Animals 24-7

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

Orphans abandoned: Prodigal Pets by Susan K. Houser

By

A History of Animal Sheltering in America & the Origin of the No Kill Movement 228 pages,  2018. Free download from: https://outthefrontdoor.com/prodigal-pets/ Prodigal Pets,  offered as a free download by “Out The Front Door” blogger Susan K. Houser,  is the best bargain in books that anyone could hope to discover,  if interested in how animal […]

Mark Twain’s Book of Animals

By

Edited with Introduction,  Afterword,  & Notes by Shelley Fisher Fishkin University of California Press https://www.ucpress.edu/ 325 pages,  hardcover.  $27.50. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Wrote Ed Duvin,  whose 1989 Animalines newsletter essay “In The Name of Mercy” prophesying  “no kill” animal sheltering is widely considered a classic of humane literature,  to ANIMALS 24-7 a few days […]

Vicky Crosetti, 66: “She was a good friend,” to animals & humans

By

ANIMALS 24-7 founding board member KNOXVILLE,  Tennessee––Vicky Crosetti,  for 19 years executive director of the Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley and a founding member of the ANIMALS 24-7 board of directors,  died on January 22,  2020,  after a multi-year fight against lung cancer and a variety of other serious health issues. Crosetti would have […]

Three recent deaths of people who cared about animals in very different ways

By

Conservation theorist Michael E. Soulé, 84;  activist Linda Ann DeStefano, 76;  Bill Jenkins, 53             Michael E. Soulé,  84,  widely identified as the “father of conservation biology,”  but an enthusiastic advocate of “compassionate conservation” by the end of his life and career,  died on June 17,  2020. “Conservation is engaged in the protection of the integrity […]

Feral cats, TNR, & what we could learn from the fall of Rome

By

Video “Covid-19 & TNR for cats” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_AWoreQQ_I&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3wEMorrwskWhz6am72-SEkUQYzEeFXynGOO9kQyNZ0_HbSS1alKlTfAd0 Reviewed by Merritt & Beth Clifton Edward Gibbon,  in authoring the 1776 six-volume tome The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire,  said nothing of feral cats,  but a parallel plot outline may be developing––just out of sight and out of mind––in and around the […]

Spay/neuter resumes in Italy despite COVID-19, Camorra & Nigerian mobsters

By

Quarantine keeps crime in check––for now             ROME,  CASTEL VOLTURNO,  Italy––The deadly global COVID-19 pandemic,  killing nearly 32,500 Italians to date,  might if anything have made Castel Volturno,  the unlikely spay/neuter hub of the nation,  just a little bit safer. Certainly stay-at-home orders seem to have at least temporarily reduced the mob violence for which […]

Puppies & kittens everywhere, but none in shelters to adopt

By

Suspension of spay/neuter & intake services due to COVID-19 cuts adoptions by a third from 2019             NEW YORK CITY––Celebrating rehoming every dog and cat in custody soon after COVID-19 shutdowns began,  animal shelters from coast to coast are suddenly––and predictably––weeping,  wailing,  and tearing hair about having no adoptable animals to offer in response to […]

$5 for a cat head: True stories of animal welfare,  with hands-on tips for helping animals

By

by Linda Chitwood Director,  The Homeless Animals Relief Project 200 pages,  $29.00,  c/o HARP, POB 371, Senatobia, MS  38668;  https://homelessanimalsreliefproject.org/index.html. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Describing herself as “eighty percent of the way to dead,”  longtime Memphis nurse anesthetist Linda Chitwood relocated forty miles south to Senatobia,  Mississippi in 1996,  apparently expecting to spend a lot […]

We need to open up spay/neuter – now!

By

by Bryan Kortis, National Programs Director, Neighborhood Cats When the shutdowns in our country began due to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus,  in early March 2020,  the animal welfare field reacted quickly.  Shelters were closed to the public,  services were curtailed to the bare minimum,  and cages were emptied through adoptions and recruitment […]

COVID-19 suspensions of shelter intakes & spay/neuter: at what cost?

By

ANIMALS 24-7 readers raise two critical questions: 1) How will this impact stray populations months down the road? Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic,  all the shelters in Houston have either shut down or have very limited intake. As you know, Houston has tens of thousands,  if not hundreds of thousands, of stray dogs and cats […]