Animals 24-7

Dogs, cats, horses, wildlife, zoonoses, & nature

COVID-19:  What can wildlife management teach us?

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No,  it is not “shoot the victims”!             SEATTLE––Perhaps the most startling statistic pertaining to the global spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus is the statistic almost nobody mentions:  the ratio of compensatory versus additive mortality. What’s that? It is not that as of March 10,  2020 there are still only about 140,000 COVID-19 cases of […]

Why COVID-19 is NOT the zoonotic illness most likely to kill you

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Panicked stress may be killing more people than the disease itself             SEATTLE,  ATLANTA,  HONG KONG––Amid escalating global panic over the worldwide rapid spread of the recently identified coronavirus COVID-19,  a person not familiar with ProMED–mail might expect the most panic-stricken person of all to be ProMED–mail deputy editor Marjorie P. Pollack,  M.D. ProMED-mail is […]

Baboons on the run expose Down Under biomedical research

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Male baboon briefly evades vasectomy             SYDNEY,  Australia––A week ago most Aussies might not have known the Australian National Baboon Colony from Parliament.  A week from now similar confusion may reign. On February 24,  2020,  however,  three Australian National Baboon Colony inmates touched off a national debate over the ethics […]

“Invasive” grey squirrels, feral pigs, & rats: leave ’em alone, say scientists

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Studies suggest grey squirrel, feral pig,  & rat control are barking up the wrong tree BELFAST;  GUAM;  VANCOUVER––“Invasive” grey squirrels are allegedly extirpating red squirrels in the British Isles by transmitting squirrel pox. Feral pigs allegedly run amok to the detriment of rare native plants on Guam,  a remote Pacific island. Rats present a perennial […]

Ravaging Asia & Africa: a much deadlier plague than COVID-19

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World fiddles while grasshoppers munch             NINGBO,  China;  NAIROBI,  Kenya––A much deadlier plague than the COVID-19 coronavirus is sweeping westward from China through Pakistan,  across Central Asia,  and throughout the Horn of Africa,  flying 100 miles a day,  devouring crops enough to feed as many as 34 million people,  according to the United Nations Food […]

Wild animals off market in China: crackdown on coronavirus

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“Huge hidden dangers to public health & safety”             BEIJING,  China––Responding to the COVID-19 coronavirus,  which has now killed nearly 2,600 people worldwide,  the 170-member National People’s Congress Standing Committee,  the top legislative body in China,  on February 24,  2020 provisionally banned all consumption of wildlife and trade in wild-caught species,  other than fish. Announced […]

Poisoning Australia in the name of wildlife recovery after bushfire losses

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And kangaroos shot,  koala trees bulldozed             MELBOURNE,  CANBERRA, SYDNEY,  BRISBANE––Six months of bushfires ravaging Australian coastal forests and grasslands stretching into parts of the Outback are reportedly almost at an end. The last two dozen fires in New South Wales and a comparable number left in Victoria state are smoldering on at the lowest […]

Deadly Wuhan coronavirus may be pangolin’s best friend

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Pangolins carry a 99% identical coronavirus,  report Chinese scientists             GUANGZHOU, China––Will the Wuhan coronavirus,  newly linked to pangolins,  save one of the world’s most endangered animals? Headlines over the weekend of February 8-9,  2020 amplified global panic that the number of confirmed Wuhan coronavirus deaths had soared beyond the 2003 toll from severe acute […]

Are conservationists becoming an endangered species?

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Three alleged murders among five recent deaths of note The butterfly guys             OCAMPO,  Mexico––Monarch butterfly conservationists Homero Gómez González, 50,  and Raúl Hernández Romero,  44,  were found dead on January 29,  2020 and February 1,  2020,  respectively,  at the El Rosario butterfly preserve that they helped to found and develop […]

Wet markets or Walmart? Animal consumption & the coronavirus

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by Karen Davis, Ph.D., president, United Poultry Concerns Apart from a small but perhaps widening circle of optimism, it is hard to figure whether progress for farmed animals is actually happening in modern society.  While it is great to see more plant-based products in local supermarkets,  the amount of meat displayed in the aisles has […]