Animal health

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Infectious diseases
Protecting their collections, Sea World San Diego and Marine World Africa USA
in Vallejo, California, have suspended accepting stranded marine mammals, after morbillivirus
was found in a common dolphin who beached herself on August 31 near Marina Del
Ray and was taken to Sea World for rehab. Lack of a rehab site obliged authorities to euthanize
a stranded pygmy sperm whale in early October. Morbillivirus, related to canine distemper,
killed tens of thousands of seals and at least 800 bottlenose dolphins in the North
Atlantic during 1987-1988, about 1,000 striped dolphins in the Mediterranean in 1989-1990,
and circa 900 dolphins off the Texas coast in 1994, but has never before been found in the
Pacific. The infected dolphin, still at Sea World, shows no symptoms of the disease, and
may be an immune carrier.

Laboratories

November 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Oklahoma superintendent of education
Sandy Garrett and Muskogee County district attorney
David Lutton are reportedly probing the October 3
attempted razorblade vivisection of a poorly anesthetized
cat by Braggs high school teacher Mickey Duncan,
described in this month’s ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial.
“I am outraged,” said Garrett in a prepared statement.
“While we view this as an isolated incident, we are forg
ing a partnership with the Oklahoma Veterinary Medical
Association to draft advisory guidelines for scientific projects.
We will provide this information to all local school
board members and high school principals. I have contacted
local school officials to express my grave concern,”
Garrett added. “As Oklahoma is a local control
state, authority for any action which might be taken
against the teacher lies with the Braggs Board of
Education.” Said Bill Dollinger of Friends of Animals,
“I informed her that we are not interested in codifying
animal experiments in high schools, and that her department
should look into allegations that students are being
intimidated into covering up for Duncan by other teachers.

Life on the farm isn’t very laid back

October 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1995:

Gandhi’s birthday, October 2, marks the 13th observance
of World Day for Farm Animals, declared in 1982 by the
Farm Animal Reform Movement. Unfortunately, despite steadily
increasing humane concern for farm animals, not much has
happened in the past 13 years to actually improve farm animals’
lives. There have been some victories, for example the abolition
of face-branding of imported cattle won in late 1994 by the
Coalition for Non-Violent Food, but factory farming has only
become more dominant in poultry and hog production.
Slaughtered in the U.S. each year are 7.2 billion chickens,
277 million turkeys, 88.5 million hogs, and 1.5 million
veal calves, more than 99% of whom never see the outdoors
except through slats in the sides of the truck that takes them to
their doom. The annual toll also includes 33 million cattle and
5.8 million sheep and lambs. Increasing numbers of dairy cattle
and so-called “milk-fed spring lamb,” raised in the equivalent of
veal crates, also never go outside.

BOOKS: When Elephants Weep

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

When

Elephants

Weep:

The Emotional

Lives of Animals

by Jeffrey M. Masson

and Susan McCarthy.

Delacorte Press

(1540 Broadway, New

York, NY 10036), 1995;

291 pages, cloth, $23.95.

If only animals d i d n ’ t have emo-

tions! It would be a great relief to many ani-

mal lovers to imagine that nonhumans lack

the capacity to experience fear, sorrow, and

grief, even at the expense of the more com-

fortable emotional states. It might be like liv-

ing among the Vulcans: no matter what we

might do to hurt them, we would receive only

an impassive and curious stare, if they

regarded us at all. But difficult as it may be to

empathize with suffering animals, it is even

harder to understand how some people could

deny that animals do suffer.

Tales from the Cryptozoologists

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

A fanged skull two boys found along a river-

bank on the edge of Bodmin Moor, England,

belonged to a leopard, but the leopard was apparently

killed and skinned years ago in India, the London Zoo

reported on August 7. The find came just a month after

an eight-month study by the Ministry of Agriculture con-

cluded that the only wild felines on the moor, contrary

to longtime rumors of black leopards on the loose, were

feral domestic cats.

Wang Fangchen, leader of a 30-member

team who spent June and July seeking a mysterious

“apeman“ in heavily wooded Shennongjia National

Park, of central Hubei province, China, says he’ll lead a

second search perhaps as early as September, “as soon

as the rainy season is over.” All he found this time was

some unidentified hair, but a 1993 video convinced

Wang that the creature exists. “It is possible that their

numbers dwindled as the environment changed in recent

years,” he said.

ANIMAL HEALTH

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

RABIES NOTES

Post-exposure shots for 665 people

who came into contact with a rabid kitten in a pet

store in Concord, New Hampshire, last October,

together with other essential follow-up, cost $1.5

million, says the CDCP.

The Pet Savers Foundation has pro-

posed establishing a National Rabies Awareness

D a y. “Letters to Congress supporting Rabies

Awareness Day would be very helpful,” Charlie

McGinley of Pet Savers told ANIMAL PEOPLE.

Get details c/o 14 Vanderventer Ave., Port

Washington, NY 11050; 516-944-5025.

Two residents of San Rafael,

California, were bitten by rabid bats in June,

including a 5-year-old boy playing near a backyard

pool and a woman who was swimming. The bats

in each case were apparently attracted by insects

hovering over the water.

A laborer from Anhui province,

China, bit four people including a pregnant

woman on July 19 in the city of Suzhou, a month

after he was bitten by two rabid dogs.

Humane education with Jane Goodall by Carol A. Connare

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

In moments, she went from sipping

coffee with patrolmen to getting a surprise

audience with the top 100 captains of the Los

Angeles Police Department. Adrenaline

pumping, Dr. Jane Goodall thought fast. “I

said to myself, ‘I’ve got to get their attention,

or they won’t hear a thing I say.’” Deputy

Chief Kroeker introduced Goodall to the men.

She stood up and said, “If I were a female

chimpanzee and I walked into a room of

high-ranking male chimpanzees, it would be

foolish if I didn’t greet them with a submis-

sive pant-grunt,” which she proceeded to do.

All eyes looked up, the men lis-

tened intently to her ten-minute talk, and

Chief Willie Williams agreed to endorse her

educational program––Roots and Shoots––

and help introduce it to inner city kids.

As humans, we take superiority for

granted. But Goodall feels strongly, based

on years in the bush, doing zoological

research, that we are not as different from

other animals as many of us think.

LABORATORY ANIMALS

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

NYU sells LEMSIP chimps to Coulston

STERLING FOREST, N.Y.––The New York University

Medical Center on August 9 transferred ownership of the Laboratory

for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates to the Coulston

Foundation, headed by Frederick Coulston, 81.

A primate researcher since 1936, Coulston is accused of

multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act in pending cases,

which allegedly caused the deaths of five chimps from thirst and heat

stress in two separate incidents at other primate facilities he runs in

New Mexico. Coulston claims three of those deaths were due to

malfunctioning equipment inherited when he took over one of the

facilities from the University of New Mexico two months earlier.

Activist groups are meanwhile demanding reinvestigation of eight

other recent chimp deaths at Coulston facilities, which also may

have involved alleged negligence.

A sensible alternative to xenotransplants by Alan H. Berger

September 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

Transplanting vital organs has become a rela-

tively common medical procedure, readily accepted by

the public, with about 12,000 such operations performed

each year in the United States. Patients who need organ

transplants can sign on to the waiting list of the United

Network for Organ Sharing, a Richmond, Virginia, non-

profit group that under a federal contract allocates organs

nationally. But being listed does not guarantee receiving

an organ.

In 1993, of 50,169 patients who registered with

UNOS, 2,887 died while waiting to receive donor

organs. Of 7,039 candidates for liver transplants, 558

died waiting for a suitable liver. Nationally, mortality on

transplant lists is 8% for liver, 12.2% for heart, and 3.8%

for kidney.

These deaths occur because only about one per-

son in five has consented to donate organs at death. Thus

a chronic shortage of healthy human organs has led many

transplant centers to consider using substitute organs from

sheep, pigs, and nonhuman primates.

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