REVIEWS: Lefty’s World

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Lefty’s World

Video documentary, Kindness Publications (Suite 135, 1859 North Pine Island

Road, Plantation, FL 33322). 40 minutes. $17.95 plus $1.50 shipping.

Nominally, Lefty’s World is a companion to Lefty’s Place, producer Lewis

Nierman’s book about the rehabilitation of an injured Muscovy duck, recommended for

school libraries in our January/February issue. But it stands alone, with little overlap.

Wolf, age three and a half, will watch Lefty’s World ahead of most of the children’s video

classics in his impressive collection. He likes to see the Muscovy ducks and other familiar

wildlife––and he understands much of Sonny Dufault’s direct, informative narration.

BOOKS: If Wishes Were Horses: The Education of a Veterinarian

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

If Wishes Were Horses: The

Education of a Veterinarian, by Loretta

Gage, DVM, and Nancy Gage, St Martin’s Press

(175 Fifth Ave, New York NY 10010), 1992, 295 pages,

paperback $4.99 U.S., $5.99 in Canada.

Nearly everyone who loves animals has at some

point dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. Loretta Gage was

one: this is her account of the reality behind that dream. With

relentless attention to detail, she and her sister describe the

process of becoming a doctor of veterinary medicine.

At times her dream seems more like a nightmare, an

endless boot camp of classes taught by insensitive instructors,

of animals sacrificed for knowledge of basic procedures.

Still, there are moments of friendship, human and nonhuman,

and Gage is impressively determined to succeed.

BOOKS: The Serengeti Migration: Africa’s Animals on the Move

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

The Serengeti Migration: Africa’s

Animals on the Move, by Lise Lindblad,

with photos by Seven-Olaf Lindblad.

Hyperion/Disney Press (114 Fifth Ave., New York, NY

10011), 1994. 40 pages, hardcover, $15.95.

“Daddy, what’s this lion doing? The lion is eating

the zebra. But the zebra didn’t want to be eaten. The zebras

wish the lions would eat something else. But that’s what lions

do. We don’t have to eat animals.”

There’s only one gory photo in this picture-book

version of the Serengeti migration we’ve all seen on TV, but

of course it was the one Wolf zeroed in on, with a keen intu-

itive grasp of the difference between ourselves and natural

predators plus appreciation of the victim’s perspective.

What did he think of the book otherwise?

“It has buffalo in it. It has birds. It has antelopes.”

––Merritt Clifton & son

BOOKS: The Cat Who Came to Breakfast

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

The Cat Who Came to Breakfast, by

Lilian Jackson Braun, G.P. Putnam Sons (200

Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016), 1994, $19.95

hardcover.

Are there any cat lovers out there who are unfamil-

iar with Lilian Jackson Braun’s “The Cat Who…” series?

Fifteen titles are now in print. If you have missed them, they

are mysteries with minimal gore and victims characterized as

minimally missed. The real protagonists are not the humans

but the pet cats, usually Siamese. My preference among

them is The Cat Who Had 14 Tales, which differs in format

and style from the subject of this review.

Evidence escapes

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

HARTVILLE, Ohio––The Sharon

Woods deer saga took another twist on March

25 when 74 of the 76 whitetailed deer in cus-

tody of elk breeder Robin Rodabaugh disap-

peared after someone cut the fence. The deer

were the last of 286 whom Rodabaugh and 10

volunteers removed from heavily overpopulated

Sharon Woods Metro Park, on the outskirts of

Columbus, during December and January.

Rodabaugh said three witnesses provided infor-

mation linking the fence-cutting to an alleged

“known poacher,” who apparently wanted the

deer to get out where he could shoot them.

COURT CALENDAR

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Crimes Against Humans

Larry Gibson, 33, ex-deputy

sheriff for Douglas County, Oregon,

was arrested April 14 in Townsend,

Montana, for the alleged murder of his

two-year-old son Tommy on March 18,

1991. Gibson claimed he was jogging

when the boy disappeared, while his wife

was indoors; their daughter, then four,

said strangers drove off with him.

Unconvinced, investigators theorized in

May 1991 that Gibson shot his son by

accident while killing a neighbor’s cat

near the time of the disappearance.

Gibson’s wife, daughter, and another

son born since then recently left

him––whereupon the daughter, now

seven, told police she actually saw

Gibson strike Tommy, then stuff him

into a garbage bag.

Watson fined

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland––Captain

Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation

Society was fined $5,000 on April 11 and his for-

mer ship the Cleveland Amory was fined $30,000,

for allegedly lacking proper certification under

Canadian maritime law during their July 28, 1993

confrontation with the Cuban dragnet fishing ves-

sel Rio Las Casasnear the tail of the Grand Banks.

The fines, stated in Canadian funds, would come

to about $4,000 and $24,000, respectively, in

U.S. currency.

Laboratories

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

The American Association for the

Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care

put the animal care program at the Davis cam-

pus of the University of California on proba-

tion for six months in mid-April, stating that

the lack of a centralized system for enforcing

care standards has led to uneven and some-

times inadequate care, including cages that are

too small and dirty, and rat infestations of

holding facilities.

Nuisance wildlife: swans as goose control

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Nuisance wildlife control

experts in the upper midwest

report that mute swans may be the

best brake on the proliferation of

giant nonmigratory Canada geese.

Wildlife agencies in Atlantic coast

states from Rhode Island to Georgia

have practiced aggressive mute swan

“control” via egg-addling for about a

decade, after mute swan sightings

during the annual National Audubon

Society Christmas bird counts dou-

bled. Not noting that the number of

people out counting birds had also

doubled, the agencies warned that

the Atlantic coast was on the verge

of a mute swan population explo-

sion, 150 years after they were first

imported from England; blamed

swans for causing the decline of

heavily hunted migratory waterfowl;

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