Today I share today’s front-page Toronto Star story on people forced to give up pets due to financial hardship (Canadians should respond), plus today’s New York Times story on the damage our pets do to the environment (page D3),  and the awful news, also shared today by the New York Times, that former NFL player Leshon Johnson has just been convicted on dogfighting charges.

Also online today, recorded yesterday, is my chat on the Mark Thompson Show about last week’s killing of 12 baboons at a German Zoo, which also notes that a Danish Zoo asks folks to donate small pets to feed its carnivores. It is titled, “When Zoos Kill for Space”. I hope you’ll check it out. Just taking the time to give it a thumbs up is helpful activism, and comments really help give animal-friendly content some internet legs.

On the weekend, the Sunday Los Angeles Times prominently shared an Animal Outlook investigation (page B1) revealing that foie gras can be bought in some California restaurants despite California’s ban (I urge folks to thank the LA Times for that coverage) Sunday’s New York Times (Page A15) and Boston Globe (page A8) both celebrated Florida’s new Trooper’s Law, named for the bull terrier left tied up during a hurricane and saved by a kind, brave, trooper.  Sunday’s New York Times noted that animal lovers are expected to part of the contingent supporting Republican Curtis Sliwa, an outspoken animal advocate running for mayor in that city. (More on him below.) Meanwhile Sunday’s Observer (UK) brought us a thoughtful piece discussing the issue of carriage horses. And CBS Sunday Morning aired a lovely segment on Chimp Haven. (Thanks to Dave Sickles for sending that.)

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Kathleen Parker’s latest Washington Post column, railing against the Trump administration’s attempts to do away with California’s animal welfare laws provides a nice balance to that paper’s disappointing fluff piece, currently online only, on the Chincoteague pony swim. It tells us that the “festivities culminate in an auction of some of the foals” but the following is as far as it goes in addressing concerns:

“Some have criticized the swim over concerns about the horses’ welfare and the desire to tame wild animals.”

I have inserted a gift link to the article criticizing the swim from seven years ago. What a difference seven years make.

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I have provided gift links above where possible, or links to alternative sources without paywalls. Given the New York Times reporter on the pet environmental impact piece notes, twice, that dogs are carnivores, I am moved to share with you my 2017 Los Angeles Times piece, “Dogs can get by just fine on a vegetarian diet” which explains that “dogs have nutritional requirements, not ingredient requirements.”

 

I also provided a link for letters to the Toronto Star and LA Time above. You may wish to respond to something in the New York Times or Washington Post, both of which are highly influential papers read by the world leaders. If you choose just one story from any of the above and throw together a few heartfelt lines, you will have an impact regardless of whether your letter is published. Or just take a moment to add a comment to the online discussions! Animals need our voices.

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In other mainstream media animal news shared over the past week to the DawnWatch Facebook page and/or X Feed:

 

• Both the New York Post and WFUV have run stories on Republican Mayoral Candidate Curtis Sliwa’s commitment to ending the daily slaughter in the city’s “shelters.”

 

• ABC4 News in South Carolina covered calls to close down the Alpha Genesis monkey breeding facility.

 

• Fox 6 from Milwaukee shares that Congresswoman Nancy Mace has joined forces with the White Coat Waste Project to shut down Ridglan farms which breeds beagles for medical experiments.

 

• The Los Angeles Times featured, on its front page, the fabulous news that gambling machines will continue to be prohibited at horseracing tracks, a serious blow to that industry. If you don’t know why that is fabulous news, please check out Horseracing Wrongs. (Let me thanks Elaine Livesay-Fassel for sending this and so many other articles our way.)

 

• France 24.com has shared wonderful news from Agence France-Presse about Chef Alain Passard: “Iconic French chef stakes reputation on vegan menu.”

 

• Philip Lymbery of Compassion in World Farming had a superb piece in The Scotsman titled, “How our obsession with meat is wasting food that could feed two billion people.”

 

• The New York Times covered the Finns exploring a solution to goose poop that doesn’t resort to killing geese. (I thank Teresa D’Amico for the link to that article and others.)

 

• The Sunday Mirror in the UK gave great coverage to the shocking cruelty to which camels are subjected when tourists ride them. I couldn’t find an online link but I shared a photo of, and quotes from, the story on the DawnWatch Facebook page.

 

• Vox has brought us great news about an 80 percent reduction in the number of animals killed for fur of late – though 20 million is still way too many.

 

• I will end with my favorite story from last week. In the new Superman movie, Superman takes the time to get a squirrel out of harm’s way as a city collapses. James Gunn discusses the scene in the New York Times. Anybody who missed Gunn’s Guardian’s of the Galaxy, Volume 3, which focuses on keeping Rocket the racoon out of the animal testing lab from where he had earlier escaped, really should rent that joyous movie now.  I plan to get to the theatre this week to see Superman save a squirrel.

Yours and all animals’,

Karen Dawn of DawnWatch