Dog & cat feeders unwittingly bait wild predators Cats hunt, dogs scavenge. When either dog or cat numbers drop, the other changes behavior MUMBAI, India; MAHAHUAL, Mexico; KATHAMANDU, Nepal; SAN FRANCISCO, California––Recent reports of tiger, jaguar, leopard, and coyote predation in human-dominated habitat come as reminders that the cat/dog relationship, even in the presence of […]
Soi Dog Foundation in 2024 helped Vietnam to cut rabies deaths by 20%
“Bad news” reports of rabies deaths emphasize need to abolish the dog & cat meat trade HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam––Signs of success for the Soi Dog Foundation’s decade-long campaign to help Vietnam eradicate rabies tend to look like bad news––if one does not know the context. The Ho Chi Minh-based Tuoi Tre News, for […]
Dog-eating in China & Gadhi Mai mass sacrifice in Nepal both near an end
Decline of the activist & mass media exaggeration factors reflects the decline of the bloody realities BEIJING, KATHMANDU––Major good news out of China and Nepal on December 9 and December 11, 2024 came disguised to the point of invisibility for those unfamiliar with the details. Even as animal advocates wring hands and weep over sensational […]
Soi Dog/Happy Doggo s/n campaign aims to fix every street dog in Asia
Big target, but Soi Dog Foundation has history of success & Happy Doggo has ambition KOH SAMUI & PHUKET, Thailand––“Niall Harbison’s Happy Doggo and John Dalley’s Soi Dog Foundation together are launching a mass spay/neuter campaign aimed at ending the suffering of homeless animals across Asia,” Soi Dog Foundation marketing and press officer Amy Bryant emailed to […]
Lumpy skin disease––what’s that?––hits cattle from Africa to Nepal
Lumpy skin disease––yes, it’s ugly––also set Australia & Indonesia at odds for months. KATHMANDU, Nepal––Best known as the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, circa 564 B.C., and as the land of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, Nepal during the summer of 2023 gained a more sinister distinction as ground zero for arguably the […]
Tigers menaced by Nepal bureaucrat as well as by poaching, et al
New environment minister Birendra Prasad Mahato proposes to auction tiger hunting rights KATHMANDU, Nepal––“We could charge $25 million for every tiger killed,” Nepalese minister for forests and environment Birendra Prasad Mahato reportedly told a podcast audience in mid-July 2023, as International Tiger Day, July 29, 2023, approached. Mahato recommended that Nepal should begin auctioning tiger […]
Who were the gurus who helped to inspire the animal rights movement?
Spiritual mentors sold vegetarianism before most animal advocates dared mention it PUTTAPARTHI, Andhra Pradesh, India; QUEENS, New York––Who were the unofficial gurus of the early animal rights movement, who helped to sell vegetarianism, in particular, even before any major animal advocacy groups added a vegan or vegetarian component to their message? “Guru,” in the Buddhist, […]
Vultures: canaries in the pharmaceutical waste coal mine?
Diclofenac-related vulture death in Spain may point toward a much bigger problem Should the end times be near, whether through global warming, loss of fish from the oceans, nuclear war, or any of myriad other calamities, vanishing vultures might be among the early harbingers of the apocalypse. Vultures might be expected to descend on the […]
COVID-19: India feeds stray dogs; ASPCA says “don’t fix them”
ASPCA advice to shelters could increase puppy & kitten litters by about half a million While pet keepers in the developed world fret about the apparently infinitesimally small risk of pets and humans infecting and reinfecting each other, following the discovery of COVID-19 infecting one cat in Liege, Belgium, and two dogs and a cat […]
Gadhi Mai 2019: more animals killed than in 2014, but fewer people watched
But drone videos show––again––that the body count was vastly lower than is often claimed BARIYARPUR, Nepal––More animals were slain at the 2019 Gadhi Mai sacrificial massacre in Bariyarpur, Nepal, than in 2014––a deeply disappointing discovery, after 15 years of international efforts to stop the every-five-years bloodbath held in honor of a local goddess. Drone video […]