Helping donkeys in Middle East & Central Asia

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk offended numerous Jewish groups
in January 2003 with a letter to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
protesting the use of a donkey as an unwitting “suicide bomber” on
January 26.
Newkirk also mentioned “stray cats in your own compound” who
“fled as best they could” from Israeli forces, but made no objection
to the human toll in the ongoing Israeli/Palestianian strife.
The recorded history of harsh treatment and overwork of
donkeys in the Middle East dates at least to the time of Moses, when
Balaam’s donkey reputedly spoke out on her own behalf.

BOOKS: Bird Hand Book

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Bird Hand Book
Photographs by Victor Schrager, text by A.S. Byatt
Graphis (307 5th Ave, 10th floor, New York, NY 100016), 2001.
128 pages, hardcover. $60.00.

Beautifully photographed, as one would expect from from
Victor Schrager, in sepia rather than stark black-and-white or the
often explosive color of the birds depicted, Bird Hand Book at first
glance appears to offer nothing more provocative than just 98 birds
perching on human hands, with a few words beside each bird by
novelist A.S. Byatt or quoted from someone famous.

BOOKS: America’s National Wildlife Refuges

May 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

America’s National Wildlife Refuges:
a complete guide
by Russell D. Butcher
Roberts Rinehart Publishers in cooperation with Ducks Unlimited
(c/o Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 4501 Forbes Blvd.,
Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706), 2003.
714 pages. $29.95.

Published in honor of the 100th anniversary of the founding
of the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge system, America’s National
Wildlife Refuges: a complete guide exists, like the refuges
themselves, in part because of funding from Ducks Unlimited.
Hunter/conservationists help to finance the acquisition of
wildlife refuges through taxes on hunting and fishing gear, as well
as through grants by organizations such as Ducks Unlimited and The
Nature Conserv-ancy–and view this as entitling them to have extra
say in how the refuges are managed.

Chickens, pigeons & sea lions go to war; Brooke Hospital hopes to help Iraq zoos

April 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

BAGHDAD–Sentinel chickens deployed to detect poison gas
attacks were among the first casualties of the March 2003 U.S.
invasion of Iraq–but they were not gassed, and they never left the
Kuwait staging area, where they were distributed to the U.S. Marines
in February.
Exactly what killed 42 of the 43 chickens was unclear. Avian
influenza and heat stress were among the theorized possibilities.
Contrary to some reports, the birds were in the care of experienced
chicken handlers.

R.I.P. Vancouver crested mynas

April 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

VANCOUVER, B.C.–The usual fate of introduced species, even
if they thrive for a time, is to die out eventually from inability
to cope with the climate changes, predators, diseases, and food
competition in their new habitat.
Vancouver Sun reporter Larry Pynn on March 1 eulogized such a
species failure.
“A native of China and Indochina,” Pynn wrote, “the crested
myna was introduced to Vancouver in the 1890s, perhaps arriving as
stowaways aboard a ship or as pets released by Chinese immigrants.
By the 1920s they numbered in the thousands, living as far afield as
Ladner and New Westminster.”

Hedgehog rescuers face a prickly situation off the Scottish coast

April 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

EDINBURGH–Operation Tiggywinkle was to
commence at dawn on March 27, 2003 in the
Western Isles off Scotland.
Ross Minott, campaign director for the
Scots group Advocates for Animals, was to lead a
20-member volunteer team ashore to try to rescue
an estimated 5,000 hedgehogs from the islands of
North Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist, ahead
of death squads to be sent in April by Scottish
National Heritage.
The hedgehogs were introduced to the Western
Isles in 1974 as an attempted biological control
for garden slugs and snails who annoyed the 6,000
human residents of the islands. Eventually the
hedgehogs came to be considered pests themselves.

Puddicome v.s. National Park Service

April 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.– To the National Park Service, Santa
Barbara bus driver and Channel Islands Animal Protection Association
founder Rob Puddicombe, 52, is an eco-terrorist. Puddicome is
expected to go to trial soon for allegedly illegally feeding wildlife
and interfering with the functions of a federal agency. If
convicted, he faces up to one year in prison.
Puddicome, according to the Park Service, sailed an 11-foot
inflatable boat to Anacapa Island in October 2001 with Robert
Crawford, 40, of Goleta, and distributed at least five pounds of
Vitamin K pellets as an intended antidote to the poison the Park
Service dumped from helicopters repeatedly during 2002 to kill black
rats.

Wolves may be left with nowhere to run

April 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on March
18 began the process of downlisting grey wolves in the Lower 48
mainland states from “endangered” to “threatened” status, except for
Mexican grey wolves in Arizona and New Mexico and the reintroduced
population in and around Yellowstone National Park.
USFWS said there are now about 664 wolves in the Yellowstone
ecosystem, 2,445 wolves in Minnesota, where they were downlisted in
1978, and 600 in Wisconsin and Michigan.

BOOKS: The Raven Who Spoke With God

April 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

The Raven Who Spoke With God by Christopher Foster
Singing Spirit Books (4127 Ash Ct., Loveland, CO 80538), 2001.
148 pages, paperback. $12.95.

Joshua, The Raven Who Spoke With God, is more-or-less kin
to Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the title-bird of the 1973 best
seller by Richard Bach, reissued to renewed success in 1995. Those
who like spiritual bird stories seem to be as enthralled with Joshua
as they were with Jonathan, judging from the many rave reviews
published elsewhere.

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