In October last year, WellBeing International organized two webinars on animal sentience – specifically on the question of invertebrate sentience – as part of a project funded by the Centre for Effective Altruism. We were surprised by the level of interest in the topic. In...
People have been writing epitaphs and memorials to companion dogs for millennia. Perhaps the best-known epitaph to a dog is the one Lord Byron wrote for his Newfoundland, Boatswain. Near this Spot are deposited the Remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferosity, and all...
There are somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 tigers in private hands in America today – one estimate is that there are 7,000 privately held tigers or around twice as many as the total population of wild tigers (approximately 3,900) in the world today. None of...
In the early days of Anthrozoos, the first academic journal to focus on human-animal interactions, I met many remarkable individuals who agreed to speak at a series of seminars organized by the Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy. Perhaps the most successful seminar was...
As the world begins to emerge from the pandemic, WellBeing International wants to refocus its efforts on the global concerns of the world's homeless dog population. We invite interested readers to join us on Tuesday (November 30) at noon (EST) for a free webinar reviewing...
Meeting Mary Harris after I retired and moved to Colorado changed my life. She's the chair of Roaring Fork Audubon and became my mentor for all things bird. Although I was a birdwatcher back in Maryland, I was not a birder. I enjoyed sitting on...
This book is an imaginative analysis of what might happen to the 800 million to one billion dogs in the world if humans suddenly disappeared. Still, there are probably few better scholars to describe and flesh out this imaginary dog’s world. Both authors -- Jessica...
Every year since 2014, the Katmai National Park in Alaska has run a competition over the internet to identify a Fat Bear winner based on votes cast by members of the public who watch the Brown bears in the park via webcams as they fatten...
I was immediately attracted to this book because of its title. As a boy, I devoured many of Aesop’s fables and the various folk tales featuring wild animal heroes in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. I am not sure why anthropomorphized animal characters were so...
There are many threats to the survival of elephants in the world today, with poaching and habitat loss being among the most obvious. Disease is also an important factor, especially for elephants under human care where a recently discovered herpes virus – elephant endotheliotropic herpes...
