Can “National Heritage” status save elephants in ever more crowded, faster moving India?

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

DELHI, GUWAHATI– The largest of land animals, but neither
faster than a poacher’s speeding bullet nor more powerful than a
locomotive, elephants are now officially protected with tigers as
“National Heritage Animals of India,” declared Indian environment
and animal welfare minister Jairam Ramesh on October 21, 2010.
Unclear is whether National Heritage status will help elephants any
more than it has helped tigers, who since gaining their National
Heritage designation in 1973 have been poached and illegally poisoned
for preying upon livestock to the verge of extinction across most of
India.
National Herit-age status helped to secure land and funding
for tiger conservation, and for about 30 years the tiger population
was believed to be recovering, but more recent findings have shown a
steep decline that was not previously noticed due to faulty research
and corrupt management in some tiger reserves.

Awards & Honors

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton on October 10, 2010
received the 15th annual ProMED-mail Award for Excellence in Outbreak
Reporting on the Internet, presented by the International Society
for Infectious Diseases for contributions to the identification and
control of emerging disease. Past winners include leading members of
the teams who identified mad cow disease in humans, the H5N1 avian
influenza, Nipah virus, and Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
Clifton was honored for contributions that led to identifying fruit
bats as the host species for Nipah virus in April 1999; helping to
identify the roles of cockfighting and falconing in the migration of
H5N1; identifying aspects of halal slaughter as the probable source
of outbreaks of the tick-borne Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever among
Central Asian meat industry workers in 2009-2010; and especially,
said ProMed-mail editor Larry Madoff, for contributions to
epidemiological understanding of the cultural factors involved in the
spread and control of canine rabies in India, China, Indonesia,
and Vietnam.

Sammi & Becca

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)
EDINBURGH–Sammi and Becca, a pair of five-month-old Red
River piglets, a species native to Africa, were killed in January
2010 at the Edinburgh Zoo. Their deaths came to light in October
2010.
Edinburgh Zoo head keeper of hoofstock Kathleen Graham said
when Sammi and Becca were born on August 14, 2009 that she was
“thrilled” that the zoo’s Red River pigs had bred for the first time
since 2004, and hoped that “this is the first of many contributions
our Red River pigs make to the breeding program.” But Sammi and
Becca were killed after the European Association of Zoos & Aquaria
informed the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland that Red River pigs
are overabundant in captivity.

Obituaries [Oct 2010]

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do
lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.”
–William Shakespeare
Robert J. White, M.D., 84, died on September 16, 2010 at
his home in Geneva, Ohio from complications of diabetes and prostate
cancer. Recalled Grant Segall of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “White
founded the MetroHealth Medical Center neurosurgery department and
Pope John Paul II’s Committee on Bioethics. He belonged to the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences and stumped for what he considered the
right to life at all ages. He examined Vladimir Lenin’s preserved
brain, consulted with Boris Yelstin’s doctors, and joined the
medical team treating John Paul II’s critical injuries from gunshots.

Obituaries

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

An Inconvenient Elephant
by Judy Reene Singer
HarperCollins Publishers
(10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022), 2010.
388 pages, paperback. $14.99.

How do you rescue an elephant on death row in Zimbabwe from New York?
An Inconvenient Elephant is a sequel to novelist Judy Reene
Singer’s 2007 hit Still Life With Elephant. The plot this time
appears to have been inspired by the January 2008 shooting of an
elephant in Charara, Zimbabwe, who was called both Tusker and
Dustbin, a week after he blundered into a New Year’s Eve party.

Reviews

BOOKS: It’s a Grand Life

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

It’s a Grand Life by Barry Tuddenham
Cats Anonymous Rescue & Adoption
(R.R. #3, Orton, Ontario L0N 1N0, Canada), 2008. Paperback, $12.00.

Published as a fundraiser for Cats Anonymous Rescue &
Adoption, It’s a Grand Life is a grand collection of photographs
and stories about animals who live on the banks of the Grand River in
Ontario, one of three Grand Rivers that drain into the Great Lakes.
Author/photographer Barry Tuddenham never actually specifies
which Grand River his work documents, but the wildlife of all three
Grand Rivers overlap.

Wildlife trafficking & alleged criminal genius

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

NEW DELHI–The Supreme Court of India on October 20, 2010
upheld the conviction of wildlife poacher and trafficker Sansar Chand
for possession of leopard skins.
Chand has been the most notorious poacher and trafficker in
India–and perhaps the world, rivaled only by international reptile
dealer Anson Wong, the so-called “Lizard King,” on trial in Malaysia
as the October 2010 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press. The
tabloid notoriety of both Chand and Wong has ascended since the
October 2004 death of Koose Munisamy Veerappan in a shootout with a
Tamil Nadu special task force sent to try to take him prisoner.

BOOKS: Orphans of Katrina

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

Orphans of Katrina
by Karen O’Toole
Give A Dog A Bone Press
(P.O. Box 5665, Carefree, AZ 85377), 2010. 244 pages, paperback. $16.96.

On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina beat up New Orleans and
the Gulf Coast, sending frightened residents fleeing for safety.
Hurricane Rita followed. Tens of thousands of dogs, cats and other
animals were left behind, mostly by people who were at work and
unable to get back home when Katrina hit, or expected to be away for
just hours or days, not months or forever.

BOOKS: CAFO

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations):
The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories edited by Daniel Imhoff
Watershed Media (513 Brown Street, Healdsburg,
CA 95448), 2010. 400 pages, hardcover. 450
photographs. $50.00.

CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations) is the latest and probably most
ambitious yet of a 20-volume series of coffee
table books produced by Watershed Media founder
Daniel Imhoff to help bring public attention to
major but often overlooked environmental issues.
CAFO is the fourth Imhoff edition to
address factory farming, following Farming with
the Wild (2003), Farming & the Fate of Wild
Nature (2006), and Food Fight: the Citizen’s
Guide to a Food & Farm Bill (2007).

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