Obituaries [July/Aug 2010]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:
 
Robert Byrd, 92, died on June 28,
2010. Entering politics as a Ku Klux Klan
organizer, Byrd served six years as the West
Virginia state legislator, then served three
terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958, Byrd
remained in the Senate for the rest of his life.
Perhaps best known for his turn against the Klan,
after filibustering against the 1964 Civil Rights
Act, Byrd was most politically consistent on
behalf of animals, voting for the Humane
Slaughter Act during his House tenure, and
delivering perhaps the most thorough denunciation
of factory farming ever uttered in Congress on
July 9, 2001 while seeking funding for stronger

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BOOKS: Animal Investigators: How the world’s first wildlife forensic lab is solving crimes and saving endangered species

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Animal Investigators:
How the world’s first wildlife forensic lab is solving crimes
and saving endangered species
by Laurel A. Neme, Ph.D.
Scribner (c/o Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of
the Americas, New York, NY 10020), 2009.
256 pages, hardcover. $25.00.

Animal Investigators, by International Institute for
Sustainable Development Reporting Services newsletter editor Laurel
Neme, focuses on the work of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service animal
forensics laboratory, on the campus of Southern Oregon University in
Ashland, Oregon. The lab supports the work of 200 federal wildlife
law enforcement agents, every state fish and game agency, and the
wildlife law enforcement agencies of all nations belonging to the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Neme begins with the late 1989 discovery of 415 headless
walrus carcasses along the shores of the remote Seward Peninsula, in
northwestern Alaska.

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BOOKS: The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats
by Paul McCutcheon, DVM and Susan Weinstein
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2009. 256
pages, paperback. $18.99.

“In the new holistic perspective, a truly healthy dog or
cat will have all systems functioning in the home that is her
body–her own living terrain,” write Paul McCutcheon, DVM, and
Susan Weinstein.
Holistic medicine traces back to the ancient Chinese method
of treating diseases with herbal remedies. In recent decades the
holistic approach has crossed into western veterinary medicine. A
holistic practitioner treats the whole body; a holistic veterinarian
treats the whole animal. McCutcheon and Weinstein contend that all
living creatures can heal themselves from most conditions. Pet
owners can aid the healing.

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People & positions

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:
Peter Davies, previously director general of the Royal SPCA
and then of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, was on
August 16, 2010 named chair of the management committee of the
Marjan Centre for the Study of Conflict & Conservation, a project of
the War Studies department at King’s College, London. The Marjan
Centre is headed by longtime King’s College faculty member Michael
Rainsborough.
Dori Villalon joined the American Humane Association in June
2010 as vice president for animal protection. Villalon was
previously vice president of the San Francisco SPCA, after heading
Sonoma County Animal Care & Control, the Cleveland Animal Protection
League, and the Larimer Humane Society .

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BOOKS: Deadly Kingdom: The book of dangerous animals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Deadly Kingdom: The book of dangerous animals
by Gordon Grice
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2010. 352
pages, hardcover. $27.00.

Almost all animals can be dangerous, shows Gordon Grice in
Deadly Kingdom.
Dogs, among the most familiar species to humans, inflict an
estimated 4.7 million reported bites per year in the U.S., causing
at least 800,000 people, mostly children, to require medical help.
Currently more than 30 Americans per year die from dog bites. Dozens
more are horribly disfigured. Abroad, dog bites are still the most
common vector for transmitting rabies to humans.

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BOOKS: Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time:
My Life Doing Dumb Things With Animals
by Richard Conniff
W.W. Norton & Co. (500 5th Ave., New York, NY 10110), 2010. 304
pages, paperback. $15.95.

Swimming with Piranhas opens with author Richard Conniff and
a park ranger in Botswana looking for African wild dogs. Often
maligned, Lycaon pictus is more closely related to wolves than to
domestic dogs. As with wolves, Conniff explains, “humans
persecuted them into extinction over most of their range.” Only
about 5,000 remain. Playful and gentle with each other, African wild
dogs travel in packs and rarely come into contact with humans. They
have a highly evolved social structure. Despite efforts to protect
the remaining African wild dogs on wildlife preserves, they suffer
from fragmented habitat, diseases introduced by domestic dogs, and
continued hostility from livestock ranchers and herders. They often
end up as lion lunch, too.

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Vegan ex-NHL hockey star is named deputy director of Canadian Greens

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:
MONTREAL–Recently retired vegan hockey star Georges Laraque,
33, was on August 1, 2010 named one of the two deputy directors of
the Green Party of Canada.
Laraque, born in Montreal of Haitian parents, said on his
web site that he gave up meat and later joined the Greens due to “my
deep concern for animal welfare.” Laraque has also raised funds for
relief work in Haiti.
Named “Best Fighter” by Hockey News in 2003 and “#1 enforcer”
by Sports Illustrated in 2008, Laraque played 13 years in the
National Hockey League for Edmonton, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and the
Montreal Canadiens.

What the Sea Shepherds did during the summer in the Galapagos, Faroe Islands, and Tokyo

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

 

FRIDAY HARBOR– The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
celebrated but pledged to remain involved in the Galapagos Islands on
July 28, 2010, after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organiz-ation’s World Heritage Committee voted 14-5 to drop
the Galapagos from the UNESCO list of endangered World Heritage
sites. Added to the list in 2007, the Galapagos were downlisted in
recognition of improved environmental protection by the government of
Ecuador– including restraining alleged economic exploitation by
senior officers in the Ecuadoran navy.
The Sea Shepherds began helping the Galapagos National Park
Service to patrol the Galapagos Marine Reserve in late 2000. In
early 2001 one of the first Sea Shepherd missions undertaken with the
park service exposed the involvement of Ecuadoran navy vessels in
support of shark poaching. The Sea Shepherds later donated the
patrol boat Sirenian to the Galapagos National Park Service, and
established a permanent office in the Galapagos in support of ongoing
anti-poaching efforts.

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German zoo staff convicted of cruelty for killing hybrid tigers

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:
MAGDEBURG, Germany–Magdeburg Zoo
director Kai Parret and three members of the zoo
staff were on June 17, 2010 convicted of cruelty
for killing three tiger cubs at birth in May 2008
because their father was found to be a hybrid of
the Siberian and Sumatran tiger subspecies. A
fine of 8,100 euros was suspended on condition
that the offense not be repeated.
The charges were brought at request of
the German pro-animal organizations Animal Public
and People for Animal Rights/ Germany.
The Magdeburg Zoo bought the tigers’
parents with the intention of breeding them,
believing them both to be purebred Siberian, but
found Sumatran genes in the father in February
2008, after the mother was already in advanced
pregnancy.

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