BOOKS: The Wilderness Family: At Home with Africa’s Wildlife

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

The Wilderness Family: At Home with Africa’s Wildlife by Kobie Kruger
Ballantine Books (c/o Random House, 299 Park Ave., New York, NY
10171), 2001. 381 pages, hardcover, $26.95.

The Wilderness Family, as published in the U.S. and Britain,
is actually two former South African best sellers combined under one
cover. The first book, Mahlangeni, appeared in 1994. All Things
Wild & Wonderful followed in 1996.
Both are autobiographical accounts of the lives of Kruger
National Park ranger’s wife Kobie Kruger and family.
Inspired by Born Free, the autobiography of the late Kenyan wildlife
advocate Joy Adamson, Kobus and Kobie Kruger in 1980 took over
management of the remote Mahlangeni ranger station, taking their
three young daughters with them into the bush.

Palau bans shark hunting at request of divers

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

KOROR, Palau–Shark-hunting of any kind is illegal within 50
nautical miles of any part of the western Pacific island nation of
Palau, effective since mid-September 2003.
The shark-hunting ban is part of a new national marine
conservation law that also “protects reef fish, sea turtles, rays,
and any marine mammal from foreign fishing,” Agence France-Press
reported.
“A bold move for a developing nation struggling to balance
generating tax revenue with environmental protection,” Agence
France-Press observed, the new law may prove difficult to enforce.
Whether Palau has enough patrol boats and aircraft to intercept
alleged violators remains to be seen.
However, the new law is a sweeping first victory for the
Micronesian Shark Foundation, formed in April 2003 by Boston
University marine biologist Philip Lobel in partnership with Fish ‘n
Fins, a Palauan firm that outfits diving expeditions and promotes
diving tourism.

REVIEWS: Living With Tigers

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

Living With Tigers
Discovery Channel Video (www.discovery.com), 2003.
Two hours. $19.95.

Among the many “sanctuary” projects involving tigers that
appear to have more entertainment and fundraising value than either
humane or conservation merit, possibly the most bizarre is the
effort of South African wildlife film makers John and Dave Varty to
“save” tigers by introducing captive-born specimens to the “wild” at
their game ranch.
The idea, supposedly, is to prepare the tigers and their
descendants to return to freedom in China, on the eve of the 2008
Olympic Games, if China can protect enough habitat and prey for the
tigers to survive.

BOOKS: Sea Turtles of the World

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

Sea Turtles of the World by Doug Perrine
Voyageur Press (123 N. 2nd St., Stillwater, MN 55082), 2003.
144 pages, 100 color photos, hardcover. $29.95.

The Voyageur Press standard of accuracy applies even to back
cover descriptions, to the point that improving on them can be
frustratingly difficult.
“Through vivid photographs and engaging text, Sea Turtles of
the World provides an in-depth look at the natural history and
conservation issues of these prehistoric-looking reptiles,” says the
back cover of this one, noting chapters on green sea turtles,
loggerheads, hawksbills, olive ridley and Kemp’s ridley turtles,
Australian flatbacks, and leatherbacks.
The only possible argument is that sea turtles are not just
prehistoric-looking. They are in fact prehistoric. Ancestral sea
turtles go back at least 200 million years, and many more varieties
have come and gone than are still with us.

Bush policy & bushmeat

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

WASHINGTON D.C., NAIROBI– Wildlife
policy changes proposed in both the U.S. and
Kenya–and backed by much of the same
money–threaten to replace the principle of
protecting rare species with the notion that even
endangered wildlife should “pay for itself” by
being hunted or captured alive for sale.
The proposed amendments represent such an
extreme interpretation of the “sustainable use”
philosophy advanced since 1936 by the National
Wildlife Federation and since 1961 by the World
Wildlife Fund that even WWF endangered species
program director Susan Lieberman was quick to
denounced the U.S. versions.
“Money doesn’t always mean conservation,”
Lieberman told Washington Post staff writer
Shankar Vedantam. “To me, the theme is allowing
industry to write the rules.”

Wild lions hunted to the verge of extinction

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

LONDON–Wild African lions have been hunted to the brink of
extinction, warn researchers Laurence Frank of the University of
California and David Macdonald of the Oxford University Wildlife
Conserv-ation Research Unit.
Frank, writing in the September 18 edition of New Scientist,
has investigated African lions, hyenas, and other large predators in
Kenya for more than 20 years. Macdonald, editor of the Encyclopedia
of Mammals, directed a recent five-year study of lion conservation
in Zimbabwe and Botswana.
The wild African lion population has fallen from 230,000 to
23,000 in under 20 years, said Frank. Cheetahs have fallen to
15,000 and wild dogs to 5,500 over the same time, but were far fewer
to begin with.
All are in trouble, Frank explained, but lions are declining
the most rapidly, as the most dangerous of the large African
predators and the species most coveted for a trophy.

Mute swan defenders make their voices heard in court

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on
September 17, 2003 agreed to withdraw all permits allowing state and
federal agencies to kill mute swans, settling a lawsuit brought by
the Fund for Animals.
The settlement agreement also requires the Fish & Wildlife
Service to withdraw the Environmental Assessment and Finding of No
Significant Impact that endorsed killing mute swans in 17 states.
“It began with an ill-conceived permit to kill mute swans in
Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, but now the outcome has national
implications for tens of thousands of these graceful and majestic
birds,” Fund for Animals president Michael Markarian said. “The
federal government has pulled the plug on Governor Robert Ehrlich’s
attempt to bow down to Maryland’s corporate polluters and the massive
factory farms–the real causes of damage to Chesapeake Bay–and to
turn defenseless swans into corporate patsies.”
The Ehrlich administration in July 2003 proposed opening a
hunting season on mute swans, which would require U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service approval. Meanwhile, characterizing the allegedly
non-native mute swans as a threat to the ecological integrity of
Chesapeake Bay, Maryland obtained U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
permission to kill up to 3,000 mute swans during the next 10 years.
That authorization is now revoked.

The apartheid legacy in wildlife conservation

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

The apartheid legacy in wildlife conservation
by Chris Mercer, co-director, Kalahari Raptor Centre

Twelve years after Nelson Mandela walked to freedom, South
Africa is still struggling to overcome the crippling legacy of
apartheid in environmental affairs.
Affirmative action appointments are intended to transform and
democratize nature conservation, but the awaited transformation is
slow in coming–and one of the most unfortunate aspects of the delay
is that some of our most ruthless people are meanwhile exporting the
canned hunting industry, which is a legacy of apartheid, throughout
Africa.
Desperately poor nations are too often seduced by the promise
of the money to be made from hunting, demonstrated by some of the
same South African entrepreneurs whose involvement in gun-running and
ivory and rhino horn poaching helped to uphold the apartheid regime
by destabilizing much of the black-ruled portion of the continent.
The apartheid regime instituted three goals for wildlife
management, each directly contributing to the growth and
profitability of the hunting industry, to the detriment of almost
everyone else. These goals were:

Animals in China: from the “four pests” to two signs of hope

October 2, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

Animals in China: from the “four pests” to two signs of hope
by Peter Li

In February 2002, a college student in Sichuan province
microwaved a four-week old puppy, reportedly in retaliation against
his wayward girlfriend.
Five zoo bears were at the same time viciously assaulted with
sulfuric acid at a zoo in Beijing. The perpetrator, Liu Haiyang,
was a student at Tsinghua University, whose alumni include President
Hu Jintao, former Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, and Chairman of China’s
legislature Wu Bangguo.
The public was outraged in each instance, but found solace
in the belief that these were isolated cases.
The subsequent outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
awakened China to the cruel reality of wildlife exploitation across
the country–and put the acts of deranged individuals into the
uncomfortable context of being not far different from business as
usual at live markets and in the traditional medicine trade.
Wildlife has been used in China for human benefit for more
than two thousand years. Because wildlife use is part of the Chinese
culture, it has been widely viewed as politically untouchable.

« 1 … 56 57 58 59 60 … 173 »