Animals 24-7

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

Wolves,  bison,  grizzly bears,  and pumas: Montana moving backward

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Big wildlife persecuted as surrogates for change             HELENA, Montana––Wolves,  bison,  grizzly bears,  and pumas scare the staunchly Republican ranching,  hunting,  logging,  oil,  gas,  and mining establishments of Montana,  but what scares them the most appears to be the prospect of becoming more like Colorado and New Mexico,  where Democratic-leaning Hispanic and Native American voters […]

Wisconsin hunters overkill the wolf bag limit by half in just 72 hours

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But Spain,  with twice as many wolves in about the same amount of habitat,  puts wolves off limits to hunters             MADISON, Wisconsin;  MADRID,  Spain––Wisconsin hunters and trappers killed 216 wolves in under 72 hours during the last week of February 2021,  97 more than the “management target” of 119,  obliging the state Department of […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Add to COVID-19 toll expanded hunting on U.S. Wildlife Refuges

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Trump administration appointees open more federal refuges to hunting than last three administrations combined             WASHINGTON D.C.––Opponents of hunting might imagine that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service chief Aurelia Skipwith waited until the public was distracted by soaring daily death tolls from the COVID-19 global pandemic to announce the biggest-ever […]

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 […]

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 […]

Fur sales, wildlife acts, & hiding dog bite history banned in California

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Fur-bearing animals & adopters of shelter/rescue dogs win protections             SACRAMENTO,  California––The new animal-related law in California that Governor Gavin Newsom and mass media said least about,  to help protect Californians against recklessly rehomed dogs with bite history,  may in the end become the most emulated among the raft of bills sent to Newsom’s desk […]