“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be
judged by the way its animals are treated.”
—Mahatma Gandhi
by Sarah Lane
Now that school’s out and we’re heading down the front steps of summer, our children will rekindle their complicated relationships with insects and arachnids, frequently picking up and trapping, occasionally screaming at and running away from, and too often stomping and squishing them. But there are many good reasons to model a different way of interacting, helping our kids observe closely, admire and appreciate, and tread lightly when in …

by Pat Leonard and Christianne White, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
What kind of wild animal do you see nearly every day of your life? Birds. They are living right near you, in your neighborhood, leading busy lives, building nests, laying eggs, and raising young. They are independent from us yet also dependent on us because we have such a big impact on the places they live—especially in cities.
Fascinating Pigeons

One of the most common city birds is the pigeon. But don’t think that common means “uninteresting.”

The Rock Pigeon can fly 50 miles …

by Julie Hall
Whenever we walk through the “pet” food aisle at the market my daughter coos at the adorable kitten and puppy faces on the labels. Like most things in our world these days what you see is not what you get—or, in this gruesome instance, it is what you get. Yeah, some pet food makers add euthanized cats and dogs to their animal food products. First reported by the San Francisco Chronicle and confirmed by the American Veterinary Medical Association, many pets euthanized with the poison sodium pentobarbital are …

by Sarah Lane
It’s official: Fish & Wildlife officials are getting ready to kill sea lions in the Columbia River because the sea lions are killing salmon, and we like salmon better than sea lions. (Salmon: Good. Sea lions: Bad.) FYI: We humans are killing salmon too, but thankfully the sea lions aren’t coming after us yet. The problem is that salmon are endangered (mostly because of us) and the sea lions are really good at consuming ginormous quantities of them all at once, threatening salmon even more.
In 2008, the Humane …