EPA agrees to regulate factory farm emissions & effluents

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Thirty-eight years after Congress told
agribusiness to clean up their act, an estimated 20,000 factory
farms may at last have to account for what they do with 500 million
tons per year of cattle, pig, and poultry effluent.
Settling a lawsuit brought in 2009 by the Natural Resources
Defense Council, Sierra Club, and the Waterkeeper Alliance, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on June 1, 2010 agreed to
identify and investigate manure discharges by factory farms.
If the EPA honors the settlement, the outcome could be the
biggest economic blow to the meat industry yet, following three
years of losses attributed to rising feed and fuel costs.

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BOOKS: The Divine Life of Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

The Divine Life of Animals:
One Man’s Quest to Discover Whether the Souls of Animals Live On
by Ptolemy Tompkins
Crown, c/o Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2010.
256 pages. $22.99/e-book or hardcover.

Despite the subtitle “One man’s quest to discover whether the
souls of animals live on,” the primary objective of The Divine Life
of Animals is not to prove that animals have souls (because
scientifically, such a claim cannot be truly “proven” by any known
means), but rather to demonstrate the absurdity of claiming
otherwise. If humans have souls, Tompkins argues, then of course
other animals do as well–a statement most animal lovers will
intuitively agree with, but which he supports with a formidable body
of research gathered from a wide variety of religious and spiritual
traditions.

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BOOKS: Two Bobbies: A true story of friendship and survival

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Two Bobbies: A true story of friendship and survival
by Kirby Larson & Mary Nethery
Illustrated by Jean Cassels Walker
Walker & Co. (175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010), 2008. $16.99,
hardcover. 32 pages.

No one foresaw the nightmarish devastation to people,
property and pets wrought by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005.
Many and perhaps most of the people who evacuated New Orleans–just
as a precaution–imagined they would return within a few days, if
not hours. Someone left behind a brown dog named Bobbie, chained to
a porch. Somehow the hungry and thirsty dog yanked the chain so hard
that he freed himself. Not known is how Bobbie came to be the
inseparable companion of a white cat whom rescuers eventually named
Bob Cat: did they know each other first, or just become buddies in
the crisis?

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BOOKS: Animal Camp

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Animal Camp by Kathy Stevens
Skyhorse Publishing
(555 Eighth Ave., Suite 903, New York, NY 10018), 2010. 256
pages, hardcover. $24.95.

Every unwanted or cast off animal should be lucky enough to
end up at the Catskill Animal Sanctuary in upstate New York, the
subject of Kathy Stevens’ Animal Camp. I have reviewed many books
for Animal People about rescued animals and sanctuaries, some better
presented than others. Animal Camp is a delight.

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Ted Nugent pleads “no contest” to poaching

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

SACRAMENTO–Rock star and Outdoor Channel hunting show host
Ted Nugent on August 17, 2010 pleaded “no contest” in Yuba County
Superior Court to misdemeanor charges of illegally baiting a deer and
failing to have a properly signed hunting tag. Nugent was fined
$1,175.
The violations came to light when Nugent broadcast videotape
of his actions on the February 9, 2010 edition of his Spirit of the
Wild television program.
Hunting guide Ross Albert Patterson was fined $1,125 after
pleading “no contest” in connection with the same incidents, which
occurred in September 2009 in El Dorado County, California, near
the town of Somerset.

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Obituaries [July/Aug 2010]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:
 
Robert Byrd, 92, died on June 28,
2010. Entering politics as a Ku Klux Klan
organizer, Byrd served six years as the West
Virginia state legislator, then served three
terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958, Byrd
remained in the Senate for the rest of his life.
Perhaps best known for his turn against the Klan,
after filibustering against the 1964 Civil Rights
Act, Byrd was most politically consistent on
behalf of animals, voting for the Humane
Slaughter Act during his House tenure, and
delivering perhaps the most thorough denunciation
of factory farming ever uttered in Congress on
July 9, 2001 while seeking funding for stronger

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BOOKS: Animal Investigators: How the world’s first wildlife forensic lab is solving crimes and saving endangered species

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Animal Investigators:
How the world’s first wildlife forensic lab is solving crimes
and saving endangered species
by Laurel A. Neme, Ph.D.
Scribner (c/o Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of
the Americas, New York, NY 10020), 2009.
256 pages, hardcover. $25.00.

Animal Investigators, by International Institute for
Sustainable Development Reporting Services newsletter editor Laurel
Neme, focuses on the work of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service animal
forensics laboratory, on the campus of Southern Oregon University in
Ashland, Oregon. The lab supports the work of 200 federal wildlife
law enforcement agents, every state fish and game agency, and the
wildlife law enforcement agencies of all nations belonging to the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Neme begins with the late 1989 discovery of 415 headless
walrus carcasses along the shores of the remote Seward Peninsula, in
northwestern Alaska.

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BOOKS: The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats
by Paul McCutcheon, DVM and Susan Weinstein
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2009. 256
pages, paperback. $18.99.

“In the new holistic perspective, a truly healthy dog or
cat will have all systems functioning in the home that is her
body–her own living terrain,” write Paul McCutcheon, DVM, and
Susan Weinstein.
Holistic medicine traces back to the ancient Chinese method
of treating diseases with herbal remedies. In recent decades the
holistic approach has crossed into western veterinary medicine. A
holistic practitioner treats the whole body; a holistic veterinarian
treats the whole animal. McCutcheon and Weinstein contend that all
living creatures can heal themselves from most conditions. Pet
owners can aid the healing.

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People & positions

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:
Peter Davies, previously director general of the Royal SPCA
and then of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, was on
August 16, 2010 named chair of the management committee of the
Marjan Centre for the Study of Conflict & Conservation, a project of
the War Studies department at King’s College, London. The Marjan
Centre is headed by longtime King’s College faculty member Michael
Rainsborough.
Dori Villalon joined the American Humane Association in June
2010 as vice president for animal protection. Villalon was
previously vice president of the San Francisco SPCA, after heading
Sonoma County Animal Care & Control, the Cleveland Animal Protection
League, and the Larimer Humane Society .

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