Search Results for: pets animal conservation organizations

The Noble Efforts of the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund

One thing I will never criticize Disney about is the good work done by the Animal Kingdom and its sometimes-partner the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund.  The two might technically be separate entities – the Animal Kingdom is a part of Disney World, and the DWCF is a philanthropic branch of the Walt Disney Corporation – but they often work together. Work together, of course, being an operative word.  The Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund is what it’s called: a fund.  While some employees might actually go out and do something, the primary purpose of the division is to provide financial support for … Continue reading →

Animals Buried in Six Million Pounds of Garbage

Volunteers from the Ocean Conservancy spent a single day collecting debris from beaches around the world. What they found is disgusting and disturbing. More than 375,000 volunteers in seventy-six different countries combed the places where water meets land — ocean beaches and inland lakes and streams — to take a close look at the ocean trash problem. In just one day, the volunteers picked up an average of one hundred and eighty-two pounds of trash for every mile of shoreline. That works out to a grand total of more than seven million pieces of trash weighing around six million pounds. … Continue reading →

The Pets Blog Week in Review for November 5-11

What did Aimee and I write about during the first full week of November? If you missed a day, check out this installment of the Pets Blog Week in Review. Monday, November 5 Paying Attention When Pets Act Weird Murph was barking like crazy, the cats were acting wary…it was very suspicious behavior, which I try to pay attention to. In this case the animals tipped me off to the cops at the across-the-street neighbor’s house. Out on a Limp Aimee noticed some odd behavior with one of her dogs too. Moose developed a limp during their walks, one that … Continue reading →

24 Wildlife Conservation Organizations Worthy of Your Donations

The other day I listed 79 animal rights, welfare, and service organizations worthy of your donations based on ratings generated by Charity Navigator and the American Institute of Philanthropy. These were organizations that scored either four stars from Charity Navigator (their highest rating) or “A”s from the American Institute of Philanthropy. Using the same methodology, the list below represents the top rated wildlife conservation organizations that you can feel confident are utilizing your donation dollars in the most efficient and effective manner possible. Again, charities are listed in alphabetical order and are linked to their websites, if applicable. 1. African … Continue reading →

I Am So Thankful for All of the Animal Lovers Out There

Appropriately enough, November, the month that harbors Thanksgiving, is “I Am So Thankful Month.” I’m a big believer in the power of gratitude. I didn’t always used to be that way though. What I Used to Think of Thanksgiving Once upon a time I thought Thanksgiving was the absolute most boring holiday imaginable. So what if the Pilgrims and Indians came together and had a feast? Big deal. What did that matter in our modern world? In my eyes, the only redeemable quality about the Thanksgiving holiday was the four-day weekend. What Thanksgiving Means to Me Now But in 1999, … Continue reading →

Dolphin Intelligence Sparks New Ethics Debate

A unit in my college environmental ethics class studied the different ethics systems we follow in order to determine how we treat others. It focused on sentient verses non-sentient: the idea that some life, although not as intelligent as humanity, is still aware of itself (animal) and that other, while still alive, has no self-awareness (plant). The question of sentience was one factor used to determine what level of ethical treatment was appropriate for different members of the environment. Up until now humans for the most part have lumped all animals into one category and treated them the same: humanely, … Continue reading →

Green Celebrities: Bob Barker

Bob Barker left “The Price is Right” in 2007, but as a game show host, he remains a television icon. If you ever watching him on the show, you may remember that at the end of almost every episode, he reminded us to “Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered.” (This work is in the public domain in that it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1977 and without a copyright notice. Unless its author has been dead for several years, it is copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of … Continue reading →

Car Thief Finds Surprise in Trunk

Posted on by

You may have noticed that I like odd animal news stories — especially the ones that involve animals turning up in strange places. You might remember the German shepherd dog on the roof with his toddler, or the cougar visiting a woman in her hot tub? Well here’s a new one: the exotic cat in the trunk of the stolen car. A St. Petersburg television station owner had his pricey Mercedes stolen in April. But Mikhail Barakin is less worried about the car and more worried about what was in it: a rare Asian leopard cat that was given to … Continue reading →

Wolf Protection Restored

A federal judge temporarily restored endangered species status for gray wolves in the Rocky Mountains earlier this month. The judge’s decision halted plans in three different states to hold public wolf hunts. Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho were planning wolf hunts for this fall in order to control wolf populations and reduce the number of attacks on livestock. Back in March of this year, gray wolves were removed from the endangered species list. A decade of restoration efforts had increased the gray wolf population to around two thousand in the northern Rocky Mountains — enough of a population that they no … Continue reading →

A World without Gorillas?

Back in September, for National Wildlife Day, I wrote about animals on my mind. Among them were the mountain gorillas in the Virunga National Park. They’re on my mind again today because last night on 60 Minutes Anderson Cooper did a report called “Gorillas: Kings of Congo.” The gorillas have never before been in as much danger as they are now. Yes, since I wrote about them just three months ago, their situation has gotten even worse. The rangers responsible for protecting the gorillas and the park have been completely driven out. The land where the gorillas roam has fallen … Continue reading →