Animals 24-7

News & perspective for the humane community

Over-counting jaguars, over-estimating poaching

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1964-1966 flood rescue data suggests there were never as many jaguars in Suriname as World Animal Protection claims have been poached PARAMARIBO,  Suriname––Claims recently amplified on social media about the alleged extent of jaguar poaching in Suriname appear to have inflated at most a handful of rare,  scattered incidents occurring over many years into a […]

TNR protects African wildcats from “genetic pollution” & ferals from cruelty

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Alley Cat Rescue begins project at Kruger National Park             KRUGER NATIONAL PARK,  South Africa––Alley Cat Rescue,  of Mount Ranier,  Maryland,   is now “working to implement trap-neuter-return programs for stray/feral cats around Kruger National Park,”  according to founder Louise Holton,  to keep African wildcats from hybridizing with their domestic descendants. Having “advocated for the humane […]

Snail & mountain goat race toward extinction in New Zealand Alps

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Endangered native snail & introduced Himalayan tahrs thrived together until the New Zealand government got involved             WELLINGTON, New Zealand––Plans for a cull of 17,500 Himalayan mountain tahr across the Southern Alps of New Zealand are on hold,  likely to be scaled down but not abandoned,  after the New Zealand Tahr Foundation and allied organizations […]

$10 billion from China buys big changes in Kenya wildlife tourism

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Effects parallel those of bringing rail travel to Yellowstone in 1902             NAIROBI,  Kenya––Looming over Kenya like the Standard Gauge Railway trestle at the northern edge of Nairobi National Park,  or the marabou storks overlooking the dense traffic on the highway into Nairobi from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport,  is the question of how $10 billion […]

“What would you say your legacy has been?”

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Dear ANIMALS 24-7 readers: Beth and I, through the generosity of a donor who funded us specifically to attend, are just back from the 2018 Africa Animal Welfare Conference, held at the United Nations complex in Nairobi, Kenya. Though our daily online readership has never been greater, we have worked for half pay or less […]

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

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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 […]

Trophy hunting scheme & Chinese-built railway fire debate in Kenya

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ANIMALS 24-7 reports from the scene             NAIROBI,  Kenya––Most of the delegates to the 2018 Africa Animal Welfare Conference,  opening on September 3 at the United Nations Complex in Nairobi,  will have already seen the second most controversial wildlife-related topic in Kenya,  a four-mile Chinese-built railway overpass crossing Nairobi National Park,  on their 20-mile ride […]

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

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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 […]

“We can still save them”: wild cat conservationist Alan Rabinowitz, 65

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The “Indiana Jones of wildlife conservation” was an optimist in a field dominated by doom-and-gloom              NEW YORK CITY––Wild cat conservationist Alan Rabinowitz died of cancer on August 5,  2018 in Manhattan, New York City,  after an 18-year struggle that began with a diagnosis of leukemia in 2001 and spanned most of the achievements for […]

Mike O’Connor & the Zen of saving the Olympic mountain goats

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Port Townsend author emerges as defender of mountain goats slated for extirpation “Attached is a copy of a flyer I have put together in defense of the mountain goats of the Olympic Peninsula,”  emailed Mike O’Connor of Port Townsend,  Washington,  on May 17,  2018,  in response to the May 8,  2018 ANIMALS 24-7 article Goat sacrifice to begin at Olympic National Park. “I […]