A few weeks ago, National Park Service biologists in the Santa Monica Mountains tracked a mountain lion’s GPS collar after it sent out “a mortality signal.” They found the mountain lion, dubbed P-47, dead. P-47 weighed 150 pounds, the largest and most robust of any in the region. He was only three years old. What killed him? Or more accurately, who killed him? According to a local ranger, A necropsy revealed that he may have…
I’m sorry for this photo. I really am. But this is from The New York Times which is cheerleading an Australian slaughter of up to 2,000,000 cats by peddling it as a scientifically-based public policy worth pursuing, dismissing the concerns of ethical people all over the world as misguided and “emotional.” They got it backwards. The piece, replete with photos of cats being gutted, includes the following celebration of killing: “Long after midnight, as the…
A new analysis in the journal Biological Conservation calls for reform. To many environmentalists, animals are judged worthy of activism on their behalf in relation to how useful they are to humans or how many members of their species exist. There is no objection to taking the lives of animals such as crows, raccoons, or rats; species that are plentiful or have no material value to humans. Yet if there are limited numbers of a…
Reggie Watts, the cat (not the comedian). Last week, I posted an article on Facebook about a lawsuit over custody of Reggie, a cat. Rae Bees, a woman who adopted Reggie five years ago from a rescue group with an “indoor only” cat policy, is suing that group for refusing to give her her cat back. Reggie was found wandering by a Good Samaritan and traced to the rescue group through a microchip. After the…
A situation that calls for circumspection, rather than cavalierness, and human ingenuity rather than human violence.
Washington, D.C. is not only considering a plan to round up and kill thousands of cats, but it is proposing a wholesale slaughter of geese and other animals, as well as trees and plants. On September 18, a City Council committee will take the issue up and my letter, written on behalf of the No Kill Advocacy Center, opposing the plan is here.
Fighting the Oakland, UC Berkeley & East Bay Regional Park District’s War on Nature.