3,000-year-old livestock shipping route opened by Pharoahs is unblocked ISMAILIA, Egypt––Tens of thousands of sheep, cattle, and other live animals stranded for up to six days aboard more than 20 transport vessels are moving again through the Suez Canal, as of March 29, 2021. Egyptian Lieutenant General Osama Rabei, heading the Suez Canal Authority, […]
Diseased pigs & mink gave the world COVID-19, scientists suspect
Forthcoming World Health Organization report is expected to confirm Chinese investigators’ suspicions BEIJING, BOSTON, WUHAN––Will a World Health Organization report expected to be released within days indict the Chinese mink industry for infecting the world with COVID-19? Beijing University researchers have already suspected for more than a year that mink farming was likely […]
Mink ranching survives in Denmark despite risky COVID-19 mutation
Danish mink industry was to be liquidated from fear that COVID-19 mutation could neutralize vaccines in development COPENHAGEN, Denmark––The Danish mink industry, on the verge of liquidation as of November 4, 2020 to control a COVID-19 coronavirus mutation, appears to have politically mobilized to win a reprieve––for the mink ranchers, however, not the mink […]
Puppies & kittens everywhere, but none in shelters to adopt
Suspension of spay/neuter & intake services due to COVID-19 cuts adoptions by a third from 2019 NEW YORK CITY––Celebrating rehoming every dog and cat in custody soon after COVID-19 shutdowns began, animal shelters from coast to coast are suddenly––and predictably––weeping, wailing, and tearing hair about having no adoptable animals to offer in response to […]
“That touch of mink” & COVID-19: Dutch outbreak hints mink may be host
Fur farming to end in The Netherlands by 2024 WAGENINGEN, The Netherlands––The discovery that ranched mink can become infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus may lend momentum to the Dutch national plan to phase out mink farming entirely by 2024. Concern that mink themselves might become a COVID-19 reservoir may also dampen Chinese enthusiasm for rebuilding […]
Deadly Wuhan coronavirus may be pangolin’s best friend
Pangolins carry a 99% identical coronavirus, report Chinese scientists GUANGZHOU, China––Will the Wuhan coronavirus, newly linked to pangolins, save one of the world’s most endangered animals? Headlines over the weekend of February 8-9, 2020 amplified global panic that the number of confirmed Wuhan coronavirus deaths had soared beyond the 2003 toll from severe acute […]
Rabies plummets in India while “experts” ignore the data
Global Alliance for Rabies Control still says there are at least 120 times more rabies deaths than found by 14 years of annual body counts NEW DELHI––New national rabies survey data from the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence, the Indian equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, shows for the 15th […]
Philippine mad dogs claim deadly revenge for being eaten
Eradicating rabies requires ending dog-eating too CAUAYAN, Philippines––For the second time in three years a rabies outbreak linked to eating dogs has hit the western Philippines, underscoring the importance of ending dog meat consumption if canine rabies is to be eradicated. The rabies outbreak was declared by the Negros Occidental provincial department of health […]
Why the Oregon Zoo euthanized Packy the elephant
Antibiotic-resistant asymptomatic TB strain had epidemic potential PORTLAND, Oregon––Oregon Zoo veterinary staff on February 9, 2017 euthanized Packy, 54, the oldest male elephant in the U.S., after a multi-year losing battle against an antibiotic-resistant strain of the lung disease tuberculosis which had already killed two other Oregon Zoo elephants and infected seven zoo staff […]
Pigs investigated as possible Ebola vectors
Pigs can get Ebola, but do they spread it? KAMPALA, Uganda; NAIROBI, Kenya––Domestic pigs may already be among the vectors transmitting deadly Ebola viruses to humans, though no one knows for sure yet, warns a five-member International Livestock Research Institute team in a soon-to-be-published edition of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Transboundary and Emerging Diseases. The […]