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All in Animal Welfare
The rise of the lithium-ion battery has been essential to the tech revolution, as it is a crucial component of smartphones, electrical vehicles, and every electronic gizmo in between. But lithium exacts a harsh price on the environment, from cradle to grave: mining trashes local environments at the point of extraction, a
An enduring and endearing staple of nature shows is the monogamous penguin. The idea that these tuxedo-clad flightless birds mate for life without the occasional affaire de coeur is adorable, but is it true?
Scientists at the far reaches of South America have identified a new bird species, the subantarctic rayadito. The little bird inhabits the Diego Ramírez Archipelago, 62 miles from southern Cape Horn and the southernmost point of the Americas. The discovery is reported in the journal Nature.
Conservationists in Zimbabwe are attempting to be Noah but without the ark. An effort to move thousands of animals – elephants, impalas, giraffes, buffaloes, wildebeest, zebras, elands, lions, and wild dogs – is underway as severe drought threatens this menagerie.
Last week 300 homeless pets from Puerto Rico were flown to a second chance at life in New York and Maine. The Sato Project and Wings of Rescue spirited 165 dogs and 135 cats from the island's overcrowded animal shelters, with a boost from an unlikely source – Tito's Handmade Vodka.
A pair of giant pandas were born this week at the Qinling Panda Research Center in Shaanxi province, southwestern China. The male and female twins are reportedly healthy and definitely adorable.
Why are killer whales attacking sailboats off the European coastline? Scientists pondering this question have no answer, but they do have some wacky theories. This week NPR reported the harrowing tale of a sailing trip off the French coast, in which a father-daughter crew was surrounded and hounded by an unknown number of orcas, ramming their 37-foot boat for a solid 15 minutes.
Japanese researchers have observed a phenomenon that we thought was impossible: a nonhuman animal crying tears of joy. A new study reported in Current Biology this week demonstrated that our canine friends will well up with tears under certain circumstances, and it probably happens more often than we think.
A brown bear got into some hallucinogenic honey in Turkey’s northwestern Duzce province this week. It didn’t go well. The Guardian reported that the female brown bear was found wobbling and whining in the forest, where some good Samaritans rescued her. She had got into some mad honey, or “deli bal” in Turkish, produced by beekeepers who feed their honeymakers a kind of rhododendron nectar that packs a potent neurotoxin.
Scientists from Oregon State University have a (really) big idea. What if we dedicated nearly half a million square kilometers across 11 states to gray wolves and North American beavers? In a paper published in the journal BioScience, the researchers outline a plan to use portions of federal lands to create a contiguous network of wolf and beaver habitats. The plan is about two species, but the knock-on effects would positively affect perhaps hundreds of others.
“Euthanasia is out of the question,” said Frank Bakke-Jensen, Norway’s Director of Fisheries just a couple of weeks ago, referring to Freya, the 1300-pound walrus who spent much of the summer swimming and sunbathing around Oslo marinas. But that turned out to be a lie, because the authorities just put poor Freya down, claiming that her presence put humans at risk.
It’s been a year since Charlotte Maxwell-Jones refused to leave Afghanistan as the country fell into Taliban control. The woman from East Tennessee who founded the Kabul Small Animal Rescue would not abandon the many dogs, cats, sheep and parrots in the chaos of the US withdrawal.
Birds everywhere are swimming, nesting, and living in human garbage, most of it plastic. Crowd-sourced photos from all over the world in a project called Birds & Debris are documenting the mess.
Nearly all turtles born on Florida beaches over the past four years have been females. Climate change is to blame, as increasingly warming sand where turtle eggs incubate have churned out a 99% female-to-male ratio over that time.
Gillian Anderson, a longtime friend to animals and PETA, turns 54 today with a message for couture giants Michael Kors, Versace, and Jimmy Choo: Stop harvesting hides from alligators, snakes, and lizards.
We don’t often cheer on organized animal slaughter, but what’s not to like about the Florida Python Challenge? For ten days (August 5-14), snake hunters will be allowed to stomp around the Everglades to capture and kill invasive Burmese pythons, which have infested the massive wetlands.
This week (August 7 through 13th) marks the 13th annual “Give a Dog a Bone Week” event arranged by Feeding Pets of the Homeless. The nonprofit has been raising both awareness and pet food for the unhoused for the past 15 years.
Hippopotamus amphibius is a semi-aquatic creature and one of the world’s heaviest land animals, weighing up to 4,000 pounds. There are between 115,000-130,000 stomping around 38 African countries, from Angola to Zimbabwe, but hippo populations in more than half of these countries are either in decline or unknown.
Conservationists in England have released three European bison into West Blean and Thornden Woods, a nature reserve near Canterbury. The Kent Wildlife Trust and Wildwood Trust hope to bring some ecological balance to some 500 acres of woodland.
The highly respected Polish Academy of Sciences has declared the domestic cat an “invasive alien species,” citing the cheeky pet’s propensity for murdering birds and small mammals.
