Month: March 2013

World’s oldest tiger dies at Popcorn Park Zoo in New Jersey

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2013:

 

FORKED RIVER, New Jersey––Bengali, 24, believed to be the
oldest tiger on record, died on January 18, 2013 after undergoing
surgery to remove a tumor from his pancreas. Bengali had spent the last
decade of his life as the emblematic animal at the Popcorn Park Zoo, a
sanctuary for wildlife and large domestic species operated since 1977 by
the Associated Humane Societies of New Jersey.
Reportedly bred and raised to be shot at a Texas hunting ranch,
Bengali was said to have escaped that fate when in 1990 the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service cracked down on “canned hunts” featuring species
listed as endangered or threatened by the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species.

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Suzanne Saueressig, DVM, worked 55 years for the Humane Society of Missouri

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2013:

Suzanne Saueressig, DVM, 89, died on February 8, 2013 in
Richmond Heights, Missouri. Born in Nuremberg, Germany, Saueressig
“grew up with cats and dogs,” remembered St. Louis Post-Dispatch
reporter Michael Sorkin. “One day a cat went missing. Suzanne,
then 10, suspected the family’s maid, who hated cats. Suzanne
caught a collection of mice and put them in the maid’s drawer. After
that, the cat returned. Saueressig’s great-grandfather founded a
construction business and behind it built the family home. Suzanne, the
eldest of four siblings, was educated at a Catholic cloister. She
rebelled at having to wear a school uniform. At 17, she attended one
session of a typing school. That evening, the Allies bombed the school.

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BOOKS: The Heartbeat at Your Feet

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2013:

The Heartbeat at Your Feet:
A Practical, Compassionate
New Way to Train Your Dog
by Lisa Tenzin-Dolma
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.
(4501 Forbes Blvd., Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706), 2012.
180 pages, hardcover or e-book. $32.00 in either format.

The Heartbeat at Your Feet is advertised as “the first book to
reveal how you can fully understand and communicate with dogs and how
you can easily eliminate any behavior problems based on new information
about animal behavior.”

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BOOKS: The Cat Whisperer

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2013:

The Cat Whisperer:
Why Cats Do What They Do –
And How to Get Them to Do What You Want
by Mieshelle Nagelschneider
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York,
NY 10019), 2013. 297 pages, hardcover. $25.00.

Feline perceptions and responses differ far more from those of
humans than do the perceptions and responses of dogs. Thus, while most
dogs train humans to understand their needs relatively easily,
misunderstandings of cat behavior may be the most common reason why cats
who once had homes land in shelters.

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U.S. will back bid to win Appendix II CITES protection for sharks and rays

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2013:

WASHINGTON D.C.–– U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director
Dan Ashe on February 26, 2013 told media that the U.S. will endorse
proposals to restrict traffic in the fins of porbeagle, scalloped
hammerhead, great hammerhead, smooth hammerhead, and oceanic whitetip
sharks, and in the gill plates of manta rays.
If approved by the 16th triennial meeting of the 177-nation
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Bangkok in
March, the five shark species and manta rays will be uplisted to CITES
Appendix II status. The listing proposals must be approved by
two-thirds of the national delegations in attendance. Trade in Appendix
II species is permitted but regulated to ensure species survival. Trade
is prohibited for Appendix I species.

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Euro scandal shows the big money in horsemeat is in labeling it “beef”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2013:

 

PARIS––At least 28 companies in 13 European nations plus
Hong Kong have been involved in marketing horsemeat as beef, French
government investigators assessed in mid-February 2013, predicting that
more alleged perpetrators would be exposed by ongoing investigations.
Entrepreneurs seeking to resume horse slaughter in the U.S. have
argued that they would market to an upscale clientele in nations
including Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Japan, who would
demand that horses were transported and killed humanely. But the
horsemeat-as-beef scandal has revealed just the opposite: by far the
greater portion of the European horsemeat trade involves the lowest
priced meat products, in which the ingredients are most easily
disguised, and about which consumers and regulators tend to ask the
fewest questions.

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Seals in hotels

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2013:

BEIJING––China Daily on February 22,  2013 spotlighted an Internet campaign against the fast-spreading practice of keeping seals in tanks as an attraction at hotels and restaurants.  The campaign was initiated by the Panjin Harbor Seal Protection Volunteer Association,  of Panjin,  Liaoning province,  and the Green Beagle Environment Institute of Beijing, whose volunteers have documented the presence of 43 captive seals at 20 facilities––most of them small and severely substandard.

Zoobiquity: What animals can teach us about health and the science of healing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2013:

Zoobiquity:  What animals can teach us about health and the science of healing   by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D. & Kathryn Bowers Knopf (1745 Broadway,  New York,  NY 10019),  2012.  308 pages,  hardcover.  $26.95.

 

Animals have long been involved in human health care,  as sources of purported medicines,  subjects of experiments,  and as witches’ familiars. “The idea that animals have healing powers reaches back to the dawn of human civilization,”  explains Creighton University medical historian Carrie E. Muffett,  M.D.,  on the Creighton pet-assisted therapy web site.  “The Mayans, for example,  believed that each of us is given a ‘soul animal’ to serve as a protective guide in earthly life.  The Egyptian deity Anubis,  physician of the gods,  bore a canine head.  Read more

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