A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1999:
Illumination
In The Flatwoods:
A season with the wild turkey
by Joe Hutto
1995. 240 pages, paperback, $16.95
Paddy: The Classic Story
of a Baby Beaver and the
Naturalist Who Adopted Him
by R.D. Lawrence
1977. 240 pages, paperback, $14.95
Both from The Lyons Press (31 West 21 St., New York, NY 10010).
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1999:
The Search for the Giant Squid
by Richard Ellis
The Lyons Press (123 W. 18th St., 6th floor, New York, NY 10011), 1998.
336 pages, hardcover, $35.00.
Richard Ellis makes a convincing
case that most of the best-documented “sea
serpent” and other “sea monster” sightings of
the past 450 years were actually sightings of
architeuthis, the giant squid, which has in fact
been known to science from tangible specimens
since 1545, and was formally identified
as a species by Japetus Steenstrup in 1854.
The size and shape of a giant squid, Elis
argues, tends to be so unfamiliar to most
viewers that partial views are easily misread.
So far, so good––but Walt Disney
P r e s e n t s made the same case, with much of
the same illustrative material, in a 1954
episode assembled to promote the Kirk
Douglas film based on Jules Verne’s 1874
novel 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Ellis
offers, essentially, a much more detailed but
heavily redundant update.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1999:
Out of the Saddle:
Native American Horsemanship
by GaWaNi Pony Boy
Photographs by Gabrielle Boiselle
Bowtie Press (c/o Fancy Publications,
3 Burroughs, Irvine, CA 92618),
1999. 96 pages, paperback. $17.95.
GaWaNi Pony Boy, whose Horse
Follow Closely became a best-seller despite
barely passing as a primer on horse training,
has issued a sequel, Out of the Saddle, best
described as more of the same. Most of the
photos are taken from Horse Follow Closely,
and his anecdotes are also essentially the
same. But Out of the Saddle is directed at
children––as Horse Follow Closely should
have been.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1999:
AMSTERDAM––KLM Royal
Dutch Airlines on April 15 apologized
because staff recently tossed 440 live
Chinese ground squirrels into a shredding
machine of the type normally used to pulverize
culled male chicks at a poultry hatchery.
The ground squirrels arrived at the
KLM terminal at Schiphol International
Airport, near Amsterdam, without health
certificates. They were traveling from a
Beijing exporter to a private collector
[believed to be also a dealer] in Athens,
Greece. KLM claimed the Beijing exporter
had refused to take them back.
The case came to light when 30
squirrels escaped, racing through outdoor
baggage handling areas and runways.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1999:
Animals As Airline Cargo by Nathan J. Winograd
San Francisco SPCA Department of Law & Advocacy (2500 16th St., San Francisco, CA 94103), 1998. Free on request.
A Santa Monica Superior Court jury
ruled on March 10, 1999 that an American
Airlines pilot and flight crew acted properly in
restraining first class passenger Marcelle
Becker, of Beverly Hills, with her dog’s
leash, toward the end of a July 1995 flight
from New York to Los Angeles.
Becker had allegedly released her
13-year-old, 8-pound Maltese from his carrier,
and allowed him to roam the cabin. When airline
staff apprehended the dog, returned him
to the carrier, and shoved the carrier under the
seat in front of Becker, Becker contended,
they handled the dog so roughly that he died
soon afterward.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:
Food for the Gods: Vegetarianism & the World’s Religions
Essays, conversations, recipes by Rynn Berry
Pythagorean Publishers (POB 8174, JAF Station, New York, NY 10116), 1998. 374 pages, paperback; $19.95
Vegetarian religious historian Rynn Berry pops up occasionally in national news media to rebut the oft cited but bogus claim that Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian. Hitler, according to Berry, eschewed meat only occasionally, on medical orders, to relieve constipation. Hitler’s favorite meal, according to his personal cook, was stuffed squab.
On March 13, Berry made headlines again, when Washington Post s t a f f writer Bill Broadway quoted him and cited his new book, Food for the Gods, in an article about the current furor in Amarillo, Texas, over a PETA billboard which says simply, “Jesus was a vegetarian,” and gives a PETA web address: >>www.jesusveg.com<<.
One L. Michael White, identified as professor of classics and director of religious studies at the University of Texas at Austin, reportedly said he knew of no Biblical scholars who believe Jesus was a vegetarian.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:
CARACAS––”Sustainable use”
as preached by the World Wildlife Fund and
endorsed by the Bill Clinton/Albert Gore
White House will hit Venezuelan parrots
from April 15 to July 15, when members of
the Guarao tribe and other eastern Managas
and Delta Amacuro states will be allowed to
capture up to 2,000 guaro parrots, 200 redbellied
macaws, 50 royal parrots, and 50
blue-and-gold macaws.
Venezuelan wildlife authorities
“say they can’t control the thousands of people
who hunt exotic birds and sell them on
the black market,” Bart Jones of Associated
Press reported, “so they’ve decided to let
them hunt some species in the hope that
they’ll leave alone the birds who are most
endangered.”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:
KAMPALA––An estimated 117 alleged members of
the displaced Hutu tribal militia Interhamwe on March 1 turned
from fighting the Tutsi-tribe-led coalition that has ruled
Rwanda since 1994 to strike a deadly blow at tourism in the
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park of western Uganda.
Four wildlife guards were killed in the March 1 dawn
assault, including community conservation chief warden Paul
Ross Wagaba, who was burned alive, and 32 park visitors
were abducted from tourist camp sites near Lake Katangira.
Five vehicles and trailers used as residences were
burned, along with the Ugandan headquarters of the
International Gorilla Conservation Project.
Chicago University gorilla researcher Elizabeth
Garland, 29, woke to gunfire but escaped physical harm by
slipping into the bush as other visitors fled their tents into open
view and were captured. She watched as the raiders segregated
the visitors by language and nationality, taking those who spoke
English with them.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:
An attempt to vasectomize urban
baboons and vervets in the Diani beach district
along the south coast of Kenya started
slowly in January, as after fixing and releasing
just one vervet, the team was unable to catch
any more monkeys of either species,
Columbus Trust official Clement Kiragu told
The Nation, of Nairobi.
Britain will within a year introduce
“pet passports” in lieu of the six month
quarantine of all imported dogs and cats
which has been in effect since 1900, agriculture
minister Nick Brown announced on March
26. The “pet passports” will certify that the
bearer animals have been vaccinated against
rabies, have microchip ID, have had a blood
test, have no exotic infections, and come from
a nation with no endemic rabies. While pets
who have come from most European Union
nations and Australia, New Zealand, Japan,
Taiwan, and Singapore will qualify, pets from
the U.S. and Canada would not, under the
rules as Brown explained them ––but, Brown
added, “We are looking again at the position
for the U.S. and Canada.”