Innehållsförteckning för The 2024 Animals Edition från The Goodnewspaper

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…

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,…

In an attempt to study soil health, a group of scientists from Australia’s Flinders University planted microphones in the ground to see if the acoustics of ants and worms would be a solid indicator of biodiversity. Not to fast forward to the end of the song, but … they were. “It’s a bit like going to the doctor,” ecologist Jake Robinson told The Guardian. “They put a stethoscope on your chest, take a health check, listen to your beating heart. … We’re doing something similar in the soil.” Since the tapping sounds of millipedes or gliding echoes of a snail are indiscernible to the human ear, the researchers set up microphones that picked up vibrations from contact with the dirt, amplifiing the recording by 20 decibels. Samples filled with plants…

In the U.K., about 150,000 hedgehogs are killed every year in roadside accidents, contributing to a rapidly declining population. This issue is especially rampant in suburban areas in England. Compared to the 36 million hedgehogs in the region in the 1960s, experts believe there are approximately 1 million of the spiny mammals left, according to a report by The People’s Trust for Endangered Species. So, this summer, England’s first official “hedgehog crossing ” road signs have been unveiled. While the signs ultimately aim to curb traffic deaths, they also act as a form of awareness, according to Mike Massimi, a representative of Kingston Council in southwest London. “The signs are something that people can relate to. We all drive, we all walk by,” Massimi told The Telegraph. “Slow down and…

LOOK FOR THE HELPERS In 2017, Jason Baldes, the executive director of the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, witnessed something that hadn’t happened in over 130 years: a buffalo being born on the Wind River Reservation of central Wyoming. And it was thanks to his and his father’s 40-year-long efforts to rewild buffalo on the Shoshone and Arapaho reservation. Today, seven years later, Baldes is being honored for his conservation work with the National Geographic Wayfinder Award. “It was based on this extraordinary kind of vision and mission that he has,” Alex Moen, National Geographic’s chief explorer engagement officer, told WyoFile. As a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, the cultural significance of the species’ restoration is not lost on him. For centuries, buffalo were not just important keystone species…

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,…

For the last 11 years, volunteers have ventured out in freezing temperatures to Finland’s Lake Saimaa every winter. It is here that the Saimaa ringed seal — one of the world’s most endangered seal species — is trying to survive. For most of history, the blistering cold winters drove snow into meters-high snow banks along Lake Saimaa’s shoreline, where the seals carved cozy dens to shelter from the elements and raise their pups. But in recent decades, with increasing temperatures caused by climate change, snow drifts have failed to form in sufficient numbers. “The seal gives birth in a lair it digs into a snowbank,” World Wildlife Fund officer Joonas Fritze explained in a video. “If there aren’t any snow banks, the pups are born on open ice and don’t…

Janie Groeling is on a mission to change the way people see hermit crabs. “Millions of hermit crabs every single year are captured from the wild and sold at beach shops and pet stores where they suffer,” Groeling said in her pinned TikTok video, which has over 1.6 million views. In the video, Groeling described how hermit crabs are typically held without food and water en masse after they’re captured, and then cracked out of their natural shells so that they’re forced to crawl into brightly painted ones. Those painted shells — with googly eyes and doodles — are made to be more appealing to kids, but they’re often toxic to the hermit crabs themselves. Although Groeling said the tourist industry markets them as “easy, disposable beach souvenirs for kids,”…

After being adopted by a public school music teacher, Cole, the Deaf Pitbull, quickly became a symbol of support for disabled children. Chris Hannah, Cole’s owner, was amazed by Cole’s ability to respond to sign language and quickly trained him as a certified therapy dog, who now comes to school, armed with the message that it is OK to be different. Now, the duo — along with Hannah’s Deaf nephew — have launched a unique social-emotional learning program at their South Jersey school. “Their program helps students reflect on their personal feelings of ‘brokenness’ in a new and self-empowering way and leaves an impression of acceptance and compassion that youth can take with them for years to come,” a statement on Cole’s website reads. During the summers, Cole is also…

Steve Greig is no stranger to pet loss. In 2012, the Denver retiree was devastated when his 12-year-old dog Wolfgang was hit by a car and killed. After months passed, Greig found he still had profound grief from Wolfgang’s death, so he channeled that grief into action. He went to the shelter and adopted the oldest dog they had, knowing it might not otherwise find a home. Over a decade later, Greig has taken in close to 40 senior dogs — and a few nondog companions, including Bikini the pig, Betty the chicken, and Cranberry the turkey. The majority of his adopted pets have passed away, from illness or age, but he prides himself in making their “twilight years” comfortable. “I did it originally, because I was in pain from…

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…

As Palestinians face ongoing bombardments, one animal lover — and his family — have turned their attention to rescuing stray animals who are also impacted by war. In 2006, Saeed Al Err started Sulala Animal Rescue, a sanctuary for strays. However, his shelter — which once housed 400 dogs and dozens of cats — was likely destroyed by Israeli forces in October 2023, after the Al Err family was forced to flee their home. Before they evacuated, Al Err freed the dogs so they could save themselves and look for food. He was devastated to leave, but weeks later, nine of those dogs found their way back to him at his new temporary shelter. “I was so happy. It really made my day to see them,” Al Err told ABC…

Funeral homes undoubtedly bring up a lot of painful feelings, for both attendees and the people who work in the industry. So at Robert J. Cotton Funeral Directors in Palmerston North Central, New Zealand, a vital team member also shows up to work every day: Lola, a beloved miniature Schnauzer. Lola is affectionately called a “funeral therapy assistant” and quietly makes the rounds to comfort grieving community members during a service. And of course, she sticks to protocol, wearing a professional black suit jacket, embroidered with her name. “She is so calm,” Lola’s handler, who runs her TikTok account, wrote on a post. “She has such a special connection to our families in their time of need.” While therapy dogs are growing in popularity in places such as schools, hospitals,…

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins was one of the first six employees of world-renowned outdoor gear company Patagonia. Under the leadership of Yvon Chouinard, she helped build an iconic, ethical brand which she later ran as CEO — and met her late husband, Doug Tompkins, who co-founded The North Face and Esprit. But after decades in outdoor entrepreneurship, Kristine and Doug decided to pivot to outdoor preservation, or what Doug called “paying his rent for living on the planet.” Once she retired from Patagonia the company, Kristine joined Doug in Patagonia the place, prepared to dedicate the rest of their lives to conservation. Watching the “decimation of nature” unfold as a result of what Kristine called “the dark side of industrial growth,” she and Doug became part of the resistance. Using their…