OBITUARIES

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

Michael “Rhino Man” Werikhe,
43, died on August 9 in Mombassa, Kenya,
“from injuries sustained in an assault by
gangsters three weeks ago,” The Nation o f
Nairobi reported. Werikhe in 1982 quit his
job with the Kenya Wildlife Service and
walked from Mombassa to Nairobi to protest
against rhino poaching. In 1985 he walked
1,250 miles across Uganda, Kenya, and
Tanzania, raising $54,000 for rhino help projects.
An 1,800-mile walk through western
Europe raised $1 million in 1988. In 1991
Werikhe raised additional funds with a 30-
city walking tour of the U.S. and Canada. His
walks earned a Goldman Environmental Prize
and a position on the Advisory Council to the
Rhino Trust. Between walks, he was a maintenance
supervisor at the Associated Vehicle
Assembly plant in Mombassa.

Obituaries

Russians halt beluga whale killing for sale to Japan

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

HOKKAIDO––Russian whalers on
September 10 reportedly delivered to Japanese
buyers 13 metric tons of whale meat from at
least 36 and perhaps as many as 50 belugas
killed a week earlier in the Okhotsk Sea,
which lies between the Kamchata Peninsula
and Sakhalin Island.
It was the first Russian commercial
whale slaughter since 1986, and its first in
northern waters since 1979.
It will not be repeated, the Russian
government decreed four days later after a
cabinet-level review of the deal in Moscow.
Said International Fund for Animal
Welfare director of commercial trade and
exploitation Karen Steuer, “Reopening the
international trade in whale meat would have
set a dangerous precedent. The Russian decision
shows that Russia sees commercial whaling
for what it i ––an outmoded practice with
no place in modern society.”

BOOKS: The Way of Compassion & A Vegetarian Lifestyle

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

The Way of Compassion:
Survival Strategies for a World in Crisis
Edited by Martin Rowe
Stealth Technologies (POB 138, Prince St. Station, New York, NY 10012), 1999.
244 pages, paperback, $16.95.

A Vegetarian Lifestyle:
A way of life which causes no creature of land, sea, or air
terror, torture, or death
Edited by Diana Ratnagar and Ranjit Konkar
Beauty Without Cruelty – India (4 Prince of Wales Drive, Wanowrie,
Pune 411 040, India), 1999. 474 pages, paperback, no price listed.

“In June 1994,” The Way of
Compassion editor Martin Rowe opens, “my
colleague Beth Gould and I began a magazine,”
distributed in free bundles at New
York City restaurants and health food stores,
“called Satya. The word itself means ‘truth,’”
Rowe continues, “and it is one of the fundamental
precepts of the Jain religion of India.
The Jains believe in radical nonviolence, and
attempt to live that way as much as possible.”
The Way of Compassion assembles
many of the most memorable essays, book
excerpts, and interviews published by Satya
through 1998.

BOOKS: Nature’s Keepers

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

Nature’s Keepers: On the Front Lines
of the Fight to Save Wildlife in America
by Michael Tobias
John Wiley & Sons (605 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10158), 1999.
238 pages, hardcover, $24.95.

Poachers were the undisputed heroes
of cops-and-robbers with a wildlife motif for
at least the first 700 years they existed as a
genre. Only late in the 20th century has the
Robin Hood image of the poacher tarnished,
to the point that recent renditions of the Robin
Hood legend––like the animated version from
Walt Disney Studios and the live-action version
starring Kevin Costner––have utterly
ignored his reputation as a deerslayer, gillnetter,
and master of the snare.

BOOKS: Stickeen & Dr. White

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

Stickeen: John Muir
and the Brave Little Dog
by John Muir
as retold by Donnell Rubay
Illus. by Christopher Canyon
Dawn Publications (14618 Tyler Foote
Road, Nevada City, CA 95959), 1998.
Paperback, $7.95.

Dr. White
by Jane Goodall
Illustrated by Julie Litty
North-South Books (1123 Broadway,
Suite 800, New York, NY 10010),
1999. Hardcover, $15.88.

The 19th-and-early-20th-century
conservationist John Muir and contemporary
primatologist Jane Goodall achieved comparable
stature in advancing human understanding
of animals and nature, largely in lost
causes––Muir trying to save the last wild
places in the American west, Goodall trying
to save wilderness in Africa.

Pet python kills child

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

ST. LOUIS; ORLANDO–– State intervention came too
late for Jessie Altom, age 3, of Centralia, Illinois, suffocated on
August 29 by his parents’ seven-and-a-half-foot rock python as he
slept on the floor of their home with his aunt and uncle. Jessie
Altom’s parents, Robert and Melissa Altom, ages 26 and 21,
were charged immediately after the boy’s September 2 funeral
with feloniously endangering the life of a child and unlawful possession
of a dangerous animal.
Jessie Altom was killed four days after Florida
Department of Children and Families spokesperson Mary O’Quinn
disclosed that child welfare officials had removed Nickolas
Graham, age 18 months, from his family’s home in Tavares.

Ireland fights EU over animal welfare

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

DUBLIN––Scientists warned
Ireland in August that by mid-year it
had already exceeded the national
“greenhouse gas” emission limits set by
the European Union and United Nations
under the 1997 Kyoto Agreement to
limit global warming––despite special
dispensation allowing Ireland a 13%
increase in emissions by 2010.
Since nearly half of all Irish
“greenhouse gas” comes from cattle,
the warning meant in effect that Irish
farmers must find a way to reduce
bovine flatulence. Or else.

HOW THE ALEUTIAN GEESE WERE GUNNED––FEDS BLAMED FOXES

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

WASHINGTON D.C. – –
There was a story behind the story,
mentioned only in passing, when U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service on July 30
proposed dropping Aleutian Canada
geese from Endangered Species Act
protection, as recovered, with a population
now estimated at 32,000.
As USFWS told media, trappers
and fur farmers introduced foxes
to the 190 islands of the Aleutians
where the Canada goose subspecies
nests, beginning in 1750. The most
vigorous epoch of fox introduction was
1915-1930. By 1938 the Aleutian
goose had vanished, though closely
related species survived in Siberia.

FAIR WAS FOUL IN UPSTATE N.Y.

October 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

GREENWICH (N.Y.)– – Animal
manure polluting a well is blamed for cultivating
the verotoxin-producing e-coli bacteria
strain (VTEC) that killed two visitors to the
Washington County Fair in upstate New York
in early September. Another 611 fell ill.
Fifty-eight people were hospitalized
––nine on dialysis––due to potentially fatal
hemolytic uremic syndrome caused by VTEC.
The week-long fair closed on
August 29, 1999. Rachel Aldrich, age three,
died on September 4. Her two-year-old sister
Kaylea survived on dialysis. Most victims
were reportedly between ages three and 14,
but the second to die, on September 10, was
Ernest Wester, 79, of Albany.

1 2 3 4 »