Chinese public rejects trophy hunt auction

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

CHENGDU–The China State Forestry
Administration on August 11 indefinitely
postponed a scheduled auction of 289 licenses to
allow foreigners to hunt animals of 14 species.
“The auction will be held in a proper way after
soliciting suggestions from the public,” said
State Forestry Administration spokesperson Cao
Qingyao.
Three days after the Beijing Youth Daily
published an exposé of the auction plans, “The
response from the public is beyond our
expectation,” admitted State Forestry
Administration deputy director of wildlife
protection Wang Wei.

Asia

Hong Kong dog dumping study

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

HONG KONG–A survey of pet abandonment published in August
2006 by My Pet magazine of Hong Kong found that among 303 people who
admitted dumping pet dogs, 63.4% did so after the Housing Authority
or private landlords enforced “no pets” rules. The only other major
reason for abandonment was disliking the animal.
More than half of the people who dumped dogs dumped more than
one, My Pet learned. About 20% replaced an abandoned dog, only to
abandon that dog too.
The Agriculture, Fisheries, & Conservation Department,
responsible for animal control in Hong Kong, impounded 13,100 dogs
in 2005, killing 11,900 who were neither claimed nor adopted within
four days. With almost the same human population as New York City,
Hong Kong had an almost identical rate of shelter dog killing.

BOOKS: Gorilla Dreams: The Legacy of Dian Fossey

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Two views of–

Gorilla Dreams: The Legacy of Dian Fossey
by Georgianne Nienaber
Universe (2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100,
Lincoln, NE 68512), 2006. 255 pages
paperback. $19.95.

Fearless fighter for gorillas

Gorilla Dreams purports to be
posthumously narrated by the late gorilla
researcher Dian Fossey herself. Georgianne
Nienaber writes from what she believes to be
Fossey’s own perspective about how she believed
she was abused, swindled, maligned,
manipulated, used, harassed and obstructed by
cruel and corrupt people, many of them
representatives of respected mainstream
conservation charities.
Asks Nienaber in the Fossey persona,
“How much of my legacy has been used by
fraudulent conservation authorities to collect
funds from those least able to afford them, only
to have those moneys flow into corrupt coffers,
never to reach the gorillas?”

BOOKS: Return of the Condor

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Return of the Condor: The Race to Save Our Largest Bird from Extinction
by John Moir
Lyons Press (246 Goose Lane, Guilford, CT 06437), 2006.
187 pages, hardcover. $24.95.

Science writer John Moir relates in this book the drama of
the last-ditch captive breeding program that undoubtedly saved the
Californian condor from extinction. Inter-agency politics and
eloquent lobbying by non-interventionists, led by Friends of the
Earth founder David Brower, nearly kept the Condor Recovery Program
from starting.
Brower, who previously headed the Sierra Club and later
founded Earth Island Institute, argued that capturing the last wild
California condors for captive breeding would set a bad precedent for
reducing endangered wildlife to zoo specimens, that reintroduction
would probably fail because captive-bred condors would not learn from

New Jersey Consumer Affairs prosecutes another coin-can fundraiser

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

HACKENSACK, N.J.–Exiting New Jersey Office of Consumer
Affairs director Kimberly Ricketts on August 2, 2006, her last day
with the agency, appealed for public help to locate and impound an
estimated 1,400 to 1,500 coin collection canisters believed to have
been placed by an entity calling itself Lovers of Animals.
The Office of Consumer Affairs has filed suit, reported
Newark Star-Ledger staff writer Brian T. Murray, alleging improper
accounting for about $7,500 raised and spent in 2005.
The case followed the state shutdown of coin can fundraiser
Patrick Jemas in June 2006. Jemas did business as the National
Animal Welfare Foundation.
“Lovers of Animals was incorporated when Russell Frontera,
49, of Beachwood was furloughed from state prison in late 2004 after
serving two years of a seven-year sentence for loan sharking,” wrote
Murray. “His name appears on charity documents filed with the
Internal Revenue Service and the state that year, when he also
opened a post office box for the charity.

DELTA Rescue loses challenge to L.A. County inspection requirement

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

LOS ANGELES–The Los Angeles District Court of Appeal on
August 8, 2006 affirmed an earlier ruling by Los Angeles Superior
Court Judge Victor H. Person that the Dedication & Everlasting Love
To Animals sanctuary, better known as DELTA Rescue, is subject to
inspection by the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care &
Control.
The 94-acre care-for-life sanctuary houses approximately
1,500 dogs and cats. A subsidiary, Horse Rescue of America, cares
for equines.
“The department annually inspected and licensed DELTA Rescue
from 1985 to 1993,” summarized Metropol-itan News-Enterprise staff
writer Steven Cschke. “In 1998 the [animal control] board and DELTA
Rescue entered into an agreement whereby DELTA Rescue would be exempt
from the licensing requirement as long as it retained nonprofit
status, complied with rabies vaccination requirements, and the
department had no cause to believe it was mistreating animals, DELTA
Rescue alleged.”

North America

Whales’ navy gains two ships

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

The global “navy” defending whales has added two ships–the
Leviathan, recently acquired by the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society, and the Stenela, the first dolphin-watching vessel based
in Mozambique, funded by the German Society for Dolphin
Conservation, Save Our Seas Foundation, and Deutsche Umwelthilfe.
While the Stenela will attempt to protect whales and dolphins
by promoting appreciation of marine mammals in a new part of the
world, the Leviathan will lead the Sea Shepherd intervention against
Japanese “research” whaling within the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary,
designated by the International Whaling Commission in 1994 but not
recognized by Japan.
“We will be bringing two ships, a helicopter, and about 60
volunteers,” pledged Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson. Watson said
that the Levithan appears to be as fast as the Nisshin Maru, the
Japanese whaling factory ship, which repeatedly sped away from the
former Sea Shepherd flagship Farley Mowat last winter in high seas
skirmishes also involving two Greenpeace vessels.
The Institute of Cetacean Research, the Japanese whaling
front, plans to kill up to 935 minke whales and 10 fin whales within
sanctuary waters this coming winter.

Outside help

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Outside animal advocates who found their way to Lebanon
during July and August 2006 to aid stranded animals included
Hurricane Katrina rescue veteran Linda Nealon of New York City, who
helped Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to arrange the
Best Friends animal evacuation (see page 1), and PETA
representatives Michelle Rokke and Jason Baker.
The PETA team “handed out leaflets explaining how to help
animals caught under the bombing strikes,” wrote Agence France
Presse correspondent Jailan Zayan. “The flyers, which have been
handed out to citizens, military, police, and non-government
organizations, urge people who see animals in distress to set them
free if they are tied up, give them water, and if possible take
them in. As a last resort, the guidelines say, the animals should
be shot at point-blank range.

Middle East

Wildlife rehab center, zoos, farms try to survive under fire

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

BEIRUT, HAIFA–As vulnerable as dogs and cats were during
the July and August 2006 fighting along the border of Israel and
Lebanon, captive wildlife and livestock were in even in greater
danger, having little or no opportunity to even try to survive on
their own.
The nonprofit Animal Encounter Educational Center for
Wildlife Conservation in southern Lebanon, directed by Mounir and
Diana Abi-Said, had animals of more than 35 species to look after,
most of them rehabilitation cases, the Saids e-mailed to ANIMAL
PEOPLE. Among the animals, they said, were “brown bear, wolf,
hyena, fox, deer, ostrich, pelican, white stork, imperial
eagle, jungle cat, wild boar, and jackal.”

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