Welcome to my blog.
All in Animal Welfare
On February 3 a freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, necessitating the evacuation of many of the small town’s 4700 residents. Following a “controlled burn” of toxic fumes to neutralize the burning cargo that fouled local air and water, there were no reported casualties, yet.
For the first time in over 40 years a Peruvian Diving-petrel chick has hatched on Chile’s Chañaral Island. The rare seabird once thrived here but was pushed out by invasive species. Now a concerted effort by environmental groups and the Chilean government to make the island habitable again have paid off.
Hunting whales for meat has been losing its mojo in Japan for years, but a Japanese whaling firm is looking to revive the industry. Last month Kyodo Senpaku introduced three whale-meat vending machines in Yokohama aimed at re-whetting the nation’s appetite.
Even in this nation’s snakepit of politics, George Santos stands out as a major creep and prodigious liar. The recently elected GOP congressman from Long Island has embellished or outright lied about his work history, financial status, criminal record, ethnicity, and religion (we would say “allegedly” here but he’s admitted to many of these and other prevarications).
First, the sad: The pigeon that was dyed pink for gender-reveal idiocy didn’t make it. “We are deeply sad to report that Flamingo, our sweet pink pigeon, has passed away,” tweeted New York City’s wildlife rescue Wild Bird Fund. “Despite our best efforts to reduce the fumes coming off the dye, while keeping him calm and stable, he died in the night. We believe his death was caused by inhaling the toxins.”
Rice's whale, found only in the Gulf of Mexico and described in 2021, is already critically endangered. Marine biologists are wondering what can be done to save the whales, if anything.
A startup company in the UK is making dog food with a novel ingredient: larvae of the black soldier fly. Tuggs is the brainchild of Harry Bremner, whose 2021 master’s dissertation-cum-business proposal on dog food was so good, his advisor offered to fund it.
Birders in New York City are out in force in Central Park, braving the coldest temperatures of the winter for the chance to spot Flaco, a Eurasian eagle owl that had escaped from the Central Park Zoo. The majestic bird had been sprung from his enclosure on Thursday night, apparently by vandals with cable-cutters.
It probably sounded like a cute idea – what if we paint a pigeon pink for our gender reveal party? But when the idea was realized, the outcome was very bad for the pigeon. Adding stupidity to ignorance, the bird was released somewhere near New York city’s Madison Square Park, where a good Samaritan found the disoriented creature and brought it to the Wild Bird Fund, the city’s go-to for wildlife rescue.
Authorities in the city of Chilpancingo say the local zoo has been selling, trading, and eating some of its animals on the orders of the zoo director, José Rubén Nava Noriega. Nava was replaced last month, following the death of a deer.
A new study tracks the movements of Australia’s endangered northern quoll, a small carnivorous marsupial. Researchers found that the males are losing so much sleep looking for mates that it’s killing them.
Two nonprofits in Georgia, one that helps abused people and one that rescues abused animals, had an idea. What if they got together for mutual support? The results have been promising. Hope for Hooves takes in neglected and abused equines and equine-adjacent creatures: horses, donkeys, llamas, cows, pigs, sheep, goats. The GLM2 Foundation (“God Loves Me Too”) is “dedicated to eradicating the damage caused by sex trafficking and domestic violence by building and providing safe dwelling places and long-term aftercare for women, and their children.” Both groups are in Augusta.
New Yorkers were thrilled this week when a couple of dolphins swam up the Bronx River and were seen cavorting as far north as Starlight Park. “This is great news,” gushed NYC Parks on Twitter. “It shows that the decades-long effort to restore the river as a healthy habitat is working. We believe these dolphins naturally found their way to the river in search of fish.”
Some good news for sharks: The US has banned the odious shark-fin trade, a move conservationists hope will help protect millions of sharks butchered every year. The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, introduced in 2021, is now law, making it illegal to possess, buy, sell, or transport shark fins or any product containing shark fins. Violators (who are truly vile) face up to $100,000 in fines.
“When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.” The last entry in Dian Fossey’s diary is poignant enough without its proximity to the primatologist’s brutal murder in 1985. Fossey was killed in her cabin in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda, where she had observed and lived among the silverback gorillas for decades. The killer was never satisfactorily identified – poachers? gold-smugglers? Fossey’s own assistant? – but let’s “dwell less on what is past” and remember her life this week, when she would have turned 91.
The critically endangered western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) gained a new member recently when a baby boy was born at Chester Zoo. The new arrival is far from his natural habitat – Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and environs – but he is already at home in the zoological gardens just south of Liverpool.
On the last day of 2022 a black rhino entered the world, a good thing since there are only about 740 of the critically endangered species remaining in the wild. This one will live in a tamer environment, the Kansas City Zoo.
A snowy owl has blown way off course and ended up in Cypress, California. That’s 25 miles south of downtown LA – and about 1200 miles south of where a snowy owl is usually found this time of year.
The documentary “Wildcat,” in which a young British war veteran suffering from recurrent depression and PTSD seeks solace in the Peruvian rainforest, is a visually beautiful and sensitive portrait of an ecosystem at risk.
There are 3500 humans living in Nahant, Massachusetts as well as about a dozen coyotes. The latter are terrorizing the former with such ferocity that the townspeople have asked the government to bring in guns.
