Brigitte Bardot: provocative on film, but even more provocative for animals, for more than twice as long PARIS, France––Brigitte Bardot, 91, a fashion model for four years, a film actress for 20 years, and a full-time animal advocate for the last 52 years of her life, died on December 28, 2025 of undisclosed causes at […]
“Don’t worry; be happy!” Animal aid in Jamaica post-Hurricane Melissa
Amid wreckage from Hurricane Melissa, rescuers find comfort in survival of creatures great & small KINGSTON, Jamaica––Self-introduces Damion Laren Whyte, “I am a naturalist from the Island of Jamaica.” A lecturer for the Department of Life Sciences at the University of the West Indies, located in Mona, Jamaica, five miles from Kingston at the east […]
First reports about how animal rescues weathered Hurricane Melissa
Communications down practically everywhere in Jamaica KINGSTON, Jamaica––Hurricane Melissa, now heading toward Santiago de Cuba or possibly Guantanamo, and then to the Bahamas, appears to have now crossed Jamaica into open water, with winds slowing from up to 190 miles per hour to “only” 145 miles per hour, diminishing the Category 5 hurricane––temporarily, anyhow––to Category […]
California bans declawing cats without seceding from the United States
42 nations have now banned declawing cats, & nine of the ten Canadian provinces, but only four U.S. states SACRAMENTO, California––California governor Gavin Newsom on October 9, 2025 endorsed into law AB 867 by state assembly member Alex Lee, a Democrat from Milpitas, “which bans the practice of declawing cats when not medically necessary,” […]
Marvin Mackie, 88, all but invented early-age & high-volume, low-cost s/n
Marvin Mackie, DVM, fixed more than 250,000 dogs & cats in 54-year veterinary career SAN PEDRO, California––W. Marvin Mackie, DVM, 88, remembered by United Spay Alliance cofounder Esther Mechler and much of the rest of the humane community as “a pioneer in the affordable spay/neuter movement, died on September 23, 2025. “He brought so much […]
How solving the blue pork mystery might save cats, hawks, owls & eagles
Anti-coagulant rodenticides are less & less effective, so people use more & more of them GRAFTON, Massachusetts; MONTEREY, California––Blue pork from wild pigs in early August 2025 put secondary poisoning caused by toxic accumulations of the anti-coagulant rodenticide diphacinone into tabloid headlines. To wildlife advocates, however, the relatively remote possibility of people suffering illness or […]
Too many pit bulls: New York City shelters refuse intake, SF/SPCA lays off staff
Pit bulls bit the Achilles heel of collapsing New York City & San Francisco no-kill schemes SAN FRANCISCO, California––Pit bulls bit the Achilles heel of the San Francisco Adoption Pact, putting the whole “no-kill nation” model on crutches, but even as both the San Francisco SPCA and San Francisco Animal Care & Control stagger cold […]
Chickens, rats, & my battle with leptospirosis, by Beth Clifton
Zoonotic disease can hit you anywhere GREENBANK, Washington––Sometimes ANIMALS 24-7 finds article topics right in our own backyard. Like World Zoonoses Day, commemorated annually on July 6. Today is the 140th anniversary of the first administration of the human post-exposure rabies vaccine by Louis Pasteur on July 6, 1885. “Zoonoses is the collective term for […]
106 cats rescued from hot van & 28 dead were “just the tip of the iceberg”
Hot car case kills nine-year-old child the same day SANTA NELLA, California––Merced County, California sheriff’s deputies and animal control officers on July 1, 2025 pulled 106 overheated, emaciated, mostly longhaired cats alive from a U-Haul van in a Taco Bell parking lot in Santa Nella, a “census-designated place” with about 1,700 residents. Also found in […]
Swiss fur import ban resembles Swiss cheese, full of holes, but is a start
Swiss exemption for pelts from body-gripping traps smells like Limburger GENEVA, Switzerland––Switzerland, effective July 1, 2025, will become the first country in Europe and likely the world to ban the import and sale of fur taken from animals by means defined as “cruel production methods.” The new Swiss law, introduced by the Swiss Federal Council […]