Letters [Oct 2009]

October 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:

Sacrifice in Nepal

The largest open air animal sacrifice in the world will start
on November 24, 2009. Can you picture 7,000 young buffalo being
rounded up and killed by a thousand drunk men carrying large knives?
A festival where 200,000 animals are killed to please a goddess?
This will happen, if nothing is done to prevent it, at the
Gadimai Festival in Bariyarpur, Bara District, Nepal. The festival
is held every five years. The mass sacrifice turns the entire area
into a bloody marsh.
Read more

Letters

Dogs & cats off the job–rats storm flooded Manila

October 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:

MANILA–Rats may leave a sinking ship, but not a flooded city.
Humans, the pets they could carry, work animals, and many
street dogs fled Manila, Rizal, and their suburbs by the thousands
after tropical storm Ketsana dumped a typical month’s worth of rain
in only nine hours on September 26, 2009.
Cats and dogs who were not evacuated and found no escape
routes climbed to high places, if they could, above the torrents,
but water spilling over 80% of the Manila metropolitan area kept most
of them wherever they ended up for at least the next four days, when
the flood began receding. Some were stranded for weeks. Much of the
metropolis was left to the rats and mice–and the Philippines are
known for rat and mouse biodiversity, with 62 native mouse and rat
species. Many are found in the greater Manila area, along with
non-native but ubiquitous Norway rats and at least three problematic
species who were accidentally imported from mainland Asia.

Obituaries [Oct 09]

October 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:

Gayle Kegin Hoenig, 68, died on September 19, 2009 in
Aspen, Colorado, from complications of a stroke suffered in January
2009. A licensed wildlife rehabilitator since 1984, Hoenig operated
a private wildlife sanctuary at her home in Colorado Springs; did
extensive wildlife education, “especially about bats,” recalled
friend Marcia Davis; contributed articles to The Ark, published by
the Britsh-based organization Catholic Concern for Animals; and was
active in support of the Zimbabwe National SPCA and Zimbabwe Wildlife
Conservation Task Force. “Gayle devoted her life to animal welfare.
She worked tirelessly for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Her
death is a tragic and irreplaceable loss,” e-mailed Zimbabwe
Conservation Task Force chair Johnny Rodrigues.

Obituaries

What to call cats, & why their name matters

October 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:
What to call cats, & why their name matters
Commentary by Merritt Clifton

In the beginning of the mass media era was just the word
“cat.” Cats were on the land and over the land, but cat-related
controversies were as seldom seen as cats themselves, in an urban
ecology then dominated by ubiquitous street dogs. From the debut of
rotary-printed newspapers in the mid-19th century, cats by any name
were not a visible problem for more than 60 years. The sum of
reportage and editorial attention to cats in the entire 19th century
was slight: just 192 items published in U.S. newspapers mentioned
“stray cats,” according to NewspaperArchive.com, which makes
accessible the newspaper holdings of the Library of Congress. “Alley
cats” were mentioned 32 times. The term “feral cat” was not used at
all.

Animal obits

October 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:
Titus, 35, the “Gorilla King” of Volcanoes National Park in
the Virunga mountains in Rwanda, died on September 14, 2009 of
injuries apparently suffered in a fight with another silverback
gorilla. Most of Titus’ family were killed by poachers, reported
Edmund Kagire of the Kigali New Times. Abandoned by his mother,
after she was attacked by the surviving silverback, Titus was
accepted into an all-male gorilla band. They were eventually joined
by five females. When the first dominant silverback showed signs of
age, Titus dethroned him, and went on to sire more offspring than
any other known mountain gorilla. Featured in the film Gorillas In
The Mist, based on the life of primatologist Dian Fossey, Titus was
buried near Fossey, who named him, at the Karisoke Research Center.

Obituaries

BOOKS: Don’t Dump the Dog

October 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:

Don’t Dump the Dog: Outrageous Stories and Simple Solutions
to Your Worst Dog Behavior Problems
by Randy Grim with Melinda Roth
Skyhorse Publishing (555 Eighth Ave., Suite 903, New York,
NY 10018), 2009. 216 pages, paperback. $14.95.

“My boyfriend doesn’t like my dog,” says a caller to Stray
Dog Rescue of St. Louis, a shelter founded and operated by author
Randy Grim. The caller wants to surrender Rover. What shelter
worker hasn’t answered a call like this? Shelter staff, including
Grim, would like to tell her to ditch Romeo instead, but politely
take down Rover’s pertinent information, hope the owner leaves a
donation and say thank you, have a nice day.

BOOKS: The 100 Silliest Things People Say About Dogs

October 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:

The 100 Silliest Things People Say About Dogs by Alexandra Semyonova
Published by Hastings Press, England in
association with The Carriage House Foundation
(Postbus 10 308 2501 HH Den Haag, The
Netherlands), 2009. Downloadable at
<www.nonlineardogs.com>.
269 pages, paperback. $25.00. Download: $15.00.

“I wasn’t exposed to all the stories dog
people tell until I got my first puppy,”
behavioral scientist Alexandra Semyonova relates
in her introduction to The 100 Silliest Things
People Say About Dogs. But then Semyonova “read
every book I could get my hands on and talked to
many trainers. All sources agreed that dogs live
in a hierarchy, and that they spend all their
time being either dominant or submissive to each
other.

BOOKS: Dogs Can Sign, Too

October 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:

Dogs Can Sign, Too: A Breakthrough Method for Teaching Your Dog to
Communicate
by Sean Senechal
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2009.
224 pages, paperback. $16.99

Sean Senechal, founder of the AnimalSign Center in Monterey,
Calif-ornia, would probably quickly endorse The 100 Silliest Things
People Say About Dogs author Alexandra Semyon-ova’s view that instead
of punishing dogs, people should “help them when they don’t
understand what we want.”
Suggests sales literature for Senechal’s book Dogs Can Sign,
Too, “Imagine being able to ask your poodle, “Who’s at the door?”
and having her respond, ‘It’s Katy.’ Or asking your golden
retriever, ‘Do you want a treat?’ and him responding, ‘No, water.’

The 1st Church of Animal Rights tried to launch the movement in 1921

October 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:

What if the animal rights movement had launched out of the
older humane movement 55 years earlier, before factory farming
methods were invented, before laboratory use of animals expanded
into big business, before wildlife management was funded by hunting
license fees, before the humane movement came to be dominated by an
“animal welfare” rather than “animal rights” philosophy?
This is no mere fantasy. It could have happened, impelled
by the brief confluence of Diana Belais and Royal Dixon, flamboyant
and charismatic personalities whose talents and background,
differently mixed, paralleled those of the late Cleveland Amory,
who founded the Fund for Animals in 1968, and Ingrid Newkirk, who
cofounded People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in 1981.

1 2 3 »