News articles on pets

Mongabay.com news articles on pets in blog format. Updated regularly.

'Cute' umbrella video of slow loris threatens primate

(03/13/2011) A new video of a slow loris holding an umbrella in a pet store has been viewed nearly a million and a half times, yet such viral videos may imperil these 'cute' and endangered primates by encouraging an illegal and often cruel pet trade. "Most people who see them in this setting want one, too!" says Angelina Navarro-Montes, a graduate student at Oxford Brookes University who has conducted studies of the slow-loris Internet trade, told mongabay.com in 2009. "There is also a big misconception on [YouTube] and a lot of viewers think it’s perfectly legal to have them as pets."

Dangerous and exploitative: a look at pet wild cats

(07/13/2010) From bobcats, lynx, and pumas to the thousands of lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, and little wildcats living in captive environments, the WildCat Conservation Legal Aid Society is solely devoted to ending the commercial exploitation of all wildcats. Its primary objectives are to drastically reduce and subsequently eliminate the private ownership of wildcats as pets; wildcats held in roadside zoos and pseudo-sanctuaries; using wildcats for entertainment purposes; as well as hunting, trafficking, and trade of wildcats. Lisa Tekancic is an attorney in Washington, DC and founder and president of WildCat Conservation Legal Aid Society. Their mission is to protect and defend all native and non-native wildcats. Lisa is an active member of the DC Bar’s Animal Law Committee and has organized and moderated two legal conferences: 'Trafficking, Trade, and Transport of Wildlife,' and 'Wildlife and the Law.' She presented a paper on the methodology of 'Animal Ethics Committee' for the International Conference on Environmental Enrichment, and for four years was volunteer staff at the National Zoological Park’s, Cheetah Station.

Chupacabra story is a hoax; likely a Xolo dog breed

(09/04/2007) An alleged chupacabra carcass found in Texas is likely a hoax to sell T-shirts say dog experts. The animal, described in an Associated Press report last week as "a cross between two or three different things", was found as road kill last month near the Texas town of Cuero. The woman who discovered the carcass has been using it to market chupacabra T-shirts. In lively Internet discussions dog breeders say the carcass appears to be a Xoloitzcuintle or Xolo, otherwise known as a Mexican Hairless dog, rather than the blood-sucking creature of legend.

home | archives | news | XML / RSS feeds

XML / RSS / Syndication options

mongabay.com features more than 250 RSS feeds to meet your specific area of interest

All mongabay.com news
Only rainforest news
Only Brazil news
Only Biodiversity news
Only Climate Change news
Only Madagascar news

more XML feeds

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

SUPPORT
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)

Help support mongabay.com when you buy from Amazon.com

RELATED TOPICS

default related topics content

BLOGROLL/LINKS

default blogroll links content

HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOS / PRINTS

CALENDARS

Mount Kenya

East Africa Safari Wildlife

Kenya's Turkana People

Madagascar Chameleons

CANVAS BAGS

Hallucinogenic frog bag

Madagascar wildlife bag

Copyright mongabay 2010

Carbon dioxide gas emissions generated from mongabay.com operations (server, data transfer, travel) are mitigated through an association with Anthrotect,
an organization working with Afro-indigenous and Embera communities to protect forests in Colombia's Darien region.
Anthrotect is protecting the habitat of mongabay's mascot: the scale-crested pygmy tyrant.