The February and March issues of WellBeing News carried articles on the emergence of a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus. While the world is thoroughly sick of hearing about pandemic virus threats, we are adding another update because of the high risk to biodiversity of...
A new book, The Rat Trap by Pandora Pound, has just been published, criticizing modern medicine's reliance on animal research. Pound is a medical sociologist now employed by The Safer Medicines Trust, a UK charity whose mission "is to make medicines safer by facilitating a...
In 1989, T Berry Brazelton, American pediatrician and author of numerous popular infant development and child-care books, was a plenary speaker at an international human-animal bond conference in Monaco. His talk included comments on an infant's attraction to and affinity with animals. He noted that...
The incredible story of Willie B was influenced by the aspirations of Mayor William Barry Hartsfield, who served twenty-four years as Mayor of Atlanta, and the leadership of Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who had the courage and the vision to reimagine Atlanta’s zoological park when...
Fifty years ago (Feb 10, 1973), Science News published a short article, “Setting sail into a plastic sea.” The story noted that scientists on an oceanographic voyage in the North Pacific “recorded 53 manmade objects in 8.2 hours of viewing” even though “they were 600...
In 1955, The United States Fish and Wildlife (FWS) inaugurated a periodic survey focused on Americans’ recreational, wildlife-related activities. One might immediately assume that hunting and fishing would dominate this field, but that would be wrong by a long shot (pun intended). While some 40...
The first World Happiness Report (WHR) appeared in 2012. In 2013, the UN General Assembly declared March 20th the International Day of Happiness (Resolution 66/281). In 2013 and every subsequent year except 2014, the World Happiness Report, written by an expanding group of experts, was...
On March 2, 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly (the world's environment parliament) passed a landmark resolution calling on the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to produce a report on the Nexus between animal welfare, the environment, and sustainable development. This Resolution offers enormous potential...
In 2015, the Australian government pledged to reduce the feral cat population in the country by one-third (about 2 million cats) by 2020. Reportedly, just over 200,000 feral cats were killed in the first year after the plan was announced, mostly poisoned with 1080 in...
The report on the recent international meeting on biodiversity in Montreal describes some political considerations and challenges as the world attempts to protect and sustain biodiversity. But what is biodiversity, and how is it changing around the globe?Biodiversity refers to the variety and variability of...
