Category: Africa

Animal control & rescue

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

New legislation
An update of Louisiana animal
protection laws long sought by
Legislation In Support of Animals, the
Coalition of Louisiana Animal Advocates,
and other state groups includes the stiffest
felony cruelty statute in the U.S., mandat-
ing a fine of not less than $1,000, up to
$25,000, plus from one year in prison up
to 10 years at hard labor; fines for misde-
meanor cruelty of up to $1,000 and 48
hours of community service plus jail time;
the extension of the cruelty law to cover
parrots, parakeets, and lovebirds (but not
fighting cocks); the extension of the state’s
anti-dog theft law to cover other pets, with
stiffer penalties; and the creation of a fund
to help save the scarce Louisiana specta-
cled bear, funded by sales of a special
license plate. Known for gung-ho effica-
cy––on a budget of just $50,000/year––
LISA celebrated by bringing the
Spay/Neuter Assistance Program mobile
clinic from Houston to New Orleans for a
weekend of providing free neutering to
low-income families.

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ANIMAL HEALTH

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

RABIES NOTES
Post-exposure shots for 665 people
who came into contact with a rabid kitten in a pet
store in Concord, New Hampshire, last October,
together with other essential follow-up, cost $1.5
million, says the CDCP.
The Pet Savers Foundation has pro-
posed establishing a National Rabies Awareness
D a y. “Letters to Congress supporting Rabies
Awareness Day would be very helpful,” Charlie
McGinley of Pet Savers told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Get details c/o 14 Vanderventer Ave., Port
Washington, NY 11050; 516-944-5025.
Two residents of San Rafael,
California, were bitten by rabid bats in June,
including a 5-year-old boy playing near a backyard
pool and a woman who was swimming. The bats
in each case were apparently attracted by insects
hovering over the water.
A laborer from Anhui province,
China, bit four people including a pregnant
woman on July 19 in the city of Suzhou, a month
after he was bitten by two rabid dogs.

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Humane education with Jane Goodall by Carol A. Connare

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

In moments, she went from sipping
coffee with patrolmen to getting a surprise
audience with the top 100 captains of the Los
Angeles Police Department. Adrenaline
pumping, Dr. Jane Goodall thought fast. “I
said to myself, ‘I’ve got to get their attention,
or they won’t hear a thing I say.’” Deputy
Chief Kroeker introduced Goodall to the men.
She stood up and said, “If I were a female
chimpanzee and I walked into a room of
high-ranking male chimpanzees, it would be
foolish if I didn’t greet them with a submis-
sive pant-grunt,” which she proceeded to do.
All eyes looked up, the men lis-
tened intently to her ten-minute talk, and
Chief Willie Williams agreed to endorse her
educational program––Roots and Shoots––
and help introduce it to inner city kids.
As humans, we take superiority for
granted. But Goodall feels strongly, based
on years in the bush, doing zoological
research, that we are not as different from
other animals as many of us think.

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Zoos & sanctuaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

The sale of the city-owned
Bridgeport Zoo to the nonprofit Connecticut
Zoological Society, backed by $5.5 million in
state aid, has been delayed and perhaps halted
after three years of planning. The zoo occu-
pies park land donated by the James Walker
Beardsley family, who have the right to
reclaim the site if it is turned over to any entity
other than the city or the state. Beardsley’s
heirs say they would not exercise such a claim,
but public officials aren’t willing to take the
chance. The financially troubled city seeks to
sell the zoo, still undergoing extensive renova-
tion, because it costs about $1 million a year to
run, only $600,000 of which comes from
admissions, concession sales, and donations.

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RELIGION & ANIMALS

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Islamic fundamentalists on April
19 capped two weeks of railing against the
appearance of scantily clad performers b y
torching the stage and tents of the New Opera
Circus, killing a boy and a bear, as it per-
formed outside the Cox’s Bazar resort near
Eidgaon village in Bangladesh. The mob also
stabbed a tiger, an elephant, and various other
animals before police arrived, arresting three
assailants. Officials of Cox’s Bazar said they
had been unable to persuade the circus, from
the Brahmanbaria district of Bangladesh, to
pack up and leave.

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WILDLIFE

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

The National Parks Board of South
Africa announced May 10 that, “To maintain
for as long as possible the option of translocat-
ing family groups of elephants,” only 300 will
be killed this year instead of 600 as biologists rec-
ommended. “The breeding herds will mainly be
culled in areas where the greatest damage has been
done to trees,” the NPB added. “Of special con-
cern is the declining baobob population,” in
Kruger National Park, which has about 8,000 ele-
phants in an area the size of Israel. The elephants,
including 70 bulls, are to be shot from helicopters.
Tranquilizer darts will no longer be used before-
hand because this appears to increase rather than
decrease the stress to the elephants, who afterward
are immobile but fully conscious.

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Ebola virus hits Zaire

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

KINSHASA, Zaire––An outbreak of an Ebola-type
virus generated global panic after becoming known to media in
mid-May, two months after it started. The disease is believed to
have spread to humans from green vervet monkeys, as in previ-
ous outbreaks, but where, when, and how is unknown.
As of midnight on May 15, there were 76 confirmed
cases with 64 dead, said Kinshasa University professor Jean-
Jacques Muyembe, the leading Zairean authority on the disease.
Most of the deaths came in Kikwit, a town of 500,000, about 300
miles from Kinshasa, the national capital. Three other towns
were affected, including Kenge, less than 125 miles from
Kinshasa, which has five million people but limited medical and
sanitation facilities. Kinshasa governor Bernadin Mungul Diaka,
desperately rotated troops in an attempt to thwart bribery that
undercut his attempt to impose a prophylactic quarantine.
There seemed little chance that people fleeing the out-
break would run the opposite way, as that would put them into
head-on collision with more than a million refugees from the
ongoing ethnic fighting in Rwanda and Burundi.

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WILDLIFE

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Wolves
Mandated by the state legislature to implement
predator control before cutting either the length of the moose and
caribou season or the bag limits, the Alaska Board of Game during
the week of March 27 ordered the Alaska Department of Fish and
Game to prepare wolf control plans for much of the inhabited part
of the state by October. It also extended the bear season in two
regions by four weeks, while upping the bag limit from one bear
per four years to one bear every year. “It’s impossible to say what
the ADF&G will present,” said Sandra Arnold of the Alaska
Wildlife Alliance. “We also don’t know if the Board approves a
wolf control plan in October, if that means control will begin
immediately or in October 1996. The bear control measures are
proving controversial. ADF&G refuses to comment, but are clear-
ly concerned because all their reports indicate that bears are
already being killed above sustainable levels, especially in Unit
13,” which is the heavily hunted Nelchina Basin.

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