The ultimate sacrifice

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1998:

LHASA, MUMBAI, JERUSALEM––Muslims,
Christians, and Jews marked some of their most sacred holidays
by killing animals. Hindus mobilized to save animals
from slaughter. Snowbound Tibetan Buddhists starved
rather than eat animals who were already dead or dying.
The Islamic Feast of Sacrifice, commemorating
Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, fell on
April 8 this year––halfway between Palm Sunday and Easter,
two days before Passover, and one day before the Jain festival
of Mahavir Jayanti, the annual celebration of the birth of
the teacher Mahavir, a contemporary of the Buddha.
The several moveable feasts and fixed occasions
coincided unusually closely, bringing conflicting cultural
views of animals into dramatic contrast.

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Cuckoo bills & the ESA

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1998:

TUCSON––They used to call it The
Tombstone Territory.
Now it’s potential critical habitat for
yellow-billed cuckoos, who could become the
next target of ideological gunslingers hellbent
on blowing away the Endangered Species Act.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit on
May 5 announced that 29 recovered species
including the bald eagle, Columbia whitetailed
deer, grey wolf, and peregrine falcon will be
delisted over the next two years––just in time,
cynics noted, for the next U.S. Presidential
election, when Babbitt if he survives present
poltical controversies might like to be making a
run for the White House.

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