Author: Dylan Forest

BOOKS: Cairo Cats: Egypt’s Enduring Legacy

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

Cairo Cats: Egypt’s Enduring Legacy
Photos by Lorraine Chittock
Camel Caravan Press 1999, reissued 2001, 2006.
Order c/o <www.CairoCats.com>. 96 pages, paperback. $18.95.

Itinerant photographer and animal welfare volunteer Lorraine
Chittock has sold out two editions of Cairo Cats during the past
seven years, donating part of each press run and some of the
proceeds as well to the Egyptian Society of Animal Friends.
This is the third edition.
The content consists chiefly of photos of Cairo street cats,
captioned with appropriate quotes from Islamic literature. The
photos illustrate that while Cairo street cats often lead hard lives
and die young, they are at home in their native habitat, with
little evident sense that they are “suffering” by mostly living
outdoors on birds and mice. Many seem to see themselves as the
rulers of their domain.

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BOOKS: Animal Passions & Beastly Virtues

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

Animal Passions & Beastly Virtues:
Reflections in Redecorating Nature
by Marc Bekoff
Temple University Press (1601 North Broad Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19122), 2005. 290 pages, paperback. $26.95.

Marc Bekoff, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology
at the University of Colorado, is among the best known scientists
and scholars in animal welfare.
Animal Passions & Beastly Virtues, his latest of many books,
covers topics ranging from the behavioral ecology of carnivores to
the moral issues surrounding the use of animals in science.
We especially enjoyed Bekoff’s essays on coyotes, since our
own wildlife rehabilitation work during the years we ran the
Kalahari Raptor Centre involved black-backed jackals, the comparably
persecuted African and Asian coyote counterpart.

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NOAH’s ark on Puget Sound

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

STANWOOD, Washington–A starling swooped
through the last daylight across the northbound
lane of I-5, toward a gap in the young alders on
the inland side. Braking to avoid the starling,
I saw the sunset glinting off a sign through the
trees, saying something about spay/neuter–and
beyond the sign, caught a glimpse of a new animal
shelter.
Just short of the Snohomish/Skagit county
line, as close to the middle of nowhere as I-5
goes between Seattle and British Columbia, the
starling had helped ANIMAL PEOPLE to quite
accidentally discover the three-year-old NOAH
Center.

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Dogs as drug mules

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

Among the grimmest indicators of the
rising value of puppies is the increasing use of
their bodies as live containers for smuggled
illegal drugs–a dodge that can only work if the
animals are in sufficient demand at high prices
that import inspectors are not surprised to see
them in transit.
Such a case shocked France in early May
after the remains of 15 dogs were found among the
trash left after the annual Teknikval rave music
festival at Chavanne, near Bourges. “Most of
the animals had their bellies cut open,”
reported John Lichfield of The Independent. “The
Société Protectrice des Animaux for the
département of Cher said that it hoped to trace
the owners of the dead dogs and investigate the
deaths.”

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Poll shows loss on testing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

LONDON–“The proportion of people approving of animal testing
in medical research is at an all-time high. More than three quarters
believe that the more extreme elements among animal rights activists
deserve to be called terrorists,” wrote Anthony King of The Daily
Telegraph on May 29, 2006.
Agreed Daily Telegraph home affairs editor Philip Johnston,
“Campaigns such as intimidating scientists and threatening
shareholders in pharmaceutical companies appear to have backfired
badly.”
King and Johnston based their analysis on a May 2006 YouGov
poll of 2,102 British adults, sponsored by The Daily Telegraph.

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New laws on dogs, s/n, bestiality, factory farming

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on May 31 signed three
bills into law which create a felony penalty for allowing dangerous
dogs to run loose or failing to keep them securely enclosed; also
create a felony penalty for failing to sterilize a dog defined as
dangerous by past behavior; add a felony penalty for failing to
follow orders pertaining to keeping a dangerous dog; allow civil
penalties for possession of dangerous dogs; prohibit convicted
felons from keeping dangerous dogs or any unsterilized dog; add
penalties for using dogs in the commission of crimes; increase the
penalties for attending dog fights; add a felony penalty for taking
children to dog fights; and ease the requirements for convicting a
person of illegal dog fighting.

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Alaska steps up predator killing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

The Alaska Board of Game at a three-day mid-May 2006 meeting
expanded predator killing to increase huntable moose and caribou
populations to cover about 9% of the state; eased restrictions on
land-and-shoot bear hunting using aircraft and bait piles; expanded
five areas that are open to land-and-shoot and aerial wolf-killing,
tripling one of them; added incentives for killing grizzly bears in
two areas; and adopted amendments intended to limit the ability of
opponents of predator killing to challenge the changes in court.
Alaska is now persecuting predators more aggressively than at any
time in approximately 30 years.

People & organizations

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

Horst Kleinschmidt, 60, former deputy director general of
the South African environment department and former deputy chair of
the International Whaling Commission, has joined the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society advisory board and became a sitting member of
Sea Shepherd South Africa, Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson
announced on May 15, 2006. “In 1998, Horst was awarded the Order
of the Polar Star, First Class, and was knighted by the King of
Sweden,” Watson recalled. “In 1991, he was awarded the Bruno
Kreisky Prize for Services to Human Rights, in recognition of his
decades of struggles against apartheid in South Africa.”

The Philadelphia Zoo in early May announced that longtime
banking executive Vikram H. Dewan, 51, would succeed Pete Hoskins,
58, as executive director, effective June 12. Hoskins headed the
zoo for 13 years, after serving as the Philadelphia city streets
commissioner.

Animal advocacy court calendar

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

A Utah law requiring a two-thirds majority to pass a
wildlife-related ballot initiative is constitutional, the U.S. 10th
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on May 17, 2006, upholding a 2001
verdict by Utah U.S. District Court Judge Tena Campbell . The law
was itself passed by ballot initiative, gaining 56% of the vote.

U.S. District Judge William Shubb ruled in late May 2006 that
Alfredo Kuba of In Defense of Animals and up to 10 other activists
could protest in front of Six Flags Marine World over the Memorial
Day weekend despite a Six Flags policy against permitting protests on
high-traffic days.

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