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 […]
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 […]
Is mink farming “too dirty to die”? Or is pending bill the coup-de-grace?
Some in the U.S. mink industry see COVID-19 as a growth opportunity WASHINGTON D.C.––Will the COVID-19 delta variant finally kill mink farming in the U.S., after COVID-19 in all forms has killed more than 633,000 Americans? Or will HR 4310, dubbed the MINKS Act as acronym for “Minks in Narrowly Kept Spaces Are Superspreaders Act,” […]
How ancient bison survived in the land & times of Good King Wenceslaus
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Lithuania advised against plan to kill 90% of wild boars to fight African swine fever
“Has little or no chance of success” VILNIUS, Lithuania––The European Food Safety Authority on March 17, 2014 reported that a Lithuanian government plan to fight African swine fever by killing wild boars has little or no chance of success. “No evidence was found in scientific literature proving that wild boar populations can be drastically reduced by […]