Baghdad Zoo reopens with Uday’s maneating lions

September 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

BAGHDAD–Back under Iraqi management, the Baghdad Zoo
reopened to the public on July 20, 2003, featuring 86 animals,
including all 19 surviving lions from the previous zoo collection,
the much smaller privately owned Lunar Park zoo, and the personal
menagerie of Uday Hussein, elder son of the deposed dictator Saddam
Hussein, who was killed in a firefight by U.S. troops on July 22
along with his brother Qusay and two other men not yet positively
identified.
SkyNews of Britain reported on July 28 that at least some of
Uday’s lions are confirmed man-eaters. A 36-year-old man calling
himself Abu Ahmad, who said he worked for Uday as an executioner,
described to SkyNews how he and Uday fed two 19-year-old students to
his lions alive after they “competed with Uday where some young
ladies were concerned.”
Objecting that 19 lions were too many, Care for the Wild, the
International Fund for Animal Welfare, and the Wildlife Action Group
of South Africa all told news media including ANIMAL PEOPLE that a
lionness named Zena who birthed five cubs just as U.S. troops were
storming Uday’s former compound would be taken to South Africa, with
her cubs, for release into semi-freedom at the SanWild sanctuary.

Middle East

Saving the “rescued” turtles of Thai temple

September 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

BANGKOK–More than two tons of turtles, including 136 of
soft-shelled species and 102 with hard shells, were removed from the
“klongs” (reflecting ponds) of Wat Bovorn in early August 2003 and
hauled to quarantine ponds for evaluation and treatment. Those in
good enough health are to be released at a sanctuary pond in Bang
Sai, reported Laurie Rosenthal of The Nation newspaper.
Mostly purchased from live food markets and dropped into the
klongs by the Buddhist faithful, in the belief that releasing them
would build good karma, the turtles represented a five-year
accumulation.
Draining the klongs and collecting the turtles, many of them
malnourished and diseased, took three weeks.
“Heavy metals and chemicals such as chlorine have affected
the turtles’ livers,” said Nantarika Chansue, DVM, of the
Chulalongkorn University veterinary faculty.
“Many of the hard-shells had round holes on their shells made
from pointed objects,” said Rosenthal.
Explained Nantarika, “People have been taking the turtles
out of the water and trying to kill them for food. Some people also
‘recycled’ them. They took them out of the water and released them
again to make merit,” a perversion of actual Buddhist teaching.
Called the Wang Tao Project, the turtle rescue was funded by
Charoen Pokphand Group executives Wanlop Chiaravanont and his son
Kachorn.

Animal welfare in India a year after ouster of Maneka Gandhi

September 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

NEW DELHI, CHENNAI–Bijar district magistrate Pankaj Kumar
on August 9, 2003 overturned a local court ruling that elderly widow
Janki Devi’s dog must be killed for alleged biting. The case drew
note throughout India, wrote Imran Kan of the Indo-Asian News
Service, when “other people said that the land mafia, with an eye
on Devi’s property, leveled false charges against the dog.”
Hearing of the plight of the dog and the widow, former federal
minister for animal welfare Maneka Gandhi petitioned on their behalf,
offering to adopt the dog herself if need be to save his life.
Triumphs have been few for Mrs. Gandhi in the year since she
lost her ministry under pressure of an alliance of the biomedical
industry with practitioners of animal sacrifice, but this time she
won a round of symbolic importance, affirming that a dog’s life has
moral value.
There were fears when Mrs. Gandhi was ousted from her
position as an independent within the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya
Janata party coalition government that animal welfare in India might
fall into an abyss.

Dolphin captures in the Solomons

September 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

CANCUN, Mexico; HONORIA, Solomon Islands–One of as many
as 200 dolphins who were captured in the Solomon Islands during a
lawless interim before the July 21 arrival of Australian peacekeeping
troops reportedly died on July 28, a week after 28 of the dolphins
were flown to the Parque Nizuc swim-with complex in Cancun, Mexico.
Twenty-eight dolphins arrived, anyhow. Greenpeace claimed
33 dolphins were actually loaded for the flight.
The chartered Brazilian-owned DC-10 carrying the dolphins
took off only hours ahead of the arrival of the 2,000 Australian
soldiers, who quickly ended 18 months of civil strife. Guadalcanal
island warlord Harold Keke surrendered to the Australian forces on
August 13. Keke led a coup attempt in 2000 that led to the deaths of
about 50 people and the destruction of 15 villages along the Weather
Coast of Guadalcanal, the largest island in the Solomons archipelago.
How many dolphins will die as an indirect consequence of
Keke’s insurrection is still anyone’s guess.

Iceland plans to start “research whaling”

September 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

REYKJAVIK–Iceland fisheries minister Arne Mathiesen and
International Whaling Commission delegate Stefan Asmundsson announced
on August 6, 2003 that Iceland will emulate Japan by starting a
“research” whaling industry. Iceland last hunted whales in 1989.
The announcement confirmed a statement to Japanese news media
by Iceland prime minister David Oddsson in January 2003, while in
Tokyo seeking investment and foreign aid.
Japan has often economically assisted smaller nations in
quid-pro-quo for political support in trying to resume commercial
whaling and thwart further international protection of ocean species
and habitat
Soon after Asmundsson spoke, U.S. State Department
representative Philip Reeker reminded news media that the U.S. could
impose sanctions against Iceland under the Pelly Amendment to the
Fishermen’s Protective Act of 1967. The State Department again
denounced the Icelandic resumption of whaling in a separate written
statement less than 24 hours later, but the written statement did
not mention sanctions.
European Union Agriculture and Fisheries Commissioner Franz
Fischler personally took EU objections to the planned resumption of
whaling to Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, said Agence
France-Presse.

Kamchata bears wiped out

September 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

TORONTO–Bear researchers Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns
returned to Canada heartbroken in mid-July 2003 after poachers using
a helicopter killed all 20-to-40 of the grizzly bears they had
studied since 1995 on the Kamchata Peninsula of Siberia.
Russell and Enns documented their work in a PBS television
special, Walking With Giants: The Grizzlies of Siberia, and in the
book Grizzly Heart: Living Without Fear Among the Brown Bears of
Kamchata.
“The people who killed the bears nailed the gall bladder of a
baby grizzly to the research station’s kitchen wall as a gruesome
taunt,” wrote Alanna Mitchell of the Toronto Globe & Mail.
“The bears were killed so we would go home,” Russell told
her, after permanently closing the research station because no more
living bears could be found.
Russell and Enns formed and funded a ranger team in 1998 that
aggressively pursued poachers of bears, sturgeon, and salmon.
Tigers had already been poached out of the region.

Five pilot whales regain freedom off Florida

September 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

MIAMI–The Florida Keys Marine Mammal Rescue Team on August
10 returned five pilot whales to the edge of the continental shelf,
12 miles offshore, where they frequently swim and feed. The four
adult female pilot whales and one yearling male were among a pod of
28 who became stranded on April 28. Eight died, six were
euthanized, and nine eventually were able to swim away, Florida
Keys Marine Mammal Rescue Team director Becky Arnold told Associated
Press. Approximately 1,000 volunteers helped to nurse back to health
the five who were judged capable of recovering in temporary
captivity. Tracking tags will allow researchers to follow them by
satellite for about eight months.

Speaking up for donkeys in Jordan

September 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

AMMAN, Jordan–Formerly abused and abandoned donkeys
Tinklet, Pushball, and Barney don’t actually speak, but like
Balaam’s ass, who testified nearby, and is remembered in the holy
literature of Judasim, Christianity, and Islam, they do their part
to teach humans decency toward their species.
Chris Larter of the British-based Society for Protecting
Animals Abroad (SPANA), recently sent ANIMAL PEOPLE an update on
their doings, complete with press clippings.
“Jordan SPANA director Dr. Ghazi Mustafa is at present very
busy getting ready to open a new education center in September,”
wrote Larter.
Situated at the Hassanieh School for Girls in Um Quseir, the
center will teach animal care and ecological principles to members of
115 animal care clubs established in Jordanian schools with the
cooperation of the Ministry of Education.
“Our target audience are students from 9 to 13,” Mustafa
told Natasha Twal of the Jordan Times.

Wildlife Court Calendar

September 1, 2003 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

U.S. District Judge for the D.C. Circuit Gladys Kessler on
July 31 rejected a Fund for Animals lawsuit challenging the authority
of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue import permits for
Argali sheep trophies imported from Mongolia, Tajikistan, and
Kyrgyzstan. The Fund argued that hunting the Argali put the species
in peril. Responded Kessler, in granting a motion for summary
judgement solicited by Safari Club International on behalf of USFWS
and the Department of the Interior, “Because U.S. hunters generally
pay the highest prices for hunting permits issued by the Tajikistan
government, the absence of legal U.S. hunting substantially
decreased the permit revenues received by the Tajikistan government.
Because permit revenues were used in part for conservation and to
‘convince the local population not to poach,’ the decreased revenues
actually resulted in increasing the amount of poaching in the
region.” In short, Kessler reaffirmed the paradigm prevailing in
wildlife law since the Middle Ages that because hunters fund wildlife
management, wildlife management should favor hunting.

« 1 … 329 330 331 332 333 … 720 »