He made friends with them! DUBLIN, TEL AVIV, ROME––As of St. Patrick’s Day 2018, there are still no wild snakes in Ireland, more than 1,660 years after the patron saint of Ireland allegedly drove them all out. Paleontologists say there were never any wild snakes in Ireland in the first place. But there were […]
The dolphin stories that made two authors famous
Build Me An Ark: A Life With Animals, by Brenda Peterson WW. Norton (500 5th Ave., New York, NY 10110-0017), 2000. 256 pages, hardcover. $23.95. Journey Of The Pink Dolphin: An Amazon Quest, by Sy Montgomery Simon & Schuster (1230 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10020), 2000. 320 pages, hardcover. $26.00. Reviewed by […]
The animal issue that made Donald Trump a presidential candidate
Or, what is bio-xenophobia? (Part I of a four-part series. See also How an ant doctor came to be driving public policy; How the Twin Towers fell on animals too; and Questioning the claims of “crisis.”) With just six weeks left of the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign season, xenophobia, the fear of foreigners, has thus far […]
12-pit bull attack on toddler spotlights soaring risk on reservations
Navajo Nation residents are 35 times more likely to be killed by dogs than other Americans Part I of a three-part series. See also: Pit bull proliferation hits “Indian country”: fatal dog attacks triple and Pit bulls now in the “rez dog” gene pool. WINDOW ROCK, Arizona––Three-year-old Kayden Colter Begay was on July 14, 2016 […]
Fallen crane & stampede take spotlight from haj animal victims
At least 900,000 animals killed among 24 nations RIYADH, Saudi Arabia––After decades of global controversy over animal transport and slaughter in connection with Eid al Adha sacrificial rites, the animal victims of the 2015 Islamic pilgrimage season went almost unnoticed amid furor over human victims. The start of the pilgrimage season, called the haj […]
The Lost Religion of Jesus: Simple Living & Nonviolence In Early Christianity
by Keith Akers Lantern Books (128 2nd Place, Garden Suite Brooklyn, NY 11231), 2001. 260 pages, paperback. $20.00. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Denver vegetarian advocate Keith Akers, perhaps best known for compiling A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), earned his B.A. in philosophy 45 years ago at Vanderbilt University. Akers turned to computer programming to make a living, […]
Pope Francis’ Encyclical on Climate Change & Inequality:
On Care for Our Common Home Melville House Publishers, Brooklyn & London, July 2015. 165 pages, with notes. $14.95. Reviewed by Eric Mills, founder & coordinator, Action for Animals ([email protected]) The British newspaper The Guardian called Pope Francis’ Enclycical on Climate Change & Inequality “The most astonishing and perhaps the most ambitious papal […]
Tennessee columnist equates frog-gigging contest with school prayer
SMITHVILLE, Tennessee––The DeKalb County Young Farmers & Ranchers annual frog-gigging contest, arguably the most bizarre of the hundreds of wildlife killing contests held in the U.S. each year, has elicited one of the most bizarre defenses of the mayhem, as well. Frog-gigging consists of spotting frogs at night with a flashlight, then spearing them […]
How factory farming, livestock disease, & vaccination evolved together
Regular readers of ProMED-Mail, the information bulletins provided around the clock since 1994 by the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases, may have noticed how often the first warnings of outbreaks in Europe come from the Netherlands––along with the first recommendations for control measures, and often the first introductions of new vaccines. This is no mere […]
Norm Phelps, 75, spiritual mentor to the animal rights movement
by Merritt Clifton Norm Phelps, 75, died on December 31, 2014 at the Meritus Health Hospital in Hagerstown, Maryland. Phelps had battled myasthenia gravis, an auto-immune neuromuscular condition that causes severe fatigue and weakness, since 2002. A vegan since 1984, survived by his wife and fellow longtime animal advocate Patti Rogers, Phelps quit eating meat […]