A new relationship with animals, nature and each other.

Posts from the ‘Old News’ 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

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

    How the World Ends – in Silence

    Proverbially, the world ends either with a bang or with a whimper. But last night we learned that it will end, instead, in silence.

    In a debate that was all about how we relate to the rest of the world, neither President Obama nor Gov. Romney ever mentioned the global devastation being wrought by climate change, the mass extinctions that are unfolding, the multiple pandemics that can break loose at any moment, the poisoning of the land, the oceans and the air we breathe, or any of the other enormous threats we face.

    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.

    How Your Wishes May Come True

    We are not humans as something separate from other species, says India’s former Environment Minister Maneka Gandhi. You can only love yourself if you love all the other kinds of animals. “I love them because all of them are me and it is the ultimate self-love to see myself in every blade of grass and therefore to be respectful of it.”

    Rescued Crow Now Family Friend

    When a family in Ottawa found a baby injured crow, they took him home. When he was back in good health, they released him. But by then he’d made friends with the Renauds – mom, dad, the kids and the cats. and while he’s free as a bird, he keeps coming “home” to visit. Check out this delightful video.

    World Animal Day and a Cathedral Cat

    Carmina was a stray, struggling to care for her newborn kittens in a deserted parking lot in Washington, D.C. But on Sunday, October 3, 2010, she began her new life as the official Cathedral cat of the National Cathedral.

    Blessings Galore at St. John the Divine

    Inside Manhattan’s Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the pews fill quickly, and the air thickens with anticipation. As people await the Blessing of the Animals service, the hush is broken by music, whispered conversations and the occasional bark. Here and there, someone leans over to murmur a few words to the dog by his side, or to the cat or rabbit in a carrier at her feet. Soon, the clergy begin to offer communion to the faithful. Songs and prayers follow. Finally, the cathedral’s massive front doors swing open.