Animals 24-7

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

No, China did not ban sales of pangolin scales. But it might.

By

National People’s Congress has been asked to consider banning sales of pangolin scales             BEIJING,  China––Pangolins,  perhaps the cutest and most harmless animal jeopardized by poaching and wildlife trafficking whom hardly anyone has heard of,  remain in as much trouble today as yesterday,  two years ago,  and five years ago,  despite news items,  activist alerts,  […]

Walls, boar purges, & no-man’s-land fail to stop African swine fever

By

Wild boar to blame for only 1% of outbreaks, Chinese learn             PARIS,  France––Donald Trump is not the only world leader who has yet to learn that walls don’t work––not if the goal is really to keep a foreign threat out,  as opposed to presenting the appearance to a political base of doing something drastic […]

Aussie prof’s video challenges “invasion biologists” on their own turf

By

Feminist Ferals by Arian D. Wallach Produced by Tommy Lin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpx-ZHHWN5s&t=2s This video explores how conservation remains tethered to chauvinistic ideologies.  It explores how archaic beliefs about animals,  wildlife,  and nature,  has erased one of the Earth’s most significant rewilding events in recent history. Feminism would radically reshape conservation and our view of nature.  It […]

Bleak future for Kenya donkeys, sold to slaughter or left to go feral

By

Beasts of burden for 5,000 years, but now out of work             NAIROBI,  NAIVASHA,  Kenya––Donkeys in Kenya,  as in much of the rest of the developing world,  are rapidly disappearing,  but not all in the same direction.  Some are trucked to slaughter;  others gallop into the bush. Tens of thousands of Kenyan donkeys have already […]

Live animal markets in New York City: a cut-throat business at best

By

Customs change with waves of immigration             NEW YORK CITY,  N.Y.––Escaping the Iranian Revolution with her parents at age 6,  artist Sara Rahbar as an adult has produced an internationally recognized portfolio on themes often involving human and animal suffering. Yet Rahbar found herself wholly unprepared for the misery she met close to hand on […]

One alleged shark-dragger walks, but may testify against the other two

By

Two felony charges dropped             TAMPA,  Florida––Claiming a lack of evidence sufficient to warrant a continued prosecution,  Florida assistant state attorney Andrew Hubbard on May 1,  2018 informed Hillsborough Circuit Judge Mark Wolfe at a preliminary hearing that the state has dropped all charges against Spencer Heintz,  23,  who had faced two counts of aggravated […]

Two inches of rain means life or death to animals in Kenya

By

Flash floods broke devastating drought, but not drought cycle menacing wildlife & livestock             NAIROBI,  Kenya––Just two inches of rain over two days,  about what Seattle gets on average in just two weeks, in mid-March 2018 triggered flash floods killing at least 15 Kenyans,  marooning six tented camps for wildlife tourists in the Maasai Mara […]

A Perfect Day dawns for dairy cows, 7,000 years after domestication

By

Brewing beer for 9,000 years, humans learn to brew milk without using cows or other mammals             BERKELEY,  California––Using fermentation to produce food and beverages apparently originated in China circa 9,000 years ago.  Keeping dairy cattle appears to have begun in Anatolia,  the eastern part of Turkey,  circa 7,000 years ago. The commercial dairy industry […]

Why mink releases don’t stop fur farm cruelty

By

Few industries are more cruel than the fur trade, but some anti-fur tactics take matters from bad to worse             OSLO,  Norway;  SEATTLE,  Washington––The Norwegian Court of Appeals on October 18,  2017 ordered four members of the anti-fur organization Nettverk for Dyrs Frihet (Network for Animal Freedom) to pay damages amounting to 21,000 euro,  plus […]

Pit bulls, “outliers” & Humane Society of the U.S. prez Wayne Pacelle

By

Pits kill four people in five years within 15 minutes of Pacelle’s family home,  but he calls us insanely aggressive A 10-year-old girl in Bridgeport,  Connecticut will require multiple surgeries over the next several years to repair damage inflicted on July 18,  2017 by a family member’s pit bull.  The pit bull first attacked a […]