BOOKS: Return of the Condor

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Return of the Condor: The Race to Save Our Largest Bird from Extinction
by John Moir
Lyons Press (246 Goose Lane, Guilford, CT 06437), 2006.
187 pages, hardcover. $24.95.

Science writer John Moir relates in this book the drama of
the last-ditch captive breeding program that undoubtedly saved the
Californian condor from extinction. Inter-agency politics and
eloquent lobbying by non-interventionists, led by Friends of the
Earth founder David Brower, nearly kept the Condor Recovery Program
from starting.
Brower, who previously headed the Sierra Club and later
founded Earth Island Institute, argued that capturing the last wild
California condors for captive breeding would set a bad precedent for
reducing endangered wildlife to zoo specimens, that reintroduction
would probably fail because captive-bred condors would not learn from

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New Jersey Consumer Affairs prosecutes another coin-can fundraiser

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

HACKENSACK, N.J.–Exiting New Jersey Office of Consumer
Affairs director Kimberly Ricketts on August 2, 2006, her last day
with the agency, appealed for public help to locate and impound an
estimated 1,400 to 1,500 coin collection canisters believed to have
been placed by an entity calling itself Lovers of Animals.
The Office of Consumer Affairs has filed suit, reported
Newark Star-Ledger staff writer Brian T. Murray, alleging improper
accounting for about $7,500 raised and spent in 2005.
The case followed the state shutdown of coin can fundraiser
Patrick Jemas in June 2006. Jemas did business as the National
Animal Welfare Foundation.
“Lovers of Animals was incorporated when Russell Frontera,
49, of Beachwood was furloughed from state prison in late 2004 after
serving two years of a seven-year sentence for loan sharking,” wrote
Murray. “His name appears on charity documents filed with the
Internal Revenue Service and the state that year, when he also
opened a post office box for the charity.

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DELTA Rescue loses challenge to L.A. County inspection requirement

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

LOS ANGELES–The Los Angeles District Court of Appeal on
August 8, 2006 affirmed an earlier ruling by Los Angeles Superior
Court Judge Victor H. Person that the Dedication & Everlasting Love
To Animals sanctuary, better known as DELTA Rescue, is subject to
inspection by the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care &
Control.
The 94-acre care-for-life sanctuary houses approximately
1,500 dogs and cats. A subsidiary, Horse Rescue of America, cares
for equines.
“The department annually inspected and licensed DELTA Rescue
from 1985 to 1993,” summarized Metropol-itan News-Enterprise staff
writer Steven Cschke. “In 1998 the [animal control] board and DELTA
Rescue entered into an agreement whereby DELTA Rescue would be exempt
from the licensing requirement as long as it retained nonprofit
status, complied with rabies vaccination requirements, and the
department had no cause to believe it was mistreating animals, DELTA
Rescue alleged.”

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Whales’ navy gains two ships

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

The global “navy” defending whales has added two ships–the
Leviathan, recently acquired by the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society, and the Stenela, the first dolphin-watching vessel based
in Mozambique, funded by the German Society for Dolphin
Conservation, Save Our Seas Foundation, and Deutsche Umwelthilfe.
While the Stenela will attempt to protect whales and dolphins
by promoting appreciation of marine mammals in a new part of the
world, the Leviathan will lead the Sea Shepherd intervention against
Japanese “research” whaling within the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary,
designated by the International Whaling Commission in 1994 but not
recognized by Japan.
“We will be bringing two ships, a helicopter, and about 60
volunteers,” pledged Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson. Watson said
that the Levithan appears to be as fast as the Nisshin Maru, the
Japanese whaling factory ship, which repeatedly sped away from the
former Sea Shepherd flagship Farley Mowat last winter in high seas
skirmishes also involving two Greenpeace vessels.
The Institute of Cetacean Research, the Japanese whaling
front, plans to kill up to 935 minke whales and 10 fin whales within
sanctuary waters this coming winter.

Outside help

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Outside animal advocates who found their way to Lebanon
during July and August 2006 to aid stranded animals included
Hurricane Katrina rescue veteran Linda Nealon of New York City, who
helped Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to arrange the
Best Friends animal evacuation (see page 1), and PETA
representatives Michelle Rokke and Jason Baker.
The PETA team “handed out leaflets explaining how to help
animals caught under the bombing strikes,” wrote Agence France
Presse correspondent Jailan Zayan. “The flyers, which have been
handed out to citizens, military, police, and non-government
organizations, urge people who see animals in distress to set them
free if they are tied up, give them water, and if possible take
them in. As a last resort, the guidelines say, the animals should
be shot at point-blank range.

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Wildlife rehab center, zoos, farms try to survive under fire

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

BEIRUT, HAIFA–As vulnerable as dogs and cats were during
the July and August 2006 fighting along the border of Israel and
Lebanon, captive wildlife and livestock were in even in greater
danger, having little or no opportunity to even try to survive on
their own.
The nonprofit Animal Encounter Educational Center for
Wildlife Conservation in southern Lebanon, directed by Mounir and
Diana Abi-Said, had animals of more than 35 species to look after,
most of them rehabilitation cases, the Saids e-mailed to ANIMAL
PEOPLE. Among the animals, they said, were “brown bear, wolf,
hyena, fox, deer, ostrich, pelican, white stork, imperial
eagle, jungle cat, wild boar, and jackal.”

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Rocket attack victim stayed behind for his dog

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

HAIFA–Among the Israeli dead from the August 2006 Hezbollah
rocket attacks on northern Israel was Dave Lalchuk, 52, originally
from Boston, who reportedly emigrated to Israel in the early 1980s.
Lalchuk and his Israeli wife Esti joined Kibbutz Sa’ar near Nahariya
in the western Galilee region, raised two daughters, now adults
living elsewhere, reported Jack Khoury of Haaretz.
“Despite rocket hits in the area, Lalchuk continued working
in the citrus groves and caring for the animals he loved, including
his beloved dog, Blackie,” Khoury wrote.

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Streaking Pamplona

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

PAMPLONA, Spain– “More than 1,000” nude or semi-nude
protesters, according to PETA, “several hundred” according to
Associated Press, on July 5, 2006 streaked the 825-meter route of
the “Running of the Bulls” that has preceded the nine-day Festival of
San Fermin bullfighting orgy for more than 500 years.
The PETA-sponsored “Running of the Nudes” debuted in 2003,
held each year one day before the official San Fermin events begin.
The 2005 edition attracted 700 participants, Associated Press said.
The Pamplona bull run and similar events in which often
inebriated runners try to stay ahead of panicked bovines appear to be
more popular than ever, worldwide, but bullfighting itself is in
general decline, especially in Spain.

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Primarily Primates will fight trustee’s recommendation that Ohio State University chimps should be sent to Chimp Haven

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

SAN ANTONIO–Primarily Primates president Wally Swett on
August 17, 2006 told news media that the sanctuary will fight the
recommendation of court-appointed trustee Charles Jackson III that
seven chimpanzees formerly used by Ohio State University researcer
Sally Boysen should be transferred to Chimp Haven, of Shreveport,
Louisiana.
“We’ll fight to the death to keep them from being moved,
especially to Chimp Haven,” Swett told Mike Lafferty of the Columbus
Dispatch.

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