ANIMAL OBITUARIES

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

Leo II, 12, African lion mascot of the University of North Alabama football team, died on March 1 while anesthetized for a medical check at Auburn University. His death provoked discussion not only of the propriety of using wild animals as quasicheerleaders, but also of Auburn academic standards, after the Birmingham News bannered “Leo II dies during exam at AU.”

Maverick, four, German shepherd police dog for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department in Santa Rosa, California, trained after rescue from a local pound, was killed on February 11 when struck by a car during hot pursuit of two suspects who allegedly discarded a loaded handgun and a half pound of cocaine in their flight. Despite his fatal injuries, Maverick continued the chase until called off by handler Theodore Van Bebber.

Obituaries

BOOKS: Nature Watch

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

Nature Watch: Essays from Japan by W. Puck Brecher

Presented in both English and parallel Japanese translation, Nature Watch collects 21 columns originally published by the internet magazine Nagano Journal, concluding with a survey of Japanese attitudes toward nature and environmental policy, compared and contrasted with a survey of Americans.

Author/researcher Puck Brecher is a university professor long stationed in Japan. Distance from the mainstream of the U.S. environmental movement may help him develop a perspective on ecology which recognizes that upholding humane values must be part of any effective nature-saving. “

Asia
Reviews

BOOKS: Superman for the Animals

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

Superman For The Animals by Mark Millar

drawn by Tom Grummett & Dick Giordano

D.C. Comics / Doris Day Animal Foundation

Sold as a bonus item, packaged with Batman: Gotham Adventures, Superman Adventures, Impulse, Hourman, and Stars & S.T.R.I.P.E. comic books, Superman For The Animals is the Doris Day Animal Foundation’s attempt to reach adolescent and teenaged males––the age/gender subcategory most closely associated with violence against animals, both legal (for example, high-volume “varmint” shooting) and illegal, and for that matter, violence against humans and each other.

Reviews

The ANIMAL UNDERWORLD allegations

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

AZA Zoo Alleged questionable dealings (Italics mean Alan Green alleged a deal without citing the year [and often, without stating how many animals were involved]; boldface means Green cited the year and number of animals; zoos identified in capital letters were involved in deals Green cites as dubious which appear to have been exposed earlier by others. If a zoo is identified in capital letters but not boldface, we were able to confirm transactions that Green mentioned without citing the date.)

Abilene Zoo: Allegedly sold animals to Jim Fouts post-1990.

AKRON ZOO: Allegedly “heaped primates” on Zoological Animal Exchange. (Admits selling 2 animals in 1992.)

Baltimore Zoo: Allegedly sold Thompson’s gazelle, rhino to Red McCombs.

Bergen County Zoo: Allegedly sold elk via Woods & Waters auction in 1995.

BOOKS: Animal Underworld

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

ANIMAL UNDERWORLD:
Inside America’s Black Market for Rare and Exotic Species
by Alan Green and the Center for Public Integrity
Public Affairs (250 West 57th St., Suite 1321, New York, NY 10117), 1999. 320 pages, hardcover. $25.00.

I have been waiting since November 29, 1999, for the American Zoo Association to respond to my repeated inquiries as to just what it intends to do to discourage member institutions from exporting animals to wildlife parks in China which feed live animals to carnivores. The AZA non-response was among our January/February 2000 feature topics.

I have been annoying the AZA for more than 20 years with exposes of animal transactions contradicting the intent of the AZA Code of Ethics that zoo animals should not be dispatched to abusive situations, either directly or indirectly; should not be bred other than to sustain zoo populations without wild capture; and should not, under normal circumstances, ever leave the AZA-accredited loop.

Tigers, Tigers, Tigers

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST, Calif.– – Wildlife Waystation founder Martine Colette speaks often of the need to halt exotic wildlife trafficking.

The 25-year-old Waystation, in the hills above Los Angeles, houses nearly 1,300 animals, most of them one-time exotic pets. Many were brought to Colette by law enforcement agencies who confiscated them from negligent or abusive owners, or found them at large.

As the 160-acre Waystation is nearly out of expansion space, Colette is developing a second site in Mojave Valley, Arizona, in order to take in more animals and give more running space to those who need it.

Rising lab primate demand sparks renewed international traffic

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

PORTLAND, Ore.; SAN ANTONIO––A year ago researchers and sanctuarians wondered what to do with increasing numbers of nonhuman primates surplused by labs as too costly to keep and too little in demand to sell.

Now, says Science reporter Jon Cohen, “Demand for rhesus macaques, the animal of choice for AIDS researchers, far outstrips the supply.”

The National Institutes of Health in mid-1999 moved to stimulate breeding by elevating the San Antoniobased Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research to Regional Primate Research Center status––the first new one since the original seven were designated in 1962. The San Antonio facility has 3,400 baboons, 240 chimpanzees, and about 150 other nonhuman primates, mostly rhesus macaques.

DRAGGING ESCALATES

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

Jail time takes criminals off the streets, but publicizing crimes against animals in hopes that elevated public outrage will put an alleged offender in jail can backfire if other warped and hostile people emulate the offense.

The escalating incidence of young men dragging animals and humans to death behind vehicles offers an apparent example. Most offenders subsequently claim their actions were either accidental or at least unplanned, but in every case known to ANIMAL PEOPLE the circumstances suggest that the likelihood of dragging the victim completely unawares was slight.

Once a common form of lynching, dragging humans to death had seemingly receded into history by 1992, when ANIMAL PEOPLE began tracking crimes against animals and crimes against humans with possible antecedents in animal abuse. The only dragging case of which we had recent record involved a man who “trained” a racehorse by making the horse run behind his truck. The man was obliged to stop by a horseloving police officer before the horse was seriously injured.

New South Wales to set world precedent by vaccinating instead of killing farm disease hosts

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

LONDON, U.K.; SYDNEY, Australia––Marksmen with silencer-equipped rifles on March 3 killed the entire 215-member rhesus macaque colony at the Wobern Safari Park in central England.

The massacre came at management request and expense, after health officials found that the macaques carried simian herpes B virus––harmless to the colony, but potentially lethal to humans.

It was business as usual to veterinary and agricultural public health specialists.

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