Boo Boo the bear cub gets a break ST. LOUIS, Missouri––Slated to be killed and beheaded for rabies testing, Boo Boo the two-month-old bear cub won a reprieve on May 2, 2014 when the Missouri Department of Conservation advised the St. Louis County Health Department that the bear’s history was sufficiently well documented to […]
Elephant Family founder Mark Shand, 62
Mark Shand, 62, died on April 23, 2014 from a head injury suffered in a fall when he reportedly tried to re-enter a New York City bar through a revolving door, after smoking a cigarette outside. Shand, the younger brother of British Prince Charles’ wife Camilla Parker Bowles, was author of the 1992 British […]
Wildlife in America author Peter Matthiessen, 86
Saw CIA job as “free trip to Paris” Peter Matthiessen, 86, died on April 5, 2014 at his home in Sagaponack, New York, after a year-long struggle with leukemia. Raised in Manhattan, in the same building as another later famous author, George Plimpton, who was two months older, Matthiessen served in the U.S. Navy as […]
Review: Kiwi: The People’s Bird, by Neville Peat
Kiwi: The People’s Bird by Neville Peat Otago University Press, 2006. 208 pages, paperback. $45.00. Reviewed by Debra J. White Eight years after publication, Kiwi: The People’s Bird, by Neville Peat, appears to have established itself as a classic of New Zealand natural and cultural history. Summarizes the publisher’s blurb, “Back in 1990, when […]
Protecting latrine owls from the consequences of crazy behavior
Contributing to the well-being of some of the best-known owls in folklore DENVER––Working to conserve the western screech owl, boreal owl, northern pygmy owl, and northern saw-whet owl, the Teton Raptor Center was honored on March 12, 2014 by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for contributions toward the well-being of some of the most […]
Veg or Non-Veg? India at the Crossroads
by Mia MacDonald & Sangamithra Iyer Brighter Green, 2012. Free 46-page download: <http://www.brightergreen.org/files/india_bg_pp_2011.pdf> Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Brighter Green founder Mia MacDonald and associate Sangamithra Iyer ask, “Can India provide enough food for its people as well as support hundreds of millions of cows and buffalo and billions of chickens in increasingly industrialized conditions? And […]
Factory farming & food security in China, Brazil, & Ethiopia
Climate, Food Security, & Growth: Ethiopia’s Complex Relationship With Livestock (22 pages) by Mia MacDonald & Sangamithra Iyer Cattle, Soyanization, & Climate Change: Brazil’s Agricultural Revolution (42 pages) Skillful Means: The Challenge of China’s Encounter With Factory Farming (28 pages) both by Mia MacDonald & Justine Simon, from Brighter Green, 2011. Free downloads from: http://brightergreen.org/brightergreen.php?id=24 […]
Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity, by Lester R. Brown
Earth Policy Institute (1350 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 403, Washington, DC 20036), 2012. 141 pages, paperback. $15.00. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Publicity materials for Full Planet, Empty Plates credit Lester R. Brown with producing more than 50 books, including the annual Worldwatch reports he edited for 30 years as founder of the Worldwatch Institute. Leaving the Worldwatch Institute in […]
Awards & honors, 2nd quarter 2014
The C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar Foundation, Animal Welfare Board of India, and Winsome Constance Kindness Trust on March 23, 2014 saluted the students of the Shri B.S. Mootha School in Chennai for presenting the best Kindness Kids program in a contest involving 17,000 children in four cities of Tamil Nadu and […]
Giraffe killing in Copenhagen brings zoo culling to global notice
Marius the giraffe was then dissected COPENHAGEN––Despite a worldwide campaign to save him, a healthy 18-month-old bull giraffe named Marius was on the morning of February 9, 2014 lured from his quarters at the Copenhagen Zoo with a treat of rye bread, then dispatched with a captive […]