Animals 24-7

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

Maneka makes waves as animal welfare minister (November 1998)

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Moved rapidly on marine mammal exhibition, cattle transport, & wild-caught bird trade NEW DELHI––Contrary to Press Trust of India and New Zealand Press Association reports of October 7,  Indian minister for social justice and empowerment Maneka Gandhi did not ban animal experiments in India effective on October 8,  1998  but she did announce draft regulations […]

Did Nagaland ban dog meat, or did a politician just repeat an empty promise?

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Advocacy groups in 2020 again claim the same “victory” they claimed in 2016––which never happened             KOHIMA, Nagaland, India––Two weeks after Nagaland chief secretary Temjen Toy on July 3,  2020 announced an impending ban on dog meat,  in the last part of India where dogs had been legally eaten,  how,  when,  and if the ban […]

“Asian murder hornet”: surrogate for COVID-19 terror

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Or,  how two “great sparrow bees” incited a national hunt for alleged Chinese alien invaders             BLAINE, Washington––How did the Asian giant hornet,  known for centuries in Japan as the “great sparrow bee,”  generally regarded as beneficial to farmers for killing insect pests,  suddenly become feared in the U.S. as the so-called “murder hornet”? After […]

Sperm-sorting comes to India through cow-loving Modi government

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Slippery business may stop the bull calf surplus          NEW DELHI,  India––Cracking down hard against illegal cattle slaughter and exports to slaughter,  while boosting milk production,  the Hindi nationalist Nahendra Modi regime ruling India since 2014 caused the perennial Indian bull calf surplus to explode. Now,  however,  the Modi government has reportedly […]

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 […]

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 […]

#DontGetMilked makes a splash in the heart of hypocritical cow worship

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Animal advocates wean themselves from the “gaushala” dairy tradition             NEW DELHI,  India––The billboard message “#DontGetMilked.  Ditch Dairy!  Go Vegan!” posted recently in Nehru Place,  New Delhi by the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations (FIAPO),  is a crowd-stopper. It might not rate a blink, let alone a shocked doubletake from visiting American and European […]

Heads & Tails, by Maneka Gandhi

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People For Animals (A4 Maharani Bagh,  New Delhi 110 065,  India).184 pages,  paperback; 1993.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12498154-heads-and-tails Reviewed by Merritt Clifton “I have always detested milk,”   Maneka Gandhi opined in the first line of her first syndicated column,  entitled “Milk,  Meat and Animal Violence.” “My son too refused to drink cow’s milk when he was weaned,”  she continued,  […]

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

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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 […]

Monsoon floods threaten animals below the Himalayas

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Devastation along one of the world’s longest yet most remote rivers  GUWAHATI,  ASSAM,  INDIA––Exceptionally heavy monsoon rains pelting the southeast side of the Himalayas,  believed to be symptomatic of global warming,  have for the fifth year in a row triggered deadly landslides and caused the Brahmaputra river and tributaries to overflow their banks. More than […]