Underage Elephant Sex

If there is one story that we have gotten more hits then anything else, it's the underage elephant sex story here. I don't know why. Really. I can't for the life of me figure out why. But, I assume this post will get lots of hits about it too.

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Whaling Commission Meeting Next Week

The International Whaling Commmission is meeting next week in Chile. That should be interesting. There have been all kinds of rumors that the Rudd Govt. in Austraia is going to backslide on the ban (Sea Shepherd is among one of the main accusers). Rudd denies it.

Australia has certainly done a fantastic job in leading the charge to end whaling. They deserve a lot of credit for that. You don't hear a peep out of the US about it.

Sea Shepherd will be there. Nothing about this on the Greenpeace site, although I'm sure they will have someone there.

Blogging Boredom

We've been doing this blog since what? 1973 or something? Oh those heady days writing copy on the old Selectric while Lady Kat punched computer cards to feed into the old DEC.

I think we are gonig to do less linking, and more writing. We'll still be finding stories and stuff, but we'll do a little more commentary. That's not always easy when you have a day job. But, it's more interesting then saying "hey look at this!"

And, I want to try to expand on topics to do not just "news" but other animal related stuff on the interwebs (to be determined).

I don't know if people will like it, but then again, we're giving you this stuff as a big fat freebie! OK, you get what you pay for. Anyways, thanks for reading our blog, and I hope you continue to do so.

Chickens Gaining Popularity in Seattle Area

Here's a great article about city families raising chickens in the Seattle area. It's written by our next door neighbor.

Interest in chicken-raising has boomed in the last three years, says Angelina Shell, city chickens coordinator for Seattle Tilth, a group that promotes organic gardening. “A big part nowadays is people wanting to be more self-sufficient and wanting to know where their food comes from,” Shell says.

....Each city has its own rules on how many pets people are allowed to have. Some allow chickens. Others don’t. Seattle allows three on a standard 3,000 square-foot lot, but no roosters because their cock-a-doodle-doos would violate noise ordinances. Bellevue permits up to six, and just this year, Renton started allowing residents to keep up to three chickens.

Fresh eggs are the obvious benefit of having your own chickens. As they roam their yards, they also often eat slugs and bugs that might otherwise munch away at any flowers, herbs or veggies growing in a garden. They also like worms, which some gardeners wish the birds would leave alone. Chicken droppings are rich in nutrients and can be added to gardens to enrich the soil.

Keeping chickens is relatively easy. Aside from chicken feed – a 50-pound bag costs about $20 – all the birds need is clean water and shelter where they can nest, hunker down in bad weather and hide from raccoons, hawks, stray dogs and other predators. Coops can be made on the cheap by hand or cost thousands of dollars for elaborate designs.

Before I learned about animal rights, I was not a fan of chickens. In fact, to my shame, I remember telling a vegan that I didn't really care whether chickens suffered or not because I thought they were stupid, annoying birds. To her credit, the vegan lady didn't yell at me. Instead, she just noted that chickens were actually very gregarious personalities once they were out of their cages and in their own natural habitat. Over time, I have learned that is true.

I would love to get a chicken or two now for our backyard, but that idea has been nixed by EVIL MR. BARKY!

Message to Cows: Eat More Nuts!

We here at Critter News follow developments regarding the methane-cow emission connection closely. The latest is that belching cows should eat more nuts!

The cast offs from snacking on cashews may help fight global warming caused by animals that belch methane.

Tests in Japan have show that oil produced from the shell of the cashew nut may slash by 90 percent the methane emissions from belching cattle when mixed as an additive to feed, a spokesman for oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan Co said on Wednesday.

The firm's research division is working with Hokkaido University on Japan's northernmost island, on the project, with the aim of launching sales within four years, the spokesman said.

I can only imagine the experiments conducted in this research study!

Jessica Simpson is a Meat Head

I don't spend time thinking about Jessica Simpson. And I certainly don't particularly care what she "thinks" (if one can call "thinking" whatever is going on above the brain stem in her cranium). But I think this is particularly stupid.

Jessica Simpson was photographed Friday at the LAX airport proudly sporting a “Real Girls Eat Meat” t-shirt.

This girl has no idea what she has on her chest (you know what I mean!) If she were making a political statement, I could at least be angry about it...but frankly, I don't know if that shirt means anything at all.

At least it got her bad publicity. And hopefully, PETA will go after her!

60 Penguins Die From Uruguayan Oil Spill

Sixty more victims of our love affair with oil.

The result of a collision last week between the Greece-registered bulk carrier Syros and another bulker of similar size, the Sea Bird, registered in Malta, was the death of some 60 penguins.

Another 34 penguins, covered in oil but alive, also appeared on the beaches of this South American nation’s southern coast, Richard Tesore of the SOS-Marine Life Rescue environmental group told local online news outlet Observa.

Bullfights to Become Late Night TV in Portugal

This all happened due to a Portuguese law that prohibits violent programming from being shown that kids can watch.

RTP, Portugal’s state-owned TV station, has been ordered by a Lisbon court to cease, with immediate effect, the screening of early evening bullfights, in effect, bring bullfights on television on a par with programmes that contain extreme violence or sex.

The ground-breaking verdict states that the only opportunity people will have to watch a bullfight on television will be between 10.30 pm and 6am.

The court order follows action taken by Portuguese animal rights group ANIMAL.

This injunction was based on a general rule established in the Portuguese Law of Television which prohibits TV stations from broadcasting programmes which can be deemed to negatively influence the personality of children and teenagers.

Interesting. I saw quite a few early evening bullfights on RTP when we were in the Azores.

Vegetarians Making Inroads

I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian (I still eat eggs and dairy.) Most of my friends and family are meat eaters, although some do draw the line at veal and lamb (only some). But what I find heartening is the slow change in society to include people who don't eat meat.

Just in the past week, I had a veggie burger at Burger King. And today I was at a wedding that had vegetarian burgers. Of course, it's still a meat-eating world, but I think that just being a vegetarian and asking for alternatives is having an impact. It is raising awareness that there are alternatives, even if people may not agree with them.

Change has to start somewhere. The constant question though is whether humans and animals have run out of time for the change to be complete.

Pandas in Danger Due to Earthquake

China's already endangered pandas face a tough time due to the recent earthquake there.

Nearly all of China’s endangered pandas are in jeopardy after the earthquake last month devastated the remote mountain corner that is their last remaining habitat.

Already boxed into these steep and thickly forested hillsides by the advance of Man, its numbers limited by a slow rate of reproduction and with its food supply threatened by the scarcity of its favourite arrow bamboo, the panda is now facing its most severe crisis in decades.

Chinese officials, usually reluctant to reveal the real extent of a crisis, have announced that the last 1,590 pandas living in the wild face a very uncertain future after the earthquake.

Yan Xun, an official at the State Forestry Administration, said: “Their living environment is completely destroyed. Massive landslides and large-scale damage to forests triggered by last month’s earthquake are threatening the existence of wild pandas.”

Does Religion Play a Role in Animal Welfare?

LA Unleashed has a good post about the role of religion (specifically Catholicism in this instance) and the treatment of animals.

Outsourcing Animal Testing to India and China

Western pharmaceutical companies are outsourcing their animal testing, along with other activities to China and India.

Through detailed interviews with executives of 16 pharmaceutical firms in China and India on their business models, value-chain activities, partnerships and technology capabilities, the researchers concluded that Indian and Chinese companies are making strides in most of the lucrative segments of global value chains.

In less lucrative segments such as preclinical testing, animal experimentation and manufacturing, Chinese firms appear to be more prevalent while India is a more mature venue for chemistry and drug-discovery activities.

I can't think of a better way for western companies to hide this kind of activity. Given China's horrendous record on animal welfare, I imagine conditions for these animals are that much worse.

Baby Panda!

Unlike LadyKat, I have no qualms about posting cute videos. Happy Friday!

Tales from the Animal Rights Trenches 1.3

I've been completing a Cost Accounting class and haven't had much time for blogging. Thanks to Mr. Barky for picking up the slack.

On some days when I could have blogged, I discovered that I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I just couldn't bring myself to look for a story about animals. The prospect was just too depressing at that moment.

Now, I know that I could just post something happy or maybe a cute picture. But then I feel like that just doesn't seem *substantive* enough. And if I did that every time I didn't want to post about animals, we might as well have a slide show of hamster pictures.

There aren't that many blogs by private citizens about animal issues. Most of the blogs are by large organizations and their paid staff. It's tough to do this on a volunteer basis because the subject matter is so intense. You don't realize how much bad news is out there until you actually start looking for it. It's all over the place, although you may not see it in your particular news outlet.

This is a whiny post I suppose, but it's not meant to be. It was just an observation about myself and also a real eye-opener about those people who actually work on these issues every day in their jobs. If I get depressed from just reading the news each day, I really have to admire the people who live with it and work on it every day.

Arkansas Town Abandons Strays in National Forest: Animal Control for Morons

You have to be dumb as a sack of hammers to think that stray dogs are better off left in a national forest to fend for themselves. But, that's what the mayor of an Arkansas town did.

[Town mayor James] Valley said the city street director released about 10 dogs into the forest Wednesday after the animals were fed and watered. About three dogs were kept to be put down by a veterinarian, he said.

"They are better off free," the mayor said Thursday in a telephone interview.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service said the agency was not contacted by the city before releasing the dogs, and does not condone releasing animals into the forest.