A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)
Tales of an African Vet by Roy Aronson, VMD
Lyons Press (246 Goose Lane, Guilford, CT 06437), 2010.
227 pages, hardcover. $19.95
Tales of an African Vet, by Roy Aronson, VMD, captured my
attention. I have never been to South Africa and enjoyed sharing
Aronson’s acquaintance with the many wild and exotic animals who
inhabit the region, some of whom, like cheetahs, are endangered.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
ADDIS ABABA–Predators, including hyenas, are in decline
across Africa–but not in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia.
Like coyotes in North American cities, hyenas are becoming
established in the suburbs, parallel to a steep drop in the numbers
of free-roaming dogs.
Chiefly nocturnal, the Addis Ababa hyenas are seldom seen,
but the staff of the Donkey Sanctuary clinic in the grain market
district on the west side of the city see increasing numbers of hyena
bites to the hindquarters of donkeys, along with the more familiar
injuries resulting from overloading, traffic accidents, and
improper care–and the rabies and anthrax cases that are also not
uncommon in Ethiopia, where animals are rarely vaccinated against
either disease.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
NAIROBI–Often exposed involvement of Asian financiers in
rhino horn and elephant ivory poaching fueled a ubiquitous belief
among frustrated animal defenders attending the early September 2010
African Animal Welfare Action conference in Nairobi, Kenya that
Asian workers in Africa are also implicated in out-of-control
bushmeat poaching and catastrophic crashes of predator populations.
African Animal Welfare Action conference attendees
guesstimated that Chinese workers alone were involved in from 20% to
80% of all the bushmeat poaching in Africa.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
JOHANNESBURG–Startling photos of the
September 22, 2010 arraignment of 11 alleged
members of an international rhino poaching
syndicate reached the world despite the
officially unexplained efforts of police to keep
photographers out.
News photographers Werner Beukes of the
South African Press Agency, Herman Verwey of
Beeld, and Lewellyn Carstens of the South
African Broadcasting Corporation were detained
for 45 minutes and one of them was roughed up by
police, according to the South African National
Editors’ Forum. No motive for the police action
was offered.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
NAIROBI–Veterinary contraceptive
researcher Henk J. Bertschinger wowed the Africa
Animal Welfare Action conference in Nairobi on
September 8, 2010 with two presentations hinting
that the anti-GnRH agonist approach to animal
birth control may be applicable in cats and dogs.
Bertschinger, of the University of
Pretoria in South Africa, recapped and updated a
2007 paper he and colleagues published in the
journal Wildlife Research, describing “the
treatment and contraception of 23 captive and 40
free-ranging lionesses and four captive tigers in
South Africa,” using a range of different sized
deslorelin implants. Deslorelin is a hormone
analog, modeled on the natural hormone LHRH
(lutenizing-hormone releasing hormone) that turns
reproductive processes on and off in the brains
of both male and female animals.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
NAIROBI–Inspectors at the Jomo Kenyata Inter-national
Airport in Nairobi thought there was something odd about a two-ton
cargo of “avocados” that were to be flown to Malaysia on August 21,
2010.
Avocados, after all, are among the major exports of Sabah
state, Malaysia.
Opening the boxes, the inspectors found 317 pieces of ivory
and five rhino horns. Two suspects were arrested.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:
HARARE–“We were recently informed that two of every species
of animal in Hwange National Park are to be sent to a zoo in North
Korea,” charged Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force chair Johnny
Rodrigues in a May 13, 2010 e-mail alert.
“According to the report,” Rodrigues said, “the animals
will include two 18-month-old elephant calves. It is believed that
this is a gift from Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, to Kim
Jong-il, president of North Korea.
“Capture and spotting teams have been seen in the park,”
Rodrigues continued, “and there have been reports of armed men
standing around key waterholes waiting for the animals to appear so
they can radio the information back to the capture teams. There have
also been reports of National Parks vehicles towing cages around.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:
NAIROBI–A draft Wildlife Bill proposed to the Kenyan
parliament but not yet raised for debate would split the Kenya
Wildlife Service into three separate agencies–and ease the way for
reintroducing sport hunting to Kenya, after a 33-year hiatus,
charges African Network for Animal Welfare founder Josphat Ngonyo.
Kenyan wildlife policy formation would be done under the
Ministry for Wildlife, rather than within KWS under ministerial
authority. A new Kenya Wildlife Regulatory Authority would be
created to supervise wildlife management on private land. The
present Kenya Wildlife Service would contract to focus on managing
the 61 Kenyan national parks and wildlife reserves, conducting law
enforcement, and doing wildlife research.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:
CAIRO–One bitter dispute over control of the Egyptian
Federation for Animal Welfare appeared to end and others recommence
on March 23, 2010 with the judicial reversal of a June 2009 edict by
the Egyptian Directorate of Social Affairs that EFAW would be chaired
by appointee Shihab-Eldin Abdel-Hamid Abdel-Rahman, who was
empowered to organize the election of a new board.
“The original board are now reinstated, and any decision
taken by the now illegal board are invalid and will be open to
criminal charges,” e-mailed attorney and Egyptian Society of Animal
Friends president Ahmed El Sherbiny.