Alex is primarily concerned with animal welfare, wildlife conservation, and environmental justice. As a freelance writer in San Francisco, he leads a deliberately simplistic and thrifty lifestyle, yet still can’t help gawking at the newest green gadgets and zero-emission concept cars.
Did you hear about KFC’s offer to fill the potholes in Louisville and four other US cities? Well, they’ve asked to be allowed to stencil an ad onto the pavement in exchange. Predictably, PETA and their KFC Cruelthy campaign now want some of the action.
“KFC might concentrate instead on improving conditions for the chickens it abuses, but it won’t, so we’re offering to double the money that KFC offered the City of Louisville—if the city will use our ads against KFC cruelty on its potholes instead,” reads a post today on PETA’s blog.
The inch-long Christmas Island pipistrelle, which weighs about a tenth of an ounce, could become the first Australian mammal to become extinct since the Tasmanian tiger in 1930.
After years of unrequited calls to help the animal, conservationists have asked the government to begin an emergency breeding program for the tiny bat. Environment Minister responded by announcing breeding trials for a similar yet non-threatened population elsewhere to test the viability of breeding the pipistrelle.
Conservationists fear that it may be too little, too late.
The Humane Society of the United States has returned to court in attempt to stop the sea lion cull near the Bonneville Dam in Washington and Oregon.
Hundreds of sea lions may be trapped and killed in a program aiming to increase the salmon population in the river. The animal welfare group argues that the NOAA Fisheries Service has not sufficiently explained why the sea lions are being singled out despite other predators (like humans) having a greater impact on the salmon population.
Peter Sinclair is back again with a new installment of his always-insightful podcast “The Climate Denial Crock of the Week.” This time, he tackles the common claim climate change deniers make that thousands of reputable scientists dispute global warming. Check it out!
A rare species of sheep discovered by Marco Polo in the 13th century is edging closer to extinction due to increased trophy hunting in Central Asian countries, new research reports.
The species, once prominent in the Pamir Mountains on the border of China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, now numbers around 10,000, according to George Schaller of the Science and Exploration Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Residents of Centerville, Virginia have sued Dominion Virginia Power to the tune of $1 billion for supplying 1.5 million tons of toxic fly ash to fill the hills of a nearby golf course.
The attorneys representing 400 Centerville residents claim that Dominion knew that the substance they supplied to the Battlefield Golf Club would eventually seep into the water supply. The suit also names the golf course’s developer and Dominion’s ‘coal-ash management consultant.’
An undercover investigation by Endangered Species International has disclosed the horrific scale of the endangered species market in the Republic of Congo.
The nonprofit found that hunters source 95% of bushmeat around the Kouilou region, one of the most biodiverse areas in the country. In additon to gorilla meat, the investigation discovered the sale of other at-risk species like the forest hinged tortoise, draft crocodiles, blue duikers, and white-bellied pangolins.
A South Korean woman living in Los Angeles has been charged with importing bear bile from China to illegally sell as an aphrodisiac. She faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Investigators intercepted a package addressed the Seongja Hyun while waiting for transport to Los Angeles from a San Francisco sorting facility. Inside the package they found four containers of bear bile, leading them to further investigate Hyun.
In a huge break for the United States’ anti-GMO movement, a federal judge ruled that the US Fish & Wildlife Service should not have allowed genetically modified crops to be planted within a Prime Hook, a national wildlife refuge in Delaware.
The suit, filed by the Center for Food Safety, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and the Audubon Society in Delaware, challenged that the US Fish & Wildlife Service knowingly put habitat at risk when it allowed farmers to plant GMO’s inside the 10,000-acre wildlife refuge. The results were better than anyone expected.
With the help of conservation groups, the U.S. Office of Surface Mining launched the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative to attempt to rescue the thousands forest acres left barren by mountaintop coal mining.
The volunteer-based initiative, which hopes to eventually plant 38 million trees in Appalachia, received the endorsement of the United Nations Environment Program yesterday. The UN aims to plant 7 billion trees in the next three years across the globe, so every small project across the globe contributes.
