BOOKS: Cockatoos in Aviculture

June 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:

Cockatoos in Aviculture, by Rosemary Low. Sterling Publishing

Co. (387 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016-8810), 1993, 270 pages.

$24.95, paperback.

Rosemary Low is a highly respected aviculturist, who is also involved in

parrot conservation with the World Parrot Trust. In this informative volume she

emphasizes the intelligent nature of cockatoos and the importance of treating them

with respect. She writes, “The best aviculturists are those who try to put them-

selves in the place of their birds and consider what they would like if they had to

change places.”

Software review: the ARK system

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

The ARK System, from Ohio

Business Computers (POB 855,

Findlay, OH 45839). Introduced in

1987; now at version 4:01. Price:

$1,495 and up.

Handling circa 3,000 animals a

year, the Wyandot County Humane

Society has used ARK System for track-

ing shelter activity since 1992. Entering

seven years’ worth of records took our

part-time volunteers most of the first

year. The system proved relatively easy

for first-time computer users to learn.

REVIEWS: Lefty’s World

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

Lefty’s World

Video documentary, Kindness Publications (Suite 135, 1859 North Pine Island

Road, Plantation, FL 33322). 40 minutes. $17.95 plus $1.50 shipping.

Nominally, Lefty’s World is a companion to Lefty’s Place, producer Lewis

Nierman’s book about the rehabilitation of an injured Muscovy duck, recommended for

school libraries in our January/February issue. But it stands alone, with little overlap.

Wolf, age three and a half, will watch Lefty’s World ahead of most of the children’s video

classics in his impressive collection. He likes to see the Muscovy ducks and other familiar

wildlife––and he understands much of Sonny Dufault’s direct, informative narration.

BOOKS: If Wishes Were Horses: The Education of a Veterinarian

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

If Wishes Were Horses: The

Education of a Veterinarian, by Loretta

Gage, DVM, and Nancy Gage, St Martin’s Press

(175 Fifth Ave, New York NY 10010), 1992, 295 pages,

paperback $4.99 U.S., $5.99 in Canada.

Nearly everyone who loves animals has at some

point dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. Loretta Gage was

one: this is her account of the reality behind that dream. With

relentless attention to detail, she and her sister describe the

process of becoming a doctor of veterinary medicine.

At times her dream seems more like a nightmare, an

endless boot camp of classes taught by insensitive instructors,

of animals sacrificed for knowledge of basic procedures.

Still, there are moments of friendship, human and nonhuman,

and Gage is impressively determined to succeed.

BOOKS: The Serengeti Migration: Africa’s Animals on the Move

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

The Serengeti Migration: Africa’s

Animals on the Move, by Lise Lindblad,

with photos by Seven-Olaf Lindblad.

Hyperion/Disney Press (114 Fifth Ave., New York, NY

10011), 1994. 40 pages, hardcover, $15.95.

“Daddy, what’s this lion doing? The lion is eating

the zebra. But the zebra didn’t want to be eaten. The zebras

wish the lions would eat something else. But that’s what lions

do. We don’t have to eat animals.”

There’s only one gory photo in this picture-book

version of the Serengeti migration we’ve all seen on TV, but

of course it was the one Wolf zeroed in on, with a keen intu-

itive grasp of the difference between ourselves and natural

predators plus appreciation of the victim’s perspective.

What did he think of the book otherwise?

“It has buffalo in it. It has birds. It has antelopes.”

––Merritt Clifton & son

BOOKS: The Cat Who Came to Breakfast

May 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:

The Cat Who Came to Breakfast, by

Lilian Jackson Braun, G.P. Putnam Sons (200

Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016), 1994, $19.95

hardcover.

Are there any cat lovers out there who are unfamil-

iar with Lilian Jackson Braun’s “The Cat Who…” series?

Fifteen titles are now in print. If you have missed them, they

are mysteries with minimal gore and victims characterized as

minimally missed. The real protagonists are not the humans

but the pet cats, usually Siamese. My preference among

them is The Cat Who Had 14 Tales, which differs in format

and style from the subject of this review.

BOOKS: Jim Mason on the nature of unnatural acts

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

An Unnatural Order: Uncovering the Roots

of Our Domination of Nature and Each

Other, by Jim Mason. Simon & Schuster

(Rockefeller Centre, 1230 Ave. of the Americas, New

York, NY 10020), 1993. 298 pages, $24 hardcover.

“The Slave,” a powerful sculpture by Michelangelo,

depicts a man struggling to break free of the stone from which

he is partially formed. This image is repeatedly brought to

mind by An Unnatural Order, for the heart of Jim Mason’s

argument is that humankind is a coldly perverse and destruc-

tively struggling entity as a result of a futile effort to distance

ourselves from the natural and animal world from which we

evolved.

BOOKS: Captive wildlife debate

April 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:

Zoos and Animal Rights: The Ethics of

Keeping Animals, by Stephen St. C.

Bostock, Routledge (29 West 35th St., New York,

NY 10001), 1993. 227 pages, $15.95 paperback.

Orca: A Family Story, by Peter Hamilton,

Lifeforce (POB Box 825, North Hollywood, CA

91603), 1994. 40 pages, $17.99 paperback.

Stephen Bostock, education director for the

Glasgow Zoo, fervently believes most captive wild animals

are happy, healthy, and enjoying the best of all possible

worlds. Peter Hamilton, who has spent many years cham-

pioning unhappy, unhealthy captive wildlife, believes just

the opposite, citing as example the life of the orca Corky,

in an account fictionalized to provide a happy ending: her

release after 25 years to rejoin her pod. Both Bostock and

Hamilton support their positions with a wealth of factual

detail, but both become tedious in their onesidedness.

Hamilton is merely shrill; Bostock is at times absurd, as in

citing a painting as documentary evidence of the terror a

prey species suffers when attacked by a predator.

BOOKS: Earthforce! An Earth Warrior’s Guide To Strategy

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

Earthforce! An Earth Warrior’s Guide To Strategy

by Captain Paul Watson

Chaco Press 1993 (distributed by the Sea

Shepherd Conservation Society, 1314 2nd

St., Santa Monica, CA 90401), 118

pages, paperback, $13.

“There is one person who is in a

class of his own in my pantheon of heroes,”

writes Wild Earth editor and Earth First!

cofounder Dave Foreman in his foreword to

Earthforce! “Paul Watson,” he continues,

“has perhaps thought more deeply about strat-

egy than has any other conservationist…One

thousand years from now, sagas will be sung

about Captain Paul Watson, defender of the

oceans, and people will praise his name

because there will still be whales, walruses,

dolphins, and sea birds. Paul Watson is the

hero of our time…the strategic genius of non-

violent ecological defense.”

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