ANIMAL OBITS

September 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

Ganesha, India’s oldest domesticated
elephant, whose age was variously estimated
at 72, 78, and 79, died on June 29 at the
Mysore Zoo. She was captured in 1948 for
then-Mysore Maharaja Sri Jayachamarajendra
Wodeyar. He donated her to the zoo in 1951.
Sukanta, 12, a white Bengal tiger,
on July 29 became the 13th tiger in less than a
month to die of uncertain cause at the Nandankanan
Zoo in Bhubaneswar. The deaths
brought an investigation by the Supreme Court
of India, expanding into a broader probe into
the deaths of 221 lions and 366 tigers at Indian
zoos and wildlife parks during the past five
years. The Nandankanan tiger deaths have
been variously blamed on the fly-carried bacterial
disease trypanosomiasis, bad food, and
bad veterinary drugs. The zoo has bred more
than 300 tigers in captivity since 1967, 123 of
them white, and still has 43, including 18
white tigers.

Obituaries

BOOKS: Framework for Understanding Poverty

September 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

Framework for Understanding Poverty
by Ruby K. Payne, Ph. D.
RFT Publishing Co. , 1998. 232 pages, paperback. $26.50 includes postage.

A cruelty investigator once told me that wealthy neighborhoods were the ones he really dreaded going into because “you can’t tell those people anything.”

Whether you need help understanding the poor, the middle class, or the wealthy, here is a book with insights for you. Framework for Understanding Poverty was written in the belief that “an understanding of the culture and values of poverty will lessen the anger and frustration that educators [and others] may periodically feel” when working with students and parents of poverty. The “hidden rules” of the middle-class and wealthy are also exposed. The book demonstrates that “middle-class solutions should not necessarily be imposed when other, more workable solutions might be found.”

REVIEW: Chicken Run

September 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

Chicken Run
Animated feature co-directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park,
starring the voices of Mel Gibson, Julia Sawahla, and
Miranda Richardson. Aardman Studios, 2000. 80 minutes.

Burlesquing the World War II prisoner-of-war camp
films Stalag 17 (1953) and The Great Escape (1963), Chicken
Run features the laying hen Ginger as the indomitable prisoner
who is repeatedly hunted with dogs and thrown into solitary
confinement in a coal bin, yet continues her escape attempts.
Time and again Ginger sacrifices her own chance at
freedom to help less comprehending, less ambitious, and less
agile chickens escape with her. Each time she is roughly
returned to Coop 17 and dawn inspections at which unproductive
hens are singled out for the pot, as examples to the rest.
The TV comedy series Hogan’s Heroes (1965-1968)
parodied The Great Escape and Stalag 17 just for laughs.
Chicken Run is far funnier, to serious purpose.

What if animal rights theory went to the dogs?

September 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

Beyond Animal Rights:
A Feminist Caring Ethic for the
Treatment of Animals
Edited by Josephine Donovan
and Carol J. Adams
Continuum Publishing Co. (370 Lexington
Ave., New York, NY 10017), 1996.
26 pages, paperback. $18.95.

Yukon Alone:
The World’s Toughest Adventure Race
by John Balzar
Henry Holt & Co.
(115 W. 18th St., New York, NY 10011),
1999. 304 pages, hardcover, $25.00.

Many of the authors included in Beyond Animal
Rights might doubt there is any resemblance between their outlook
toward animals and that of the participants in the Yukon
Quest, the annual 1,023-mile dog sled race between
Whitehorse and Fairbanks.

U.S. wildlife doesn’t

September 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

North American people are better
buffered against calamities associated with
global warming than Asians and Africans––
but reminders were abundant during the summer
that technological advances helping
humans to keep water, food, and fuel flowing
where needed are not necessarily able to
save animals, even when the effort is made.
On July 28, for instance, after
nearly nine months of legal maneuvering, a
tentative agreement was announced among
the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, ranchers holding water
leases, Defenders of Wildlife, Forest
Guardians, and the Middle Rio Grande
Conservancy District over the allocation of
Rio Grande water needed by both corn and
alfalfa growers and the endangered Rio
Grande silvery minnow and Southwest willow
flycatcher (a small bird).

George W. Bush blew up frogs

July 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

MIDLAND, Texas––An alert for American
voters and humane educators everywhere
appeared on May 21 in the 61st through 64th paragraphs
of a 76-paragraph New York Times feature on
the childhood of Republican candidate for U.S. president
George W. Bush––if anyone noticed.
“One of the local rituals for children,”
reported Nicholas D. Kristof of life in Midland,
Texas, when George W. was a boy, “were meetings
with cookies and milk at the home of a nice old lady
who represented the SPCA. The cookies were
digested more thoroughly than the teachings.

CHANGING TIMES IN SHELTERING

July 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

Michigan Humane Society executive
director Gary Tiscornia, 54, resigned
effective June 16 after 11 years in charge
and 18 years as an MHS employee.
Tiscornia succeeded David Wills in 1989,
who left an unexplained $1.6 million deficit
and a staff in chaos. Bookkeeper Denise
Hopkins pleaded guilty to embezzling about
$60,000. Wills was not charged, but was
later successfully sued for nonrepayment of
loans borrowed in connection with starting
the short-lived National Society for Animal
Protection, and pleaded guilty in June 1999
to embezzling from the Humane Society of
the U.S.

Rescuers in Zimbabwe turf battle

July 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

HARARE, Zimbabwe––All staff
and animals from the Masvingo Branch SPCA,
located 200 miles south of the Zimbabwean capital
of Harare, were evacuated on June 22 due
to a threat that it might be burned down in violence
surrounding the June 24-25 national election,
Zimbabwe National SPCA chair/secretary
Bryan Nel told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Polls indicated that the election––if
the results were not corrupted––might topple the
government of Robert Mugabe, president of
Zimbabwe since his troops ousted the apartheid
regime of the former Rhodesia in 1980.
Trying to hold power, Mugabe
encouraged landless followers to invade farms
owned by persons of European descent.

A Knapp on the job in L.A.

July 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

LOS ANGELES––Los Angeles
Animal Services Department general manager
Dan Knapp on June 2 apologized to Los
Angeles mayor Richard Riordan for reportedly
telling news media one week earlier
that the Los Angeles shelters would start
killing more dogs, sooner, to ease crowding
while escalating stray pickups before and
during the Democratic National Convention.
“Currently, animal control officials
put up for adoption about 200 dogs
every day at each of the city’s six kennels,”
wrote Jason Kandel of the Los Angeles Daily
N e w s. “Under the new plan, which could
begin the second week of July, workers will
hold for adoption only about 61 dogs a day
at each shelter, Knapp said. ‘Point A, and
the catalyst for this change, is the
Democratic National Convention. Point B is
the city council, emphasizing getting stray
dogs off the streets.’”

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