“He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother.”

June 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK–– National Park Service rangers have

killed 400 wild burros in Death Valley since 1987, but through the intervention of Wild

Burro Rescue, the 1995 quota is zero. It will stay zero for as many years as WBR is able to

rescue the number of burros the NPS would otherwise shoot to prevent ecological damage.

“I got shingles,” said WBR co-founder Gene Chontos, “but we did it,” raising

$23,000 between reaching a deal with the NPS last December and commencing the rescue

on March 18––and then rounding up 20 burros with the help of six mounted wranglers and a

rented helicopter. The team caught 19 burros the first day, with difficulty.

ZOONOSIS UPDATE

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

A technical advisory committee set

up by the Indian government announced

February 7 that data review had confirmed

that a major disease outbreak in the city of

Surat last September was indeed pneumonic

plague, as first diagnosed, even though it did

not spread as fast or kill as many people as past

outbreaks have. A slightly earlier outbreak of a

disease reported as bubonic plague in

Maharashtra state is still under study. Both

forms of plague may be spread by rodent infes-

tation.

Yevgeny Belyaev, head of Russia’s

Epidemics and Sanitary Control State

Committee, told media February 8 that stray

dogs had become a serious threat to public

health in the Chechnyan war zone. He said the

chance that the dogs might spread cholera was

the greatest concern.

Wildlife & People

March 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

A hungry hippopotamus,

rampaging through rice fields and

upsetting canoes in the Selingue dam

district of Mali, was said to have

magical powers in January after elud-

ing vigilantes for more than a month.

Alaska Department of

Fish and Game officers shot a

mama moose because of “ill disposi-

tion” on January 14 at the University

of Alaska campus in Anchorage, after

she tried to kick professor Bruce

Kappes as he sprinted to class. A few

days earlier the moose fatally stomped

Myung Chin Ra, 71, when he tried to

pass her to enter a building.

ZOONOSIS UPDATE

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Rabies roundup

Because continued funding for an

experimental raccoon rabies oral vaccina-

tion program begun last spring hasn’t been

approved on schedule by the Massachusetts

legislature, the Tufts University School of

Veterinary Medicine may be obliged to lay off

project coordinator Allyson Robbins on

December 31, dean Franklin Loew told ANI-

MAL PEOPLE on December 23. It also

won’t be able to order the vaccination baits in

time to be sure of having them on hand at the

optimum time to use them, when mothers

come out of their dens with newly ambulatory

babies. The initial oral vaccination budget

came from a dormant Food and Agriculture

Department fund set up to fight equine

encephalitis. However, while the vaccination

work was underway, trying to keep raccoon

rabies off Cape Cod as a demonstration of its

effectiveness, equine encephalitis reappeared

in Massachusetts, and the Food and

Wildlife & people

November 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:

An Indian logging elephant named Bir Bahadur

staged a sit-down strike in February after his handler was

replaced, blocking a local official’s motorcade for hours.

Outraged, the official ordered him shot, as “mad.” However,

Bir Bahadur then broke his fetters and fled into the forest, tak-

ing two female elephants with him. He’s been at large ever

since. Maneka Gandhi, daughter-in-law of the late prime min-

ister Indira Gandhi, is now seeking a pardon for him.

Indonesian forestry minister Djamaluddin

Suryohadikusumo says elephants whose habitat has been

taken for farming should be trained to work, not be killed.

“People must be ready to accept them as part of our economic

life,” he said October 12. However, he has dispatched a hit

team to kill Crest, a bull elephant who has killed 13 people

since 1986 and has escaped three times after being shot with

tranquilizer darts.

Plague! INDIA, AFRICA CONFRONT THE ULTIMATE ANIMAL CONTROL NIGHTMARE; Tight urban budgets gave rat-catching and trash collection a low priority

November 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:

SURAT, India––Inadequate animal control service was largely responsible, authorities say, for the most deadly

outbreak of plague worldwide in 28 years at Surat, India. More than 400,000 residents fled the city as the outbreak became

known, creating risk the disease would spread to nearby communities, including Bombay, 160 miles to the north.

Remembering plague outbreaks that killed thousands during the 1940s and 1950s, 950 million Indians feared the worst.

Quarantines, inexpensive prophylactic tetracycline treatments, and fast information-sharing by electronic mail were

Wildlife & people

October 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1994:

Rabid vampire bats reportedly

flew out of a graveyard in Satipo, Peru, to

bite more than 200 people during the week

of September 11-16. “Vampire bats repro-

duce at an extremely fast rate, and there are

already a dangerous number of them in the

region,” the Xinua news agency warned

––but in fact vampire bats rarely attack peo-

ple, and almost never kill their hosts when

not rabid. Under normal circumstances a

vampire bat bite is considered to be little

more harmful to the victim than a mass of

mosquito bites.

At least 357 of Florida’s threat-

ened black bears have been killed by cars

since 1976; bear numbers hover circa 1,500.

Fourteen bears have been killed on a single

three-mile stretch of State Road 46 just

north of Orlando. Hoping to save the bears,

the state has built an overpass above their

favored migration route. A proposed expan-

sion of State Road 40 through the Ocala

National Forest into a four-lane highway

threatens to split the bears’ habitat, howev-

er, which may end the genetic viability of

the bear populations caught on either side.

A tale of two species: Wolves, coyotes killed as lookalikes

October 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1994:

ADIRONDACK FOREST PRESERVE, N.Y.– –

Long hated and persecuted for resembling wolves, coyotes

again figure to pay the price for their bigger cousins as

wolves, their own image rehabilitated, are reintroduced to

fragments of their former habitat. The strongest argument

wolf defenders have for reintroduction, they’ve found, is not

that North American wolves have never verifiably attacked a

human being, nor that they’re the lovable creatures whose

family life Farley Mowat recorded in Never Cry Wolf!

Rather, it’s that, “A wolf will kill a coyote if he sees

it,” as Michael Kellett of RESTORE the North Woods

explains at every opportunity.

“Wolves have larger territorial needs than coyotes,”

elaborates Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

biologist Tom Schaeffer. “They live in well-established

groups,” including many adults of both sexes plus cubs, “who

require a larger area, sometimes as much as 200 square miles.

Thus you would be dealing with a smaller number of wolves

in an area than coyotes,” who live in family units typically

structured around a monogamous pair. A coyote family usual-

ly occupies about 24 square miles, though territories of up to

100 square miles are not unheard of.

ANIMAL HEALTH

September 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1994:

No face-branding halt yet despite what mass media reported

July 7 media reports that the USDA would no longer require face-branding of steers import-

ed from Mexico were incorrect. Such an announcement was expected, but was apparently delayed by

the White House to get input on the rules change from the National Cattlemen’s Association. The

USDA did amend the import rules for Mexican heifers, who now must be given a local anesthetic

prior to spaying, and are rump-branded. The steers are branded to help inspectors backtrack cattle car-

rying bovine tuberculosis; the heifers are spayed to prevent the transmission of brucellosis.

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