A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
WASHINGTON D.C.––Adoption failure rates may now be as little as half of what they were 20 years ago, suggests a newly published study by the American Humane Association’s Animal Welfare Research Institute ––but also appear to be about twice as high as is now conventionally believed. Read more
From Animal-People May/June 2013
CHENGDU––Guizhentang Pharmaceutical, China’s largest producer of bear bile, in April 2013 for the second time in two years withdrew a proposal to sell stock to raise the capital needed to increase the number of bears it keeps from 400 to 1,200. Read more
From Animal People May-June 2013—
Saving Baby: How a woman’s love for a racehorse leads to her redemption by JoAnne Normile with Larry Lindner Powder Point Publishing (P.O. Box 530, Hingham, MA 02043), 2013. 263 pages, paperback. $15.00.
JoAnne Normile entered horse racing relatively late in life, at age 43, seven years after convincing her husband to move from urban Detroit to rural Michigan, where they could keep horses.
By the end of the 1980s they had two horses. They entered the racing circuit in 1992 with Normile’s beloved Baby. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
WASHINGTON D.C.––National Audubon Society president David Yarnold on March 26, 2013 announced that Audubon magazine editor-at-large Ted Williams had been reinstated after a 10-day suspension for allegedly urging the use of the over-the-counter pain reliever acetaminophen to poison feral cats. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
WELLINGTON, New Zealand––Forty-eight percent of New Zealand households keep cats, the highest rate of cat-keeping in the world, according to the New Zealand Pet Food Manufacturers Association. But prominent New Zealand birders disagree over whether free-roaming pet cats and feral cats have much to do with losses of rare bird species. Economist Gareth Morgan argues that cats should be eradicated from New Zealand through universal sterilization and non-replacement. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
Stolen Apes: The Illicit Trade in Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Bonobos & Orangutans by Daniel Stiles, Ian Redmond, Doug Cress, Christian Nellemann, & Rannweig Knutsdatter Formo United Nations Environment Programme Free download from <http://www.un-grasp.org/news/121-download>
Kenyan wildlife photographer Karl Amman in March 1996 and March 2000 ANIMAL PEOPLE guest columns recounted how the international conservation establishment ignored his warnings and supporting documentation about the emerging illicit great ape traffic. Only habitat issues were taken seriously; associating the decline of nonhuman primates with hunting and meat-eating, as Amman did, was denounced as allegedly exhibiting an unscientific preoccupation with the fates of individuals, as opposed to species. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
Four-Legged Miracles: Heartwarming Tales of Lost Dogs’ Journeys Home by Brad & Sherry Hansen Steiger St. Martin’s Griffin (175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010), 2013. 264 pages, paperback. $14.99.
Animal lovers are familiar with the 1943 classic Lassie Come Home, in which an impoverished rural family sells their cherished collie to a Scottish nobleman, but the collie returns to the boy she loves. Four-Legged Miracles is a compilation of amusing, inspirational and sometimes tearful real-life “Lassie” stories. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
Humane education classic The Universal Natural History: Natural History in Anecdote by Alfred H. Miles, Profusely Illustrated With Colored Plates Dodd Mead & Co., New York. 1895. 385 pages.
Clinton, Washington, where ANIMAL PEOPLE receives mail, was named in 1883 by Civil War veteran Edward C. Hinman, who came from Eagle Township in Clinton County, Michigan. Hinman “built a hotel and a dock, supplying steamships with wood and water,” local histories recount. From 1885 to 1896, Hinman ran the local post office from a general store located kitty-corner from the present post office. The building still exists, but has long been vacant. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
Horse Sanctuary by Allison Milionis Photos by Karen Tweedy Holmes Universe (300 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010), 2013. 255 pages, hardcover. $40.00.
Horse Sanctuary offers more than 250 exquisite photos of horses at 13 facilities listed here for the interest of readers who may donate to one or more them and wonder what they look like:
The Blackburn Correctional Complex training center operated by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation in Lexington, Kentucky; the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary in Hot Springs, South Dakota; the Catskill Animal Sanctuary, in Saugerties, New York; the Equine Sanctuary, in Ojai, California; Equine Voices Rescue & Sanctuary, in Green Valley, Arizona; Front Range Equine Rescue, in Larkspur, Colorado; the Horse Harbor Foundation, in Poulsbo, Washington; the Last Chance Corral in Athens, Ohio; Lope Texas, in Cedar Creek, Texas; Lucky Horse Equine Rescue, in Bolton, Massachusetts; Nokota Horse Conservancy, in Linton, North Dakota; Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue, in Tehachapi, California; and Save Your Ass Long Ear Rescue, in South Acworth, New Hampshire. The accompanying text uncritically describes the work of each facility. Horse-lovers will love it, but Horse Sanctuary is at best just a coffee table treatment of the issues involved in horse rescue. Several of the profiles are seriously misleading. Read more