BOOKS: Flyaway

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
Flyaway: How a wild bird rehabber sought adventure and found her wings
by Suzie Gilbert
HarperCollins Publishers (10 East 53rd St., New
York, NY 10022), 2009. 352 pages. $25.99
hardcover.
“And I see these two robins, and one is
kicking the crap out of the other one. Beating
the bejesus out of himÅ .And he’s out there right
now waiting for you.”
Bird rehabilitator Suzie Gilbert, of
Hudson Valley, New York, answers frequent calls
of a similar nature, concerned about birds but
not necessarily well-informed about their
behavior.
Her mother fed wild birds, so maybe
Gilbert was destined for this career. But
getting there took time. Gilbert repeatedly
changed directions in pursuing her education and
a career, traveling extensively abroad. She
found her calling by volunteering at a wildlife
rehabilitation center in 1990.

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BOOKS: Tails of Recovery

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:

Tails of Recovery: Addicts & the Pets That Love Them
by Nancy A. Schenck
HarperCollins Publishers (10 East 53rd Street., New York, NY
10022), 2009. 175 pages, hardcover. $29.99.

Tails of Recovery offers a glimpse into the tangled lives of
substance abusers, whose behavior does not always elicit sympathy.
While high, their behavior is often not only illegal but disdainful
and dismissive toward the norms and values of civilized society.
In recovery, most ask for forgiveness. Some do not. The
people profiled in Tales of Recovery may be loved by their pets, but
they have not all shown responsible behavior, even though all of
them are years into recovery, following twelve-step programs and
typically holding jobs.
A few treated their dogs and cats badly while under the
influence. Others were indifferent to their pets’ needs. One moved
from criminal behavior to a legal activity which may contribute at
least as much to animal suffering.

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Marooned dogs’ howls echo in Turkey

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
Marooning the dogs of Palau Ketam had two notorious
precedents near Istanbul, Turkey, recalled by Companion Animal
Network founder Garo Alexanian in the November/ December 2008 edition
of ANIMAL PEOPLE.
The first marooning off Istan-bul occurred at some point
prior to 1869, when Mark Twain described it in The Innocents Abroad,
along with “the howl of horror” from citizens that stopped the
practice.
The second marooning came in 1910. “This act so disturbed
the modern Turkish republic,” Alexanian wrote, “that newspaper
columnists have attributed difficult economic times in Turkey to the
curse of Turks having done it.”

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Verdict pending in trial of two Sea Shepherd crew

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
SYDNEY, Nova Scotia– Provincial court judge Jean Whalen on
April 30, 2009 said she would rule on June 30 as to whether Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society crew members Alex Cornelissen of Sweden
and Peter Hammarstedt of the Netherlands sailed closer to sealers
three times in 2008 than is allowed without an observer permit.
Cornelissen and Hammarstedt, captain and first mate of the
impounded Sea Shepherd vessel Farley Mowat, were tried in absentia.
Deported from Canada after the Farley Mowat was seized, they were
barred from re-entering, according to the Sea Shepherds. The
prosecution claimed that defendants in trials are allowed to return
to Canada to face charges in court proceedings.

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Vietnamese cholera outbreak from dog meat

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
HANOI–The National Institute of Hygiene & Epidemiology on
May 18, 2009 temporarily closed at least a dozen dog slaughterhouses.
“Samples of dog meat, both cooked and uncooked, from the Ha
Dong district of Hanoi tested positive for the cholera bacterium,”
The Youth newspaper reported. Nine northern Vietnamese provinces
have had recent cholera outbreaks. Bureau of Preventive Health chief
Nguyen Huy Nga warned on May 15 that up to 70% of the patients became
ill after eating dog meat.
The cholera outbreaks came two months after two Hanoi-based
national health institutes linked a pair of human rabies deaths to
eating dogs.

IFAW is latest wealthy animal charity to lay off staff due to cash flow crunch

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
YARMOUTHPORT, Mass.–The International Fund for Animal
Welfare in early May 2009 was identified by Sarah Shemkus of the Cape
Cod Times as yet another of the growing number of animal charities
with huge financial reserves to introduce deep budget cuts because of
declining cash flow.
“A recent internal message from IFAW president Fred O’Regan
to employees, obtained by the Cape Cod Times, cited a need to cut
the organization’s operations budget from $53.6 million to $36.1
million,” reported Shemkus on May 9, 2009. ” Net revenues for
fiscal 2009, which ends on June 30, are down by 32% from what was
budgeted, the message says.” IFAW had total income of $25.6 million
in the preceding fiscal year, and entered the 2008-2009 fiscal year
with $41.6 million in total assets, despite net losses of $4 million.

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Elizabeth Morris & Annie Waln introduced hands-on humane work

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:

PHILADELPHIA–Was the American SPCA really the first U.S.
humane society, in the generally recognized sense of the word? Is
it even the oldest that still exists?
The continuing influence of ASPCA founder Henry Bergh and the
organization he created in 1867 is not to be denied, with annual
income and expenditures of about $60 million, and more than $100
million in assets. Yet other animal aid societies much like those of
today existed much earlier.
Henry David Thoreau mentioned an anti-hunting humane society
in his 1854 opus Walden, as humane movement historian Phil Arkow
noted in a May 2003 letter to ANIMAL PEOPLE. No further trace of
that humane society has been found, but Elizabeth Morris and Annie
Waln founded the Animal Rescue League of Philadelphia in 1858.

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Responding to the end of the age of horsepower

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
Responding to the end of the age of horsepower
Commentary by Merritt Clifton
Completing a defacto “trade” of star players, the Brooke
Hospital for Animals, the world’s largest equine aid charity, on
May 4, 2009 announced the appointment of Peter Davies as board
chairperson.
Davies, director general of the World Society for the
Protection of Animals since 2002, succeeds North Carolina Zoo
director David Jones, who had served as interim Brooke chair since
the November 2008 death of predecessor Hilary Weir.
Succeeding Davies at WSPA will be Mike Baker, chief
executive for the Brooke since June 2001.

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Editorial: Has Michael Vick truly hit the road to redemption?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:

Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback and
convicted dogfighter Michael Vick on May 20,
2009 completed 19 months at the Leavenworth
Federal Penitentiary.
Released through a side gate, Vick is
not in Kansas any more. Eluding the media
spotlight, Vick followed the Yellow Brick
Road–or some other seemingly improbable
path–into an alliance with the Humane Society of
the United States that has stretched the
imaginations of many animal defenders and much of
the public almost as much as the alliance of
Dorothy, her mixed breed dog Toto, the Cowardly
Lion, the Tin Woodman, and the Scarecrow, who
exposed the Wizard of Oz in 1900.

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