A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2011:
HONG KONG--Ocean Park chair Allan Zeman on August 29, 2011 announced that the Hong Kong exhibition facility had decided against importing six wild-caught beluga whales from Russia for inclusion in a Polar Adventure attraction scheduled to open in 2012. “Everyone can rest assured no belugas from the wild will be imported into Ocean Park–not from Russia or from anywhere else,” Zeman told media. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2011:
MISSOULA, BOISE, STOCKHOLM–Facing possible legal action by the European Union, Swedish environment minister Andreas Carlgren on August 16, 2011 halted wolf hunting, eight months after wolves were legally hunted in Sweden for the first time since 1966.
But a year-long reprieve from hunting ended on August 25 for wolves in Montana and Idaho, after the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request for an emergency injunction sought by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater, and WildEarth Guardians. The injunction would have kept wolves under federal Endangered Species Act coverage pending the outcome of an appeal contesting the constitutionality of the April 2011 federal budget rider that removed them from protection in the northern Rockies. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2011:
AUSTIN, JOHANNESBURG-– Comparable clusters of fast-moving wildfires had contrasting outcomes for animals in Bastrop and Leander counties in Texas during the first week of September 2011 and the Gateway region of Northwest Province, South Africa, during the last week of August.
Experienced disaster relief personnel from the Austin Humane Society, Austin Pets Alive!, and the Best Friends Network evacuated about 180 dogs and cats from two animal control shelters that were jeopardized by the Texas fires, reported Best Friends Network volunteer Jessi Freud. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2011:
COLOMBO–Sri Lanka has almost half again
more wild elephants than the national Wildlife
Conservation Depart-ment imagined just a few
weeks ago, but this is not good news to elephant
advocates who hope to thwart pressure on the
department to capture elephant calves for temple
use.
The first survey of the Sri Lankan
elephant population since 1993 discovered 7,379
wild elephants in all, 5,879 of them in or near
parks and sanctuaries, with about 1,500
elsewhere. The survey found 1,107 baby
elephants, but only 122 mature adult males with
tusks.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2011:
LONDON–The United Kingdom appears to be poised to join a growing number of nations which have banned wild animals from circuses.
Defying Prime Minister David Cameron, the U.K. House of Commons on June 23, 2011 unanimously endorsed a resolution stating that “This House directs the Government to use its powers under Section 12 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to introduce a regulation banning the use of all wild animals in circuses, to take effect by 1 July 2012.” Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2011:
SHREVEPORT, SAN ANTONIO–Bob Barker, the retired longtime host of The Price Is Right television game show, has donated $230,000 toward the cost of relocating five former laboratory chimpanzees who had been exposed to HIV infection from the bankrupt Wild Animal Orphanage sanctuary near San Antonio, Texas, to Chimp Haven, near Shreveport, Louisiana.
“A team from Chimp Haven will go to Texas in late July to do health and behavioral assessments on each of the chimpanzees in anticipation of a move to our facility in August,” Chimp Haven national advancement director Karen Allen told ANIMAL PEOPLE. At Chimp Haven, Allen said, the chimps “will live in a social group in an outdoor habitat and get nutritious meals, full-time veterinary care, daily behavioral enrichment, and compassionate care. It is the least that we can do for them.” Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2011:
NAIROBI, PARIS, DAR ES SALAAM, WASHINGTON D.C.–The
United Nations Educational & Scientific Organization on June 24,
2011 declared victory over the Tanzanian government plan to build a
highway crossing Serengeti National Park, but apparently had not
examined the details of the letter from Tanzanian Natural Resources
and Tourism Minister Ezekiel Maige that prompted the celebration.
“The Serengeti road project has not been abandoned. We have
just revised it. I don’t know where all this confusion comes from,”
Maige told Reuters reporter Fumbuka Ng’wanakilala on July 1, 2011.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
NEW DELHI–Relocating leopards increases human/leopard
conflict, as the leopards try to find their way back to their home
ranges through unfamiliar habitat, while other leopards move into
the temporarily vacated territory, emphasize new Indian national
guidelines for preventing leopard trouble. Introduced in April 2011
by minister of state for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh, the
guidelines seek to reduce the rising death toll from avoidable
incidents among leopards, humans, and livestock.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
HARARE–Seven years after USAid quit subsidizing the Communal
Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources program to
promote trophy hunting in Zimbabwe, some Zimbabwean sources are
cautiously beginning to recognize that CAMPFIRE was a boondoggle
which chiefly benefited insiders of President Robert Mugabe 31-year
authoritarian regime–as long pointed out by ANIMAL PEOPLE.
“Reports from the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force and the
World Wildlife Fund clearly indicate that the country’s wildlife
population continues to dwindle drastically,” wrote Chipo Masara for
the Zimbabwe Standard on May 1, 2011.