Category: Wild Animals

Kenya Wildlife chief Leakey given whole civil service

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

NAIROBI––Stating, “The time has come to give
public jobs to those who can deliver,” Kenyan president
Daniel arap Moi on July 20 promoted Kenya Wildlife Service
director Richard Leakey to the post of permanent secretary in
the office of the president, making him head of the entire
Kenya civil service and secretary to the cabinet.
“Leakey, 54, a third generation Kenyan who was in
his second stint as director of the KWS, has a reputation for
efficiency and thoroughness,” explained Emman Omari of
The Nation, the leading Kenyan newspaper. Leakey previously
headed KWS from 1988 until mid-1994, a year after losing
both legs in a plane crash but gaining public stature with his
swift return to duty.
Resigning in frustration with arap Moi minions who
hoped to open Kenya to commercial hunting, Leakey formed
Safina, a leading opposition party, and was elected to the
Kenyan parliament. After arap Moi personally denounced
Leakey, a pro-arap Moi mob dragged him from his car and
flogged him––but when KWS became “a staff-bloated organization
wallowing in cash flow problems,” as Nation reporter
Ken Opala put it, arap Moi put Leakey back in charge.

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Australians want to sell fruit bats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

KUALA LUMPUR––Nipah virus
antibodies have been found in fruit bats in
Perak, Malaysia, confirming suspicion that
the deadly disease spread from bats to pigs
and then to people.
Nipah virus killed at least 108
Malaysians in the first six months of 1999,
all of whom lived or worked on pig farms.
More than a million pigs were slaughtered to
contain the disease, causing economic hardship
to about 300,000 people.
It is still premature to name fruit
bats as the natural hosts of the Nipah disease,
cautioned Australian Animal Research
Institute veterinary epidemiologist Hume
Field, who announced the discovery of the
antibodies in fruit bats on July 21.

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Editorial: Scapegoating alien invaders for real-world trouble

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

The beaver-like nutria, apart from being a mammal and a vegetarian, does not much
resemble a goat. Yet St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, following the earlier example of
Jefferson Parish and the self-serving 10-year-old doctrine of the Louisiana Department of
Wildlife and Fisheries, has now officially begun to treat nutria as an all-purpose scapegoat for
infrastructure damage.
Late on July 20, five members of the St. Bernard Parish SWAT team shot 20 nutria
in a public park. The shooting amounted, however, to little more than target practice, possibly
doing more to discourage after-hours human park traffic than to cut the nutria population.
Jefferson Parish police have shot nutria by the thousand since 1995. Yet Jefferson
Parish still seems to have as many nutria as ever, because the habitat still favors them, and
any successful species tends to breed up to the carrying capacity of the habitat, countering
predation by breeding faster. More intense predation brings faster breeding still.

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A Mickey Mouse take on Africa: AND WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

TOWN, HARARE, KAMPALA,
KILGALI, MAPUTO, NAIROBI– – T h e
defining attraction at Walt Disney’s Wild
Animal Kingdom is a 20-minute Mickey
Mouse version of an African photo safari.
Canvas-topped four-wheel drive
trucks haul guests on a jolting, twisting,
splashing drive through fake savannah and
jungle so seemingly real that many ask how
Disney moved the 400-year-old baobab
trees––or are they also native to Florida?
The fake baobabs stand among
more than 100,000 real African and Asian
trees which were either transplanted or grown
at the site, along with examples of 1,800
species of moss, ferns, and perennials, and
350 kinds of grass, each specific to the needs
of particular creatures.

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U.N., U.S. plan world war on feral wildlife

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

TOKYO––Representatives of the 175 nations that
have endorsed the United Nations Convention on Biological
Diversity––including the U.S.––are to assemble in Nairobi,
Kenya, in May 2000 to draft guidelines for purging and blocking
the spread of alleged invasive species. The guidelines are
to be presented for ratification by the CBD members in 2001.
Once ratified, they could constitute a global mandate
in support of the forthcoming recommendations of the cabinetlevel
Invasive Species Council created by U.S. President Bill
Clinton on February 2, under orders to “mobilize the federal
government to defend against aggressive predators and pests.”
The mobilization is to be underway by August 2000.
The definition of “aggressive predators and pests”
addressed by both the CBD and Invasive Species Council could
include––among many other species––feral cats; feral pigs;
the mountain goats of Olympic National Park in Washington
state; street pigeons; starlings; the parrot colonies of San
Francisco, Florida, and the New York City metropolitan area;
and all wild horses and burros on public land except Bureau of
Land Management holdings, where they enjoy limited “squatters’
rights” under the 1971 Wild And Free Ranging Horse and
Burro Protection Act.

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REVIEW: The Life of Birds

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

The Life of Birds
Five-volume video series
hosted by David Attenborough
BBC production, distributed by
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
10 hours. $89.98.

Two hours of The Life of Birds cover the
evolution of flight, three examine avian diet, one
focuses on communication, single hours look at
mating, nesting, and parenting, and the last hour
discusses adaptation to hostile environments.
The cinematography may be matched,
but is unlikely to ever be exceeded for drama and
variety, in part because The Life of Birds includes
many rare looks at species seldom seen, native to
the most remote corners of the world, and perhaps
soon to vanish, victims of habitat loss. As the press
materials boast, Attenborough’s crews took ultraslow-motion,
night vision, and micro-mini cameras
to 42 nations, flying 250,000 miles to capture
the most memorable possible shots of more than
300 species, at total cost of $12 million.

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Whalers’ covert strategy confirmed

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

TOKYO, VICTORIA (B.C)– –
Whaling industry revival strategies long suspected
by ANIMAL PEOPLE and the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society were bluntly
confirmed in early June, soon after the annual
International Whaling Commission meeting
ended in Grenada without lifting the 1986
global moratorium on commercial whaling.
Citing Hideki Moronuki of the
Japanese ministry for agriculture, forests, and
fisheries as her source, Mari Yamaguchi of
Associated Press on June 3 reported from
Tokyo that “In a bid to gain support for commercial
whaling, Japan hopes to coax developing
countries to join the IWC by giving
them financial assistance. Aid will be given,”
Yamaguchi continued, “to countries that have
been reluctant to join the IWC for fear of damaging
their diplomatic and economic ties with
the West” if they favor whaling.
Moronuki argued that whales, rather
than aggressive fishing led by the Japanese
fleet, are chiefly responsible for globally
declining catches.

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Jacques Cousteau’s Silent World

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

PARIS––Bernard Violet, author of
a 1993 biography of the late undersea explorer
and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau, on June 17
disclosed documents he said he had obtained
since Cousteau’s death that may belie many of
Cousteau’s claims about his early career.
Violet likened Cousteau’s alleged
autobiographical misrepresentations to later
instances in which Cousteau used abusive
techniques to get dramatic film footage of wild
marine mammals––techniques which
Cousteau himself eventually acknowledged,
regreted in public statements, and denounced,
even as the films he made helped to create the
international movements to save whales, seals,
and other marine life.

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What seals, bears, coyotes, lynx, pumas, and foxes have in common

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

The House of Commons fisheries committee in early June yanked and rewrote at a secret meeting a scientific report on the interaction of seals and cod off Atlantic Canada to recommend that seals be totally extirpated from northeastern Newfoundland, the southern and northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, and elsewhere “as deemed necessary” to keep seals out of the depleted cod fishery. The rewrite reportedly reversed the findings and recommendations of the committee’s scientific advisors, and was presented to media as “unanimously approved,” while dissenter Peter Stoffer (New Democratic Party, British Columbia) was attending his father’s funeral. The 1999 Atlantic Canada seal hunt ended in June with a reported toll of 244,552 harp seals and 201 hooded seals killed: 89% of the harp seal quota, and just 2% of the hooded seal quota. “Because many seals are shot or clubbed and then escape to die beneath the ice, and because many dead animals are discarded and not properly counted, the actual kill of harp seals in 1999 was probably between 400,000 and 500,000,” projected International Fund for Animal Welfare spokesperson Rick Smith. Many sealers admitted dumping seal carcasses this year, as prices for them collapsed in a glutted market.

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