Cats & Dogs

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

The older men who get the most emotional benefit
from keeping pets are those who have the least free time, the most
difficulties in personal relationships, and the most financial trouble,
according to a newly published study by Ohio State University psy-
chology professor Sara Staats––whereas the women who derive the
most satisfaction from pets are those with the most free time and
the most satisfactory relationships with other people. Staats’ data
came from a survey of 250 people over age 50. The findings appar-
ently reflect the role of pet as family member for women, contrast-
ed with the role of pet as surrogate for family among many men.

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Alaska resumes wolf killing; SUES FRIENDS OF ANIMALS FOR CALLING TOURISM BOYCOTT

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

FAIRBANKS, Alaska––As
many as 450 Alaskan wolves will be
trapped, snared, and shot during the next
three winters to make more moose and
caribou available to hunters, under pro-
posals adopted July 1 by the Alaska
Board of Game.
ANIMAL PEOPLE waited to
go to press until the Board of Game deci-
sion became final—a week after the nor-
mal deadline––because of the signal
importance of the wolf issue in the ongo-
ing clash between ecology-based and
hunter-driven philosophies of conserva-
tion. The board was expected to revive
the wolf control strategy scrapped last
winter under threat of a tourism boycott,
but the details were obscured in a blizzard
of 92 wolf management proposals on the
summer meeting agenda, two of them
from the Alaska Department of Fish and
Game and many others from influential
hunting associations.

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Help stop roadkills

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

DERRY, N.H., CHARLOTTE, Vt., and
SHUSHAN, N.Y.––You too can help prevent roadkills, by
taking a copy of the survey form on page 7 of this issue with
you the next time you go walking.
Every roadkill you record will help in a concerted
effort to identify the characteristics of “killing zones” that
attract multiple roadkills, and help as well to develop a
defensive defensive driving curriculum that could save mil-
lions of animal lives.
Two parallel but cooperating teams are collecting
roadkill observations: a nationwide network of middle
school students assembled by environmental science teacher
Brewster Bartlett of Pinkerton Academy in Derry, New
Hampshire, and the readers of Country Life magazine and
ANIMAL PEOPLE.

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Reprieve for Alaskan wolves, But the Yukon opens fire; Tourist boycott of Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta underway

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

WHITEHORSE, Yukon, Canada –– Dispatched in near-secrecy circa
February 5 by the Yukon territorial government, a helicopter attack team will have killed
150 of the estimated 200 wolves in the Aishihik Lake region, and be heading home again
as ANIMAL PEOPLEgoes to press.
The scheduled 20-day mission was undertaken in direct defiance of international
appeals and threats of a tourism boycott. Protests held at various points in Canada and the
U.S. on February 8 were ignored by Yukon minister of renewable resources Bill Brewster.

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Animal Health & Behavior

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

Studying the relationship between brain evolution and the death of fetal cells, University of
Tennessee researcher Dr. Robert Williams has discovered that cat species seem to have an unusual capacity for
fast biological adaptation to suit their circumstances. All mammals seem to select adaptive capabilities through
the death of up to half of their neural brain cells just before birth, enabling the remainder to grow, but cats shed as
many as 80% of their fetal neurons––and this explains the key differences between domestic cat brains and those
of Spanish wildcats. Williams studied the brains of domestic cats and Spanish wildcats who had been euthanized
due to illness and/or injury.

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Throwing wolves and sharks to the tourists: ALASKA AND HAWAII PLAN PREDATOR MASSACRES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

JUNEAU, ALASKA––Hoping
to hype tourism, the Alaska Board of
Game on November 17 announced plans
to kill up to 80% of the 700 wolves who
inhabit the 43,000-square-mile region
between Anchorage and Fairbanks. The
same day, for essentially the same rea-
son, the Hawaii Shark Task Force
nnounced it would begin killing tiger
sharks on sight.
The Alaskan massacre is to
commence as early as January, while
shark-killing off the coast of Hawaii may
already be underway. In each case, state
officials called the killing necessary to
boost the tourist industry, but in each
case and especially vis-a-vis Alaska, the
immediate result was a wildcat (sponta-
neous) boycott by potential visitors,
which within 10 days seemed likely to
become an international campaign by
animal protection and environmental
groups.

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Guest Column: An Avoidable Conflict by Dan Namowitz

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

Would you fly in an airplane if upon boarding you beheld a
sign proclaiming, “Notice: the flight crew is trained to cope with nor-
mal operations only. The management is not responsible for the per-
formance of the pilots under emergency conditions.”?
Would you ride aboard a train or an ocean liner, if the engi-
neer or captain had received no emergency training?
What kind of emergency training should the driver of an
automobile undergo? With all the loss-of-control accidents that occur
on icy roads at the beginning of each new winter, and all the
animal/automobile collisions that occur each spring and summer, it is
obvious that drivers whose normal operating environments involve
certain predictable hazards are doing a poor job of dealing with emer-
gencies, resulting in unnecessary death and injury.

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A voiding roadkills: Secrets of animal behavior that can save your life!

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

You’re cruising near the speed limit late one night,
tired from a long drive. You catch a glint of eyes in your
headlight beams, a dark shape breaking from the shadows
to your right, an oncoming car to your left––
Do you jam on the brakes? Speed up to get past
before the animal bolts? Risk swerving? Take your foot off
the gas?
Combat pilots memorize silhouette cards and air-
craft specification sheets, in order to recognize every other
plane in the sky even if all they see is a fleeting glimpse of
something on radar. They need to know instantly what’s out
there: whether it’s hostile, how fast it can go, how far it
can shoot. At Mach 2, there isn’t time for second-guessing.
But at 60 miles an hour your car is outracing the
focal distance of your headlights even faster than a fighter
pilot outraces radar range. And like most other drivers, you
haven’t had any training in how to respond to an animal in
the roadway.

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Horse notes…

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

In the first two years since
California began requiring necropsies of
all race horses who die while under Calif.
Horse Racing Board jurisdiction, on or off
a track, 538 horses have been exam-
ined––271 in 1990-1991, and 267 in 1991-
1992. The examinations are revealing a
much greater amount of stress damage
from training than experts previously sus-
pected.

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