Is Osama stealing milk from elephant babies?

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

NAIROBI, Kenya–Checks sent directly to the David Sheldrick
Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage in Nairobi National Park, Kenya,
have recently been diverted, prompting founder Daphne Sheldrick to
remind donors to route their support via the trust office at 158
Newbattle Abbey Crescent, Eskbank, Midlothian EH22 3LR, Scotland,
U.K.
“On July 8 of this year,” one donor told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “I
wrote a check for $50 to the Sheldrick Trust, which I proceeded to
send to the Nairobi address. My bank returned the check to me
altered to list the amount as $4,000, credited to the Arab Bank in
Deira, Dubai. Unfortunately I had enough in my checking account to
honor the amount, but the bank is repairing the damage and I won’t
be charged for it.”

Legislative Calendar

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

U.S. President George W. Bush on August 12 vetoed a $17.9
million Congressional appropriation of emergency funding to combat
Chronic Wasting Disease. Similar to “mad cow disease,” CWD attacks
deer and elk. Identified among captive deer and elk herds in
Colorado as far back as 1966, it was long regarded as an isolated
curiosity –but within the past year it has been detected as far east
as Wisconsin, as far north as Alberta and Manitoba, and as far
south as the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Suspicions are
growing, meanwhile, that like “mad cow disease,” it has begun
attacking and killing humans who eat the diseased portions of
infected animals. Part of a $5.1 billion anti-terrorism package,
the appropriation would have allocated $14.9 million to the USDA
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, $2 million to the
Agricultural Research Service, and $1 million to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. The federal agencies were in turn to
grant the money to their state counterpart agencies. Bush said he
vetoed the appropriation because the $5.1 billion bill included too
many other unrelated riders, such as funding for AIDS prevention and
aid to Israel and Palestine.

Free Willy/Keiko swims to Norway

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

OSLO–Swimming up to 100 miles a day with pods of 40 to 80
wild orcas, spending 41 consecutive days at sea, Keiko in August
2002 seemed to be a free whale at last –or so said the Humane
Society of the U.S., which took over his care in June 2002, about
six months after the top funder of the former Free Willy/Keiko
Foundation quit the project.
Then Keiko on September 1 swam into Skaalvik Fjord, Norway,
250 miles northwest of Oslo.
“The orca surprised and delighted Norwegians, who petted and
swam with him, and climbed on his back,” reported Doug Mellgren of
Associated Press.

Banning exotic & dangerous wildlife for the animals’ sake

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

WACO, Texas–As the living conditions of large carnivores
and exotic wildlife in private hands go, the mascot bears at Baylor
University in Waco, Texas, are better off than most. The
six-month-old baby bear has a toy: an orange cone. Some say it
resembles a Baylor cheerleader’s megaphone. Others call it a dunce
cap. The 18-month-old senior bear has a multi-level enclosure. Both
bears have pools. Few roadside zoos or backyard menageries offer
comparable amenities–but few are as visible to as many well-educated
people, who might recognize conditions falling far short of optimal
for the animals.
Baylor recently did something about that, after the bears’
stereotypical pacing, filthy water, and lack of any way to get off
the bare concrete drew protest: someone put up a plywood fence to
inhibit casual viewing.

BOOKS: Wolves At Our Door

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

Wolves At Our Door
by Jim & Jamie Dutcher , with James Manful
Pocket Books (c/o Simon & Schuster, 1230 Ave. of the Americas,
New York, NY 10020), 2002. 302 pages, hardcover. $26.00.

Emmy Award-winning documentary film maker Jim Dutcher began
writing Wolves At Our Door as an intended “behind-the-scenes look at
the making of a wildlife documentary,” also called Wolves at Our
Door, which he produced for the Discovery Channel. But just making
the documentary took much longer than was originally planned. The
Dutchers ended up spending six years on site, because making the
film itself, complicated as that was, turned out to be less
problematic than ethically placing the wolves that they raised in
captivity–albeit very spacious captivity–in order to do the filming.

BOOKS: The New Wolves

October 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

The New Wolves: the Return
of the Mexican Wolf to the
American Southwest by Rick Bass
The Lyons Press (123 W. 18th St., New York, NY 10011), 1998,
paperback 2001. 165 pages. $14.95 paperback.

The New Wolves, by Rick Bass, is a comparatively
uncomplicated narrative of the beginning phase of reintroducing the
extirpated Mexican gray wolf to New Mexico and Arizona. The
reintroduction took wolves raised for generations in captivity, and
reacclimated them to life in the wild.

Down Under bioxenophobia intensifies– Aliens in their native land

September 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

LEURA, New South Wales, Australia–Twenty-six years after
convening the first meeting of Animal Liberation Australia, 12 years
after venturing to India, Christine Townend has returned home. She
and her retired lawyer husband Jeremy Townend are back more-or-less
to stay–while making frequent visits to India to supervise their
ongoing humane projects.
Yet Townend admits she often feels like an alien. She senses
a meanness of spirit in Australia now that she did not
previously recognize, in her past
careers as activist, teacher, poet, short story writer, and
investigative author, whose 1985 book Pulling The Wool remains the
classic expose of the Down Under sheep trade.
Then, Townend believed, rough Australian treatment of
animals was mainly from ignorance. Behind the Aussie swagger and
bluster, she believed, were good hearts, who could be brought
around to treating all animals with kindness. She has become less
optimistic.

BOOKS: The Ghosts of Tsavo, Ivory Markets, Wild Orphans, and Tarra

September 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

The Ghosts of Tsavo
by Philip Caputo
Adventure Press (c/o National Geographic Society,
1145 17th St. NW, Washington, DC 20036), 2002. 275 pages,
hardcover. $27.00.

The South & South East Asian Ivory Markets
by Esmond Martin & Daniel Stiles
Save the Elephants (c/o Ambrose Appelbe, 7 New Square, Lincoln’s
Inn, London WC2A 3RA, U.K.)
88 pages, paperback. No listed price.

Wild Orphans
by Gerry Ellis
Welcome Books (588 Broadway, New York, NY 10012), 2002. 136
pages, illust., hardcover. $24.95.

Travels With Tarra
by Carol Buckley
Tilbury House Publishers (2 Mechanic Street #3, Gardiner, ME 04345), 2002.
40 pages, illustrated, hardcover. $16.95.

Save The Elephants ivory trade investigators Esmond Martin
and Daniel Stiles, circus elephant trainer turned sanctuarian Carol
Buckley, and Daphne Sheldrick, whose elephant orphanage in Nairobi
National Park, Kenya, is subject of photojournalist Gerry Ellis’
Wild Orphans, each grasp and have devoted much of their lives to
addressing different parts of the mystique of elephants–and the
dilemma of how best to save them from extinction and abuse.
Ellis recently joined them by forming the Foundation for
Global Biodiversity Education for Children, Globio for short.
Globio assists six animal orphanages on five continents, including
the Sheldrick orphanage.

“Invasive” means any species that somebody hates

September 1, 2002 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

WASHINGTON D.C.–Australia and New Zealand may be the most
bioxenophobic of nations, with Britain (page 9) not far behind, but
environmental eugenics have a strong following in the U.S. as well.
Attempting to eradicate non-native species from land holdings
is in fact official policy of the U.S. National Park Service, The
Nature Conservancy, and many other government agencies and
non-governmental organizations involved in conservation.
Paradoxically, some government agencies and nonprofit
hunting clubs are still translocating and introducing populations of
the same species that others are attempting to get rid of. Even as
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moves to reclassify nonmigratory
giant Canada geese in the Great Lakes region as an “invasive” pest
species, for instance, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources
translocated 4,100 of the geese from the Detroit area to Chelsea,
Iowa, and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources translocated
262 geese from Horicon to Black River Falls.

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