Author: juanitoG

BOOKS: Saving Cinnamon: The Amazing True Story of a Missing Military Puppy

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

Saving Cinnamon:  The Amazing True Story of a Missing Military Puppy And the Desperate Mission to Bring Her Home  by Christine Sullivan
St. Martin’s Press (175 Fifth Ave.,  New York,  NY 10010),  2010. 256 pages,  paperback.  $14.95.

Mark Feffer,  a U.S. soldier then serving in Kandahar, Afghanistan,  in December 2005 befriended a stray puppy he named Cinnamon.  Adopting Cinnamon was against military regulations,  but Cinnamon quickly became a base mascot anyhow. When Feffer and other members of his unit were due to be rotated back to the U.S.,  Feffer and his wife Alice arranged for a civilian dog handler who was employed by the U.S. military to escort Cinnamon to Chicago via Bishkek,  the capital of Kyrgyzstan,  a former Soviet Republic that borders Afghanistan.

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BOOKS: The Domestic Cat: Bird Killer, Mouser and Destroyer of Wild Life

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The Domestic Cat:  Bird Killer,  Mouser and Destroyer of Wild Life;  Means of Utilizing and Controlling It
by Edward Howe Forbush
Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture,  1916.   [Free 112-page download from <http://books.google.com/books>.]

The November/December 2010 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE noted on page one that the American Bird Conservancy had on December 1,  2010 issued a media release extensively praising what publicist Robert Johns termed “a new peer-reviewed report titled, Feral Cats & Their Management from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,”  which advocated killing feral cats.

“The report began in an undergraduate wildlife management class,”  revealed Associated Press writer Margery A. Beck,  “with students writing reports on feral cats based on existing research.  The students’ professor and other UNL researchers then compiled the report from the students’ work.” Read more

Progress against public bullfighting in Tamil Nadu but not in Uttarakhand

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

 

CHENNAI,  Dehrudun–The first weekend of 2011 Pongal harvest festivals in Tamil Nadu,  India,  brought a drop in reported deaths and injuries in jallikattu,  the predominant Indian form of participatory bullfighting–but chiefly because new rules discouraged many communities from hosting jallikattu.  Relative to the unrestrained mayhem at Bunkhal village in Uttarakhand state a month earlier,  that was major progress.

Where jallikattu proceeded,  deaths and injuries continued, despite  enforcement of the new rules by the Animal Welfare Board of India at direction of the Supreme Court of India.  Injuries to bulls are seldom tabulated,  but may be inferred from the counts of human deaths and injuries,  chiefly suffered in attempts to tackle bulls. Read more

WikiLeaks show Australia favored Japanese story of Ady Gil sinking (VIDEO)

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

 

MELBOURNE--“Embassy cables,  obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to The Age,”  show that Australian diplomats quickly defended the Japanese whalers whose ship Shonan Maru #2 cut the bow off the high-speed anti-whaling vessel Ady Gil on January 6, 2010,  reported Philip Dorling of the Melbourne Age on January 8, 2011. Read more

Anti-rabies Philippine state governor speaks out against eating dogs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:
Iloilo,  The Philippines—“Let us learn to be responsible dog owners and once and for all,  let us avoid eating dog meat,”  pleaded Iloilo provincial governor Arthur Defensor Sr. through the Panay News after the January 8,  2011 rabies death of a 38-year-old mother of two.

The dead woman and her sister were bitten by a rabid puppy on June 22,  2010.  The sister and three other family members received post-exposure vaccination,  but the dead woman refused the treatment. Read more

BOOKS: Ask the Animals: A vet’s-eye view of pets and the people they love

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

Ask the Animals:  A vet’s-eye view  of pets and the people they love
by Bruce R. Coston,  DVM
Thomas Dunne Books (175 Fifth Ave.,  New York,
NY 10010),  2010.  274 pages,  paperback.  $14.99.

I like books that start with a bark and don’t stop yapping until I’m done.  Ask the Animals isn’t one of them.  Having spent the past 20 years volunteering in animal shelters,  including shelter clinics,  I have an idea how brisk and lively a vet’s office can be–but I read nearly 50 pages of Ask the Animals before Coston moved past his personal life to introduce an animal who was not his own. This was a dog named Tess who was referred to his teaching hospital for a further evaluation of a complex medical problem. Read more

U.S. retail fur industry didn’t get big holiday bounce–& did get Truth in Fur Labeling Act

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:


WASHINGTON D.C.-– Experiencing sales declines of 15.5% in 2008 and 7% in 2009,  U.S. retail furriers ballyhooed hopes for a big comeback during the 2010 holiday season.  But the first available sales data suggests they didn’t get it.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that apparel sales were up 2.7%.  But the increase came mostly at department stores,  whose sales were up 2.8%,  not at high-end luxury boutiques.

The department store contribution to the U.S. retail fur trade consists chiefly of selling inexpensive fur-trimmed garments, mostly made abroad.

The biggest news for that branch of the fur trade during the 2010 holiday season was that U.S. President Barack Obama  on December 18 signed into law the Truth in Fur Labeling Act.

Taking effect in March 2011,  the Truth in Fur Labeling Act “finally closes a loophole in federal law that currently allows some animal fur garments to go unlabeled if the value of the fur is $150 or less,  leaving consumers in the dark as to whether they are buying faux or animal fur,” explained Humane Society Legislative Fund president Mike Markarian. Read more

U.S. whaling negotiator hinted to Japan that IRS might pull Sea Shepherd Conservation Society nonprofit status

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

 

MADRID--U.S. State Department messages published on January 3,  2011 by WikiLeaks and the leading Spanish newspaper El Pais disclose that U.S. diplomats in negotiation with senior Japanese officials entertained the possibility of asking the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the nonprofit status of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

The State Department messages also confirm the belief widespread among whale conservationists that current White House policy seeks as a first priority to lower the profile of confrontation with Japan over whaling. Read more

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