A new relationship with animals, nature and each other.

Posts from the ‘A-animals’ category

  • Ringling Caves!

    The elephants are packing their trunks. By any standard, today’s decision by the Ringling Circus to phase out its elephant acts represents a seismic shift in the use of…

  • Mother Carries Shot Pit Bull to Safety

    It started out as the same hike that Andi Davis does every day to the top of one of the mountains near where she lives in Phoenix, Arizona. But this time, close to the top,…

  • Liberators or Terrorists?

    When 100 people, mostly women from various rescue groups, rescued 178 beagles from a research lab in Brazil last week, nobody called them terrorists. The five security officers…

  • Do Pets Prevent Sudden Death in Children with Epilepsy?

    A group of Brazilian researchers wondered if the presence of a pet in the home of a child with epilepsy might reduce their risk of dying from SUDEP. They found that of the 1,092…

    The Right Music for Cats
    Greyhound Shock Angers Australians
    Holiday Gift for Elephant Music Lovers
    The Yeti Bear

    Count Dracula’s Kitties

    Count Azul would love a little taste of your neck. He and his fellow Counts, below, were some of my favorite rescued kitties looking for good homes one October, several years ago, when I was part of Best Friends Animal sanctuary.

    Cat Fight in British Politics

    As an unprecedented political drama continued to unfold outside London’s 10 Downing Street, police had to be called to break up the catfight over who should inhabit the Prime Minister’s official residence.

    Wildlife Park Owner: ‘Shut Down Zoos!’

    Wildlife park owner Damian Aspinall says it’s time to shut down zoos – especially city zoos. And to make his point, he’s preparing to release an entire family of 11 western lowland gorillas from his wildlife park in England to the wild in Africa as part of his charity’s Back to the Wild project.

    Penguin Speed Secrets Revealed

    How do emperor penguins manage to reach a maximum speed approaching 20 miles an hour when swimming in Antarctic waters where they have to avoid hungry leopard seals? The secret is in the bubbles!

    Hundreds of Sick Chimpanzees Held in Labs Until They Die

    Two thirds of the chimpanzees who died at vivisection laboratories over the past ten years were so sick from chronic illness or multi-organ diseases that they should, by law, have been retired from experimentation. Instead, they were simply held for further research.

    That’s the conclusion of a new study from the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) to be published in October 2012 edition of the journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals.

    ‘I Was Raised by Monkeys’

    Kidnapped by human traffickers at age four, Marina Chapman woke up to find herself abandoned in the rain forest of Colombia. She spent the next five years living with Capuchin monkeys – like a female Tarzan.

    Now in her 60s, she’s finally telling her story.

    Your Earliest Ancestor

    Shortly before a giant asteroid smacked into the what is now Mexico’s Yucatan, 65 million years ago, setting off a firestorm, a nuclear winter and the demise of the dinosaurs, a tiny mammal, weighing just over an ounce, was racing up and down trees and staying out of the way. Today, one of her descendants is you.

    Bach v. Bark

    A new study shows that dogs at a shelter who heard classical music tend to bark less and sleep more than when other kinds of music are playing.

    Crying Wolf

    They’re salivating at the prospect of a kill, stalking their prey in the wild, cunning and lethal … and we’re not talking about the wolves, but rather the wolf hunters. Five states – Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Minnesota and Wisconsin – are back in the business of killing wolves, and ’tis the season for hunters to be jolly.

    On Picking Up Starfish (Starhorses?)

    Last month, I wrote about my friend Tom, who, after doing much to bring an end to the killing of homeless pets, finds himself involved in horse rescue and rehab – one horse at a time. Last month, Spartacus, an 18-year-old Peruvian Paso who had had a horrible life, had just had a visit from the chiropractor. Here’s an update from Tom on how Spartacus is doing a month later:

    Call No Elephant Happy Until She Is Free

    It’s a terrible irony that Happy, the elephant who demonstrated to scientific researchers how animals of her species are capable of a high level of self-awareness, now languishes all alone in a cage about twice the size of her body. No animal with the kind of cognitive abilities that Happy has demonstrated belongs in a zoo – and, worse, in a cage.