Yes, Lobsters Do Feel Pain
For those who like to tell themselves that it’s OK to boil lobsters alive, life just got a bit more complicated. A new study offers the…
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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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Collapse of Antarctic Ice Sheet Irreversible
One of the six major glaciers being eroded from below by warm water What does it mean when two major studies this week tell us that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is…
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2013 Game Changers
Two events share top prize as game changers for the year just ending: The Nonhuman Rights Project's lawsuits have started a whole new conversation about how we relate to other…
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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…
The Right Music for Cats
Greyhound Shock Angers Australians
Holiday Gift for Elephant Music Lovers
The Yeti Bear
‘There’s a Horse in My Burger!’
The Brits have their knickers in a knot (“knickers” in the U.K. = panties) over the fact that bits of horses have been showing up in…
The Cat Burglar
Photo by Brazil’s General Superintendency of Prisons of Alagoas (SGAP) in Arapiraca, Brazil. Authorities in Sao Paulo, Brazil, have announced that they are trying to get…
No Need to Smoke in Beijing!
You can save money on cigarettes in Beijing. No need to light up; just go outside and take a deep breath. You can see the vast…
Will Humans Become Hobbits?
A hobbit in the movie, and what real-life hobbits (homo floresiensis) looked like when they flourished on the island of Flores in Indonesia for about 80,000…
American Humane’s Chairman Resigns
Eric Bruner, chairman of the board of the American Humane Association, has resigned in the wake of questionable financial practices as well as general policies regarding the direction of an organization that seems to have lost its way.
All the Government’s Chimpanzees to Be Retired to Chimp Haven
In a change of plan from what was announced four months ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has decided to release all 110 of its “research-ineligible” chimpanzees to sanctuary care – most likely at Chimp Haven in Louisiana.
Packing Their Trunks?
In the old and delightfully subversive children’s song, Nellie the elephant “packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus.” Could this be coming true in…
True Facts about Sloths
From Buzzfeed’s Ze Frank. (Fair warning: includes humor some may find tasteless!) [readon] And for more about sloths, visit the Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica –…
Most Americans Call Climate Change a High Priority
Some recent facts from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication: * Most Americans (77%) say global warming should be a “very high”, “high”, or “medium”…
Fortunate Is Luckiest Cat
A homeless kitty who fell 80 feet from the top of a tree is “unbelievably” well at the animal hospital where she’s hanging out and getting ready for a good new home.
More Bad ‘Luck’
A senior ex-staffer at American Humane Association is suing AHA for having fired her after she reported abuse of horses on the set of the HBO racehorse drama series Luck.
Barbara Casey, who worked as the director of production in the AHA’s film and television unit, says that abuse was endemic on the set, and that AHA thwarted her efforts to enforce the organization’s own animal safety standards.
Why the Churches Are Failing
How are churches trying to adapt to the fact that fewer and fewer Americans are identified with a particular religion? And what does this have to…
Who’s More Altruistic: Monkeys or Researchers?
Here’s a weird one: A group of researchers sets out to study empathy in monkeys. They want to understand altruism better. So they cook up a…
Blind Dog and His ‘Pwditat’
Pwditat knows how to guide his canine friend Terfel around the house and into the backyard of their home in Wales. He uses his paws to show Terfel the way.
The pair have been inseparable since Pwditat (the Welsh “w” is pronounced as in “pussycat”) arrived at the front door one evening.
"I Hate Santa"
And, honestly, wouldn’t you? [readon]
Factory Farm Cruelty Is ‘Standard Industry Practice’
Dr. Ian Duncan, professor emeritus of animal welfare at the University of Guelph in Canada, calls it “the worst cruelty inflicted on an animal that I…
Prime Minister’s ‘Favorite’ Fox Hunt Fined
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s former fox hunting buddies have been convicted of breaking the law by riding out on a fox hunt.
Cameron used to ride out on the infamous Heythrop Hunt, but says he has desisted since a ban on fox hunting went into effect in 2005.
The ban is routinely ignored, however, by those whom Oscar Wilde called “the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.”
University "Can’t Stop" Experiments on Animals
Kudos to the University of British Columbia for at least being open with their animal experimentation figures. (They’re the only university in Canada that does this.)…
2012: Hottest Year on Record
Unless the United States suddenly goes into a massive deep freeze for the next two weeks, this year is going to come out as the hottest…