They’re sick of this case

October 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

SAN MATEO, California––Of the first 28
employees and volunteers tested for exposure to a flu-like
zoonotic disease called Q fever at the Peninsula Humane
Society, 23 proved positive, executive director Kathy
Savesky told media on September 20, one day after a local
physician apparently inadvertantly made knowledge of the
outbreak public by appealing for further information about the
disease on an Internet message board maintained by the
World Health Organization.
The bacterial disease hit the shelter staff shortly
after 39 of 230 dairy goats seized from Fran Simmons and
Maryella Woodman of Pescadero on March 19 gave birth.
“The disease is most easily transmitted by coming into contact
with goat placentas during birthing,” freelance Eve Mitchell
explained in coverage for the San Francisco Examiner. Many
of the goats were found “standing up to their bellies in mud,
feces, and urine,” Mitchell continued, and were apparently
suffering from mud fever, a perhaps related illness usually
seen in horses.

Marine mammals

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Small whales
The Sacramento Bee warned in
June that the vaquita whale is “on the verge
of extinction, a victim of commercial gill net
fishing” in the Sea of Cortez, and that the
reserve set up to protect the vaquita may be “a
sanctuary in name only.” The vaquita is a
small toothed whale, a class not protected by
the International Whaling Commission.
Romanian Institute for Marine
Research scientist Alexandru Bologna says
only 10,000 dolphins remain in the heavily
polluted Black Sea, down from 70,000 in
1970, and one million in 1950, when the former
Communist regime began “economic capitalization
of dolphins,” i.e. slaughter.

Animal care

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Veterinarians Dee Dee
Moore and Helen Belknap, assisted
by interns from a DePaul University
program on exotic cat care, on June
25 donated spays to seven cougars at
the Turpentine Creek Exotic
Wildlife Refuge in Eureka Springs,
Arkansas. The facility now houses
19 cougars, with a waiting list of 70.
Cornell University College
of Veterinary Medicine behaviorist
Soraya Juarbe-Diaz hopes to
popularize an anti-barking collar that
instead of emitting an electroshock
with each bark instead squirts citronella
essence. Dogs don’t like the
smell of citronella, humans do like
it, and according to Juarbe-Diaz, it
is “at least as effective” as electroshock
in persuading chronic barkers
to amend their ways.

No fish, no rain, no bees

August 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Reform of the Magnuson Act, governing U.S. fisheries
management, is stalled in the Senate after passage by the House due to conflict between
Republicans Slade Gorton of Washington and Ted Stevens of Alaska over whether fishing
quotas should be bought and sold like private property. Stevens and the House majority
oppose individual transferable quotas. Gorton favors them.
While the Senators dispute over whether what’s good for the fishing industry in
their own states will be good for the nation, fish are in desperate trouble the world over
––and so are the other animals and people who depend upon them for food.
Even scarier, the fish crisis looms as just one of a triad of disasters bringing global
famine closer than at any time since the Dust Bowl ravaged the midwest 60-odd years ago
while millions starved during Soviet forced collectivization.

Distortion

July 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment