On Invasion and Persuasion
Smithsonian magazine is, according to its website, “created for modern, well-rounded individuals with diverse interests” and “chronicles the arts, history, sciences and popular culture of the times.”...
View ArticleKeys: To the Future
Below is a slightly reformatted version of the comments I submitted in response to the Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges Complex Integrated Predator Management Plan/Draft Environmental Assessment....
View ArticleA House Deluded
On February 25th, the Utah House of Representatives voted rather decisively—44 to 28—in favor of HB 210, which would amend the state’s animal cruelty laws. Whether or not the representatives knew what...
View ArticleIt’s Not the Media, It’s the Message
To hear The Wildlife Society’s staunch opponents of TNR tell it, the media’s just not interested in stories about “the impacts of free-ranging and feral cats on wildlife.” “This January when thousands...
View ArticleClose Enough?
Among the findings of a recent study: Five of 18 cats trapped “between the spring and fall of 2008 and 2009” in central Illinois’ 1,500-acre Robert Allerton Park tested positive for Toxoplasma gondii...
View ArticleSpoiler Alert
Coming up this Wednesday: “Impacts of Free Roaming Cats on Native Wildlife,” a Webinar sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Registration, from what I can tell, appears to be open to the...
View ArticleLoose Threads
North American Opossum with winter coat. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Cody Pope. A study published last month in the online open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases suggests a...
View ArticleThe Silent Treatment
“I don’t want to be sort of a poodle dog when I’m out there, and a friendly sort of presence in people’s lives,” explained New York Times reporter David Carr in an October 2011 interview with Fresh Air...
View ArticleFree-Roaming Cats, Infectious Diseases, and the Zombie Apocalypse
A recently published paper describing free-roaming cats as “a significant public health threat” fails to deliver convincing evidence. In fact, the very work the authors cite undermines, time and time...
View ArticleWar on Nature, War on Cats
In Nature Wars, to be released next week, award-winning journalist Jim Sterba argues that it’s time for Americans to reconnect with nature—and what better incentive than a massive lethal control...
View ArticleThinking Inside the Box
It’s difficult to determine how these things get started—how the results of a well-documented experiment conducted nearly 40 years ago become twisted into the frequently made—and widely-accepted—claim...
View ArticleTNR Opponents’ Reaction(?) to the Recovery of the California Sea Otter
Photo: Wikipedia/Michael L. Baird For several years now, TNR opponents have blamed Toxoplasma gondii infection in California sea otters on outdoor cats, the idea being that the parasite is spread from...
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