Jordan clinic opens

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan on March 19, 2007 opened
the Garden Sanctuary for Animal Welfare Center in Amman, to provide
free veterinary care to the animals of farmers and villagers.
Directed by Margaret Ledger, co-founder of the Humane Center for
Animal Welfare, the center will be funded for two years by the World
Society for the Protection of Animals, which has been active in
Jordan since 2004. The Brooke Hospital for Animals has operated an
equine clinic and a mobile unit in Jordan since 1988, and the
Society for Protecting Animals Abroad, involved in Jordan since
1991, now operates two clinics and four mobile units in Jordan.

Animal Rescue League of Boston closes five-year-old Pembroke shelter

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
BOSTON–The Animal Rescue League of Boston announced on
February 28, 2007 that it will close the Pembroke Animal Care &
Adoption Center, only five years after completing it, at cost of $7
million.
Animal Rescue League president Jay Bowen, heading the league
since 40-year president Arthur Slade retired in December 2005, told
news media that the Pembroke shelter has lost more than $1 million a
year.

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Letters [April 2007]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
“Dr. Bean” of Mdzananda clinic in South Africa

When Thobane Dolophini was ten years old, he investigated
the comings and goings of cats and dogs at Mdzananda Animal Clinic.
At the time, neither he or friends and family were aware that he
possessed an innate affinity and ability to care for sick and injured
animals.
Vet Mario van Rensburg nicknamed Thobane “Dr Bean,” and the
name has stuck.
Recalls Mdzananda director Jane Levinson, “In 2003, when
we did a spayathon, a very badly burnt puppy needed constant care
and nursing. Dr. Bean helped put this puppy on a drip. He nursed
the puppy, dressed the puppy’s wounds, and fed the puppy. Dr.
Bean saw the staff members involved in the spayathon and on his own
initiative, he cleaned the cages and gave the dogs in hospital clean
water and food. He also washed the floors of the clinic.”
Over the years Dr. Bean has quietly watched vets and vet
assistants clean, stitch, dress wounds, administer medication and
patiently explain proper animal care procedures to pet keepers. Even
though Thobane has a quiet and reserved manner, he has never needed
an invitation to do the same. His continued interest and hands on
approach to animal care has earned him the attention of the vets at
Mdzananda, who have become determined to further his education and
teach him clinical skills whenever they can.
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BOOKS: Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

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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.

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Obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

Tamara Monti, 37, from Lake Como, Italy, employed as a
dolphin keeper at Oltremare Park in Riccone, was fatally stabbed on
February 4, 2007 by neighbor Alessandro Doto, 35, who lived with
his parents in the flat above Monti’s. Doto, arrested at the scene
with the knife in his hand, claimed he was driven mad by the barking
of Monti’s two dogs while she was at work. Monti had worked
exceptionally long hours since September 2005, raising a grampus
dolphin named Mary G who was rescued with her mother from a June 2005
stranding. The mother died, but Mary G survived. Mary G refused to
eat after Monti’s death, however, and was in dire condition as of
February 20.

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Animal obits

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

 

Sled dogs Jewel, 5, running for Yuka Honda, Melville, 5,
running for Brent Sass, and Hope, 6, running for Kelly Griffin,
died between February 11 and February 21 in the 1,000-mile Yukon
Quest, the first dogs to die in the race since 2002. Jewel
reportedly choked on her own vomit during a team runaway when Honda
stopped to untangle several dogs just past the Braeburn rest point,
and her snow anchors failed to hold the team. The causes of death of
the others were unclear. All three were older than most racing
huskies. Read more

BOOKS: Kinship With The Wolf

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

Kinship With The Wolf
by Tanja Askani
Park Street Press (One Park St., Rochester, VT 05767), 2006.
144 pages, paperback. $19.95

The text accompanying this collection of superb portrait
photographs of wolves describes the social lives and behavior of a
family of wolves living in captivity at the Luneburger Heide Wildlife
Reserve in Germany. Author Tanja Askani gives an absorbing account
of the emotional lives of wolves, and of their complex social
structures and rituals.
Askani mentions that some wolves take an instinctive dislike
to a particular person for no apparent reason, and gives a
fascinating description of how wolf family life can give leadership
lessons to business executives. She includes a particularly
interesting chapter on the status of wolves in Europe, reviewing the
current wolf population estimates and conservation initiatives in
each nation of the European Union. Outside the EU, wolves continue
to be viciously persecuted in Norway and Russia. Even within the EU,
where wolves are nominally protected, the protections are often not
enforced.

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BOOKS: Cats Of Africa

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

Cats Of Africa by Luke Hunter
Photography by Gerald Hinde
Johns Hopkins U. Press (2715 N. Charles St., Baltimore,
MD 21218), 2006. 176 pages, hardcover. $39.95.

As well as the well-known lion, leopard,
and cheetah, and the less familiar but still
reasonably common caracal, serval and African
wildcat, Africa hosts the golden cat, jungle
cat, sand cat, and blackfooted cat. Cats of
Africa author Luke Hunter, a Wildlife
Conservation Society carnivore specialist,
covers them all–but his volume is not to be
confused with the distnguished Cats of Africa by
Anthony Hall-Martin and Paul Boseman, published
in 1998, now out of print.
We were surprised to read that “none of
the big cats purr.” This has been alleged by
others, but we have personal experience that
cheetahs purr, a loud deep purr sounding much
like a small motorbike. Lion expert Paul Hart,
of the Drakenstein Lion Park near Cape Town,
South Africa, advises that lionesses in heat
express themselves by what could be described as
purring.

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BOOKS: Hollywood Hoofbeats: Trails Blazed Across the Silver Screen

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

Hollywood Hoofbeats:
Trails Blazed Across the Silver Screen
by Petrine Day Mitchum
with Audrey Pavia
BowTie Press (3 Burroughs, Irvine, CA 92618), 2006. 205 pages,
hardcover. $39.95.

Coffee-table books don’t come more lucidly written or
thoroughly researched than Hollywood Hoofbeats, a definitive history
of horse use in American film making, with frequent emphasis on
humane issues.
Horses were still basic transportation when the film industry
started, but began to be displaced by automobiles coincidental with
the early growth of Hollywood. Film makers took advantage of an
abundance of cheap cast-off horses for a time, treating them as
expendible commodities.

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