On March 24, the Indian government ordered a national 21-day lockdown as part of its response to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The lockdown has been extended several times and is now projected to last until June 30. This precaution has resulted in significant hardship for...
In the last WellBeing News (Issue 2:4), we ran a short item on pets and the coronavirus. We would like to draw readers’ attention to an excellent new review of all the studies to date that have looked at the potential for pets to catch...
In human health management, we generally must know the size of the problem before we can manage it successfully. This is also true of the management of animals such as dogs and cats. This letter will address what we know about global dog populations on...
Often, when one hears about animal rescues they aren’t told the complete chain of events that has to occur for the rescue to be successful. The following story allows us to follow the rescue journey of one dog through her eyes and through those of...
Sustainability has become a popular term encompassing the notion that we need to promote and pursue policies that will allow future generations of humans to live and benefit from the wealth provided by the Earth. In 2015, the United Nations (UN) adopted the 2030 Agenda...
Introduction to Promoting Well-Being: Human-Animal Interaction to Improve Mental and Physical Health and the Quality of Life by Alan E. Kazdin, PhD by Andrew Rowan, DPhilAs the world negotiates its interactions with and responses to an emergent coronavirus, it seems like an appropriate time for WBI...
At the beginning of this century, a review paper (Daszak et al, 2000) highlighted the importance of the consumption of wildlife as a major source of a series of dangerous new “emerging” pathogens.The most well-known of these is the AIDS virus that was first recognized...
As I sit here tapping out this essay, one thing on my mind is how best to respond to the latest proposal on cats being promoted here in Hawaii by the conservation community. Here in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, conservationists are pushing the...
[caption id="attachment_7103" align="alignleft" width="500"] Elephant calf drinking in Zakouma, NP, Chad as part of the largest elephant herd in Africa. Photo by Thomas Clode[/caption]The Chadian government established the Zakouma National Park, a 3,000 Km2 area in the south-east of the country, in 1963. At the...
Most of us will have had an occasion to rescue an injured or ill wild animal, whether it be a mouse that the cat has caught, a bird that has flown into a window or something more exotic. I suspect that we then scramble to...
