Greek street animals — Olympic organizers go for hearts of gold

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

ATHENS–Fears among Greek animal advocates that street dogs
and feral cats might be poisoned en masse before the 2004 Olympic
Games eased on June 26 when Athens 2004 Organizing Committee
president Gianna Angelopoulou Daskalaki endorsed a plan to sterilize,
vaccinate, tattoo, and return to their neighborhoods as many as
20,000 animals, beginning in September 2003.
Greek deputy agrculture minister Fotis Hatzimichalis
announced that the project would begin with a budget of one million
euros. Local municipalities are to provide animal capture vehicles
and surgical workspace. The actual capturing is to be done by
volunteers or staff of nonprofit animal welfare societies.

Humans, whales, and the ghosts of high seas drifters

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

The Whaling Season: An Inside Account of the
Struggle to Stop Commercial Whaling, by Kieran
Mulvaney
Island Press (1718 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite
300, Washington, DC 20009), 2003. 349 pages,
hardcover. $26.00.

Between Species: Celebrating the Dolphin-Human
Bond, edited by Toni Frohoff & Brenda Peterson
Sierra Club Books (85 Second St., San Francisco,
CA 94105), 2003. 361 pages, hardcover. $24.95.

From the title, and from the longtime
role of author Kieran Mulvaney as the main
Greenpeace media liaison at annual meetings of
the International Whaling Commission, one might
guess that The Whaling Season: An Inside Account
of the Struggle to Stop Commercial Whaling is an
exposé or defense of backroom politics.

Nonlethal bison and pigeon population control

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

“The Santa Catalina Island Conservancy has given In Defense
of Animals the opportunity to adopt and relocate 100-150 bison to the
mainland,” IDA regional director Bill Dyer announced on June 20.
“Fourteen bison were introduced to Catalina for the filming of The
Vanishing American, starring Richard Dix, in 1924. The population
has grown beyond what the island can sustain. It is imperative that
the relocation take place by August 1, 2003. A managed colony of
100-150 bison will remain on the island.” Dyer welcomes offers of
care-for-life homes for the bison at 310-301-7730 or
<Bill@idausa.org>.

Editorial: An extra special thanks

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

An extra special thanks is in order to all of the respondents
to the June 2003 ANIMAL PEOPLE appeal for help in meeting the
extraordinary cost of our ultimately successful defense against the
libel suit brought against us in July 2002 by direct mail fundraiser
Bruce Eberle and one of his companies, Fund Raising Strategies, Inc.
Eberle’s response to our June 2003 news coverage of the
judicially imposed settlement, discussion of his response, and a
small sampling of reader comments appear on page 4 of this edition.

Listen to what Keiko wants!

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

Listen to what Keiko wants!
Guest column by Bonnie Norton

Do you (along with thousands of other people), know in your
heart that after five years of trying to free Keiko, it is now time
to bring him to a place where he can be taken care of and again be
with people?
I am a devoted animal lover. In general, I am not in favor of
keeping wild animals in captivity, but have learned to observe,
listen to, and honor each animal as an individual.
In 1997 I learned to communicate with animals. While visiting
the Oregon Coast Aquarium I communicated with Keiko who, to my
surprise, told me he did not want to be set free and would continue
to behave in ways to discourage his handlers from releasing him
because his work was with the people who came to see him.

Animal obituaries

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

Pakko, the German shepherd who was first Dr. Dog in the
Philippines, died on July 8 from stomach cancer. “Yasmin Jadwani,
Pakko’s adoptive ‘parent,’ tells us that he was the largest dog in
her house, but he was the gentlest of her more than 30 rescued dogs
and 50 rescued cats,” recalled Glorianne P. Fernandez of the
Environments Collaborative. “When a 13-year old ‘special child’
climbed on his back during one Dr. Dog session, he buckled under the
weight and some of his fur was pulled out before teachers could rush
to his rescue, but Pakko did not growl at the child, hid any pain
and regained his composure immediately.” Begun in Hong Kong by the
Animals Asia Foundation to elevate the image of dogs in nations where
they are eaten, Dr. Dog is sponsored in the Philippines by the
Philippine Animal Welfare Society.

Obituaries

Did Navy sonar kill porpoises in Puget Sound?

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

FRIDAY HARBOR, Washing-ton–U.S. National Marine Fisheries
Service strandings coordinator Brent Norberg on July 1 indicated that
tests to find out if Navy sonar killed porpoises in Puget Sound
nearly two months earlier would be complete within another three
weeks.
“In all, 13 dead porpoises were found beached or floating
between May 2 and May 20–eight of them on or after May 5,” the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. NMFS recovered eight of the
porpoises, the Whale Museum at Friday Harbor collected three, and
two floated away.
On May 5 the destroyer USS Shoup conducted a five-hour sonar
test in the Haro Straight, between the San Juan Islands and
Vancouver Island.

Chimp sanctuaries save evidence of human origin

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

CHINGOLA, Zambia–Humane education and
conservation through rescue are the commonly
cited goals of great ape sanctuaries in Africa,
but another could be added: genetic research is
increasingly demonstrating that in saving the
scattered remnants of isolated and soon to be
extinct wild chimpanzee, bonobo, and gorilla
bands, the sanctuaries are becoming
conservatories of the history of human evolution.
David C. Page of the Whitehead Institute
in Cam-bridge, Massachusetts, in the June 19,
2003 edition of Nature erased yet another of the
presumed distinctions between humans and chimps.
Summarized New York Times science writer Nicholas
Wade, “The genomes of humans and chimpanzees are
98.5% identical, when each of their three
billion DNA units are compared. But what of men
and women, who have different chromosomes?
Men and women differ by one to two percent of
their genomes, Dr. Page said, which is the same
as the difference between a male human and a male
chimpanzee or between a woman and a female
chimpanzee.”

Human obituaries

July 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:

Nathania Gartman, 55, died on July 4, 2003 from cancer. A
cofounder of the Best Friends Animal Society, Gartman “was raised in
Alabama and Louisiana, and often talked of the turbulence of those
early days of de-segregation in the South, having witnessed racial
discrimination first hand in the schools she attended,” recalled
fellow Best Friends cofounder Faith Maloney. “She became a champion
for people of all colors and creeds. As a young woman, she felt a
strong calling to serve God, and worked for a while with the Billy
Graham Crusades, playing the organ at events throughout the South.
Later, as Daffydil the Clown, she worked with abused and sick
children in hospitals and institutions all over the country. At Best
Friends, Nathania began working with local schools, and later
helped launch Utah’s Week for the Animals,” with art and literature
programs complementing humane presentations in schools statewide.
“She was particularly proud of her work with Genesis, a restitution
program for young people out of the Utah Department of Corrections,”
Maloney added. “Her work quickly went beyond the state, first with
several projects in Arizona on the Navajo Nation, and then into
national programs. She served on the board of the Association of
Professional Humane Educators, and became president of the
organization. Even as she battled the cancer that would end her life
too early, she never missed a board meeting. Teaching young people
to love animals was her passion and her life.”

Obituaries

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