Inside This Issue:
- It's that Time Again: Our Obligatory "Beat the Summer Heat" Post!
- Ivory Detection Just Got Easier
- Woman on Probation for "Animal Crushing" Videos Found with 12 Cats and Dogs
- News Bites: Better Living Through Chemistry; Singing to the Shelter Dogs; and More!
It's that Time Again: Our Obligatory "Beat the Summer Heat" Post!
Strangely content!
Now that it is officially summer, temperatures are ramping up and veterinarians are sounding the alarm for pet owners to keep a close eye on their animals. While many of us can retreat into the comfort of air conditioning, pets and livestock, zoo animals, and wildlife can all face relentless heat, and each group of animals comes with their own set of challenges and adaptations.
Our pets and barnyard animals are especially vulnerable to heat stress, dehydration, and exhaustion. The advice is straightforward: keep animals inside during peak heat, make sure they have lots of fresh water and shade, and avoid taking them out for strenuous activities during the hot parts of the day. As simple as this sounds, it's surprisingly easy to be so set in our daily routines that the heat sneaks up on us and we miss something, like our dogs drinking more water than usual. Also, we know that you already know this (and may even be sick of hearing it) but it's important to keep pets out of parked cars, even for a quick trip in and out of the convenience store, as the temperature can spike dangerously fast. Finally, if your pet starts panting heavily, drooling, or seems weak, those are early signs of overheating and need immediate attention. Cooling mats, fans, and early intervention can make a life-saving difference!
Now on to zoos! At places like the Rosamond Gifford Zoo, keepers are working overtime to keep animals safe. While some residents, like elephants and monkeys, are naturally adapted to warmer climates, staff still monitor them closely for signs of heat stress. Above 80 degrees, animals get access to indoor barns, extra water, and sometimes ice treats. Shade is a priority, and routines are changed up to keep the animals comfortable and stimulated. Many of the zoo’s animals are actually better suited to New York’s winters than its summers, so adapting to heat is a group effort between animals and keepers.
Wild animals don’t have the luxury of fans, cooling mats, or human caretakers, so they rely on their own evolutionary solutions. While humans and horses sweat to cool down, most animals use evaporative cooling in other ways, like taking dips in water or wallowing in mud. Some, like mule deer and rabbits, use their big ears as radiators, letting heat escape through the blood vessels near the skin. Panting is common in both mammals and birds, helping evaporate moisture and cool the body. Birds have some unique tricks: vultures will poop on their legs to use evaporation for cooling, while species like herons and owls flutter their throats to increase airflow and evaporation. Reptiles can’t regulate their own body temperature, so they simply seek out shade when the sun gets too intense. Even bees get in on the action, fanning their wings to circulate air and cool the hive.
Source: Veterinarians urge pet owners to protect animals from extreme heat
Ivory Detection Just Got Easier
Some impressive tusks!
Ivory has fascinated people for thousands of years, prized for its smooth texture and workability. Ancient humans carved mammoth tusks into flutes during the Ice Age, creating some of the world's oldest musical instruments. Over centuries, ivory became a status symbol, appearing in everything from chess pieces to piano keys—and in modern Japan, it's still used for personal signature stamps called hanko. But this popularity has come at a steep price, especially for elephants. As demand soared through the 19th and 20th centuries, African elephant populations plummeted by more than 80%.
International bans now prohibit elephant ivory sales, but mammoth ivory – ivory dug up from Siberian permafrost – remains legal. The trouble is, the two look similar, especially once carved or polished, creating a loophole for smugglers who blend illegal elephant ivory with legal mammoth tusks. Distinguishing between these ivories isn’t just an academic problem. African ivory is usually denser than Asian ivory, and both are denser than mammoth ivory, which tends to be more brittle and lacks the creamy color of fresh elephant tusk. Still, for non-experts, these differences can be hard to spot, especially in finished objects.
A team led by Dr. Pavel Toropov and Dr. Maria Santos at the University of Hong Kong has found a promising way to tell them apart: stable isotope analysis. By examining the ratios of hydrogen and oxygen isotopes—reflecting the water each animal drank in their different habitats—the researchers could quickly and cheaply distinguish elephant tusks from mammoth ones. Their study, which analyzed 79 ivory samples from seizures and markets, found almost no overlap in these isotope signatures between the species. Other methods, like DNA analysis and radiocarbon dating, are slower and more expensive. While more work is needed before this test can serve as courtroom evidence, it could soon provide a rapid first screen for suspect ivory shipments.
Source: Forensic Experts Develop Tool To Detect Elephant Ivory Disguised As Legal Mammoth Ivory
Woman on Probation for "Animal Crushing" Videos Found with 12 Cats and Dogs
German Shepherd
Warning: the following is a really disturbing story involving animal torture. Krystal Cherika Scott, a 24-year-old Indiana woman – the first person charged under a 2019 federal “animal crushing” law – was discovered earlier this week in a windowless van, along with 12 dogs and cats. Two other individuals were there with Scott. The animals were alive, though dehydrated and kept in poor conditions, and it is best not to imagine the fate that awaited them.
Scott’s collection of animals may not have been discovered, had it not been for an Indianapolis man, Kyle Christie, who posted about finding a stray German Shepherd, “Bruno,” online. Scott and two other people arrived to pick up Bruno, and Christie immediately sensed something was off. Bruno clearly did not want to leave with the trio. The situation became tense enough that Christie called the police on the trio, because he didn’t believe the dog belonged to them. Police confirmed that the group, which lived in tents near Christie’s home, had owned Bruno for about a week, so Christie was forced to surrender the dog.
The entire exchange seemed very wrong, and Christie’s sister, after some online sleuthing, learned that the cell phone the group had used to retrieve Bruno was tied to Scott – a person infamous for posting videos of herself torturing cats and dogs. At this horrific revelation, Christie, his sister, and his sister’s boyfriend investigated the area themselves for multiple days until Scott – and the van containing 12 dogs and cats – was located. Sadly, Bruno was not among the animals recovered. During the investigation, the body of a mutilated dog was discovered in a homeless camp that Scott was known to frequent, which makes questions about Bruno’s fate all the more ominous. The 12 animals have been confiscated by Indianapolis Animal Care Services, and Scott, along with her two unnamed companions, each face 12 counts of care and treatment violations. The terms of Scott’s probation are unclear, though it would seem she has committed numerous violations. It would be nice if the story had a clearer and happier ending (still no word on what happened to Bruno), but even so, the Christies deserve huge credit for their investigation. Without their work, this story may not have come to light at all, and the fate of those 12 dogs and cats is something we'd all rather not imagine.
News Bites: Better Living Through Chemistry; Singing to the Shelter Dogs; and More!
Habrobracon hebetor eats radiation for lunch
Better living through chemistry? Well… maybe. This story isn’t new, but it was the first we’d heard of it: researchers dosed a bunch of salmon with clobazam and tramadol, and discovered that the clobazam’ed salmon swam further and faster, and made it through obstacles (like dams) more easily than their teetotaling brethren. Tramadol, a pain-relieving opiate, did not seem to have any effect. Clobazam is an anti-anxiety medication for humans, and is known to have a similar effect on salmon. One possible theory regarding the changes seen in salmon is that they were simply less stressed out by the natural anxiety that comes along with migrating, navigating hydroelectric dams, and eluding predators. That being said, while the effects here seem like a net positive for migrating salmon, this definitely isn’t a call to “medicate” the waters – pharmaceutical pollution is a worldwide problem that can cause changes in animal behavior (as seen here), hormone disruption, and even lead to organ damage.
On Monday, in Montgomery County, Maryland, local residents stepped up bigtime for sweltering shelter animals. Just as temperatures hit a boiling point, the air conditioning at the country’s shelter went out, threatening the health and safety of its 150+ animals. A desperate community SOS went out, and in the blink of an eye, over 40 animals were picked up and treated to short-term foster care by big-hearted locals, with more help arriving by the hour. The shelter describes the community support as almost overwhelming – at one point, there was a line of foster volunteers stretching into the parking lot. The shelter also received donations of cooling mats, fans, and other helpful supplies. The AC has been repaired, the animals are safe now, and everyone is inspired by the quick and generous response of Montgomery County’s pet-loving residents!
Speaking of helping out at the shelter, what about using music to calm anxious shelter animals, boost their mental health, and ultimately make them more adoptable? That’s what an ambitious 12-year-old musician is trying to do with his nonprofit, Wild Tunes, which brings musicians into shelters to play their instruments for animals. We don't have any science to support or contradict this practice, but anecdotally, while the experience riles the animals up at first, it does seem to calm them down once they get used to the idea of a stranger appearing and playing music for them. Regardless of the animals’ taste in music, having a positive new experience and getting special attention must be pretty great! And it's not only the animals that benefit: the musicians get to pad their resumés with community service while practicing in front of what is, quite literally, a captive audience.
Normally, we put silly lists about animals in our “other news” section, but a few animals on this list of “indestructible animals” deserve special mention. Of course, we all knew the tardigrade would take home the top prize. But how about the mongoose: an animal that is so addicted to delicious cobra meat, its acetylcholine receptors have mutated, making it much harder for cobra venom to penetrate to the mongoose’s vital organs. Now that is a seriously dedicated foodie! Or what about crocodiles: if you’ve got bullet-resistant skin, what on earth could you be afraid of? Well, maybe other crocodiles. With a bite force of 3,700 PSI, they’re the strongest biters on the planet, and they just love wrestling one another. (Note… prehistoric, giant crocs probably had a bite force of up to 23,000 PSI, which is about three times that of the T-Rex!) And finally, consider Habrobracon hebetor: this parasitic wasp can absorb 158 times as much radiation as a human being (158,080 rads – about 15 times more than a cockroach), and not only does it survive… its lifespan actually increases. Now, before you start imagining a Beginning of the End scenario, don’t worry: if there was enough radiation in the world for these wasps to take over, we’d already be extremely dead. And the wasps’ reign would be short lived, anyway, since females become sterile at “only” 4,200 rads. And even with a greatly, radiation-extended lifespan, they’d still only live for about a month as adults. Ah, but what a glorious month it would be!
Also in the News...
★ Watch: Zoo animals chill out with cool treats during Chicago heat wave (Zoos & Animal Care; Obligatory Pics & Videos)
★ Pigs, goats, sheep, chickens and more seized in El Paso County animal cruelty investigation (Investigations & Charges)
★ Bays Mountain exhibit highlights Appalachian animals (Animal-Centric Events & Appreciation)
★ Texas General Land Office calls for delisting golden-cheeked warbler from Endangered Species Act (ESA Updates; Land & Property Use)
★ Seven wild discoveries about animals in 2025 (Fun & Goofy Lists; Did You Hear the One About the Incredulous Dolphin?)
Sign up for the 2025 NAIA Conference at the early bird rate!
Click here to see what is happening legislatively
