The Goodnewspaper The 2024 Animals Edition

HELLO HELLO! Growing up, I wanted to be a veterinarian. Well, I also wanted to be a firefighter or an astronaut, but vet always surfaced to the top of my list. So when I turned 13, I begged my parents to let me volunteer at our local animal shelter. Driving to the shelter and back throughout the week proved too difficult for our family schedule, but fortunately, the woman at the front desk offered an alternative: fostering. “She’ll probably get an elderly dog,” the volunteer told my mom. “Or maybe an injured rabbit. Nothing she can’t handle.” My mom peered down on me. “As long as you don’t keep any of them.” She held out her hand. “Promise?” “Promise.” We shook on it. My first foster assignment came a week…

WE HAVE GOOD NEWS From the emerald waters of the Great Barrier Reef to the vast stretches of the outback, Australia hosts over 1,700 threatened species (including koalas, wombats, numbats, tinker frogs, pygmy possums, and more). Saving them all is a task that can seem insurmountable. In July, however, a group of 60 scientists from The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists published a 24-step action plan for what it would take to save the country’s threatened wildlife — and they even put a dollar amount to it: $7.3 billion annually for the next 30 years. That’s less than two-thirds of the annual funds the federal government funnels toward fossil fuel subsidies. “The cost is less than 0.3% of our GDP. Given that nearly half of our GDP depends on nature,…

Bangladesh was once home to one of the biggest populations of Asian elephants on the planet. But after years of poaching and habitat destruction, only 200 Asian elephants remain in the country — and nearly half of them live in captivity. Fortunately, in February of this year, Bangladesh banned the capture and adoption of wild elephants. In a statement to AFP, Amit Das Gupta, the Deputy Attorney General of Bangladesh, emphasized the court’s order to suspend “all licenses for the captive rearing of elephants” and effectively end the cruel practice of shackling wild elephants for circus acts and street performances. In the wild, Asian elephants have an average life expectancy of 60 to 70 years, but captive elephants — particularly those in entertainment — often don’t make it past 45.…

In early September, the Apache trout of eastern Arizona was successfully taken off of the federal list of endangered and threatened wildlife, becoming the first sport fish and trout to be delisted due to recovery. And that success is due almost entirely to the same tribe it’s named after. “It was the White Mountain Apache Tribe who stepped in to protect the species by passing several ordinances in the 1950s and ’60s that closed certain streams from fishing, saving the species from potential extinction,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a statement. “Our tribe has played a crucial role in saving the only impacted trout species in the world, which was on the verge of extinction,” added White Mountain Apache Tribe chairman Kasey Velasquez. In the late 1970s,…

GOOD Learn about endangered animals in your area by visiting ecos.fws.gov/ecp (The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service website). Type in your county’s name and click to see the animals — and any active recovery plans underway. BETTER To make the difference in your own backyard, donate to local nonprofits and wildlife rescues. Check out this database to find a wildlife rescue near you: humanesociety.org/resources/how-find-wildlife-rehabilitator BEST Volunteer in your state through the FWS. The number of local shelters, wildlife refuges — or fish hatcheries — may surprise you, and helping hands always go a long way. Visit fws.gov.…

WE HAVE GOOD NEWS Carrie Lane is a project specialist at San Diego’s Office of Education. And this year, she had a vision for the county’s educational technology department: teach engineering skills to students — and bring the kids’ creations to life with a 3D printer. When Lane launched the program at Marston Middle School, the central design theme was accessibility. “We had real students and real animals that needed solutions,” Lane told The San Diego Union-Tribune. They began by helping a local Blind student, Diego, by creating a gaming controller case fitted with Braille and a tactile map of his future high school. The program also partnered with the San Diego Humane Society and Living Coast Discovery Center, so students could create accessibility tools for animals, like small splints…