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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: October 2006
Books
Stealing Love: Confessions of a Dognapper
by Mary A. Fischer
Harmony Books (231 Broad St.,
Nevada City, CA 95959), 2006. 288 pages, hardcover. $23.00.
Stealing
Love: Confessions of a Dognapper is the autobiography of investigative
reporter Mary A. Fischer, a poignant story of a sad and lonely life. Rescuing
abused dogs is both incidental to, and symbolic of, her own family history.
Fischer was the second daughter of a dysfunctional
family. When she was four years old, her mother had a breakdown following
the death of her own mother, and was committed to a mental institution
by her father, a selfish, inconsiderate rake.
Fischer paints a harrowing picture of
life in an American asylum when psychiatry was still relatively new: "No
experimental therapy was seen as too bizarre." Shock therapy was
the norm, "with electrode pads in a metal headband on her temples,
a nurse flips a switch and 140 volts of electricity crackle through her
temporal lobes like a thunderbolt of lightning."
Because her father could not handle the
care of his two young daughters, he sent them to a Catholic convent boarding
school. Fischer spent seven miserable years of alienated existence at
this austere, loveless institution. Fischer emerged from this tragic background
with a fiercely independent spirit, contempt for authority, and deep compassion
for underdogs, evident in both her reporting career and in dognapping
to rescue dogs from abusive homes.
Her rescues/thefts have not been random.
"I and many of the other rescuers I've met are not, well, rabid in
how we fulfil our mission," Fischer contends, describing them as
"solid people, a vet who will go un-named, a marketing and branding
executive, an NBC publicist, and a former lawyer."
Vigilante dog rescuers are not welcomed
by much of the animal welfare community. As ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt
Clifton explains, "I began logging pet theft cases circa 1980. Theft
for laboratory use was then the most common motive. Since the federal
Pet Theft Act took effect in 1993, however, pet thefts in the name of
rescue far outnumber pet thefts for lab use, and indeed all other categories
of pet theft except thefts in connection with dogfighting. Many 'rescue'
thefts are undertaken with little or no effort to pursue legal remedies,
and are based on gross misunderstanding, as comes out in court cases,
e.g. old dogs who are in late stages of cancer, but are enjoying their
last days in the sunshine, who are snatched away by people who believe
they are being starved.
"Hundreds of animals were stolen
after Hurricane Katrina in the name of rescue, some of whom had just been
taken back to New Orleans by people returning to the city to try to rebuild
their lives. Courts all over the U.S. are now handling cases of New Orleans
refugees trying to reclaim pets who were taken by 'rescuers' who now refuse
to return them.
"For more than 50 years animal advocates moved mountains to get strong federal penalties and supporting state laws in place to crack down on pet theft. Now the animal advocacy community is suddenly being asked to defend 'rescuers' who violate the anti-theft laws. If animal advocates get suckered into weakening the laws with--for example--provisions exempting interstate pet thieves who have non-profit status, thieves with motives other than rescue will be quick to exploit the loopholes.
Quite a few dogfighters already pose as
rescuers, and some lab suppliers have operated as medical charities."
Yet reading the individual accounts of
why Fischer has rescued neglected dogs, we the reviewers can say that
we quite agree with her actions and have, operating our own wildlife rehabilitation
center, done similar. Authorities are not always keen to intervene, and
making a report would often provoke personal retaliation from the animal
abuser.
Fischer saw animals suffering in dire
situations where she could not practicably invoke authorities: "Dogs
tethered to six-foot ropes and chains, their necks permanently scarred,"
and "malnourished dogs with exposed rib bones, others with cigarette
burns, beer bottles broken over their heads, or their ears chewed away
by mites or other insects."
Fischer did not simply assume starvation,
which can be difficult to distinguish from other conditions in single-dog
cases; she had this verified by a veterinarian, and only acted after months
of observation.
--Chris Mercer & Beverley
Pervan
<www.cannedlion.co.za>,
SouthAfrica
Freeing Keiko: The Journey of a Killer Whale from Free Willy to the Wild
by Kenneth Brower
Penguin Group (375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014), 2006. 288 pages, hardcover.
$26.00.
Freeing
Keiko is a biography of the captive orca whale who rose to stardom as
"Willy" in the Hollywood movie Free Willy! and sequels. Author
Kenneth Brower, son of the late Earth Island Institute founder David Brower,
had uniquely privileged access to effort to rehabilitate Keiko for release,
from the 1993 beginning of Earth Island Institute negotiations to obtain
Keiko from the Mexico City aquarium El Reino Aventura until the Humane
Society of the U.S. took over the project shortly before Keiko finally
broke from human feeding and supervision in September 2002 and swam to
the coast of Norway to spend the last 15 months of his life.
Captured off Iceland in 1979, Keiko spent
two years at Marineland of Niagara Falls, Ontario. Sold to El Reino Aventura
in Mexico City, he remained there until 1996, when the Free Willy/Keiko
Foundation formed by Earth Island Institute moved him to a newly built
super-sized tank at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. More than 2.5 million visitors
came to see him before he was airlifted to a sea pen in the Westmann Islands
of Iceland in September 1998, to learn again how to be a wild whale.
Knowledgeable and painstaking, Brower
summarizes as much as can be known from accessible documents about Keiko's
capture and early years.
A variety of individuals and organizations
on either side of the marine mammal captivity debate and of varied credibility
besieged El Reino Aventura with offers for Keiko after the success of
the first Free Willy! film. Brower keeps the focus of that part of the
story on the successful Earth Island Institute bid, backed by HSUS. He
acknowledges some of the others, but largely steers clear of the many
plots, counter-plots, and overt scams that complicated the negotiations.
More than half of Freeing Keiko concerns
the move to Iceland and aftermath, including much original observation
of the later years of the project, when few reporters other than Brower
ventured to the scene.
By far the most credit for Keiko's release
must go to the eccentric cell phone billionaire Craig McCaw, who put $20
million into the project. Brower also has especially warm words for Earth
Island Institute executive director David Philips and negotiator Katherine
Hanly, who was instrumental in arranging for Keiko to go to Iceland.
Brower's description of the Earth Island
Institute success into turning public hostility toward Keiko into enthusiasm
for his arrival is poignant in view of the subsequent revival of the Icelandic
whaling industry and the September 2006 announcement of the Icelandic
government that it will resume exporting whale meat.
Renewed Icelandic political support for
whaling, despite the growth of the Icelandic whale-watching industry,
may reflect the disappointment Brower notes that Keiko's presence did
not bring much lasting economic benefit to the impoverished Westmanns,
if any.
Brower sums up, "Keiko's saga had
been a tale of enormous absurdity. He was a whale who lived in a $ 7.5
million palace, attended by dozens of retainers, masseurs, lawyers, public
relations people, security guards and personal physicians.... As a model
for repatriation of captive whales, he was hopeless. We do not have enough
whale loving billionaires....And yet as a symbol and icon he was potent....But
the climax of Keiko's saga would come when he swam out of his own story.
Just beyond the range of movie cameras, and television, and journalists
and editorial writers and billionaires, and environmentalists, he would
swim clear of absurdity. He would escape the magical thinking of his channelers,
the over-protectiveness of his trainers and the righteous indignation
of his advocates in the animal rights movement. He would course onward
into bracing cold subpolar waters where everything is true. He would swim
into anonymity."
The ending was, as most of us know, not
quite so poetically satisfying.
As a biography of an orca, this book is superb. As a study of the sociology of animal rescue, it is incomparable.--Chris Mercer & Merritt Clifton
Writing Green: Advocacy & Investigative Reporting About the Environment in the Early 21st Century
by Debra Schwartz, Ph.D.
Apprentice House (www.apprenticehouse.com), 2006. 179 pages, paperback.
$18.95.
In absence of animal issues specialists
on the staffs of most news media, environmental beat reporters produce
about half of all mainstream news coverage pertaining to animals, with
the rest scattered among beats including farm-and-business, general assignment,
local news, lifestyles, and even sports. Conversely, about half of all
environmental beat reporting involves animal issues, albeit mostly pertaining
to wildlife habitat and endangered species.
Exactly half of Writing Green examines
how Ocean Aware-ness Project founder David Helvarg, Tom Meersman of the
St. Paul Pioneer Press, and Paul Rogers of the San Jose Mercury News produced
award-winning exposes of oceanic oil drilling, the impacts of invasive
species in the Great Lakes, and federal grazing subsidies, including extermination
of predators by USDA Wildlife Services.
Helvarg, Meersman, and Rogers are all
longtime ANIMAL PEOPLE readers and occasional sources, as are several
other Writing Green contributors. Humane concerns were not among the topics
of their award-winning work, but I am aware through direct acquaintance
that most of the Writing Green contributors take humane concerns into
consideration, among many other values and pressures, when they write
about animals. They often do not reach the same conclusions that animal
advocates would. Yet understanding how they evaluate their material could
be quite valuable to animal advocates who are seriously trying to be more
influential to the world beyond the already persuaded.
Helvarg, for example, as author of The
War Against The Greens (1994), is especially astute about detecting corporate
and governmental spin. Rogers is known for his skepticism of advocacy
group spin. Meersman likes to see hard statistics--and will check the
math.
Writing Green author/editor Debra Schwartz
produced Writing Green as a journalism textbook. Apprentice House published
it as a learning exercise for book publishing students. Teaching animal
advocates how to make their case to mainstream news media was not an expected
purpose of Writing Green, and if explored directly and in depth could
be subject of another book. But until such a book is written, Writing
Green is a good starting point. --Merritt Clifton
(Another good starting point is the ANIMAL PEOPLE tip sheet "Media relations for humane societies," free via e-mail.]
Black Market: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia
by Ben Davies
EarthAware Editions (17 Paul Drive, San Rafael, CA 94903), 2005. 173 pages,
paperback. $29.95.
A pictorial account of the trade in Asian
endangered species, Ben Davies' book Black Market is shocking, sickening
and depressing, yet also challenging, inspiring, well-researched, authentic,
and thought-provoking.
More than a harrowing litany of ghastly
animal abuse, Black Market offers some hope for the future by examining
possible responses, including the work done by dedicated conservationists
and animal advocates.
Not only the number of bears saved by
Jill Robinson's Animals Asia Foundation, for example, measures the value
of her work. Of greater importance is the impact of her efforts in eroding
the culture of killing and consuming wildlife, including by helping to
empower local people who care about animals to undertake projects of their
own.
Eight years after opening the first sanctuary
for bears rescued from bile farms in China, now providing humane education
to thousands of young people each year, the Animals Asia Foundation in
mid-September 2006 signed an agreement with the Forest Protection Department
of Vietnam to build a similar bile farm bear rescue center in Tam Dao
National Park, outside Hanoi, to open in January 2007.
The rescue center will be able to handle
only 200 of the 4,000 bears now kept on Vietnamese bile farms, Robinson
acknowledged to Hanoi-based freeland journalist Matt Steinglass, but she
counts on publicity about her work helping to bring about a faster end
to a practice which has in fact been illegal in Vietnam since 1992.
Davies quotes James Compton of the World
Wildlife Fund trade monitoring arm TRAFFIC, who describes newly affluent
China as "a giant vacuum cleaner emptying the whole region of wildlife
resources" to satisfy bizarre cravings for wild meat and body parts.
But acquisitive greed knows no national
boundaries. Davies cites Superintendent Andy Fisher, head of the Metro-politan
Police Wildlife Crime Unit at Scotland Yard, about the extent of the tiger
bone trade in London. He also mentions that "By the early 1990s Taiwan
had become the world's centre for rhino-horn smuggling. It had a stockpile
estimated to total nine tons--equivalent to 3,700 dead rhinos--with a
street value of $50 million. And the horns were openly on sale."
Despite the heroic efforts of Jill Robinson, Suwanna Gauntlett of WildAid, and others, whose compassion shines like flakes of gold, it is hard to avoid being overwhelmed by the scale of the cruel destruction. --Chris Mercer
The Ocean At Home:
An Illustrated History of the Aquarium
by Bernd Brunner
Princeton Architectural Press
(37 E. 7th Ave., New York, NY 10003), 2005.
144 pages, hardcover. $24.95.
Originally published in German, printed
in China, newly reissued in English, The Ocean At Home is a surprisingly
fascinating in-depth study of a seemingly esoteric topic whose evolution
in the 19th and early 20th centuries paralleled the rise of the humane
movement, anti-vivisectionism, and human awareness of ecology.
Even before Charles Darwin produced On
The Origin of Species, the 19th century brought an explosion of interest
in nature study, especially among the fast-growing middle classes of Europe
after the Industrial Revolution removed large numbers of people from routine
daily immersion in raising plants and animals.
Author Bernd Brunner does not delve deeply
into the greater cultural context of home aquarium development, but is
aware of it, and explores the sociology of human interest in aquariums
to the extent that his sources permit.
Along the way, Brunner explains how the advent of home aquariums changed perceptions of the ocean, as aquarium builders became increasingly aware of the need to keep a balance at all times among plant and animal species, in order to keep any of them alive. --Merritt Clifton
Coyotes and Javelinas
by Lauray Yule
Look West Series (Rio Nuevo Publishers,
451 N. Bonita Ave., Tucson, AZ 85745), 2004.
64 pages, hardcover, illustrated. $12.95.
Not reviewing these now time-tested and still in print titles promptly on publication two years ago was a goof occasioned by whatever cat knocked the unopened envelope containing them down into the false bottom of a filing cabinet.
Written for a classroom audience, Coyotes
and Javelinas present a positive view of two of the most resourceful and
unjustly maligned animals in the west. Former Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
staffer Lauray Yule came to know and appreciate coyotes and javelinas
from first-hand observation and experience. While Coyotes and Javelinas
are not first-hand narratives, neither are they mere simplified natural
history texts. In addition to biological information, Yule describes the
cultural roles of her animal subjects.
Few observers of javelinas are aware,
as Yule points out, that they are not closely related to the Old World
pigs they resemble, and that their likenesses exemplify convergent evolution.
Conversely, coyotes are the New World variant of the Old World jackal,
whom they closely resemble, but Yule misses that relationship.
Yule might also be faulted for omitting discussion of the federally funded purges of coyotes conducted for the past 75 years--but if she delved deeply into that, rancher influence might keep Coyotes out of school libraries. --Merritt Clifton
First Light:
Animal Voices in Concert
by Ardeth DeVries
Publishing Works (c/o Revolution Booksellers,
60 Winter St., Exeter, NH 03833), October 2006
186 pages, paperback. $15.00.
First Light is a collection of short stories
about dogs and an African elephant named Sonny, who was orphaned by herd-culling
in Zimbabwe circa 1980, was sold to a zoo in New Mexico, was eventually
deemed incorrigible, and was sent to the Popcorn Park Zoo, a rescue facility
run by the Associated Humane Societies of New Jersey, in 1989. He died
in early 2001.
The stories are told largely through the
mouths of the animals themselves, including Zippy, a little terrier who
rescues birds and finds time to teach inter-species communication, and
Angus, a blind shelter dog whose caring guardian was able to give him
the gift of sight. Angus lives with author Ardeth DeVries and joins DeVries
at benefits for animal charities near their home in Coupevlle, Wasington.
There is adventure, pain, laughter, and
tears on every page. But there is substance to this book. It is not a
mere litany of animal rescues. The animals display marked understanding
and wisdom. Portraying the dogs as enlightened highlights the sad truth
that most of their human friends are not.
Soft and sentimental, unashamedly anthropomorphic,
there is almost a Disney character about the stories, in that although
the adventures are inspired by actual events, much of the book consists
of conversations with and between animals. The tales are imbued with an
atmosphere of respect for animals that makes them ideal bedtime reading
for children to whom one wishes to impart an ethic of compassion.
DeVries's stories reveal a deep knowledge
of animal behavior and care. At one point, she describes giving CPR to
a small bird that had been stunned. Breathing into a small bird's beak
after it has flown into a window is something we ourselves have to do
from time to time--and it works. Similarly, DeVries relates how she sang
to one shelter dog in order to reassure her. This too is a device that
we have used with success in rehabbing wild animals. Hearing a human voice
going on and on seems to have a calming effect on even wild animals, and
there are many jackals and caracals now roaming the Kalahari who are well
versed in the poetry of Longfellow.
This is a charming little book, which
could well be used in humane education.
The title refers to a spiritual awakening
that a practitioner of Zen might call satori, namely a realization that
all beings are connected and that all are part of a greater whole. DeVries
believes that if we are sensitive enough, contact and communication with
animals can help us to find this form of enlightenment. Although the message
is deeply spiritual, the stories themselves are simple, well-written,
and delightful.
All proceeds earned by Ardeth DeVries
from sales of First Light will be donated to animal welfare organizations,
including the Whidbey Animal Improvement Foundation, Associated Humane
Societies, and Broken Arrow, a foundation DeVries operates to help the
pets of impoverished humans in the Puget Sound region.
--Chris Mercer
<www.cannedlion.co.za>
South Africa
Cousin John: The Story of a Boy
& a Small Smart Pig
by Walter Paine
Bunker Hill Publishing (285 River Road, Piermont, NH 03779), 2006. 95
pages, paperback. $17.95.
Raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, Walter
Paine found the outdoors and nature an endless source of interest. He
was far happier roaming the open acres he called "my magic kingdom’"
because of the many fascinating creatures he found there, than he was
playing with school friends. He had difficulty relating to other boys
his age because he was far more interested in picking up bugs and inspecting
anything that crawled or flew than in playing conventional games.
Paine did once try hunting, shooting a
squirrel out of a tree with a BB gun. "As it lay twitching pathetically
at my feet, I felt a sudden surge of shame and sorrow for taking an innocent
creature's life," he writes.
On his tenth birthday Paine's parents
gave him a runt piglet, who became the center of his life. Paine named
his little pink pig Cousin John. Walter spent every moment he could with
his new friend, teaching him to walk on a harness, taking him to visit
neighbors and even winning a "special mention" ribbon at a local
fair, where he entertained the public by walking Cousin John around the
pony ring. No one had ever seen a pig walk on a harness before.
Paine feels that caring for Cousin John
gave him an invaluable lesson in responsibility. He hopes that his young
readers of this story will each have the same opportunity to care for
a special creature, and experience the trust and companionship that he
did.
--Beverley Pervan
<www.cannedlion.co.za>
South Africa