Holding periods expired NEW ORLEANS––All animals rescued from the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita became eligible for adoption on December 15, 2005, following the expiration of the last mandatory holding periods prescribed by the Louisiana and Mississippi state veterinarians. “We’re setting up two new rescue centers, in New Orleans and Gulfport,” Best Friends Animal Society […]
Evictions to clear a park in Ethiopia
New Scientist columnist accuses African Parks Foundation While land invasions and their aftermath destroy the remnants of wildlife protection in Zimbabwe, the African Parks Foundation has reportedly introduced to Ethiopia the heavy-handed relocation of longtime land occupants in the name of conservation that helped to create the pressures leading to the Zimbabwean debacle. “Ethiopia wants […]
Petting zoos can make children sick
PLANT CITY, Florida–At least six lawsuits filed against Ag-Venture Farms and the Florida Strawberry Festival, both of Plant City, may hasten the demise of petting zoos. Two sheep, two cows, and a goat exhibited by Ag-Venture Farms at the Florida Strawberry Festival, the Florida State Fair near Tampa, and the Central Florida fair in Orlando allegedly infected 30 to […]
Bear rescue season follows tsunami
Wildlife SOS on the job AGRA, CHENGDU––Wildlife SOS founder Kartick Satyanarayan spent most of the first two months of 2005 often literally up to his hips in post-tsunami swamp water and sometimes displaced salt water crocodiles, gorged on human remains. Still, Satyanarayan did not forget that his primary objective for the year was to rescue […]
“Hits it gets it.”
Part of my contribution to an anthology called Growing Up With Baseball, edited by Gary Land, published in 2004 by the University of Nebraska Press: I never fail to find a ball or two lying right out in the open, unmolested, whenever I jog past a diamond used by youth leagues these days, I happened […]
New killer diseases: nature strikes back against factory farming
GUANGZHOU, Guangdong province, China––Representing the unholy marriage of wildlife consumption with factory farming, an estimated 10,000 masked palm civets, tanukis, (also called raccoon dogs), and hog badgers were sacrificed in the first 10 days of January 2004 for the sins of the meat industry. Mostly cage-reared from wild-caught ancestors, the civets, tanukis, and hog […]
Cat-eaters may get, spread SARS
GUANGZHOU––Laboratory studies of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome directed by virologist Albert D.M.E. Osterhaus of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, published in the October 30, 2003 edition of the British journal Nature, demonstrate that cats and ferrets could potentially carry SARS from filthy live markets to humans. Osterhaus said his experimental goal was simply to […]
SARS spread from live markets, but when?
BEIJING––Blood tests indicate that about 1% of the children in 17 provinces of China were exposed to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome before the outbreaks of 2002-2003 that hit 24 of the 31 provinces. Evidently passing from animals sold in filthy live markets to humans working in food preparation, and then spreading from human to […]
China to control wildlife cuisine but will not close live markets
HONG KONG––Hope that the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome epidemic of 2002-2003 might permanently close the notorious Chinese live wildlife markets was dealt a setback on July 10, 2003 when 12 government ministries and state administrations jointly announced that legal sales of domesticated wildlife would be “encouraged, guided, and supported.” The wildlife traffic will be more […]
Finding the sentience of fish
Credit scientific discovery. Credit People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Credit Finding Nemo, the latest pro-animal animated production in a 64-year string from Walt Disney Productions. Whatever the reason, humans around the world are suddenly talking about the suffering of fish as never before. The first paragraphs of previews of Finding Nemo tell the story: * New York […]