Animals 24-7

News on dogs, cats, horses, wildlife, zoonoses, & nature

Spay/neuter resumes in Italy despite COVID-19, Camorra & Nigerian mobsters

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Quarantine keeps crime in check––for now             ROME,  CASTEL VOLTURNO,  Italy––The deadly global COVID-19 pandemic,  killing nearly 32,500 Italians to date,  might if anything have made Castel Volturno,  the unlikely spay/neuter hub of the nation,  just a little bit safer. Certainly stay-at-home orders seem to have at least temporarily reduced the mob violence for which […]

Guerrillas gun down 12 gorilla guards & five others in Virunga, DRC

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Resurgent Ebola and COVID-19 escalate threats to already high-risk habitat VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK,  Democratic Republic of the Congo––At least 17 people,  including 12 Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation rangers whose primary duty is protecting critically endangered mountain gorillas,  were killed in an April 24,  2020 ambush attack. No gorillas are known to have been caught […]

COVID-19 brings no net gains for marine life––except in Iceland

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“There is no market,”  but fish,  shellfish,  seals,  & whales are all still hunted WESTERLY,  Rhode Island;  HONOLULU,  Hawaii;  REYKJAVIK, Iceland––Restaurant closures ordered because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have economically crippled the U.S. commercial fishing industry from Long Island Sound to Hawaii,  and have hit the fishing industry worldwide,  but––except in Iceland,  where a case […]

From gorillas to shelter dogs: animals caught in the COVID-19 crunch

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No animals other than bats & humans are known to get COVID-19,  but millions are affected by the human response             WASHINGTON D.C.––Animals and animal-related projects from Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo to National Institutes of Health-funded laboratories are feeling the impact of the international COVID-19 scare underway throughout early 2020,  […]

Noted in passing: “Turtle God” & rhino, elephant, & lion advocates

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Victims of cancer,  assassins,  & two killed by the species they loved “Turtle God” Peter Pritchard,  76,  died in hospice care on February 26,  2020.   Known as “the Turtle God,”  recalled longtime Tampa Times environmental reporter Craig Pittman,  Pritchard at his home in Oviedo,  Florida kept what Pittman believed to be “the largest private collection […]

COVID-19 hot tip for coffee growers:  don’t go [email protected]#$% nuts!

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COVID-19 shows “Eat @#$% & die!” is a warning,  not a metaphor KUNMING,  China;  LONDON, U.K.;  SEATTLE––One might imagine that the midst of a global pandemic of COVID-19,  a disease apparently originating in bats, would not be the best time for selling bat-processed coffee. At this writing,  COVID-19 has infected nearly 175,000 people,  worldwide,  killing […]

COVID-19 & “The Next Big One”:  Spillover revisited

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Science writer David Quammen saw COVID-19 coming COVID-19,  though renamed twice just in the first few months of 2020,  “is not as novel as you might think,”  explained veteran science writer David Quammen in the January 28,  2020 edition of The New York Times. Quammen,  72,  was uniquely positioned to comment,  not only because he […]

Ravaging Asia & Africa: a much deadlier plague than COVID-19

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World fiddles while grasshoppers munch             NINGBO,  China;  NAIROBI,  Kenya––A much deadlier plague than the COVID-19 coronavirus is sweeping westward from China through Pakistan,  across Central Asia,  and throughout the Horn of Africa,  flying 100 miles a day,  devouring crops enough to feed as many as 34 million people,  according to the United Nations Food […]

Elephant trophy auction covers for opening bushmeat trade

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Global warming intensifies pressure to profit from wildlife before habitat loss depletes species GABERONE,  Botswana;  HARARE,  Zimbabwe;  DAR ES SALAAM,  Tanzania––Big as they are,  the 60 elephants whose lives were auctioned at Bobonong Kgotla,  Botswana on February 7,  2020 may be the least of the casualties from attempts by the governments of Botswana and Tanzania […]

Leading Kenyan conservationist barred from Nairobi National Park

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Paula Kahumbu opposed rock concert where Elsa the lion cub was “born free”             NAIROBI,  Kenya––Bringing immediate global attention to his own lack of anything resembling conservation credentials,  Kenya Wildlife Service director general John Migui Waweru on February 18,  2020 reportedly barred Wildlife Direct executive director Paula Kahumbu from Nairobi National Park. Waweru,  59,  appointed […]