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Scientists: Curb the Endless Slaughter

The Washington Post says the mass killing of wolves has led to a growth in the coyote population and despite a century of killing coyotes, the species “refuses to die.” It’s chilling. And obscene. For nearly a century, federal and state governments have been trying to exterminate coyotes, mostly to protect the profits of sheep-raising ranchers. But we’ve known that it doesn’t work. More importantly, a biologist hired by the federal government over 80 years…

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Conservation Biology: Blaming & Killing Cats is Wrong/Unscientific

Proponents of cat slaughter try to legitimize the mass killing under the false mantel of “environmentalism.” There was a time when the environmental movement sought to protect animals and plants from chainsaws, traps, poisons, and guns. Fueled by biological xenophobia, it now uses those very things against animals and plants. Biologists, ecologists, and ethicists are calling out their own colleagues for launching a cruel, violent, dishonest, and I would argue criminal war on cats. They…

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The Death of P-47

A few weeks ago, National Park Service biologists in the Santa Monica Mountains tracked a mountain lion’s GPS collar after it sent out “a mortality signal.” They found the mountain lion, dubbed P-47, dead. P-47 weighed 150 pounds, the largest and most robust of any in the region. He was only three years old. What killed him? Or more accurately, who killed him? According to a local ranger, A necropsy revealed that he may have…

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The NY Times Becomes a Cheerleader for Animal Cruelty

I’m sorry for this photo. I really am. But this is from The New York Times which is cheerleading an Australian slaughter of up to 2,000,000 cats by peddling it as a scientifically-based public policy worth pursuing, dismissing the concerns of ethical people all over the world as misguided and “emotional.” They got it backwards. The piece, replete with photos of cats being gutted, includes the following celebration of killing: “Long after midnight, as the…

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A “shocking” proposal: It is ok to allow cats to go outside (sometimes)

Reggie Watts, the cat (not the comedian). Last week, I posted an article on Facebook about a lawsuit over custody of Reggie, a cat. Rae Bees, a woman who adopted Reggie five years ago from a rescue group with an “indoor only” cat policy, is suing that group for refusing to give her her cat back. Reggie was found wandering by a Good Samaritan and traced to the rescue group through a microchip. After the…

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Ask Me Anything: Community Cat Edition

I get a lot of questions about animals on a wide variety of topics and I try to answer each and every one. When they have wider appeal, I’ll post my response. (If you would like to ask me anything, you can do so in the comments of my Facebook page or through the No Kill Advocacy Center, my organization.) This week, I was asked about the limits of community cat sterilization, specifically about cats…

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Resisting the Revisionist History of Bay Area Forests

By Jennifer Winograd The most effective way to destroy people is to deny or obliterate  their own understanding of their history. — George Orwell The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes, the heart of the people is always right. — John Muir In our work to protect the trees of the East Bay now under attack by native plant…

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