Orangutans in Kalimantan coal smoke & heated dispute

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

DENVER–Underground coal fires beneath Kalimantan province,
Indonesia, could exterminate the island’s orangutans and sun bears,
Indonesian Ministry of Energy coalfield fire project chief Alfred
Whitehouse and East Georgia College professor Glenn Stracher told the
American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference
in Denver on February 15, 2003.
Of the 20,000 remaining wild orangutans, about 15,000 live
in Kalimantan, Wbitehouse and Stracher said. Already imperiled by
habitat loss due to logging and slash-and-burn agriculture,
orangutans have now lost about half of Kutain National Park due to
underground fires and lethal smoke, according to Whitehouse and
Stracher.
The Kalimantan coal reserves apparently ignited after
slash-and-burn fires raced out of control during the drought years of
1997 and 1998. razing an area the size of Costa Rica. Since then,
at least 159 separate underground fires and perhaps as many as 3,000
have evaporated groundwater and dried surface vegetation, allowing
more fires to start and burn uncontrolled on the surface. The fires
emit as much carbon dioxide per year as all the motor vehicles in the
U.S. combined, Whitehouse and Stracher said.

Niger activists oppose Arab hunting

March 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

NIAMEY, Niger–“Animal rights campaigners in Niger are
protesting against the Niger government’s decision to allow visitors
from the Persian Gulf to hunt protected animals and birds,” Idy
Baroau of BBC reported on January 9. Barou said the activists, led
by environmentalist politician Ibrahim Sani, had filed a formal
complaint against the issuance of permits to kill gazelles and
capture birds of prey.
“The Gulf princes have been using big-caliber guns and cargo
planes to carry their booty,” Baroau added. “In response to the
criticism, Abdou Mamane, a spokesman for the Ministry of Animal
Resources and the Environment, said that the Arab guests had paid
$300,000 to get carte blanche to hunt in Niger.”

Highland Farm & Gibbon Sanctuary animals seized in Thai crackdown

January 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2003:

Phop Phra, Tak, Thailand–Thai forestry officials trying to
halt illegal wildlife farming on November 27, 2002 raided the
Highland Farm & Gibbon Sanctuary, where on May 10 cofounder William
Emeral Deters, 69, housekeeper Ratchanee Sonkhamleu, 26, her
three-year-old daughter, Hmong worker Laeng sae Yang, and a Thai
worker known only as Subin were massacred during a botched robbery.
The forestry department on November 28 seized 126 sambar elk
from an alleged illegal antler farm in Kanchanburi province, and may
have been confused by the use of the word “farm” in the name of the
Highland Farm sanctuary.

Russian, Korean, & Chinese pelt demand drives U.S. fur trapping

January 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2003:

SEATTLE, VANCOUVER, NEW ORLEANS-“The main markets for
trapped fur are in Russia, Korea, and China,” Seattle fur broker
Irwin Goldberg told Joel Gay of the Anchorage Daily News in December
2002. Goldberg said river otter pelts were selling to China this
winter at about half again the average price of recent years.
“Illinois’ raccoon population has declined about 10%,
officials say, largely because of demand for their pelts in the
former Soviet Union,” recently wrote Jay Hughes of Associated Press.
Killing 86,673 raccoons in 2000-2001, Illinois trappers
raised the total to 165,373 in 2001-2002, 76% of the animals they
skinned, and more than doubled their income, which rose from
$682,000 to $1.4 million.

Immunocontraception comes of age

January 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2003:

BILLINGS, RENO, WHITEHORSE–Immunocontraceptives for dogs,
cats, and deer are still not quite here yet, but widespread
applications and planned deployments involving bears, elephants,
wolves, and wild horses indicate that immunocontraception of
wildlife may at last be close to losing the qualifying adjective
“experimental”– at least in the species that are easiest to inject
and keep track of.
New Jersey Department of Environ-mental Protection
commissioner Bradley Campbell announced in November 2002 that his
agency hopes to test immunocontraceptives to control bears this
spring. The New Jersey bear population has increased from an
estimated 100 in 1970, when the state last opened a bear hunting
season, to as many as 2,500 according to much disputed official
figures. An attempt to resume bear hunting in 2000 was quashed by
adverse public opinion.

High-energy post-Soviet activists do everything but raise money

January 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2003:

MOSCOW, KIEV, KHARKOV-A sociologist or political scientist
probably could not design a better comparative experiment in starting
an animal advocacy movement than is now underway in Moscow, the
largest city in Russia, and Kiev and Kharkov, the two largest
cities in the Ukraine.
Russia and the Ukraine are neighbors, the most prominent
remnants of the former Soviet Union, sharing parallel history,
ethnicity, and standards of living, and post-Soviet birth rates
that are among the seven lowest in the world, but have active
rivalries dating back more than 1,000 years.
Their ancient kings conquered each other, their forced
alliances held Napoleon and Hitler at bay, and they are now racing
into economic development and social/political westernization at a
breakneck pace.

Ivory dealer vanishes after CITES eases ban

January 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2003:

SANTIAGO, Chile; Lilongwe, Malawi–Peter Wang, also known
as Peter Onn, Y.S. Wong, and Wang Yong Shi, recently eluded a
police cordon around his home in Lilongwe, Malawi, and disappeared
just as he was about to be arrested, revealed correspondent Rory
Carroll of The Guardian on December 27, 2002.
“Investigators have told The Guardian,” Carroll wrote,
“that an apparent breakthrough in June against a vast smuggling
network has evaporated. Six metric tons of ivory bound for Japan,”
representing the deaths of about 600 elephants, “was intercepted in
Singapore, but the ringleaders escaped and the trafficking
continues, leaving game parks littered with mutilated carcasses.”
Wang, Carroll said, “is accused of being the lynchpin in a
network of African poachers and Asian buyers who flouted the global
ivory trade ban introduced in 1989.”

New Kenya Wildlife Service chief is hired away from IFAW

January 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2003:

NAIROBI-Michael Wamithi, who opened the East Africa office
of the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Nairobi in 1999 and
had headed it ever since, was on November 27 named to succeed Joe
Kioko as chief of the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Kioko retired on Novem-ber 21, after one year as director.
Previously, Kioko was assistant director under preceding directors
Nehemiah Rotich, Richard Leakey, and David Western.
Wamithi before joining IFAW was for 14 years a KWS staffer,
in posts including warden of Nairobi and Amboseli national parks,
assistant warden of Tsavo National Park, and assistant director of
KWS intelligence.

Tongdaeng the street dog reawakens Thai sense of duty toward animals

January 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2003:

BANGKOK–For the second time in five years a street dog has
grabbed the attention and affection of Thailand, reminding Thais
that kindness toward animals is a national tradition as well as a
Buddhist teaching and moral obligation.
Among modern nations, only India has a longer documented
history of acknowledging duties toward animals. At that, the
difference is slim. The animal-loving Indian emperor Asoka sent
missionaries to Thailand to teach Buddhism in the third century B.C.,
only 250 years after the Buddha died.

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