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It’s usually good news when a roadside zoo shuts down. One of the worst of these miserable facilities was Waccatee Zoo in Myrtle Beach, which was closed down last year following a prolonged lawsuit with PETA.
A brutal drought in southern Africa threatens food supplies across at least six countries. Among them, Namibia and Zimbabwe have recently announced plans to cull hundreds of wild animals, including nearly 300 elephants, as they struggle to feed their populations.
This week the Colorado Supreme Court heard arguments on behalf of five elephants in the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. The question at hand: Shall the pachyderms have the same rights as “persons” under the law?
This week the Bureau of Land Management finalized plans to protect the Gunnison sage-grouse, a threatened species in western Colorado and eastern Utah.
When Hurricane Helene blew through Burnsville, North Carolina last month, flooding forced evacuations as the Cane River swelled to 20 feet above normal. One family watched in horror as their beloved cat, Ricardo Blanco, was swept away in the waters.
Do three emus constitute a mob? That’s how many were rescued on a busy roadway in Selden, New York a few weeks ago. The Strong Island Animal Rescue said in a Facebook post that they were alerted to a baby emu loose on Middle County Road, but when arrived on the scene they found not one but three juvenile emus, running around and “in danger of getting hit by cars.”
A rancher in Montana illegally used tissue and testicles from wild sheep to breed “giant” hybrids, which he planned to sell to private hunting grounds in Texas and Minnesota, where they would have been slaughtered by trophy hunters.
Researchers have found that female gibbons sometimes move in ways that look for all the world like dancing. Zoologist Kai Caspar and colleagues have analyzed these stylized movements in a study to be published in the journal Primates (a preprint is available here).
Just a few years ago the population of the Florida grasshopper sparrow, a “critically imperiled” species and the most endangered bird on the continent, was hanging by the thread.
This week the New York Cat Film Festival premieres in the city, followed by the NY Dog Film Fest a few days later. The first is an “exploration through film of the fascinating felines who share our lives,” according to the festival website; the latter a “philanthropic celebration of the love between dogs and their people.”
In July, senators from the nation’s largest and smallest states introduced legislation to ban commercial octopus farming in the US and prohibit the import of farmed octopus from elsewhere.
If the pair of hurricanes that just stormed through Florida and environs wasn’t biblical enough, now comes the wildlife – especially alligators. In the storms’ aftermath, humans are coming face to face with displaced gators in the debris and floodwaters.
More than 1000 animals reside in Florida’s ZooTampa at Lowry Park, which happens to be just ten miles from the waterfront. When Hurricane Milton blew through town this week, a dozen brave zoo staff hunkered down with their charges, even as other humans had hightailed it out of the mandatory evacuation zone.
A sheriff's deputy in northeast Washington, not far from the Canadian border, was on patrol in a rural wooded area when he came across a dog sitting in the road. Deputy Wright tried to coax the dog into his vehicle so he could find the owner, but the pup held her ground.
Animal-rescue organizations, big and small, are working overtime in the Southeast as hurricanes disrupt the lives of both humans and their pets. The damage wrought by Hurricane Helene, which tore through inland areas not usually susceptible to big-storm paths, is still being assessed while stranded animals await rescue.
Flash floods in northern Thailand forced more than 100 elephants to evacuate to higher ground, while at least two animals were swept away presumed lost. Dramatic videos and photos released by Elephant Nature Park near Chiang Mai showed panic-stricken elephants wading through flood waters as their human handlers struggled to lead them to safety.
A beaver in Massachusetts has been granted a stay – at a comfy animal shelter – by Governor Maura Healy, who intervened when a court was about to decide whether to exile the little mammal to the wild. The 2-year-old “Nibi” has been in the care of the Newhouse Wildlife Rescue in Chelmsford since it was just a few days old, when it was found alone by a roadside.
There are believed to be only 532 capercaillie – the world’s largest grouse – remaining in the wild in the UK, all of them in Scotland. With the iconic bird on the brink of extinction, conservationists have come up with an “emergency” plan to bolster the population.
