animals

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/28/2022
  

  Dog Breed Stereotypes are Poor Guides to Behavior; Historian Explains Why they Are So Common

  Science Historian Michael Worboys explains that the Victorian craze for dog breeding enshrined both a focus on dogs' outward appearances and the idea that heredity was all-important to a dog's quality, leading to frequent disappointment for owners who find their pets don't fit expectations. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/16/2021
  

  The Elephant Who Could Be a Person

  by Jill Lepore

  A petition challenging the keeping of Happy, an Asian Elephant, by the Bronx Zoo raises questions about the legal status of personhood. If it applies to protect the property and civil rights of corporations, can it be extended for the protection of the natural world? 

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• SOURCE: Vox
  11/12/2021
  

  What's in the Infrastructure Plan for Animals?

  Collisions between wildlife and vehicles are bad for animals and dangerous and costly to people and governments, too. The United States may take steps to catch up with technology to mitigate them. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/3/2021
  

  We Are Still Feeling the Ecological Impact of Whaling

  In one century, whalers killed at least 2 million baleen whales, which together weighed twice as much as all the wild mammals on Earth today. New research suggests this has impacted the ecology of the oceans significantly.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/11/2021
  

  Invasion of the Hippos: Colombia is Running Out of Time to Tackle Pablo Escobar’s Wildest Legacy

  Colombian officials failed to castrate the large and potentially dangerous animals when their numbers were small. Now the country faces a potential invasive species calamity. 

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  11/23/2020
  

  A History of Felines, as Narrated and Illustrated by a Cat

  A new book presents a history of significant cats and the human-feline relationship, with a substantial assist from the author's cat. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/14/2020
  

  When the White House Was Full of Claws, Scales, Stripes and Tails

  Although dogs will return to the White House in January and revive a long tradition, past presidents have kept some unusual pets (also, Calvin Coolidge was gifted a raccoon to eat for Thanksgiving dinner). 

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• SOURCE: New Yorker
  4/13/2020
  

  The Pandemic Is Not a Natural Disaster

  by Kate Brown

  Zoonotic diseases can seem like earthquakes; they appear to be random acts of nature. In fact, they are more like hurricanes—they can occur more frequently, and become more powerful, if human beings alter the environment in the wrong ways.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  November 30, 2019
  

  The Narwhal Tusk Has a Mystical History. A New Chapter was added on London Bridge.

  by Miriam Berger

  For centuries Europeans sought out the “unicorn horn” of the arctic-dwelling narwhal whale. 

• 
• SOURCE: Time
  5/3/19
  

  A Beluga Whale Is Allegedly a Russian Spy. There's a Long History of Marine Mammals in the Military

  In the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet authorities reportedly trained beluga wales, dolphins, sea lions and fur seals to search for underwater mines and other objects.