Fire aboard Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru ends Antarctic killing early

March 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research whaling within
Antarctic waters ended for the winter on February 24, 2007–far
short of meeting a self-assigned quota of 935 minke whales, 50
humpback whales, and 50 fin whales. The latter are both
internationally designated endangered species.
“At around 17:30 today,” posted the crew of the Greenpeace
vessel Esperanza, “the expedition leader of the Japanese
government’s whaling fleet radioed, informing us that the Nisshin
Maru–disabled nine days ago by fire–plans to sail in three hours.
“This is a relief,” the posting continued. “After nine long
days, the whaling fleet is finally leaving the Ross Sea, and the
unsullied environment of the Southern Ocean.”
The Nisshin Maru on February 15 caught fire in a below-deck
processing area. Most of the 148-member crew were evacuated,
leaving 26 to fight the blaze. One crewman, Kazutaka Makita, 27,
was killed by the fire.

Rescuing kites & other birds from kite string

March 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
AHMEDABAD–Power lines over Ahmedabad looked like concertina
wire after a World War I trench charge on January 15, 2007, the day
after Makar Sankranti, the Hindu “Festival of the Sun.”
Wrecked kites fluttered everywhere, trailing deadly loops of
glass-coated nylon twine. More than 100 Animal Help volunteers
answered calls about wounded birds. Twelve ambulance teams stationed
at central points around the sprawling city relayed birds to the
Animal Help Foundation hospital, beside the River Sabarmati.
For 11 months the 28 Animal Help veterinarians did Animal
Birth Control program surgery at an unprecedented pace, sterilizing
more than 45,000 dogs in retrofitted city buses. In early January,
however, the ABC program shut down, to enable Animal Help to
refocus on birds.
Makar Sankranti is celebrated in western India and nearby
parts of Pakistan with kite-flying contests. Tens of thousands of
participants send kites aloft over most major cities. Reputedly more
than a million kites soar over Ahmedabad.

Javelinas claim a U.S. desert home

January 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
TUCSON–Encountering a dozen peccaries during a dawn walk
with her three Chihuahuas on December 7, 2006, Tracy Gordon, 34,
of Tucson, was bitten, knocked down, and trampled. One Chihuahua
was critically injured. Another suffered a large bite on the neck.
Arizona Game & Fish Department information and education
program manager Tom Whetten suggested that the javelinas were
protecting younger members of the herd.
Gordon “did exactly what she was supposed to do by getting
those dogs under control,” Whetten told Enric Volante and Jeff
Commings of the Arizona Daily Star.

Cane toads are champion skeeter eaters

January 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
SYDNEY–The 1935 introduction of African cane toads to
Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji was not quite the ecological
disaster that cane toad foes claim, Sydney University biologists
Rick Shine and Mattias Hagman have discovered.
While cane toads did not control the sugar cane-eating
insects that they were supposed to devour, and have voraciously
consumed some small Australian wildlife, especially goanna lizards,
Shine and Hagman discovered through a series of controlled
experiments that cane toad tadpoles are exceptionally capable
predators of mosquito larvae.

Mercury poisoning may save whales

January 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
TAIJI–Three days after Christmas 2006, a long-anticipated
confrontation between the two-ship fleet of the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society and the Japanese whaling fleet inside the
International Whaling Commission-designated Southern Oceans Whale
Sanctuary had yet to develop–but Ric O’Barry took the fight against
Japanese whaling right into Japanese supermarkets, and on Boxing Day
2006 scored a second round knockout against the Taiji coastal whalers.
Taiji coastal whaling little resembles high seas whaling.
Instead of shooting great whales with harpoon guns and butchering
them aboard the factory ship Nisshin Maru in the name of scientific
research, the coastal whalers drive small whales into shallow water
where a few are selected for sale to marine mammal parks.

Which wild pigs are running amok in Malaysia? And why now?

January 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
KUALA LUMPUR– Rampaging wild pigs are a problem in Malaysia,
practically all sources agree. Less clear is which wild pigs are the
culprits.
Malaysia has native warty pigs and bearded pigs, as well as
abundant feral domestic pigs–and they can hybridize.
The warty pigs and bearded pigs are subjects of conservation
concern, albeit perhaps more as prey for highly endangered tigers
than for their own sake. Malaysia now has as few as 500 tigers,
down from more than 3,000 circa 1950.
Feral and hybrid pigs are also prey for tigers, but
conservationists tend to view feral and hybrid pigs as unwelcome
competitors for warty and bearded pig habitat.

Feral pigs become scapegoats–in the U.S. & around the world

January 1, 2007 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
SANTA BARBARA, California– Pigs were blamed for people
killing turkeys in the name of defending foxes against eagles.
The Nature Conservancy ended 2006 by hiring professional
hunters to kill about 250 of the estimated 300 wild turkeys on Santa
Cruz Island, within Channel Islands National Park. Nature
Conservancy spokes-person Julie Benson told Associated Press that the
killing was needed to protect endangered Channel Islands foxes,
after an 18-month, $5 million pig purge, also touted as essential
to protect the foxes, ended earlier in the year.
“Scientists said the kills are necessary because turkeys and
pigs provide prey for golden eagles,” summarized Associated Press.
“The eagles are attracted to the island, where they also kill the
endangered foxes. The island pigs kept the turkeys in check by
eating their eggs and competing with them for food. With nearly all
of the pigs gone, the turkey population boomed.”
The problem actually started, retired Channel Islands
National Park superintendent Tim J. Setnicka admitted in a March 2005
denunciation of “systematic biologic genocide” published by the Santa
Barbara News Press, when The Nature Conservancy and National Park
Service decided in 1972 to try to exterminate all non-native species
who inhabited the islands. The turkeys had just been introduced that
year.

BOOKS: Pigeons

November 1, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

Pigeons
by Andrew D. Blechman
Grove Press (841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003), 2006. 256 pages. $23.00

An enthralling study, this book covers the whole spectrum of
topics associated with pigeons, once revered and respected as
messengers, now often reviled as “rats with wings.” Author Andrew
Blechman explores both the methods and motives of pigeon fanciers,
who often devote their whole lives to breeding and racing their
birds; military messengers, some of whom still use pigeons in
places and situations where electronics are impractical; and
recreational pigeon shooters, to whom the birds are no more than
challenging targets. Read more

BOOKS: The Medici Giraffe And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power

November 1, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

The Medici Giraffe
And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power
by Marina Belozerskaya
Little, Brown & Co. (1271 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY
10020), 2006. 412 pages, paperback. $24.99.

Marina Belozerskaya has given us a diverse collection of mini
histories beginning in ancient Egypt. She examines exotic
animal-keeping in the Roman Empire, Renaissance Florence, Aztec
Mexico, Bohemia, Napoleonic France, and the early 20th century U.S.
Through time and across continents, Belozerskaya reveals the
use and abuse of exotic animals by powerful people.
A postscript about the sale from China to the U.S. of two
giant pandas, at an exorbitant price, in order to cement relations
between the two global powers, shows that when it comes to using
animals to advance the goals of ambitious people, nothing has
changed in two and half thousand years.

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