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Tag: Animals

  • Your Cat Probably Isn’t Drinking Enough Water. A Fountain Can Help.

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    Compare Our Picks

    Others We Tested

    Courtesy of Petkik

    Petkit Eversweet Max for $90: This techy automatic fountain can be either cordless or battery-powered (lasting up to 83 days), and the drinking bowl is made of stainless steel, but the reservoir is plastic. Because of the shape of the basin with the chunky battery and reservoir bowl, it’s a little awkward to clean. The app logs every time a pet drinks and compares it over time to determine whether your cat’s drinking habits have changed. The app also keeps track of when the filter needs replacing and when you last added water. However, it doesn’t monitor or show you how much water is left in the basin; you have to check manually. The design also made it a bit difficult to clean and refill easily.

    Enabot Rola Smart Pet Water Fountain for $50: This automatic fountain is cordless and runs on a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 60 days (although it can stay plugged in too). It has a wireless pump that uses magnetic induction—this pump was one of the easiest and most hassle-free to clean of all I tested. The fountain has a stainless steel top that holds a decent amount of water even when not running. Although the tank is plastic, and I’m wary of plastic now because of its propensity to harbor bacteria (plus it doesn’t keep water as cold). The app gives reminders of when the water’s low, the fountain needs cleaning, or the filter needs replacing, plus it automatically stops dispensing water and sends you a reminder to refill via app. It also logs the number of times your pet drank and for how long, monitoring hydration patterns over time and comparing the stats to average time used. A complaint I had is that this fountain wouldn’t stay on Continuous stream mode, even when plugged in, instead automatically switching to the Sensing stream.

    Homerunpet Wireless Pet Fountain for $60: This cordless fountain can be used as a traditional fountain plugged in on its base, or can be detached and moved around the house with 30 days of battery life. I don’t love that this fountain is all plastic, but it’s easy to see water levels from the outside, the top and filter layers are super easy to remove, clean, and replace, and the wireless (basically silent) pump makes it a whole lot easier to clean. Plastic doesn’t keep the water as cold or clean as stainless steel, so you’ll have to clean it a lot more often. The fountain only begins bubbling when a cat (or human) approaches to save battery power, and there’s no option to control the flow (and no connected app). I like the wireless pump, but I’m really over plastic at this point.

    Wonder Creature Cat Fountain a cyclindrical shaped device with a metal pan top that has a flower which water pours from...

    Photograph: Kat Merck

    Wonder Creature Cat Fountain for $20: My two cats have cycled through several water fountains over the past few years, but this no-nonsense version has been a stalwart. The inside is lit by a blue LED (bright enough to glow in the dark), and a clear viewing window on the side makes it easy to monitor the water level from afar. I also like the dishwasher-safe metal bowl and the fact you can remove parts of the yellow and white “flower” to create a fountain configuration your cat likes (waterfall, low bubble-up, tall bubble-up). The only major downsides are the fact it requires very frequent cleaning and filter changes due to the plastic body, and that there is no reservoir to hold water in case of power outage or pump malfunction. When I go on vacation I have to swap it out for an old-school gravity dispenser. —Kat Merck

    Happy & Polly Gothic Cat Drinking Fountain for $60: If you prefer gothic decor to neutral blandness, this ghostly ceramic cat fountain from Happy & Polly may tempt you to bite. The water bubbles up out of the top of the ghost and pools on the ceramic top. It’s fairly quiet at around 35 decibels, but it gets loud when the water is running low, and I worry about the motor burning out, as the 1.5-liter capacity can run dry fast. While the ceramic finish is easy to clean, it is fiddly to take apart. You will want to clean it once a week to prevent it from becoming slimy, and you must change the filter once a month. —Simon Hill

    Petkit Eversweet Solo 2 for $45: I love three key features of this fountain: The bowl sits on top of a wireless charging base, so you don’t have to fiddle with cables, it is super easy to clean, and it’s very quiet at around 25 decibels. A flashing light warns you when the water is running low, and you can check when the filter needs to be changed in the app. There’s an optional smart mode that pumps intermittently and a night mode to turn the light off. Pleasingly, all three of our cats drink from this fountain, though that does mean I have to refill it often, as it only holds 2 liters. —Simon Hill

    Oneisall Stainless Steel Pet Fountain a metallic bowl with circular pan on top where water flows onto from a curved spout

    Photograph: Simon Hill

    Oneisall Stainless Steel Pet Fountain for $50: This drinking fountain is about as simple as they come. As it’s designed for cats or small dogs, it has a large bowl, but some cats will prefer that. I love the mostly stainless steel construction, as it’s easy to keep clean and less prone to dirt and bacteria buildup. You can even stick parts into the dishwasher to clean. This fountain can also hold up to 7 liters of water, so you don’t have to refill as often. It’s fairly quiet at around 35 decibels, but it gets louder when the water is running low (a red light warns you when it needs a refill). You should clean once a week and rinse the filter. The filter packs are relatively affordable at $15 for a pack of eight, and you need to swap them once a month. —Simon Hill

    Petlipo Cordless Cat Water Fountain for $57: This all-plastic pet fountain sits on dock for easier tank cleaning and is rechargeable for up to 60 days of cordless power, has a wire-free pump, a large 2.6 liter capacity, and three customizable water flow modes (induction, timer, and continuous flow). The heavy duty filter is encased in a plastic cage and only needs to be replaced every 4 to 5 weeks. I had no issues while using this fountain, but at nearly $60, thats egregiously expensive for being made out of cheap (and bacteria-harboring) plastic. Although it’s a solid fountain, I’d spend less and grab one of stainless steel picks.

    Not Recommended

    9 Best Cat Water Fountains WIRED Tested and Reviewed

    Photograph: Molly Higgins

    Petcube Ceramic Pet Water Fountain for $90: I really wanted to love this fountain; although its basin is plastic, it had a ceramic top, which is more hygienic than plastic (and I had never tested a ceramic model before), and the brand makes some of my favorite pet cameras. However, setup was a bit confusing, it took a long time to get the base charged to power the fountain’s water flow, and the sensor to begin water flow is only triggered from one side, making placement awkward. After a few days, it would only run while plugged in, soon its stream was barely strong enough to reach the top, and after just over a week it stopped working altogether. Also, it’s egregiously expensive for a pet fountain.

    Cat Mate a 3level water fountain for pets with two levels for water to cascade down leading into a rectangular reservoir...

    Photograph: Molly Higgins

    Cat Mate 3-Level Pet Fountain for $28: This tall automatic Cat Mate fountain sets itself apart with three tiers for cats who like to drink at every level. Cleaning the motor requires disassembly using tools and extended soaking. Because of the long distance the water has to travel, evaporation caused the water to need to be refilled about every other day. Plastic also harbors bacteria, and previous plastic models I’ve owned have had mold issues. The basin is quite large and sits flat. Because of this, some debris would sit in the bottom and front of the large basin rather than moving back to the filter system behind. The plastic material and lack of ergonomic gravity design caused this fountain to be dirtier than others.

    Whisker City Free Fall Cat Fountain for $30: This huge fountain is better suited for dogs—with a large 150-fluid-ounce bowl and a waterfall design. Although the basin has a small splash pad to help offset the waterfall noise, this was one of the loudest fountains I tested. The evaporation from the waterfall-like system also caused me to refill it every other day. Because of the structure of the fountain, my cats had to bend their head at an awkward angle. They tended to avoid drinking from the basin because of that, and their heads got slightly wet from the splatter of the waterfall. The basin is also not angled so crumbs and debris sit at the bottom of the bowl.

    Petkit EverSweet Solo SE for $26: This very simple, straightforward fountain has a square-shaped body, is translucent to easily see water levels from he outside, and has a nearly silent 25-decibel cordless pump to circulate water from the basin to the top level, where 60 milliliters of water is always available for drinking, even in case of power failure. The basin sits on a base and all parts easily detach, making it easier to clean. This fountain doesn’t have multiple modes or an associated app—you’ll have to check water levels manually. I noticed this fountain wasn’t as cold as some of the others, and because of the design of the top, debris often pooled in the dipped areas, which made me clean it often.

    I used each of these for a week as my cats’ main source of water. As mentioned, I noted the ease of setting up, evaluated parts and filters, and generally compared the various types of water fountains—spigot, bubbling, or waterfall. Some flows were continuous and some were intermittent (my cats didn’t prefer intermittent). Cats may also be intrigued and want to play with the machine rather than drink, so be sure to give them time and keep another water source around until they are fully adjusted to the new gadget.

    Cats sometimes struggle to consume enough water, which can lead to potentially lethal UTIs and blockages in male cats especially. This is one of the reasons vets are moving more toward encouraging owners to give their cat at least a partially wet food diet, as this helps them consume more moisture, especially since cats don’t naturally consume as much water as dogs. Unlike dogs, cats are generally quite particular in their likes and dislikes, and cats can see stagnant water as potentially harmful. (If the cat was in the wild, stagnant water has more potential for harmful bacteria). Cats are more drawn to moving water in nature, and these fountains help encourage them to drink more by emulating what they’re naturally drawn to.

    While automatic water fountains are better for your cats’ overall water consumption, they do require a bit more work and money. Rather than refilling a bowl, these take a little more elbow grease—but it’s worth it for your cat’s health. Along with routine refilling and cleaning, you’ll need to disassemble the fountain to clean all parts, including using a brush for the bowl and tubes. You may also have to disassemble the motor to deep-clean because of mineral buildup. These also have different types of filtration cartridges in specific shapes for the brand’s fountains, which require you to buy and change out filters, usually monthly but sometimes more often.

    Let’s be honest, a lot of these fountains are pretty much the same. I looked especially for the overall design—I am a fiend for stainless steel because of the potential of porous plastic harboring harmful bacteria. I also favor a wide reservoir without high sides to help reduce the chance for whisker fatigue. I prefer fountains that have a small basin reservoir of water available at all times, in case of low water levels or power failure. I took into account ease of setting up, refilling, and cleaning, as well as overall design. And of course, there were some that my cats took to straight away, and some they didn’t seem to favor as much.

    After prolonged testing, I now look for these three things and encourage you too as well: a cordless pump for easier (and safer) cleaning, constructed from stainless steel so it’s more hygienic, and a window to monitor water levels (especially if it’s not connected to an app).

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    Molly Higgins

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  • Republicans Try to Weaken 50-Year-Old Law Protecting Whales, Seals and Polar Bears

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    BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine (AP) — Republican lawmakers are targeting one of the U.S.’s longest standing pieces of environmental legislation, credited with helping save rare whales from extinction.

    Conservative leaders feel they now have the political will to remove key pieces of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, enacted in 1972 to protect whales, seals, polar bears and other sea animals. The law also places restrictions on commercial fishermen, shippers and other marine industries.

    A GOP-led bill in the works has support from fishermen in Maine who say the law makes lobster fishing more difficult, lobbyists for big-money species such as tuna in Hawaii and crab in Alaska, and marine manufacturers who see the law as antiquated.

    Conservation groups adamantly oppose the changes and say weakening the law will erase years of hard-won gains for jeopardized species such as the vanishing North Atlantic right whale, of which there are less than 400, and is vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear.

    Here’s what to know about the protection act and the proposed changes.


    Why does the 1970s law still matter

    “The Marine Mammal Protection Act is important because it’s one of our bedrock laws that help us to base conservation measures on the best available science,” said Kathleen Collins, senior marine campaign manager with International Fund for Animal Welfare. “Species on the brink of extinction have been brought back.”

    It was enacted the year before the Endangered Species Act, at a time when the movement to save whales from extinction was growing. Scientist Roger Payne had discovered that whales could sing in the late 1960s, and their voices soon appeared on record albums and throughout popular culture.

    The law protects all marine mammals, and prohibits capturing or killing them in U.S. waters or by U.S. citizens on the high seas. It allowed for preventative measures to stop commercial fishing ships and other businesses from accidentally harming animals such as whales and seals. The animals can be harmed by entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships and other hazards at sea.

    The law also prevents the hunting of marine mammals, including polar bears, with exceptions for Indigenous groups. Some of those animals can be legally hunted in other countries.


    Changes to oil and gas operations — and whale safety

    Republican Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska, a state with a large fishing industry, submitted a bill draft this summer that would roll back aspects of the law. The bill says the act has “unduly and unnecessarily constrained government, tribes and the regulated community” since its inception.

    The proposal states that it would make changes such as lowering population goals for marine mammals from “maximum productivity” to the level needed to “support continued survival.” It would also ease rules on what constitutes harm to marine mammals.

    For example, the law currently prevents harassment of sea mammals such as whales, and defines harassment as activities that have “the potential to injure a marine mammal.” The proposed changes would limit the definition to only activities that actually injure the animals. That change could have major implications for industries such as oil and gas exploration where rare whales live.

    That poses an existential threat to the Rice’s whale, which numbers only in the dozens and lives in the Gulf of Mexico, conservationists said. And the proposal takes specific aim at the North Atlantic right whale protections with a clause that would delay rules designed to protect that declining whale population until 2035.

    Begich and his staff did not return calls for comment on the bill, and his staff declined to provide an update about where it stands in Congress. Begich has said he wants “a bill that protects marine mammals and also works for the people who live and work alongside them, especially in Alaska.”


    Fishing groups want restrictions loosened

    A coalition of fishing groups from both coasts has come out in support of the proposed changes. Some of the same groups lauded a previous effort by the Trump administration to reduce regulatory burdens on commercial fishing.

    The groups said in a July letter to House members that they feel Begich’s changes reflect “a positive and necessary step” for American fisheries’ success.

    Restrictions imposed on lobster fishermen of Maine are designed to protect the right whale, but they often provide little protection for the animals while limiting one of America’s signature fisheries, Virginia Olsen, political director of the Maine Lobstering Union, said. The restrictions stipulate where lobstermen can fish and what kinds of gear they can use. The whales are vulnerable to lethal entanglement in heavy fishing rope.

    Gathering more accurate data about right whales while revising the original law would help protect the animals, Olsen said.

    “We do not want to see marine mammals harmed; we need a healthy, vibrant ocean and a plentiful marine habitat to continue Maine’s heritage fishery,” Olsen said.

    Some members of other maritime industries have also called on Congress to update the law. The National Marine Manufacturers Association said in a statement that the rules have not kept pace with advancements in the marine industry, making innovation in the business difficult.


    Environmentalists fight back

    Numerous environmental groups have vowed to fight to save the protection act. They characterized the proposed changes as part of the Trump administration’s assault on environmental protections.

    The act was instrumental in protecting the humpback whale, one of the species most beloved by whale watchers, said Gib Brogan, senior campaign director with Oceana. Along with other sea mammals, humpbacks would be in jeopardy without it, he said.

    “The Marine Mammal Protection Act is flexible. It works. It’s effective. We don’t need to overhaul this law at this point,” Brogan said.


    What does this mean for seafood imports

    The original law makes it illegal to import marine mammal products without a permit, and allows the U.S. to impose import prohibitions on seafood products from foreign fisheries that don’t meet U.S. standards.

    The import embargoes are a major sticking point because they punish American businesses, said Gavin Gibbons, chief strategy officer of the National Fisheries Institute, a Virginia-based seafood industry trade group. It’s critical to source seafood globally to be able to meet American demand for seafood, he said.

    The National Fisheries Institute and a coalition of industry groups sued the federal government Thursday over what they described as unlawful implementation of the protection act. Gibbons said the groups don’t oppose the act, but want to see it responsibly implemented.

    “Our fisheries are well regulated and appropriately fished to their maximum sustainable yield,” Gibbons said. “The men and women who work our waters are iconic and responsible. They can’t be expected to just fish more here to make up a deficit while jeopardizing the sustainability they’ve worked so hard to maintain.”

    Some environmental groups said the Republican lawmakers’ proposed changes could weaken American seafood competitiveness by allowing imports from poorly regulated foreign fisheries.

    This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    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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  • Penn project seeks to get to know the wildlife that ‘shares our cities with us’

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    In her new project capturing motion-sensor photos of urban wildlife, ecologist and professor Julie Ellis said one of her favorite images is of a mother raccoon facing her three offspring, who are all staring back intently. It made her wonder what kind of conversation must be going on, whether the children are being told to hurry up or are learning how to catch a crayfish. 

    “It’s those little glimpses into their daily lives that you get from these cameras that I think is really fun, and tells us a lot about what these animals are doing right under our noses,” said Ellis, a director at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. 

    MORE: Montgomery, Bucks and Berks counties are approaching ‘peak’ fall foliage

    Ellis and her team are in the process of placing between 30 and 35 cameras at parks, cemeteries, forest preserves, areas along the highway and wildlife habitats around Philadelphia for the Accessing Urban Nature Initiative. The idea is to look at highly developed areas and green spaces to learn how animals adapt to changes in their habitat and how urbanization impacts their day-to-day life. 

    The motion-triggered cameras can take anywhere from 100 to 600 photos in a two-week period, depending on how active animals are in that area. They’re monitored four times per year to capture seasonal patterns in the behavior of the animals, and Ellis hopes to keep them up and running for five years. 

    With the photos, Ellis hopes to answer a number of questions about Philadelphia wildlife, including what species are in the area, how they use different types of spaces and how they respond to extreme heat. She’s also hoping to learn how things like bright lights and loud noises can affect breeding behaviors, habitats and other activity. 

    That information, she said, will hopefully help scientists understand why some species thrive more in cities and how wildlife is responding to rapid environmental changes. 

    “The idea here amongst all of us is to understand the wildlife that shares our cities with us,” Ellis said. “So with the idea of capturing images of animals living throughout cities, like in parks and cemeteries and neighborhoods, and how they use those spaces, it tells us something about how wildlife adapts to city life.” 

    racoon family pennProvided Image/Julie Ellis

    Penn professor Julie Ellis’ favorite photo from her new project.

    Heron Penn photosHeron Penn photosProvided Image/Julie Ellis

    A heron on the move in a Philadelphia creek.

    NW PHL GroundhogNW PHL GroundhogProvided Image/Julie Ellis

    A groundhog outside his home in Northwest Philadelphia.

    While all the cameras haven’t been placed yet, so far they’ve captured foxes, raccoons, skunks, opossum, songbirds, groundhogs, a heron, a mink, and more small birds and mammals. One camera was unintentionally set near a groundhog den and captured hundreds of images of the animal moving in and around his home. 

    The project is in partnership with the Wildlife Information Network, an alliance of scientists that represents urban regions and cities around the world. Closer to home, the team will also work with local partners such as W.B. Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences, the Philadelphia Zoo, the Elmwood Park Zoo, the Morris Arboretum, the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge to place cameras and monitor the images. 

    For Ellis, this project comes at a particularly unique time of massive urbanization. By 2050, the United Nations predicts that 2 out of every 3 people will be living in cities globally, which could have a massive impact on wildlife due to habitat destruction and changing environments. 

    “Why is it that some wildlife seem to survive and in some cases thrive in conditions of urbanizations whereas others really struggle, and what can we learn in Philadelphia about those patterns that might be able to inform how wildlife and biodiversity respond to environmental change more globally?” Ellis said. “Urbanization is just this massively rapid and global phenomenon right now, so it’s a really timely moment to be looking at its impacts.”

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    Michaela Althouse

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  • Arctic seals and more than half of bird species are in trouble on latest list of threatened species

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    Arctic seals are being pushed closer to extinction by climate change and more than half of bird species around the world are declining under pressure from deforestation and agricultural expansion, according to an annual assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

    One bright spot is green sea turtles, which have recovered substantially thanks to decades of conservation efforts, the IUCN said Friday as it released its latest Red List of Threatened Species.

    While many animals are increasingly at risk of disappearing forever, the updated list shows how species can come back from the brink with dedicated effort, Rima Jabado, deputy chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, told The Associated Press.

    “Hope and concern go hand in hand in this work,” Jabado wrote by email. “The same persistence that brought back the green sea turtle can be mirrored in small, everyday actions — supporting sustainable choices, backing conservation initiatives, and urging leaders to follow through on their environmental promises.”

    The list is updated every year by teams of scientists assessing data on creatures around the world. The scope of the work is enormous and important for science, said Andrew Farnsworth, a visiting scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who studies bird migration and wasn’t involved with the IUCN report.

    “Every time one is done and every time there’s revision, there’s more information, and there’s more ability to answer questions” on species, some of which are still largely a mystery to researchers, Farnsworth said.

    Because all the marine mammals native to the Arctic — seals, whales and polar bears — rely on the habitat provided by sea ice, they’re all at risk as it diminishes because of human-caused climate change, said Kit Kovacs, co-chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission Pinniped Specialist Group, which focuses on seals.

    The three species highlighted in the latest IUCN report — harp, hooded and bearded seals — have been moved up to a designation of greater concern in the latest update, indicating they are increasingly threatened by extinction, Kovacs said.

    The same melting of glaciers and sea ice destroying seal habitats also “generally will bring escalation in extreme weather events, which are already impacting people around the globe,” wrote Kovacs.

    “Acting to help seals is acting to help humanity when it comes to climate change,” Kovacs said.

    The update also highlighted Madagascar, West Africa and Central America, where Schlegel’s asity, the black-casqued hornbill and the tail-bobbing northern nightingale-wren were all moved to near-threatened status. Those are three specific birds in trouble, but numbers are dropping for around three-fifths of birds globally.

    Deforestation of tropical forests is one of a “depressing litany of threats” to birds, a list that includes agricultural expansion and intensification, competition from invasive species and climate change, said Stuart Butchart, chief scientist at BirdLife International.

    “The fact that 61% of the world’s birds are declining is an alarm bell that we can’t afford to ignore,” Butchart said.

    The annual U.N. climate summit will be held in November in Belem, Brazil, with much attention on the Amazon and the value of tropical forests to humans and animals. But Farnsworth, of Cornell, said he was “not so confident” that world’s leaders would take decisive action to protect imperiled bird species.

    “I would like to think things like birds are nonpartisan, and you can find common ground,” he said. “But it’s not easy.”

    One success story is the rebound of green sea turtles in many parts of the world’s oceans. Experts see that as a bright spot because it shows how effective human interventions, like legal protections and conservation programs, can be.

    Still, “it’s important to note that conservation efforts of sea turtles can take decades before you realize the fruits of that labor,” said Justin Perrault, vice president of research at Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, Florida, who wasn’t involved with the IUCN report.

    The overall success with green sea turtles should be celebrated and used as an example with other species, some of which, like hawksbills and leatherbacks, aren’t doing nearly as well, said Nicolas Pilcher, executive director of the Marine Research Foundation.

    And even for green sea turtles, areas still remain where climate change and other factors like erosion are damaging habitats, Pilcher said, and some of those are poorer communities that receive less conservation funding.

    But in the places where they have recovered, it’s “a great story of, actually, we can do something about this,” Pilcher said. “We can. We can make a difference.”

    ___

    Follow Melina Walling on X at @MelinaWalling and on Bluesky at @melinawalling.bsky.social.

    ___

    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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  • King tides threatening sea turtle nests on N.C. coast

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    OAK ISLAND, N.C. — King tides are putting sea turtle nests in jeopardy along North Carolina’s coast.

    What You Need To Know

    • King tides are impacting the N.C. coast this week

    • Sea turtles create nests along a 9.5 mile stretch of Oak Island between May and late October

    • King tides have washed over at least one nest on Oak Island this week

    “Our sea turtles are on the endangered species list,” Suzan Bell, a volunteer for the Oak Island Sea Turtle Protection Program, said. “A nest can still be viable with tide wash overs. If the water can wash up and flow off, then that can actually be good for a nest sometimes. But, if the water comes up and sits on a nest, it can unfortunately either drown hatchlings that were already hatched or it can make the eggs nonviable.”

    Sea turtles create nests along a 9.5 mile stretch of Oak Island between May and late October. 

    “Oak Island is really one of the top three or four nesting beaches in North Carolina,” Bell said.

    Volunteers for the Oak Island Sea Turtle Protection Program have been walking along the beach every morning and night this week to check if they have been impacted by the tides. They build walls of sand around the nests to protect them and guide the turtles to the ocean once they hatch.

    “We built sand barriers all around the nest to help, so if the tide comes up and the hatchlings emerge, hopefully they would still have a little bit of a runway to the water,” Bell said.

    Bell said the king tides have washed over at least one nest this week, but it is still too early to know if it has been destroyed. 

    Volunteers are hopeful their work will protect the hatchlings and lead more turtles to the ocean. 

    “I have been a part of this for 24 years, and I still get excited,” Bell said. “My adrenaline starts to flow. I get excited. I get to witness what I feel is a true miracle. To be a part of that and to help these little hatchlings make it to the water, It’s just a wonderful feeling.” 

    High tides from Hurricane Erin destroyed at least two nests on Oak Island in August.

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    Chloe Salsameda

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  • Armadillos in N.C. — New map shows where to spot them

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    The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission shared a map on Wednesday of where nine-banded armadillos have been seen in the state.  

    What You Need To Know

    • The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission posted an armadillo range map for the state   

    • Nine-banded armadillos have been reported in the U.S. since the 1800s 

    • Nine-banded armadillos are one of the only animals to naturally carry leprosy 

    • There is no evidence that the armadillos in N.C. are carrying leprosy, according to the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission


    Confirmed observations of these armadillos have been more common in the western part of the state, but nearly every one of North Carolina’s counties have at least had an unconfirmed sighting report.

     


    There are 20 types of armadillos, but the nine-banded armadillo is the only species found in the United States, according to the National Wildlife Federation. They get their name from the banded pattern on the armor-like plates that cover their bodies. Unlike their three-banded armadillo counterparts in South America, the ones in North America do not roll.

    The first recorded sighting of an armadillo in the U.S. was in Texas in 1849, but they have been expanding their range ever since, according to research published by Bradley University.

       Fun facts about nine-banded armadillos, according to the Rainforest Alliance

    • Nine-banded armadillos spend most of their time in burrows underground

    • They typically grow to be about the size of a domestic cat

    • Their long tongues allow them to eat up to 40,000 ants in one meal

    • When scared, they can jump more than three feet in the air

    A less fun-fact about nine-banded armadillos is that they are the only animals, besides humans, known to naturally carry leprosy, according to the Emerging Pathogens Institute.

    A 2015 study by the institute found that more than 16% of armadillos in Florida carried Mycobacterium leprae, the bacteria that causes leprosy. Now known as Hansen’s disease, it is treatable and 95% of people cannot get it because their immune system can fight off the bacteria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    The Wildlife Commission responded to concerned comments about the armadillo’s capacity to carry leprosy.

    “We don’t have evidence that armadillos in North Carolina carry the bacteria, which is easily treated by modern antibiotics,” the commission commented on Facebook. “If worried about it, just don’t touch any armadillos.”

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    Caroline King

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  • It’s Not Just Us: Some Dogs Can Become Unhealthily Addicted to Their Favorite Things, Too

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    Obsessing isn’t just for humans. In a study out today, scientists have found evidence that dogs, too, can become addicted to certain objects—and especially, their favorite toy.

    The researchers observed dozens of dogs as they interacted with their most prized toys. About a third of dogs exhibited addiction-like behaviors, such as becoming especially agitated when the toy was kept from them, they found.

    These findings might come as no surprise to dog owners. But the researchers say their work is the first to empirically document the phenomenon.

    “This is the first scientific study on addictive-like behavior in dogs,” study author Stefanie Riemer, a behavioral biologist from the Messerli Research Institute for Human-Animal Interaction at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, told Gizmodo.

    Ball junkies

    Riemer notes that many pet owners and trainers use a (rather on the nose, it turns out) nickname for dogs that seemingly just can’t get enough of their toys: “ball junkies.”

    But it’s never been clear whether this sort of behavior actually mirrors how addiction manifests in people. “After all, just being highly motivated, or highly aroused or very toy-focused does not imply an addiction,” Riemer notes.

    Scientists already knew that it’s possible to induce addictive-like behaviors in animals like rats, which has allowed us to better study potential treatments for substance use disorders or other addictions in humans. But it’s still an open question as to whether animal besides humans can develop addictions, the authors said.

    To test their hypothesis, the researchers tried to apply the criteria we use to determine addiction in humans to dogs.

    The study involved 105 dogs, with the most common breeds being Malinois, Border Collies, and Labrador Retrievers. All of the dogs were described as toy-motivated by their owners. For the experiments, the researchers used toys the owners said their dogs would likely love the most, and also included the dog’s favorite toy at home if the owners brought it with them.

    Excessive and maladaptive

    Across all the tests, the researchers found that 33 dogs exhibited addictive-like behaviors with the toys. These behaviors included dogs staying laser focused on the toy if it was kept in the room but placed somewhere unreachable; dogs refusing to play with their owner in other ways; and even dogs turning down a free treat.

    “This could indicate that the high motivation for playing conflicts with other important activities—the dogs are willing to forgo other activities or rewards when they are focused on the toy, even when they cannot access it,” Riemer explained. “It shows that the toys have a high salience for these dogs and that they are craving access to these toys.”

    Perhaps the most illustrative example of addictive-like behavior was seen when the toys were entirely removed, she added. Some dogs were simply unable to calm down for up to 15 minutes after the toys were gone, their heart rates remaining elevated. That sort of prolonged arousal and high frustration seen in these dogs, Riemer said, suggests their motivation for toy playing could be considered “excessive and maladaptive”—an important criteria for diagnosing human addiction.

    The team’s findings were published Thursday in Scientific Reports. A video of one of the dogs in these tests can be seen below and on YouTube.

    More left to learn

    The researchers say their findings should be taken with some caution. It’s hard to accurately measure and classify addiction in people, let alone non-verbal animals. And there’s still much to learn about the potential nature of addiction in dogs.

    One important lingering question is exactly how and why these behaviors can emerge. The researchers found some evidence that the seeds for excessive toy-playing tend to show up in puppies. They’re also conducting a follow-up study examining whether certain breeds, particularly some kinds of working dogs, are more predisposed to toy addiction than others. Because this study focused on dogs already known to be toy-motivated, though, it’s not clear just how prevalent addictive-like behaviors are in dogs generally.

    All that said, Riemer doesn’t want owners to overly worry about their dogs if they simply love playing with their toys in healthy amounts.

    “Many dogs colloquially referred to as ‘ball junkies’ are just highly motivated, but they have no problems when the play is stopped,” she said. “I think toy play is a great reward for many dogs, but for the ‘extreme’ dogs, steps should be taken to reduce their fixation on toys.”

    Riemer is now working on a grant to explore ADHD in dogs, since it seems to have lots of parallels with addictive-like behaviors in their research. Other studies have also suggested dogs might be a good model for better understanding ADHD in people.

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    Ed Cara

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  • Eeyore the dog helps Florida deputy find missing 86-year-old woman, video shows

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    DESTIN, Fla. — DESTIN, Fla. (AP) — A dog named Eeyore turned into a rescuer, leading a Florida sheriff’s deputy to where a missing 86-year-old woman had fallen while walking him, bodycam footage shows.

    The woman’s husband reported her missing on the night of Sept. 25 after she didn’t return from her walk.

    “She just takes that dog, but she never takes more than 10 or 15 minutes,” the worried husband told an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy, according to the footage released Monday. “It’s almost an hour now. It’s over an hour now.”

    The responding deputy drove around the neighborhood until she spotted Eeyore in the middle of the road. The dog trotted up to the deputy, who responded: “Hi! Where’s your mommy?”

    The dog then led her to the nearby spot where the woman had fallen.

    The woman, who was alert and later taken to a medical facility, was astonished that Eeyore had guided the deputy to her, noting that it wasn’t even her dog.

    “He came up to your car?” the woman asked the deputy. “Oh, sweetheart. … Oh Eeyore, you’re such a good boy. Grandma loves you.”

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  • Dogs kill 2-year-old boy at Georgia daycare center

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    VALDOSTA, Ga. — VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) — A 2-year-old boy in south Georgia was attacked by two Rottweiler dogs and died at an unlicensed daycare center while the owner napped, according to police.

    Stacy Wheeler Cobb, the 48-year-old owner who held the daycare at her home in Valdosta, 228 miles (367 km) south of Atlanta, has been charged with second-degree murder and second-degree cruelty to children, according to jail records.

    Cobb left the child unattended for more than two hours on Saturday, according to the Valdosta Police Department. They believe he went into the house’s backyard and opened the kennel with both Rottweilers, which then “mauled my baby to his death,” the mother wrote in a GoFundMe, describing camera footage. When police arrived at around 3:45 p.m., the child was dead.

    The 2-year-old was the only child at Cobb’s daycare, though there are typically 10, according to police. Cobb was taken to the Lowndes County Jail. Jail records did not indicate if Cobb had an attorney who could speak on her behalf, and officials could not confirm whether she had one.

    A GoFundMe created by the child’s mother, Adrianna Jones, identified the boy as Kaimir Jones. The single mother said knew something was wrong because Cobb usually checks in throughout the day, but she hadn’t responded to Jones for three hours. Her “intuition” said to leave work early, Jones said.

    “This was a heartbreaking, devastating and traumatizing scene that I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” Jones wrote.

    The rottweilers and a third dog at the house were taken by Lowndes County Animal Control.

    The Valdosta Police Department said in an online post that the investigation is ongoing and they expect more charges.

    “This is a horrible and tragic event that should have never occurred, but because of negligence on this offender’s behalf, a mother has tragically lost a child,” said Valdosta Police Chief Leslie Manahan.

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  • Missing Virginia store cat found after hitching a ride to another state

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    Francine the calico cat is back home at a Lowe’s store in Virginia after going missing for a few weeks, hitching a ride on a truck that turned up at a sister facility in another state.

    Two employees from a Lowe’s in Richmond made the 90-minute drive early Monday to pick up Francine, who disappeared in September and recently was discovered at the company’s distribution center in Garysburg, North Carolina.

    She was back on the job Tuesday, playing with customers, posing for photos and soaking in affection.

    “Francine is one of us,” store supervisor Wayne Schneider said in a telephone interview. “She’s just amazing. What she means here to the store and the employees, you really can’t imagine the outpouring that the employees and also the customers give her daily.”

    Francine spends much of her time either at the customer service desk or in the store’s seasonal area. But things went awry in September as the store brought in items for the upcoming Christmas season. Store general manager Mike Sida said that disruption may have prompted Francine to seek comfort elsewhere.

    After store employees hadn’t seen Francine for a few days, they reviewed past surveillance video. There were glimpses of her in the appliance section and then the receiving department, where she darted into a truck. An overnight manager is then seen shutting the truck’s door and off it went to Garysburg, about 85 miles (137 kilometers) to the south.

    “And then, of course, when she got down to the distribution center, she shot off the truck,” Sida said. “That’s when we found out where she was and she was missing.”

    An animal control office set up humane traps at the distribution center, where photos of Francine were posted throughout. The center had dozens of monitoring cameras, and Lowe’s brought in thermal drones to survey the area. An Instagram account unaffiliated with Lowe’s dedicated to finding Francine grew to more than 34,000 followers.

    On Saturday, Francine was spotted on camera near the distribution center. After more humane traps were installed, a volunteer checked each trap throughout the night. Finally, one of the traps triggered and Francine’s meows could be heard.

    Schneider and Sida got in a car early Monday and drove to get Francine.

    “That ride going down, knowing that we were going to get her, was just heartwarming. Knowing she’s safe and that she’s coming back to the store to get off her two-week vacation,” Schneider said.

    Francine was a stray when she started living at the Lowe’s store more than eight years ago. Cats are common sightings around feed stores and garden centers, which contain large amounts of grain and seed that can be attractive to mice and rats. In New York City, cats are beloved fixtures of the city’s bodegas and delis.

    At the Lowe’s store, Francine “just showed up,” Sida said. “We had a bit of a mice problem. So, of course, I’m like, wow. I like this cat a lot because it’s helping me.”

    Lowe’s doesn’t have an official policy about cats in stores. Asked why Francine wasn’t taken to someone’s residence after showing up, Sida said she is loved by employees and the community.

    “Francine picked us. We didn’t pick her,” Sida said. “Later, we would embrace her being our store cat. But at the end of the day, she came to us. Where she’s at is where she wants to be. She does whatever she wants.”

    Unlike Lowe’s employees, Francine does not wear a vest. She had been previously outfitted with several collars but escaped them all. Now they plan on fitting her with a harness that includes identifying information.

    A local brewery will host a “Francine Fest” community event on Wednesday to celebrate the homecoming, while the store is planning its own team party.

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  • BARC Wants to Empty the Shelter – Houston Press

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    There’s one simple way to make sure abandoned puppies and kittens find a good home: Adopt them. 

    As of Monday morning, 232 potential pets were available for adoption at Houston’s BARC Animal Shelter. The city-owned facility is one of more than 300 across the country participating in BISSELL Pet Foundation’s Empty the Shelters event, which provides extended operation hours and discounted adoption fees through October 15.  

    For those who have been contemplating pet adoption, now is the time, said Deputy Shelter Director Cory Stottlemyer. During the promotional event, dog and puppy adoptions are $20 and cat and kitten adoptions are $10. 

    The fees include spay/neuter surgery, dewormer, age-appropriate vaccinations, rabies vaccination, flea prevention, a pet microchip, and a one-year pet registration with the City of Houston.

    The shelter reported earlier this year that it changed its policies to improve oversight of the dog rescue process. They’re now more closely vetting adopters to ensure that a “rescue organization” — sometimes just a breeder with a Facebook page — isn’t adopting dozens of animals at one time just to move them to deplorable conditions or abandon them at an out-of-state location. 

    When the policy changes became effective March 1, advocates expressed concern that more animals would be euthanized. Stottlemyer said BARC consistently maintains a high volume of animals, but the live release rate has stayed steady since March. 

    According to data on the BARC website, more than 4,600 pets were adopted into homes during the 2023-24 fiscal year and over 8,700 were transferred to rescue organizations. About 2,800 were euthanized. 

    In the 2024-25 fiscal year, which ended in June, more than 5,700 pets were adopted into homes and 8,500 were transferred to rescue organizations. About 4,000 were euthanized.

    “We built up our adoption counseling volunteer force to make sure we’re matching the right adopters with the right pets, to make sure it’s the perfect fit and animals are going into homes where they’re going to stay,” Stottlemyer said. 

    The shelter also changed its notification period for the “at-risk list” from 48 hours to 24 hours. 

    Lynn Fischer, an animal rights advocate in Pennsylvania, said it appears to her that more animals are being put to sleep at BARC because of the shorter notice period, which prevents rescues from having enough time to step in. Fischer claims that from early June through mid-September, BARC euthanized at least 130 puppies, data she gathered from the Michigan-based Loving Paws nonprofit.

    “Disturbingly, the majority were euthanized the very same day they were placed on the at-risk list,” Fischer said. BARC also no longer publicly posts its euthanasia list, which, in the past, led to mass adoptions from unvetted agencies, shelter officials have said. 

    Fischer said shelters across the country are in crisis, but she sees particularly high numbers of euthanasia in Texas and California. “I don’t think people are aware of how bad the shelter crisis is,” she said. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen. I think part of it is irresponsible breeders and another part is irresponsible owners.” 

    Some people feel like they can no longer afford their pets and aren’t aware that there are services like Houston Humane Society’s Pet Pantry and free spay and neuter clinics, Fischer added. 

    “I’m not looking to blame anyone,” she said. “I’m trying to find solutions. There are so many solutions, but until someone who has the ability to do so helps to implement those solutions, you feel like you’re spinning your wheels.”

    Luna is a 4-year-old Beagle mix ready for adoption. She’s been at the BARC since October 4. Credit: BARC Animal Shelter

    Fischer said the best thing the BARC can do is raise awareness about the current shelter situation and communicate with not just local clients and adopting families, but with advocates in other states.

    Stottlemyer said BARC does those things and emphasized that Empty the Shelters isn’t a response to a crisis situation. The shelter doesn’t shy away from letting the public know when they’re at capacity, but they’re not right now, at least for dogs, he said. 

    The city-owned facility has room for about 350 dogs and 100 cats. They’re currently housing 290 dogs and 106 cats. The numbers fluctuate daily because BARC’s animal enforcement officers are charged with protecting public safety, and they respond to 311 calls for strays, aggressive animals, bite cases, and animal cruelty cases. People also turn in strays, Stottlemyer said. 

    Rose is a domestic shorthair mix. She’s about six weeks old and has been at the BARC since October 4. Credit: BARC Animal Shelter

    Many factors contribute to the rising stray population in Houston, notably the warm climate and a mindset of some pet owners that their animals should be able to “roam free,” creating an opportunity for breeding, Stottlemyer said. 

    “Unfortunately, those animals can go out year-round and create litters, and we have a dumping problem in the city as well,” he said. 

    The deputy director acknowledged that his team tries to market in the Houston area through adoption events and neighborhood gatherings, and they rely heavily on partnerships. They do, however, respond to advocate inquiries and work with numerous partners outside of Texas, he said. 

    “There’s no guaranteed outcome for any of our animals,” Stottlemyer said. “We are a high-intake shelter. Most of our animals leave to rescue partnerships. If an animal isn’t adopted, it still has other pathways to finding an outcome.”

    “Animals that are here for a long time end up on our length-of-stay list,” he added. “If we’re at capacity, those animals may be placed on our euthanasia list. We’re not at a major breaking point right now, but all it could take is one week of high intake by the enforcement team to push us there. If animals don’t get adopted, it just depends on whether our rescue partners can step up or what our capacity looks like.” 

    When animals that are candidates for euthanasia, BARC notifies its rescue and qualifying foster partners, giving them 24-hour notice, Stottlemyer said.

    “We send out leads well in advance of that notice for a lot of our animals, ones that have medical issues or length-of-stay animals,” he said. “We have a regular list that goes out before they’re ever candidates for euthanasia.” 

    BARC attempts to adopt to families in Houston and Harris County, and they don’t say there’s an urgent need unless there actually is one, Stottlemyer reiterated. 

    “That doesn’t necessarily result in people coming in and adopting,” he said, referring to a marketing strategy that animals must be adopted or they’ll be euthanized. “A lot of times that messaging gets co-opted by people who are well-meaning and people who have a vested interest in animal welfare but it drives, ultimately, negativity toward the shelter that doesn’t result in outcomes.”

    This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.

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    April Towery

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  • Authorities shoot and kill black bear believed to have fatally mauled man in Arkansas

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    MOUNT JUDEA, Ark. — MOUNT JUDEA, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas officials shot and killed a male black bear that they believe fatally mauled a 60-year-old Missouri man last week at his campsite in the Ozark National Forest, authorities said Monday.

    The body of Max Thomas of Springfield, Missouri, was discovered Thursday several yards outside the Sam’s Throne campground in northwest Arkansas, Newton County Sheriff Glenn Wheeler said.

    A deputy had gone to the campground after the man’s son reported he had not heard from his father, who had sent his family pictures of a black bear in his camp Tuesday morning, Wheeler said. The deputy found evidence of a struggle and injury, including drag marks from the campground into the woods, the sheriff said.

    “We believe he was in the process of breaking down his camp when the attack occurred,” Wheeler said.

    The state medical examiner’s office determined the man’s death to be an “animal mauling.”

    On Sunday, a bear was caught on a trail camera near the campground that appeared to be the same animal photographed by the victim and encountered by another man at a roadside overlook in the area, Wheeler said.

    Local hunters and hounds were brought into the area and quickly tracked the bear, which was killed and transported to Little Rock, where authorities will obtain DNA samples to confirm it is the bear who fatally attacked the man.

    “We knew the bear in the photos was a male and this one is too,” Wheeler said in a press release. “It matches the size of the photographed bear and has the same facial colorations. Not to mention it was back in the same area where the attack happened.”

    It is the second fatal bear attack in Arkansas in recent weeks. In September, a 72-year-old man died after being attacked by a bear in nearby Franklin County, according to authorities with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

    Despite the recent attacks, Don White Jr., a large mammal ecologist at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, said fatal bear attacks in Arkansas are “exceedingly rare.”

    The last confirmed fatal bear attack in Arkansas was in 1892, said Keith Stephens, a spokesperson for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

    Although black bears were common in Arkansas before European settlement, the numbers dwindled to fewer than 50 by the 1930s, White said. Those numbers have continued to climb since the reintroduction of hundreds of black bears into the Ouachita and Ozark mountains of Arkansas in the 1950s and 1960s, with an estimated 5,000 black bears in the state now, although White said that figure is difficult to pinpoint.

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  • Tyrese Gibson booked into Georgia jail and released on bond following cruelty to animal charge

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    Tyrese Gibson was booked into a Georgia jail early Friday, a week after he failed to turn himself in following an arrest warrant for cruelty to animals, police said.

    Gibson was released the same day on a $20,000 bond, Fulton County Police Captain Nicole Dwyer said. He has still not turned his four Cane Corso dogs to police, who authorities say killed a neighbor’s small dog in mid-September and had roamed the neighborhood unsupervised at various times over the past few months.

    “We are glad he did the right thing and turned himself in,” Dwyer wrote to The Associated Press, noting the four dogs are still unaccounted for.

    Gibson’s lawyer, Gabe Banks, wrote to the AP Friday that his legal team secured a consent bond, meaning the terms of his bond were set before he voluntarily turned himself in. Banks wrote Gibson “has cooperated fully with legal authorities and will continue to do so until this matter is resolved.”

    Banks had previously told AP that the actor wasn’t home when the incident took place and “immediately made the difficult decision to rehome his dogs to a safe and loving environment,” including two adult dogs and their three puppies.

    A search warrant for the “Fast & Furious” actor’s property was issued alongside the arrest warrant days after the Sept. 18 incident, when the dogs attacked a small spaniel owned by a neighbor about a half a mile away from Gibson’s house. The dog was rushed to a veterinary hospital, but did not survive, Dwyer said.

    The dogs were seen on camera minutes later at the next-door neighbor’s house, where the owner called police to report she couldn’t reach her car because of the animals. Animal control officers responded and were able to keep the dogs back while the neighbor went to her vehicle.

    Gibson had initially told police he would surrender his dogs on Sept 22, but when officers arrived, he said he needed a few more days, according to a police press release.

    Gibson posted a video to Instagram that included various clips of his dogs early Monday and reposted it the following day with a statement from him and his lawyer. Banks wrote Gibson had dealt with stalkers for years, and “his only motivation in bringing these dogs into his life was to protect his family and provide peace of mind.”

    Banks added the dogs weren’t “trained to be vicious,” and “had never harmed a child, a person, or another dog. This tragic event is shocking and traumatizing for him and his family — and he can only imagine how devastating it has been for the family who lost their pet.”

    “I had no idea I would ever wake up to this nightmare, and I know the family must feel the same way. To them, please know that my heart is broken for you,” Gibson said in the statement. “I am praying for your healing and for your beloved pet, who never deserved this. I remain committed to facing this matter with honesty, responsibility, and compassion.”

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  • Over 200 animals found living in Long Island ‘hoarder house,’ along with 95-year old woman

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    More than 200 animals were discovered living in squalid conditions inside a Long Island home, law enforcement said, along with a 95-year-old woman who was trapped among the filth.

    The Suffolk County District Attorney’s office has charged the homeowner, Samantha Boyd, and her boyfriend with animal abuse. Authorities allege the home was filled with garbage and clutter when they arrived Wednesday, following tips from neighbors.

    The house, which Boyd had labeled a “wildlife refuge,” instead revealed signs of extreme hoarding, with animals ranging from cats and dogs to turkeys, roosters, reptiles and squirrels trapped inside cages and unsanitary enclosures.

    Some of the animals were in such poor condition that they had to be euthanized, officials said.

    Among those who helped with the rescue was animal activist John Di Leonardo, who showed examples of the neglect — including a bunny with severely overgrown nails and a quail living in its own feces.

    “This is severe neglect,” he said. “This house is a hoarder house.”

    Shocking video shared by Humane Long Island captured a squirrel caged among piles of clutter. In another clip, rescuers gently encouraged a debilitated duck, which was struggling to walk.

    A neighbor was stunned by the discovery.

    “I thought they were doing a good thing but had no clue that the animals were endangered,” Dave Rodriguez said. “The conditions these animals were forced to exist in were deplorable.”

    Adding to the severity of the situation, investigators also found Boyd’s 95-year-old mother essentially trapped on the second floor of the home, living amid the same dangerous conditions.

    “She was essentially trapped upstairs and it took a bit to get her out of the house,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.

    The DA confirmed the elderly woman had since been safely removed from the home and was doing well.

    Boyd, who holds a New York license as a wildlife rehabilitator, is accused of misusing that license to hoard wild animals under the guise of caring for them.

    “Your wildlife license doesn’t allow you to start hoarding wild animals and keep them as pets,” said Di Leonardo. “This is a rampant issue.”

    Di Leonardo went on to call the case “a betrayal of the public trust and a betrayal of the animals.”

    Samantha Boyd could not be reached for comment.

    This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC New York. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC New York journalist edited the article for publication.

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    Greg Cergol

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  • Goodall’s influence spread far and wide. Those who felt it are pledging to continue her work

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    In her 91 years, Jane Goodall transformed science and humanity’s understanding of our closest living relatives on the planet — chimpanzees and other great apes. Her patient fieldwork and tireless advocacy for conservation inspired generations of future researchers and activists, especially women and young people, around the world.

    Her death on Wednesday set off a torrent of tributes for the famed primate researcher, with many people sharing stories of how Goodall and her work inspired their own careers. The tributes also included pledges to honor Goodall’s memory by redoubling efforts to safeguard a planet that sorely needs it.

    “Jane Goodall is an icon – because she was the start of so much,” said Catherine Crockford, a primatologist at the CNRS Institute for Cognitive Sciences in France.

    She recalled how many years ago Goodall answered a letter from a young aspiring researcher. “I wrote her a letter asking how to become a primatologist. She sent back a handwritten letter and told me it will be hard, but I should try,” Crockford said. “For me, she gave me my career.”

    Goodall was one of three pioneering young women studying great apes in the 1960s and 1970s who began to revolutionize the way people understood just what was — and wasn’t — unique about our own species. Sometimes called the “Tri-mates,” Goodall, Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdikas spent years documenting the intimate lives of chimpanzees in Tanzania, mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and orangutans in Indonesia, respectively.

    The projects they began have produced some of the longest-running studies about animal behavior in the world that are crucial to understanding such long-lived species. “These animals are like us, slow to mature and reproduce, and living for decades. We are still learning new things about them,” said Tara Stoinski, a primatologist and president of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. “Jane and Dian knew each other and learned from each other, and the scientists who continued their work continue to collaborate today.”

    Goodall studied chimpanzees — as a species and as individuals. And she named them: David Greybeard, Flo, Fifi, Goliath. That was highly unconventional at the time, but Goodall’s attention to individuals created space for scientists to observe and record differences in individual behaviors, preferences and even emotions.

    Catherine Hobaiter, a primatologist at St. Andrews University who was inspired by Goodall, recalled how Goodall carefully combined empathy and objectivity. Goodall liked to use a particular phrase, “If they were human, we would describe them as happy,” or “If they were human, we would describe them as friends –- these two individuals together,” Hobaiter said. Goodall didn’t project precise feelings onto the chimpanzees, but nor did she deny the capacity of animals besides humans to have emotional lives.

    Goodall and her frequent collaborator, evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff, had just finished the text of a forthcoming children’s book, called “Every Elephant Has a Name,” which will be published around early 2027.

    From the late 1980s until her death, Goodall spent less time in the field and more time on the road talking to students, teachers, diplomats, park rangers, presidents and many others around the world. She inspired countless others through her books. Her mission was to inspire action to protect the natural world.

    In 1991, she founded an organization called Roots & Shoots that grew to include chapters of young people in dozens of countries.

    Stuart Pimm, a Duke University ecologist and founder of the nonprofit Saving Nature, recalled when he and Goodall were invited to speak to a congressional hearing about deforestation and extinction. Down the marble halls of the government building, “there was a huge line of teenage girls and their mothers just waiting to get inside the room to hear Jane speak,” Pimm said Thursday. “She was mobbed everywhere she went — she was just this incredible inspiration to people in general, particularly to young women.”

    Goodall wanted everyone to find their voice, no matter their age or station, said Zanagee Artis, co-founder of the youth climate movement Zero Hour. “I really appreciated how much Jane valued young people being in the room — she really fostered intergenerational movement building,” said Artis, who now works for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

    And she did it around the world. Roots & Shoots has a chapter in China, which Goodall visited multiple times.

    “My sense was that Jane Goodall was highly respected in China and that her organization was successful in China because it focused on topics like environmental and conservation education for youth that had broad appeal without touching on political sensitivities,” said Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles expert on China and the environment, who previously worked in Beijing.

    What is left now that Goodall is gone is her unending hope, perhaps her greatest legacy.

    “She believed hope was not simply a feeling, but a tool,” Rhett Butler, founder of the nonprofit conservation-news site Mongabay, wrote in his Substack newsletter. “Hope, she would tell me, creates agency.”

    Goodall’s legacy and life’s work will continue through her family, scientists, her institute and legions of young people around the globe who are working to bridge conservation and humanitarian needs in their own communities, her longtime assistant said Thursday.

    That includes Goodall’s son and three grandchildren, who are an important part of the work of the Jane Goodall Institute and in their own endeavors, said Mary Lewis, a vice president at the institute who began working with the famed primatologist in 1990.

    Goodall’s son, Hugo van Lawick, works on sustainable housing. He is currently in Rwanda. Grandson Merlin and granddaughter Angelo work with the institute, while grandson Nick is a photographer and filmmaker, Lewis said. “She has her own family legacy as well as the legacy through her institutes around the world,” said Lewis.

    In addition to her famed research center in Tanzania and chimpanzee sanctuaries in other countries, including the Republic of Congo and South Africa, a new cultural center is expected to open in Tanzania late next year. There also are Jane Goodall Institutes in 26 countries, and communities are leading conservation projects in several countries, including an effort in Senegal to save critically endangered Western chimpanzees.

    But it is the institute’s youth-led education program called Roots & Shoots that Goodall regarded as her enduring legacy because it is “empowering new generations,” Lewis said.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. AP’s 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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  • What to know about the life and legacy of Jane Goodall

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    Famed primatologist Jane Goodall was renowned for her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees but dedicated her life to helping all wild animals — a passion that lasted until her death this week while on a U.S. speaking tour.

    She spent decades promoting humanitarian causes and the need to protect the natural world, and tried to balance the grim realities of the climate crisis with hope for the future, admirers said.

    Those messages of hope “mobilized a global movement to protect the planet,” said former President Joe Biden, who awarded Goodall the Presidential Medal of Freedom just before he left office.

    Here are some things to know about Goodall’s life and legacy:

    Despite Goodall’s enduring passion to observe wild animals in Africa, she didn’t have a college degree when she arrived there in 1957, starting as an assistant secretary at a natural history museum in Nairobi.

    Famed anthropologist and paleontologist Louis Leakey gave her the job and later invited her to search for fossils with him and his wife at the Olduvai Gorge. After seeing her grit and determination, Leakey asked if she would be interested in studying chimpanzees in what is now Tanzania.

    She told The Associated Press in 1997 that he chose her “because he wanted an open mind.”

    It wasn’t until 1966 that she earned a Ph.D. in ethology — becoming one of the few people admitted to University of Cambridge as a Ph.D. candidate without a college degree.

    While first studying chimpanzees in Tanzania in the early 1960s, Goodall didn’t spend her days simply observing the animals from afar and giving them numbers like other scientists.

    She immersed herself in every aspect of their lives, feeding them and giving them names and forming what can only be described as personal relationships with them. The approach was criticized by some scientists who saw it as an alarming lack of scientific detachment.

    Goodall documented chimpanzees in a wide array of activities widely believed at the time to be exclusive to humans, including showing their ruthlessly violent side during what she described as “warfare.”

    She described seeing a group systematically hunt down and kill members of a smaller group over the course of four years. The war ended only after every member of the smaller group was dead.

    “It was a shock to find that they could show such brutal behavior,” she said in 2003. “That made them seem even more like us then I thought before.”

    In another instance, she recalled a dominant chimpanzee brushing a younger chimp aside to get fruit. When the second chimp screamed, its big brother stepped in to rescue him. And then when those two chimps started screaming, a female two trees away stepped in.

    Since Goodall could crawl, she’d had a fascination with animals. When she bought her first book at the age of 10 — Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Tarzan of the Apes” — her vision for the future started to solidify. She planned to travel to Africa and live with the wild animals.

    But her dreams did not involve becoming a scientist. She told The Associated Press in 2020 that she planned to be a naturalist and write books about animals. But that vision shifted as she learned more.

    “I always wanted to help animals all my life. And then naturally that led to ‘If you want to save wild animals, you have to work with local people, find ways for them to live without harming the environment and then getting worried about children and what future they could have if we go on as business as usual,’” she said.

    Goodall has said watching a disturbing film in 1986 about experiments on laboratory animals pushed her into advocacy — a calling that lasted until her death.

    ″I knew I had to do something,″ she said later. ″It was payback time.″

    She was still traveling almost 300 days a year giving lectures to packed audiences and was in the midst of a U.S. speaking tour when she died of natural causes in California, the Jane Goodall Institute said. She had been scheduled to meet with students and teachers on Wednesday to kick off a tree-planting effort in wildfire burn zones in the Los Angeles area.

    When she couldn’t travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, she began podcasting from her childhood home in England. She spoke with guests including U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, author Margaret Atwood and marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on dozens of episodes of the “Jane Goodall Hopecast.”

    Admirers said Goodall inspired generations of young people, particularly women and girls.

    Jeffrey Flocken, chief international officer of Humane World for Animals, recalled how Goodall once spent two hours telling his young daughter stories about “her adventures with animals and the challenges of being a young woman pioneering biological research in the field when conservation was still an emerging profession.”

    “Chimps, pangolins, elephants and more. Jane cared about all animals passionately. And she was able to use that passion to inspire others — children in particular,” Flocken said.

    University of St. Andrews primatologist Catherine Hobaiter, who studies chimpanzee communication, said that her view of science was transformed when she was a young researcher and first heard Goodall speak.

    “It was the first time … that I got to hear that it was okay to to feel something,” Hobaiter said.

    ___

    AP Science Writer Christina Larson contributed to this story.

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  • Brickbat: Head in the Sand

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    Katie Pasitney and her mother, owners of the Universal Ostrich Farm in British Columbia, were arrested for defying a Canadian Food Inspection Agency order to leave their farm and surrender their birds as part of a response to a bird flu outbreak. The agency fears the disease could spread, so it plans to cull nearly 400 birds. The farmers have resisted, claiming the remaining ostriches are immune. The case took a turn when the Secwepemc Signatory Tribe declared the property unceded land and issued its own cease and desist to protect the animals and land. The case will now go to the Supreme Court of Canada, which halted the cull in the meantime.

    The post Brickbat: Head in the Sand appeared first on Reason.com.

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    Charles Oliver

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  • Tyrese Gibson failed to turn himself in following arrest warrant for cruelty to animals, police say

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    Tyrese Gibson failed to turn himself in to police after an arrest warrant was issued because his four Cane Corso dogs mauled and killed a neighbor’s dog in Georgia in mid-September, police said Tuesday.

    The warrant for cruelty to animals issued for the “Fast & Furious” actor is part of an “ongoing issue” following multiple calls about the dogs in the past few months, Fulton County Police Captain Nicole Dwyer said.

    “Our priority is the safety of the community and when there’s so many incidents of dogs, especially large dogs like this, getting out and then killing an animal, you know, what’s next? A child?” Dwyer said. “Our main priority is safety and that’s why we want the dogs in custody.”

    Gibson had received multiple warnings before the warrant was issued, and police had attempted to cite him before the attack, but the actor wasn’t at his Atlanta home. Dwyer said she spoke with Gibson’s lawyer last week and informed them the actor had to turn himself in by Friday.

    Gibson’s attorney, Gabe Banks, wrote to in an email to The Associated Press the actor is “cooperating fully with authorities to address and resolve this matter responsibly.” Gibson wasn’t home when the incident took place, Banks wrote, and “immediately made the difficult decision to rehome his dogs to a safe and loving environment.”

    Just after 10 p.m. on Sept. 18, a neighbor of Gibson’s, whose house is half a mile away, let their dog, a small spaniel, out to their yard and returned five minutes later to find the dog had been attacked. The dog was rushed to a veterinary hospital, but did not survive, Dwyer said.

    The four dogs were then seen at the next-door house, where the owner called police, saying she was afraid to leave her house. Animal control officers responded and were able to keep the dogs back while the neighbor went to her vehicle.

    Police issued a search warrant for Gibson’s property on Sept. 22, but the actor and the dogs were not at the residence.

    Banks wrote that Gibson “extends his deepest condolences to the family who lost their beloved dog to this tragic incident.”

    Gibson posted a video to Instagram that included various clips of his dogs early Monday. He didn’t speak in the video, but rather included audio from the podcast, “The Breakfast Club,” where hosts discussed the case.

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  • Chunk wins Alaska’s popular Fat Bear Week contest

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    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Chunk, a towering brown bear with a broken jaw, swept the competition Tuesday in the popular Fat Bear Week contest — his first win after narrowly finishing in second place three previous years.

    The annual online competition allows viewers to follow 12 bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve on live webcams and cast ballots in a bracket-style, single-elimination tournament that lasts a week. Chunk — known officially as Bear 32 — beat out Bear 856, who doesn’t have a nickname, in the final bracket, according to totals posted on the organizers’ website.

    Chunk’s weight was estimated at 1,200 pounds by contest organizers. While they do not weigh individual bears during the contest because of safety concerns, Chunk and others have had their density scanned to bolster weight estimates in the past using laser technology called LIDAR.

    “Despite his broken jaw, he remains one of the biggest, baddest bears at Brooks River,” said Mike Fitz, a naturalist for explore.org. Fitz said Chunk likely hurt his jaw in a fight with another bear.

    The contest is wildly popular. This year it attracted over 1.5 million votes from fans who watched the ursines gorge on a record run of fall salmon as they fished in the Brooks River about 300 miles (483 kilometers) from Anchorage.

    It is the largest glut of salmon in the living memories of the bears or the humans who have been running the Fat Bear Week contest since 2014, according to Katmai Conservancy spokesperson Naomi Boak.

    That abundance “decreased conflict in the river since salmon were readily available,” Boak said in an email. In Tuesday’s announcement, Katmai National Park ranger Sarah Bruce estimated around 200,000 salmon made their way up Brooks River.

    In leaner years, the toughest bears jockey for the best fishing spots at Brooks Falls, where the salmon converge in a bottleneck and leap from the water as they fight their way upstream to spawn.

    This year, Brooks Falls fishing spots were often empty as bears hunted up and down stream. There was even room for humans to fish. At one point Monday, one of the Explore.org live cameras showed two people calmly casting fishing rods along the river even as brown bears plodded upstream and downstream from them.

    Voters in the online contest could review before and after photos of the bears, lean at the start of summer and fattened at the end. The bears are not actually weighed — that would be too dangerous and difficult — and some fans choose their favorite based on looks or backstory.

    The live cameras at Brooks Falls captured the moments in 2024 when mother bear 128 Grazer ’s cub slipped over the waterfall and floated into the fishing spot occupied by Chunk, who attacked and injured the cub. Grazer fought Chunk, but the cub ultimately died. After the dramatic fight, voting fans handed Grazer a victory over Chunk.

    Fat Bear Week was started in 2014 as an interactive way to inform the public about brown bears, the coastal cousins of grizzlies. They spend summers catching and eating as many salmon as possible so they can fatten up for hibernation in Alaska’s cold, lean winters.

    ___

    Attanasio reported from Seattle.

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  • Scientists find ancient life-size animal rock carvings in the Saudi Arabian desert

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    NEW YORK — Researchers have discovered life-size rock carvings of camels, gazelles and other animals in the Saudi Arabian desert.

    The carvings date back to around 12,000 years ago and many are over 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall. Scientists say they were created using a wedge-shaped rock to create sharp lines.

    Several were etched on narrow ledges so the artists couldn’t even step back to survey the final product as they were working.

    “To engrave that much detail with just a rock takes real skill,” said Maria Guagnin, an archaeologist with the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Germany who was involved in the discovery.

    The animal carvings and engraving tools found at the site show that people were living in the area about 2,000 years earlier than scientists thought. It isn’t clear how they survived in such arid conditions — whether they lived off of shallow lakes that pooled for part of the year or drank water that accumulated in deep crevices.

    People have been creating rock art in Saudi Arabia for thousands of years, Guagnin said. But older engravings can be tricky to date since they tend not to feature writing and there are few remnants such as charcoal, which can be sent to a lab for analysis.

    “We know relatively little about art in the Middle East during this very ancient period of the human past,” Michael Harrower, a Johns Hopkins University archaeologist who wasn’t involved in the research, said in an email.

    In the latest discovery, scientists found a rock pick buried in the landscape directly under the carvings, allowing them to date the tool and the art it was used to create. Their findings were published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

    Scientists weren’t sure if people lived in the desert during this time period since conditions were dry and water was thought to be scarce. They thought people may have moved in later, when the landscape was marked by greener pastures and lakes.

    One of the carvings depicted an auroch, an ancestor of wild cattle that didn’t live in the desert and that went extinct. That made Guagnin wonder if the artists had encountered the animals by traveling somewhere else during the dry season.

    “They must have been fully established communities that knew the landscape really well,” she said.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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