BOOKS: Enslaved by Ducks

May 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

Enslaved by Ducks by Bob Tarte * Algonquin Books (127 Kingston Dr.
#105, Chapel Hill, NC 27514). 308 pages. Hardcover, $23.95.

Freelance writer Bob Tarte some years ago left the city and
moved with his wife Linda to a property in rural Mitchigan. Linda
started acquiring birds and Tarte found himself constructing cages
and doing all the menial work that went into caring for them.
When Tarte finally realized that he no longer had a life of
his own and that he had become a slave to a demanding avian family,
he wrote Enslaved by Ducks. Full of humorous anecdotes about the
interaction of various species of pet and farm birds with each other,
and with the Tartes, Enslaved by Ducks is a mine of information for
people who look after parrots and other birds. Years of patient
caring and literally painful learning have made Bob and Linda animal
behaviorists par excellence, graduates cum laude from the school of
hard knocks.
Enslaved by Ducks is much more than a mere recital of events.
The Tartes display an admirable ability to learn from experience,
and to achieve a better understanding of the psychology of their
birds and other animals. Their kindness and genuine empathy for
their various unusual pets encroaches deep into Bob Tarte’s limited
leisure time and causes him to suffer anxiety attacks. Linda Tarte
suffers a painful back strain that eventually compels her to sleep on
the floor.

BOOKS: Mammals of North America

May 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

Mammals of North America
by Nora Bowers, Rick Bowers
and Kenn Kaufman
Kaufman Focus Guides (c/o Houghton Mifflin, 215
Park Ave. S., New York, NY 10003), 2004. 352
pages. Flex binding. $22.00.

Reviewers inevitably liken Mammals of
North America editor Kenn Kaufman to the late
Roger Tory Peterson–with reason.
Peterson, editor and chief illustrator
of more than 50 field guides, was introduced to
birding in 1924, at age 11, by a Junior Audubon
Club. The members were taught to shoot birds and
study their corpses. Horrified, Peterson saved
his earnings as a newspaper boy to buy a camera,
at a time when shutter speeds were believed to be
too slow to capture clear images of birds on the
wing, and soon became the first distinguished
bird photographer, hand-tinting his prints
because color film had not yet been invented.
Peterson produced his first Field Guide to the
Birds in 1934.

Baby seals & bull calves bear the cruel weight of idolatry

May 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

The 350,000 baby harp seals who were clubbed or shot and
often skinned alive on the ice floes off eastern Canada this spring
had more in common with the thousands of bull calves who were
abandoned at temples in India during the same weeks than just being
days-old mammals subjected to unconscionable mistreatment.
Unlike the much smaller numbers of seals who were killed off
Russia, Norway, and Finland, and unlike the somewhat smaller
numbers of bull calves who were shoved into veal crates here in the
U.S., Canadian harp seal pups and Indian surplus bull calves are
victims not only of human economic exploitation, but also of their
roles as icons and idols.
The words “icon” and “idol” have a common origin in the
ancient Greek word that means “image.” Yet they mean such different
things–and have for so long–that two of the Judaic Ten
Commandments, about setting no other God before the One God and not
worshipping graven images, sternly address the difference.
An icon is a physical image representative of a holy concept,
usually but not always depicting a person who is believed to have
exemplified the concept in the conduct of his or her life. Icons may
also depict animals, abstract symbols, supernatural beings, or
deities. A icon may be venerated for being symbolic of the holy
concept, but to venerate it for its own sake is considered idolatry,
and therefore wrong in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths,
as well as in some branches of other major religions.

Developments in dangerous dog law

May 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

DENVER–Colorado Governor Bill Owens on April 21, 2004
signed into law a bill which allows dog attack victims to sue the
legal owners of the dogs “regardless of the viciousness or dangerous
propensities of the dog or the dog owner’s knowledge of those
tendencies,” but prohibits breed-specific municipal ordinances.
Previously Colorado operated under the “one free bite”
standard established in English Common Law, holding that a dog may
not be considered dangerous if the dog had not previously attacked
someone.
Recognizing that the “one free bite” standard is of little
practical use in trying to prevent harm by dogs whose first bite may
be fatal, several states have recently tried to introduce stricter
liability standards.
However, the New York state Court of Appeals in February
2004 ruled in a 4-2 split verdict that a Rottweiler mix who facially
disfigured Matthew Collier, 12, in 1998 could not have been
considered a potentially dangerous dog, even though the dog was
normally kept away from visitors, because the dog had not previously
bitten anyone. The dog attacked Collier while held on a leash by
owner Mary Zambito, who was attempting to introduce the dog to the
boy.

USDA puts Hawthorn Corp. out of the elephant business–Clyde-Beatty Cole Bros. quits, too

April 23, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2004:

RICHMOND, Illinois–Hawthorn Corporation owner John F. Cuneo
Jr., 73, on March 7, 2004 agreed to a 19-point consent decree in
settlement of 47 Animal Welfare Act charges that requires him to
divest of his remaining 16 elephants and have them removed from his
property near Richmond, Illinois by August 15. Cuneo is also to pay
a civil penalty of $200,000.
The consent decree, finalized on March 15, marks the first
time that the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service has
ordered a circus to cease exhibiting elephants.
Hawthorn Corporation will be allowed to keep 60 white tigers,
27 conventionally colored tigers, and an African lion.
None of the elephants’ destinations have been determined.
Dehi, 57, whom the USDA removed from the Hawthorn premises in
November 2003, was sent to the Elephant Sanctuary at Hohenwald,
Tennessee. A 200-acre facility with seven Asian elephants and three
African elephants at present, the Elephant Sanctuary plans to expand
up to 2,700 acres soon, divided between Asian and African elephant
habitats.
The most recent arrival, in March 2004, is Flora, the
17-year star performer of the single-elephant Circus Flora, for whom
circus owner David Balding tried unsuccessfully to found the Ahali
Sanctuary in South Carolina.

Tibetans take up “direct action”

April 2, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2006:

KATHMANDU–“Large numbers of troops and police are patrolling
the streets of Rebkong, Quinghai Province, Tibet, to prevent a
bonfire of skins originally scheduled for February 12, 2006. It
appears that the Chinese government has banned the public burning of
chuba costumes trimmed with tiger, leopard and otter skins,” the
Wildlife Protection Society of India posted on February 15, based on
information received from Tibet Info Net.
Fiery protests resembling western-style “direct action”
continued in Tibet into March 2006, despite the military presence,
according to Nepal-based Radio Free Asia, and have occurred for at
least eight months, contrary to previous belief that they began with
fur burnings in January 2006.
Radio Free Asia on February 1, 2006 reported that in August
2005 at Manikengo, “Tibetans, some of whom said they were angry
because they had been pressured to sell their animals for slaughter
at below-market prices, broke into a Chinese-owned slaughterhouse
during the annual Tibetan horse race festival, which attracts
thousands of people. They found what they described as a large
number of animals, including dogs and horses, sources said.

Pricing, politics, & the race to perfect animal birth control

April 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2004:

FAYETTE, Missouri; BANGKOK–If humane organizations could
afford to use Neutersol in high volume, it might have taken over
much of the male dog sterilization market share already, worldwide.
But the maker of the first commercially distributed injectible
sterilant for dogs, Addison Laboratories of Fayette, Missouri, has
priced Neutersol to avoid cutting into U.S. veterinary profits.
Because Neutersol is unaffordable in the economically disadvantaged
nations where roving street dogs are most a problem, foreign
competitors are rushing to perfect their own injectible sterilants
and grab market share before Addison can introduce a two-tier pricing
system that would make Neutersol the injectible sterilant of choice.
At request of Neutersol product director Cord Harper, ANIMAL
PEOPLE on November 17, 2003 e-mailed to Addison Laboratories a list
of 37 humane organizations in 20 nations that might be willing to use
Neutersol if it could be provided to them at cost. At least five of
the organizations have already experimented with injectible
sterilants and still favor the concept, despite some early product
failures.
Four months later, Neutersol is still not affordably
available to help control street dogs.
Internationally recognized rabies control expert Henry Wilde,
M.D., of the Queen Savabha Memorial Institute operated by the Thai
Red Cross in Bangkok, was enthusiastic enough about the potential of
Neutersol that he bought some at the regular U.S. price and tested it
on several adult dogs in anticipation of two-tier pricing. Then he
waited.

Global effort exposes bid to dismantle Indian lab animal welfare regulations

April 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2004:

NEW DELHI–An apparent covert attempt to
erase regulatory protection of rats, mice, and
birds in Indian laboratories, in the name of
harmonizing Indian regulations with international
standards, was flushed into the open and at
least briefly delayed on March 19 when an
appalled insider leaked the strategic blueprint
to ANIMAL PEOPLE through a chain of street dog
rescuers.
The document was received on a Friday afternoon.
ANIMAL PEOPLE immediately forwarded
copies to regulatory experts throughout the
world, including several in India, soliciting
comment.
The Indian experts promptly recognized
that the proposed “harmonization” was more a move
to dismantle the entire Indian laboratory animal
welfare assurance structure.
Working through the weekend to provide
informed reinforcement were Humane Farm Animal
Care founder Adele Douglass, who led the effort
to obtain the 1990 addition of dog and cat source
tracking requirements to the U.S. Animal Welfare
Act; Aesop Project founder Linda Howard; Animal
Welfare Institute president Cathy Liss; and
International Society for the Protection of
Exotic Animal Kind & Livestock founder Marc
Jurnove, whose case in 1998 established the
right of private citizens to sue the USDA to
obtain Animal Welfare Act enforcement.
By Monday morning cabinet-level e-mails
forwarded from New Delhi indicated that the
status of the strategic blueprint had been
downgraded to “internal brainstorming,” and
there seemed to be a strong likelihood that no
action would be taken until after the current
Indian national election campaign, and perhaps
not then, depending on the strength and
direction of ongoing global response.

U.N. Food & Agricultural Organization includes animal welfare considerations in plan to “stamp out” deadly avian flu

April 1, 2004 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2004:

GENEVA–The United Nations Food and
Agricultural Organization, not known for
pro-animal stances, on March 18 recommended as
part of the FAO “Control Strategies for Highly
Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1) in Asia” that
involved nations should “Provide humane
euthanasia methods for all animals to be
euthanized.”
The recommendation was included as the
sixth of nine points emphasized under the subhead
“Stamping-out policy for infected poultry
(including Valuation, Disposal, Cleaning and
Disinfection, Biosecurity and Animal Welfare).”
The inclusion of an expressed concern for
animal welfare, while not unprecedented, hints
at an FAO response to the view expressed earlier
by World Health Organiz-ation spokesperson Peter
Cordingly that, “It might be time, although
this is none of WHO’s business, that humans have
to think about how they treat animals and how
they farm them, how they market them–basically
the whole relationship between the animal kingdom
and the human kingdom.”
WHO and the FAO are parallel entities
established under U.N. auspices, and often work
together in combating epidemics.

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