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 […]
Uttam Dahal, 33, was dynamo for animals in Nepal despite ill health
Dahal won 2014 Supreme Court of Nepal case against Gadhi Mai mass sacrifice KATHMANDU, Nepal––Nepal Animal Welfare & Research Center founder Uttam G.P. Dahal, 33, died on July 26, 2019 after battling illness for most of his brief but dynamic life. Dahal left Santana Sharma, his wife of just two years and two months, […]
Noted in passing: Tresz, Muliro, Ndou, Hanson, Broecker, Lagerfeld
Six people with little in common except influencing how humans see animals Hilda Tresz, Freddy Mahamba Muliro, and Joel Celestine Mambou Ndou, none of them ever famous, in various ways devoted their lives to great apes. Wade Hanson spent the last 24 years of his life as a humane officer. Wallace Broecker for more than 50 […]
Snail & mountain goat race toward extinction in New Zealand Alps
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 […]
“We can still save them”: wild cat conservationist Alan Rabinowitz, 65
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 […]