Global wildlife populations have sunk 69 per cent since 1970 – WWF report
London, UKReuters The world’s wildlife populations have declined by more than two-thirds since 1970 as forests have been cleared and oceans polluted, according to an assessment released on Thursday. This “serious drop…tells us that nature is unraveling and the natural world is emptying,” said Andrew Terry, director of conservation and policy at the Zoological Society […]
This Life: Praise Yahweh from the Earth
SAMANTHA ELLEY suggests we take a “leaf” out of the books of nature when it comes to praising the Lord…
Health Insight: Pet therapy – how dogs, cats and horses help improve human wellbeing
In an article first published on The Conversation, ANN HEMINGWAY, professor of public health and wellbeing at Bournemouth University in the UK, looks at the role pets can play in human health…
Dog custody: Spain to consider pets’ welfare in divorce battles
Madrid, Spain Reuters Spain will consider a pet’s welfare when couples divorce or break-up from Wednesday in a legal shift that strengthens the case for couples obtaining shared custody of their animals. The decision follows similar moves in France and Portugal and obliges judges to consider pets as sentient beings rather than objects owned by […]
South Korea to grant legal status to animals to tackle abuse, abandonment
Seoul, South KoreaReuters Jin-hui, a cream-coloured Pomeranian, was buried alive and left for dead in 2018 in the South Korean port city of Busan. No charges were filed against its owner at the time, but animal abusers and those who abandon pets will soon face harsher punishment as South Korea plans to amend its civil […]
Over 10,000 species risk extinction in Amazon, says landmark report
Sao Paulo, Brazil/Bogota, Colombia Reuters More than 10,000 species of plants and animals are at high risk of extinction due to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest – 35 per cent of which has already been deforested or degraded, according to the draft of a landmark scientific report published on Wednesday. Produced by the Science […]
Essay: God’s plan for animals is a hot topic in theology that we can all understand
US Catholic commentator CHARLES C CAMOSY, himself involved in organising an amicus brief from Catholic theologians in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s legal attempts to free Happy the Elephant from captivity in the Bronx Zoo, looks at why animal ethics is a hot theological issue…
As world falls behind on UN wildlife targets, bright spots offer hope
London, UKReuters All the world’s governments have fallen short on pledges made a decade ago to protect wildlife, though cases of conservation show that the destruction of nature can be slowed, and even reversed, according to a UN report published on Tuesday. The report outlined recommendations for far-reaching changes in sectors from farming to urban […]
About three billion animals harmed in Australian bushfires, WWF says
Sydney, AustraliaReuters Nearly three billion koalas, kangaroos and other native Australian animals were killed or displaced by bushfires in 2019 and 2020, a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said, triple the group’s earlier estimates. Some 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs were impacted by […]
“RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW”
People have long looked at nature and wondered: ‘What type of world do we live in? Kill or be killed, survival of the fittest?’ As Tennyson put it, the world is “red in tooth and claw!” A leopard with its kill in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania. PICTURE: Colin Watts/Unsplash It’s a challenge to the Christian idea that […]