Dog to the Rescue!
As more and more of Europe was awash in floods last month, it could be difficult to get around. Especially if you were in a wheelchair.…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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
Foxes on a Trampoline
Good first effort, guys. But if you come back for more, try getting a bit more bounce next time.
The Best Singing Cockatiel Ever?
She’s got it all: Hits all the notes right on, perfect timing, all the cadences – and notice how she rounds out the end of the…
Chimpanzee Decisions a ‘Very, Very Important Milestone’
The decision by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to phase out medical research on chimpanzees and to send all but 50 of the 360 who…
James Gandolfini’s Last Supper: Foie Gras
James Gandolfini’s family quoted his autopsy as saying that the 51-year-old actor had “died of a heart attack, of natural causes.”
But there’s nothing “natural” about dying of a heart attack when you’re 51 years old. Especially when you read what Gandolfini had for dinner the night he died.
How History Is Like a Roll of Toilet Paper
If the history of our planet were on a roll of toilet paper – unrolled across the floor or down a hill – where would we…
Just Like a Duck Takes to Water
After being penned up with a hoarder, two dozen ducks figure out their new pond. They’re from a group of 130 birds rescued by the Woodstock…
Don’t Say ‘Meat’; Say ‘Protein’
Is the very notion of “meat” becoming so icky that food companies are getting worried about saying the very word itself? According to Businessweek, Taco Bell…
The Dog Who Doesn’t Want a Bath
. . . really, really, would prefer not to have one, if you don’t mind.
Congressional Cave of the Week
All it took was one letter from the meat lobby – and Congress caved. In keeping with a growing number of institutions that promote “Meatless Monday”…
Enough Already!
One of the gorillas at the Dallas Zoo has finally had enough of a bunch of out-of-control kids yelling abuse at him through the glass. This…
Colbert on Chicken Cages
Stephen Colbert takes the side of (and you know what that means!) Iowa Rep. Steve King, who’s pro-dogfighting, against evacuating pets in natural disasters, and angry…
Otterly Fun
Aussies in Borneo get a wannabe hitchhiker. “After we got him out, he proceeded to chase the car up the dirt track like a dog.”
Elephant ‘Stud’ Shipped Around the World
The Denver Post calls Billy the elephant a “pachyderm heartthrob”. We’d call him a cardiac patient in the making.
Billy is on his way to the Denver Zoo from Europe in hopes that he’ll father a new baby to put on display there.
Elephants at zoos are dying faster than replacements can be born, and there’s talk of zoo elephants needing to be classified as “endangered”.
So it’s no surprise that zoos are racing to keep their populations from dwindling – and that rather than address the cause of the problem (major diseases stemming from obesity), they’re shipping more elephants from one zoo to another as part of an emergency breeding program.
Latest case in point: Billy, who was born in Ireland, then shipped to Belgium, and is now being prepared for the 5,000-mile flight from Brussels to Denver.
Ladybug Playtime
A student leaves some sprinkles lying around in her dorm room. A ladybug flies in. The student posts what happens next. Is it play? Does the…
An Elephantine Obesity Epidemic
We already know that most of the major health problems for humans – heart disease, many cancers, diabetes, arthritis, etc. – are the product of an unhealthy lifestyle. The same is true for elephants at zoos.
And a new study, commissioned by a zoo, concludes that unless radical action is taken, the situation is so dire that elephants will be extinct at zoos within a few decades.
The study flies in the face of what zoos keep telling us about zoos being the last refuge of elephants, protecting them from the ever-increasing dangers of living in the wild.
Meet Your Ancestor . . .
This is Archicebus achilles, or “beginning long-tailed monkey.” One of the very earliest of our primate ancestors, she weighed about an ounce, could fit in the…
Iran Cracking Down on Dogs
If you want to take your dog out for a walk in Iran, better do it at night. That’s because the government has begun confiscating dogs…
Giant Feral Cats Are Eating Australia
In Northern Australia, feral cats are growing enormous – more than three feet long – and consuming much of the indigenous wildlife.
Now the federal government is taking action to save the wildlife by killing as many cats as possible.
Will it work? Probably not. But neither, frankly, will a trap/neuter/return program. After all, we’re talking about what’s become essentially a new species of wildlife, fully integrated into the “bush”.