Rocky Mountains “Witch hunts & wildlife” panic is resolved

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

SALT LAKE CITY, DENVER– A 13-month two-state panic over
alleged cat mutilations by purported sadists officially ended on
August 1, 2003, when police chief Ricky Bennett of Aurora,
Colorado, told news media that, “There are definite signs and
markings that all were caused by predators.”
Twenty-nine of the 46 cats who were supposedly mutilated in
Colorado were found in Aurora, but the panic actually began after
the remains of a dozen cats with similar injuries were found in the
same Salt Lake City neighborhood from which Elizabeth Smart, 14,
was kidnapped on June 5, 2002.
Smart was recovered alive on March 12, 2003. David Brian
Mitchell, 49, and his wife, Wanda E. Barzee, 57, are charged
with kidnapping Smart from her Salt Lake City bedroom, raping her,
holding her prisoner until their capture, and attempting to kidnap
Smart’s 18-year-old cousin.
Mitchell’s stepson Mark Thompson, who helped bring Mitchell
to justice, told Newsweek that Mitchell had a history of cruelty to
animals “He shot our dog in front of us. He killed our bunny and
made us eat it,” Mitchell recalled.

Wolves, seals, kangaroos, & other scapegoats for economic failure

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

ANCHORAGE, ST. JOHN’S, LIMA,
SYDNEY–Political strategy in response to
economic stress in Third World dictatorships
often includes declaring a rabies crisis and
putting troops on the streets to intimidate the
public by shooting dogs.
In the underdeveloped democratic nations
the strategy varies. Instead of sending out
soldiers, armed citizens are authorized to vent
their frustration by shooting whatever animals
are most easily blamed.
In Atlantic Canada this spring the
“scapegoats” are seals, accused of keeping cod
stocks low, though there is little serious
scientific doubt that overfishing during the
1980s caused the cod population to crash.
In Australia, kangaroos are the
“scapegoats.” They even thrive like goats amid
dry conditions that kill sheep.
In Alaska, both troops and armed citizens are sent out to kill wolves.
The wolves, as political cartoons indicate,
are surrogates for environmentalists.

Slaughter in the streets

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

MULTAN, Pakistan–“I have been much in vexation since
February 11, 2003,” Animal Save Movement Pakistan founder Khalid
Mahmood Qureshi e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on February 16, seemingly
speaking for the world.
Al Qaida terrorist attacks were anticipated, following the
annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca by the Muslim faithful and appeals for
strikes against the U.S. by Islamic militant leader Osama bin Laden.
A U.S. military effort to depose Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein was
imminently expected as well.
But the violence vexing Qureshi had already occurred.
“Millions of cows, camels, oxen, sheep, and goats were
slaughtered on the day of Eid Ul Azha, after the day of Haj in
Saudia Arabia,” Qureshi wrote. “It is a religious custom,” in
which male heads of households attempt halal slaughter with often
haphazard and bloody results, “but it is a tyranny and cruelty,”
Qureshi continued. “I see it as a genocide of animals. The Animal
Save Movement of Pakistan not only strongly protests this terrible
and uncivilised operation, but wants to abolish it.

Asia
Culture

Letters [March 2003]

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

Lion-tamers vs. dull accountants

Thank you for sending me your fascinating publication. I
have just returned from meetings in Kenya and a visit to Mount Elgon
National Park to find your December 2002 edition in my pile of post.
I enjoyed your editorial on “Lion-tamers vs. dull
accountants.” Having watched a number of organizations evolve from
“founder’s passion” into “professional institution,” I am very
familiar with that difficult process. Difficult, but necessary, I
would say, because unless the “founder’s passion” is enough to solve
the problem, the organization must outlive the founder to continue
the work. Finding the balance is the challenge, and I agree with
your conclusion, though I fear your plea will fall on deaf ears in
the case of those receiving salaries in the hundreds of thousands of
dollars.

Letters

More talk than tiger-saving in India, with poaching on the rise

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

NEW DELHI–Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his
daughter Chelsea in March 2000 viewed a tiger named Bhambu Ram in
Ranthambore National Park.
This for a time made Bhambu Ram the poster-cat for Indian
tiger conservation–but he is now believed to be a posthumous
poster-cat.
Months after rumors reached mass media that Bhambu Ram had
disappeared, police supposedly seized his pelt in Delhi.
Months after that, Indian minister for the environment and
animals T.R. Baalu in February 2003 proposed a meeting among
government officials and conservation groups to discuss what to do
about escalating tiger poaching.
Tigers, elephants, leopards, and smaller species are all
under increased poaching stress lately. This is partly because India
is among the last nations where significant populations of animals
valued in traditional Asian medicine still can be found. Poaching
persists because of corrupt and inefficient links in wildlife habitat
management and law enforcement, and because the political priorities
of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Dal party do not favor animals.

BOOKS: Tigers and Tigerwallahs

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

Tigers and Tigerwallahs
Including
Tiger-Wallahs: Saving the Greatest of the Great Cats
by Geoffrey C. Ward with Diane Raines Ward

Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett

The Secret Life of Tigers by Valmik Thapar,

and Tiger Haven by Billy Arjan Singh

Oxford University Press (YMCA Library Bldg., Jai Singh Rd., New Delhi
110 001, India), 2002. Circa 750 pages, hardcover. No U.S. price listed.

Relatively few people in India will ever see Tigers and
Tigerwallahs, a manificent four-volumes-in-one collection of tiger
conservation classics–but many might avidly absorb it if they could
afford it.
Tigers and Tigerwallahs is available in other nations only by
special order.
People who care profoundly what becomes of tigers must go to
that trouble, because as grim as some of the accounts in Tigers and
Tigerwallahs are, and as bleak the prophecies, the experiences of
the authors over the past 100 years amount to a comprehensive manual
of what to do and not do in trying to save large, charismatic
megafauna of almost any kind.

China wants Olympic tourists to come for tigers too

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

BEIJING–A camera trap set up by staff of the Hunchan Nature
Reserve in early February captured the first known photo of a wild
Amur tiger in northeastern China.
Members of the nature reserve staff positioned the camera
after hearing from a local farmer that an unknown large predator had
killed a mule that morning. The tiger tripped the electric eye that
operates the camera upon returning to the carcass late at night.
The photo provides “strong evidence that tigers are crossing
from the Russian Far East to repopulate previous tiger strongholds,”
said the Wildlife Conservation Society, whose equipment the Hunchan
team used.
Best known for operating the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium,
Central Park Zoo, and Prospect Park Zoo, all in New York City, the
Wildlife Conservation Society applies the profits to funding
overseas field research.
If Amur tigers are finding suitable habitat in China, with
adequate wild prey and safety from poaching, the species may yet
survive a population crash in Siberia that has cut their numbers from
an estimated 400 in 1997 to just 190 at the end of 2002.

Is Malaysia big and wild enough to keep wild tigers?

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

SUNGAI PETANI, Kedah, Malaysia–The mid-January 2003
disappearance of Malaysian oil palm plantation owner Haji Zaitun
Arshad, his family, and the pet tiger he allegedly imported from
Thailand combined into one case the dilemmas surrounding both private
tiger-keeping and wild tiger survival.
Zaitun was photographed a few days earlier in the act of
giving the tiger a jeep ride. Possessing the tiger exposed him to a
fine of up to $4,000 plus four years in jail.
Before vanishing, Zaitun reportedly admitted that the
18-month-old tiger was trapped in the wild. Malaysian Wildlife and
National Parks Department policy called for returning the tiger to
the wild if found, but Sahabhat Alam Malaysia president Mohamed
Idris warned that even brief habituation to humans could increase the
risk of the tiger killing people and livestock.

Editorial: Conferences build movements

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

Education, persuasion, fundraising,
and political organization all begin with getting
to know somebody.
Futurists have predicted since the
invention of book-printing that this ancient
truism would soon be amended by the advent of
mass media, which permit ever more rapid and
far-reaching distribution of ideas. Yet this has
not happened any more than the evolution of
advanced noses enabled dogs to give up their
eyesight. The actual major effect of each new
development in communication is simply to extend
human sensory input capabilities, and the most
frequent use of our extended input is always to
facilitate more human-to-human contact.
Thus book-printing stimulated the growth
of universities. Radio and television stimulated
travel. Use of the Internet exploded when
people discovered that it eases and expedites
meeting others with common interests. The
single most frequent specific use of e-mail is in
finding conjugal partners. Finding or placing
companion animals also ranks among the top dozen
uses, according to Internet researchers, some
of whom estimate that from a third to half of all
pet adoptions are now Internet-assisted.

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