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 […]
What it takes to rid fashion of animal fur––and leather & feathers
Three big fur fashion announcements build on one long-ago campaign discovery NEW YORK, N.Y.––“What would it take to rid fashion of animal fur?” mused longtime sustainable fashion consultant Lucianne Tonti for the fashion magazine Vogue on December 11, 2025. “In the space of a couple of weeks in early December 2025,” Tonti recounted, “animal rights […]
Burning urgency to find homes for displaced captive marine mammals
Even if no marine mammals are displaced by fire at the Yeisk Dolphinarium, hundreds from failing dolphinariums have nowhere to go YEISK, Russia; TARANTO, Italy; ANTIBES, France; NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario; MIAMI, Florida––A marine mammal population of unknown size, including Black Sea dolphins, a beluga whale, sea lions, and seals, reportedly survived a September 9, 2025 […]
Good news for brown bears (so far) in Lithuania & British Columbia
Brown bear macked into Lithuanian capital city, but was not shot; Texada Island grizzly is also still alive & well VILNIUS, Lithuania; TEXADA ISLAND, British Columbia, Canada––A two-year-old female European brown bear in mid-June 2025 found her own way out of trouble in Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania. Whether her distant cousin, a […]
Ukrainian dogs may be the winners of Putin’s war
Indifferent a generation ago toward suffering street dogs, Ukraine is now a dog-loving nation KIEV, Ukraine––The outcome of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has yet to be determined, eleven years after Russian troops seized Crimea and more than three years after Russian tanks rolled into the Ukrainian mainland, but Ukrainian dogs––for the time […]
Putin’s pet? Attack of the Russian baby-killing dachshund from hell
And other truly weird tales of one of the dogs statistically least likely to kill anyone: only two fatalities on record anywhere, ever SEVERSK, Siberia, Russia––An eight-year-old longtime family pet dachshund on March 10, 2025 killed a month-old baby girl in Seversk, Tomsk Oblast. Little news escapes Seversk, a “closed city” located north of the […]
Animal updates from “forgotten” war in Ukraine, two years since invasion
Almost every major animal charity in Europe is involved in Ukraine somehow KIEV, Ukraine––Underway six times as long, with almost certainly six-plus times the human and animal body count, though both sides remain reticent about losses, the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 often seems to be a forgotten war in U.S. public […]
Kent Robertson, 73, led animal agencies in Dallas, Houston, St. Louis
Also noted for work on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Kent Morris Robertson, 73, for 38 years a leader in animal care and control work, died in Denison, Texas, on December 31, 2023, after a long battle with multiple debilitating health conditions, including cancer. “Growing up in Sacramento, California, his family […]
Birds killing cats? Avian flu hits cats in Poland, FIP hits cats in Cyprus
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 […]