Articles: wild animals

It’s unclear what our government is specifically doing to support Australia, as human lives and untold animal lives are being lost in the bushfires. Volunteer firefighters have traveled there from the U.S., and many U.S. non profits such as the American Veterinary Medical Foundation are stepping up. This one, from the Morris Animal Foundation, is…

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Board of Directors today approved a $25,000 donation to aid Australian veterinarians who are helping animals impacted by the bushfires ravaging their country. In addition, the AVMA is encouraging its 95,000 members and the general public to consider contributing to relief efforts by donating to the American Veterinary Medical…

I did write about a dog who is searching for, finding and saving koalas. I didn’t mean to leave out how people are doing the same, quite heroically. There are actually koala veterinary hospitals in Australia. Of course, they’re filled up and very busy – but they are saving koalas. Ordinary residents, some who have…

The Australia wildfires, covering nearly 12.5 million acres is one of the worst disasters ever, killing (so far) at somewhere around 100 humans (dozens remain missing), thousands of structures (homes and businesses) destroyed; and estimates are at least one billion (that’s not a typo) wild animals (many endangered) have died. In addition to unparalleled habitat…

Arizona has banned all urban wildlife killing contests for coyotes, bobcats, foxes and other animals, joining a growing number of states taking action to stop these gruesome events in which participants compete for money and/or prizes for killing the most and/or largest animals. The Arizona ban, proposed in June, was voted on by Arizona’s Fish…

There are fewer than 200,000 wild giraffes on the planet. Some of the subspecies have numbers so low that they may even have issues regarding genetics. This reality should make us all very sad, but it particularly saddens the pioneer of giraffe research, 85-year-old Dr. Anne Dagg. Dagg is finally getting her due as the…

Ottawa, Canada has a problem with drunk raccoons, though, so far, no arrests have been made. The raccoons have allegedly been munching on fermented berries, which causes impaired judgement (like walking into trees),  balance issues and then extreme sleepiness – as they “sleep it off” wherever they happen to drop. No one knows if they…

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, under the Trump administration, announced significant changes to regulations that spell out how it will implement parts of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), all essentially gutting the ESA. That was in mid-August, now about a month later, 17 states have announced that they are legally challenging these changes. The…

Privileged and emotionally overwhelmed is how we felt when we hiked through brush and bristle in the Virunga Mountains in Rwanda, Africa to see Mountain Gorillas close up and personal. Indeed, we’ve been to wild places and have seen species ranging from New Zealand Blue Fairy Penguins to African Elephant. Somehow this was very different.…

August 19 is International Orangutan Day. Orangutans are close to my heart, but the plight of this species should matter to all of us. While the various gorilla species, chimpanzees and bonobos (sometimes called Pygmy chimpanzees) are all more high profile great apes, orangs share about 97 percent of our genetic makeup, according to a…