Desmond Morris’ ideas helped to form “animal rights” arguments, but Morris stood apart from the cause LONDON, U.K.––Naked Ape author Desmond Morris, 98, an influence upon and fellow traveler with the animal rights movement for much of his life, but at odds with vegans and vegetarians, died on April 19, 2026, in Naas, County Kildare, […]
Dog breeds & human races: critique of a false analogy, by Jerry Phillips
“One of the most dangerous myths of our time” Writing in 1942, at a time when the National Socialist Party in Adolf Hitler’s Germany had proclaimed “race science” the supreme form of human biology, the anthropologist Ashley Montagu (1905-1999) noted that “the idea of ‘race’ represents one of the most dangerous myths of our time, […]
Why did the Houston Humane Society host a Halloween dissection lab?
Inviting tweens and teens to dissect snakes is not the same thing as inviting them to carve jackolanterns HOUSTON, Texas––“Learn about snakes with the Houston Humane Society,” social media ads aimed at “tweens” and teens from ages 10 to 18 opened in mid-October 2024. But these ads were not promoting a typical humane education […]
Dogs of Violence: A Brief History, by Jerry Phillips
1. Domestication In their book The First Domestication: How Wolves and Humans Co-Evolved, Raymond Pierotti and Brandy R. Fogg point out that humans were probably originally drawn to (primal wolf-like) dogs because the animals seemed to embody important human values, such as intelligence, courage, group loyalty and co-operation for the common good. We still don’t […]
Frans de Waal, 75, refuted “man the hunter” & “killer ape” theories
Primatologist & ethologist emphasized roles of empathy, sympathy, reconciliation, and ability to follow social rules in evolution of civilization Frans de Waal, 75, arguably the most influential primatologist of his time or any time, died on March 14, 2024 from stomach cancer. De Waal and his wife of more than 40 years, Catherine Marin, lived […]
“Bird flu” whacks marine mammals; are bird-eating people next?
High pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 hits in unexpected places around the globe GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador; PUGET SOUND, Washington; DES MOINES, Iowa––Beyond the birding world, and only the small segment of that who pay attention to avian diseases, hardly anyone noticed the “canary in the coal mine” when on September 20, 2023 the Galapagos National Park […]
Why no buzz about Charles Henry Turner, even in Black History Month?
Turner had no laboratory & no lab animals for most of his career, but proved Charles Darwin was right about animal sentience CINCINNATI, Ohio––Why is there still no buzz about pioneering animal intelligence researcher Charles Henry Turner’s discoveries, even in Black History Month? 100 years after Turner died, on Valentine’s Day 1923, at only 56 […]
Conservatism, the religious right, & the evolution of anti-vivisectionism
The right & left hands of anti-vivisectionism have rarely known what each other were doing Included in the recent ANIMALS 24-7 article What animal advocates owe to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. was a mention that during King’s lifetime, 1929-1968, “Anti-vivisection activism had become co-opted by the radical right and was seemingly intertwined […]
Ex-POW speaks out for Help Asheville Bears campaign vs. Amazon trap sales
by Jody, Alex, & Heather Christina Williams, founders, Help Asheville Bears Colonel Hershel Scott Morgan (Ret.), our stepfather, was the fourth longest held Air Force prisoner of war in American history. He was imprisoned in North Vietnam for seven years and ten months––more than two years longer than John McCain, the late U.S. Senator and […]
Cats, mice, & even octopi sacrificed to false gods of conservation
E.O. Wilson sidekick Thomas Lovejoy contributed to rationales for massacring some animals to save others Thomas Eugene Lovejoy III, 80, on December 25, 2021 quietly died from pancreatic cancer in McLean, Virginia, just 24 hours before the death of E.O. Wilson, 92, in Burlington, Massachusetts. (See E.O. Wilson, counter-evolutionary “evolutionary biologist,” dies at 92.) […]