Animals 24-7

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

Pit bull victim Elisa Pilarski’s mother & a Dutch witness speak

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Pit bull owner Christophe Ellul “has to recognize that it was his dog,”  says Nathalie Pilarski.             PARIS, France––The Amiens Court of Appeal is to rule on July 23,  2021 on a petition from attorney Alexandre Novion,  representing pit bull owner Christophe Ellul,  seeking to suppress DNA evidence that Ellul’s pit bull Curtis,  and Curtis […]

The Body Shop to go “100% vegan” by 2023––but wasn’t it already?

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Expanding the gulf between image and reality is what the cosmetics industry is all about             LONDON, U.K.––Cosmetics and personal care industry media are abuzz with the June 1,  2021 announcement by The Body Shop that every product it offers will be 100% vegan by the end of 2023. Many consumers,  on the other hand,  […]

Did North Carolina seven-year-old die trying to stop a dogfight?

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New British study confirms frequency of injuries to intervenors in pit bull attacks on other dogs             GARNER, North Carolina;  GLOUCESTER, U.K.––Did Jayden Belle Henderson,  age seven,  die trying to stop a dogfight? Two pit bulls on April 27,  2021 killed Henderson and severely mauled her mother,  WRAL television master controller Heather Travaskis,  39. Trevaskis,  […]

“Conserving” rhinos to the brink of extinction

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Zoo births one rhino,  scientists make five rhino embryos,  trophy hunters buy rights to shoot dozens,  & poachers kill 1,000-plus per year DUBBO, Australia;  BERLIN, Germany––The Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo,  Australia,  on March 1,  2021 informed media that it “is celebrating the birth of a critically endangered black rhino calf.” Born to a four-time […]

How ancient bison survived in the land & times of Good King Wenceslaus

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Wenceslaus,  911-935,  left bison alone.  Successors alternately hunted & protected them. BIALOWIEZA FOREST, Poland––European wood bison,  also called wisent,  at risk of extinction for far longer than their North American cousins,  are no longer “vulnerable,”  and have accordingly been removed from the “Red List” maintained by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The […]

Geoffrey Deckers & Marion Bienes brought animal rights to the Netherlands

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Holocaust survivor Bienes inspired organization builder Deckers Award founded in Deckers’ name––see Comments,  below. Geoffrey Deckers,  51,  co-founder of the Dutch animal advocacy organization Een Dier Een Vriend [An Animal, A Friend],   died suddenly on June 29,  2020. Deckers suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on November 20,  2017,  but appeared to have made a full recovery. As […]

Trump administration obliges airlines to carry “service” pit bulls

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But only pit bulls who “fit within handler’s foot space on the aircraft”          WASHINGTON D.C.––Elaine Lan Chao,  U.S. Secretary of Transportation throughout the Donald Trump presidential administration and almost certain to soon leave office,  on November 30,  2020 introduced a revised Air Carrier Access Act regulation on the transportation of service animals by air […]

The incredible, recent, global rise in the stranding of marine mammals

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by Bill McGraw,  Ph.D. Boquete, Panama During late September, 2020,  Australia experienced the largest mass stranding of whales in the history of that country. Two weeks later,  during early October 2020,  the stranding of 7,000 cape fur seals on the coast of Namibia was identified as a major marine mammal stranding event. Disturbingly, this was […]

Kaavan flies to sanctuary with “elephant singers” Cher and Amir Khalil

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World of friends help “world’s loneliest elephant”             ISLAMABAD, Pakistan;  PHNOM PENH, Cambodia––Kaavan,  long billed “the world’s loneliest elephant,”  was a flying elephant this morning,  November 30,  2020,  en route from the defunct Marghuzar Zoo in Islamabad,  Pakistan,  to share a 25,000-acre habitat with three female Asian elephants inside the the one-million acre Kulen-Promtep Wildlife […]

Mink ranching survives in Denmark despite risky COVID-19 mutation

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Danish mink industry was to be liquidated from fear that COVID-19 mutation could neutralize vaccines in development             COPENHAGEN, Denmark––The Danish mink industry,  on the verge of liquidation as of November 4,  2020 to control a COVID-19 coronavirus mutation,  appears to have politically mobilized to win a reprieve––for the mink ranchers,  however,  not the mink […]