Holocaust survivor Bienes inspired organization builder Deckers 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 well as leading Een Dier Een Vriend […]
Mink & pig massacres due to COVID-19 may help to kill fur & pork industries too
Netherlands may end fur farming four years before ban takes effect LIMBURG, Netherlands; SIOUX CITY, Iowa––The good news, if it could be called that, about the scheduled massacre of as many as 30,000 ranched mink on June 6, 2020 is that it may put 10 mink farms owned by eight companies permanently out of business, […]
The minks’ jinx: is COVID-19 an exploited species’ revenge?
Dutch disclose second case of mink-to-human COVID-19 transmission WAGENINGEN, the Netherlands; WUHAN, China––“A second case has become known on one of the infected mink farms where, most likely, SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19]passed from mink to human,” Dutch minister of health Hugo DeYoung and minister of agriculture Carola Schouten jointly advised the Dutch parliament on May 25, 2020. […]
Why Europe will not eat U.S. & Australian wild horses
Dutch & Danish seizures of illegally trafficked German horse meat do not mean revived demand WASHINGTON D.C., BRUSSELS––Yes, the Bureau of Land Management under Donald Trump appointee William Perry Pendley is desperately eager to dispose of as many as 45,000 wild horses in holding pens, plus about 68,000 of the estimated 95,000 wild horses […]
“That touch of mink” & COVID-19: Dutch outbreak hints mink may be host
Fur farming to end in The Netherlands by 2024 WAGENINGEN, The Netherlands––The discovery that ranched mink can become infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus may lend momentum to the Dutch national plan to phase out mink farming entirely by 2024. Concern that mink themselves might become a COVID-19 reservoir may also dampen Chinese enthusiasm for rebuilding […]
How COVID-19 and pit bulls show we are in pain
by Roderick Balt Despite not being evidently more dangerous than a heavy flu, which can kill tens of thousands of the most vulnerable people without sparking panic, and did as recently as the 2018-2019 flu season, the COVID-19 virus has terrified much of the public worldwide, resulting in disproportionate measures being taken to manage the […]
Heart failure fells Vier Pfoten (Four Paws) founder Helmut Dungler, 56
Dungler died at the Lionsrock sanctuary he founded BETHLEHEM, South Africa––Helmut Dungler, 56, founder of the international animal charity Vier Pfoten (Four Paws), died on January 5, 2020 from a sudden massive heart attack suffered on one of his frequent visits to the Lionsrock sanctuary, among the biggest and most ambitious of the many […]
Why U.S. furriers don’t advertise much any more
Mink coat ads vanish from newsprint SACRAMENTO, California––A furrier somewhere in the U.S. may yet buy a page of advertising, in what little remains of 2019, in one of the thousands of newspapers that are electronically searchable at www.NewspaperArchive.com. As of December 29, 2019, however, the year appeared to be ending without a single NewspaperArchive […]
Walls, boar purges, & no-man’s-land fail to stop African swine fever
Wild boar to blame for only 1% of outbreaks, Chinese learn PARIS, France––Donald Trump is not the only world leader who has yet to learn that walls don’t work––not if the goal is really to keep a foreign threat out, as opposed to presenting the appearance to a political base of doing something drastic […]
Four lionesses: women who made a difference for animals
Remembering Lynette Shanley, Tammy Sue Kirkpatrick, Coby Siegenthaler, and Lorraine Blake Roth Lynette Shanley, Tammy Sue Kirkpatrick, Coby Siegenthaler, and Lorraine Blake Roth, widely separated in geography, ages, life experience, and focus in activism, likely never met, nor even heard of each other, yet––like tens of thousands of other relatively anonymous women––lent strength to the ever-growing […]