BOOKS: Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

March 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo
by Lawrence Anthony, with Graham Spence
Thomas Dunne Books (c/o St. Martin’s Press, 175 5th Ave., New York,
NY 10010), 2007. 240 pages, paperback. $23.95.

At the same time that ANIMAL PEOPLE received a web link to a
video clip of U.S. troops stoning an injured dog in early 2007, we
received a link to another video clip showing lions being released
from cages to kill and eat several donkeys, as soldiers cheered.
“Three times per week the zoo keeper buys donkeys to feed the
starving lions,” the caption said.
This is not how Earth Organization founder Lawrence Anthony
taught the Baghdad Zoo staff to operate, after making his way there
from South Africa because he thought the zoo animals might need help
after the U.S. military invaded Baghdad in May 2003.

Thailand re-examines tiger sale

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:

BANGKOK–The Thai National Counter Corruption Commission is
reportedly re-investigating the long controversial export in 2002 of
100 tigers from the Sri Racha Tiger Zoo in Chon Buri to a privately
owned zoo or tiger farm, depending on definitions, in Hainan,
China.
“Ex-forest department chief Plodprasop Suraswadi allegedly
delivered those tigers to China without approval from the National
Wildlife Protection Committee,” wrote Apinya Wipatayotin of the
Bangkok Post. “The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
once set up a probe panel to look into the case. The committee later
concluded Plodprasop did not commit any offence,” but observers were
less convinced.

Ethiopian zoo poisons lion cubs

December 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2006:
ADDIS ABABA–“Rare Abyssin-ian lion cubs are being poisoned
and sold to taxidermists” at the Lion Zoo in Ethiopia, Associated
Press correspondent Les Neuhaus disclosed on November 22, 2006.
“These animals are the pride of our country, but our only
alternative right now is to send them to the taxidermist,” Neuhaus
quoted Lion Zoo director Muhedin Abdulaziz. Abdulaziz said the cubs’
remains fetch about $178 apiece, and that his staff had poisoned six
cubs in 2006.
Built in 1948 by the late emperor Haile Selassie, the Lion
Zoo housed 16 adult lions and five cubs when Neuhaus visited.
Both Abdulaziz and Lion Zoo assistant veterinarian
Yedenekachew Sahelu denied to Efrem Legese and Hana Kifle of the
Homeless Animals Protection Society of Ethiopia that any cubs were
poisoned in 2006.

BOOKS: The Ocean At Home: An Illustrated History of the Aquarium

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

The Ocean At Home:
An Illustrated History of the Aquarium
by Bernd Brunner
Princeton Architectural Press
(37 E. 7th Ave., New York, NY 10003), 2005.
144 pages, hardcover. $24.95.

Originally published in German, printed in China, newly
reissued in English, The Ocean At Home is a surprisingly fascinating
in-depth study of a seemingly esoteric topic whose evolution in the
19th and early 20th centuries paralleled the rise of the humane
movement, anti-vivisectionism, and human awareness of ecology.
Even before Charles Darwin produced On The Origin of Species,
the 19th century brought an explosion of interest in nature study,
especially among the fast-growing middle classes of Europe after the
Industrial Revolution removed large numbers of people from routine
daily immersion in raising plants and animals.

No more polar bears at Singapore Zoo

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
SINGAPORE–Singapore Zoo director Fanny Lai told Reuters on
September 7, 2006 that the zoo will no longer exhibit Arctic and
Antarctic animals after the eventual death of Sheba, 29, the elder
of the two polar bears on exhibit at the zoo.
Singapore is located just north of the equator.
Lai told Reuters that she has asked the Rostock Zoo in
Germany, manager of the global captive polar bear survival plan, to
find a more suitable home for Inuka, 16, who is to be moved after
Sheba dies.

Accra zoo to be rebuilt

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
ACCRA, Ghana–The Accra Zoo, serving about 120,000 visitors
per year, is to be relocated and rebuilt over the next five years,
Ghanian minister of lands, forestry, and mines Dominic Fobih
announced on August 1, 2006. The animals are to be moved to the
Kumasi Zoo, about 200 miles inland, by the end of September 2006 to
make room for a new presidential complex. The new zoo is to be built
with the help of the London Zoological Society, Fobih said.
Founded as first Ghanian president Kwame Nkrumah’s private
menagerie in the early 1960s, the Accra Zoo opened to the public
after his overthrow in 1966.

Help at last for the Addis Ababa zoo

October 1, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

ADDIS ABABA–That little was done for more than 30 years to
improve the Haile Selassie Zoo in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, might be
no surprise, in view of the usually dilapidated state of African
zoos–but the zoo holds a well-documented population of the rarest of
all lion subspecies, believed to be the oldest captive lion colony
in existence.
The black-maned Atlas lion, Barbary lion, or Lion of Judah,
hauled to Imperial Rome by the thousands for use and slaughter in
Colossium spectacles, was extirpated from Libya by 1700, from Egypt
by 1800, from Tunisia in 1891, from Algeria in 1912, and from
Morocco in 1921. This was a year after the lion was deleted from the
World Encyclopedia of Animals as already extinct.

Thailand hits traffickers in wildlife & dog meat

December 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2003:

BANGKOK–Thai national police raided two major zoos, seized
33,000 animals from suspected poachers and wildlife traffickers, and
arrested bunchers for Laotian and Vietnamese dog meat vendors as well
during the first six weeks of an unprecedented national crackdown on
illegal animal sales.
Caught in the dragnet were three major exhibition venues:
Safari World Inc., raided on November 22 and found to be missing 14
tigers supposed to be on its inventory; the Si Racha Tiger Farm,
raided on November 27; and the Phuket Fantasea theme park, owned by
Safari World Inc., where the 14 missing tigers were discovered on
December 4.

BOOKS: You Belong in a Zoo!

December 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2003:

You Belong In A Zoo! by Peter Brazaitis
Villard Books (299 Park Ave., New York, NY 10171), 2003.
368 pages. Hardcover, $24.95.

A globally recognized reptile expert, author of many
scientific papers and often called as an expert witness in
herpetological smuggling cases, Peter Brazaitis spent his whole
working life with the Wildlife Conservation Society. He began at the
Bronx Zoo when WCS was still called the New York Zoological Society,
and retired as first curator of the Central Park Zoo, following a
six-year closure for renovation.

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