The Great Ape Project and the bush meat trade by Karl Ammann

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

I have investigated aspects of the
bush meat trade in Africa for the last six
years. I no longer have any doubt that the
increasing commercialisation of this trade is
today the biggest threat to the survival of
many species in West and Central Africa.
The great apes are no exception. Many parts
of their range are being logged. The construction
of logging roads has allowed the
bush meat trade to go commercial. In consequence,
entire gorilla and chimp populations
are eaten into extinction, at a rate of thousands
of animals a year.
Why, at this stage, are the scientific
and conservation communities concentrating
on rather theoretical issues, while the
very existence of the subjects under discussion
is under serious threat?

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NIH: investigate mad cow disease link to human illness

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C., LONDON
––Leading researchers from the National
Institutes of Health and other biomedical
research institutions worldwide are calling for
intensive investigation of a long hypothesized
link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE), afflicting 53% of British cattle
herds during the past decade, and CreutzfieldJakob
disease (CJD), a once rare degenerative
condition chiefly afflicting the elderly.
In the past three years CJD has killed
three British cattle farmers in mid-life––and in
1995 killed an 18-year-old part-time cowhand
and a 16-year-old girl who ate cow’s brains in
Cyprus. The boy lived with CJD for nine
months to a year; the girl survived for 14
months. Only four other cases of teenagers
developing CJD had ever been reported––in
France, Canada, Poland, and the U.S. None
of the teen victims to date had known exposure
to cattle with BSE, but the disease has a latency
factor of up to 30 years in humans and at
least six or seven years in bovines.

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The price of meat

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:

WASHINGTON D.C.–– Eating
meat costs Americans $28.6 billion to $61.4
billion per year in extra health care, Dr. Neal
Barnard, Dr. Andrew Nicholson, and Jo Lil
Howard of the Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine reported in the edition
of the peer-reviewed journal Preventive
Medicine published November 21. The
PCRM team based their estimate on studies
of large groups of Americans, mostly
Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists,
whose living habits differ chiefly in eating or
not eating flesh. In every such study to date,
meat eaters have had more health problems.
About 29% of all heart disease is related to
meat consumption, the PCRM team calculated,
costing $9.5 billion a year––but meatrelated
diabetes costs even more, they said,
at $14 billion to $17 billion per year.

Fish stories

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

The House on October 18 approved a tougher
reauthorized edition of the Magnuson Fishery
Management and Conservation Act, 388-37. The new
version dropped a clause exempting Gulf of Mexico
shrimpers from having to immediately reduce bycatch and
sea turtle deaths. The Gulf bycatch averages four pounds of
wasted finfish for every pound of shrimp retrieved.
After three years of negotiation sponsored by
the United Nations, 99 countries agreed in August to a
treaty regulating commercial fishing in all waters, including
sovereign waters. The treaty will take effect when and if it
is ratified by at least 30 nations.

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BOOKS: Simply Vegetarian

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1995:

Simply Vegetarian:
Easy-to-prepare recipes for the vegetarian gourmet,
edited by Nancy Mair and Susan Rinzler.
Dawn Publications (14618 Tyler Foote Road, Nevada City, CA 95959), 1989.
249 pages; $9.95 paperback.

Originally issued in 1985 as the Ananda Cookbook, Simply Vegetarian has reputedly
sold more than 80,000 copies. I acquired the first edition just before the current edition
appeared in 1989, but didn’t have the brains to use it while courting Kim, when I tried to
impress her by making lentil soup. That may be why she fed the soup to the porch raccoons.
Simply Vegetarian is not a strictly vegan book, but vegans will find plenty in it that they can
eat, will want to try, and will be able to make in less time than the four hours I
spent––twice––trying to impress Kim further by making a vegan peasant pie from a recipe in
another popular vegetarian cookbook, without getting past the midway stage she inelegantly
described as mashed carrots and potatoes.

BOOKS: Meat Market: Animals, Ethics & Money

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1995:

Meat Market:
Animals, Ethics & Money
by Erik Marcus
Brio Press (244 Blakeslee, Hill Road,
Suite 5, Newfield, NY 14867), 2005.
273 pages, hardcover. $21.95.
Erik Marcus writes crisply in this
book about the evils of factory farming. He
disposes of common misconceptions and
exaggerated arguments, frequently
employed both by industry apologists and
Animal Rights activists. His logic is clearly
expressed and his prose flows tightly. In
fact the book is so easy to read that it would
make an excellent text book for humane
education and animal law courses.
Marcus examines the transforma-
tion of animal agriculture since 1950 and
analyses the growth of factory farming at
the expense of small family-owned farms.
Aiming squarely at urban activists
who have no clear understanding of farming
methods, he introduces us to the life of a
layer hen, describing in harrowing detail
her tortured life. Then he does the same for
broiler chickens, pigs, dairy cows, and
beef cattle.

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Dog round-up & shark fin controversies bite Hong Kong Disneyland

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1995:

HONG KONG––Hong Kong Dis-
neyland had barely found a face-saving way to
retreat from serving sharks’ fins at weddings
when Hong Kong Dog Rescue founder Sally
Anderson complained to South China Morning
Post reporter Simon Perry that Disney man-
agement had lethally purged several dozen
dogs she was trying to capture at the theme
park and offer for adoption.
“Dozens of stray dogs adopted by
construction workers on the Disney site have
been rounded up and killed in the run-up to the
park’s opening in September,” Parry wrote on
July 25, 2005. “Forty-five dogs, some
believed to have been used as unofficial guard
dogs on the site during construction, have been
caught by government dog catchers at
Disney’s request.

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RELIGION & ANIMALS

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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Hold the fish and eat your veggies!

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

BOSTON––Contrary to common belief, eating fish does not contribute
to avoiding heart disease, Dr. Alberto Ascherio of the Harvard School of Public
Health reported in the April 12 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Ascherio traced the diets and health records of 44,895 male health care profession-
als, ages 40-70, for six years.
Ascherio’s study appeared the same day that the Journal of the American
Medical Association published a study of 832 men whose health was tracked for at
least 18 years by the Harvard Community Health Plan. “We observed an intense
association between fruit and vegetable intake and the development of stroke,” the
authors stated. “For each increment of three servings (of fruit and vegetables) per
day, there was a 22% decrease in the risk of stroke.”
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