When Dogs Meet Dolphins in the Ocean
Two delightful videos of dogs visiting with dolphins in the ocean. First, Kira, a black Lab, regularly joins a dolphin-watching expedition off the coast of Mozambique.…
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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
Movie Shooter – the Animal Connection
After the shocking massacre at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, we noted that every serial killer on record and many other mass murderers had a…
Massive Heat Wave in South Korea
The current heat wave sweeping South Korea has claimed hundreds of thousands of domestic animals. At least 830,000 farm animals, including 786,000 chickens, 41,000 ducks and…
Parrots Know Which Box Has the Food
Put two boxes in front of an African Grey parrot. The parrot knows one has a treat and the other doesn’t, but doesn’t know which is…
Bees on a Plane
Perhaps they considered themselves frequent flyers. At Pittsburgh International Airport, a swarm of honeybees settled on the engine of a Delta commuter plane. Because of the…
A Toast to Wasps and Hornets
If you enjoy fine wine and tasty beer, give a nod to wasps – it wouldn’t be possible without them. Long before humankind learned how to…
India’s Out-of-Control Dog Problem
Tens of millions of free-roaming dogs … millions of dog bites every year … 20,000 people dying from rabies each year (99 percent of them from…
Are Cats Wiping Out Birds?
It’s been something of a feud between cat people and bird people: the question of how much damage our cats are doing to the bird population.…
Baby Bears Climb Ladder Out of a Dumpster
Shirley and Tom Schenk heard bears crying throughout the night near their home in Ruidoso, N.M. When they went out to see what was going on,…
It’s the Ecology, Stupid
“I get on my knees every day, and I’m saying an extra prayer right now,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters, adding that he’d be doing…
100-Meter Record Shattered
At the Olympics this weekend, everyone will be watching to see if the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt of Jamaica, can beat his own record: 100…
The Great Italian Beagle Rescue
It’s been one of the biggest dog rescues in history: 2,500 beagles who were destined for vivisection experiments are being rescued from the infamous Green Hill…
Farewell to the Ancient Nautilus
They survived that Fifth Great Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. They even survived the Fourth (Permian) Extinction that wiped out 90…
The Super-Trendy Sponge Club
Fed up with the silly rituals of the Skull & Bones at Yale? Had enough of the Ivy Club at Princeton and the pricey clothes and…
The Would-Be Holographic God
Russian mogul Dmitry Itskov thinks he can upload his brain to a holographic avatar that can support his entire consciousness – and in the next 33…
Congressman Fights for Factory Farms and Dog Fighting
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is a parody of the kind of person who takes money from lobbyists in order to fight against animal protection. His big…
Bird Flu, Pig Flu, Now Seal Flu
A new strain of bird flu has adapted to harbor seals. The H3N8 strain was discovered after 162 seals were found dead on the beaches of…
NIH Funds Major Alternative to Vivisection
The National Institutes of Health is funding a major new project to replace vivisection experiments with “organ chips” – silicon chips that can contain real human…
Papua People Insist: ‘We Are Not Animals.’
It’s often assumed that indigenous peoples think of themselves as being closer to nature and not as involved as the rest of us in trying to…
Scientists Declare: Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious
Science leaders have reached a critical consensus: Humans are not the only conscious beings; other animals, specifically mammals and birds, are indeed conscious, too. The official decision was reached in late night discussions two weeks ago during the prestigious annual Francis Crick Memorial Conference.