10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 31, 2012
On this final day of 2012 it is time, just like it was on the final days of 2010 and 2011 , to share your Best Birds of the Year. Here, without further ado, are your Best Birds of 2012, in no particular order. I think my official Best Bird of 2012, though, was (finally, finally seeing) the Burrowing Owl.
Critter News
APRIL 24, 2009
I actually read one headline asking whether this was the beginning of the end of commercial farming in California. As early as 2012, public schools would be prohibited from serving fish, poultry or meat that had been routinely treated with antibiotics. "We Then we feed those same antibiotics daily to the animals they will consume.
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10,000 Birds
JULY 24, 2014
It is not unusual to drive by a farm building and see a bunch of Greater Rheas on the farm’s fenced-in pasture next to sheep or goats. Their current population stands at more than 150 birds (I have no recent population estimate, but there were 129 in 2012, up from 100 in 2011), and they are spreading slowly but consistently.
Critter News
JUNE 10, 2011
The Spanish government has taken the unusual step of issuing a royal decree to compel farmers to report on what action they are taking to comply with the 2012 conventional cage-ban and if they require any government assistance. Here's an excerpt from Farmers Weekly Interactive.
Animal Ethics
FEBRUARY 27, 2012
20): Blake Hurst, a former hog farmer and president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, cautions that “we can’t ask the pigs what they think.” I think it is safe to say that yes, an intelligent animal is unhappy, even downright miserable, being confined to a crate two by seven feet for months on end. Farm Animal Welfare, ASPCA New York, Feb.
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 18, 2012
I remember taking an advanced seminar in plant-animal interaction, in preparation for my own study of human-plant interactions. The first thing I learned was that most animal-plant interaction did not involve mammals, or even birds. Plants have evolved to avoid being eaten by a variety of animals. Insects ruled.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 21, 2016
Sadly, this population too went into a steep decline until only 57 animals were left in Germany in 1997, raising fears about their imminent extinction in the country. At 21 kilograms, the male Great Bustard is amongst the heaviest animals able to fly, together with Kori Bustard, an African species.
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