Home/Articles in: Animal Rights
Articles in: Animal Rights
Animal Rights, Animals, Videos & Documentaries, Apr 8th, 2013,
Sex, food, recreational drugs and videos of cats. What do these four vices have in common? They are all connected to the release of the dopamine, a neurotransmitter and hormone associated with “reward-driven learning”. Recent research shows that looking at live webcam feeds of cute animals affects the brain’s pleasure centers by releasing dopamine. So that’s why people (me included) can spend inordinate amounts of time looking at videos of cats, puppies, gibbons, etc., on Youtube. It’s like a drug. So is cuteoverload.com the new crystal meth or crack? Not really. Maybe the new nicotine is a more appropriate comparison….
Tags: asmr, cat videos, cuteoverload, dopamine, justin bieber
Animal Rights, Conservation, Wildlife & Flora, Apr 1st, 2013,
The ongoing spat between crazy cat people and tree-hugging fanatic eco-fascists has reared its ugly head yet again. What I mean to say is that a recent article by one variety of animal-lover has rekindled a debate between conservationists and cat lovers. Back in mid March the Orlando Sentinel published an op-ed by Audubon Magazine editor “at large” Ted Williams, which put forth that feral cats should be trapped and euthanized – for reasons of conservation and human health – in place of the common practice of trapping, neutering and re-releasing them. William argues that feral cats constitute a health…
Tags: feral cats, florida wildlife, invasive species
Animal Rights, Animals, Mar 14th, 2013,
What with all the hoopla about CITES and endangered species these last couple of weeks, you may have forgotten about all the non-endangered animals that we, as humans, routinely endanger. Fear not, I’ve compiled a summary of shocking stories for your perusal. On Monday 65 tons of dead fish were found floating on top of the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil after storms brought huge amounts of rotting plant matter into Lagoon. The dead plants caused oxygen levels in the water to drop, suffocating the fish. A similar incident in 2009 killed around 100 tons of…
Tags: animal cruelty, animal hoarding, dead fish rio, Dead pigs china
Animal Rights, Animals, Weird Stuff, Mar 4th, 2013,
It’s a bit like Karl Pilkington’s Monkey News, except it’s “more truer”. Apparently – that is, according to some science people – chimpanzees have better memories than people, enjoy solving puzzles and the female ones are nastier than the male ones. First off, researchers at Kyoto University have found that chimpanzees have a stronger short-term visual memory than people do. One brainy chimp named Ayumu displays an almost photographic memory of numbers. From Voice of America: Sitting in front of a computer monitor that briefly displays the numbers one through nine in a random pattern, the chimp touches the number…
Animal Rights, Animals, Conservation, Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Aug 8th, 2012,
Across the globe it’s once again humans vs. wolves. This timeless battle has changed its face from hunters and farmers simply shooting wolves in order to protect their livestock and assuage their communities’ fears, whether real or imagined. It’s now a confusing mix of laws, politics and technology. Wiped out, endangered, protected species… it doesn’t matter. While humans can’t get enough of their domesticated off-shoots (dogs, incase you don’t catch my drift) many still hate and fear wolves. In the US, where local and national laws often collide confusingly, some wolves in some parts of the State of Washington are…
Tags: France, shepherds, Switzerland, USA, Washington State, wolves
Animal Rights, Animals, Conservation, Jul 6th, 2012,
It’s been a bad week for whales. First, a proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic was rejected at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) conference in Panama. Though there were more votes to create a sanctuary than there were against the measure, a three quarters majority is needed for it to pass. Latin American countries are in favor of creating the sanctuary due to the dual benefits of conservation and tourism. Brazil’s commissioner to the IWC, Marcos Pinta Gama, is quoted by the BBC: We believe that the sanctuary is a veryimportant initiative in order to…
Tags: ban, South Korea, whale-watching, whaling
Animal Rights, Videos & Documentaries, Mar 30th, 2012,
Back in 2010 I posted about how bad economic times in Ireland were resulting in a large amount of neglected and abandoned horses in the country. Now Spain, in the throws of economic crisis, is experiencing a similar problem. In Spain, as in Ireland, when cash was plentiful many horse-mad citizens splashed out on having their very own equine companion (or trophy as the case may be). But now that times are tough it’s old Sugar Foot who gets the boot. Curiously, sometimes it’s not old mares that are being, quite literally, put out to pasture, but expensive pure-red Andalucians….
Tags: abandoned, crisis, economic, horses, Ireland, Spain
Animal Rights, Pollution, Mar 13th, 2012,
In preparation for the eventuality of oil spills resulting from drilling in the icy Arctic region, Shell Oil might be enlisting the help of sniffer dogs as an inexpensive contingency plan. Shell plans to start drilling off the northwest coast of Alaska as early as June. Since there are as of yet no methods for detecting oil spills that are covered by ice and snow, the use of dachshunds and border collies could be the best the minds of Shell and other companies have been able to come up with. Personally, I have no idea if this is an effective…
Tags: arctic, dachshund, drilling, Greenpeace, oil, Shell, sniffer dogs, spill
Animal Rights, Animals, Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Feb 27th, 2012,
Consuming shark fin soup is a bad idea, not only because of the decreasing number of sharks, but it can also lead to a brain damage. “A new study has found high concentrations of BMAA in shark fins — a neurotoxin linked to neurodegenerative diseases in humans including Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig disease (ALS)”, informs sunnewsnetwork.ca. Patients with these diseases, tested before they died, had very high levels of BMAA – up to 256 nanograms per milligram – in their brains. Shark fins contain between 144 and 1836 ng/mg of this neurotoxin. The threat comes, not only from eating the…
Tags: Alzheimer's, brain, fin soup, killing, neurotoxins, shark
Animal Rights, Wildlife & Flora, Feb 23rd, 2012,
At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, Canada, scientists and philosophers have argued for affording whales and dolphins the same ethical considerations as humans. Now, you may ask, how good are human rights anyway? Not that great in many places of the world. But, never mind that right now, this is a question of ideology, to be enshrined in law. We’ll worry about who actually follows that law later. The idea is that, under domestic and international law, the Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans would guarantee rights for dolphins and whales…
Tags: cetaceans, dolphin, human, orca, rights, whale
Animal Rights, Animals, Green living, Science & Technology, Feb 22nd, 2012,
Student of architecture, Andre Ford, has proposed a new system of mass chicken production, in which, according to wired.co.uk, the birds will no longer have the main core of their brains. This means they won’t be able to suffer the atrocity of being packed in vertical yokes in which they are to grow to eventually end up on our plates. The project, named The Centre for Unconscious Farming, is a response to the increase in chicken meat consumption and the cruelty associated with it that is so prevalent on factory farms. Unconscious birds, in a manner resembling growing plants, will be connected…
Tags: brain, chicken, cruelty, farm, project
Animal Rights, Animals, Feb 6th, 2012,
The practice of having sex with animals is becoming an epidemic in Germany. “There are even animal brothels. The abuse seems to be increasing rapidly and the internet offers an additional distribution platform”, said Madeleine Martin, the animal protection official for Hessian state government. The law needs to be changed to make it possible to prosecute and punish these animal abusers. “It is punishable to distribute animal pornography, but the act itself is not”, Madeleine Martin told the ‘Frankfurter Rundschau’. Sex with animals was illegal until 1969 and according to animal rights activists, this kind of animal abuse is no…
Tags: animal abuse, Germany, zoophilia
Animal Rights, Animals, Jan 18th, 2012,
On the Eve of St. Antonio’s Day (16th January), dozens of riders jump on their horses and ride them over burning stakes, which are set alight on the streets of San Bartolomé de Pinares in the Spanish province of Ávila. This unusual festival, known as “Luminarias,” has been organized for over 500 years. Jumping through the fire is accompanied by the sound of bagpipes playing. The people of San Bartolomé de Pinares believe that the horses don’t feel any pain while they are galloping like this through the flames. Nevertheless, this annual festival meets with criticism from animal rights activists,…
Tags: animal abuse, festival, fire, horse, Spain
