Cultural defenses of steer-tailing and bullfighting ignore both U.S. anti-cruelty laws and 456 years of Catholic prohibition BELVIDERE, Illinois; LOS ANGELES, California––Responded Showing Animals Respect & Kindness founder Steve Hindi to the December 6, 2023 report Los Angeles … [Read More...]
Los Angeles council vote against rodeo opens new fight against charreada
Will the Los Angeles ordinance really stop steer-tailing & other rodeo mayhem? LOS ANGELES, California; BELVIDERE, Illinois––The Los Angeles City Council on December 5, 2023 voted 14-0 to ban rodeos within the city, nominally resolving a multi-year debate but actually referring the most … [Read More...]
Alabama wolf hybrid baby killing: Jack London knew “bastard wolves”
Alabama wolf hybrid baby killing: Jack London knew "bastard wolves" CHELSEA, Alabama––Amid stonewalling by the Shelby County Coroner, Shelby County Sheriff’s Department, and family of the victim, strong circumstantial evidence including matching photographs and property descriptions suggests … [Read More...]
Money, power, & farmed animal advocacy: Jeff Thomas tells all
The Farm Animal Movement: Effective Altruism, Venture Philanthropy, & The Fight to End Factory Farming in America by Jeff Thomas Lantern Publishing & Media, P.O. Box 1350, Woodstock, NY 12498 200 pages; $19.95 paperback. www.lanternpm.org Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Former Humane Society of the United States [HSUS] policy analyst Jeff Thomas has previously been mentioned in … [Read More...]
Wolverines, known for tenacity, win federal protection after 48-year fight
Stop trapping & wolverines could probably restore themselves WASHINGTON D.C.––Usually there is little to celebrate about an animal becoming officially recognized as a threatened species, but wolverines, recognized as “threatened” by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on November 29, 2023, present a rare exception. Had science prevailed instead of politics, wolverines would have been … [Read More...]
Farmed animal advocate Wayne Hsiung gets 90 days; Canada gets ag gag
Likely to lose at COP28 climate conference, Big Meat agribusiness celebrates killing the messengers SANTA ROSA, California; OTTAWA, Canada––Big Meat agribusiness took a beating on the morning of November 30, 2023 in Dubai, United Emirates, at the opening of the COP28 United Nations conference on climate change. By afternoon, though, Big Meat agribusiness was celebrating both a 90-day … [Read More...]
COP28 conference on global warming expected to tell world to eat less meat
Recommendation to eat less meat may be the most substantive outcome of a United Nations conference on global warming since the COP conference series began DUBAI, United Arab Emirates––A global assembly of COP-rolites including an unprecedentedly large delegation representing the meat and livestock industries are gathered in Dubai for COP28, the twenty-eighth annual Conference Of the Parties to … [Read More...]
Cockfighting led to “The Pike County Massacre” but mini-series misses the point
One cockfighting family killed another CINCINNATI, Ohio––There appeared to be no doubt in the minds of previewers of The Pike County Massacre, a three-part Oxygen mini-series that premiered on November 24 and November 25, 2023, as to just what led to the eight murders the series described. “Center to the case,” wrote Peter White of Deadline.com, “was the presence of marijuana … [Read More...]
Food scarcity hits Gaza dogs & cats; Hamas alleges dogs are eating the dead
The Gaza dogs are hungry, but are they hungry enough yet to eat people? NUSEIRAT, Gaza; RAMAT GAN, Israel––Claims that starving Gaza street dogs are eating unburied victims of the Israel/Gaza war are helping to fuel controversy over the Israeli Defense Force response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks. The claims may be at least half true: some street dogs in Gaza are … [Read More...]
Rabid kitten & dog jeopardize eradication success stories in U.S. & India
Apparently isolated cases, but both rabies outbreaks came where they should not have OMAHA, Nebraska; CHENNAI, India––Recent discoveries of a rabid kitten in east-central Omaha, Nebraska, and a rabid dog in Royapuram, a northern suburb of Chennai, India, indicate threats to two of the most influential rabies eradication success stories anywhere, ever. The rabid kitten, discovered on … [Read More...]
Mystery diseases hit dogs, cats, sea lions––are birds the missing link?
H5N1 avian flu, a virus, has hit all of the outbreak areas, but many of the mystery infections appear to be bacterial SPOKANE, Washington; SAN DIEGO, California; LONDON, U.K.; LIMA, Peru––Fall is the flu season, for humans and animals. Therefore, just because mysterious new flu-like diseases in dogs, cats, and marine mammals are appearing coincidental with global outbreaks of H5N1 … [Read More...]
BLM bans cyanide-shooting “coyote-getters,” but keeps it very quiet
Bureau of Land Management hid the announcement––why? WASHINGTON, D.C.––Has Bureau of Land Management director Tracy Stone-Manning really banned the use of M-44 “coyote getter” cyanide-shooting traps on BLM lands? “Yes, it’s real,” Predator Defense Fund president Brooks Fahey assured ANIMALS 24-7 late on November 24, 2023, providing an unpublicized link to confirmation at … [Read More...]
What Wayne Hsiung, Mercy for Animals, & others did for Thanksgiving
"Open rescues," closed jail cells, undercover video, & two challenges to "ag gags" in Canada SANTA ROSA & LOS ANGELES, California––Mass media food sections, as always, fixated during the run-up to Thanksgiving 2023 on how best to roast turkeys. Vegan and vegetarian media comparably focused on promoting plant-based alternatives to turkey dinners Direct Action … [Read More...]
More Than a Meal: Thanksgiving, turkeys, tradition & Karen Davis
First condemned, then pardoned, without a statement of rights (See also Karen Davis, Ph.D., United Poultry Concerns founder, dead at 79.) WASHINGTON D.C.––Perhaps nothing could underscore the role of turkeys as Thanksgiving sacrificial victims than the annual ritual at which U.S. President Joe Biden on November 20, 2023 “pardoned” the 46-pound and 47-pound turkeys Chocolate and Chip on … [Read More...]
The “Thanksgiving” turkey: object of sentimentality, sarcasm, & sacrifice
Each year a litany of sarcasm accompanies the sentimentality of Thanksgiving by Karen Davis, Ph.D., president, United Poultry Concerns (See also Karen Davis, Ph.D., United Poultry Concerns founder, dead at 79.) “Nothing so unites us as gathering with one mind to murder someone we hate, unless it is coming together to share in a meal.” – Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner, p. 33. The … [Read More...]
How global campaign against greyhound racing got to the home stretch
Brooklyn Goes Home: The Rise and Fall of American Greyhound Racing and the Dog that Inspired a Movement by Christine A. Dorchak & Carey Theil 224 pages. $8.99 Kindle; $17.96 paperback. Lantern Publishing & Media, P.O. Box 1350, Woodstock, NY 12498 www.lanternpm.org Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Don’t judge this book by the cover. The pastel painting of a greyhound on the cover … [Read More...]
Animal rescuers try to stay alive in Gaza & in Hamas terrorists’ hands
Searching for the missing & trying to feed the found NUSEIRAT, Gaza; RAMAT GAN, Israel––Forty-five days since Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,200 Israelis, foreign visitors, and foreign farm workers in a October 7, 2023 dawn sneak attack on kibbutz collective farms and an outdoor concert venue, abducting about 250 more, Let The Animals Live in Ramat Gan, Israel is still trying to … [Read More...]
Squishy shelter numbers conceal dropping the ball on spay/neuter
How much real progress toward eradicating cat & dog overpopulation has been lost through a focus on the wrong bottom line? (Gerry Childs, now retired from a long career in sales in many different parts of the U.S., recently celebrated 50 years of volunteering at every stop for animal shelters, spay/neuter projects, and feral cat neuter/return programs.) I have been troubled for some time … [Read More...]
Feds give Makah tribe the go-ahead to kill gray whales again
NOAA issues Final Environmental Impact Statement, the last legal obstacle between gray whales & Makah harpoons & bullets SEATTLE, Washington––An early 2024 resumption of gray whale killing by the Makah tribe of Neah Bay, Washington, seems all but assured after the November 17, 2023 publication of a 2,364-page Final Environmental Impact Statement on the Makah Tribe Request to Hunt … [Read More...]
South Korean government pledges dog-eating will be banned by 2027
Governing party and leading opposition party both favor banning dog consumption SEOUL, South Korea––Dog-eating in South Korea appears likely to be banned after January 1, 2027. “In a special consultative meeting at the National Assembly,” reported Lee Jaeeun for the Korea Herald on November 17, 2023, “the Yoon Suk Yeol administration and officials of the ruling People Power Party agreed … [Read More...]