Inside This Issue:
- Happy New Year!
Happy New Year!
May 2025 be your best year yet – filled with love, success, and lots of animals. We look forward to working with you in 2025!
Sincerely,
We'll be back with our regular newsletter next week. Until then, here are a few recent animal items you may have missed over the holidays...
- Was hitting the gym more often one of your New Year’s resolutions? Well, we don’t want to discourage you, but there are a lot of animals out there that put human beings to shame in the muscle department. When it comes to raw power, the African elephant stands unmatched. You probably knew you didn’t want to get into a lifting contest with an elephant, but strength takes many forms. A dung beetle, for example, can pull over one thousand times its body weight (for the average American, this is like pulling over 200,000 lbs!), while the saltwater crocodile possesses the most powerful bite force ever recorded in a lab setting: about 3,700 pounds per square inch (compare that to our own puny 175 psi). This goofy list fills out the feats of strength. Read it in good health, and remember to drink lots of water, and to never, ever skip leg day!
- A wild cat sanctuary in Washington state has lost more than half of its cats following an outbreak of bird flu (HPAI). Twenty of its 37 cats have died, and one is in critical condition. The cats were kept in large, separate habitats, but, sadly, that wasn’t enough to keep the flu from spreading. The sanctuary is now under quarantine and is closed to the public as its cats receive treatment and new safety protocols are enacted.
- After a 78-year-old Beaumont, Texas man was killed in a dog attack, local Animal Care and police are working together to identify the owner of the dogs. The two dogs involved in the attack are currently in quarantine because of rabies protocols and are scheduled to be euthanized. The owner of the dogs, assuming there is one, has not come forward. This tragedy highlights the need to enforce codes regarding dangerous and stray dogs. Pet ownership is literally a life-and-death responsibility.
- Oregon and Massachusetts will receive funds to construct wildlife crossings in 2025. Massachusetts will be rebuilding and rebranding an existing bridge. The state is framing this effort mostly in terms of driver safety, which is not a bad sell, considering the huge number of deer/vehicle collisions we see each year. Oregon’s project will stretch over an interstate highway in the southwest region of the state, reconnecting the habitat of over 300 different species.
