Animals 24-7

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

Barry Lopez, 75, “literary naturalist,” inspired animal advocates

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Death came four months after Lopez lost home of 50 years to wildfire Barry Lopez,  75,  died on Christmas Day 2020 in Eugene,  Oregon,  after a years-long battle with prostate cancer. Sometimes described as a “literary naturalist,”  Lopez wrote often about animals,  but hardly exclusively,  and as often about the animals of Native American myth and […]

Strychnine for Christmas: Alberta gift to wolves, caribou & other wildlife

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Big Bad Wolf blamed for habitat loss due to global warming             EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada––Again this Christmas season,  Alberta Environment & Parks will welcome Santa’s reindeer by setting out strychnine. The strychnine will be not for Santa,  nor for the reindeer,  the North American variety of whom are called caribou,  but rather for the Big […]

Trixie the whale shark dies young at the Georgia Aquarium

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Three whale sharks left of six brought from Taiwan in 2006-2007             ATLANTA, Georgia––Trixie the whale shark,  who could have lived up to 130 years in the wild,  died on November 27,  2020 after just 14 years at the Georgia Aquarium. Trixie,  believed to have been about 32 feet long,  still about eight feet short […]

Pit bulls, wolves win in Colorado; horse racing wins in Nebraska; Hsiung loses

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Colorado goes to the dogs             DENVER, Colorado; LINCOLN, Nebraska;  BERKELEY, California––Democratic challenger Joe Biden narrowly led Republican incumbent Donald Trump at 1:45,  Pacific time,  on November 4,  2020. The three major ballot issues and one mayoral race directly involving animals appeared to have ended,  however,  with a win for pit bulls in Denver,  a […]

Wolves, grizzly bears, wolverines & right whales sacrificed to Trump re-election bid

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Handouts to hunters, fishers, loggers, miners, & the oil and gas extraction industries             BLOOMINGTON, Minnesota––U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on October 29,  2020 announced that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is removing gray wolves from Endangered Species Act protection throughout the Lower 48 states. The wolf delisting is widely seen as a blatant […]

Mob destroys the Nigeria SPCA amid national crisis

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Similar attack trashed & looted renowned drill conservation project LAGOS,  Nigeria––Amid the chaos and violence engulfing Lagos,  the economic capital of Nigeria,  the October 14,  2020 mob destruction of the Nigeria SPCA has so far not even won local media coverage. But the attack crippled the oldest institution in Nigeria that offers humane education and  […]

Feds quit funding guns & ammo for “anti-poaching” militias

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MacGregor throws the World Wildlife Fund, Wildlife Conservation Society & others out of the lettuce patch             WASHINGTON D.C.––Deputy Interior Secretary Katharine MacGregor on September 18,  2020 quietly ordered major reforms of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID] programs which have for decades routed millions of dollars in funding […]

Judge boots wild horse foe William Perry Pendley from top office at BLM

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Federal judge finds Pendley illegally headed the BLM for nearly half of his tenure HELENA, Montana––Wild horse nemesis William Perry Pendley was on September 25,  2020 removed from his position as acting director of the Bureau of Land Management by Chief District Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District of Montana. Morris ruled that Pendley has served […]

Shoving tule elk & bison aside, National Park Service favors cattle ranchers

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Point Reyes National Seashore & Yellowstone National Park allegedly managed for cows over native wildlife             POINT REYES, California;  BOZEMAN, Montana—Burning since an August 18,  2020 lightning strike,  the 4,900-acre Woodward Fire at Point Reyes National Seashore is reportedly contained at last. Issues rising with the smoke and cinders,  though,  smolder on,  including the National Park […]

Cats, tahrs & feathers on Table Mountain, South Africa

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Goats gotten,  South African National Park Service scopes in on feral cats             CAPE TOWN, South Africa––Have feral cats succeeded feral Himalayan mountain goats,  called tahrs,  as the purported greatest threat to native South African wildlife at Table Mountain National Park? The few remaining Table Mountain tahrs, a cause celebré from 2001 to 2004,  are descended […]