Elephants source of Marburg & Ebola?

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

LUANDA–The World Health Organization and Angola Ministry of
Health are optimistic that the worst outbreak on record of the
Ebola-like Marburg hemorrhagic fever may be close to burning itself
out, after 423 known cases through June 5, 357 of them fatal,
including 346 of the 412 cases that occurred in the city of Uige,
where the outbreak was first recognized.
The Uige outbreak may never be clearly traced to a source,
since the first persons exposed apparently all died before sharing
details about how they fell ill. Once either Marburg or Ebola
occurs among humans, it spreads chiefly through human contact.
Investigators are more optimistic about finding the origin of
an Ebola outbreak that struck the Cuvette-Ouest region of the
Republic of Congo in April, killing at least 10 people. The first
victims were “five hunters who became ill after emerging from the
forest,” Wildlife Conservation Society field veterinary program
director William Karesh posted to the International Society for
Infectious Diseases’ ProMed newsgroup.

Violence vs. animal law enforcement

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

NAIROBI–Nairobi police fired teargas to disperse
demonstrators on May 18, 2005, and Masai leader Ben Koisaba
threatened to “mobilize Masai to invade Delamere ranches in Nakuru to
press for the re-arrest and prosecution” of Tom Gilbert Patrick
Cholmon-deley, 37, a day after Philip Murgor, Kenya Director of
Public Prosecution, dropped a murder charge filed against
Cholmondeley on April 28 for killing Kenya Wildlife Service ranger
Samson ole Sisina with one of a volley of five shots fired on April
19.
Cholmondeley, an honorary KWS game ranger himself, claimed
Sisina shot first, and said he had mistaken Sisina for a bandit, as
Sisina led an undercover KWS raid on an illegal wildlife
slaughterhouse at one of the Cholmondeley family ranches.
Cholmon-deley remained under investigation in connection with the
slaughterhouse.
Cholmondeley’s grandfather Hugh Cholmondeley, the third
Baron Delamere, visited Kenya to hunt in 1895, decided to emigrate
from Britain to raise cattle, and established the family land and
livestock empire that Tom Cholmondeley now directs.
The Sisina slaying followed the late March murder of a
Swaziland ranger identified only as Mandla.

Evictions to clear a park in Ethiopia

June 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

While land invasions and their aftermath destroy the remnants
of wildlife protection in Zimbabwe, the African Parks Foundation has
reportedly introduced to Ethiopia the heavy-handed relocation of
longtime land occupants in the name of conservation that helped to
create the pressures leading to the Zimbabwean debacle.
“Ethiopia wants a Kenyan-style network of wildlife parks to
serve a Kenyan-style tourist industry,” columnist Fred Pearce
charged in the April 16, 2005 edition of New Scientist. “Following
the model of Kenya, the country’s leaders have been throwing the
locals out of the park to achieve the ultimate safari experience for
western visitors: wildlife without people.”
The African Parks Foundation, summarized Pearce, “was set
up by a leading Dutch industrialist, Paul van Vlissingen. It offers
to take over moribund parks from African governments, find
international funding to spruce them up, and then get the tourists
rolling in. It is building a portfolio of parks across Africa,”
including in Malawi and Zambia as well as Ethiopia, but will not
invest in parks that are jeopardized by human encroachment.

Weaning zoos from elephants

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

BANGALORE, NAIROBI, SALT LAKE CITY, CHICAGO, DETROIT,
SAN FRANCISCO– “In a jumbo victory for Bangalore animal activists,
Lord Ganesha has showered his benediction on Veda, a 6-year-old baby
elephant at the Bannerghatta Biological Park in Karnataka, India.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decided that Veda will not be sent
as a diplomatic gift to the Yerevan Zoo in Armenia,” announced
Compassion Unlimited Plus Action founder Suparna Ganguly on April 29.
“Karnataka State got their official letter today from the
prime minister’s office that the decision to send the baby elephant
has been cancelled,” Ganguly elaborated to ANIMAL PEOPLE. “We had a
Thanksgiving with the elephants at Bannerghatta.”
Confirmed Govind D. Belgaumkar of The Hindu,
“Bangaloreans–schoolchildren and parents, as well as other animal
lovers–on Friday celebrated the government decision to leave Veda
with her mother Vanita, grandmother Suvarna, brother Gokula, and
little sister Gowri. People distributed sweets, touched Veda, and
prayed for her long life.”
That was one week after the Nairobi newspaper The Nation
hinted that Youth for Conservation might have won a parallel struggle
to block the export of as many as 318 elephants, hippos, lions,
zebras, giraffes, gazelles, and members of about 20 other species
from Kenya to Thailand.

Wild Animals

What happened to the hippos?

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

KAMPALA–Did anthrax kill the hippos, or was it poison?
What became of their teeth? Who was responsible?
“We have lost 287 hippos since July 2004,” Uganda Wildlife Authority
veterinary coordinator Patrick Atimnedi told fellow members of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases in March 2005.
“So far, we have lost about 11% of the hippo population.
“August 2004 was the peak of mortality,” Atimnedi continued,
“declining toward December. We were surprised with a resurgence from
January 2005.
“So far the source of infection is unclear,” Atimnedi
admitted. “[Mass] hippo mortalities have occurred in this park in
the last 50 years, usually in 10-year cycles. These, however,
would affect at most not more than 30 hippos, and were mainly
associated with drought.”
Atimnedi is certain that anthrax is the lethal agent. “All
cases are actually being investigated,” Atimnedi emphasized,
mentioning visits by foreign experts and samples sent to laboratories
outside Uganda to confirm his observations.

Japan looks to South Korea for help in restarting commercial whaling

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

ULSAN, South Korea–Japanese whalers expect a home town edge
when the 57th meeting of the International Whaling Commission
convenes June 20-24 in Ulsan, South Korea.
The IWC meeting will start 10 days after the end of a 12-day
series of preliminary meetings on scientific issues.
“Ulsan is opening a $6-million whale museum this month on an
otherwise dilapidated wharf across from a shabby strip of whale
restaurants,” Los Angeles Times staff writer Barbara Demick reported
on May 2. On an adjacent lot, groundbreaking is expected soon on a
site for a whale research center, which is to include a processing
facility for whale meat.”
“Dozens of speciality restaurants along the waterfront of
South Korea’s self-proclaimed whale capital” sell whale meat, Demick
explained.
Retired whaler Son Nam Su, 69, told Demick that hunting and eating
whales is a cultural legacy of the Japanese occupation of Korea,
1910-1945, and that at peak the South Korean whaling fleet killed
about 1,000 whales per year.

Editorial: Lessons from finding the ivory-billed woodpecker

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

At least one ivory-billed woodpecker still inhabits the Big
Woods region of Arkansas, the world learned on April 28, 2005.
Yet, 60 years after the brightly colored big bird was believed to
have been hunted to extinction, it is almost certainly still on the
brink.
Gene Sparling, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, first saw the
officially rediscovered ivory-billed woodpecker on February 2, 2004
in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, a relatively dense and
impenetrable swamp, not far from U.S. I-40, which runs in an almost
straight line from Memphis southwest to Little Rock.
Ornithologists Tim Gallagher of Cornell University and Bobby
Harrison of Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, confirmed the
Sparling sighting after accompanying him to the vicinity. David
Luneau, of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, on April 25,
2004 videotaped the ivory-billed woodpecker taking off from the trunk
of a tree.
Before announcing the find, the scientists enlisted the help
of The Nature Conservancy to purchase more habitat.

Seal hunt ends with “thin ice” incidents

May 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

HALIFAX, ST. JOHNS–Sealers on the Labrador Front were
expected to complete their 2005 quota of 319,500 seal pelts, the
most in 50 years, in early May. The first phase of the 2005
Atlantic Canada seal hunt, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, killed
107,000. Another 103,000 were killed along the Labrador Front by
April 18.
The Sea Shepherd flagship, the Farley Mowat, tried to
monitor the Labrador Front killing, but was pushed away from the ice
by a storm that delayed the opening of the second phase of the hunt
for three days, and was obliged to give up the pursuit on April 15.
Confused by the delay, the Boston Globe on April 12
published a fabricated article about the Labrador Front opening by
freelance Barbara Stewart. Following an extensive apology and
retraction, the Globe published a long pro-sealing commentary by
indigenous sealing industry spokespersons Kirt Ejesiak and Maureen
Flynn-Burhoe.

Channel Islands National Park ex-chief hits cruelty of killing “invasive species”

April 1, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

SANTA BARBARA–Denouncing “systematic biologic genocide”
committed by the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy in
Channel Islands National Park, off the California coast, retired
park superintendent Tim J. Setnicka has affirmed almost every
criticism of the cruelty of “invasive species” eradication that
animal advocates have issued since the killing in the islands began
circa 1970.
Setnicka published his 3,500-word confession in the March 25,
2005 edition of the Santa Barbara News Press.
A globally recognized search-and-rescue expert, Setnicka
developed his skills during approximately 30 years of killing
non-native species in the Channel Islands. “The Park Service
reassigned him to other duties before his retirement. He lives in
Ojai,” on the nearby mainland, the News Press said.
Setnicka was apparently brought to catharsis after viewing a
slide show of the history of Channel Islands National Park at a
celebration of the 25th anniversary of the official park opening.
“A large portion of the park’s history revolved around
killing one species to save another,” Setnicka saw.

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