Animals 24-7

News on dogs, cats, horses, wildlife, zoonoses, & nature

Why Europe will not eat U.S. & Australian wild horses

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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 […]

The price of defiance: COVID-19 vs. the Cottondale Mother’s Day Rodeo

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Whoever that masked man was, he was not in the rodeo arena             COTTONWOOD,  California––There are sound epidemiological arguments against outdoor mask-wearing to fight the spread of COVID-19,  and in favor of getting more people out into the spring sunshine,  but those arguments were not much in evidence at the 58th annual Mother’s Day Rodeo […]

Gabriel Wortman & Tara Reade: what would animals testify?

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Animals might have had quite a bit to say about both rampage killer & alleged character assassin––if they could talk PORTAPIQUE, Nova Scotia;  FRANKFORT, Kentucky;  SANTA CRUZ, California––Denturist and hunter Gabriel Wortman,  51,  of Portapique,  Nova Scotia,  on April 18 and 19,  2020 shot 13 people to death with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle,  including a […]

Pit bull or hunting hounds? Who killed Elisa Pilarski & unborn child Enzo?

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DNA data may decide which dog did the killing,  but maybe not who was at fault SOISSONS,  France––Pack hunters and pit bull enthusiasts are pitted against each other in a melodrama gripping French media since November 16,  2019,  when someone’s dog or dogs killed Elisa Pilarski,  29,  six months pregnant. Anxiously awaited DNA test results […]

“Whoa!” shouts Chicago to horse-drawn carriages

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Last ten horse-drawn carriage licenses will not be renewed             CHICAGO––150 years of horse-drawn carriages plying downtown Chicago––interrupted by a 17-year suspension,  1962-1979––are to end by January 1,  2021,  the Chicago City Council resolved on April 24,  2020. The 46-4 vote ratified a March 2020 decision by the Chicago Committee on License & Consumer Protection […]

Iconic animal use events fall to COVID-19: “Running of the bulls” is latest

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“Social distancing” also shuts down SeaWorld, seal hunt, fur auctions, Kentucky Derby,  & the carriage horses in Central Park             PAMPLONA,  Spain ––The 700-year-old Festival of San Fermin, featuring bullfights and the “running of the bulls” through the cobbled streets of the oldest part of Pamplona, Spain, was on April 21, 2020 indefinitely postponed due […]

Breakthrough may scratch horses from the Iditarod legend

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Yes, horses! ANCHORAGE,  Alaska;  Braunschweig,  Germany–– A German immunologist, funded by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,  has reportedly made a scientific discovery that may scratch horses from the substance of the Iditarod serum run legend. Horses in the Iditarod Trail Race,  the 938-mile world’s most famous and most controversial dog sled race? Yes, […]

Montreal carriage horse trade ends, after 354 years

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“Calèche” industry was long intertwined with defunct harness track,  start of the Premarin industry,  horse slaughter,  and a notorious glue factory              MONTREAL, Quebec––The last vehicle-pulling horses in Montreal,  Quebec,  are to be off the streets before sunset on December 31,  2019––an hour which,  as this article is posted,  has already come and gone. “Far […]

Fire & ice puts Australian koalas and Icelandic horses at urgent risk

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Songwriter Joni Mitchell in 1982 recommended “50/50 fire and ice” as the best response to a crisis.  That isn’t working for either Icelandic horses or koalas.              REYKJAVIK, Iceland;  SYDNEY, Australia––Eco-disasters afflicting Icelandic horses and Australian koalas starkly illustrate extreme and contrasting effects of global warming as 2019 comes to an end. Hundreds of Icelandic […]

Race track deaths upstage notice of horses “retired” due to injury

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45 horses dead on three Southern California tracks during 2019 seasons––and 39 at Belmont alone LOS ALAMITOS,  California––Two horse deaths in the first race of the next-to-last-day of the Los Alamitos Race Course on December 14,  2019 renewed attention to high injury toll in horse racing,  but upstaged the disintegration of the California Equine Retirement […]