellers,
60 Winter St., Exeter, NH 03833), October 2006
186 pages, paperback. $15.00.

First Light is a collection of short stories about dogs and
an African elephant named Sonny, who was orphaned by herd-culling in
Zimbabwe circa 1980, was sold to a zoo in New Mexico, was
eventually deemed incorrigible, and was sent to the Popcorn Park
Zoo, a rescue facility run by the Associated Humane Societies of New
Jersey, in 1989. He died in early 2001.
The stories are told largely through the mouths of the
animals themselves, including Zippy, a little terrier who rescues
birds and finds time to teach inter-species communication, and
Angus, a blind shelter dog whose caring guardian was able to give
him the gift of sight. Angus lives with author Ardeth DeVries and
joins DeVries at benefits for animal charities near their home in
Coupevlle, Wasington.

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BOOKS: Coyotes and Javelinas

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

Coyotes and Javelinas
by Lauray Yule
Look West Series (Rio Nuevo Publishers,
451 N. Bonita Ave., Tucson, AZ 85745), 2004.
64 pages, hardcover, illustrated. $12.95.

Not reviewing these now time-tested and still in print titles
promptly on publication two years ago was a goof occasioned by
whatever cat knocked the unopened envelope containing them down into
the false bottom of a filing cabinet.
Written for a classroom audience, Coyotes and Javelinas
present a positive view of two of the most resourceful and unjustly
maligned animals in the west. Former Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
staffer Lauray Yule came to know and appreciate coyotes and javelinas
from first-hand observation and experience. While Coyotes and
Javelinas are not first-hand narratives, neither are they mere
simplified natural history texts. In addition to biological
information, Yule describes the cultural roles of her animal
subjects.
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BOOKS: Stealing Love: Confessions of a Dognapper

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

Stealing Love: Confessions of a Dognapper by Mary A. Fischer
Harmony Books (231 Broad St., Nevada City, CA 95959), 2006. 288
pages, hardcover. $23.00.

Stealing Love: Confessions of a Dognapper is the
autobiography of investigative reporter Mary A. Fischer, a poignant
story of a sad and lonely life. Rescuing abused dogs is both
incidental to, and symbolic of, her own family history.
Fischer was the second daughter of a dysfunctional family.
When she was four years old, her mother had a breakdown following
the death of her own mother, and was committed to a mental
institution by her father, a selfish, inconsiderate rake.
Fischer paints a harrowing picture of life in an American
asylum when psychiatry was still relatively new: “No experimental
therapy was seen as too bizarre.” Shock therapy was the norm,
“with electrode pads in a metal headband on her temples, a nurse
flips a switch and 140 volts of electricity crackle through her
temporal lobes like a thunderbolt of lightning.”

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