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Tag: Animals

  • Japan sends troops to northern region to stop bear attacks after record casualties

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    TOKYO — Japan’s Defense Ministry sent troops on Wednesday to the northern prefecture of Akita to help contain a surge of bear attacks that have horrified residents in the mountainous region.

    Bears have showed up near schools, train stations, supermarkets and even a hot springs resort, with attacks by the animals reported almost daily across Japan, mostly in the north.

    Since April, more than 100 people have been injured and at least 12 killed in bear attacks across Japan, according to Environment Ministry statistics at the end of October.

    “Every day, bears intrude into residential areas in the region and their impact is expanding,” Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fumitoshi Sato told reporters. “Responses to the bear problem are an urgent matter.”

    The Defense Ministry and Akita prefecture signed an agreement on the troop dispatch on Wednesday afternoon, allowing soldiers to set box traps with food inside, transport local hunters and help with the disposal of dead bears. The soldiers will not use firearms to cull bears, officials said.

    Akita Gov. Kenta Suzuki said local authorities were getting “desperate” due to a lack of manpower amid daily reports of bear attacks.

    Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Tuesday the bear mission aims to help secure people’s daily lives, but that Self Defense Force service members’ primary mission is national defense and they cannot provide unlimited support for the bear response. The Japanese SDF is already understaffed.

    So far, the ministry has not received other requests for troop assistance over the bear issue, he said.

    In Akita prefecture, which has a population of about 880,000, bears have attacked more than 50 people since May, killing at least four, according to the local government. Experts say 70％ of the bear attacks have occurred in residential areas.

    An elderly woman who went mushroom-hunting in the forest was found dead in an apparent bear attack over the weekend in Yuzawa City in the prefecture. Another elderly woman in Akita city encountered a bear while working on a farm and was killed in late October. And a newspaper delivery man was attacked by a bear and suffered an injury in Akita city on Tuesday.

    Experts say Japan’s aging and declining population in rural areas are among the reasons for the growing bear problem in recent years.

    Abandoned neighborhoods and farmland with persimmon or chestnut trees often attract bears to residential areas. Once bears find food and acquire a taste, they keep coming back, experts say.

    Local hunters are also aging and not used to bear hunting. Experts say police and other authorities should be trained as “government hunters” to help cull the animals.

    The government set up a taskforce last week to create an official bear response by mid-November. Officials are considering bear population surveys, the use of communication devices to issue bear warnings and revisions to hunting rules. They also say experts should be trained in hunting and ecology.

    The lack of preventive measures in the depopulated and aging northern regions have also led to an increase in the populations of brown bears and Asiatic black bears, the ministry said.

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  • 2nd escaped monkey fatally shot, leaving 1 still on the loose after Mississippi crash

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    HEIDELBERG, Miss. — A second monkey has been shot and killed and authorities said Tuesday that they were still searching for a third missing monkey a week after their escape from a truck that overturned on a Mississippi highway.

    Someone shot the monkey after seeing it cross the highway on Monday evening about a mile from the scene of the Oct. 28 crash, Jasper County Sheriff Sheriff Randy Johnson said. Johnson said he was contacted by a person with the transport company who recovered the monkey after a civilian shot it.

    The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks confirmed Tuesday in a news release that one monkey was still unaccounted for after two of the escaped monkeys were “recovered deceased.” Officials have warned that people should not approach the Rhesus monkeys, saying they are known to be aggressive.

    Over the weekend, a woman who said she feared for the safety of her children shot and killed another escaped monkey after her 16-year-old son saw a monkey outside their home near Heidelberg. Jessica Bond Ferguson said she and other residents had been warned that the escaped monkeys carried diseases so she shot it.

    A truck carrying 21 monkeys overturned on Interstate 59 north of Heidelberg last week and several monkeys escaped. Video from the scene showed monkeys and wooden crates in tall grass beside the interstate. Searchers in protective equipment were seen scouring nearby fields and woods for missing primates. Five monkeys were killed during the search and three were missing initially, officials said.

    The monkeys had been housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the university. Tulane has said it wasn’t transporting the monkeys and they do not belong to the university. The remaining 13 monkeys arrived at their original destination last week, according to Tulane.

    Prefabs, which describes itself on its website as a biomedical research support organization, said in a statement Monday that a vehicle transporting its non-human primates was involved in the crash and the animals were being lawfully transported to a licensed research facility. It stressed that the monkeys weren’t carrying any known diseases, but asked the public not to approach them as they were likely frightened and disoriented.

    “We are cooperating with authorities and reviewing all safety procedures to ensure the continued well-being of both the animals and the community,” PreLabs said.

    The escape is the latest glimpse into the secretive industry of animal research and the processes that allow key details of what happened to be kept from the public.

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  • Much like a nursing home, penguins at a Boston aquarium can age with dignity

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    BOSTON — When Lambert started losing his vision and slowing down a few steps, it became clear that he needed to be relocated to a place where he could age safely and still be with his friends.

    But he couldn’t be placed in just any nursing home — because he is a critically endangered African penguin. Instead, the New England Aquarium in Boston, where the 33-year-old Lambert was born and has lived his entire life, decided in February to open a geriatric island for him and its six other aging penguins.

    “Honestly, it sort of started off as a joke. It’s like, ‘Oh, well, why don’t we give them an old folks home?’” Eric Fox, associate curator of penguins at the aquarium, said. “But the more we were looking at their welfare data and understanding what ailments they go through, what physical limitations they have, we started to realize that we were on to something.”

    The rocky island near the aquarium entrance is set apart from the rest of the 38-bird colony, ensuring the older penguins don’t have to compete for territory with their often aggressive, younger peers. These penguins, with their trademark black and white feathers, stand about 2 feet (0.6 meters) tall and weigh about as much as a large house cat.

    The enclosure has some flatter topography and a carpeted path down to the water, which allows Lambert and the other penguins to better navigate up and down the island. The aquarium has built a stand in front of the island, which makes it easier for the penguins to hop out of the water.

    As a result, Mia Luzietti, a senior penguin trainer at the aquarium, said she has seen Lambert become more active since moving to the new island — swimming more with his mate and getting off the island more often.

    The concept was inspired by a larger concern that is confronting zoos and aquariums around the world — what to do when their animals are surviving far longer than their counterparts in the wild. In the case of these African penguins, some are in their 30s and one lived into its 40s. That is twice as long as they would live in the wilds of South Africa and Namibia, due to threats like pollution and lack of food from humans’ overfishing.

    “It’s really important that, as we learned how long these animals could live, if given an optimal environment, that we evolved with that,” Luzietti said.

    “So learning on an individual level, how can we best set our animals up for success is really what led to the idea of creating our geriatric island, a place where our oldest penguins have a more comfortable, slower way of life as they live out their days here,” she added.

    Caring for the aging penguins goes far beyond a safer enclosure.

    The older birds get more checkups than their younger counterparts, and veterinarians offer them treatment for ailments that might be familiar to older humans — such as supplements and anti-inflammatory drugs for arthritis and joint pain, and eye drops for glaucoma. There are also more cameras around the island, so staff can better monitor the birds.

    “We are just keeping a little closer of an eye on some of these older birds,” Luzietti said. “It’s important that we’re picking up on those — from how someone’s hips are moving, how they’re walking, how they are acting, if someone’s squinting. The smallest change day to day can be hiding a really big secret.”

    On a recent day, Luzietti was in the geriatric enclosure tending to Lambert — who seemed content to stand at the top of the island with his mate Dyer III, preening one another and occasionally letting out a loud call that sounded like a donkey’s bray. He previously had his left eye removed due to an infection and has glaucoma in his right eye. He also suffers from chronic inflammation.

    Luzietti coaxed him down from his perch, and soon he was sitting on her lap, getting ready for his daily dose of eye drops.

    A crowd had formed around the enclosure to watch, including Terri Blessman, a 69-year-old tourist from Canton, Illinois, who was being pushed in a wheelchair by her friend Lou Ann Delost. Hearing about Lambert’s age and the care he gets, Blessman said she could relate.

    “That’s wonderful,” Blessman said. “All of us older people need extra care as we get older.”

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  • Mississippi woman kills escaped monkey fearing for her children’s safety

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    One of the monkeys that escaped last week after a truck overturned on a Mississippi roadway was shot and killed early Sunday by a woman who says she feared for the safety of her children.

    Jessica Bond Ferguson said she was alerted early Sunday by her 16-year-old son who said he thought he had seen a monkey running in the yard outside their home near Heidelberg, Mississippi. She got out bed, grabbed her firearm and her cellphone and stepped outside where she saw the monkey about 60 feet (18 meters) away.

    Bond said she and other residents had been warned about diseases that the escaped monkeys carried so she fired her gun.

    “I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond, who has five children ranging in age from 4 to 16, told The Associated Press. “I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that’s when he fell.”

    The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a social media post that a homeowner had found one of the monkeys on their property Sunday morning but said the office didn’t have any details. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks took possession of the monkey, the sheriff’s office said.

    The Rhesus monkeys had been housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the university. In a statement last week, Tulane said the monkeys do not belong to the university, and they were not being transported by the university.

    A truck carrying the monkeys overturned Tuesday on Interstate 59 north of Heidelberg. Authorities have said most of the 21 monkeys were killed. The sheriff’s department has said animal experts from Tulane examined the trailer and had determined three monkeys had escaped.

    The Mississippi Highway Patrol has said it was investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the state capital, Jackson.

    Rhesus monkeys typically weigh about 16 pounds (7.2 kilograms) and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. Video recorded after the crash showed monkeys crawling through tall grass beside the interstate, where wooden crates labeled “live animals” were crumpled and strewn about.

    Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson had said Tulane officials reported the monkeys were not infectious, despite initial reports by the truck’s occupants warning that the monkeys were dangerous and harboring various diseases. Nonetheless, Johnson said the monkeys still needed to be “neutralized” because of their aggressive nature.

    The monkeys had recently received checkups confirming they were pathogen-free, Tulane said in a statement Wednesday.

    About 10 years ago, three Rhesus macaques in the breeding colony of what was then known as the Tulane National Primate Research Center were euthanized after a “biosecurity breach,” federal inspectors wrote in a 2015 report. The breach involved at least one staff member failing to adhere to biosafety and infection control procedures, it said.

    The facility made changes in its procedures and retrained staff after that happened, according to the report from the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

    Rhesus macaques “are known to be aggressive,” according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. It said the agency’s conservation workers were working with sheriff’s officials in the search for the animals.

    The search comes about one year after 43 Rhesus macaques escaped from a South Carolina compound that breeds them for medical research because an employee didn’t fully lock an enclosure. Employees from the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, had set up traps to capture them.

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  • Mississippi woman kills escaped monkey fearing for her children’s safety

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    One of the monkeys that escaped last week after a truck overturned on a Mississippi roadway was shot and killed early Sunday by a woman who says she feared for the safety of her children.

    Jessica Bond Ferguson said she was alerted early Sunday by her 16-year-old son who said he thought he had seen a monkey running in the yard outside their home near Heidelberg, Mississippi. She got out bed, grabbed her firearm and her cellphone and stepped outside where she saw the monkey about 60 feet (18 meters) away.

    Bond said she and other residents had been warned about diseases that the escaped monkeys carried so she fired her gun.

    “I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond, who has five children ranging in age from 4 to 16, told The Associated Press. “I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that’s when he fell.”

    The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a social media post that a homeowner had found one of the monkeys on their property Sunday morning but said the office didn’t have any details. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks took possession of the monkey, the sheriff’s office said.

    The Rhesus monkeys had been housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the university. In a statement last week, Tulane said the monkeys do not belong to the university, and they were not being transported by the university.

    A truck carrying the monkeys overturned Tuesday on Interstate 59 north of Heidelberg. Authorities have said most of the 21 monkeys were killed. The sheriff’s department has said animal experts from Tulane examined the trailer and had determined three monkeys had escaped.

    The Mississippi Highway Patrol has said it was investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the state capital, Jackson.

    Rhesus monkeys typically weigh about 16 pounds (7.2 kilograms) and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. Video recorded after the crash showed monkeys crawling through tall grass beside the interstate, where wooden crates labeled “live animals” were crumpled and strewn about.

    Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson had said Tulane officials reported the monkeys were not infectious, despite initial reports by the truck’s occupants warning that the monkeys were dangerous and harboring various diseases. Nonetheless, Johnson said the monkeys still needed to be “neutralized” because of their aggressive nature.

    The monkeys had recently received checkups confirming they were pathogen-free, Tulane said in a statement Wednesday.

    About 10 years ago, three Rhesus macaques in the breeding colony of what was then known as the Tulane National Primate Research Center were euthanized after a “biosecurity breach,” federal inspectors wrote in a 2015 report. The breach involved at least one staff member failing to adhere to biosafety and infection control procedures, it said.

    The facility made changes in its procedures and retrained staff after that happened, according to the report from the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

    Rhesus macaques “are known to be aggressive,” according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. It said the agency’s conservation workers were working with sheriff’s officials in the search for the animals.

    The search comes about one year after 43 Rhesus macaques escaped from a South Carolina compound that breeds them for medical research because an employee didn’t fully lock an enclosure. Employees from the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, had set up traps to capture them.

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  • Mississippi Woman Kills Escaped Monkey Fearing for Her Children’s Safety

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    One of the monkeys that escaped last week after a truck overturned on a Mississippi roadway was shot and killed early Sunday by a woman who says she feared for the safety of her children.

    Jessica Bond Ferguson said she was alerted early Sunday by her 16-year-old son who said he thought he had seen a monkey running in the yard outside their home near Heidelberg, Mississippi. She got out bed, grabbed her firearm and her cellphone and stepped outside where she saw the monkey about 60 feet (18 meters) away.

    Bond Ferguson said she and other residents had been warned about diseases that the escaped monkeys carried so she fired her gun.

    “I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond Ferguson, who has five children ranging in age from 4 to 16, told The Associated Press. “I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that’s when he fell.”

    The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a social media post that a homeowner had found one of the monkeys on their property Sunday morning but said the office didn’t have any details. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks took possession of the monkey, the sheriff’s office said.

    The Rhesus monkeys had been housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the university. In a statement last week, Tulane said the monkeys do not belong to the university, and they were not being transported by the university.

    A truck carrying the monkeys overturned Tuesday on Interstate 59 north of Heidelberg. Authorities have said most of the 21 monkeys were killed. The sheriff’s department has said animal experts from Tulane examined the trailer and had determined three monkeys had escaped.

    The Mississippi Highway Patrol has said it was investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the state capital, Jackson.

    Rhesus monkeys typically weigh about 16 pounds (7.2 kilograms) and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. Video recorded after the crash showed monkeys crawling through tall grass beside the interstate, where wooden crates labeled “live animals” were crumpled and strewn about.

    Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson had said Tulane officials reported the monkeys were not infectious, despite initial reports by the truck’s occupants warning that the monkeys were dangerous and harboring various diseases. Nonetheless, Johnson said the monkeys still needed to be “neutralized” because of their aggressive nature.

    The monkeys had recently received checkups confirming they were pathogen-free, Tulane said in a statement Wednesday.

    About 10 years ago, three Rhesus macaques in the breeding colony of what was then known as the Tulane National Primate Research Center were euthanized after a “biosecurity breach,” federal inspectors wrote in a 2015 report. The breach involved at least one staff member failing to adhere to biosafety and infection control procedures, it said.

    The facility made changes in its procedures and retrained staff after that happened, according to the report from the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

    Rhesus macaques “are known to be aggressive,” according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. It said the agency’s conservation workers were working with sheriff’s officials in the search for the animals.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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    Associated Press

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  • Letters: San Jose animal shelter still turning deaf ear to community

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    ”]

    Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor. 

    Animal shelter still turns
    deaf ear to community

    San Jose continues to fail to improve animal shelter services to the community.

    A scathing city audit of one year ago has failed to deliver measurable results. The city still fails to provide low-cost public spay and neuter, nor is outreach to rescue groups or trap-neuter-return a priority. The San Jose animal welfare community continues to be ignored.

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  • Research monkeys got loose after a truck overturned on a highway. Their owner, destination, and exact purpose remain shrouded in mystery | Fortune

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    The recent escape of several research monkeys after the truck carrying them overturned on a Mississippi interstate is the latest glimpse into the secretive industry of animal research and the processes that allow key details of what happened to be kept from the public.

    Three monkeys have remained on the loose since the crash on Tuesday in a rural area along Interstate 59, spilling wooden crates labeled “live monkeys” into the tall grass near the highway. Since then, searchers in masks, face shields and other protective equipment have scoured nearby fields and woods for the missing primates. Five of the 21 Rhesus macaques on board were killed during the search, according to the local sheriff, but it was unclear how that happened.

    Key details remain shrouded in secrecy

    Mississippi authorities have not disclosed the company involved in transporting the monkeys, where the monkeys were headed or who owns them. While Tulane University in New Orleans has acknowledged that the monkeys had been housed at its National Biomedical Research Center in Covington, Louisiana, it said it doesn’t own them and won’t identify who does.

    An initial report from the sheriff described the monkeys as “aggressive” and carrying diseases such as herpes, adding to the confusion. Tulane later said the monkeys were free of pathogens, but it is still unclear what kind of research the monkeys were used for.

    The questions surrounding the Mississippi crash and the mystery of why the animals were traveling through the South are remarkable, animal advocates say.

    “When a truck carrying 21 monkeys crashes on a public highway, the community has a right to know who owned those animals, where they were being sent, and what diseases they may have been exposed to and harbored simply by being caught up in the primate experimentation industry,” said Lisa Jones-Engel, senior science adviser on primate experimentation with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

    “It is highly unusual — and deeply troubling — that Tulane refuses to identify its partner in this shipment,” Jones-Engel added.

    One thing that is known is that the 2025 Chevrolet Silverado pickup hauling the monkeys was driven by a 54-year-old Cascade, Maryland, man when it ran off the highway into the grassy median area, the Mississippi Highway Patrol said in a statement to The Associated Press. The driver wasn’t hurt, nor was his passenger, a 34-year-old resident of Thurmont, Maryland.

    Confidentiality is built into contracts, blocking information

    Transporting research animals typically requires legally binding contracts that prohibit the parties involved from disclosing information, Tulane University said in a statement to the AP. That’s done for the safety of the animals and to protect proprietary information, the New Orleans-based university said.

    “To the best of Tulane’s knowledge, the 13 recovered animals remain in the possession of their owner and are en route to their original destination,” the statement said.

    The crash has drawn a range of reactions — from conspiracy theories that suggest a government plot to sicken people to serious responses from people who oppose experimenting on animals.

    “How incredibly sad and wrong,” Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said of the crash.

    “I’ve never met a taxpayer that wants their hard-earned dollars paying for animal abuse nor who supports it,” the Georgia congresswoman said in a post on the social platform X. “This needs to end!”

    Tulane center has ties to more than 155 institutions worldwide

    Tulane’s Covington center has received $35 million annually in National Institutes of Health support, and its partners include nearly 500 investigators from more than 155 institutions globally, the school said in an Oct. 9 news release. The center has been funded by NIH since 1964, and federal grants have been a significant source of income for the institution, it said.

    In July, some of the research center’s 350 employees held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of a new 10,000-square-foot office building and a new laboratory at the facility. This fall, the facility’s name was changed from the Tulane National Primate Research Center to the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center to reflect its broader mission, university officials announced.

    Research monkeys have escaped before in South Carolina, Pennsylvania

    The Mississippi crash is one of at least three major monkey escapes in the U.S. over the past four years.

    Last November, 43 Rhesus macaques escaped from a South Carolina compound that breeds them for medical research after an enclosure wasn’t fully locked. Employees from the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, set up traps to capture them. However, some spent two months that winter living in the woods and weathering a rare snowstorm. By late January, the last four escapees were recaptured after being lured back into captivity by peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

    In January 2022, several cynomolgus macaque monkeys escaped when a truck towing a trailer of about 100 of the animals collided with a dump truck on a Pennsylvania highway, authorities said. The monkeys were headed to a quarantine facility in an undisclosed location after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on a flight from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation, authorities said. A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said all of the animals were accounted for within about a day, though three were euthanized for undisclosed reasons.

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    Jeff Martin, The Associated Press

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  • Vehicle collisions with wildlife spike 16% in Colorado after fall time change

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    LITTLETON – For deer,  the fall time change Sunday morning means trouble: a 16% spike in collisions with vehicles over the following week, despite years of safety campaigns and the construction of 75 special crossings along highways.

    Drivers in Colorado collided with at least 54,189 wild animals over the past 15 years, according to newly compiled Colorado Department of Transportation records. That’s far fewer than in many other states, such as Michigan, where vehicle-life collisions often number more than 50,000 in one year.

    The carnage — especially this time of year — increasingly occurs where animals face the most people along the heavily populated Front Range, beyond the mountainous western half of the state that holds much of the remaining prime habitat, state records show.

    State leaders and wildlife advocates gathered on Thursday near one of the crossings along the high-speed C-470 beltway in southwest metro Denver to launch a safety campaign.

    “We’ve made wildlife crossings a priority in our rural areas, and also increasingly in urban areas,” CDOT Director Shoshana Lew said. “We cannot put underpasses and overpasses everywhere. Particularly at this time of year, we urge everyone to be careful of wildlife.”

    Lew credited the crossings with containing collision numbers that could be much higher in Colorado, given the traffic and the prevalence of deer and other wild animals. Most of the state’s highway construction projects, such as the work on Interstate 25 north of Colorado Springs that includes a large wildlife bridge, will factor in wildlife safety needs, Lew said.

    The risk of collisions spikes this time of year due to deer and elk migrating to lower elevations, bringing more animals across highways. The end of daylight saving time also plays a role as more drivers navigate roads during the relatively low-visibility hours before and after sunset, when deer often move about.

    In Colorado, the 54,189 vehicle-animal collisions that CDOT recorded from 2010 through 2024 caused the deaths of 48 vehicle occupants and more than 5,000 injuries. The animals breakdown: 82% deer, 11% elk, 2% bears.

    Ten counties where vehicles hit the most animals during that period included five along the Front Range — Douglas, Jefferson, El Paso, Larimer, and Pueblo — with a combined total of 12,791 collisions, state records show. That compares with 11,068 in the other five counties in western Colorado — La Plata, Montezuma, Garfield, Moffat, and Chaffee.

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  • Monkey escape gives a glimpse into the secretive world of animal research

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    The recent escape of several research monkeys after the truck carrying them overturned on a Mississippi interstate is the latest glimpse into the secretive industry of animal research and the processes that allow key details of what happened to be kept from the public.

    Three monkeys have remained on the loose since the crash on Tuesday in a rural area along Interstate 59, spilling wooden crates labeled “live monkeys” into the tall grass near the highway. Since then, searchers in masks, face shields and other protective equipment have scoured nearby fields and woods for the missing primates. Five of the 21 Rhesus macaques on board were killed during the search, according to the local sheriff, but it was unclear how that happened.

    Mississippi authorities have not disclosed the driver’s name, the company involved in transporting the monkeys, where the monkeys were headed or who owns them. While Tulane University in New Orleans has acknowledged that the monkeys had been housed at its National Biomedical Research Center in Covington, Louisiana, it said it doesn’t own them and won’t identify who does.

    The questions surrounding the Mississippi crash and the mystery of why the animals were traveling through the South are remarkable, animal advocates say.

    “When a truck carrying 21 monkeys crashes on a public highway, the community has a right to know who owned those animals, where they were being sent, and what diseases they may have been exposed to and harbored simply by being caught up in the primate experimentation industry,” said Lisa Jones-Engel, senior science adviser on primate experimentation with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

    “It is highly unusual — and deeply troubling — that Tulane refuses to identify its partner in this shipment,” Jones-Engel added.

    Transporting research animals typically requires legally binding contracts that prevent the parties involved from disclosing information, Tulane University said in a statement to The Associated Press. That’s done for the safety of the animals and to protect proprietary information, the New Orleans-based university said.

    “To the best of Tulane’s knowledge, the 13 recovered animals remain in the possession of their owner and are en route to their original destination,” the statement said.

    The crash has drawn a range of reactions — from conspiracy theories that suggest a government plot to sicken people to serious responses from people who oppose experimenting on animals.

    “How incredibly sad and wrong,” Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said of the crash.

    “I’ve never met a taxpayer that wants their hard-earned dollars paying for animal abuse nor who supports it,” the Georgia congresswoman said in a post on the social platform X. “This needs to end!”

    Tulane’s Covington center receives $35 million annually in National Institutes of Health support, and its partners include nearly 500 investigators from more than 155 institutions globally, the school said in an Oct. 9 news release. The center has been funded by NIH since 1964, and federal grants are a significant source of income for the institution, it said.

    In July, some of the research center’s 350 employees held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of a new 10,000-square-foot office building and a new laboratory at the facility. This fall, the facility’s name was changed from the Tulane National Primate Research Center to the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center to reflect its broader mission, university officials announced.

    The Mississippi crash is one of at least three major monkey escapes in the U.S. over the past four years.

    Last November, 43 Rhesus macaques escaped from a South Carolina compound that breeds them for medical research after an enclosure wasn’t fully locked. Employees from the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, set up traps to capture them. However, some spent two months that winter living in the woods and weathering a rare snowstorm. By late January, the last four escapees were recaptured after being lured back into captivity by peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

    In January 2022, several cynomolgus macaque monkeys escaped when a truck towing a trailer of about 100 of the animals collided with a dump truck on a Pennsylvania highway, authorities said. The monkeys were headed to a quarantine facility in an undisclosed location after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on a flight from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation, authorities said. A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said all of the animals were accounted for within about a day, though three were euthanized for undisclosed reasons.

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  • Black vultures attack, kill cattle. Climate change one reason they’re spreading north

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    EMINENCE, Ky. — Allan Bryant scans the sky as he watches over a minutes-old calf huddled under a tree line with its mother. After a few failed tries, the calf stands on wobbly legs for the first time, looking to nurse.

    Above, a pair of birds circle in the distance. Bryant, hoping they’re not black vultures, is relieved to see they’re only turkey vultures — red-headed and not aggressive.

    “Honestly, the black vulture is one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen,” he said. “They’re easy to hate.”

    Black vultures, scavengers that sometimes attack and kill sick or newborn animals, didn’t used to be a problem here. But now Bryant frequently sees the birds following a birth. He hasn’t lost a calf in several years, but they’ve killed his animals before. So now he takes measures to stop them.

    In some of his fields, he erects a scarecrow of sorts — a dead black vulture — aimed at scaring off the birds. It’s a requirement of his depredation permit through the Kentucky Farm Bureau, which allows him to shoot a few birds a year. The dead bird keeps the live birds away for about a week, but they eventually come back, he said.

    It’s a problem that may grow worse for cattle farmers as the scavenging birds’ range expands northward, in part due to climate change. Lobbying groups have been pushing for legislation that would allow landowners to kill more of these birds, which are protected but not endangered. But experts say more research is needed to better understand how the birds impact livestock and how their removal could affect ecosystems.

    Black vultures used to mainly live in the southeastern U.S. and farther south in Latin and South America, but over the past century they’ve started to rapidly stretch northward and also west into the desert Southwest, said Andrew Farnsworth, a visiting scientist at Cornell Lab of Ornithology who studies bird migration.

    Warmer winters on average, fueled by climate change, are making it easier for the birds to stay in places that used to be too cold for them. What’s more, the human footprint in suburban and rural areas is enriching their habitat: development means cars, and cars mean roadkill. Cattle farms can also offer a buffet of vulnerable animals for vultures that learn the seasonal calving schedule.

    “If there’s one thing we’ve learned from a lot of different studies of birds, it’s that they are very good at taking advantage of food resources and remembering where those things are,” Farnsworth said.

    Although black vultures are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, they aren’t really a migratory species, he said. Instead, they breed, and some disperse to new areas and settle there.

    After losing a calf to a black vulture a decade ago, Tom Karr, who raises cattle near Pomeroy, Ohio, tried to move his fall calving season later in the year in hopes the vultures would be gone by then. But that didn’t help — the birds stay all year, he said.

    Until newborn calves are a few days old, “we try to keep them up closer to the barns,” said Joanie Grimes, the owner of a 350-head calf-cow operation in Hillsboro, Ohio. She said they’ve been dealing with the birds for 15 years, but keeping them out of remote fields has helped improve matters.

    Annette Ericksen has noticed the black vultures for several years on her property, Twin Maples Farm in Milton, West Virginia, but they haven’t yet lost any animals to them. When they expect calves and lambs, they move the livestock into a barn, and they also use dogs — Great Pyrenees — trained to patrol the fields and the barnyard for raptors that might hurt the animals.

    The size of their operation makes it easier to account for every animal, but “any loss would be severely detrimental to our small business,” she wrote in an email.

    Local cattlemen’s associations and state farm bureaus often work together to help producers get depredation permits, which allow them to shoot a few birds each year, as long as they keep track of it on paper.

    “The difficulty with that is, if the birds show up, by the time you can get your permit, get all that taken care of, the damage is done,” said Brian Shuter, executive vice president of the Indiana Beef Cattle Association. Farmers said calves can be worth hundreds of dollars or upward of $1,000 or $2,000, depending on the breed.

    In March, lawmakers in Congress introduced a bill that would let farmers capture or kill any black vulture “in order to prevent death, injury, or destruction to livestock.” Many farmers and others in the cattle industry have supported the move, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in July commended the House Natural Resources Committee for advancing the bill.

    Farnsworth, of the Cornell lab, said it’s not necessarily a good thing to make it easier to kill black vultures, which he said fill “a super important role” in cleaning up “dead stuff.”

    Simply killing the birds, Farnsworth said, may make room for more bothersome predators or scavengers. He said though black vultures can leave behind gory damage, current research doesn’t show that they account for an outsize proportion of livestock deaths.

    But many farmers are unwilling to do nothing.

    “They just basically eat them alive,” Karr said. “It is so disgusting.”

    ___

    Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social. Follow Joshua A. Bickel on Instagram, Bluesky and X @joshuabickel.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Black Vultures Attack and Kill Cattle. Climate Change Is One Reason They’re Spreading North

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    EMINENCE, Ky. (AP) — Allan Bryant scans the sky as he watches over a minutes-old calf huddled under a tree line with its mother. After a few failed tries, the calf stands on wobbly legs for the first time, looking to nurse.

    Above, a pair of birds circle in the distance. Bryant, hoping they’re not black vultures, is relieved to see they’re only turkey vultures — red-headed and not aggressive.

    “Honestly, the black vulture is one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen,” he said. “They’re easy to hate.”

    Black vultures, scavengers that sometimes attack and kill sick or newborn animals, didn’t used to be a problem here. But now Bryant frequently sees the birds following a birth. He hasn’t lost a calf in several years, but they’ve killed his animals before. So now he takes measures to stop them.

    In some of his fields, he erects a scarecrow of sorts — a dead black vulture — aimed at scaring off the birds. It’s a requirement of his depredation permit through the Kentucky Farm Bureau, which allows him to shoot a few birds a year. The dead bird keeps the live birds away for about a week, but they eventually come back, he said.

    It’s a problem that may grow worse for cattle farmers as the scavenging birds’ range expands northward, in part due to climate change. Lobbying groups have been pushing for legislation that would allow landowners to kill more of these birds, which are protected but not endangered. But experts say more research is needed to better understand how the birds impact livestock and how their removal could affect ecosystems.


    Warmer winters and changing habitats expanding birds’ range

    Black vultures used to mainly live in the southeastern U.S. and farther south in Latin and South America, but over the past century they’ve started to rapidly stretch northward and also west into the desert Southwest, said Andrew Farnsworth, a visiting scientist at Cornell Lab of Ornithology who studies bird migration.

    Warmer winters on average, fueled by climate change, are making it easier for the birds to stay in places that used to be too cold for them. What’s more, the human footprint in suburban and rural areas is enriching their habitat: development means cars, and cars mean roadkill. Cattle farms can also offer a buffet of vulnerable animals for vultures that learn the seasonal calving schedule.

    “If there’s one thing we’ve learned from a lot of different studies of birds, it’s that they are very good at taking advantage of food resources and remembering where those things are,” Farnsworth said.

    Although black vultures are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, they aren’t really a migratory species, he said. Instead, they breed, and some disperse to new areas and settle there.


    How farmers have been dealing with it

    After losing a calf to a black vulture a decade ago, Tom Karr, who raises cattle near Pomeroy, Ohio, tried to move his fall calving season later in the year in hopes the vultures would be gone by then. But that didn’t help — the birds stay all year, he said.

    Until newborn calves are a few days old, “we try to keep them up closer to the barns,” said Joanie Grimes, the owner of a 350-head calf-cow operation in Hillsboro, Ohio. She said they’ve been dealing with the birds for 15 years, but keeping them out of remote fields has helped improve matters.

    Annette Ericksen has noticed the black vultures for several years on her property, Twin Maples Farm in Milton, West Virginia, but they haven’t yet lost any animals to them. When they expect calves and lambs, they move the livestock into a barn, and they also use dogs — Great Pyrenees — trained to patrol the fields and the barnyard for raptors that might hurt the animals.

    The size of their operation makes it easier to account for every animal, but “any loss would be severely detrimental to our small business,” she wrote in an email.

    Local cattlemen’s associations and state farm bureaus often work together to help producers get depredation permits, which allow them to shoot a few birds each year, as long as they keep track of it on paper.

    “The difficulty with that is, if the birds show up, by the time you can get your permit, get all that taken care of, the damage is done,” said Brian Shuter, executive vice president of the Indiana Beef Cattle Association. Farmers said calves can be worth hundreds of dollars or upward of $1,000 or $2,000, depending on the breed.


    A new bill would let farmers shoot the protected birds with less paperwork

    In March, lawmakers in Congress introduced a bill that would let farmers capture or kill any black vulture “in order to prevent death, injury, or destruction to livestock.” Many farmers and others in the cattle industry have supported the move, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in July commended the House Natural Resources Committee for advancing the bill.

    Farnsworth, of the Cornell lab, said it’s not necessarily a good thing to make it easier to kill black vultures, which he said fill “a super important role” in cleaning up “dead stuff.”

    Simply killing the birds, Farnsworth said, may make room for more bothersome predators or scavengers. He said though black vultures can leave behind gory damage, current research doesn’t show that they account for an outsize proportion of livestock deaths.

    But many farmers are unwilling to do nothing.

    “They just basically eat them alive,” Karr said. “It is so disgusting.”

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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  • Lobster population falls off New England, leading regulators to declare overfishing

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    PORTLAND, Maine — A new report says America’s lobsters, which have been in decline since 2018, are now being overfished off New England.

    The stock has declined by 34% since that year in its most important fishing grounds, the regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission said Thursday. The commission said it now considers overfishing of the species to be occurring, and that could bring new management measures that restrict fishermen from catching them in the future.

    Lobsters are among America’s most lucrative seafood species, and they were worth more than $700 million at the docks last year. The industry caught record high numbers of the crustaceans in the 2010s.

    But the lobster population has shown “rapid declines in abundance in recent years,” the commission said in a statement.

    The assessment said the decline and overfishing were taking place in fishing areas off Maine and Massachusetts where most lobster fishing takes place. The assessment also considered the southern New England lobster stock, which it said has been depleted for years and remains so.

    Regulators have attempted to enforce new rules on lobster fishermen to try to stem the decline in recent years, but they have been met with resistance. They had planned to increase the minimal harvest size for lobsters in key fishing grounds this summer. That would have required fishermen to throw back lobsters that previously could have been sold.

    The commission backed off the rules earlier this year after months of protest from lobster fishermen who found the new rules unnecessary and threatening to their livelihoods. Fishermen in the industry are also contending with challenges from potential new rules to protect rare whales, warming oceans and volatile trade markets.

    “Even as the resource adjusts from record highs, lobstermen remain deeply committed to stewardship, sustainable practices, and to protecting the fishery that sustains thousands of Maine families,” said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

    The American lobster fishery is based mostly in Maine. Carl Wilson, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said the state “will continue to engage industry in discussions about the stock assessment and the future of the fishery” and he is “confident in the commitment of this industry to conservation of this resource.”

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  • Years After Argentina Shut a Notorious Zoo, the Stranded Animals Are Finally Being Rescued

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    LUJAN, Argentina (AP) — Lions, tigers and bears that managed to survive in substandard conditions at a now-shuttered zoo on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, paced weakly in their claustrophobic cages on Thursday, waiting their turn to receive urgent veterinary care for the first time in years.

    The 62 big cats and two brown bears were being evaluated and treated before their eventual transfer to vast wildlife sanctuaries abroad — one of the largest and most challenging yet after a recent arrangement between Argentina and an international animal welfare organization.

    Argentine authorities in 2020 shut down the Lujan Zoo — famous for letting visitors handle and pose for pictures with tigers and lions — over mounting safety concerns.

    But the plight of the captive cats there only worsened. For the past five years, the animals were sustained by little more than a few loyal zookeepers who, despite having lost their jobs at Lujan, took it upon themselves to feed and care for the stranded lions and tigers left behind.

    When Four Paws, an international animal welfare organization, first visited the zoo in 2023, caretakers counted 112 lions and tigers — already down from the more than 200 big cats believed to have been housed in the zoo at the time of its closure.

    Two years on, almost half of the animals have succumbed to illnesses from poor nutrition, wounds from fights with animals they’d never encounter in the wild, infections from lack of medical attention and organ failure from the stress of living in such cramped conditions.

    “It was really shocking,” said the organization’s chief program officer, Luciana D’Abramo, pointing to a 3-meter by 3-meter cage crammed with seven female lions. “Overcrowded is an understatement.”

    Next-door, two Asian tigers shared a tiny cage with two African lions — a “social composition that would never be found in nature,” D’Abramo said. “There’s a lot of hostility, fighting.”

    A single lion typically gets 10,000 square meters to itself at Four Paws’ sanctuaries around the world.

    After striking an agreement with Argentina’s government earlier this year, Four Paws took over responsibility for the surviving wild animals in Lujan last month.

    The memorandum of understanding involved Argentina committing to end the sale and private ownership of exotic felines in the large South American country, where enforcement efforts often run aground across 23 provinces that have their own rules and regulations.

    “Here, the number of animals and the conditions where they are kept make this a much bigger challenge,” said Dr. Amir Khalil, the veterinarian leading the group’s emergency mission. “This is one of our biggest missions … not only in Argentina or Latin America, but worldwide.”

    On Thursday, veterinarians and experts from the organization were scrambling around the derelict zoo to assess the animals one by one. Most had not been vaccinated, sterilized or microchipped for identification.

    The team whisked sedated lions and tigers onto operating tables, dispensing nutrients, antibiotics and doses of pain medication via IV drips.

    The quick checkups frequently transformed into emergency surgeries. One tiger was treated for a bleeding gash in its tail last week, another for a vaginal tumor on Thursday. Several tigers and lions needed root canals to repair infected molars that had been broken on the steel cage bars.

    Others received treatment for claws that had grown inward from walking too much on unnatural, plank flooring in the spartan enclosures.

    After evaluating each animal in the coming weeks, Four Paws will arrange for their transfer to more expansive, natural homes around the world.

    Some Argentine zookeepers who spent decades feeding and caring for the big cats say they’re happy to see Four Paws improving the conditions. But there was also a sense of nostalgia for how things were.

    “It used to be a very popular place … I’ve seen people cry because they could touch a lion or feed a tiger with a bottle,” said Alberto Díaz, who spent 27 years working with the wild cats at the Lujan Zoo, overseeing hands-on experiences that catered to countless tourists.

    “Time changes, laws change, and you have to adapt or get left behind.”

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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  • 3 monkeys still on the loose after truck overturns on Mississippi highway

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    HEIDELBERG, Miss. — Three monkeys were still on the loose Wednesday in Mississippi after a truck carrying the research animals overturned.

    Officials said midday Tuesday that all but one of the escaped Rhesus monkeys had been killed, but Jasper County Sheriff’s Department later said officials from Tulane University, which had been housing the monkeys, got into the trailer Tuesday evening and determined that three monkeys had escaped.

    Contrary to initial reports from the occupants of the transport truck, who warned that the monkeys were dangerous and infected with various diseases, Tulane officials said the monkeys were not infectious, Sheriff Randy Johnson said in a news release. The monkeys still needed to be “neutralized” because of their aggressive nature, Johnson said.

    The truck was carrying Rhesus monkeys, which typically weigh about 16 pounds (8 kilograms) and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. It isn’t clear how many monkeys were on the truck, who owned them, who was transporting them, or where they were being taken and for what purpose.

    The monkeys were being housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the New Orleans school. In a statement, Tulane said the university doesn’t own the monkeys and wasn’t transporting them.

    Video shows monkeys crawling through tall grass on the side of Interstate 59 just north of Heidelberg, Mississippi, with wooden crates labeled “live animals” crumpled and strewn about.

    University officials will be in the area looking for the missing monkeys, the sheriff said. All other monkeys were being transported back to a facility in Louisiana.

    If anyone sees monkeys, they should call the authorities and shouldn’t approach the animals, the sheriff’s office warned.

    The crash happened about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the state capital, Jackson. It isn’t clear what caused the truck to overturn.

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  • A San Francisco dog kisses rescuers after it’s plucked from the side of a cliff

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    A pet dog fell off an oceanside bluff in San Francisco and spent more than 20 minutes clinging to a narrow ledge until firefighters came to its rescue, officials said.

    The brown and white dog was playing with another pooch on Tuesday at Fort Funston, a coastal park with steep bluffs that can drop up to 200 feet (61 meters) to the beach below. The dog, which was not familiar with the area, slipped on some vegetation, lost its traction and fell over the cliff, said Rescue Captain Samuel Menchaca of the San Francisco Fire Department.

    Firefighters sent a team to retrieve the canine, which had found temporary refuge on a ledge about 40 feet (12 meters) below the top of the cliff. A San Francisco police drone operator who happened to be in the area heard the emergency call go out and captured an aerial view of the dog’s location, which he relayed to firefighters.

    Once they knew where to find the animal, one rescuer rappelled down the sandy cliff face, attached a harness to the 40-pound (18-kilogram) dog and held it as they were pulled up together.

    “He was happy. He knew he got rescued. He was wagging his tail. He was giving everyone kisses,” Menchaca said.

    Rescuers reunited the dog with its owner.

    Menchaca urged people to stay on marked paths, keep their dogs on leashes and their small children close.

    “You may think that it’s a little berm or a hill, but it is a significant drop,” he said.

    Firefighters unfortunately have to rescue people a lot in this area, Menchaca said. They train for it, and will always be there, but they don’t want people to get hurt, he said.

    “One of the best ways to not get hurt on these cliffs and our beautiful seaside parts of San Francisco is to stay on the marked paths,” he said.

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  • Red-tailed hawk joins rodentcide hearing, rally

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    BOSTON — The red-tailed hawk from the New England Wildlife Center known as Falco returned to Beacon Hill on Monday as animal rights advocates promoted legislation to curtail the use of rodenticides that can be harmful across the food chain.

    Falco clung onto the gloved hand of Zak Mertz, the center’s CEO, at the State House steps while surrounded by supporters who wore owl ear headbands and held posters that read, “Rat poison is raptor poison,” “Don’t poison our food” and “Say no to rat poison!!!”


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    By Alison Kuznitz | State House News Service

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  • Hearts break as dog “minding his own business” at park, then it all changes

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    A video showing a pup peacefully sitting among the chaos at a dog park has taken a heartbreaking turn—and internet viewers can’t handle it.

    Racking up more than 2.8 million views since it was posted on October 27 by @brettybuckets, the viral TikTok clip shows a brown poodle lying calmly on AstroTurf while other dogs race around. Moments later, disaster strikes. Another canine bolts past, snatching the poodle’s tennis ball in the process. The text layered over the video explains: “This dog was minding his own business and then got trampled and his tennis ball snatched.”

    Captioned “You can see the panic set in when the ball goes missing,” the video has earned more than 430,000 likes at the time of writing.

    Loading tiktok content…

    As the clip continues, the bewildered dog gets up and starts sniffing around, searching for his beloved ball—a moment that has tugged on the internet’s heartstrings.

    “I’m too sensitive for this,” one user wrote, while another commented, “The way he looked for it. My heart can’t take it,” earning 14,000 likes.

    “The way I’d have to stop all the other dogs and find that missing ball,” said a third viewer, and a fourth posted, “I’m literally bawling my eyes out [right now] GET HIM A NEW BALL.”

    “I feel bad for him. He is an introvert and was relaxing and now he lost his ball,” added another commenter.

    While the video has made people laugh and cry in equal measure, it also highlights a serious issue for dog owners: tennis balls aren’t always the safest toy.

    Are Tennis Balls Safe for Dogs?

    According to the American Kennel Club (AKC), while tennis balls can bring joy to many canines, they can also pose health risks if not used properly such as:

    • Choking Hazards: Dogs with strong jaws can easily split tennis balls in half, creating a serious choking risk if a piece becomes lodged in their throat. Ingesting the fuzzy material that covers the ball can also cause choking or intestinal blockages, sometimes requiring surgery.
    • Dental Damage: The outer fuzz of a tennis ball, though it appears soft, is abrasive and collects dirt and sand. This combination acts like sandpaper on a dog’s teeth, wearing them down over time—a process known as “blunting.” This can lead to dental problems such as exposed tooth pulp and difficulty chewing.

    Tennis Ball Safe-Play Recommendations

    To minimize these risks, dogs should have tennis balls only during supervised play. Owners should ensure their canines can obey commands like “drop it” to retrieve the ball safely if needed. Games of “keep away” should also be avoided to maintain control and prevent accidents.

    Even though one unlucky poodle lost his prized toy, his viral moment serves as both an adorable and important reminder for dog owners everywhere: sometimes, playtime comes with a few hidden risks.

    Newsweek reached out to @brettybuckets for comment via TikTok. We could not verify the details of the case.

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  • Yearning for the Great Outdoors Thanks to These Bushcraft Pics

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    With Autumn in full effect, we’re craving the great outdoors more than ever. Sitting around a campfire when there’s a bit of a chill in the air? Sign me up yesterday!

    So we’ve compiled another batch of bushcraft photos. From knives to lean-tos, bonfires to hatchets. We’ve got everything you need for a successful trip out in the wild.

    Enjoy!

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    Zach

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  • Don’t Let the Fuzzy Rats Win: Tips from a Squirrel Hater Who’s Seen It All

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    Squirrels: Are they just rats with better PR? Be advised that this is not safe reading material for squirrel lovers, or even squirrel apologists. In my opinion, squirrels are worse than rats—smarter, more devious, more destructive. I’ve had them nest in my chimney, chew holes in my eaves to get into my walls, and destroy multiple bird feeders. I even had one chew through an entire 4-by-2 pergola rafter to get at a suet block.

    With the popularity of smart bird feeders, it’s even more important to learn ways to keep them out of your yard, lest they turn your investment into a pile of chewed-up plastic bits. To make matters worse, if you live on the West Coast like I do, you’re likely to be dealing with the Eastern gray squirrel, which is a nonnative, invasive species that competes for resources with native species like Western gray squirrels. What’s a backyard bird enthusiast to do?

    Lucky for you, I’ve been feeding birds for almost 25 years across three different states, and have been testing smart feeders for the past year, fighting near-daily battles with these furry neighborhood foes. I’ve tried it all and found out what works—and what doesn’t—so you can keep your sanity intact.

    For more birdy business, check out our guides to the Best Smart Bird Feeders, the Best Binoculars, and the Best Gifts for Bird Lovers.

    The Golden (5-7-9) Rule

    Photograph: Kat Merck

    OnlyFly

    Bird Feeder Pole Stand

    First off, there is a tried-and-true method of foiling squirrels, and it’s both free and harmless. Experts refer to it as the 5-7-9 Rule: Keep your feeder at least 5 feet off the ground, 7 feet away from structures like houses, trees, or fences; and 9 feet away from anything overhead that they could jump from, such as a tree branch or roof. This usually means putting your feeder on a pole with a baffle (I use the set above), or hanging it from a tall shepherd’s hook.

    If you’re in the market for a bird feeder, especially a smart feeder, it’s imperative that it have the option to hang or be pole-mounted, because if you can only mount it on a fence or a tree, you’re essentially rolling out the welcome mat for squirrels. (All the smart feeders I recommend, including Birdfy and Bird Buddy, include pole mounts.) If you want to go the extra mile, you can also grease your pole with Crisco, which doesn’t last long but is good for an entertaining day or two.

    Note that if your smart feeder doesn’t have an attached solar panel to charge the battery, you likely won’t be able to mount it on the pole with the feeder without some jury-rigging, so I recommend going for a model with a built-in solar roof or no solar panel at all.

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    Kat Merck

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