Animals 24-7

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

Three-legged bears in the Great Smokies may be no accident

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U.S. bear hunters & Asian gangsters cut paws & deals             ASHEVILLE,  North Carolina––Jody Williams and his Facebook group Help Asheville Bears want to catch the perp,  or multiple perps,  responsible for their recent discovery that at least 15 three-legged North American black bears are struggling for survival in the Smoky and Blue Ridge Mountains,  […]

“Asian murder hornet”: surrogate for COVID-19 terror

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Or,  how two “great sparrow bees” incited a national hunt for alleged Chinese alien invaders             BLAINE, Washington––How did the Asian giant hornet,  known for centuries in Japan as the “great sparrow bee,”  generally regarded as beneficial to farmers for killing insect pests,  suddenly become feared in the U.S. as the so-called “murder hornet”? After […]

Are Bronx Zoo tigers with COVID-19 sentinels for brown bats?

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Team researches whether humans can transmit COVID-19 back to bats             NEW YORK,  N.Y.––A four-year-old Malayan tiger named Nadia,  kept at the Bronx Zoo in New York City,  and now four other times and three lions sharing the same facilities,  may be evidence of asymptomatic human-to-animal transmission of  COVID-19. Alternatively,  the tiger and lion illnesses […]

Takaya the “sea wolf” headed for home, but hunter shot him

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Lived for eight years almost within sight of British Columbia provincial parliament             VICTORIA, B.C.,  Canada––Takaya,  10,  the “sea wolf” star of the 2019 CBC Nature of Things documentary “Takaya: Lone Wolf,”  was on March 24,  2020 shot by a hunter near Shawnigan Lake,  British Columbia,  possibly after being chased and/or mauled by the hunter’s […]

Sex, COVID-19,  & the Thai monkey apocalypse

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“Monkey menace” emerged first & will likely be around a lot longer             BANGKOK,  Thailand––Nightmares that a flying monkey army might ransack Thailand leaped across the Indian Ocean during the second week of March 2020,  out of Hindu mythology and the daily fears of Buddhist temple keepers,  and into the imagination of social media video-watchers […]

“Invasive” grey squirrels, feral pigs, & rats: leave ’em alone, say scientists

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Studies suggest grey squirrel, feral pig,  & rat control are barking up the wrong tree BELFAST;  GUAM;  VANCOUVER––“Invasive” grey squirrels are allegedly extirpating red squirrels in the British Isles by transmitting squirrel pox. Feral pigs allegedly run amok to the detriment of rare native plants on Guam,  a remote Pacific island. Rats present a perennial […]

Noted in passing: Bryant, Paulsen, Carothers, Domingues, & Weingartner

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Activist legends in U.K., New Mexico,  Texas,  Louisiana,  & California Recently deceased longtime animal advocates John Bryant of Dorset,  U.K.,  Judy Paulsen of Corrales,  New Mexico,  Randy Carothers of Rockwell,  Texas,  Rae Nell Domingues of Lafayette,  Louisiana,  and Susan Weingartner of southern California most likely never crossed paths in person,  and may never even have […]

Poisoning Australia in the name of wildlife recovery after bushfire losses

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And kangaroos shot,  koala trees bulldozed             MELBOURNE,  CANBERRA, SYDNEY,  BRISBANE––Six months of bushfires ravaging Australian coastal forests and grasslands stretching into parts of the Outback are reportedly almost at an end. The last two dozen fires in New South Wales and a comparable number left in Victoria state are smoldering on at the lowest […]

Helping animals through the Australian firestorm

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Reports from 25 of the hundreds of animal aid charities working in the hot zones CANBERRA,  Australian Capital Territories––More than 100 wildfires raging in Australian coastal forests and wooded parts of the Australian interior in September 2019 exploded beyond immediate hope of control and burst into global consciousness during the first days of 2020,  splitting […]

Mountain goat massacre begins in Grand Tetons

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Shaky science may doom mountain goats in their own habitat             JACKSON,  Wyoming––The northern and western slopes of the Cathedral Mountains in Grand Teton National Park were on January 5,  2020 closed to the public to allow air gunners flown by Baker Aircraft of Baker City,  Oregon,  to massacre as many as 100 mountain goats […]