A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2012:
Bear Sanctuary by Victor Watkins
Bear Sanctuary Publications (P.O. Box 690, Redhill, Surrey, RH19DG, U.K.), 2011. 126 pages, paperback. $4.99/Kindle, <http://bearsanctuary.com>.
Captive bears endured wretched lives in Romania for centuries. Bear-baiting was commonly practiced from Roman times, or earlier, until well into the 20th century. Gypsy “dancing bear” acts reputedly continued into the 21st century. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2012:
Goodbye, Friend
by Gary Kowalski
New World Library (14 Pameron Way, Novato, CA 94949), 2012.
176 pages, paperback. $14.00.
Goodbye, Friend enters a crowded market of books written to guide human survivors through grief after the loss of a beloved pet. Unitarian Universalist minister Gary Kowalski came to write about pet loss after receiving a note from a congregant asking him to announce another congregant’s dog’s death. Kowalksi hesitated, wondering how the congregation would accept the news. But the entire congregation appreciated the woman’s loss and provided comfort to her. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2012:
Of Moose & Men: A Veterinarian’s Pursuit
of the World’s Largest Deer by Jerry Haigh
ECW Press (2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200,
Toronto, Ontario, M4E 1E2, Canada), 2012. 272 pages, hardcover. $22.95.
Wildlife veterinarian Jerry Haigh moved from Scotland to Kenya, where he authored Wrestling With Rhinos (2002) and The Trouble With Lions (2007). Of Moose and Men: A Veterinarian’s Pursuit of the World’s Largest Deer has emerged from his subsequent experience at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2012:
Falling for Eli:
How I lost heart, then gained hope through the love of a singular horse
by Nancy Shulins
DaCapo Lifelong Books (11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142), 2012. 272 pages, paperback. $15.99.
Former Associated Press correspondent Nancy Shulins shares an uplifting memoir in Falling for Eli: How I lost heart, then gained hope through the love of a singular horse. Married to a great guy named Mark, Shulins wanted to start a family, but despite a long series of expensive fertility treatments, medical issues prevented her from becoming pregnant. Seeing friends and family doting on their children saddened her. Shulins even stopped walking her dog Jack in the park to avoid the “fertile Myrtles” women who had recently given birth. Then Mark introduced her to friends nearby who kept horses. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2012:
The Hunter
Starring Willem Dafoe, Frances O’Connor, & Sam Neill
Directed by Daniel Nettheim
Adapted from novel The Hunter by Julia Leigh.
Porchlight Films, 2011 (Australia). U.S. release on April 6, 2012.
By Wolf Clifton
The Tasmanian tiger, more properly called the thylacine, was a large carnivorous marsupial with tiger-like stripes and a dog-like build. Thylacines dwelt in the forests of Tasmania until hunted to apparent extinction, chiefly by sheep herders who feared predation-although the historical evidence is that thylacines were only an incidental sheep predator. The last thylacine killed in the wild was shot in 1930. The last known thylacine, captured in 1933, was accidentally locked out of his night quarters at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Australia, and died of exposure on September 7, 1936. Founded in 1895, the Beaumaris Zoo had kept thylacines since 1909, and was the only zoo that had them. Without living thylacines to exhibit, the zoo collapsed financially and was permanently closed in 1937. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2012:
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2012:
Beaver & Climate Change Adaptation in North America: A Simple, Cost-Effective Strategy
by Bryan Bird, WildEarth Guardians, Mary O’Brien, Grand Canyon Trust, & Mike Petersen, The Lands Council
Free 55-page download from: <www.wildearthguardians.org/site/DocServer/Beaver_and_Climate_Change_Final.pdf?docID=3482>
“The reestablishment of American beaver and its habitat is a viable and cost-effective climate change adaptation strategy,” begins Beaver & Climate Change Adaptation in North America. “Due to the unique hydrological engineering accomplished by dam-building beaver, support and reestablishment of beaver constitute an important climate change adaptation tool in the United States.” Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2012:
Vegan is love:
Having a heart and taking action
Written & illustrated by Ruby Roth
North Atlantic Books (c/o Random House
(1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2011.
40 pages, hardcover. $16.95.
Vegan is Love delves into animal mistreatment at zoos, circuses, marine parks and aquariums–all common destinations for schools and families. “You do not have to be an expert to know that animals do not want to balance on balls or jump through hoops of fire,” says author Ruby Roth. Roth explains that Orca whales live in the wild and asks how can we learn “from prisoners in a pool?” Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2012:
Behavior of North American Mammals
by Mark Elbroch & Kurt Rinehart
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (22 Berkeley St., Boston, MA 02116), 2011. 374 pages, hardcover. $35.00.
“Behavior of North American Mammals,” says the publisher’s flack sheet, “is a guide not for identifying mammals, but to understanding what they do,” including “information on seasonal activity, food and foraging, home range and habitat, communication, courtship, and mating, development and dispersal of young, interactions with their own species, and interactions with other species.” Read more