She was reaching for the monkey fur coat when it happened. As New York City fashion designer Kym Canter went into her closet to grab the vintage black fur that had once drawn admiring looks and made her feel chic and sexy, she felt something else entirely: She knew people at the party she was headed...
Many Marches ago, as I mindlessly contorted myself to pull a deep-rooted weed from the garden patch, my thoughts turned longingly to the smell of fresh basil that would eventually grace what I saw as a still-barren vegetable graveyard. This spot was not so lifeless as it appeared, I would soon learn...
Fur factory farms and trappers kill millions of animals each year using brutal methods just for their fur. With your help, the Humane Society of the United States is fighting back—and winning—with brands, cities and countries moving away from fur. But to make progress, we need you. There are five...
The suspect creeping up near my front fence was a tough character—broad-leafed and thick-stemmed and threatening to invade my property and swallow it whole if I didn’t act fast. There was no hesitation that summer morning as I headed to work: Off with his head! It was a decision made all too easy by...
Healthy oceans are vital to the animals who call them home and to the overall well-being of our planet. Here are a few things you can do to help. Stop trashing the ocean You probably wouldn't dream of dumping your trash in the ocean. But did you know that over-fertilizing your lawn could have an...
Biologist Roger Payne heard about the stranded porpoise one night in 1964, while listening to a local radio station as he worked in a lab at Tufts University. Wanting to see for himself, he drove to nearby Revere Beach, north of Boston, and found the animal’s body. The porpoise had been mutilated...
You don’t forget the images: the olive ridley sea turtle, a plastic straw lodged in his nose. The Rubenesque sea lion, neck cinched tight by a thick plastic packing strap. The Cuvier’s beaked whale, stomach split open to reveal more than 80 pounds of plastic waste—snack bags, rope, rice sacks...
Flying back and forth over Cape Cod Bay, a survey plane spotted a half dozen of the world’s rarest creatures: North Atlantic right whales. Such sightings are good news. The species hovers near extinction—by one estimate, fewer than 360 remain. Each time researchers locate a whale, they take pictures...
MARYLAND—Today the Maryland legislature passed a bill that would ban the sale of parts and products made from imperiled wildlife species. The legislation is now headed to Gov. Larry Hogan for his signature. The bill (HB 52/SB 381) prohibits the trade in Maryland of products made from 15 at-risk...
The term “roadkill” was coined in the 1940s, according to Merriam-Webster, entering the lexicon alongside “DDT” and other harbingers of a dystopian technological age that runs roughshod over the natural world. In the 1990s, the word became a cheeky insult when a rival called then-House Speaker Newt...
WARNING: This page contains graphic content. The video is hard to watch: A raccoon dog is clubbed and hung upside down, still conscious, as a seller in a Chinese market yanks off her skin. Then the peeled animal—alive, moving, blinking—is thrown on a pile to die. The subject of a 2005 investigation...
The public display industry keeps many species of marine mammals captive in concrete tanks, especially whales and dolphins. The Humane Society of the United States believes that these animals are best seen in their natural coastal and ocean environments instead of being held captive simply to...
It was a rude awakening: Just as my thoughts drifted into a pre-sleep jumble, a skunk pounced onto my nighttime reading. Not just any skunk, but a giant one flashing her black-and-white tail in a series of pungent leaps. Back and forth she went, bed to floor to bed, before my eyes caught up with my...
We zigzag from tree to tree, seeking refuge under the leaf umbrellas. Drizzle turns to deluge as we dash beneath a tall canopy to plot our escape. The sky booms. My dad takes my hand, and I look up to see if he shares my sense of foreboding. But he’s smiling at me, his eyes twinkling. He says...
WARNING: This page contains graphic content. Editor's note: In late August, as mink on fur farms in the Netherlands continued to fall sick with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans, the Dutch government announced that it would require all mink fur farms to close by March of 2021...