Slowly, the tiny ball in the wooden crate began to unwind. His scales moved and a pointy nose followed by two black button eyes emerged. Natalie was entranced. The baby pangolin unwrapped his tail, held out his front legs and gazed at her, asking to be picked up. It was love at first sight.
Part three of this series explains why, from an ethical point of view, we should abolish fishing and fish farming, and what it means to take part in this global campaign.
Iowa’s Ag-Gag law criminalizes undercover investigations at a broad range of animal facilities, preventing advocates from exposing animal cruelty and environmental, workers’ rights, and food safety violations. The law achieved its goal of suppressing undercover investigations; no investigations have taken place since the law’s passage in 2012.
The Veterinary Service Department in Egypt has killed countless numbers of free roaming dogs and cats, usually by poisoning them with strychnine or shooting them. A new amendment to Egyptian law would prohibit this practice and hopefully force authorities to consider more humane methods of population management.
This is a story about the albatross, one of the most iconic and endangered birds, about industrial fishing in the remotest ocean regions that kills them, and an astonishing experiment in machine learning which may just help to save them.
We need to talk about the future of zoos. There are about 1,500 formal and many more informal zoos in the world, holding between three and four million animals, displayed for our curiosity and amusement. It’s fair to ask: to what end?
Animal Advocates from Hong Kong share about their ongoing battle to protect wild boars. Since 2013 they have made so much progress, and they are now running a petition to disband the hunting group for good!
Somehow, even with widespread concern, multiple decisions by Greek authorities demanding the closure of the facilities, and several protests and letter-writing campaigns, Attica Zoological Park continues to operate its illicit dolphinarium, and the dolphins kept there continue to be forced to perform in shows.
There will be devastating global consequences for tigers now that China is lifting the ban on tiger bones for use in traditional Chinese medicine. In a battle between the tigers and large-scale, state-sanctioned economic interests, the animal’s fate looks desperately perilous.
Once thought to be lost forever, Gurney’s Pittas have dodged extinction several times over the decades. Now, confined to Myanmar and beset by habitat destruction and civil unrest, they may be running out of chances.
We already know that food aversions based in disgust can be very persistent, and arise out of evolutionary adaptations in the brain that cause us to avoid food that may make us sick. Since this trait is hard-wired into our brains and can be extremely effective at making us avoid certain foods, might we be able to use disgust to convince people to give up meat?
Animal advocates are often prone to compare the struggle for animal rights with other social justice issues, like racism and sexism. In an interview with Dr. Kristof Dhont, we explore to what extent these issues are connected, and how to discuss their connection in a way that isn’t alienating.