Category: Middle East

The dogs of war & other animals in liberated Iraq

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

BAGHDAD; CAMP PATRIOT, Kuwait–Mine-detecting dolphins and
war dogs were the nonhuman heroes of the U.S. liberation of Iraq from
Saddam Hussein.
It was an evolutionary homecoming of sorts. Fossils found in
Pakistan indicate that the common ancestors of dogs and dolphins may
have first differentiated in this very region circa 70 million years
ago.
Nine U.S. Navy dolphins were sent to the Persian Gulf from
San Diego. Makai, 33, and Tacoma, 22, performed briefly for news
media before patrolling the port of Umm Qasr, Oman with three
anonymous dolphins. Their team alternated shifts with Kahili, Kona,
Punani, and Jefe. Among them, they reportedly found 22 underwater
mines during their first two weeks of guarding Navy supply ships.
The U.S. Navy previously deployed six dolphins each to Cam
Ranh Bay in 1970 during the Vietnam War and off Bahrain in 1991
during the Persian Gulf War.
The German shepherds Ranny and Brit led the U.S. Army K-9
Corps into Tallil Air Base in Iraq. Handled by Staff Sergeant John
Logie and Sergeant Michael McDonald, their job was guarding Iraqi
prisoners.

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Helping donkeys in Middle East & Central Asia

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk offended numerous Jewish groups
in January 2003 with a letter to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
protesting the use of a donkey as an unwitting “suicide bomber” on
January 26.
Newkirk also mentioned “stray cats in your own compound” who
“fled as best they could” from Israeli forces, but made no objection
to the human toll in the ongoing Israeli/Palestianian strife.
The recorded history of harsh treatment and overwork of
donkeys in the Middle East dates at least to the time of Moses, when
Balaam’s donkey reputedly spoke out on her own behalf.
However, the London-based Society for Protecting Animals
Abroad now operates clinics for donkeys and other equines in Algeria,
Jordan, Mali, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia.
The Brooke Hospital for Animals, also of London, has active
equine clinics in Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Jordan,
and Pakistan.
Maintaining a presence in refugee camps along the
Afghanistan/Pakistan border throughout the Taliban regime,
1996-2001, and in Kabul since soon after U.S. troops forced the
Taliban out, the Brooke in March 2003 opened another free clinic for
equines in the southern Afghan city of Jalalabad.

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Big cats caught in a war zone

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

BAGHDAD, SAN ANTONIO, ASHEBORO, N.C.–Anxious U.S. Marines
under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schwartz during the
nights of April 15 and April 17 unhappily shot three of seven
starving African lions found at the Baghdad Zoo after first one and
then two more broke out of their bomb-damaged enclosures.
On the loose, they could easily have found their way into
densely populated parts of the city.
“We fought our way from Kuwait to Najaf to Kerbala to
Baghdad, but the hardest thing I’ve had to do in Iraq was kill those
lions,” Schwartz told London Sunday Telegraph correspondent Philip
Sherwell.
Wrote Sherwell, “Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 3rd
Infantry Division–the troops who first fought their way into
Baghdad–have been feeding the caged animals with slaughtered donkeys
and bringing them water from an artificial lake,” with the help of
zoo veterinarian Hashim Mohamed Hussein, who was among the few staff
who remained on duty after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Added Sherwell, “The zoo’s birds, fish, and reptiles were
stolen by looters, but they thought better of tackling the lions,
who were donated by Saddam’s son Uday.”

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The dogs of war & other animals in liberated Iraq

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

BAGHDAD; CAMP PATRIOT, Kuwait–Mine-detecting dolphins and
war dogs were the nonhuman heroes of the U.S. liberation of Iraq from
Saddam Hussein.
It was an evolutionary homecoming of sorts. Fossils found in
Pakistan indicate that the common ancestors of dogs and dolphins may
have first differentiated in this very region circa 70 million years
ago.

Read more

Helping donkeys in Middle East & Central Asia

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk offended numerous Jewish groups
in January 2003 with a letter to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
protesting the use of a donkey as an unwitting “suicide bomber” on
January 26.
Newkirk also mentioned “stray cats in your own compound” who
“fled as best they could” from Israeli forces, but made no objection
to the human toll in the ongoing Israeli/Palestianian strife.
The recorded history of harsh treatment and overwork of
donkeys in the Middle East dates at least to the time of Moses, when
Balaam’s donkey reputedly spoke out on her own behalf.

Read more

Big cats caught in a war zone

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

BAGHDAD, SAN ANTONIO, ASHEBORO, N.C.–Anxious U.S. Marines
under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schwartz during the
nights of April 15 and April 17 unhappily shot three of seven
starving African lions found at the Baghdad Zoo after first one and
then two more broke out of their bomb-damaged enclosures.
On the loose, they could easily have found their way into
densely populated parts of the city.
“We fought our way from Kuwait to Najaf to Kerbala to
Baghdad, but the hardest thing I’ve had to do in Iraq was kill those
lions,” Schwartz told London Sunday Telegraph correspondent Philip
Sherwell.

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Chickens, pigeons & sea lions go to war; Brooke Hospital hopes to help Iraq zoos

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

BAGHDAD–Sentinel chickens deployed to detect poison gas
attacks were among the first casualties of the March 2003 U.S.
invasion of Iraq–but they were not gassed, and they never left the
Kuwait staging area, where they were distributed to the U.S. Marines
in February.
Exactly what killed 42 of the 43 chickens was unclear. Avian
influenza and heat stress were among the theorized possibilities.
Contrary to some reports, the birds were in the care of experienced
chicken handlers.

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United Arab Emirates try to save the Arabian leopard

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

SHARJAH, UAE–Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Quasimi of
Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates in mid-February 2003 hosted an
international conference on saving the Arabian leopard, which was
considered extinct until a goatherd shot one in 1992. Experts now
think 150 to 250 Arabian leopards persist in the UAE, Yemen,
Oman, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
About three times larger than a domestic housecat, the
Arabian leopard normally hunts Nubian ibex, the Arabian gazelle,
and wild or feral goats. The Animal Management Consultancy, funded
by Al Quasimi, has a wild population of 10 Arabian leopards, has
bred eight in captivity, and in January purchased a wild-caught
leopard named Al Wadei from a roadside zoo in Yemen, where according
to Severin Carrell of the London Independent he was kept in
“appalling” conditions.

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Jordan hero dog dies for love and freedom

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

ZARGA, Jordan–A teaching of strict fundamentalist Islam is
that it is the duty of brothers to keep their sisters “pure” by
isolating them from contact with unrelated men prior to arranged
marriage. A three-year-old German shepherd named Big Joe recently
defeated that custom by carrying secret correspondence several blocks
back and forth between a man identified only as “Thamer” and a woman
whose identity news media concealed. Big Joe on January 11 carried
the man’s marriage proposal to the woman and fought off her brother
when he tried to intercept it, but the brother fatally beat him with
a large stone. The father of both the woman and her brother approved
of the marriage, perhaps in appreciation of what the loyalty,
bravery, and resourcefulness of Big Joe implied about him.

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