White tigers, green polar bears, & maintaining a world-class zoo

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

SINGAPORE–When the tigers are white and the polar bears are
a blotchy dark green, a zoo has problems.
Opened in June 1973, the Singapore Zoo and adjacent Night
Safari are together reputedly the best zoo complex within half a
global orbit, together setting the Asian zoo design and management
standard.
More than 1.2 million visitors per year view about 3,200
animals of 330 mostly tropical species at the Singapore Zoo and Night
Safari.
The animals are chiefly housed in semi-natural surroundings.
The equatorial Singapore climate is good for reptiles year-round,
including some of the largest tortoises, most active monitors, and
largest gharials and salt water crocodiles on exhibit anywhere.
Pygmy hippos thrive. Both Old World and New World monkeys
and big cats are uncommonly lively.
But there are jarring notes.
The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore banned
traveling wild animal shows in 2002, yet the Singapore Zoo and Night
Safari still feature circus-like orangutan and marine mammal acts,
opportunities to hold and be photographed with young animals, and
elephant rides.

Asia

Study confirms chicken cognition

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

SILSOE, U.K.–Hens pecking buttons to
earn food rewards may have a better awareness of
passing time and be better able to assess the
prospects of future gain than human slot machine
gamblers, a new British study suggests.
Silsoe Research Institute Bio-physics
Group animal welfare scientist Siobhan
Abeyesinghe varied the “payout” for pecking so
that her hens would get only a small amount of
food if they pecked quickly, but would receive a
large amount if they delayed their pecks for 22
seconds, long enough to demonstrate the ability
to mentally clock their own behavior and show
deliberate self-restraint.
Researching poultry welfare since 1996,
Abeyesinghe emphasized the welfare implications
of her findings in describing them for the
journal Animal Behavior.

Land reform threatens Hato Piñero

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Owners of private wildlife conservancies
worldwide told themselves after the destruction
of the SAVE Valley Conservancy that the
Zimbabwean land invasions were a phenomenon
unique to Zimbabwean socio-political
circumstances.
That belief was shaken when the
Venezuelan National Land Institute ruled on March
12, 2005 that the 80,000-hectare Hato Piñero
ecotourism refuge and beef ranch is eligible for
seizure under a 2001 law allowing redistribution
of private land which is either under-utilized or
held under dubious title. Hato Piñero may be
expropriated even though the Branger family,
operating Hato Piñero since 1951, claims to hold
deeds to a title established in 1794.
Like Robert Mugabe, Venezuelan president
Hugo Chavez rose to power on the promise of land
reform. Like Mugabe, Chavez is bitterly opposed
by large private landowners. But unlike Mugabe,
Chavez is disfavored by the George W. Bush
administration, which backed a failed 2002 coup.

Anti-dog meat & fur movement building momentum in China

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

HONG KONG–“We are tackling dog and cat eating in China by
freely distributing our video Dr. Eddie: Friend….or Food? in a
pack which includes a pet care leaflet, stickers promoting dogs and
cats as friends and helpers, and a letter from Animals Asia
Foundation founder Jill Robinson explaining why we believe dogs and
cats should not be on the menu,” Animals Asia Foundation executive
director Anne Mather e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on May 29, 2005.
“We are happy to say that the response to the pack has been
absolutely overwhelming,” Mather continued. “The initial 10,000
packs, which we expected to last a year, were finished in just six
weeks! We are receiving calls from pet clubs all over China whose
members have heard of the packs and are requesting their own. Thus
we are in the midst of producing a further 40,000 for free
distribution. In addition, <www.sina.com>, (China’s biggest web
portal), is streaming the Dr. Eddie film for free on their pet site.”
The Dr. Eddie video, also available in an English version,
tells the story of a dog whom Robinson rescued from a live meat
market in Guangdong a few years ago. Eddie is now part of the Dr.
Dog therapy program in Hong Kong, one of many Dr. Dog programs begun
by the Animals Asia Foundation in major cities of Southeast Asia to
help raise appreciation of dogs wherever they might be on the menu.

Animal Obituaries

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Spirit of Peace, a rare white bison calf born prematurely in
the North Peace region of British Columbia, died on June 1, 2005
after he refused to eat, rancher Karen Blatz said. Blatz had been
bottle-feeding him, and took him to a veterinarian for antibiotic
treatment, to no avail.

Angela, 23, a diabetic chimpanzee, was euthanized on May
19 at the Belfast Zoo, due to a chronic painful leg condition.

Asiad Appu, 27, an elephant who was crippled as an infant
by falling into a septic tank at Palakkad, India, died on May 14 in
Punnathurkotta, India. A playful nature caused Appu, then called
Kuttinarayanan, to be designated celebrity mascot of the 1982
Second Asian Games by the late Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv
Gandhi, both prime ministers of India who were eventually
assassinated.

Obituaries

Obituaries

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Prince Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand III, 81, died
on April 6, 2005. Rainier inherited titular rule of Monaco in 1949,
a principality of less than one square mile, controlled by his
ancestors since 1297, renowned for gambling and as a tax haven for
the rich since the mid-19th century. Rainier revitalized the Monaco
resorts after 1955 with investment capital from Greek whaling baron
Aristotle Onassis–but married animal-loving actress Grace Kelly in
1956, who detested Onassis. To placate Kelly, Rainier banned
pigeon shooting, a favorite Onassis pastime, in Monaco. Rainier
wrongly anticipated reconciling Kelly and Onassis when in 1961 he
persuaded Onassis to join British wildlife artist and trophy hunter
Peter Scott, Prince Philip of Britain, and Prince Bernhardt of The
Netherlands in founding the World Wildlife Fund. Scott and the
princes feared that newly independent former European colonies would
abolish sport hunting, as India and Kenya eventually did. They
sought to save hunting by funding the wildlife departments of
emerging nations, following the example of the National Wildlife
Federation, which in the 1930s lobbied successfully for U.S.
wildlife management to be funded by taxes on hunting licenses and
equipment. Instead of promoting taxes on hunters, however, WWF
raised money directly from the public, to “save animals,” seldom if
ever mentioning the pro-hunting agenda in appeals. The rift between
Kelly and Onassis widened until Onassis sold his Monaco holdings at a
tenfold profit and left in 1965. Rainier remained involved with WWF
to the end of his life, but the tiny Monaco zoo fell into disrpute
after Kelly was killed in a 1982 car crash.

Obituaries

Fire when ready by Sybil Erden, founder, The Oasis Sanctuary

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Fire when ready by Sybil Erden, founder, The Oasis Sanctuary

The Oasis Sanctuary, in rural southeastern Arizona, cares
for captive exotic birds, mostly parrots. Our eight resident staff
look after more than 400 birds, plus 50 other farmed and domestic
animals.
At 9:50 p.m. on May 25, 2005 I stepped outside and saw a
plume of fire towering over the trees–an orange glow, soundless,
mindless, reaching into the heavens. A foreclosed property
adjacent to our 72 acres was fully ablaze.
I called 911 to get the fire department before doing anything
else, but was told they had already been notified and were on their
way. But being “on their way” is a relative term out here in the
rural Southwest.
The members of the Cascabel volunteer fire department are
individually notified. They have one truck and a water tanker. The
other local fire departments are also volunteer. The closest, in
St. David, is 45 minutes away. The next closest is an hour away.
After calling 911, I called and probably awakened one of our
staff and asked him to call everyone else. Within five minutes
everyone went to work.

Disaster Relief

Letters [June 2005]

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Woodpecker

Wow! Your May editorial “Lessons from
finding the ivory-billed woodpecker” is
phenomenal.
When someone sent me the news about the
‘rediscovered’ bird, I responded with the
following rant:
“Conservationists” who endorsed the
poisoning of Anacapa, accepting as collateral
damage the loss of rare species such as the
burrowing owl and the Anacapa deer mouse, may
also have wiped out an unrediscovered “extinct”
species.
We have proof that the National Park
Service poisoned a species of bird they didn’t
even know was on the island. They also did not
do a DNA test on the poor Anacapa Island rat, a
uniquely adapted population, genetically
isolated for two centuries.

Letters

Scoping elephants & rhinos on the web

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

MERU–The latest Kenyan venture in wildlife tracking could
either help to stop elephant and rhino poaching or accelerate it,
depending on the monitoring and interdiction capabilities of the
Kenya Wildlife Service.
“Elephants in some national parks are being fitted with SIM
card collars that send a text message telling wardens exactly where
the elephants are every hour. That information will soon be
available over the Internet, and accessible to people who choose to
sponsor an animal or make a donation to charity,” London
Independent correspondent Meera Selva reported on June 5, 2005.
Confirmed Meru National Park senior warden Mark Jenkins, who
is introducing the tracking technology, “People can go online and
see where ‘their’ elephant is at any time of day or night. It should
be a very useful tool for fundraising.”
“A similar technology is also being used to track rhinos,”
Selva added.

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