Animals 24-7

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

Five paws up for Stephen Best dog rescue film “Saving Dinah”

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Saving Dinah Directed by Stephen Best Starring Amanda Langille, Craig Martin, and Paul James Saunders. 90 minutes.  $1.99 from Amazon Prime Video (rental) or $4.99 to purchase. Produced by the Animal Alliance of Canada. Reviewed by Merritt & Beth Clifton. Bill Sikes,  arch-villain of the 1838 Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist,  might justly be called one of […]

Why the USDA cannot effectively enforce the Animal Welfare Act

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The USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service was designed to fail             WASHINGTON D.C.–– Responsible for federal Animal Welfare Act enforcement,  such as it is,  the Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA-APHIS] on May 20,  2022 got a public butt-kicking from National Geographic writer Rachel Fobar. The […]

USDA proposes to cover birds under the Animal Welfare Act––sort of

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Disease outbreaks afflicting poultry producers lend regulatory urgency to protecting birds––some birds,  anyhow––that 50 years of activism did not WASHINGTON D.C.––The worst outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza on record,  ravaging European flocks both wild and domestic since 2020,  now killing birds by the million in poultry barns,  especially in the upper Midwest,  may soon help […]

Is mink farming “too dirty to die”? Or is pending bill the coup-de-grace?

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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,”  […]

Shooting war: cats win, feeders lose in East Bay Regional Park District

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East Bay Regional Park District agrees to ceasefire if cat rescuers remove cats from sensitive wildlife areas             OAKLAND, California––Histrionic headlines and activist alerts aside,  what the East Bay Regional Park District board of directors really did at a heated June 15,  2021 meeting over cat policy was to: Permanently reassign staff biologist David “Doctor […]

Factory-farmed pigs get a break from vaccine breakthrough

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For factory-farmed pigs,  avoiding African swine fever may be about as good as the grim news gets GREENPORT, New York––With all eyes on the progress of vaccination against the global COVID-19 pandemic,  which has to date killed nearly 3.5 million people,  the U.S. Department of Agriculture Research Service in early May quietly announced a breakthrough […]

World Federation for Animals seeks “One ring to bind them all”

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But progress for animals is not achieved with “rings of power”             BOSTON, Massachusetts––Any resemblance between mild-mannered World Federation for Animals founder Wim DeKok,  a longtime exemplar of peaceful cooperation,  and Sauron,  the vengeful Satanic wizard of the Lord of the Rings trilogy authored by J.R.R. Tolkien,  would be difficult to discover. Yet there is […]