BOOKS: This is Hope & The Ultimate Betrayal

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2013:

This Is Hope: Green Vegans and the New Human Ecology
by Will Anderson
Earth Books c/o John Hunt Publishing
(15200 NBN Way, Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17214), 2013. 368 pages,
paperback. $22.95;
or download c/o www.thisishopethebook.com

The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat?
by Hope Bohanec with Cogen Bohanec
166 pages, paperback. $19.95, c/o www.the-ultimate-betrayal.com

This Is Hope, by Will Anderson, and The Ultimate Betrayal, by
Hope Bohanec, with her husband Cogen Bohanec, might be described as
long and short versions of the same book. They are structured somewhat
differently, but mostly summarize the same arguments for veganism,
citing many of the same sources.

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Mutilated for Your Viewing Pleasure

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2013:

Mutilated for your viewing pleasure: Pinioning birds in English zoos
Captive Animals’ Protection Soc. (P.O. Box 540, Salford, MS ODS,
U.K.), 2013. Free download from <www.captiveanimals.org>

“In zoos and wildlife parks up and down the country,
thousands of birds stand in large open enclosures, serenely surveying
their surroundings…The occasional flurry of wings flapping is seen,
but strangely none of the birds take flight. Are these birds simply
content with their surroundings, choosing to stay conveniently within
the boundaries of the zoo? Do they fly away at times and simply choose
to return, safe in the knowledge they will find food in abundance and
familiar flock mates? Is it a deep connection to their keepers that
stops them from taking to the air? Or is it something else that holds
these birds in the unnatural environment of a zoo?

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BOOKS: Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2013:

Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed
by Marc Bekoff
New World Library (14 Pamaron Way, Novato, CA 94949), 2013. 381
pages, paperback. $15.95

On a breezy spring night at the dog park, your faithful
neutered friend humps a stranger’s dog––perhaps a female, perhaps
another male. Embarrassed, you race over, pulling away a bewildered
Rover and wondering why it happened. Humping, also known as mounting,
is a normal canine behavior, studied inconclusively by various
researchers for about as long as anyone has investigated dog psychology.

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BOOKS: Paw Prints at Owl Cottage

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2013:

Paw Prints at Owl Cottage
by Denis O’Connor
St. Martin’s Press (c/o MacMillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
10010), 2013.
232 pages, hardcover. $19.99.

Denis O’Connor, retired from a career in academia,
established himself as an author of best-selling cat stories in the
United Kingdom first, with Paw Tracks in the Moonlight (2009), about
his rescued cat Toby Jug, who died in 1978, and then Paw Tracks at Owl
Cottage, concerning the cats O’Connor and his wife have kept since
reacquiring the house where O’Connor lived with Toby Jug.

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BOOKS—Desperate Dogs: Determined Measures

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  November/December 2013:

by Robert Cabral. Bound Angels (order c/o http://www.lulu.com/shop/view-cart.ep;jsessionid=63C586DEBBDDE0F7E8C6D45852D4A118),  2012.  254 pages,  paperback.  $14.95.

Desperate Dogs,  a self-published manual for rehabilitating shelter dogs,  arrived for review by ANIMAL PEOPLE with impressive endorsements. Read more

BOOKS: Deerland: America’s Hunt for Ecological Balance & the Essence of Wilderness

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2013: (Actually published on November 20,  2013.)

Deerland:  America’s Hunt for Ecological Balance & the Essence of Wilderness  by Al Cambronne  •  Lyons Press (246 Goose Lane,  Guilford,  CT  06437),  2013.  263 pages,  paperback.  $18.95.

Opens Al Cambronne,  “We live in Deerland.  The U.S. now has over 30 million deer,  a hundred times more than a century ago.  They routinely disrupt entire ecosystems.  They ravage our gardens and suburban landscaping,  and every year they kill and injure hundreds of us on our highways…Still,  deer are magical.  Their mere existence makes the woods feel wilder.  They signify far more to us than just meat,  antlers,  or a graceful,  mysterious creature slipping through the shadows…We commute farther and borrow more so that we can live beside them.  If money remains,  we buy vacation homes where we’ll see even more of them.  A few of us happily spend two or three years’ salary for a small piece of untillable land on which we can hunt them…Regardless of how you may feel about hunting,  in many parts of America we now have a very real problem with too many deer.  In some of those places,  hunting is a big part of the solution.  It’s also,  some would argue,  a big part of the problem.” Read more

BOOKS: Unlikely Loves

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2013: (Actually published on November 20,  2013.)

Unlikely Loves by Jennifer S. Holland Workman Publishing (225 Varick St.,  9th floor,  New York,  NY  10014), 2013.   221 pages,  paperback.  $13.95.   

Jennifer Holland in Unlikely Loves follows up her 2011 best-seller Unlikely Friendships with 43 more amazing cross-species love stories,  including those of a stray cat named Arthur who befriended a dolphin named Thunder at the Theater of the Sea marine park in the Florida Keys,  and a giraffe named Camilla whose devoted companion at a sanctuary in South Africa is a kudu.        ––Debra J. White

Ignoring Nature No More: The Case for Compassionate Conservation

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2013: (Actually published on November 20,  2013.)

 Ignoring Nature No More:  The Case for Compassionate Conservation Edited by Marc Bekoff The University of Chicago Press,  Ltd.  (427 East 60th St.,  Chicago,  IL 60637), 2013. 456 pages.  Paperback $38.00.  Kindle $19.89.

When I was a child,  the Earth seemed huge and full of exciting places where wild animals roamed,  where as yet no human had set foot.  There were only three billion of us back then. Feeding us all seemed to be the main problem.   Read more

BOOKS: Rhinos and Elephants on the brink of extinction

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2013: (Actually published on November 20,  2013.)

The Last Rhinos:  My Battle to Save One of the World’s Greatest Treasures by Lawrence Anthony with Graham Spence Thomas Dunne Books,  c/o St. Martin’s Griffin (175 Fifth Ave.,  New York,  NY  10010),  2012. 333 pages,  paperback.  $16.99.

Kony’s Ivory:  How Elephant Poaching in Congo Helps Support the Lord’s Resistance Army by Kasper Agger and Jonathan Hutson Co-produced by the Enough Project,  The Resolve,  Invisible Children,  & the Satellite Sentinel Project (with DigitalGlobe),  January 2013. 16 pages.  Free download from Enough,  1333 H St. NW,  10th floor,  Washington,  DC  20005;  <www.enoughproject.org>.

The Last Rhinos,  by the late South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony and his brother-in-law Graham Spence,  and Kony’s Ivory,  by Enough Project staff members Kasper Agger and Jonathan Hutson,  offer superficially opposite perspectives on the role of the Lord’s Resistance Army in poaching,  particularly of elephants for ivory,  in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Read more

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