What Phenology Is Telling Us About Spring 2017
[caption id="attachment_838" align="alignright" width="476"] Feb. 2, 2017, Groundhog Club handler John Griffiths holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 131st celebration of the holiday in Punxsutawney, Pa.Gene J. Puskar/AP[/caption] February 2nd, 2017, Phil the Pennsylvanian groundhog, saw his shadow and predicted 6 more weeks of winter. Phil, it…
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Animal Testing
The U.S. cosmetic industry is largely increasing, estimated to amount to about 62.46 billion U.S. dollars in 2016, yet the cosmetic industry has been using outdated practices that are costly and, at times, inhumane. According to PETA, around 100 million animals are burned, crippled, poisoned, and abused every year in…
Eat Less Meat
Health conscious eating behavior is no new phenomenon. People worldwide are turning to more plant based diets to thwart health issues and diseases like high LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular disease. There are also people adjusting their eating styles for animal justice and cruelty means. Then there are people who, for…
Silent Forest: The Extinction of Primates
A new research study has found that around 60 percent of the 500 known primate species are on the verge of extinction. With around 75 percent of all species declining in numbers, this new discovery sparked an uproar in the scientific community who are now calling to raise global awareness of the…
Shark Fin Soup: Sustainable Recipe Below
In January 2017, Air China had announced it commitment to banning the transport of shark fin. Many animal conservationists approve of Air China's leading move, but why are shark fins so controversial? Shark fin has been used traditionally for decades as the main ingredient to Shark Fin Soup, an…
Chile Wildfires Will Impact Ecosystems
Photo by Pablo Sanhueza at Reuters TV. Retrieved from NYTimes. The worst wildfire to impact Chile in over five decades is affecting the areas in central-south Chile right now. Prolonged drought and high temperatures have kept the forest fire going since November. Though only recently has the fire been spreading…
Behind the Skittles Highway Spill
Thousands of Skittles were scattered across a rural Wisconsin highway when a box of red candies on the back of a pickup truck disintegrated in the rain. Dodge County Sheriff’s Office put out a Facebook status that the Skittles were intended to be cattle feed. This led many on…
Less Coal for Safer Tuna!
Nicholas S. Fisher and his team researched the levels of methylmercury of tuna caught in the Gulf of Maine between 2004 and 2012, and had positive news. The levels have decreased at a rate of 2 percent per year (almost 20 percent in over a decade), and was shown to…
More Ice, Smaller Reindeer
Many animal species have been affected by climate change, and reindeer are one of them. Over the past twenty years, the reindeer found in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, just north of the Arctic Circle, have shrunk in size. Their aveage weight dropped by 12 percent - from 121 lbs…
China Ivory Factories Soon to be Closed?
China is preparing to bring a ban on their domestic ivory trade, and will announce when it will close its legal ivory carving factories. The market for legal and illegal ivory had previously mentioned it would shut down sales, but it did not have a set timeline. Conservationalists and wildlife…