LETTERS re "Proposal for an Accord Between Animal Advocates and Biomedical Researchers"[May 2012]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May 2012:

Letters re “Proposal for an Accord Between Animal Advocates and Biomedical Researchers”

HSUS president:  “We must work with our traditional adversaries.”

When I got involved with animal protection in the mid-1980s as an undergraduate college student,  the use of animals in research, testing,  and education was one of the hot topics in our cause. Peter Singer,  in his enormously influential book Animal Liberation, put that issue along with factory farming at the top of the to-do list for the new generation of animal advocates.  Readers recoiled as Singer described,  in his well- researched manifesto,  duplicative experiments,  protocols involving the use of animals with no relevance to the human health circumstance,  and animals enduring extreme pain and distress as routine and normal practices in the laboratory setting. Read more

EU battery cage ban & the price of eggs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May 2012:

EU battery cage ban & the price of eggs

    BRUSSELS—The price of eggs in the shell  doubled,  while egg production fell 15% in the first four months after a European Union ban on battery caging,  according to the European Egg Producers Association.
“The EU acknowledges that there has been a clear reduction in eggs because of the cage ban but blames the industry for not taking action earlier,”  reported Raf Casert of Associated Press.  “The EU gave producers a dozen years to adapt their equipment to the animal friendly rules–but many still haven’t complied.   Those who prepared have reaped high profits as prices soar,”  Casert wrote.

Political intervention weakens new puppy mill legislation in four states

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May 2012:

Political intervention weakens new puppy mill legislation in four states

AUSTIN,  HARRISBURG,  OKLAHOMA CITY,  SPRINGFIELD–Recently passed laws meant to curb puppy mills appear to have been crippled by political intervention in four states.
The Pennsylvania Dog Law Advisory Board on April 25,  2012 met for the first time since Republican Governor Tom Corbett took office in January 2011.  Among other duties,  the board is charged with enforcing an anti-puppy mill law introduced in 2008 by previous governor Ed Rendell,  a Democrat. Read more

Dog-eating surfaces as U.S. presidential campaign issue

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May 2012:

Dog-eating surfaces as U.S. presidential campaign issue

       WASHINGTON D.C.— “What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?”  U.S. President Barack Obama asked at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on April 28,  2012,  citing metaphors used by 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to describe herself.
“A pit bull is delicious,”  Obama answered himself.
The joke was Obama’s response to an April 19,  2012 gibe from 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain,  who posted a photo of his son Jimmy’s bulldog Apollo on Twitter with the caption, “I’m sorry Mr. President,  he’s not on the menu!” Read more

BOOKS Falling for Eli: How I lost heart, then gained hope through the love of a singular horse

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

Falling for Eli:
How I lost heart, then gained hope through the love of a singular horse
by Nancy Shulins
DaCapo Lifelong Books (11 Cambridge Center,  Cambridge,  MA  02142), 2012.  272 pages,  paperback.  $15.99.

    Former Associated Press correspondent Nancy Shulins shares an uplifting memoir in  Falling for Eli:  How I lost heart,  then gained hope through the love of a singular horse.  Married to a great guy named Mark,  Shulins wanted to start a family,  but despite a long series of expensive fertility treatments,  medical issues prevented her from becoming pregnant. Seeing friends and family doting on their children saddened her.  Shulins even stopped walking her dog Jack in the park to avoid the “fertile Myrtles” women who had recently given birth. Then Mark introduced her to friends nearby who kept horses. Read more

BOOKS Of Moose & Men: A Veterinarian’s Pursuit

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

Of Moose & Men:  A Veterinarian’s Pursuit
of the World’s Largest Deer by Jerry Haigh
ECW Press  (2120 Queen Street East,  Suite 200,
Toronto,  Ontario,  M4E 1E2,  Canada),  2012.  272 pages,  hardcover.  $22.95.

Wildlife veterinarian Jerry Haigh moved from Scotland to Kenya,  where he authored Wrestling With Rhinos (2002) and The Trouble With Lions (2007).   Of Moose and Men:  A Veterinarian’s Pursuit of the World’s Largest Deer has emerged from his subsequent experience at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon,  Saskatchewan. Read more

BOOKS: Goodbye, Friend

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

Goodbye, Friend
by Gary Kowalski
New World Library (14 Pameron Way,  Novato,  CA  94949),  2012.
176 pages,  paperback.  $14.00.

Goodbye, Friend enters a crowded market of books written to guide human survivors through grief after the loss of a beloved pet. Unitarian Universalist minister Gary Kowalski came to write about pet loss after receiving a note from a congregant asking him to announce another congregant’s dog’s death. Kowalksi hesitated,  wondering how the congregation would accept the news.  But the entire congregation appreciated the woman’s loss and provided comfort to her. Read more

Obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

“I come to bury Caesar,  not to praise him.  The evil that men do lives after them.  The good is oft interred with their bones.” –-William Shakespeare

Lawrence Anthony,  61,  died on March 2,  2012 in Johannesburg,  South Africa.  Following his father into the insurance industry,  Anthony later turned to real estate development.  In the mid-1990s Anthony bought the 5,000-acre Thula Thula private wildlife reserve in Zululand,  founded in 1911.  Anthony “added luxury accommodations and fine dining to attract tourists eager to see wildlife close up,”  recalled Douglas Martin of The New York Times. Anthony also added vegetarian cooking classes to the Thula Thula program of entertainment and education,  and made Thula Thula the headquarters for his own conservation charity,  Earth Organization. In 1999 Anthony took in nine elephants who were slated for culling. This episode informed The Elephant Whisperer:  My Life With the Herd in the African Wild (2009),  co-authored with his brother-in-law Graham Spence.  Anthony in 2005 and 2008 helped lead opposition to elephant culling in Kruger National Park.  But Anthony was best known for making his way to Baghdad after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in May 2003,  to help the starving animals of the Baghdad Zoo.  Read more

Animal Place & Harvest Home rescue 4,460 hens

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

TURLOCK,  California–“There are still 2,750 hens at our Rescue Ranch facility in Vacaville and 200 hens at our Grass Valley sanctuary.  587 hens have been placed into loving homes,”  Animal Place founder Kim Sturla posted on March 28,  2012,  a month after volunteers coordinated by Animal Place and the Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary,  in Stockton,  completed the largest hen rescue on record. Read more

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