Articles Archive

Mar 30, 2021 Rhino Decline Shock

Posted at 13:56h In Animals in Our World, Articles, Conservation, Letter from the President, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

The Kruger National Park in South Africa is home to the largest wild rhino population in the world. But a 2019 census documenting a dramatic decline in the Kruger rhino population in just ten years has shocked rhino conservation organizations. The park last conducted a...

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Mar 30, 2021 Forests and Livelihoods in Asia: Sustaining People and Planet

Posted at 13:54h In Articles, Global Awareness, PAE Well-being, WellBeing News - By Naveen Pandey, MVetSci

The theme for this year’s UN World Wildlife Day, celebrated every year on the 3rd of March, was ‘Forests and Livelihood: Sustaining People and Planet’. The day is facilitated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). In...

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Mar 30, 2021 World Happiness 2021

Posted at 12:55h In Articles, Feel Better, PAE Well-being, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan

The first World Happiness Report, drawing extensively on Gallup’s World Poll data, was published in 2012. The report is now released every year on March 20th and the 2021 World Happiness Report is the ninth in the series. The first eight reports were produced by...

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Mar 12, 2021 Paving the Way to Well-being: The First Nationally Recognized Assistance Dogs

Posted at 09:07h In Articles, Global Awareness, Human-Animal Interaction, Tales of WellBeing - By Sheila O'Brien, M.Ed.

Today, it is not unusual to see assistance dogs in stores, restaurants, on public transportation and in the workplace assisting their human partners to overcome the boundaries that their disabilities present. Presently, there are approximately 30,000 actively working assistance dogs making the world a better...

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Mar 12, 2021 Prani Mitra Award for Dr. S. Chinny Krishna

Posted at 09:06h In Animal Well-being, Articles, BCI (Blue Cross of India), Global Awareness, Tales of WellBeing - By Andrew Rowan

In 1959, Chinny Krishna, then almost fifteen years old, was one of the four founders of the Animal Aid Association in Madras, India (now Chennai). Two of the three other founders were his parents. In 1964, the Animal Aid Association morphed into the Blue Cross...

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Feb 26, 2021 “Making Peace with Nature”

Posted at 08:57h In Articles, Environment Well-being, Global Awareness, Letter from the President, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

This past month, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) issued a 168-page publication entitled Making Peace with Nature. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, comments in a Foreword that “Humanity is waging war on nature” and “Making peace with nature is the defining task of the...

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Feb 26, 2021 Companion Animal Demographics: When Are They Good Enough?

Posted at 08:48h In Animals in Our World, Articles, Population & Demographics, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

There is minimal careful analysis of gross companion animal demographics and of the trends in animal shelter intake and outcome. The best current estimate of the USA dog and cat population is 135 million from a survey conducted every five years. Several other national surveys...

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Feb 26, 2021 Revisiting the Cat Predation Issue

Posted at 08:30h In Animals in Our World, Articles, Companion Animals - Cats, WellBeing News - By John Hadidian, PhD and Andrew Rowan, DPhil

In 2013, a paper in the journal Nature Communications appeared that estimated that cat predation in the United States led to an estimated death of 1.3 - 4.0 billion birds every year. This large range in the predation estimate was due to the big uncertainties...

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Feb 12, 2021 The Origin of the People and Dogs’ 20,000-Year Love Affair

Posted at 10:50h In Animals in Our World, Articles, Companion Animals - Dogs, Tales of WellBeing - By Andrew Rowan

It seems fitting during Valentine’s week to address the mystery of how the dog became the dog and ended up as a devoted and beloved companion for billions of people over the span of 20,000 years or so. Several academic papers and one blog by...

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Feb 12, 2021 Dogs Helping Veterans

Posted at 10:46h In Articles, Feel Better, Human-Animal Interaction, Tales of WellBeing - By Andrew Rowan

Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of interest in the use of assistance dogs to help military veterans cope with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and other challenges posed by a return to civilian life. Numerous organizations have been founded to provide such...

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