BOOKS: Donkey: The Mystique of Equus Asinus

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

Donkey: The Mystique of Equus Asinus
by Michael Tobias & Jane Morrison
Council Oak Books (2105 E. 15th Street, Suite B,
Tulsa, OK 74104), 2006. 213 pages, hard
cover. $19.95.

“This book has emerged out of our
responses to donkeys: donkeys as a species and
donkeys as individuals,” write co-authors
Michael Tobias and Jane Morrison, longtime
partners in producing books and films about
nature and animals, and in directing the
California-based Dancing Star Found-ation
wildlife sanctuary.
“The book grazes, feeding on a landscape
both real and historical, imagined, desired and
underfoot, inspired by a creature that has,
strangely, embedded itself into the very fabric
of philosophy, religion, art, the environment,
human history, as well as in our hearts,”
Tobias and Morrison continue. “Donkeys did not
bray for this attention, but their own subtle
beauty and gentleness have attracted our kind,
while their utility has brought them loads of
woe.”

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BOOKS: Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching
by Michael Greger, M.D.
Lantern Books (1 Union Square West, Suite 201, New York, NY 10003),
2006. 465 pages, hardcover. $30.00.

Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, by Humane Society of
the U.S. director of public health & animal agriculture Michael
Greger, M.D., is at once a meticulously researched timely warning
about the potential threat to humanity from the H5N1 influzenza
virus, and a book that will not be read and heeded by nearly enough
people–even after a strain of H5N1 apparently jumped from factory
farms in Hungary into the facilities of the British turkey producer
Bernard Matthews in February 2007, underscoring most of Greger’s
major points.

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Bringing birds back to Iraq

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
BAGHDAD–Rediscovering and restoring the bird life of Iraq is
an obsession for ornithologists who remember the nation as the
crossing of flight paths for migratory species coming and going from
all parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe.
The Mesopotamian marshlands, twice the size of the Florida
Everglades, were reputedly the richest birding habitat in the world
before dictator Saddam Hussein drained 90% in 1991 to try to flush
out rebels against his rule.
About 40% of the marshlands have been reflooded and restored
since 2003. All 150 bird species known to have lived there in 1979
have been seen in recent winter-and-summer surveys, Birdlife
International adviser Richard Porter told BBC News in January 2007.
That leaves many of the 237 species native to the rest of
Iraq still largely unaccounted for, between habitat loss and decades
of unrestrained shooting.

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Assam bomb kills birds

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
Guwahati, Assam– Harmlessly botched, according to most
reports, a February 4, 2007 bombing attributed to the United
Liberation Front of Assam killed “dozens of egrets, crows, and
other birds” in central Guwahati, e-mailed news videographer Azam
Siddique, who hoped to alert rescuers.
“The bomb was placed in a car near a temple,” Siddique said.
“As the car was left in a no parking zone, it was towed to the
police station and parked below tall trees which are used by birds as
shelter.” Apparently meant to detonate at 3:00 p.m., the bomb
instead exploded at 3:00 a.m.

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Poaching in Afghanistan

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
Poaching, never well-controlled in Afghanistan, appears to
be more blatant than ever, freelance correspondent Jeff Hodson
reported for the Seattle Times in mid-January 2007.
“The skins of wolves and wild cats hang in fur shops in
Kabul,” Hodson wrote, “along with rabbit-skin rugs and full-length
fox coats, despite a nationwide ban on hunting and international
laws prohibiting their trade. Foreign soldiers and aid workers are
the main buyers, according to conservationists.”
Wildlife Conservation Society director of Afghanistan
programs Alex Deghan told Hodson that “he knows of one aid worker who
had a comforter made from two or three snow-leopard skins.”

Civet traffic falls in China

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

 

Guangzhou–Repeated health inspections of specialty meat
markets across Guangdong province hint that masked palm civets may at
last be getting some respite from Guangdong exotic meat buyers.
In January 2007, the Xinhua News Service reported, 7,000
health inspectors checked for civets at 10,000 restaurants, finding
one live civet and several frozen civet carcasses. A restaurant in
Foshan was fined for buying civets, and 18 restaurants were fined
for unspecified reasons. The contraband was markedly less than was
found in a November 2006 raid on an underground warehouse and nearby
meat shop that found 45 masked palm civets, 98 ferret badgers, and
31 other wild animals who are barred from sale for consumption.

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PETA defendants in North Carolina animal killing are acquitted of cruelty, convicted of littering

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

 

WINTON, N.C.–A Hertford County jury on February 2, 2007
cleared PETA staffers Adria J. Hinkle and Andrew B. Cook of cruelty
charges, after a two-week trial, but convicted both of littering
for leaving dead dogs and cats in a dumpster.
The animals were taken from animal control holding facilities
in Hertford, Bertie, and Northampton counties.
“The two were each given a 10-day suspended sentence, 12
months of supervised probation, 50 hours of community service, and
a $1,000 fine. They will split the $5,975 restitution costs,”
reported Lauren King of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.
“Their van will be confiscated,” added Samuel Spies of
Associated Press.

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Failure to isolate & vaccinate incoming animals shuts shelter

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
LAS VEGAS–A six-member Humane Society of the U.S. shelter
evaluation team in mid-February 2007 joined Lied Animal Shelter staff
in euthanizing more than 1,000 of the 1,800 animals in custody.
About 150 of the animals were ill, and 850 were believed to
have been exposed to the illnesses, with a high likelihood of
becoming infected.
“It has been a mess, but we are almost out of the emergency
phase. Adoptions will open again soon,” Animal Foundation of Nevada
president Janie Greenspun Gale told ANIMAL PEOPLE on February 19.
Gale promised to identify a newly hired executive director for the
shelter “soon.”

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