Author: Dylan Forest

Fur

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:

“The International Trade Commission––measuring production
and import/export figures––placed U.S. [wholesale] fur consumption at
$338 million last year, down from $705 million in 1989 but up from $283
million in 1992,” the November 7 edition of New York magazine reported.
The ITC figures validate ANIMAL PEOPLE’s projection based on retail
mink prices that the U.S. fur trade took in $650 to $750 million in each of
the past two winters, about two-thirds of what the fur trade claims.
Although ANIMAL PEOPLE projected that retail sales fell again last win-
ter, the wholesale dollar volume could have been up, as many furriers are
now pushing more costly furs such as sable to make up for lost volume.

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OBITUARIES

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:

British film director James Hill, 75,
died October 9. Hill’s most successful produc-
tions were Born Free, 1966, starring Virginia
McKenna and Bill Travers, and the 1971 ver-
sion of Black Beauty.
Arlie Coplin, 40, a longtime office
volunteer for the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society, died August 25 of skin cancer. Born
in Huntington Beach, California, Coplin lived
most of his life in nearby Fallbrook, where
after a stint as a Navy flight mechanic he
became a building contractor. “Until the day
he died,” the Sea Shepherd Log memorialized,
“Arlie was most concerned that he was leaving
the world with the future existence of whales
uncertain. He loved them desperately and he
regretted dying without having gone to sea
himself to protect them. We had been trying to
get Arlie on board as a crew member for a long
time,” but logistics interfered. Coplin’s sur-
vivors included his mother Helen Coplin, and
sisters Lois Sontag and Karen Valek.

BOOKS: Animal experimentation: Cruelty or Science?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:
Animal experimentation: Cruelty
or Science? by Nancy Day. E n s l o w
Publishers Inc. (Bloy St. & Ramsey Ave.,
Box 777, Hillside, NJ 07205-0777),
1994. 128 pages, $17.95 hardcover.
This is one of the titles of Enslow’s
“Issues in Focus” series, books tailored to
readers aged 12 and up, exploring current
controversies. Animal Experimentation
examines the pros and cons of vivisection in
as fair and unbiased a treatment as possible,
quoting experts and spokespersons from both
camps.

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BOOKS: The Secret Oceans

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:

The Secret Oceans, by Betty Ballantine. Bantam Books (1540 Broadway,
New York, NY 10036), 1994. $29.95 hardcover, illustrated.
February 15, 2000: a magical community of talking dolphins kidnaps undersea
explorers in a desperate attempt to teach humankind intermingled lessons in planetary survival
and compassion for other species. The plot is predictable, but the message bears repeating.
No less than 12 artists contributed to the stunning beauty of the book, making it visually
appealing to all ages. The text, however, would speak best to 10-to-16-year-olds, particularly
fans of Seaquest, for whom it would make a perfect holiday gift.

BOOKS: The Cage

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:

The Cage, by Audrey Schulman. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (POB 2225,
Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2225), 1994. $17.95 hardcover.
Turning the convention of the glamorous lady photographer upside down, Audrey
Schulman’s first novel describes the attempt of a decidedly unglamorous and not just a little
perverse female photographer’s attempt to prove herself among male colleagues on a cata-
strophic trip to record the lives of polar bears near Churchill, Manitoba. The gay vegetarian
dies first. A quasi-vegetarian herself, the heroine turns to devouring meat and wearing fur
even before the real crisis begins. The Cage is a fine outdoors yarn, actually not unsympa-
thetic toward animal rights; Jack London would have approved, on both counts. Yet it
stretches credibility, since countless vegetarians live easily through the same expedition each
winter, via tours promoted by Natural Habitat Adventures Inc., who provided the photograph
above.

BOOKS: The Aye-Aye and I

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:

The Aye-Aye and I, by Gerald Durrell. Touchstone Books (1230 Avenue of
the Americas, New York, NY 10020), 1992; first Touchstone edition 1994. 175
pages. $11.00 paperback.
My favorite gift on my eighth birthday was a copy of Gerald Durrell’s first book,
My Family And Other Animals, about finding his calling as a naturalist while growing up on
the Greek island of Corfu during the 1920s. I read and reread it to tatters. Thus I declared dibs
on reviewing The Aye-Aye and I––and was hugely disappointed, as well as relieved that I may
have missed little by missing 21 of the subsequent 22 Durrell titles. Once known chiefly as
younger brother of the novelist Lawrence Durrell, Gerald has now sold far more books than
Lawrence ever did, as well as becoming legendary for his television specials and species con-
servation work via the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. This has apparently convinced him
that his galloping trots are more fascinating tthan the lemurs of Madagascar, his nominal
topic this time in a tediously whimsical tome that might have made a good newspaper feature.

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BOOKS: Skywater

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:

Skywater, by Melinda Worth Popham. Greywolf Press (2402 University
Ave., St. Paul, MN 55114), 1990. 206 pages, $17.95 hardcover.
Because Melinda Worth Popham’s Skywater is fiction, it won’t be shelved alongside
Grady’s work in libraries; but Popham does convincingly describe life from the perspective of
six vividly introduced coyotes, who flee from the loss of their water source due to pollution,
in quest of the water that sometimes falls from above and lies beyond the beyond. There are
memorable human characters as well, including a trapper who might seem overdrawn if we
hadn’t met his clone many times. Though never a big seller, the mythic appeal of Skywater is
such that it may endure to become an acknowledged classic––and to gain deserved recognition
when eventually it is discovered by Hollywood.

BOOKS: The World of the Coyote

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:

The World of the Coyote, by Wayne Grady. Sierra Club Books (730 Polk
St., San Francisco, CA 94109), 1994. 143 pages, 72 color photos, $25.00 hard-
back.
“In the early 1940s,” Wayne Grady recounts, “the citizens of Klamath County,
Oregon, instituted an intensive campaign to eradicate the coyote. By 1947 there was not a
single coyote in Klamath County. But there were field mice. The cost in lost crops soared
into the millions of dollars, far more than had ever been attributed to damage by coyotes. In
the end, Klamath County began to reintroduce the coyote.”
This episode alone is worth the price of the book ––and is just one of many quotable
passages in a richly illustrated text that belongs in every school library. Those who already
know and appreciate coyotes will be enthralled; so will be many who have never met one.

Research

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:

The National Institutes of Health Human
Embryo Research Panel, after eight months of
study, on September 29 endorsed federal funding for
biomedical research on human embryos outside the
womb during the first 14 days after conception. The
panel recommended against the creation of embryos
specifically for research, however, except to research
matters directly pertaining to fertilization.
The Environmental Protection Agency
and the National Institutes of Environmental
Health Sciences on September 22 hosted a gathering
of 60 scientists to discuss protocols for reducing the
number of animals used in testing the cancer-causing
potential of chemicals. The goal is to identify car-
cinogenicity from use of one sex and one species,
instead of the present minimum of two to achieve rec-
ognized findings.

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