Animals 24-7

News & perspective for the humane community

Mountain gorillas downlisted from “critically endangered”?!!

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World Health Organization Ebola virus emergency response team bugged out two days later             BENI,  DRC––The World Health Organization on November 17,  2018 temporarily evacuated 16 Ebola virus emergency response vaccination staff from the city of Beni in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,  after a dud mortar shell hit the WHO staff residence near […]

Iranian cheetah defenders face the death penalty

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Accused of “sowing corruption on earth”             TEHRAN,  Iran––Because fair trials in Iran are historically scarcer than the highly endangered Asiatic cheetah,  who survives only in remote habitat in the eastern part of the country,  the global conservation,  scientific,  and human rights communities are anxious as a cat on a hot tin roof about “espionage” […]

Over-counting jaguars, over-estimating poaching

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1964-1966 flood rescue data suggests there were never as many jaguars in Suriname as World Animal Protection claims have been poached PARAMARIBO,  Suriname––Claims recently amplified on social media about the alleged extent of jaguar poaching in Suriname appear to have inflated at most a handful of rare,  scattered incidents occurring over many years into a […]

HSUS election picks are too few to stop the Trump juggernaut

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Humane Society Legislative Fund fails to endorse enough Democratic challengers to slow anti-animal Republican momentum in the U.S. House & Senate             WASHINGTON D.C.––If voters who care about animals follow the recommendations of the Humane Society Legislative Fund arm of the Humane Society of the U.S. at the polls on election day,  November 6,  2018,  […]

Johnny Rodrigues, 69, fought to save wildlife in Zimbabwe

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Felled by cancer after surviving two wars, poachers’ gunfire, & the Mugabe regime QUARTEIERA, Portugal––Johnny Rodrigues,  69,  founder of the the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force and an enthusiastic contributor of information and occasional guest columns to ANIMALS 24-7,  died on September 17,  2018 at his daughter Lorraine and son-in-law Gavin Randall’s home in Portugal,  after […]

Could Zambia contracept wild hippos instead of culling?

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Or is hippo overpopulation even really the issue? LUSAKA,  Zambia––Why has Zambian tourism minister Charles Banda revived a five-year-old plan to cull up to 250 hippopotamuses per year from South Luangwa National Park,  only two years after scrapping it? “The South Luangwa National Park has a population of more than 13,000 hippos but the area […]

TNR protects African wildcats from “genetic pollution” & ferals from cruelty

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Alley Cat Rescue begins project at Kruger National Park             KRUGER NATIONAL PARK,  South Africa––Alley Cat Rescue,  of Mount Ranier,  Maryland,   is now “working to implement trap-neuter-return programs for stray/feral cats around Kruger National Park,”  according to founder Louise Holton,  to keep African wildcats from hybridizing with their domestic descendants. Having “advocated for the humane […]

Mystery marine toxo host kills sea mammals; cats wrongly blamed

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Toxoplasma gondii finding in beluga whales points same way as sea otter and monk seal studies––& not toward cats             MONTREAL––A new study widely publicized for allegedly linking domestic cats to losses of endangered beluga whales in the St. Lawrence River estuary actually shows almost the opposite,  read in context––and contributes to a growing stack of […]

Wyoming trophy hunters blame mountain goats for lack of bighorn

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Shaky science may doom mountain goats in their own habitat             JACKSON,  Wyoming––Mountain goats,  already scapegoated for much else,  are now blamed and are perhaps at risk of massacre in Wyoming for allegedly transmitting ovine pneumonia––a common disease of domestic sheep––to the isolated remnant bighorn sheep of the Grand Tetons. Along with the shaky identification […]

Snail & mountain goat race toward extinction in New Zealand Alps

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Endangered native snail & introduced Himalayan tahrs thrived together until the New Zealand government got involved             WELLINGTON, New Zealand––Plans for a cull of 17,500 Himalayan mountain tahr across the Southern Alps of New Zealand are on hold,  likely to be scaled down but not abandoned,  after the New Zealand Tahr Foundation and allied organizations […]