On May 19, 2023, a consortium of 98 organizations and individuals sent a letter to Dr. Hoesung Lee, the current chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), expressing their deep concern at "the potential influence of the meat industry's years-long campaign of interference...
Wild birds are important for their contributions to ecosystem health and human well-being. Critical ecological roles provided by birds include insect and rodent control, plant pollination, and seed dispersal. Wild birds have also captivated humans for millennia, and today, the avid birder or “twitcher” is...
Much controversy surrounds the management of outdoor cats. Developing an agreement on the most appropriate and effective way to reduce the number of outdoor cats—by sterilization or eradication—is at the center of this longstanding dispute. Members of the wildlife conservation community argue that killing outdoor...
Some of the earliest surveys of pet ownership in the United States were carried out in the 1970s by Robert Schneider and his colleagues at the University of California in Davis. They were interested in developing a One Health solution to human cancer by studying...
It has been a year since my neighborhood journey into “standing up” for trees began. It started as so many things do for me these days, on a dog walk.My rescue companion, Duke, and I were walking across the woods and farmland when we came...
In the last few years, a highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (HPAI) virus has caused the deaths of millions of seabirds and waterfowl worldwide, and many more millions of factory-farmed poultry being culled to halt the spread of the virus. WBI wrote about the emergence...
In most countries, wildlife is owned by the state. However, there are exceptions. In Southern Africa (e.g., Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe), laws passed thirty or more years ago have given private landowners property rights over all the wildlife on their land. These property rights...
The recovery of White Rhino populations in Africa (specifically South Africa) has been widely lauded as an exceptional conservation success, and the numbers support that claim. In 1895, only 20 white rhinos were left in Africa – all in the Hluhluwe Park (pronounced glugluey with...
The bipartisan FDA Modernization Act of 2021 (S.5002) was introduced in the US Senate by Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky). Towards the end of 2022, the Act was modified and attached to the Omnibus Spending Bill. It was then signed into...
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...
