Animals 24-7

News & perspective for the humane community

Shoot wild horses, sell them to slaughter, or just let them die?

by

Navajo Nation & BLM look at grim options  CAMERON,  ARIZONA––Why did 111 wild horses die stuck in the mud at a Navajo Nation stock pond near Cameron,  Arizona,  during the last week of April 2018? Photos distributed by Navajo Nation spokesperson Mihio Manus “showed clusters of horses with dried mud on their bodies, some overlapping one […]

Big win over the “big lick” walking horse industry in 2018 federal budget

by

“Big lickers” kicked,  but Congress kicked back             WASHINGTON D.C.––Winning increasingly often against initially steep odds,  BillyGoBoy and friends opposed to soring horses to make them step higher appear likely to enjoy the last horse laugh over the walking horse show industry. Walking horse shows have been infamously dominated for decades by trainers who––defying the […]

Study authors miss own findings about soaring cost of dog attacks

by

26% jump in dog attacks as percentage of deaths caused by non-venomous animals.             STANFORD,  California––At least fourteen major news agencies worldwide and even the authors of a newly published study entitled “An Update on Fatalities Due to Venomous and Nonvenomous Animals in the United States (2008–2015)” appear to have overlooked data included in the study […]

These “Blazing Saddles” episodes were no comedy

by

Padilla Ranch and San Luis Rey Downs disasters may have been only part of the Southern California fire toll on horses LOS ANGELES––Of the estimated 700,000 horses living in California,  nearly 60% live in the four-county Southern California region hit by early December wildfires,  the largest of which,  the Thomas fire raging in the wooded […]

Leaving The Wild:  The Unnatural History of Dogs, Cats, Cows & Horses

by

by Gavin Ehringer Pegasus Books,  distributed by W.W. Norton & Co. 364 pages.  $27.95 hardcover.  In stores December 5,  2017. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Remember the most gripping and informative few books you ever read about dogs,  cats,  cows,  and/or horses,  by authors as thorough as the multi-time best sellers Desmond Morris,  Elizabeth Marshall Thomas,  […]

Could soring horses leave top Republicans limping in red-state Tennessee?

by

Political columnist & senior attorney both think so CHATTANOOGA,  Tennessee––Could being associated with soring horses to induce the “Big Lick” goose step favored at walking horse shows cost the Republican candidates the 2018 Tennessee gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections? Roy Exum thinks it could.  And attorney Clant Seay,  a 72-year-old walking horse show breeder turned […]

Hurricane Maria: St. Croix Animal Welfare Center welds the door shut

by

Whatever didn’t blow away was stolen ST. CROIX, U.S. Virgin Islands––“It is with a very heavy heart that we were forced to weld the door to our clinic closed today,”  the St. Croix Animal Welfare Center posted to Facebook on September 28,  2017. Even before Hurricane Maria crushed the U.S.,  Dutch,  and British Virgin Islands, […]

Hurricane Maria: monkeys hold on, horses endure

by

“Oh my goodness, how could anything have survived this?”          CAYO SANTIAGO,  Puerto Rico––Hurricane Irma mostly missed the renowned Cayo Santiago rhesus macaque colony,  on an island just east of the Puerto Rican mainland,  but Hurricane Maria hit it head-on,  at full Category 5 strength. The thousand-odd macaques on Cayo Santiago are ninth generation descendants from […]

Do Hurricane Harvey animals need “Best Friends” like these?

by

Pit bull advocates defame the Houston SPCA & Beaumont animal rescue center          BEAUMONT,  Texas––The foulest murky depths in Beaumont,  Texas a week after Hurricane Harvey were not those left by the storm itself,  but rather by an ad hoc coalition of pit bull advocates whetting old grudges against the Houston SPCA,  possible dog thieves […]

Hurricane Harvey: how horses, cattle, lab & zoo animals fared

by

Many still need help HOUSTON, Texas––How have horses,  cattle,  and animals kept in laboratories and zoos fared through Hurricane Harvey and aftermath? Soggy doggies and cats took the media spotlight during the first week of the Harvey crisis,  but animals of every species shared the impact of the record deluge. (See also Hurricane Harvey: who is […]