High Court favors impounding dogs

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:
MUMBAI–The Constitutional bench of the Bombay High Court on
April 20, 2007 heard arguments on the constitutionality of Animal
Birth Control programs in Mumbai and Goa. The cases before the High
Court parallel claims made by ABC program opponents in Bangalore and
Hyderabad that releasing street dogs after sterilization
unconstitutionally jeopardizes the safety of citizens.
“The 3-judges bench is expected to direct setting up
committees as per the ABC rules to monitor the implementation and
progress of ABC in Mumbai and in Goa,” reported Mumbai attorney
Norma Alvares. “The judges have accepted the argument that killing
dogs is not the solution to the problem, and want to give ABC a
chance to show that it is effective in reducing the numbers of dogs
and curbing rabies.

Obituaries

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:
Veronica Parker, 41, and her daughter Charlotte, 10, were
on March 24, 2007 trampled by an elephant in musth in Hwange
National Park, Zimbabwe, after leaving their vehicle to try for a
closer look at the elephant from behind an anthill. Kelvin Parker,
husband of Veronica and father of Charlotte, was uninjured. Tour
guide Andy Trevillia, 38, was seriously injured after trying to stop
the elephant with a rifle shot. Noted Zimbabwe Conservation Task
Force founder Johanny Rodrieguez, “The elephants in Hwange have
become increasingly skittish around humans because they associate
them with gunfire due to subsistence poaching, commercial poaching
(for ivory) and the fact that Zimbabwe is the only country in Africa
where shooting game for weekly rations is legal. The recent removal
of 12 juveniles from their herds for use in the tourist industry and
elephants being trapped in wire snares doesn’t help their
mood either.”

Obituaries

Animal obits

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:

Ralph, a young whale shark, died on January 11, 2007 at
the Georgia Aquarium. Aquarium executive director Jeff Swanagan and
Robert Heuter, director of shark research at the Mote Marine
Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, disclosed on March 28, 2007 that
Ralph had been force-fed for months, and apparently died from
peritonitis after the feeding tube punctured his stomach. “Only one
other aquarium, in Okinawa, keeps whale sharks, who may live as
long as 120 years in the wild,” reported Brenda Goodman of The New
York Times. A study of 16 whale sharks kept at the Okinawa Expo
Aquarium from 1980 to 1998 found they survived, on average, 502 days
in captivity. That facility has kept at least one whale shark for
more than 10 years.

Obituaries

BOOKS: National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:

National Geographic Field Guide
to the Birds of North America
Fifth Edition
Edited by Jon L. Dunn & Jonathan Alderfer
502 pages, paperback. $24.00.

National Geographic Birder’s Journal
502 pages, paperback. $16.95.

Both from the National Geographic Society
(1145 17th St. NW, Washington, DC 20036), 2006.
How many National Geographic Society birding manuals can one
person use?
For that matter, how many birding manuals from the many
rival publishers can possibly find an audience?
According to the publisher’s flack sheet, there are now from
46 million to 85 million birders in the U.S., depending on whether
one counts only those who buy field guides and keep life lists of
species seen, or includes everyone who watches and identifies
interesting birds now and then.

BOOKS: Whalewatcher: A global guide to watching whales, dolphins and porpoises in the wild

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:

Whalewatcher:
A global guide to watching whales, dolphins and porpoises in the wild
by Trevor Day
Firefly Books Ltd.
(66 Leek Crescent, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada L4B 1H1), 2006.
204 pp., paperback, illustrated. $19.95.

Though Whalewatcher is structured as a field guide, armchair
travelers will probably spend more time with it than marine mammal
observers seeking to compile a life list.
More than 10 million people per year watch whales, dolphins,
and porpoises or about as many as watched birds a generation ago,
before the recent global explosion of interest in birding.
However, while anyone can watch birds from anywhere, few
people have any opportunity to watch marine mammals from their homes,
workplaces, or during a commute, and even those of us who do have
the opportunity rarely manage many sightings.

BOOKS: The Moral Menagerie: Philosophy and Animal Rights

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:

The Moral Menagerie: Philosophy and Animal Rights
by Marc R. Fellenz
Univ. of Illinois Press
(1325 S. Oak St., Champaign, IL 61820), 2007.
301 pages, paperback. $25.00

Marc Fellenz, a philosophy teacher at
Suffolk County Community College in New York,
writes from a broader and deeper perspective than
is typical in debates over animal rights theory.
Reviewing the major animal rights theories,
Fellenz fails to find any that lack significant
shortcomings. He goes on to look for a better
intellectual basis on which to ground an ethical
theory on behalf of animals.
Fellenz rejects Peter Singer’s
utilitarianism because one cannot weigh the
benefits of most activities against the costs
with any precision.

Reviews

Reports of a new chemosterilant being used in Chennai were premature

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:
CHENNAI–Tamil Nadu state health minister K.K.S.S.R.
Ramachandran on April 18, 2007 stirred hope worldwide that Tamil
Nadu Veterinary & Animal Sciences University had developed a new and
better injectable chemosterilant for male dogs.
“Male dogs can be sterilized through injection of cadmium
chloride. This procedure is simpler than birth control surgery,”
Ramachandran told a Chennai workshop on rabies prevention and stray
dog control.
Ramachandran indicated that cadmium chloride injections would
soon be field-tested in Chennai by the local Animal Birth Control
programs. His remarks were amplified that evening by Sanjay Pinto of
NDTV, and by The Hindu, a Chennai-based nationally circulated
newspaper, the next morning.

Kerala orders dog purge

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM–Kerala state minister for local
self-government Paloli Mohammed Kutty less than 10 days before the
end of April 2007 “directed the heads of local self-government
institutions to take effective steps to end the stray dog menace
before May,” The Hindu reported on April 22.
The order followed a Kerala High Court ruling that local
governments have the authority to kill dogs to end a perceived threat
to public health and safety, despite the decade-old national policy,
never fully implemented, favoring Animal Birth Control.
Kerala, officially 25% Islam and 19% Christian, also with a
strong Communist party, is among just two states of India where
cattle slaughter is legal, has a large cattle export industry, and
is perhaps the only state where resisting mainstream Hindu cultural
dominance has political currency.
Cattle slaughter and animal sacrifice were already political
flashpoints in Kerala long before the advent of ABC, which soon
became a comparable target.

Bangalore dog panic spreads to Hyderabad

May 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:
HYDERABAD–The fear and outrage about dog attacks gripping
Bangalore for more than three months spread to Hyderabad in April
2007, two years after the city administration took over the local
Animal Birth Control program and allegedly used the pretext of
capturing dogs for sterilization as cover for killing dogs in high
volume.
Partly because of that history, the Hyderabad dog panic was
relatively muted. And, as many reporters pointed out, there were
plenty of administrative failings to blame for Hyderabad incidents,
beyond just the dog policies.

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