BOOKS: On Their Own Terms: Bringing Animal-Rights Philosophy Down to Earth

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

On Their Own Terms:
Bringing Animal-Rights Philosophy Down to Earth
by Lee Hall
Nectar Bat Press (777 Post Road, Suite 205, Darien, CT 06820),
2010. 330 pages, paperback. $17.95.

Friends of Animals vice president for legal affairs Lee Hall
argues in On Their Own Terms: Bringing Animal-Rights Philosophy Down
to Earth for a vegan world, in which all animals roam free. Her
perception of the central problem in animal/human relations is that
humans exercise dominion over animals. Her strategic approach is
“abolitionist,” meaning that she believes every campaign activity
should work toward the ultimate goal.

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BOOKS: Bad Hare Days

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

Bad Hare Days by John Fitzgerald
Olympia Publishers (60 Cannon St., London, U.K. EC4N 6NP), 2008.
397 pages, paperback. $14.45 U.S., £9.99, 12.99 euros.

Northern Ireland banned hare coursing on
June 23, 2010, six years after the rest of the
United Kingdom. Ireland banned hounding deer on
June 29, 2010. The Florida Fish & Wildlife
Commission banned hounding foxes and coyotes in
so-called chase pens on September 1, 2010. Yet
opponents of pack hunting are not celebrating.

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BOOKS: From the Jungle to Kathmandu: Horn & Tusk Trade

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

From the Jungle to Kathmandu: Horn & Tusk Trade
Esmond Bradley Martin
Wildlife Watch Group
(20-Pulchowk, Machaagal, Lalitpur, Nepal), 2010.
186 pages, paperback.
Order c/o <www.citesnepal.org>

From the Jungle to Kathmandu anthologizes Kenyan wildlife traffic
investigator Esmond Bradley Martin’s previously published
investigations of rhino horn and elephant ivory poaching and
trafficking in Nepal, 1979-2008–the last decades of the former
hereditary dynastic government and first years of an elected
coalition government including leaders of a Maoist insurgency that
supported itself in part by selling rhino horn and elephant ivory.
Along the way Martin, formerly United Nations special envoy for
rhino conservation, refutes the common belief that rhino horn is
coveted in Asia for alleged aphrodisiacal properties.

BOOKS: Through a Dog’s Eyes

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

Through a Dog’s Eyes by Jennifer Arnold
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2010.
240 pages, hardcover. $25.00.

Operating a service dog school is a monster job. People with
major disabilities rely on dogs to safely lead them across busy
streets, open doors, and retrieve fallen objects. Some dogs
predict the onset of seizures or pick up sounds their people cannot
hear. Training a service dog takes money, time, patience, and
skill. Jennifer Arnold pulls this off despite having multiple
sclerosis.

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EPA agrees to regulate factory farm emissions & effluents

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Thirty-eight years after Congress told
agribusiness to clean up their act, an estimated 20,000 factory
farms may at last have to account for what they do with 500 million
tons per year of cattle, pig, and poultry effluent.
Settling a lawsuit brought in 2009 by the Natural Resources
Defense Council, Sierra Club, and the Waterkeeper Alliance, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on June 1, 2010 agreed to
identify and investigate manure discharges by factory farms.
If the EPA honors the settlement, the outcome could be the
biggest economic blow to the meat industry yet, following three
years of losses attributed to rising feed and fuel costs.

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BOOKS: The Divine Life of Animals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

The Divine Life of Animals:
One Man’s Quest to Discover Whether the Souls of Animals Live On
by Ptolemy Tompkins
Crown, c/o Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2010.
256 pages. $22.99/e-book or hardcover.

Despite the subtitle “One man’s quest to discover whether the
souls of animals live on,” the primary objective of The Divine Life
of Animals is not to prove that animals have souls (because
scientifically, such a claim cannot be truly “proven” by any known
means), but rather to demonstrate the absurdity of claiming
otherwise. If humans have souls, Tompkins argues, then of course
other animals do as well–a statement most animal lovers will
intuitively agree with, but which he supports with a formidable body
of research gathered from a wide variety of religious and spiritual
traditions.

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BOOKS: Two Bobbies: A true story of friendship and survival

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Two Bobbies: A true story of friendship and survival
by Kirby Larson & Mary Nethery
Illustrated by Jean Cassels Walker
Walker & Co. (175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010), 2008. $16.99,
hardcover. 32 pages.

No one foresaw the nightmarish devastation to people,
property and pets wrought by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005.
Many and perhaps most of the people who evacuated New Orleans–just
as a precaution–imagined they would return within a few days, if
not hours. Someone left behind a brown dog named Bobbie, chained to
a porch. Somehow the hungry and thirsty dog yanked the chain so hard
that he freed himself. Not known is how Bobbie came to be the
inseparable companion of a white cat whom rescuers eventually named
Bob Cat: did they know each other first, or just become buddies in
the crisis?

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BOOKS: Animal Camp

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Animal Camp by Kathy Stevens
Skyhorse Publishing
(555 Eighth Ave., Suite 903, New York, NY 10018), 2010. 256
pages, hardcover. $24.95.

Every unwanted or cast off animal should be lucky enough to
end up at the Catskill Animal Sanctuary in upstate New York, the
subject of Kathy Stevens’ Animal Camp. I have reviewed many books
for Animal People about rescued animals and sanctuaries, some better
presented than others. Animal Camp is a delight.

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Ted Nugent pleads “no contest” to poaching

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

SACRAMENTO–Rock star and Outdoor Channel hunting show host
Ted Nugent on August 17, 2010 pleaded “no contest” in Yuba County
Superior Court to misdemeanor charges of illegally baiting a deer and
failing to have a properly signed hunting tag. Nugent was fined
$1,175.
The violations came to light when Nugent broadcast videotape
of his actions on the February 9, 2010 edition of his Spirit of the
Wild television program.
Hunting guide Ross Albert Patterson was fined $1,125 after
pleading “no contest” in connection with the same incidents, which
occurred in September 2009 in El Dorado County, California, near
the town of Somerset.

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