Obituaries [May 2010]

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:
Gopal Tanti, 56, died on May 11, 2010 after a six-year
struggle with a neurological disorder that ended his career as “the
guru of tranquilization,” as Tanti was memorialized by Sunderban
Tiger Reserve assistant field director Anjan Guha. “In 33
adventurous years, Gopal Tanti is believed to have tranquillized 84
tigers, a dozen elephants and several rhinos,” recalled Prithvijit
Mitra of the Times News Network. Tanti joined the Suderban Tiger
Reserve in 1977. Standard practice, pioneered by Man-Eaters of
Kumaon author proto-tiger conservationist Jim Corbett, was to kill
any tiger whose activities appeared likely to incite hostility toward
all tigers by neighbors of tiger habitat. Shankar Ghosh had
introduced the use of tranquilizer darts, to capture rogue tigers
instead of killing them, but Tanti discarded his methods and instead
emulated Corbett, who emphasized getting close enough to do the job
with a single well-placed shot. “He would walk straight into the
tiger’s den and shoot a dart from very close range,” wrote Mitra.

Obituaries

Commissions to probe death of Kyiv Zoo elephant

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:
KYIV–The Kiev city government on May 5, 2010 announced that
two separate commissions of senior personnel from other zoos in the
Ukraine and Russia would investigate the April 26, 2010 death of the
Kyiv Zoo elephant Boy, 39.
Kyiv Zoo director Svitlana Berzina claimed Boy had been
poisoned, but SOS Animals Ukraine founder Tamara Tarnawska produced
skeptical statements from British and German zoo experts. Tarnawska
has long campaigned against substandard conditions at the zoo, which
was considered particularly unsuitable for an elephant.
“In 2008, as part of a campaign to urge citizens to help
support the zoo, Kyiv mayor Leonid Chernovetsky said he personally
pays $6,000 a month for the feeding and care of Boy,” recalled
Svitlana Tuchynska of the Kyiv Post.

BOOKS: Naming Nature: The clash between instinct & science

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

Naming Nature: The clash between instinct & science
by Carol Kaesuk Yoon
W.W. Norton & Co. (500 5th Ave., New York, NY 10110),
2009. 344 pages, hardcover. $27.95.

Taxonomy is the science of naming and cataloguing life forms.
What taxonomists do is order biological knowledge. The 18th century
botanist Carolus Linnaeus is widely recognized as the originator of
scientific taxonomy, but as Carol Kaesuk Yoon points out in Naming
Nature, Linnaeus’ contribution was chiefly that he found a means of
reconciling older taxonomic constructs to accommodate the findings of
the Age of Discovery.
Heraldic taxonomy, ranking species as “higher” and “lower”
according to recognized traits, had been recognized in various forms
throughout Europe, Asia, and much of Africa for thousands of years
before Linnaeus.

BOOKS: Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters by Leslie Irvine
Temple University Press (1852 N. 10th St., Philadelphia,
PA 19122), 2009. 176 pages, hardcover. $24.50.

Who fills the ark in time of disaster? Leslie Irvine in
Filling the Ark examines who is evacuated and who is left behind?
Practically everyone old enough to watch TV remembers
gut-wrenching scenes of National Guard troops yanking bewildered dogs
and cats away from the arms of hysterical children during the
evacuation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit in late August
2005. Some pets were shot in the streets by sheriff’s deputies.
Charges against the deputies were dropped in 2008. Other animals
were tied up and shot sadistically in a school that had served as an
evacuation center. No one was charged with those killings. Tens of
thousands of pets were left to fend for themselves. Many were
rescued by the largest and longest sustained animal rescue operation
in the U.S. ever, but many others died before help could arrive.

BOOKS: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, & Wear Cows

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, & Wear Cows:
An introduction to carnism
by Melanie Joy, Ph.D.
Conari Press (65 Parker Street, Suite 7,
Newburyport, MA 01950), 2010. 204 pages,
hardcover. $19.95.

Melanie Joy opens Why We Love Dogs, Eat
Pigs, & Wear Cows by describing guests sitting
around a dinner table. The host smiles as she
dishes out a savory stew. Oh, by the way, did
I tell you it’s made from five pounds of golden
retriever? Do the guests vomit? Storm out in
protest? Or slap their napkins across the cook’s
face?
In a second scenario the savory stew is
made from marinated beef tips in a red wine
sauce, served over a bed of steaming white rice.
Most people dig in and perhaps ask for seconds.
Why do humans eat beef, chicken, lamb,
pork and seafood without blinking, yet in much
of the world are repulsed and outraged by the
idea of dining on dog?

BOOKS: Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals
by Jonathan Balcombe
Palgrave MacMillan (175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010),
2010. 242 pages, hardcover. $27.00.

Jonathan Balcombe, in Second Nature: The Inner Lives of
Animals, wrote the book that the long forgotten Royal Dixon tried to
write in The Human Side of Animals 90 years earlier.
Structurally, Second Nature and The Human Side of Animals are
so similar as to seem to have been written from the same outline.
This may be because any examination of animal sensitivity,
intelligence, emotions, awareness, communication, sociability,
and “virtue” might logically progress from looking at how animals
perceive the world and each other, to how they use their perceptions.

BOOKS: The Man Who Lives with Wolves

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

The Man Who Lives with Wolves
by Shaun Ellis with Penny Junor
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2009.
288 pages, hardcover or e-book. $24.99.

Living among wolves, not bathing for years and eating out of
a carcass, is Shaun Ellis at best guilty of bad taste, or is he
just extraordinarily dedicated to his work?
Ellis bonded with animals as a child in the English
countryside. His companions were frogs, ducks, and dogs. His love
for animals collided with fox hunting.
“Many were the times I came across a den where the vixen had
gone to ground and the huntsmen had dug her out and gassed and killed
the kits,” says Ellis. That they killed for sport, not for
survival, upset him.

BOOKS: Made for Each Other: The Biology of the Human-Animal Bond

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

Made for Each Other:
The Biology of the Human-Animal Bond
by Meg Daley Olmert
Da Capo Press (11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142),
2010. 291 pages, paperback. $26.00.

Made for Each Other is densely packed with scientific facts
and theories about the biology of the animal-human bond. Hundreds of
citations back up or question the evolution of the human relationship
with species including dogs, baboons, and horses.
So many intricate details are thrown at the reader, however,
that the pacing is sluggish and the material is hard to digest all at
once. Chapter one, for example, discusses the work of nine
researchers, including E.O. Wilson, Elizabeth Lawrence, and Stephen
Kellert. Ensuing chapters follow a similar pattern, as Olmert
condenses lifetimes of study to make her points, centering on her
idea that there is an inherent chemical attraction among living
beings.

BOOKS: The Intimate Ape

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

The Intimate Ape
by Shawn Thompson
Kensington Publishing (119 West 40th St., New York,
NY 10018), 2010. 320 pages, paperback. $14.95

“I know more about orangutans than any normal human being
should and apparently not enough about human nature,” says Shawn
Thompson in his new book, The Intimate Ape, his account of living
among these fascinating yet sometimes unpredictable creatures and the
people who care for them.
Thompson’s relationship with orangutans, a threatened
species, began in 2001 on a trip to the swampy jungles of Borneo.
At age 50, some people think of life after retirement. Not
Thompson, a writer and editor. At 50, he expanded his career by
studying orangutans.

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