BOOKS: Astonishing Animals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Astonishing Animals
Extraordinary Creatures & the Fantastic World they Inhabit
by Tim Flannery & Peter Schouten
Atlantic Monthly Press (841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003), 2004.
Hard cover, 203 pages. $29.95.

This absorbing book celebrates the diversity of evolution.
Flannery takes the reader through a gallery of 97 of the
strangest-looking creatures on the planet. Many appear to owe less
to nature than to a Hollywood special effects studio.
Each turn of a page brings yet another fresh delight,
sometimes enough to make one gasp.
The behaviour of some animals matches their extreme
appearance. Sea devils absorb their own skeletons in order to
procure the calcium needed for their eggs. The male net-devil eats
his way into the female and then lives off her blood, a permanent
parasite. (Some women may be tempted to make morbid comparisons).
The stoplight loosejaw has evolved a separate set of formidable
jaws–outside its body. The King of Saxony bird of paradise boasts
eyebrows three times the length of its body, bedecked with
streamers, in order to beguile the female.

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BOOKS: What The Dogs Have Taught Me

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

What The Dogs Have Taught Me
& other amazing things I’ve learned
by Merrill Markoe
Villard Books (299 Park Ave., New York, NY
10171), 2004. 245 pages, paperback. $13.95.

This is not a book about dogs. Nor do
the dogs who feature in some of the essays teach
Markoe much worth writing about.
These essays are mainly about women:
their anxieties, hopes and fears, needs and
hates. “What living in Los Angeles has taught
me” might have been a more descriptive title.
Some of the essays do revolve around
dogs, including “Showering with your dog,” “A
conversation with my dogs,” and “Zen and the art
of multiple dog walking.”
But most of the book is devoted to the
life and times of a modern American woman. It is
written by an insider who is witty, worldly,
erudite, obsessive and risqué–often to the
point of being plain crude.

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Rough weather slows 2005 Canadian seal hunt

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

CHARLOTTESTOWN, P.E.I.– Pack ice and
rough weather reportedly kept Gulf of St.
Lawrence sealers from killing more than 40% of
their quota of 90,000 seals, in the first phase
of the annual Atlantic Canada seal massacre, but
the 56,000 seals they didn’t kill will be added
to the Labrador Front quota.
The full 2005 quota of 319,500 seals is
the largest in 50 years–although the sealers
overkilled their quota last year, pelting
365,971 seals in all, 97% of them under three
months old.
The 2005 protest effort, including
rallies in 27 cities worldwide, was the biggest
in 22 years, but was upstaged by nature.
“The sealing vessel Sandy Beach was
abandoned 30 miles north of the Magdalen
Islands,” recited Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society founder Paul Watson from the bridge of
the Sea Shepherd Farley Mowat on March 30, as
the hunt got started. “Her crew were airlifted
by a Coast Guard helicopter. The Yankee Point
was abandoned, is listing heavily in the ice,
and will most likely sink. The crew were rescued
by the Cooper Island. The Cooper Island is now
listing heavily with 40 sealers aboard. The
icebreaker Earl Grey is en route to rescue them.
“The Horizon I was under tow by the Coast
Guard ship Amundsen when the tow line broke. The
vessel is reported abandoned,” Watson continued.
“The Jean Mathieu has called for help. Two
distress signals came from unidentified sealing
vessels. Some sealing vessels reported having
their bridge windows blown in and their
electronics damaged.”

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Galloping doubts about BLM wild horse sales ordered by Congress

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

WASHINGTON D.C.–The Bureau of Land
Management and the buyers themselves tried to
depict the first sales in a mass disposal of wild
horses mandated by Congress as “rescues,” by
“sanctuaries,” but horse rescue veterans are not
all buying the dog-and-pony show.
The sales are required by a stealth
amendment to the 1971 Wild and Free Ranging
Horse and Burro Protection Act introduced by U.S.
Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana) in November
2004. The Burns amendment orders the BLM to sell
“without limitation” any horse in custody who is
10 years of age or who has been offered for
adoption three times without a taker.
About 8,400 of the 24,000 horses already
in the BLM captive inventory were made
immediately eligible for sale, and many of the
remainder will be eligible by the end of the
year. The BLM is also continuing to capture
horses, with the stated goal of reducing the
U.S. wild horse population from about 37,000 to
circa 28,000.

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Animal shelters changing the guard

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Phil Morgan, Escondido Humane Society president since 1998,
resigned on March 31, effective June 30. His acting successor is
director of operations Linda Martin, a 30-year veteran of animal and
human health care work, hired on March 16. Nationally known for his
efforts to extend humane services to the southern California
community in Spanish as well as English, Morgan won further acclaim
for rebuilding the Escondido Humane Society after a January 2001 fire
that killed 115 of the 200 animals in the building. In January 2005
Morgan unveiled plans to expand the present $4.2 million shelter,
opened in July 2003, into a $15 million complex including “a career
institute for animal professionals, a 24-hour cable-access pet
channel, a horse show arena and a pet columbarium, which is a vault
for storing cremated remains,” recalled San Diego Union-Tribune
staff writer Craig Gustafson.

John Nix, 66, Houston Bureau of Animal Regulation & Care
chief since 1996, retired in mid-March 2005, two weeks after
Houston Department of Health & Human Services director Stephen
Williams appointed departmental head of quality assurance Deoniece
Arnold to oversee the Houston shelter. Sean Hawkins, founder of the
Houston-based Spay-Neuter Assistance Program, told Houston Chronicle
reporter Bill Murphy that Nix was unfairly blamed for the results of
budget cuts. Houston had 36 animal control officers in 1997, but
now has just 22.

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BOOKS: Merck Veterinary Manual

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Merck Veterinary Manual
50th Aniversary Edition (9th Edition)
Merial (3239 Satellite Blvd., Duluth, GA 30096), 2005. 2712
pages, hardcover. $45.00.

The 50th Anniversary Edition of the Merck Veterinary Manual
looks strikingly like a Bible. It incorporates the work of more than
350 contributing authors.
“Last updated in 1998,” explains the promotional material,
“the Merck Veterinary Manual is the oldest and most widely consulted
reference of its kind. The Eighth Edition sold more than 100,000
copies worldwide, and was translated into six languages.”
These days as many users, maybe more, simply go to the web
site
<us.merial.com/veterinary_professionals/veterinarians/vet_manual.asp>,
enter a search term, and quickly retrieve the precise information
that seems to suit their needs.

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BOOKS: Brushed by Feathers: A Year of Birdwatching in the West

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Brushed by Feathers: A Year of Birdwatching in the West
by Frances Wood
Fulcrum Publishing (16200 Table Mountain Parkway, Suite 300,
Golden, CO 80403), 2004.
247 pages, paperback. $16.95.

Frances Wood lives on the far side of South Whidbey Island,
about 10 miles from here, as the crow flies–along with most other
birds common to the Pacific North-west. Most resident species have
some presence here, in habitat that varies from old-growth cedar to
open fields, orchards, rocky beaches, and light-density human
development. Most Pacific Flyway migratory species stop over to feed.
Counting 20 species in 10 minutes is often no more difficult
than stepping outside, amid hummingbirds, chickadees, nuthatches,
finches, wrens, sparrows, American robins, and towhees, among
the most frequent visitors; listening for woodpeckers, with the
pileated, hairy, and downy varieties all nesting nearby; checking
the sky for great blue herons, bald eagles, redtail hawks, osprey,
northern gos-hawks, and American kestrels while walking to the car;
watching for startled owls gliding across the road between here and
the ferry landing; and observing the variety of gulls, ducks,
cormorants, and pigeons at the landing while waiting to board.
Scarcer species, requiring books to identify, appear about
once a week.

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Pope John Paul II “taught love for animals”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Pope John Paul II, 84, died on April 3, 2005. Recalled
the PETA-owned <www.GoVeg.com> web site, “Pope John Paul II taught
love for animals more than any other pope in recent memory. In 1990,
His Holiness proclaimed that ‘the animals possess a soul and men must
love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren.’ He went on to
say that all animals are ‘fruit of the creative action of the Holy
Spirit and merit respect’ and that they are ‘as near to God as men
are.’ After he became Pope, His Holiness went to Assisi, the
birthplace of St. Francis, and spoke of the saint’s love for
animals. He declared, ‘We, too, are called to a similar
attitude.’ PETA is grateful that His Holiness spoke out so
beautifully for animals and their souls, and we hope that his
successor will also speak out for them with the same love and
compassion.”
While Pope John Paul II never formally responded to petitions
on animal issues, the Vatican under his direction shifted in small
steps toward more animal-friendly policies.

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Why animal advocates’ “war on terror” must be nonviolent

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

Why animal advocates’ “war on terror” must be nonviolent
by Steve Hindi, founder, SHARK

It has happened again. Thugs misappropriating the name of
“animal rights activism” have struck another blow against all animal
advocates and the animals for whom we toil. This time the crime
occurred in Villa Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, where during
the first weekend in February 2003 someone reportedly cut the brake
lines of as many as 40 trucks owned by a company that sells live
lobsters.
The people responsible for this act have again allowed those
who abuse animals to paint all who care about animals as terrorists.
I hope these criminals, whoever they are, are caught and convicted.
And I hope they were not actually involved in animal defense.
Fourteen years ago my rage over the use of captive live
pigeons as targets at the annual Labor Day shoot in Hegins,
Pennsyl-vania completely transformed my life.
Since then I have watched, documented and exposed more
animal abuse then I want to think about. I live with horror at what
I have witnessed, with the knowledge that my past as a former hunter
embraced a world of abuse for which I was personally responsible.

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