CLINTON BUDGET BOOSTS NIH, NPS

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.– – The
U.S. budget for fiscal 1999 announced by
President Bill Clinton on February 2
includes a record $170 billion for civilian
research and development over the next
five years. The National Institutes of
Health would get an immediate funding
increase of $1.15 billion, giving it a 1999
budget of $14.8 billion, and would be
scheduled to get $20 billion in 2004.
NIH head Harold Varmus told
media that the money, if allocated by
Congress, would be divided among studies
of cancer, diabetes, brain disorders,
asthma, and AIDS.

BOOKS: The Lessons of St. Francis

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

The Lessons of St. Francis:
How to Bring Simplicity and Spirituality into Your Daily Life
by John Michael Talbot with Steve Rabey
Dutton (375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014), 1997.
255 pages, hardcover, $21.95.

A member of the 1960s country/ rock
band Mason Profitt, John Michael Talbot
either reinvented or rediscovered himself after
the band broke up––first as an admittedly
obnoxious evangelical “Jesus freak,” and then,
as the zeal of the newly converted gave way to
recognition that he still didn’t like himself
much, a lay Franciscan.
Bible-thumping hadn’t brought
Talbot inner peace, but working to emulate St.
Francis did. Still a professional musician,
Talbot eventually founded the semi-communal
Missouri-based Brothers and Sisters of Charity,
and became a respected Franciscan scholar.

WHAT’S TO BECOME OF A BARREL OF MONKEYS?

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

MADISON, Wisconsin––Virginia Hinshaw, dean
of graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison,
on February 3 gave Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk until
March 2 to find a way to keep 100 rhesus macaques and 50
stump-tailed macaques at the Vilas Zoo, their longtime home.
The Vilas Zoo has long housed the macaques under
contract to the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center,
funded by the National Institutes of Health. American Zoo
Association policy has discouraged the use of zoo animals in
research since 1986, but the Vilas Zoo arrangement, dating to
1963, predated the policy.
The macaque colonies are descended from those who
provided subjects for the notorious isolation experiments of the
late Harry Harlow, who moved his work to the University of
Arizona in 1971 and died in 1981. They are the oldest stable
breeding colonies of macaques in captivity. About 1,300 kin
are at separate facilities on the university campus.

WARFARE AND ANIMALS

March 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

The Bureau of Land
Management has asked the U.S. Air
Force to redesign a plan to create a new
target bombing range 25 miles southeast
of the Saylor Creek Training Range in
Idaho. The BLM wants the Air Force to
restrict low level flights over the Owyhee
Canyonlands to avoid disturbing either
bighorn sheep during lambing season, or
recreational visitors during peak use
times. The Air Force earlier agreed to
avoid the most critical lambing areas and
to restrict flights over two other parts of
the proposed range during the times most
favored by rafters and kayakers. The
current plan is the fourth expansion proposal
from the Air Force since the
Persian Gulf War showed the need to
train pilots for desert combat. Previous
plans were halted by opposition from
Native Americans, environmentalists,
hunters, and ranchers.

BOOKS: Indian Wildlife & The Book of Indian Birds

January 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment