The wild truth seems to be that either no one in authority cares about alleged cruelty in wildlife filmmaking, or no one actually has the authority even to investigate serious allegations JOHANNESBURG, South Africa––Substack browsers with an interest in animals may in recent weeks have discovered a site titled The Wild Truth: Exposing animal cruelty […]
Direct action heroes for animals: Popeye, Olive Oyl, Betty Boop & Grampy
Rescuers, yes, but exemplars of animal rights? Not exactly. Eighty-eight years ago, forty years before the dawn of the animal rights movement, a muscular quasi-vegan sailor and his lanky girlfriend rescued animals on the silver screen, soon joined by a sexy “flapper” who sang jazz and her aged but ever inventive grandfather. Popeye, Olive Oyl, […]
TNR boomed before COVID-19 hit, Alley Cat Rescue survey shows
Feral cat sterilizations were up 23% in seven years; what is happening now? MOUNT RANIER, Maryland––Feral cat control by trap-neuter-return [TNR] was accomplishing more than ever before through 2019, including a 23% increase in the numbers of cats sterilized over the annual average in 2012, suggests newly released data from the Alley Cat Rescue […]
Aloha Rodeo: animal advocates, Disney, & Cheyenne showdown
Will forthcoming film “glorify steer roping” & help to revive rodeo, or help to finish it? UPDATE: The online entertainment periodical Deadline on May 18, 2021 announced that it had “learned that Disney is no longer moving forward with the [Aloha Rodeo] project.” CHEYENNE, Wyoming––Walt Disney Inc., Cheyenne Frontier Days, and a coalition of animal […]
Mark Twain’s Book of Animals
Edited with Introduction, Afterword, & Notes by Shelley Fisher Fishkin University of California Press https://www.ucpress.edu/ 325 pages, hardcover. $27.50. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Wrote Ed Duvin, whose 1989 Animalines newsletter essay “In The Name of Mercy” prophesying “no kill” animal sheltering is widely considered a classic of humane literature, to ANIMALS 24-7 a few days […]
Leaving The Wild: The Unnatural History of Dogs, Cats, Cows & Horses
by Gavin Ehringer Pegasus Books, distributed by W.W. Norton & Co. 364 pages. $27.95 hardcover. In stores December 5, 2017. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Remember the most gripping and informative few books you ever read about dogs, cats, cows, and/or horses, by authors as thorough as the multi-time best sellers Desmond Morris, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, […]