Alerts

The spread of avian flu, through dairy herds and to humans, has been featured in the Los Angeles Times repeatedly over the last week, including on the front page of yesterday’s paper and in today’s, Sunday December 1, edition. The high kill rate at Los Angeles animal shelters is on the front page of today’s Los Angeles Times. The New York Times looked, Friday, at China’s focus on alternative meats.  And today that paper features, on the front page, money paid to China by worldwide zoos for panda exhibitions, earmarked for conservation, which has been misspent. ————- Saturday’s Los Angeles Times had two bird flu stories on the front page! One story , by Susanne Rust, was titled, “Bird flu worries...

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Today’s Sunday, November 24, New York Times, includes an article discussing what we might expect for animals under a second Trump administration, and an op-ed recommending that Biden dispenses with the turkey pardon. Saturday’s Los Angeles Times included an op-ed looking at the danger of rewarding huge dairy farms for capturing methane for use as natural gas. The Washington Post brings us a column championing the monkeys who escaped from the breeding facility.  And the Christian Science Monitor, which ran a wonderful cover story on animal minds on Friday, today includes a piece that notes the importance of reader feedback for shaping writer’s thoughts! ———— “What Trump’s Return Could Mean for Animals,” by Emily Anthes and Catrin Einhorn, appears on...

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I have had an eye out for a wonderful New York Times story, which ran online last week, to appear in print, which happened today, Tuesday November 19, on the cover of the Science section, titled, “A Place Among The Apes.” Today’s New York Times also includes a heartbreaking story about a baby panda who appears to have died from stress caused by firework noise. And the Toronto Star and numerous other Canadian papers have run, “What more will it take to shut down Marineland?” Good question! And the New York Post has run a super strong expose on puppy mills! —- The thoughtful New York Times article, by Emily Anthes, covers residents of the chimp exhibit at the Lincoln...

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Canadians: I am so sorry I missed sending yesterday a stunning story on the front page of the Montreal Gazette, but it is definitely not too late to respond with a quick appreciative letter that speaks for animals! I have shared a print out of it here on the DawnWatch Facebook page and here on the DawnWatch X page so you can see how incredible it looked. Titled, “Researchers beg Canada to stop importing monkeys for experimentation,” the lengthy article, by Michelle Lalonde, opened with: “As a plane carrying hundreds of live, long-tailed macaque monkeys made its way from Cambodia to Montreal’s Mirabel Airport Friday, thousands of emails from concerned Canadians landed in the inbox of federal Environment Minister Steven...

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Angelenos: With the election over, animals are back on the front page of the Los Angeles Times! Today’s front page article, by Melody Gutierrez and Alene Tchekmedyian, is titled, “State to Save Filings on Puppy Market: California stopped throwing out records that shed light on an illicit trade after a Times investigation.” It opens with: “California has stopped destroying records that contain key details about the state’s underground puppy market after a Times investigation found that some unscrupulous resellers import hundreds of dogs from the Midwest with little oversight. “Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, confirmed that the records the agency receives are now being preserved, but offered few other details about how the state...

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It’s been quite a week. Today I will share a quick round-up of news for animals from the US election, as well as superb news, in today’s New York Times, that the Alamogordo chimps are moving to sanctuary, and the frustrating news, on Canadian front pages, that while yet another Beluga has died at Marineland, the fifth in a year, the facility declares it has no water problems. Before I get to those, let me thank all of you who wrote to the Los Angeles Times in response to Carla Hall’s lovely piece suggesting elephants need sanctuary. I was surprised that the paper ran my letter, as its lead letter, on election day, Tuesday November 5, under the heading, “Would...

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This weekend we have incredibly good news likely to affect millions of animals, and shockingly bad news for two animals, which has taken the news media and internet by storm. Starting with the great news — Starbucks is removing its surcharge for nondairy milk. The shocking news involves an internet star named Pnut the squirrel, and his brother Fred the Raccoon, who were taken from their home, a nonprofit horse sanctuary, and put down by New York’s government. I will also share, below, a particularly strong piece from the Los Angeles Times about elephant captivity. — First the great Starbucks news, which didn’t make a whole lot of mainstream media, but which, unsurprisingly, Vox did a particularly good job of...

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Angelenos: With election coverage dominating the news cycle, how wonderful to see two strong animal pieces in today’s, Friday November 1, Los Angeles Times. Carla Hall, from the paper’s editorial desk, writes the piece, “Oakland Zoo is right to rethink keeping elephants” (page A10). It is a touching piece, in which Carla discusses her own meetings with elephants in zoos, the resulting heartbreaks, and calls for their release to sanctuaries. (If you hit a paywall at the link above, try cutting and pasting the URL into a different browser, or rewarding the Los Angeles Times for its stellar job covering animal issues by subscribing — it offers new online subscriptions for $1 for six months.) Then on the front page...

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A Vox online article about “livestock auctions”, which came out today, is not to missed. And it relates to a New York Times front page story on Friday, about a couple of extremely rare horses who were found at a livestock auction. That paper also covered a new bill, in New York, that would let people take their sick leave days to care for ill pets. Plus, coverage of the Maryland bear hunt needs attention. Before I look at those, let thank Pennsylvanian subscribers who responded to an alert I sent them about a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial (the paper’s opinion) bemoaning that “a provision was sneaked into the state budget allowing large-scale, nationally operated rodeo companies to select up to...

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Pennsylvania: Today’s Pittsburgh Post Gazette includes an editorial (the newspaper’s opinion) titled “Rodeos might be fun, but not at the cost of our city’s right to rule itself.” It opens: “In 1992, after an incident at a rodeo in which a bull had to be euthanized, the city of Pittsburgh banned the use of electric prods, spurs and straps used to drive the bull to buck — effectively preventing any rodeo from being held within the city limits. “The ban made Pittsburgh an outlier in the state of Pennsylvania. We are the only municipality with such an embargo on the books. It’s the kind of ordinance a city ought to be able to enact, representing the wishes of the city government...

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