BOOKS: To Eat Flesh They Are Willing: Are Their Spirits Weak?

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

To Eat Flesh They Are Willing: Are Their Spirits Weak?
Vegetarians Who Return to Meat
by Kristin Aronson, Ph.D.
Pythagorean Publishers (159 Easton Parkway, #2-H, Brooklyn, NY 11238), 1996
335 pages, paperback, $18.95.

Kristin Aronson, a philosopher of ethics
and ethical vegan, who teaches at Western
Connecticut State University, recently undertook
a philosophical enquiry into why people
who have been vegetarians return to eating
meat. She asked questions that vegetarians
often don’t want to ask, and probed where it
hurt, to find out how come even some once
ethical and passionate vegetarians sometimes
give up their vegetarianism and become
“lapso vegetarians.”

OBITUARIES

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

A. Peter Rasmussen, 76, died of
lung cancer on August 19. Born in Utah,
after service in the Army he became a professional
singer and toured the country. The last
25 years of his life were devoted to animal
welfare. Having traveled to Africa, he met
Joy Adamson, whose life was subject of the
movie Born Free, and soon after became one
of the founding members of the U.S. Born
Free Foundation chapter. He was involved
with Tippi Hedren’s ROAR Foundation,
which funds the Shambala Preserve, housing
more than 60 wild and exotic cats. Since the
early 1980s he had worked as secretary to
Gretchen Wyler, president of The Ark Trust
Inc., and became its secretary when the organization
was formed in 1991. “To me,”
Wyler told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “the loss is
profound. He gave the phrase ‘Take a letter’
new meaning. When I said, ‘Take a letter,’ I
meant, ‘Take it home and answer it.’ He
knew my thoughts, and often he expressed
them better than I could.” Peter was the official
secretary of all 11 Genesis Award celebrations,
an annual event honoring the
media, presented by The Ark Trust.

Obituaries

HINDI REVEALS MORE SHOCKING RODEO SECRETS

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

CHICAGO––Dubbed “The Flying Nut” in the
October edition of Outdoor Life for flying his paraglider
between geese and hunters last year, Chicago Animal
Rights Coalition founder Steve Hindi hates to be ignored.
Indeed Hindi isn’t ignored when he visits
rodeos lately. Since the CBS tabloid TV show H a r d
Copy on September 17 and 18 broadcast some of Hindi’s
footage of rodeo promoters electroshocking bulls to make
them buck, he’s often found himself under video surveillance,
while rodeos affiliated with the Professional
Rodeo Cowboys Association have abruptly disallowed
videotaping by spectators, from the Adirondack
Stampede in Glens Falls, New York, to a string of
California rodeos that Hindi visited in early October.
But Hindi’s questions of rodeo organizers and
the PRCA are being ignored. Though PRCA rodeo rules
ban the use of electroshock for any purpose other than
moving bulls into holding chutes, and dictate that electric
prods are to be used “as little as possible,” the PRCA
has not responded to inquiries from both Hindi and ANIMAL
PEOPLE as to what action it may be taking
against such luminaries as Cotton Rosser, whose Flying
U Rodeo Company is a major PRCA stock supplier.

BOOKS: The Man Who Listens to Horses

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

The Man Who Listens to Horses
by Monty Roberts
Random House (201 E. 50th St., New York, NY 10022), 1997.
258 pages, hardcover, $23.00.

The term “horse whisperer” was coined over 100 years ago, but
never before has it enjoyed as much popularity as today. A 1995 novel of
that title by Nicholas Evans touched readers around the world––both
those who love horses, and those who just love a good story.
The Man Who Listens to Horses, the autobiography of real-life
horse whisperer Monty Roberts, is nonfiction with the same potential. At
the local bookstore the other day, I saw stacks of The Man Who Listens to
Horses right beside the cash register, not buried in the “horses” section
where only equestrians might find it––the only non-fiction horse book I
have ever seen placed in such a sales-friendly location. It deserves the
same treatment in other stores across the country.

One scientist who isn’t afraid

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

VANCOUVER––Most Canadian
fisheries scientists may be intimidated when
officials blame seals for fish scarcity, but not
University of British Columbia marine mammal
research director Andrew Trites.
Best known for his metabolic
experiments with sea lions at the Vancouver
Aquarium, which involve having them swim
in tanks that work somewhat like a joggers’
treadmill, Trites was outraged on October 2
when federal Department of Fisheries and
Oceans staff shot 17 seals near the mouth of
the Puntledge River, ostensibly to protect an
endangered chinook salmon run, as well as
cutthroat trout and steelhead. Another 23
seals were to be shot later.

OTHER WILDLIFE/HUMAN CONFLICTS

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

Pledging to pay $150,000 for
spring-and-fall air drops of raccoon
rabies vaccination pellets over northern
Vermont to keep the disease out of
Quebec, the Quebec government came
through last spring, but at deadline was
reportedly struggling to find the money
to follow through with the fall drop.
U.S. federal funding was also uncertain.
Two vaccination pellet drops proceeded
as scheduled in Ohio, however,
to contain the westward spread of the
disease. Begun in 1976 by hunters who
translocated rabid raccoons from
Florida to West Virginia, the midAtlantic
raccoon rabies pandemic has
now spread to 16 states, but appears to
have been halted in mid-Ohio by a May
1997 application of vaccination pellets
along a 10-mile-wide, 695-square-mile
barrier, running from Mosquito Lake
to Wellsville. The September drops
reinforced the earlier drop, covering
1,200 square miles from Lake Erie to
the Ohio River.

COYOTE-GETTERS RESTRICTED IN UTAH

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

SALT LAKE CITY– –
Private animal control contractors
should not be allowed to use M-44
spring-loaded “coyote getters,” Utah
Department of Agriculture director of
plant industry Dick Wilson told the
Utah Wildlife Damage Prevention
Board on October 10. The devices
shoot deadly sodium cyanide into the
mouths of coyotes who tug at an
attached piece of bait.
Utah currently allows 33
USDA Wildlife Services trappers to
use M-44s, but the cost of supervising
private use to avoid accidentally
killing humans, pets, and livestock,
Wilson estimated, could run as high as
$20,000 per user per year.

Gains against pet overpopulation come as others seek basic services

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

SAN MATEO, Calif.––Two years after the
Homeless Cat Network and the Peninsula Humane Society
began formal cooperation, the homeless cat population of San
Mateo County is reportedly down by half.
So far, 111 volunteers are looking after 129 homeless
cat colonies. All cats have been neutered and vaccinated. Cats
who can be handled are removed from the colonies and adopted
out. The number of cats within the monitored colonies fell
from 1,215 in 1995 to just 658 after the 1997 kitten season,
while 540 cats were placed in homes.
The results mirror the earlier success of
neuter/release, vaccination, and adoption efforts coordinated
by the Stanford Cat Coalition, just to the south, and the San
Francisco SPCA, just to the north––and also replicates the
experience of individual cat rescuers across the U.S., surveyed
by ANIMAL PEOPLE in 1992 and 1995.

All but soap ads

November 1, 1997 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

DALLAS––Travis County judge Suzanne Covington
on October 14 ordered Texas Exotic Feline Foundation
cofounder Gene Reitnauer to leave her home on the sanctuary
grounds in Boyd, Texas within 30 days, and to have no further
contact with any of the animals there.
Reitnauer is to forfeit the house in partial payment of
almost $1.8 million in punitive damages and costs of prosecution
assessed against her by jury on September 20. The jury ruled
that Reitnauer, 48, “unjustly enriched” herself by spending
$323,000 on permanent improvements to her personal property,
including a swimming pool, and improperly used more than
$121,000 in donations to TEFF for personal purposes including
mortgage payments and income tax liens. Reitnauer held that all
improvements were for the benefit of the 64 big cats in her care.

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