“Lawrence of the hyenas” talks Lord’s Resistance Army into sparing rhinos

October 1, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
“Lawrence Anthony, founder of the South African
environmental group The Earth Organisation, has persuaded the Lord’s
Resistance Army to join with scientists to protect the northern white
rhino, of which only four are thought to remain in the wild,” London
Guardian environment correspondent David Adam reported on September
13, 2006.
“As part of an ongoing peace process,” Adam continued, “the
rebels have pledged not to harm the animals and to tell wildlife
experts if they see one.”
The LRA in 2005 invaded Garamba national park, “a sprawling
and densely forested reserve close to the Ugandan border in the far
northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Adam explained.
“The LRA is notorious for use of child soldiers and has been accused
of atrocities including rapes, mutilations and the mass murder of
civilians. Conservation seemed far from its priorities,
particularly after members shot dead 12 game rangers and eight
Guatemalan UN soldiers sent to the region to keep order.”

Marine mammal exhibitors join protest against Japanese coastal dolphin killing

October 1, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

More than 60 organizations demonstrated
outside Japanese embassies and consulates in 32
cities against “traditional” coastal whaling on
September 20, 2006, the second annual Japan
Dolphin Day declared and coordinated by Ric
O’Barry of One Voice. Most notoriously practiced
at Taiji, the coastal whaling method consists of
driving dolphins into shallow bays from which
they cannot escape and then hacking them to death
en massé, after some are selected for live
capture and sale to swim-with-dolphins
attractions and exhibition parks.
The so-called “drive fisheries” have been
protested for more than 30 years by marine mammal
advocates including Sakei Hemmi of the Elsa
Nature Conservancy/Japan, film maker Hardin
Jones, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder
Paul Watson, and Steve Sipman, who invented the
name “Animal Liberation Front” in connection with
releasing two dolphins from a Hawaiian laboratory
in 1976. The Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks &
Aquariums and the American Zoo & Aquarium
Association finally issued statements of
objection to the “drive fisheries” in March 2004,
as did the World Association of Zoos & Aquariums
in June 2006.

Harsh monsoons test rescuers

October 1, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
VISAKHAPATNAM–At least 49 people were reported dead in
Bangladesh and 46 in India on September 22, 2006, following the
ninth cyclone to hit the western coast of the Bay of Bengal in as
many weeks. The animal toll was not immediately available.
“We are hoping to get some help to add to our efforts,”
e-mailed Visakha SPCA president Pradeep Kumar Nath. “Help is needed
urgently for feed.”
The Visakha SPCA continued assisting animals elsewhere along
the stricken Bengal coast while rebuilding its own facilities,
destroyed by a cyclone and landslides on August 3, just 11 months
after a typhoon destroyed the previous facilities in September 2005.
“We send our deepest gratitude from the animals and villagers
for the flood relief help we have received from the World Society for
the Protection of Animals and individual donors,” Nath said before
the ninth cyclone hit. “So far we have been able to help more than
27,000 animals with over 66 ton of food, vaccinations, wound
treatment and deworming.”

SHAC leaders sentenced in Britain & New Jersey

October 1, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
LONDON, TRENTON–Five alleged
instigators of property damage and threats
directed at facilities, business partners, and
employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences in
mid-September 2006 drew prison terms ranging from
three to six years.
Northampton Crown Court Judge Ian
Alexander on September 20 sentenced molecular
biologist Joseph Harris, 26, to three years as
the first person convicted under a new British
law against economic sabotage.
“Harris, of Bursledon, Hampshire, broke
into premises in Nottingham, Bicester and
Northampton,” summarized Nicola Woolcock of the
London Times, “where he slashed tires, flooded
offices, and poured glue into locks. He caused
more than £25,000 in damage.” Harris apparently
began the attacks in a futile bid to keep a
girlfriend who left him, the court was told,
because of animal experiments he did in
connection with pancreatic cancer research.

Injectible female chemosterilant goes to field trials

October 1, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
PORTLAND, Oregon–Among the last actions of the Doris Day
Animal League before it was absorbed on August 31, 2006 by the
Humane Society of the U.S. was funding a grant issued on July 26 by
the Alliance for Contraception for Cats and Dogs to help underwrite
tests of a chemosterilant for female animals called ChemSpay, now
underway on the Navajo Nation.
Headquartered in Windowrock, Arizona, near the junction of
Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah, the Navajo Nation presently
has the highest rate of animal control killing of any incorporated
entity in the U.S., at 135 dogs and cats killed per 1,000 humans per
year, nearly 10 times the U.S. average of 14.5.

How gassing came & went

October 1, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
Gassing pound animals with carbon monoxide gained acceptance
across the U.S. after the American SPCA took over the New York City
animal control contract in 1895 and introduced carbide gassing in
lieu of drowning mass-caged strays in the Hudson River.
Carbon monoxide gassing prevailed over many attempts to
introduce other killing methods partly because it was inexpensive and
easily done, but perhaps mostly because it was perceived as painless.
The most successful challenge to carbon monoxide came from
the introduction of decompression chambers to kill animals, after
World War II, when the San Francisco SPCA developed a side business
in purchasing and adapting to shelter use Navy surplus decompression
chambers originally used to help divers who developed “the bends.”

Accra zoo to be rebuilt

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
ACCRA, Ghana–The Accra Zoo, serving about 120,000 visitors
per year, is to be relocated and rebuilt over the next five years,
Ghanian minister of lands, forestry, and mines Dominic Fobih
announced on August 1, 2006. The animals are to be moved to the
Kumasi Zoo, about 200 miles inland, by the end of September 2006 to
make room for a new presidential complex. The new zoo is to be built
with the help of the London Zoological Society, Fobih said.
Founded as first Ghanian president Kwame Nkrumah’s private
menagerie in the early 1960s, the Accra Zoo opened to the public
after his overthrow in 1966.

Help at last for the Addis Ababa zoo

October 1, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

ADDIS ABABA–That little was done for more than 30 years to
improve the Haile Selassie Zoo in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, might be
no surprise, in view of the usually dilapidated state of African
zoos–but the zoo holds a well-documented population of the rarest of
all lion subspecies, believed to be the oldest captive lion colony
in existence.
The black-maned Atlas lion, Barbary lion, or Lion of Judah,
hauled to Imperial Rome by the thousands for use and slaughter in
Colossium spectacles, was extirpated from Libya by 1700, from Egypt
by 1800, from Tunisia in 1891, from Algeria in 1912, and from
Morocco in 1921. This was a year after the lion was deleted from the
World Encyclopedia of Animals as already extinct.

Letters [Oct 2006]

October 1, 2006 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:

Sanctuarians cross no-man’s-land to save asses

I hope that you will let me update your
readers on the work of the British charity Safe
Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land, dedicated to
caring for working and abandoned donkeys in
Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
Safe Haven was founded in 2000 by former
British Airways flight attendant and Jerusalem
SPCA volunteer Lucy Fensom, who saw first-hand
the cruelty and neglect inflicted on many of the
thousands of donkeys still used as beasts of
burden in the region.
Today, at the Safe Haven sanctuary near
the Israeli town of Netanya, 100 donkeys live
free from pain and overwork, and have the chance
to form herds and roam freely on the 4-acre site.
Safe Haven’s work does not stop at the
sanctuary gates. Aware that the donkeys living
there are just a tiny percentage of those
desperately needing help, Lucy has initiated
free veterinary clinics in the Palestinian
Territories. Each week Lucy and her team make
the sometimes risky border crossing with Safe
Haven’s well-equipped mobile clinic to visit a
different village and provide veterinary care,
farriery and tooth rasping for the animals, and
of course advice and support for the owners.
Read more

Letters

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