Jaded humpmasters turn to women

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

SYDNEY––Australian Camel Racing
Association president Kevin Handley on February
5 reportedly failed to win an exemption from the
Equal Opportunity Act which would have allowed
ACRA to recruit “young attractive female riders”
to race camels in the United Arab Emirates––at
invitation, Handley said, of the UAE ambassador.
According to Manika Naidoo of the
Sydney Morning Herald, UAE embassy officials
had “hand-picked” 20 Australian women, most
with no previous camel-riding experience, and
hope to recruit up to 40 more within two years.
“Handley told the Anti-Discrimination
Tribunal that applicants had to be attractive and
female because the idea behind the scheme was to
promote women jockeys and counter camel racing’s
male-dominated image,” Naidoo wrote. “He
said if spectators saw pretty young females riding
camels, it would destroy the popular view of the
animals as ‘untrustworthy, stinking, and arrogant,’
and of riders being ‘bearded and backward
beer-drinking boozers.’”

BOOKS: Goodbye, Friend

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

Goodbye, Friend
Healing wisdom for anyone
who has ever lost a pet
by Gary Kowalski
Stillpoint Publishing
(POB 640, Walpole, NH 03608), 1997.
159 pages, paperback, $11.95.

Gary Kowalski, a Unitarian minister,
advises acknowledging the death of a pet
much as one would the death of any other
family member. Services, including eulogies
tailored to the individual comfort level, are
recommended as part of grieving.
The topic of children dealing with a
pet’s death is covered. Significance is given
to even the smallest of companions, as the
author describes his own children’s year-long
series of memorials for a goldfish who had
lived a very short life. He gives advice to
calm children’s fear of death, and on how to
allow children to cope on their own level.

Regeneration breakthrough in mice

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

PHILADELPHIA––The key to human
regrowth of lost or injured limbs and organs may
have been found by accident in connection with
genetically modifying mice for disease research,
immunologist Ellen Heber-Katz of the Wistar
Institute indicated in a February 16 address to the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
Heber-Katz was studying multiple sclerosis
using the fairly common MRL strain of custom-bred
research mouse, she said, when she
found that ID holes punched in her subjects’ ears
quickly healed over without a trace. Removing
bits of their tails and livers brought similar
results: new parts grew, matching the old.

CLINTON BUDGET BOOSTS NIH, NPS

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – The
U.S. budget for fiscal 1999 announced by
President Bill Clinton on February 2
includes a record $170 billion for civilian
research and development over the next
five years. The National Institutes of
Health would get an immediate funding
increase of $1.15 billion, giving it a 1999
budget of $14.8 billion, and would be
scheduled to get $20 billion in 2004.
NIH head Harold Varmus told
media that the money, if allocated by
Congress, would be divided among studies
of cancer, diabetes, brain disorders,
asthma, and AIDS.

BOOKS: The Lessons of St. Francis

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

The Lessons of St. Francis:
How to Bring Simplicity and Spirituality into Your Daily Life
by John Michael Talbot with Steve Rabey
Dutton (375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014), 1997.
255 pages, hardcover, $21.95.

A member of the 1960s country/ rock
band Mason Profitt, John Michael Talbot
either reinvented or rediscovered himself after
the band broke up––first as an admittedly
obnoxious evangelical “Jesus freak,” and then,
as the zeal of the newly converted gave way to
recognition that he still didn’t like himself
much, a lay Franciscan.
Bible-thumping hadn’t brought
Talbot inner peace, but working to emulate St.
Francis did. Still a professional musician,
Talbot eventually founded the semi-communal
Missouri-based Brothers and Sisters of Charity,
and became a respected Franciscan scholar.

WHAT’S TO BECOME OF A BARREL OF MONKEYS?

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

MADISON, Wisconsin––Virginia Hinshaw, dean
of graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison,
on February 3 gave Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk until
March 2 to find a way to keep 100 rhesus macaques and 50
stump-tailed macaques at the Vilas Zoo, their longtime home.
The Vilas Zoo has long housed the macaques under
contract to the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center,
funded by the National Institutes of Health. American Zoo
Association policy has discouraged the use of zoo animals in
research since 1986, but the Vilas Zoo arrangement, dating to
1963, predated the policy.
The macaque colonies are descended from those who
provided subjects for the notorious isolation experiments of the
late Harry Harlow, who moved his work to the University of
Arizona in 1971 and died in 1981. They are the oldest stable
breeding colonies of macaques in captivity. About 1,300 kin
are at separate facilities on the university campus.

WARFARE AND ANIMALS

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

The Bureau of Land
Management has asked the U.S. Air
Force to redesign a plan to create a new
target bombing range 25 miles southeast
of the Saylor Creek Training Range in
Idaho. The BLM wants the Air Force to
restrict low level flights over the Owyhee
Canyonlands to avoid disturbing either
bighorn sheep during lambing season, or
recreational visitors during peak use
times. The Air Force earlier agreed to
avoid the most critical lambing areas and
to restrict flights over two other parts of
the proposed range during the times most
favored by rafters and kayakers. The
current plan is the fourth expansion proposal
from the Air Force since the
Persian Gulf War showed the need to
train pilots for desert combat. Previous
plans were halted by opposition from
Native Americans, environmentalists,
hunters, and ranchers.

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