BOOKS: Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

March 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo
by Lawrence Anthony, with Graham Spence
Thomas Dunne Books (c/o St. Martin’s Press, 175 5th Ave., New York,
NY 10010), 2007. 240 pages, paperback. $23.95.

At the same time that ANIMAL PEOPLE received a web link to a
video clip of U.S. troops stoning an injured dog in early 2007, we
received a link to another video clip showing lions being released
from cages to kill and eat several donkeys, as soldiers cheered.
“Three times per week the zoo keeper buys donkeys to feed the
starving lions,” the caption said.
This is not how Earth Organization founder Lawrence Anthony
taught the Baghdad Zoo staff to operate, after making his way there
from South Africa because he thought the zoo animals might need help
after the U.S. military invaded Baghdad in May 2003.

Bringing birds back to Iraq

March 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
BAGHDAD–Rediscovering and restoring the bird life of Iraq is
an obsession for ornithologists who remember the nation as the
crossing of flight paths for migratory species coming and going from
all parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe.
The Mesopotamian marshlands, twice the size of the Florida
Everglades, were reputedly the richest birding habitat in the world
before dictator Saddam Hussein drained 90% in 1991 to try to flush
out rebels against his rule.
About 40% of the marshlands have been reflooded and restored
since 2003. All 150 bird species known to have lived there in 1979
have been seen in recent winter-and-summer surveys, Birdlife
International adviser Richard Porter told BBC News in January 2007.
That leaves many of the 237 species native to the rest of
Iraq still largely unaccounted for, between habitat loss and decades
of unrestrained shooting.

Poaching in Afghanistan

March 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
Poaching, never well-controlled in Afghanistan, appears to
be more blatant than ever, freelance correspondent Jeff Hodson
reported for the Seattle Times in mid-January 2007.
“The skins of wolves and wild cats hang in fur shops in
Kabul,” Hodson wrote, “along with rabbit-skin rugs and full-length
fox coats, despite a nationwide ban on hunting and international
laws prohibiting their trade. Foreign soldiers and aid workers are
the main buyers, according to conservationists.”
Wildlife Conservation Society director of Afghanistan
programs Alex Deghan told Hodson that “he knows of one aid worker who
had a comforter made from two or three snow-leopard skins.”

Pet market bombings & dog abuse reflect the low price of life in Iraq war zone

March 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

BAGHDAD–Who bombed the Ghazil pet market? Four times? Why?
The anonymous perpetrators of the Ghazil mayhem against both
humans of animals may pretend to motives rooted in religion and
ideology.
Yet, killing and maiming both Sunnis and Shiites, of both
genders and all ages, along with countless animals of multiple
species, the Ghazil bombings exhibited the same depraved disregard
for others’ lives as the alleged deeds of former U.S. Army private
first class Steven Dale Green.
Green, 21, is soon to stand trial in U.S. federal court in
Kentucky, facing the death penalty, for allegedly leading four
other soldiers in the March 12, 2006 gang rape and murder of Abeer
Qassim Hamza, 14. First, testified the other soldiers, Green shot
her parents and her five-year-old sister. Then, after the rapes,
Green shot Hamza several times in the head at close range, and set
her hair on fire before fleeing the scene.

Lebanon war animal victims still need help

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
BEIRUT, HAIFA–More than a month after Hezbollah militia
members quit rocketing northern Israel and Israel quit bombing
southern Lebanon to try to stop them, animal rescuers continued
efforts begun under fire to help the many nonhuman victims.
Best Friends Animal Society rapid response manager Richard
Crook, a Chilean veterinarian, and a vet tech flew to Lebanon on
September 7, 2006 with 175 pounds of kitten food, along with
veterinary supplies, en route to help arrange the evacuation of
about 300 dogs and cats to the U.S.
Calling the evacuation “Paws for Peace,” Best Friends
reportedly raised $182,000 of the estimated $300,000 cost of that
project and other rescue work in Lebanon and Israel before Crook’s
departure.

War hurts wildlife

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

Scarce wildlife habitat in both Lebanon and Israel took a big
hit from the July and August 2006 fighting.
“Huge swaths of forests and fields across northern Israel
were scorched by Hezbollah rocket strikes,” reported Associated
Press writer Aron Heller. “Charred branches stick out of the ground
like grave markers at the Mount Naftali Forest overlooking Kiryat
Shemona. In all, rocket fire destroyed 16,500 acres of forests and
grazing fields, said Jewish National Fund forest supervisor Michael
Weinberger, the top administrator of Israel’s forests. About a
million trees were destroyed.

Outside help

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Outside animal advocates who found their way to Lebanon
during July and August 2006 to aid stranded animals included
Hurricane Katrina rescue veteran Linda Nealon of New York City, who
helped Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to arrange the
Best Friends animal evacuation (see page 1), and PETA
representatives Michelle Rokke and Jason Baker.
The PETA team “handed out leaflets explaining how to help
animals caught under the bombing strikes,” wrote Agence France
Presse correspondent Jailan Zayan. “The flyers, which have been
handed out to citizens, military, police, and non-government
organizations, urge people who see animals in distress to set them
free if they are tied up, give them water, and if possible take
them in. As a last resort, the guidelines say, the animals should
be shot at point-blank range.

Middle East

Wildlife rehab center, zoos, farms try to survive under fire

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

BEIRUT, HAIFA–As vulnerable as dogs and cats were during
the July and August 2006 fighting along the border of Israel and
Lebanon, captive wildlife and livestock were in even in greater
danger, having little or no opportunity to even try to survive on
their own.
The nonprofit Animal Encounter Educational Center for
Wildlife Conservation in southern Lebanon, directed by Mounir and
Diana Abi-Said, had animals of more than 35 species to look after,
most of them rehabilitation cases, the Saids e-mailed to ANIMAL
PEOPLE. Among the animals, they said, were “brown bear, wolf,
hyena, fox, deer, ostrich, pelican, white stork, imperial
eagle, jungle cat, wild boar, and jackal.”

Rocket attack victim stayed behind for his dog

September 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

HAIFA–Among the Israeli dead from the August 2006 Hezbollah
rocket attacks on northern Israel was Dave Lalchuk, 52, originally
from Boston, who reportedly emigrated to Israel in the early 1980s.
Lalchuk and his Israeli wife Esti joined Kibbutz Sa’ar near Nahariya
in the western Galilee region, raised two daughters, now adults
living elsewhere, reported Jack Khoury of Haaretz.
“Despite rocket hits in the area, Lalchuk continued working
in the citrus groves and caring for the animals he loved, including
his beloved dog, Blackie,” Khoury wrote.

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