Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Yesterday, the world lost its most powerful voice for animal rights, Tom Regan. No one has done more to explain what "animal rights" means and why animals have rights than Tom Regan. As Regan expressed so simply and straightforwardly, what animal rights advocates want is for "people to stop doing terrible things to animals."

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2017 Raleigh Animal Advocacy Animal Rights 75

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2017

Laysan albatrosses are ocean-dwelling seabirds who have 6-foot wingspans, weigh 7-8 pounds, occasionally sleep while flying, and rarely land except to raise their chicks. The oldest Laysan albatross was last seen raising a chick on Midway Atoll in 2016, at age 66. They are docile and devoted parents who will not leave their nests.

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Albatross Honolulu Hawaii Killing 214

10,000 Birds

MAY 13, 2022

For once, eBird gives a good description of the Asian Glossy Starling, calling it a “Fierce-looking, large songbird” As are humans, this species is fairly urbanized – it “sometimes enters urban areas to roost, e.g. in Singapore” (HBW). Next to me, a local birder tried to get a photo of a Common Iora.

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Singapore Birds Zebras Feral 218

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 6, 2015

Even sparrows, if you choose the right species and play your cards right, can be elevated to ‘cute’ status. a sea gull.''” Of course, that raises an important question – what is the most interesting gull in the world? We tossed this idea around on Facebook for a while and came to few conclusions.

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Seals Lifestyle Turtles Parrots 220

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 28, 2014

A pet cat raising orphaned ducklings! Explanations are simple: only a mother rabbit or a highly trained rehabilitator has a chance of raising and releasing a healthy wild bunny. Teach her to do the right thing, even if it makes her a little sad, because help without knowledge is no help at all.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Wildlife Feral Cats Hamburgers 257

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2022

It stops those thousands of migrating birds flying across the Gulf of Mexico and directs them right onto the trees, fields, sanctuaries, beaches along the Bolivar Peninsula, where they hopefully find food and fresh water. I imagined walking right up to them. They did flush eventually, but not because of humans. American Avocets.

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Houston Texas Sanctuary Sparrows 209

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

Those of us who chase rare birds for our counties, states, or other human-made geographical distinctions watch birds for more reasons than the twitch. It’s all good in the birding hood no matter where one raises the bins but in Costa Rica, it’s easy to get spoiled by diversity.

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Costa Rica Species San Jose Birds 182

Critter News

JANUARY 26, 2012

MEXICO CITY – Animal rights activists staged a protest against the sale of pets in Mexico City, urging residents to adopt dogs and other animals instead of buying them. Mexico City, one of the world’s largest cities, has an estimated 3 million street dogs that end up being killed in shelters or the victims of human cruelty.

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Protest Protesting Protesters Adopt Dog 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 9, 2013

She then spent half a minute silently poised behind our vehicle and as I watched her in my side-view mirror I could see she was completely oblivious to human presence as she had something more important in mind. She then paced across the road and stood on the edge of a patch of taller grass.

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Leopards Cats Namibia Killing 162

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2022

An Ashy Drongo apparently spends approximately 71% of its time scanning (what non-scientists would probably call looking around), 9% eating (less than a typical Chinese human but much more than me), calling 7%, flying 7%, and 6% preening. Another – much rarer – drongo at Nanhui is the Ashy Drongo.

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Singapore Birds Mountain Goats Giraffes 147

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2022

36, if my counting is right and there has been no very recent split or lump. Not bad given that the 5 families in the inner circle of the laughingthrush family have a combined number of about 68 species. The Giant Laughingthrush (various locations, Sichuan) is not really that much larger than the Spotted Laughingthrush.

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San Diego Malaysia China Zoos 205

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 22, 2015

Somewhere below that mysterious eagle, at the far shore of the lake, lies one Bengal Tiger … and further to the right – two more! The closer one raises her head, than lies back. Telia yawns, raises and sprays her urine on a dead tree stump, marking her territory. He has earned his tip. These are my first wild tigers ever!

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Tigers India Killing 2012 243

Critter News

JUNE 16, 2010

From what I recall, chimpanzees share at least 95 percent of human DNA, although the number that floats around the most is 98.6 If chimpanzees have consciousness, if they are capable of abstractions, do they not have what until now has been described as "human rights"? The following is from The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan.

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Animal Medical Research Apes Research 100

Animal Person

AUGUST 23, 2009

His passion and compassion for humans is immense, but he appears to have some kind of mental block with nonhuman animals. The result is that on one level he knows that hurting sentient nonhumans isn't right, but if it's done in a certain respectful way (oxymoron, anyone?) it's not so bad.

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4 The Love Of Animals

NOVEMBER 6, 2009

Begun in 1996 by the Humane Society of America, National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week encourages everyone who loves animals to bring public awareness to all the important work shelters do throughout the year. If you are like us and shop online often, this is a great way to help animals by doing something you would be doing anyway!

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Pets Shelters The Humane Society Homelessness 100

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2013

they are the most terrestrial primate after humans. This has resulted in their populations returning to natural levels and their fear of humans being curtailed. We were able to spend hours sitting right in amongst super-groups of 500-600 Geladas that just carried on with their daily business in total oblivion to our presence.

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Ethiopia Primates Mammals Fur 160

10,000 Birds

JUNE 26, 2013

There aren’t many solutions proferred—the article is really about consciousness-raising—but it’s well worth a read. Thanks to a little human intervention, the future looks much brighter for Millerbirds. Note: Some of the accompanying photos and videos are very powerful, but also not necessarily for the faint of heart.).

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Cambodia Slaughter Slaughtered Cyprus 143

Animal Person

JUNE 20, 2009

Bea sent me a link to an article in Gourmet called " Humane Slaughterhouses ," by Rebecca Marx, that is absurd. They believe you can take a life that doesn't want to be taken in a humane way, and I don't agree. It’s how we treat humans, too. For him, the importance of humane slaughter manifests itself in the quality of the meat."

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Slaughter Slaughtered Cows Meat 100

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 12, 2016

We have no real way of knowing, but we surmise that he was raised illegally by a member of the public, and “imprinted.”. Guardians of human health, and a pretty awesome bird species as well … what a package! We definitely found the right bird for the job! He was slowly starving himself to death. Why was he attracted to children?

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Mice Indiana Game 131

Animal Ethics

JUNE 7, 2016

In light of this horrible incident, is it right for the zoo to carry on a breeding program that subjects more animals to such unnatural lives? This horrible incident has raised some tough questions indeed. The zoo, surely, carries responsibility for deficiencies in its enclosure. Finally, what of the audience?

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Los Angeles Gorillas Zoos Non Human 40

Critter News

MARCH 19, 2009

It's not as much about what the animal rights activists are saying about how we are raising pigs as opposed to us demonstrating that we do care and we are giving the best possible care" she said. I have a hard time with the logic of that statement. The pork industry does not make money from happy pigs, but from dead carcasses.

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Industry Factory Farm Factory Farming Animal Welfare 100

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 18, 2012

Whilst catfish have around 100,000 taste buds, rabbits around 17,000 and humans approximately 9,000, birds rarely exceed 100 of these receptors. But certain bird species go against the grain here and some even appear to have a better sense of smell than many mammals, humans included. Let’s talk about taste.

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Birds Mammals Mozambique New Zealand 214

Animal Person

MAY 30, 2009

The Humane Society of the United States is the big bully on this strange playground. Often confused with American Humane Association, they raise tens of millions, not to ‘save the animals’ as most people assume but to further the causes of vegetarianism and ending animal agriculture." We live our issues.

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Veal Crate HSUS Vegan Gestation Crates 100

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

Not sure that I impressed them, I chose to bluff them and looked left and right for a suitable tree branch to pick. Attempting to bluff the bear in believing that they were even bigger bears, Hoshino suggested raising their hands, to appear taller. Those bears live in the wild and are not used to humans.

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Animal Bears Stray Dog Blackbirds 115

Animal Person

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

But the message remains the same, and it's the only such message available in film to my knowledge (and please let me know of any others): there's simply no way to kindly, politely, "humanely" take someone's life when you don't need to. All of the former animal farmers come to the same conclusion: that what they were doing wasn't right.

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Farm Sanctuary Slaughter Slaughtered Speciesism 100

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 9, 2013

The general public is out and about, birds and animals are raising their young, and human/wildlife interaction is at its peak. Two days ago I went on Facebook and queried some of my exhausted compatriots: if you could have one wish right now – anything in the world – what would it be?

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Wildlife Wildlife Rehabilitation Oklahoma New York 245

Animal Person

APRIL 6, 2010

While other people might trade barbs or even turn to fisticuffs, I'd dig deep for the most hurtful thing I could say, in the fewest words, and deliver it without even raising my voice. Why is it surprising that nonhuman animals have personalities when human animals do? No one is assigning human traits to nonhumans.

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Animal Pigs Human Animals Humane 100

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Long ago I preached the idea that rapid climate change was more important (in a negaive way) than large climate change, and suggested that the Holocene was different from earlier time periods (and thus, for instance, humans invented agriculture and large areas of forest developed, etc.) because the Holocene had little rapid climate change.

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Penguins Birds Cooking Fish 198

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2015

Second, reading about birds courting and parenting brings out the tendency to identify, which leads directly to anthropomorphism, the tendency to assign birds human emotions and thoughts. Think of birds too much as humans and you lose the specialness that makes them birds. Some people love books like that. Yellow Warbler fledgling.

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Eggs Family 2006 New York 263

Animal Person

JUNE 22, 2009

Their claim is that what has become the customary way to take sentient nonhumans from babyhood to untimely death is not humane. However, the solution they have created, which harkens back to before industrialized agriculture, is simply to still raise animals for their flesh and secretions, and for profit, but to do it the old-fashioned way.

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Factory Farm Factory Farming Slaughter Slaughtered 100

4 The Love Of Animals

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

No one in the room–neither dog nor human–can tell which cup hides the biscuit. Instead, he simply points at the cup on the right. Understanding a pointed finger may seem easy, but consider this: while humans and canines can do it naturally, no other known species in the animal kingdom can. “Humans are unique.

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Wolves Fox Dogs Puppies 100

10,000 Birds

MAY 30, 2019

Raised in and around the West Texas steppe country where temperatures reached 100 degrees with regularity, he began life as the Dust Bowl and Great Depression converged. He had stalked the nest for days, waiting for just the right time when she would be on the verge of fledging, then took her into his care. He came for the hawks.

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Falcons California Condor Alaska Texas 178

Animal Ethics

JUNE 12, 2012

Modern farms (so-called factory farms), for example, raise animals in unnatural conditions. Those animals who are raised intensively, then, let us assume, do not know what they're missing. That individuals can be harmed without knowing it has important implications for the proper assessment of the treatment of animals.

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Factory Farm Factory Farming Los Angeles Animal 40

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 24, 2014

I raised them, banded them and released them back to their colony site that summer. I held him a minute so he could look around, then I slowly opened my hands and after a few seconds he flew off and went right to a tree trunk and started acting like a wild woodpecker. It was like they said, “You reek of humans, go wash.”.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Ohio Tulsa West Virginia 220

Animal Ethics

JULY 12, 2010

A Humane Egg The life of animals raised in confinement on industrial farms is slowly improving, thanks to pressure from consumers, animal rights advocates, farmers and legislators. In California last week, Gov.

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New York Times New York Proposition 2 Veal 40

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

Thus, the cattle we raise for meat and dairy are sometimes called Bos taurus while the extinct wild form is always called Bos primigenius. Some time after the Spanish encounter with the Turkey, birds were brought back to Europe where they were raised and became an important source of food and fancy feathers.

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Turkey Columbus Spain Fowl 201

4 The Love Of Animals

MAY 8, 2011

Gazing at Cathy Conheim, a psychotherapist raised to hate cats because they ate birds, and Donna Brooks, a retired physician and sculptor who had never had a cat, but always reached out to heal anyone who was hurting, the kitten eyed them hopefully. Over the past six years, Henry has received almost 50,000 letters from humans and critters.

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San Diego Kittens Emotional Cats 100