FIP rages. Avian flu outbreaks among cats are few, but hint at increasing vulnerability of mammals to bird diseases NICOSIA, Cyprus; WARSAW, Poland; HELSINKI Finland––Potentially catastrophic disease outbreaks hitting cats in Cyprus and Poland, and farmed foxes in Finland, have epidemiologists worried about emerging mutant strains of feline infectious peritonitis, a coronavirus best known as […]
Iceland whaling halt upstages Ric O’Barry appeal for Russian beluga
Paul Watson & crew wait near Iceland to see if fisheries minister sticks to her guns against last whaling baron Kristján Loftsson NORWEGIAN SEA––Ric O’Barry, 83, on June 20, 2023 issued an urgent appeal on behalf of Hvaldimir, possibly the most famous of all beluga whales. But Paul Watson, 72, again upstaged O’Barry, as he […]
George Santos was a small-timer among animal charity scammers
Santos’ Friends of Pets United never existed. Neither do “spay/neuter cookies.” WASHINGTON D.C.––The most infamous of all of New York third district Congressional Representative George Santos’ many scams, now extensively exposed, was probably the easiest: inventing and raising funds in the name of a pet rescue organization that never legally existed and never verifiably helped […]
Pahrump dog breeders Platunov & Higgins allegedly starved 300 Ovarchkas
Having one of the worst-ever neglect cases in Nye County, Nevada, is not easy PAHRUMP, Nevada––Caucasian Ovcharka breeders Vasili Platunov and Oksana Higgins strung the authorities of Nye County, Nevada along for years with one excuse after another for failing to comply with some of the lightest and least enforced animal care and control ordinances in the […]
How one lion & one bear survived the 2014-2017 ISIS occupation of Mosul
Father of Lions: Saving Starving Animals at the Mosul Zoo by Louise Callaghan 383 pages, 2020. Forge Book, c/o Tom Doherty Associates; available in multiple print & electronic formats c/o Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, and Kindle at prices from $12.99 up. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton “Good afternoon. I am writing because I want to […]
Victims escaped dangerous nations but could not escape deadly dogs
Marina Gabunia Verriest & Omar Ghawtah had little in common but shared their fate ALBERTSON, New York; HOUSTON, Texas––Marina Gabunia and Omar Ghawtah fled to the U.S. to escape threats of violence and persecution in their nations of birth, but in July 2022 both became victims of canine violence, eight days and 1,700 miles apart. […]
Erika Brunson, 86, animal advocate, actress, interior decorator, & furniture maker
Rose from rough start in life to philanthropic success Animal advocacy and spay/neuter philanthropist Erika Devore Brunson, 86, died in Los Angeles, California on May 17, 2022. Maria Erika Knab, her original given name, was born on September 4, 1935, “in the small fishing town of Konigsberg in East Prussia,” according to an October 16, 2013 […]
Russian war on Ukraine kills dolphins, but fishing kills more
The Black Sea was hard habitat for dolphins even before the shooting started ISTANBUL, Turkey––That war kills animals as well as humans is scarcely in doubt, but whether war is worse than peace for Black Sea dolphins may be disputed. Nearly three months after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 2022, evidence is surfacing along […]
Israeli vegan honey could leave Russia & Ukraine holding the honey bucket
Lab-produced honey goes into industrial-scale production just as global supply from bees is disrupted by Putin’s War JERUSALEM, Israel––Regardless of whether Ukraine staves off the Russian invasion or suffers the genocide threatened by Russian use of heavy weapons against civilian targets, the biggest and perhaps only winner of what is now known worldwide as […]
H5N1 avian flu: bird culls, food prices, Ukraine war, & cockfighting converge
Waterfowl meeting mostly in the Russian Arctic infect factory farms worldwide AMES, Iowa––Just as the COVID-19 pandemic afflicting the world since January 2020 seems to be letting up, the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Veterinary Services Laboratories are warning everyone concerned about birds, wild or domestic, to beware of the first outbreak of High […]