Animals 24-7

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

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 […]

Wildlife Waystation closure: where are the animals now?

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32 chimps still need homes             SYLMAR, California––32 chimpanzees are the last residents of the former Wildlife Waystation sanctuary in Little Tujunga Canyon,  east of Glendale and Los Angeles. A year after Wildlife Waystation closed,  on August 13,  2019,  by order of the California Department of Fish & Wildlife,  finding the funds to rehome the […]

Guerrillas gun down 12 gorilla guards & five others in Virunga, DRC

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Resurgent Ebola and COVID-19 escalate threats to already high-risk habitat VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK,  Democratic Republic of the Congo––At least 17 people,  including 12 Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation rangers whose primary duty is protecting critically endangered mountain gorillas,  were killed in an April 24,  2020 ambush attack. No gorillas are known to have been caught […]

From gorillas to shelter dogs: animals caught in the COVID-19 crunch

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No animals other than bats & humans are known to get COVID-19,  but millions are affected by the human response             WASHINGTON D.C.––Animals and animal-related projects from Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo to National Institutes of Health-funded laboratories are feeling the impact of the international COVID-19 scare underway throughout early 2020,  […]

Noted in passing: “Turtle God” & rhino, elephant, & lion advocates

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Victims of cancer,  assassins,  & two killed by the species they loved “Turtle God” Peter Pritchard,  76,  died in hospice care on February 26,  2020.   Known as “the Turtle God,”  recalled longtime Tampa Times environmental reporter Craig Pittman,  Pritchard at his home in Oviedo,  Florida kept what Pittman believed to be “the largest private collection […]

Elephant trophy auction covers for opening bushmeat trade

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Global warming intensifies pressure to profit from wildlife before habitat loss depletes species GABERONE,  Botswana;  HARARE,  Zimbabwe;  DAR ES SALAAM,  Tanzania––Big as they are,  the 60 elephants whose lives were auctioned at Bobonong Kgotla,  Botswana on February 7,  2020 may be the least of the casualties from attempts by the governments of Botswana and Tanzania […]

Feds probe alleged rapes & murders by WWF-funded anti-poaching militias

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U.K., Germany,  & Switzerland also concerned about World Wildlife Fund-backed paramilitary operations             WASHINGTON D.C.–– The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and other federal agencies are investigating allegations repeatedly raised for more than a dozen years by media––chiefly by the online periodical BuzzFeed News,  but also including ANIMALS 24-7––that funds granted by the U.S. government […]

Elephants, giraffes, sharks, Asian otters & seahorses fare well in Switzerland

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African elephants win protection near where exports for display began             GENEVA, Switzerland––Live elephant exports from Africa for exhibition at least nominally ended by plenary vote at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Triennial Conference of the Parties on August 27,  2019 in Geneva,  Switzerland,  about 200 miles north from where the […]

Feds must hide names of hunters who kill for show, rules Trump appointee

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Brave enough to shoot a cage-raised lion,  but not enough to face the public             WASHINGTON,  D.C.––Ruling that trophy hunters’ right to privacy trumps the public right to know what animals they kill,  even though the goal of trophy hunting is showing off,  U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly on August 19,  2019 ruled that the […]

Why vultures are not circling over the drought-parched world

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It isn’t that vultures don’t feel the threat from global warming             GABORONE,  Botswana––Scarce over much of drought-parched India,  Central Asia, and Africa,  vultures still converge over dead livestock and wildlife in Botswana,  stripping the corpses of even elephants and hippos down to the bones within hours––but for how much longer? The Botswana Department of […]