BOOKS: The Blessing of the Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

The Blessing of the Animals
by Katrina Kittle
HarperCollins Publishers
(10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022), 2010.
424 pages, paperback. $14.99.

Cover accolades claim The Blessing of the Animals
“Illustrates the devastation of betrayal and loss, the healing power
of love and compassion, and the joy and comfort that comes from
knowing–and relating to–animals.” Yet there is little about
animals in this work of fiction.

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BOOKS: On Their Own Terms: Bringing Animal-Rights Philosophy Down to Earth

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

On Their Own Terms:
Bringing Animal-Rights Philosophy Down to Earth
by Lee Hall
Nectar Bat Press (777 Post Road, Suite 205, Darien, CT 06820),
2010. 330 pages, paperback. $17.95.

Friends of Animals vice president for legal affairs Lee Hall
argues in On Their Own Terms: Bringing Animal-Rights Philosophy Down
to Earth for a vegan world, in which all animals roam free. Her
perception of the central problem in animal/human relations is that
humans exercise dominion over animals. Her strategic approach is
“abolitionist,” meaning that she believes every campaign activity
should work toward the ultimate goal.

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BOOKS: Bad Hare Days

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

Bad Hare Days by John Fitzgerald
Olympia Publishers (60 Cannon St., London, U.K. EC4N 6NP), 2008.
397 pages, paperback. $14.45 U.S., £9.99, 12.99 euros.

Northern Ireland banned hare coursing on
June 23, 2010, six years after the rest of the
United Kingdom. Ireland banned hounding deer on
June 29, 2010. The Florida Fish & Wildlife
Commission banned hounding foxes and coyotes in
so-called chase pens on September 1, 2010. Yet
opponents of pack hunting are not celebrating.

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BOOKS: From the Jungle to Kathmandu: Horn & Tusk Trade

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

From the Jungle to Kathmandu: Horn & Tusk Trade
Esmond Bradley Martin
Wildlife Watch Group
(20-Pulchowk, Machaagal, Lalitpur, Nepal), 2010.
186 pages, paperback.
Order c/o <www.citesnepal.org>

From the Jungle to Kathmandu anthologizes Kenyan wildlife traffic
investigator Esmond Bradley Martin’s previously published
investigations of rhino horn and elephant ivory poaching and
trafficking in Nepal, 1979-2008–the last decades of the former
hereditary dynastic government and first years of an elected
coalition government including leaders of a Maoist insurgency that
supported itself in part by selling rhino horn and elephant ivory.
Along the way Martin, formerly United Nations special envoy for
rhino conservation, refutes the common belief that rhino horn is
coveted in Asia for alleged aphrodisiacal properties.

BOOKS: Through a Dog’s Eyes

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

Through a Dog’s Eyes by Jennifer Arnold
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2010.
240 pages, hardcover. $25.00.

Operating a service dog school is a monster job. People with
major disabilities rely on dogs to safely lead them across busy
streets, open doors, and retrieve fallen objects. Some dogs
predict the onset of seizures or pick up sounds their people cannot
hear. Training a service dog takes money, time, patience, and
skill. Jennifer Arnold pulls this off despite having multiple
sclerosis.

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BOOKS: The Divine Life of Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

The Divine Life of Animals:
One Man’s Quest to Discover Whether the Souls of Animals Live On
by Ptolemy Tompkins
Crown, c/o Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2010.
256 pages. $22.99/e-book or hardcover.

Despite the subtitle “One man’s quest to discover whether the
souls of animals live on,” the primary objective of The Divine Life
of Animals is not to prove that animals have souls (because
scientifically, such a claim cannot be truly “proven” by any known
means), but rather to demonstrate the absurdity of claiming
otherwise. If humans have souls, Tompkins argues, then of course
other animals do as well–a statement most animal lovers will
intuitively agree with, but which he supports with a formidable body
of research gathered from a wide variety of religious and spiritual
traditions.

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BOOKS: Two Bobbies: A true story of friendship and survival

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Two Bobbies: A true story of friendship and survival
by Kirby Larson & Mary Nethery
Illustrated by Jean Cassels Walker
Walker & Co. (175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010), 2008. $16.99,
hardcover. 32 pages.

No one foresaw the nightmarish devastation to people,
property and pets wrought by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005.
Many and perhaps most of the people who evacuated New Orleans–just
as a precaution–imagined they would return within a few days, if
not hours. Someone left behind a brown dog named Bobbie, chained to
a porch. Somehow the hungry and thirsty dog yanked the chain so hard
that he freed himself. Not known is how Bobbie came to be the
inseparable companion of a white cat whom rescuers eventually named
Bob Cat: did they know each other first, or just become buddies in
the crisis?

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BOOKS: Animal Camp

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Animal Camp by Kathy Stevens
Skyhorse Publishing
(555 Eighth Ave., Suite 903, New York, NY 10018), 2010. 256
pages, hardcover. $24.95.

Every unwanted or cast off animal should be lucky enough to
end up at the Catskill Animal Sanctuary in upstate New York, the
subject of Kathy Stevens’ Animal Camp. I have reviewed many books
for Animal People about rescued animals and sanctuaries, some better
presented than others. Animal Camp is a delight.

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BOOKS: Animal Investigators: How the world’s first wildlife forensic lab is solving crimes and saving endangered species

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Animal Investigators:
How the world’s first wildlife forensic lab is solving crimes
and saving endangered species
by Laurel A. Neme, Ph.D.
Scribner (c/o Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of
the Americas, New York, NY 10020), 2009.
256 pages, hardcover. $25.00.

Animal Investigators, by International Institute for
Sustainable Development Reporting Services newsletter editor Laurel
Neme, focuses on the work of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service animal
forensics laboratory, on the campus of Southern Oregon University in
Ashland, Oregon. The lab supports the work of 200 federal wildlife
law enforcement agents, every state fish and game agency, and the
wildlife law enforcement agencies of all nations belonging to the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Neme begins with the late 1989 discovery of 415 headless
walrus carcasses along the shores of the remote Seward Peninsula, in
northwestern Alaska.

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