Animals 24-7

Dogs, cats, horses, wildlife, zoonoses, & nature

Poisoning Australia in the name of wildlife recovery after bushfire losses

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And kangaroos shot,  koala trees bulldozed             MELBOURNE,  CANBERRA, SYDNEY,  BRISBANE––Six months of bushfires ravaging Australian coastal forests and grasslands stretching into parts of the Outback are reportedly almost at an end. The last two dozen fires in New South Wales and a comparable number left in Victoria state are smoldering on at the lowest […]

Helping animals through the Australian firestorm

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Reports from 25 of the hundreds of animal aid charities working in the hot zones CANBERRA,  Australian Capital Territories––More than 100 wildfires raging in Australian coastal forests and wooded parts of the Australian interior in September 2019 exploded beyond immediate hope of control and burst into global consciousness during the first days of 2020,  splitting […]

Fire & ice puts Australian koalas and Icelandic horses at urgent risk

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Songwriter Joni Mitchell in 1982 recommended “50/50 fire and ice” as the best response to a crisis.  That isn’t working for either Icelandic horses or koalas.              REYKJAVIK, Iceland;  SYDNEY, Australia––Eco-disasters afflicting Icelandic horses and Australian koalas starkly illustrate extreme and contrasting effects of global warming as 2019 comes to an end. Hundreds of Icelandic […]

Is Down Under biological warfare killing bunnies across the Pacific?

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Spreading disease by air is much easier than containing it by any method             LANGLEY, Washington––About sixty feral Belgian hares, long beloved village pets in Langley,  Washington,  may be the latest casualties of deliberate releases of the rabbit hemorrhagic disease RHD-1 in Australia and New Zealand,  8,000 and 7,500 miles across the Pacific Ocean,  respectively. […]

How killing cats helped to keep Aussie Liberal Party in power

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Cat purge masks otherwise weak record on endangered species             CANBERRA, Australia––Cats were nowhere on the May 18,  2019 Australian federal election ballot,  and were not among the official campaign issues for any of the contestants,  either.  Yet the Liberal Party scheme to kill two million cats by 2020 lurked just behind the polling results […]

Earth Day dilemma: enviro agencies addicted to deadly chemicals

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Catherine de Medici might have considered wildlife poisoning schemes medieval Let me tell you about the birds and bees,  and the cats and the rats,  and the possums and the pigs,  and the chemical-addicted descendants of Catherine de Medici at USDA Wildlife Services,  Threatened Species Strategy of Australia,  and Zero Invasive Predators of New Zealand, […]

Cassowary victim had helped to spur ostrich-&-emu boom

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“See the gentle cassowary On the plains of Timbuktu Eating up the missionary Hat and coat and hymn-book too.” Attributed to Theodore Hook  (1788-1841)             HIGH SPRINGS,  Florida––Remembering the cassowary rhyme from childhood,  and that “Cassowaries are found mainly in Australia and New Guinea.  Never in Africa!”,  International Primate Protection League founder Shirley McGreal was […]

Why killing cats on remote islands will not help biodiversity

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And why killing dogs, rats,  pigs,  goats,  mice & mongooses too would be mainly make-work for exterminators             SANTA CRUZ,  California––Appealing for funding to kill cats,  dogs,  rats,  pigs,  goats,  and mongooses on at least 107 islands belonging to 34 nations,  in the name of promoting biodiversity,  the previously obscure 25-year-old organization Island Conservation scored […]

Can scary drones save birds from massacre?

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The test of what works up above may come Down Under             ADELAIDE,  Australia––Little corellas,  the smallest of the cockatoo family,  are again under the gun as purported avian pests in South Australia.  Their cousins,  long-billed corellas,  are under attack in West Australia. Another cousin,  the allegedly invasive sulphur-crested cockatoo,  native to New Guinea,  has […]

Canada reviews “humaneness” of strychnine, sodium cyanide, & Compound 1080

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Health Canada consultation to include public comments             OTTAWA, Canada––Health Canada has extended until April 18,  2019 the public consultation period on a review of the “humaneness,”  when used to kill wolves,  coyotes,  and bears,  of the poisons strychnine,  sodium cyanide,  and sodium fluoroacetate,  better known as Compound 1080. The Canadian consultation on what it […]