Save the Rhino accepts Safari Club funding

June 1, 2010 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

LONDON–“Save the Rhino, the British
charity set up to protect one of the world’s most
endangered animals, is endorsing shooting them
for fun and is directly profiting from trophy
hunts of other species,” revealed Daniel Foggo
of the London Sunday Times on May 30, 2010.
Foggo said he had learned from Save the
Rhino fundraising manager Lucy Boddam-Whetham
that, as Foggo summarized, “The charity formed
its view on trophy hunting after being approached
by Safari Club International with offers of money
in 2006. Since then the Safari Club has donated
sums of between £6,000 and £10,000 a year.

Animal defenders win seven major environmental conservation awards

June 1, 2010 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:
Save The Elephants founder Iain Douglas-Hamilton is to
receive the $100,000 Indianapolis Prize and accompanying Lilly Medal
on September 25, 2010. The awards are presented by Cummins Inc.,
maker of diesel engines. The 2009 winner was longtime Wildlife
Conservation Society field biologist George Schaller.
“Four decades ago,” recalled the award announcement,
“Douglas-Hamilton pioneered scientific study of elephant social
behavior. He led emergency anti-poaching efforts in Uganda to bring
the elephant population there from the brink of extinction. In
September 2009, Douglas-Hamilton worked to rescue a rare herd of
desert elephants in northern Kenya and Mali, threatened by one of
the worst droughts in nearly a dozen years. In the spring of 2010, a
devastating flood destroyed the Save the Elephants camp
in Kenya including staff tents, computers, and years of field
research notes. With a team of local researchers, the camp is now
being rebuilt.”

What do past spills predict for Deepwater Horizon impact?

June 1, 2010 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

The Deepwater Horizon oil discharge, after 62 days, was
believed by the U.S. Coast Guard to have reached a volume of as much
as 156 million gallons–making it the second worst oil disaster in
history, 15 times larger than the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill in
Prince William Sound, Alaska. The Deep-water Horizon spill is
expected to reach 250 million gallons by the time BP completes
drilling four pressure relief wells in August 2010 and finally caps
the undersea gusher.
The warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Carribean Sea
receive more than four times as much sunlight per year than the
Prince William Sound, however, and that translates into
exponentially greater activity by wind, waves, and microorganisms
to mitigate the effects of oil spills.

Reckoning the wildlife losses

June 1, 2010 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

Who is compiling the Deepwater Horizon body count?
“Within each of the animal rescue stations set up along the
Gulf Coast is a makeshift morgue for oiled and ill creatures that
didn’t make it,” reported Katy Reckdahl of the New Orleans
Times-Picayune. “Pathologists and laboratory staff are carefully
cataloging each dead creature as part of larger criminal, civil and
scientific inquiries into how the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has
affected animals and their habitats.
“The operations cannot be photographed or observed by
outsiders,” Reckdahl said, “because they are part of a massive body
of evidence outlining the harm that the spill has caused wildlife,
in violation of federal laws such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act,
Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act.”
Estimates that the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill killed 250,000
sea birds and 2,800 sea otters were developed from collecting and
evaluating the remains of more than 35,000 birds and 1,000 sea
otters. Exxon eventually agreed to pay $100 million as criminal
restitution for harm to wildlife, plus $900 million over 10 years in
settlement of damage suits.

Seabird rescues revive debate over whether oiling victims should be cleaned

June 1, 2010 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

GRAND ISLE–The disaster for pelicans predicted ever since
the Deepwater Horizon burned and began leaking oil on April 20, 2010
hit in full force when large amounts of oil at last reached the
coastal islands of Louisiana six weeks later.
Queen Bess Island, near Grand Isle, “is the worst-hit area
in the state in terms of wildlife,” state biologist Michael Carloss
told Allen Johnson of Agence France-Presse on June 5.
The Queen Bess Island pelican rookery is home to
thousands of birds, many of them oiled, but too lightly to permit
safe capture, Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries
ornithologist Michael Seymour told Mira Oberman of Agence
France-Presse.

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill meets the Gulf hypoxic dead zone

June 1, 2010 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:
NEW ORLEANS–Sixty-three days after the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill started on April 20, the documented toll on wildlife included
997 dead birds, only 265 of them oiled; 749 oiled live birds; 400
dead sea turtles, only eight of them oiled; 128 live sea turtles,
84 of them oiled; and 51 mammals, 47 of them dead, including 38
dolphins, but only four of them oiled.
“These are the consolidated numbers of collected fish and
wildlife reported to the Unified Area Command from the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration,
incident area commands, rehabilitation centers, and other
authorized sources operating within the Deepwater Horizon/BP incident
impact area,” prefaced the online report, updated daily at
<www.ibrrc.org/gulf-oil-spill-birds-treated-numbers-2010.html>.

BP burns pledge to wildlife fund, too

June 1, 2010 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:
NEW YORK CITY–Less than 24 hours before British Petroleum
began burning oil recovered from the Deepwater Horizon leakage
capture pipe at sea, BP president Tony Hayward announced that BP had
created a wildlife fund that would receive any profits made from
selling the recovered oil.
“BP is committed to protecting the ecosystems and wildlife on
the Gulf Coast. We believe these funds will have a significant
positive impact on the environment,” Hayward told New York Daily
News staff writer Meena Hartenstein on June 8, 2010.

Burning the oil spill evidence

June 1, 2010 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

NEW ORLEANS–Rumors flew for weeks that British Petroleum
clean-up crews were secretly incinerating the remains of wildlife
oiled by the April 20, 2010 wreck of the Deepwater Horizon drilling
rig. Often obstructed by BP personnel, despite an order from U.S.
Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen that media were to be allowed access
to all areas normally open to the public, reporters wondered just
what they were not being allowed to see–especially since many gained
access to heavily oiled habitat despite the BP interference.
But some of the first claims that oiled remains were being
burned on beaches turned out to have been recycled from the aftermath
of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. A similar rumor traced to Salt
Lake City, where a 500-barrel spill into Red Butte Creek and the
Jordan River on June 11 oiled about 280 ducks and geese. About 10
birds were killed. The Hogle Zoo saved the rest.

BOOKS: The Man Who Lives with Wolves

May 1, 2010 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

The Man Who Lives with Wolves
by Shaun Ellis with Penny Junor
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2009.
288 pages, hardcover or e-book. $24.99.

Living among wolves, not bathing for years and eating out of
a carcass, is Shaun Ellis at best guilty of bad taste, or is he
just extraordinarily dedicated to his work?
Ellis bonded with animals as a child in the English
countryside. His companions were frogs, ducks, and dogs. His love
for animals collided with fox hunting.
“Many were the times I came across a den where the vixen had
gone to ground and the huntsmen had dug her out and gassed and killed
the kits,” says Ellis. That they killed for sport, not for
survival, upset him.

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