BOOKS: The Medici Giraffe And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

The Medici Giraffe
And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power
by Marina Belozerskaya
Little, Brown & Co. (1271 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY
10020), 2006. 412 pages, paperback. $24.99.

Marina Belozerskaya has given us a diverse collection of mini
histories beginning in ancient Egypt. She examines exotic
animal-keeping in the Roman Empire, Renaissance Florence, Aztec
Mexico, Bohemia, Napoleonic France, and the early 20th century U.S.
Through time and across continents, Belozerskaya reveals the
use and abuse of exotic animals by powerful people.
A postscript about the sale from China to the U.S. of two
giant pandas, at an exorbitant price, in order to cement relations
between the two global powers, shows that when it comes to using
animals to advance the goals of ambitious people, nothing has
changed in two and half thousand years.

BOOKS: The World of the Polar Bear & Among Wild Horses

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

The World of the Polar Bear
by Norbert Rosing
Firefly Books (P.O. Box 1338, Ellicot Station, Buffalo, NY 14205), 2006.
202 pages, hardcover, illust. $45.00.

Among Wild Horses:
A portrait of the Pryor Mountain Mustangs
Photos by Lynne Pomeranz. Text by Rhonda Massingham
Storey Publishing (210 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247),
2006. 134 pages, hardcover, illustrated. $16.95.

The World of the Polar Bear and Among Wild Horses are a world
apart from most of the other coffee table books we’ve seen lately.
First of all, the exquisite photos show authentic wild
animals, in panoramic views of the wild, except for some mustangs
in Among Wild Horses who appear to be in a holding corral after a
recent round-up.
Second, the text actually describes what the photos show,
and often explains how the photographer captured the scene. Neither
The World of the Polar Bear nor Among Wild Horses is a recycled
thesis, going into depth and detail about biological facts while
evading the controversies surrounding their subjects.

BOOKS: Koalas: Zen In Fur

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

Koalas: Zen In Fur
Edited by Joanne Ehrich
Koala Jo Publishing (352 N. El Camino Real, San Mateo, CA 94401), 2006.
97 pages, paperback. $35.00.

Early in 2006 graphic artist Koala Jo Ehrich produced a
lavish 260-page photo collection entitled Koalas: Moving Portraits
of Serenity, with an afterword by celebrity zoo personality Jack
Hanna, to help the Australian Koala Foundation raise money for koala
conservation and rescue work.
Assembling koala images from 120 photographers, Ehrich
funded the publication herself–and soon found that the book cost so
much to print that she would lose more money on each sale than would
go to help koalas.

BOOKS: Rescued: Saving Animals from Disaster: Life-changing stories and practical suggestions

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

Rescued: Saving Animals from Disaster:
Life-changing stories and practical suggestions
by Allen & Linda Anderson
New World Library (14 Pamaron Way, Novato, CA 94949), 2006.
347 pages, paperback. $16.95.

Angel Animals Network founders Allen and Linda Anderson in
Rescued analyze the efforts made to save animals after Hurricane
Katrina. They relate the inspiring stories of committed volunteers
from all over the world who converged on New Orleans, southern
Louisiana, and coastal Mississippi to help the animals who were left
behind when their humans fled, were killed, or were simply unable
to get home after the New Orleans levies broke a day after the
hurricane itself had passed. The Andersons also describe the work
done by various humane organizations, under appalling conditions,
to try to bring order out of chaos. There were some high-profile
individuals involved, such as Madeleine and T. Boone Pickens, the
oil billionaires, who chartered aircraft to transport found animals
to shelters outside the disaster area but most were unknown people
of ordinary resources.

BOOKS: How to be a Cat Detective: Solving the Mystery of your Cat’s Behavior

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

How to be a Cat Detective:
Solving the Mystery of your Cat’s Behavior.
by Vicky Halls
Penguin (375 Hudson St., NY 10014), 2006. 285 pages, paperback. $14.00.

More and more people are extending their homes to feline
companionship today. The numbers of U.S. cat-keeping homes have
doubled in 20 years, and the number of multi-cat households has
increased even faster, as people who already have a cat in residence
decide that they can offer a loving home to others less fortunate,
such as the local stray whom they have been feeding at the bottom of
the garden, or a shelter cat.
“Sadly they don’t come with a manual so, to a certain
extent, we have to make up the rules as we go along,” writes Vicky
Halls about keeping cats healthy and happy.
And make them up we do. But do we know what we are doing?
Often not.

BOOKS: Magical Animals

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

Magical Animals
by Beatrice Wiltshire
Illustrated by Di von Maltitz
BW Publications (P.O. Box 17727, Bainsvlei 9338, Bloemfontein,
South Africa), 2006. 71 pages, paperback. $11.00 (U.S.)

South African activist Beatrice Wiltshire for many years
campaigned against the shocking animal experiments carried out by the
apartheid war machine at the Roodeplaat Research Lab in Pretoria,
which, she recently explained to ANIMAL PEOPLE, “was a front for
the South African Defense Force’s Chemical and Biological Warfare
experimental program.” Some of the former staff operated a nearby
lab called Biocon, Wiltshire recalled, and, she said, “Roodeplaat
seemed to have close links with a mysterious French laboratory in the
bush, close to the Hoedspruit military base.” Wiltshire publishes
the South Africans for the Abolition of Vivisection newsletter,
called The Snout.

BOOKS: A Good Dog

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

A Good Dog by Jon Katz
Villard (Random House Publishing Group, 1745 Broadway, New York,
NY 10019), 2006. 216 pages, paperback. $21.95.

Once in a lifetime, if one is lucky, an animal may come
into one’s life with life-changing consequences. This is the story
of one such animal, the border collie Orson.
“Orson radically altered my life,” writes Jon Katz. “He
came at a pivotal time and provoked–with no conscious part in the
process, I’m sure–a series of actions and reactions that caused me
to change almost everything about the way I lived and worked and
thought.”

Baboon Matters founder Jenni Trethowan recovers

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
Baboon Matters founder Jenni Trethowan, 45, of Cape Town,
South Africa, has reportedly recovered from poisoning with the
banned pesticide dialdrin, suffered in mid-August 2006 while trying
to aid members of a poisoned baboon troop. Trethowan started Baboon
Matters in 2001, 10 years after she and baboon ethologist Wally
Peterson founded the Kommetjie Environ-mental Awareness Group. In
1998 they won the passage of legislation against poisoning baboons.

Horse show abuse updates

November 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
The Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders & Exhibitors Association
on October 16, 2006 cancelled the alternate “grand champion”
competition it had announced on September 21.
To have been held in Mur-freesboro, Tennessee, the
alternate competition was to have replaced the final judging at the
Tennessee Walking Horse National Celeb-ration in Shelbyville on
August 21, which never took place. Of the 10 horses selected for
the final judging, seven were disqualified after USDA inspectors
detected scarring that may have shown the horses’ hooves were sored
to train them to use the high-stepping walking horse gait.
“The decision [to cancel the alternate competition] came
after weeks of criticism by horse trainers, many of whom threatened
to boycott the show,” reported Nashville Tenn-essean staff writer
Brad Schrade.

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