pasadena humane has taken in 300+ animals affected by the Eaton fire in los angeles. as of today, calfire has given the nonprofit animal shelter the greenlight to go into the burn areas of the Eaton fire. the team anticipates a heartbreaking scene.
as their teams head directly into the affected areas, pasadena humane urgently needs monetary donations to help purchase medical supplies and other resources as they anticipate a significant increase in the number of burned and injured animals coming to their shelter.
I feel like wildlife education/animal ethics should be a required school subject for this very reason. These are likely the same people that would get out of their cars to go out and pet the bison in Yellowstone.
To explain for anyone who doesn’t understand why that’s not going to happen:
On most public lands units the MO for staff is to let nature take its course. If people stepped in every time an animal was injured, there would be a ton of sick, injured animals living unnaturally long lives, there would be less prey for predators, and you’d be preventing the natural course of the ecosystem.
It’s additionally cruel to artificially prolong the life of a wild animal in pain. Prosthetics need to be removed, cleaned, repaired. Medical intervention often requires followups. For ungulates injured limbs often cause life long pain and long slow recoveries, which is why even much loved horses often need to be put down due to broken limbs because their quality of life during and after healing is often MUCH reduced.
Feeding wild animals often causes dependency, and results in animals who don’t know how to forage for their own food. It also makes them more susceptible to disease (which is why a lot of winter ungulate feeding is getting shut down right now with CWD all over the place).
In the end, intervening for this moose would deny money to programs that help at an ecosystem/landscape level, probably not extend the animal’s life all that much, and deny a meal to predators and scavengers.
It’s good to be empathetic toward animals, but an individual animal naturally moving through the circle of life does not need you help, and torturing an animal so you can feel good about yourself doesn’t help anyone.
I was originally going to comment on how stupid it is to think a regular vet can deal with a wild moose, (a mother with a calf!!) but yeah some of y'all didnt watch enough nature documentaries that side with the wolf
Voluntary Recall of Northwest Naturals Brand 2lb Feline Turkey Recipe Raw Frozen Pet Food Due to HPAI Contamination
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-December 24, 2024
Portland, Oregon, Northwest Naturals is voluntarily recalling one batch of Northwest Naturals brand 2lb Feline Turkey Recipe raw frozen pet food after it was tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus.
Consumption of raw or uncooked pet food contaminated with HPAI can cause illness in animals. To date, one case of illness in a domestic cat has been reported in connection with this issue.
The recalled product is packaged in 2-pound plastic bags with “Best if used by” dates of 05/21/26 B10 and 06/23/2026 B1. The product was sold through distributors in AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, MD, MI, MN, PA, RI and WA in the United States, and British Columbia in Canada.
This recall is being conducted in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Salem, Oregon.
some emphasis mine. although it says one batch, it is not listed how big that recalled batch is. given the lengthy list of states (and province), it seems like a lot.
“We are confident that this cat contracted H5N1 by eating the Northwest Naturals raw and frozen pet food,” said ODA State Veterinarian Dr. Ryan Scholz. “This cat was strictly an indoor cat; it was not exposed to the virus in its environment, and results from the genome sequencing confirmed that the virus recovered from the raw pet food and infected cat were exact matches to each other.”
the oregon health authority (OHA) also reports that to date, no human cases of bird flu have been linked to this pet food.
the best by dates of the recalled pet food extend well into 2026, so it is going to be an ongoing challenge to get this contaminated food out of people's freezers before it can do more harm and cause more pet death.
as always, when it comes to contamination like this, it is likely that more than just the one cat has been or will become infected. whether human or feline, illness from food contamination is very under-reported.
Consumers who have purchased the recalled product should immediately discard the product and contact the place of purchase for a full refund.
For additional information or questions, customers may contact Northwest Naturals of Portland at info@nw-naturals.net or 866-637-1872 from 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM PST, Monday through Friday.
ALT
ALT
high quality for the front, potato quality for the back. not sure why.
A Ukrainian man who embarked on a perilous journey fleeing his war-torn country into Romania was rescued from a deep mountain ravine in subzero temperatures with an unlikely companion: his months-old kitten named Peach.
More than a dozen rescuers worked in a harsh blizzard to save Vladislav Duda, 28, who was found “soaked and frozen” and severely hypothermic in a 400-meter (437-yard) deep ravine in the northern Maramures region last week, according to the region’s mountain rescue service. Duda had fled Ukraine to avoid being drafted into his country’s armed forces fighting Russia.
“The cat was warm and was warming him … so he saved his life,” Dan Benga, the director of the Maramures mountain rescue service, told The Associated Press. “The only thing we saw he is caring about is the cat. He doesn’t care about himself.”
When the rescue team located and found the Ukrainian, they unzipped his jacket and discovered Peach snuggled up inside. Benga recalls asking Duda if he was OK, to which he replied: “I’m happy because my cat is alive. I got a chance from God for a new life. The happiest moment is because the cat is here with me,” Benga recalled Duda saying.
This is your friendly reminder to spread awareness and celebrate Ukrainian culture, art, and artists.
Russia has damaged and destroyed 432 cultural sites, and has a very long history of stealing and destroying original Ukrainian works of art. Not to mention their desire to destroy everything Ukrainian. Even supporting Ukraine is enough to be jailed or straight up murdered.
This did not start in 2022. Russia is a terrorist state, has always been a terrorist state, and they have always hated anyone who doesn’t worship them.
And a side note: When a population is enduring a genocide, celebrating the culture and heritage of the people committing the genocide is an interesting choice. You don’t get to tell Ukrainians “not all Russians, not all Russian civilians” when the majority of the population supports the war. Ukrainians are allowed to be upset with the people supporting the country that’s killing them. Don’t tell us how we should feel about our history (and present) being erased.
The Hachiko Foundation's Vet Van is now operational! It is already helping to treat as well as spay and neuter cats and dogs in front line areas of Ukraine. If you want to help them with covering medical costs, consider donating to them.
Their goal is to spay and neuter 1000 displaced pets over the next year.
Follow Nate Mook on Twitter if you want to hear more about the Hachiko team's successes! They've delivered nearly 70,000 pounds, helped provide medications for animals, and evacuated pets.
Graphic is linked above since Tumblr destroyed the quality.
outdoor cats should be illegal. I don't care that it's gonna make it impossible for some people to have cats, I don't care that it would make more cats have to be put down because they can't be kept indoors. No, barn cats aren't a valid excuse. Barn cats are useless, get a damn ratting dog it won't give your livestock diseases or shit in their feed like barn cats do. I don't give a shit that your cat tears the house up if you keep it inside, maybe you should actually care for your cat and not expect all it's enrichment to come from being tossed outdoors. Stop making up excuses for neglecting cats.
I have been a sheep caretaker for like two days and already I'm like. Wow. I get it.
I get why these were some of the earliest mammals to ever be domesticated. They look up to humans with this sort of dumb but all at once innocent and pure and trusting expression. They're happy to see you. They follow you around. They like to be rubbed under their chins. Maybe its just some latent Scottish highland shepherd DNA I still have in me but I look at my sheep charges and suddenly I see why the love of God for humanity is so often described as a shepherd and his sheep. I'd fight a wolf for these guys. I'd go way the Hell out of my way for them. I'd carry their young for miles on my own back.
In the span of mere decades, the genome of the Scottish wildcat—the last remaining wildcat in Great Britain—has become so corrupted that the animal is now effectively extinct, a second study in the same issue finds. The findings could complicate ongoing efforts to save the most endangered mammalian carnivore in Great Britain.
“It’s very intriguing work,” says Shu-Jin Luo, a geneticist at Peking University who researches the DNA of wildcats in China and who has similar concerns about the impact of domestic cats there. “The studies set a very good template for studying the interactions between domestic cats and wildcats around the world.”
[…]
The second new study—based on DNA from dozens of modern domestic cats and wildcat samples from nature, captivity, and museums—finds that, starting in the mid-1950s, more than 5% of the genetic markers in Scottish wildcats began to resemble those of domestic cats. After 1997, that figure jumped to as high as 74%.
[…]
Today, the genome of the Scottish wildcat is so “swamped” with domestic cat DNA that the animal is “genomically extinct,” the authors conclude. All that’s left in nature is a “hybrid swarm,” they write, a confused mix of wild and domestic DNA. In some cases, the wildcats’ striking stripes have been replaced by spots, as well as other patterns and colors not found in nature.
“Everything these wildcats have evolved over thousands of years is being lost in a few generations,” says the study’s lead author, Jo Howard-McCombe, a conservation geneticist at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS).
