BOOKS: The Pet Surplus

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

The Pet Surplus:
What Every Dog and Cat Owner
Can Do to Help Reduce It
by Susan M. Seidman
Xlibris Corporation
(www.xlibris.com; 1-888-795-4274), 2001.
234 pages, paperback.

Written for average U.S. petkeepers, The Pet Surplus sums up
the basics about pet overpopulation and other preventable causes of
dog and cat killing by animal shelters. Susan Seidman emphasizes the
need for pet sterilization, adopting animals from shelters, and
correcting misbehavior that often leads to owner surrenders. She
also discusses finding pet-friendly housing, finding lost pets, and
how to return strays to their homes.

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BOOKS: The New Wolves

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

The New Wolves: the Return
of the Mexican Wolf to the
American Southwest by Rick Bass
The Lyons Press (123 W. 18th St., New York, NY 10011), 1998,
paperback 2001. 165 pages. $14.95 paperback.

The New Wolves, by Rick Bass, is a comparatively
uncomplicated narrative of the beginning phase of reintroducing the
extirpated Mexican gray wolf to New Mexico and Arizona. The
reintroduction took wolves raised for generations in captivity, and
reacclimated them to life in the wild.

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Animal obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

 

Bird, a three-year-old cockatoo who lived in Dallas, Texas,
with Christmas Eve 2001 murder victim Kevin Butler, 48, and three
dogs, was killed in defending Butler from alleged knife-wielding
assailants Daniel Torrez and his half-brother, Johnny Serna, but
injured Torrez sufficiently that police made a DNA match with blood
found at the scene and arresed both Torrez and Serna seven months
later. Torrez reportedly confessed. Both men were charged with
capital murder.

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Human obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

 

Chris Byrne, 52, manager of the Fund for Animals’ Black
Beauty Ranch sanctuary since 1990, was killed near dusk on September
2 when his off-road vehicle rolled over on rough terrain while he was
doing his evening check of the animals and fences. Born in
Wimbledon, England, Byrne previously handled animals in Hollywood
films, tended horses for the DuPont family, fought forest fires in
California, started an eco-tourism business on Kawai, Hawaii, and
lived for a time in the Australian Outback. During his tenure,
Black Beauty grew from 600 acres and 400 animals to 1,480 acres and
more than 1,000 animals. “Chris knew and loved every animal at the
ranch,” said Fund president Marian Probst. “He was respected and
admired by the local community, as well as the international animal
protection community, and is very close to irreplaceable.”

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Unusual histories are almost the norm among exotic animal keepers

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

DALLAS–Enthusiasts of exotic and dangerous animals are
almost by definition unusual people–and that poses one of the
perennial complications of the sanctuary dilemma.
Many and perhaps most sanctuarians became involved with
dangerous and exotic animals through breeding, trafficking,
exhibiting, and/or performing with them. They may obtain nonprofit
status, and may actually do a significant amount of animal rescuing
between continuing previous activities under the name of a sanctuary,
yet even then may contribute more to the proliferation of dangerous
and exotic wildlife in private hands than to containing it.

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Animal advocates lead in preventing hot car deaths

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

ATLANTA–The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
reported on July 3, 2002 that at least 78 children died in accidents
associated with parked cars during 2000 and 2001, more than a third
of whom died from heat trauma.
The CDCP data indicates that animal advocates are doing a
much more effective job of communicating the risk of leaving pets
alone in cars than child protection agencies are accomplishing in
reaching parents.
The dangers to either animals or small children are the same:
heat trauma is the most common cause of death or injury, followed by
accidents when a child or animal accidentally puts the car in gear,
accidents in which the child or animal escapes from the vehicle, and
cases of kidnapping or pet theft.

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Down Under bioxenophobia intensifies– Aliens in their native land

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

LEURA, New South Wales, Australia–Twenty-six years after
convening the first meeting of Animal Liberation Australia, 12 years
after venturing to India, Christine Townend has returned home. She
and her retired lawyer husband Jeremy Townend are back more-or-less
to stay–while making frequent visits to India to supervise their
ongoing humane projects.
Yet Townend admits she often feels like an alien. She senses
a meanness of spirit in Australia now that she did not
previously recognize, in her past
careers as activist, teacher, poet, short story writer, and
investigative author, whose 1985 book Pulling The Wool remains the
classic expose of the Down Under sheep trade.
Then, Townend believed, rough Australian treatment of
animals was mainly from ignorance. Behind the Aussie swagger and
bluster, she believed, were good hearts, who could be brought
around to treating all animals with kindness. She has become less
optimistic.

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Women’s Health Initiative warning on estrogen therapy may help horses

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

ATLANTA, WASHINGTON D.C., WINNIPEG–The beginning of the
end of keeping pregnant mares standing from October to March of each
year on urine production lines, and auctioning their foals to
slaughter, may have come with a July 9 scientific warning that, on
balance, estrogen supplements made from pregnant mare’s urine do
menopausal women more harm than good.
The Women’s Health Initiative, an unprecedentedly large
scientific investigation of the effects of taking hormonal
supplements, monitored the health of 16,000 women for nine years,
beginning in 1993.

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Maneka Gandhi of India loses animal welfare ministry, keeps lab oversight

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

NEW DELHI–“What I expected has finally happened. I have
lost the MInistry today,” People for Animals founder Maneka Gandhi
e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on July 2, nearly four years after
becoming the first Minister for Animal Welfare in the cabinet of any
nation.
Elected as an independent member of the parliament of India,
Mrs. Gandhi asked Prime Minister A.P. Vajpayee to create the animal
welfare ministry for her in 1998 as the price of her joining the
ruling coalition led by the Hindu nationalist Bharitya Janata Party.
Vajpayee complied by making animal welfare part of the mandate of the
Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, the portfolio Mrs.
Gandhi held from August 1998 until early 2001.

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