Food Politics

Food Matters

Food Politics on Annotate has moved.

Obesity in the Animal World

Anyone who's had even a short, casual conversation with me probably knows my feelings about tubby pets: I like 'em best. Still, it got me worrying a little bit when every article I saw about huge rabbits mentioned that the Guinness Book of World Records was no longer accepting entries for largest animal in order to prevent people from deliberately overfeeding their pets. What on earth is going on here?

Now Britain's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is saying that pet obesity is reaching dangerous levels, according to this BBC article. As part of RSPCA Week, the organization has released a leaflet explaining the dangers of overfeeding, which include arthritis, high blood pressure, poor liver function and diabetes.

Songbird Grammar

The common European starling has recently been found to possess grammatical capabilities (or something analogous) that were once believed to be the factor that made human language unique.

According to an article in the most recent edition of Nature, a group led by Timothy Q. Gentner, from the Organismal Biology and Anatomy department at the University of California, San Diego, found that the starlings could be taught to recognize complex 'recursive' structure.

Panda Returned to the Wild

A giant panda raised in captivity for four years has just been released into the wild--the first captive-bred Panda to do this reverse-commute. Xiang Xiang has spent his life training for this moment at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in Sichuan province in China, according to an AP article. He's been learning how to forage for food, mark his territory, build a den, and defend himself.

Chernobyl's Thriving Wildlife

It was twenty years ago today that a reactor exploded at Chernobyl's nuclear power plant. Thirty-one people died immediately from exposure to the radioactivity, and estimates of the total number of people expected to die from Chernobyl-related cancer range from the UN's 9,300 to Greenpeace's 93,000. 77,220 square miles were contaminated, and 300,000 people were permanently evacuated from the area.

In the absense of human occupants, however, the 19-mile exclusion zone around the reactor has become home to a thriving wildlife population. According to an article on the BBC News website, existing populations have been multiplying, and species long gone from the are have been returning.

Persian sturgeon

Persian sturgeon may prove to be a responsible alternative to other sturgeon species. Still, use caviar sparingly.

Unfair trade

It’s five days to the deadline, and WTO negotiations in Doha are nowhere close to reaching a consensus. Given the U.S. and E.U. track record of dumping, it may be just as well.

Experts Say We Don't Have To Shoot All The Ducks

This year's spring migration, as noted in Bird Flu Revue has caused some panic about the spread of the H5N1 avian flu. It's a process that takes place outside mankind's jurisdiction, which is one of the scariest things about nature.

Migrating birds can appear “virtually anywhere and come from virtually anywhere. That’s just the nature of birds and bird migration,” Ken Rosenberg, director of conservation science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said in this AP Article from early March, when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that the virus could hit our shores in the next couple of months.

Orangutan Kickboxing

Yet another thing people probably shouldn't make animals do (to add to a growing list that includes getting married and dressing up like Michael Jackson): kickboxing.

Until two years ago, a themepark in Bangkok called Safari World held kickboxing exhibitions, using orangutans dressed in bright shorts and boxing gloves. The practice had been featured at the park for decades, and part of the show reportedly involved an organgutan dressed as a doctor attending to one of the fallen athletes. Here's a video that includes a clip of the performance.

Horse Cops!

The New York Police Department has begun using horse-mounted units to patrol high-crime neighborhoods like East New York and Brownsville, according to an article in the New York Times. Traditionally limited to Central Park and the occasional political demonstration, horses are becoming more popular as crime-fighting partners.

Reverend Moon's sushi empire

Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the controversial Unification Church and self-proclaimed "Second Coming of Christ," may have realized his dream of becoming "King of the Ocean."

Have a Coke and smile

International human rights activists, labor leaders, and students are leveling campaigns on several fronts against Coca-Cola, a product once advertised as the “friendliest drink on earth” and “the gift of thirst.” Among the many abuses alleged against the corporation are the conspiracy to kill and torture union leaders in Colombia and the dehydration of drought regions in India.

Food Timeline

From the history of the noodle to chex mix, this timeline plots the chronological history of food based on documents and scholarship.

Two Rabbit Problems

Pardon the lazy conceptual framework here, but I present for you today two stories about rabbits. The Easter season seems to be bringing a lot of rabbit stories into the news. I'd normally be ashamed to perpetuate this sort of tendency, but the stories are out there, and the picture in the second story is well worth it.

If You Didn't Like the Bunny Wedding, You'll Hate Sugarbush

Now, I was sort of on the fence about the rabbit wedding--it's disagreeable in principle, but not all that cruel in itself. But I'm pretty sure that whatever's going on here with Sugarbush the Squirrel is not okay. I think we can all agree that wild animals shouldn't wear clothes, let alone, um, military uniforms, Michael Jackson wigs, spectacles, hard hats--my list of things that wild animals shouldn't wear grows with every glance at this astounding website.

Syndicate content