The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • 52

The Kansas City Star Saturday October 29 1994 COMPANIONS 4 RESOURCES the bookshelf The Consumer's Good Chemical Guide: A Jargon-free Guide to the Chemicals of Everyday Life (WH FreemanSpektrum $2495) by John Emsley suggests that many chemicals are the victims of bad press It purports toset the record straight on artificial sweeteners PVC dioxins nitrates carbon dioxide and many others A field Guide to Nearby Nature (Mountain Press $14) by Peggy Kochanoflf introduces readers young and old to nature through its drawings and readable text It looks at mammals buds insects and plants found in the fields and woods of the Midwest and East Coast NappaiiAgs Air-Buddy a golden retriever who can sink a regulationsized basketball through a 10-foot-high rim and catch a baseball moving at 80 mph will give a demonstration next week at the American Royal The former stray will perform at 9 10 and 11 am Friday at the American Royal Building in a benefit for Wayside Waifs There is no charge to watch Air-Buddy although the Royal does charge a grounds fee of $3 a person For more information call 221-9800 Ruth Simmons of Gladstone sometimes calls her black smoke cat Rags although his real name Sir Alex McRagamuffin sounds more impressive Her 8-year-old pet typifies the Scottish Fold breed with ears that she said The trait a mutation was discovered in 1961 by William Ross a shepherd in Scotland He noticed that Susie a neighbor's white farm cat had unique ears When a kitten was bom with the same trait wife began breeding that type of cat Rags an indoor cat is laid He stretches out on his back totally relaxed call that the Fold Simmons added Marjean Busby mFile Billions of acres of forest on Earth: Before humans invented agriculture In the 1990s Source: Sustaining the Earth 153 103 SHARING THE PLANET NtiUkThe vet eaimg Is it all right to give dog food to my cat? No A requirement for protein is much higher than a because cats are classified as true carnivores meaning they must consume proteins and fats from animal-tissue sources Cats also have higher requirements for some specific amino acids and vitamins With this in mind you can see that a steady diet of grain-based dog food is unsuitable for your feline If you have a pet question send it to Ask the Vet FYI The Kansas City Star 1729 Grand Blvd Kansas City Mo 64108 power I Naturalist Wildlife and Southwest Art Show-Sale-Auction will help WildCare continue helping injured wild animals The birds been coming to my feeder of late Why? These are the smor-l gasbord days out in the woods and fields around here Conse-quently not mum reason for birds to hang out at feeders said Pat Whalen a naturalist at Burr Oak Woods Nature Center in Blue Springs The wild places are brimming with eats Thq heads of the coneflowers black-eyed Susans thistles and sunflowers are loaded with seeds Berries have ripened on the hackberry and black cherry trees the wild grape vines and even the poison ivy Once the natural bounty has been largely consumed and some snow covers what remains the birds will be back Karen Uhlenhuth By SHIRL KASPER Staff Writer IROf the week 4 TALIS BERGMANISThe Star Clifford Fears chairman of the Wildlife and Southwest Art Show-Sale-Auc-tion holds a painting by Lawrence artist Jeffrey Ritz that is in the show is a big big show very Fears said will be specifically the perfect theme for WildCare an all-volunteer organization that tries to put wild animals and birds back into the wild The art show is its biggest fund-raiser our survival director Nancy Schwarting said are a hand-to-mouth organization We survive on Money is needed to buy food such as crickets and mealworms for the hundreds of baby songbirds that come through the center every spring In peak months it takes about 2000 crickets a week to feed all the birds $160 to $180 a month just in Schwarting said Money also is needed to pay utility bills and to buy litter cages and veterinary supplies About 40 or 50 active volunteers run the organization which has an office and small animal hospital west of De Soto Inside the building a photograph of a bobcat hangs on the wall alongside a photo of a coyote The cat came in with a broken leg the coyote had mange Out back of an old farmhouse an opossum with a scraggly tail hunkered down in a pet carrier Nearby in a big wire pen a great homed owl tested its wings Both were doing well thanks to Wild-Care a wild-animal rehabilitation center near De Soto in Johnson County that treats hundreds of orphaned or injured animals and birds every year It takes money of course to do the good work why WildCare is holding a Wildlife and Southwest Art Show-Sale-Auc-tion from 10 am to 6 pm Sunday at the Holiday Inn 200 McDonald Drive Lawrence Admission is $2 About 75 artists will participate said woodcarver Clifford Fears of Mission a WildCare volunteer who is show chairman Buster Brown a neutered 10-month-old Rottweiler mix is ond of the pets available for adoption at the Hufnane Society of Greater Kansas City 316 Minnesota Ave Kansas City Kan Shelter ei he iyees say playful and the clinic He apparently had fallen out of his nest Now grown he clicked and snapped his beak as Schwarting carried him into the big flight pen which is the last stage before release get fat and lazy in a she said need to get their weight down and their muscles built The owl flew to the side of the cage and hooked his sharp talons on the wire fence In a few weeks perhaps he can fly free gotten foxes bobcats said Alison Pearse public education coordinator Many wild animals are hit by cars Others are shot poisoned or displaced by urban sprawl Birds sometimes fly into high wires or fall from nests The opossum in the pet carrier was found in a garage doctor noticed he had a wound and gave him some Pearse said He also gave WildCare a call The great homed owl was just an owlet when someone brought him to willing to learn For information about Buster Brown or the other animals at the shelter call 371-3869 Hours are 9 am to 4 pm Tuesday through Friday and 9 am to 2 pm Saturday RATINGS Continued from E-1 Where Kansas CStians tuned in Here are the shares of the viewing audience for Kansas City TV stations for a three-week period in October 1994 and for the same period one year earlier One share represents 1 percent of homes with TVs Indeed Channel 41 faces the double whammy of lower ratings in key time periods and fewer time slots to sell The brand new 5 pm newscast had only 4 percent of the TV audience compared to 14 percent for reruns at the same time a year ago you make a change as radical as we have done the audience goes English said It takes time for a new audience to come to the show she added English knows the station have more time to sell but she expects ratings to grow pleased with the ratings so far" she said still feel a lot of confusion out there still going to take some time for the dust to One example of Channel struggle can be seen in its ratings for the show at 7 am weekdays A year ago when the NBC morning show was on Channel 4 the program attracted 23 percent of TV viewers Last month only 10 percent of TV viewers watched it on 41 English blamed the weak performance on the lack of a local news program on Channel 41 at 6 am lot of people who are getting ready to start their day are up before 7 she said Rather than watch cartoons on Channel 41 they turn to local news on another channel When 7 am comes they bother to turn back Channel 41 which isdevelopjng a 6 newscast to start in December also plans to launch an early morning newscast some time next year There may be another explanation for low news ratings on channels 4 and 41 Before the affiliation swap each station developed a newscast style that was compatible with its network affiliation Channel news had the breezy flashy swagger of Fox programs Channel news reflected the traditional and familiar pattern of NBC When the stations swapped networks tlieir newscasts made only small concessions to the change got a real classic identity MacDonald said of his competitors got an oldcr-skewing station WDAF that has taken on a young-skewing network and staye with older-skewing from a 1 7 percent share of viewers to 13 percent A year ago the show on Channel 4 was seen by 23 percent of watching TV Today Mooting Show" a local production yets only 12 percent Pietje has no complaints He pointed out that prime-time ratings for FIJI shows have been 30 percent higher since they moved to Chaninel 4 ratings are only one piece of the financial puzzle Just as important is the amount of time a station has to sell As a Fox affiliate Channel 4 has three times more commercial time to sell than when it was aligned with NBC Consequently lower ratings will be offset by a greater inventory of ads The result Piette said is that revenue for the fourth quarter of 1994 will be about the same as it was a year ago 1 was 41 be a little more concerned because they lost a lot of availabilities he said styles However if there is no improvement during the November ratings period some change may be inevitable dt news Qwpnel 41 njeapwhilc began attracting older viewers with NBC shows only to repel them with a newscast designed to appeal to a younger crowd Both stations say they are not invested in changing their news.