Still endangered after century of recovery, sea otters become scapegoats ANCHORAGE, Alaska––Sea otters are now taking the rap from frustrated Alaskan shellfishers for one of the best-documented and longest foreseen effects of global warming: oceanic acidification, inhibiting the ability of species such as abalone, urchins, clams, crabs and sea cucumbers to build and maintain shells. […]
Two inches of rain means life or death to animals in Kenya
Flash floods broke devastating drought, but not drought cycle menacing wildlife & livestock NAIROBI, Kenya––Just two inches of rain over two days, about what Seattle gets on average in just two weeks, in mid-March 2018 triggered flash floods killing at least 15 Kenyans, marooning six tented camps for wildlife tourists in the Maasai Mara […]
A Perfect Day dawns for dairy cows, 7,000 years after domestication
Brewing beer for 9,000 years, humans learn to brew milk without using cows or other mammals BERKELEY, California––Using fermentation to produce food and beverages apparently originated in China circa 9,000 years ago. Keeping dairy cattle appears to have begun in Anatolia, the eastern part of Turkey, circa 7,000 years ago. The commercial dairy industry […]
Can Brother Wolf sell going meatless to dog-&-cat shelters and rescues?
Others have tried for nearly 200 years ASHEVILLE, North Carolina––“We’re a traditional dog and cat rescue group,” opened Brother Wolf Animal Rescue community outreach manager Caitlin Campbell in a recent media release, “and we’ve started a campaign to encourage fellow animal rescue groups across the country to adopt a public vegan policy in response to the […]
The untold story of the conflict in Laikipia, Kenya
by Sebastian Mwanza (Sebastian Mwanza is media representative for the Africa Network for Animal Welfare) Heavily armed pastoralist groups numbering about 10,000 from the Samburu, Baringo, Pokot and Isiolo districts of central Kenya, bringing more than 135,000 cattle with them, have over the past four months forcefully moved into ranches and conservancies in Laikipia county, […]
Kenya crisis shows need to transition out of animal agriculture
The issue is not just grazers vs. wildlife U.S. and European concern over the drought-driven conflict besetting central Kenya in early 2017 tends to focus on the impacts afflicting wildlife, wildlife habitat, and eco-tourism. This is understandable because these are the aspects of Kenya most often seen by outsiders, as viewers of wildlife documentaries, films […]
Thumbing nose at lawsuits, USDA-APHIS hides more info
Deletes documents posted in response to Freedom of Information Act requests WASHINGTON D.C.––Hit with a second lawsuit, draft legislation, and letters from 119 members of Congress demanding that the U.S. Department of Agriculture restore web sites including Animal Welfare Act enforcement information, the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service has instead thumbed its collective […]
Who Stole My Religion?
Revitalizing Judaism and applying Jewish values to help heal our imperiled planet by Richard H. Schwartz with Rabbi Yonassan Gershom and Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz Reviewed by Barbara Kay Richard Schwartz, principal author of Who Stole My Religion?, is a rather odd polemical duck. He has two great passions in life: Judaism and environmentalism, […]
The animal issue that made Donald Trump a presidential candidate
Or, what is bio-xenophobia? (Part I of a four-part series. See also How an ant doctor came to be driving public policy; How the Twin Towers fell on animals too; and Questioning the claims of “crisis.”) With just six weeks left of the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign season, xenophobia, the fear of foreigners, has thus far […]
“Cargo cult” politics make caribou the bison of the Canadian North
Far North learns the hard way that climate & geography can’t prevent effects of global warming EDMONTON––Neither cold and wind, short summers and seemingly endless winter, voracious summer mosquitoes and blackflies, nor the distance from urban civilization present the harshest of the many harsh realities currently facing the Canadian Far North. Rather, the Far […]