Editorial feature: Slaughtering animals, crime, & societal health

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
Phillip Danforth Armour (1832-1901) is
today remembered only for the meatpacking company
he founded, but in his own time was lauded for
allegedly contributing to the progress of
civilization by moving animal slaughter out of
sight, smell, and sound of women, children,
and decent men.
Born into an upstate New York farming
family, Armour drove barge-hauling mules
alongside the Chenango Canal in his teens, then
walked all the way to California at age 19 to
join the Gold Rush. He soon discovered that more
gold was to be made by starting a Placerville
butcher shop than in mining.

Indian judge rules that wild birds held by vendor must be set free

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:

AHMEDABAD, India–Gujarat High Court Justice M.R. Shah on
May 12, 2011 ordered the release to freedom of 494 parrots, doves,
pigeons, lovebirds, dogs, and rabbits who were seized by Surat
police on May 30, 2010 from vendor Abdul Jalal Kadar Sheikh.
The animals have been held at an animal hospital for almost a
year at Sheikh’s expense while he pursued a series of appeals,
expected to continue. “The manner in which the birds are kept in the
small cages, with their wings and tails cut, wings taped together,
and rings put on their feet–nothing can be more heinous,” Shah
said. “It is the fundamental right of a bird to live freely in the
open sky. The only order which can be passed in such circumstances,”
Shah ruled, “would be to set the birds free.”

National Zoo bird researcher is charged with attempting to poison feral cats

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
WASHINGTON D.C.–Alley Cat Allies and
Alley Cat Rescue on May 26, 2011 asked the
Smithsonian Institution to suspend National Zoo
Migratory Bird Center researcher Nico Dauphine.
Dauphine was charged three days earlier with
attempted animal cruelty for allegedly trying to
poison feral cats. If convicted, Dauphine could
be fined up to $1,000 and could be sentenced to
180 days in jail.
Dauphine denied the offense in a brief
statement issued by her attorney.

BOOKS: The Animal Shelter

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
Humane education classic:

The Animal Shelter by Patricia Curtis
Lodestar Books (c/o E.P. Dutton), 1984.
164 pages, hardcover. $13.95 original price.

The Animal Shelter, by Patricia Curtis, introduced a
generation of young people to humane work.
“I wrote The Animal Shelter 28 years ago, so it is badly
out-of-date,” Curtis told ANIMAL PEOPLE in May 2011, seemingly
surprised to be looked up and asked about it after all this time. “I
hope things have improved since then, both in the numbers of animals
surrendered to shelters and in the condition of shelters. My
impression is that the book got a mixed reception,” Curtis
continued. “I hope it did some good. Some shelters wrote to me that
they were grateful that I had drawn attention to their problems. But
some people couldn’t handle the truth as I tried to tell it.

BOOKS: In Bear Country

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:

In Bear Country by Jake McDonald
(Originally published as Grizzlyville: Adventures In Bear Country,
HarperCollins Canada, 2009.)
Lyons Press (246 Goose Lane, Guilford, CT 06437), 2010.
272 pages, paperback. $19.99.

Winnipeg journalist Jake McDonald shines in his eighth book,
In Bear Country.
His story begins on the night of August 13, 1967. Grizzly
bears, in two separate and apparently unrelated attacks, miles
apart, killed Glacier National Park employees Julie Helgeson and
Michele Koons as they camped with friends.

BOOKS: Snowball’s Antarctic Adventures

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:

Snowball’s Antarctic Adventures
by Tim Ostermeyer
Ostermeyer Photography (1813 Country Brook Lane,
Allen, TX 75002), 2011. 48 pages, hardcover. $18.95.

Snowball’s Antarctic Adventures, a new children’s book from
photographer Tim Ostermeyer, is about penguins. Odd-shaped birds,
penguins do not lift off and fly like the swallows and swifts who are
among their closest relatives. Instead they alternate between
swimming astonishing distances at astonishing speeds and waddling
around the ice flapping their stubby wings. Sometimes they lie on
their bellies and slide on the ice.

Mississippi felony cruelty law

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
JACKSON–Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour on April 27,
2011 signed into law possibly the weakest of the 47 state felony
cruelty statues now in effect. The law permits filing felony charges
only if a person previously convicted of intentionally torturing,
burning, starving, or physically disfiguring a cat or dog is
convicted again within five years of the first conviction. “In other
words, they get away with it the first time,” Pearl River SPCA
president Maria Diamond told Jeremy Pittari of the Picayune Item.

London Zoo blunder kills baby gorilla

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:

LONDON–Tiny, a seven-month-old western gorilla, the first
gorilla born at the London Zoo since 1988, suffered a broken arm and
died of apparent internal injuries on May 12, 2011 in an attack by
the recently acquired silverback male Kesho. Tiny and his mother
Mjukuu had just been introduced to Kesho for the second time.
“Kesho’s arrival was recommended by experts to create a
cohesive social group, after the death of the zoo’s previous male
gorilla,” reported BBC News. “In the wild male gorillas often
attack the offspring of their rivals, so staff were cautious about
introducing Kesho to the baby, who was the offspring of the former
male. Kesho had been introduced to the two other female gorillas at
the zoo, but keepers waited many months for an introduction to the
youngster and his mother.”

Cattle disease rinderpest, which once killed millions, is declared to be extinct

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:

PARIS–The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) on May
25, 2011 formally announced the eradication of rinderpest–the first
time an animal disease has been extinguished through human efforts,
and only the second time that any disease has been eradicated. The
first, smallpox, was last reported in 1977.
“It was rinderpest that led to the formation of the OIE in
1924, following a new incursion of the rinderpest virus in Europe,
via the port of Antwerp,” recalled British Veterinary Medical
Association spokesperson Helena Cotton.

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