He made friends with them! DUBLIN, TEL AVIV, ROME––As of St. Patrick’s Day 2018, there are still no wild snakes in Ireland, more than 1,660 years after the patron saint of Ireland allegedly drove them all out. Paleontologists say there were never any wild snakes in Ireland in the first place. But there were […]
From Uzbekistan to Whidbey Island, Washington: Vegan Runner Eats
and goes the distance LANGLEY, Washington––“I’m going to become a mommy to a little girl this fall!,” Alina Zavatsky posted to the Vegan Runner Eats Facebook page on May 31, 2017. “I’ll be sharing more info on Vegan Runner Eats,” Zhukova Zavatsky pledged, “including my experience with running a 5k [five kilometer roadrace] a few days ago while 20 weeks pregnant––stay tuned!” Running blog Explains […]
Reindeer stand between us & the next Great Flood
How the gift of reindeer presence dwarfs the value of Christmas Admit it: you have not thought about reindeer even once since Christmas. Even when you last did think of reindeer, you thought about them in association with Santa Claus, not as either defenders of the Far North ecology or potential victims of global warming, […]
Reindeer are the presents for remote Yamal herders
Gift reindeer may help for a while, but global warming dooms the herding way of life YAMAL PENINSULA, Siberia––Reindeer did not deliver presents to 45 families of herders on the remote Yamal Peninsula of Siberia at Christmas Eve 2016, but rather were the presents. The reindeer were sent to help the Yamalo-Nenets residents recover […]
What Brexit means for “pet passports” & lab animals
Part IV of a five-part series. (See also Will U.K. leaving E.U. mean leaving animal welfare behind?, Farmed animals & the Brexit “diet plan,” Farmed animals & money talks, and Back to the Jungle Book: U.K. wildlife law post-Brexit.) LONDON, U.K.––Among the signal achievements for animal welfare during the 43 years that the United Kingdom has been […]
Attack of the sausage-swingers: what was behind the raid on the vegan Kiwi Cafe?
Raid may have been more anti-gay than anti-vegan TBILISI, Georgia––The headline “Sausage-wielding protesters attack patrons at vegan café” and the shorter version, “Sausage thugs target vegan café,” flew around the world on June 1, 2016 at social media warp speed, amplified by at least 11,500 online media, before the bizarre story was upstaged by […]
WHO to recommend against global restrictions on ketamine
Regulators consider request from China (See also Loss of access to ketamine threatens progress in humane euthanasia, by Ruth Steinberger.) GENEVA, Switzerland––The World Health Organization Expert Committee on Drug Dependence is to recommend at the March 2016 meeting of the United Nations Single Commission on Narcotic Drugs that the drug ketamine not be internationally regulated. […]
Pigs investigated as possible Ebola vectors
Pigs can get Ebola, but do they spread it? KAMPALA, Uganda; NAIROBI, Kenya––Domestic pigs may already be among the vectors transmitting deadly Ebola viruses to humans, though no one knows for sure yet, warns a five-member International Livestock Research Institute team in a soon-to-be-published edition of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Transboundary and Emerging Diseases. The […]
Pain in my heart: Why the lack of attention to animal welfare in international development?
by Janice Cox The many ways in which the development of industrial animal agriculture harms humans, animals and the environment in developing nations have been subjects of concern to far-sighted thinkers for more than a century. The lineage of intellectual concern about such issues includes Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), E.F. Schumacher (1911-1977), Barbara Ward (1914-1981), Lester Brown (1934-), Frances Moore Lappe […]
Shelter rabies cases remind of the risk in trying to “save them all”
PITTSBURGH, LONDON––Alerts to the risk that animal shelters, shelterless rescues, and adoption transport may spread rabies came simultaneously in December 2014 from no-kill organizations on both sides of the Atlantic. “He was a kitten. He came in at four weeks old,” Washington Area Humane Society shelter manager Laurelle Dicks told Mary Robb Jackson of KDKA-TV, […]