Recently in Critters & Habitat Category

Think you have to live in the country to get that garden up and going? Check out Urban Farms coming August 25:

Urban Farm™ magazine’s mission is to promote the benefits of self sustainability and to provide the tools with which to do it on any size property. Urban Farm™ reaches out to those in the city and suburbs, those who are inspired by the local food movement and who want to start raising chickens and growing food for themselves, supporting local agriculture and living more sustainably.

-D

Global warming is a good thing.

Evolutionists, not so much.

IrishTimes Online:

Trucks and trains replaced the camels by the 1920s and, their services no longer required, thousands of the hard-working beasts were abandoned to the central Australian deserts. With no more loads to be carried, the world’s only feral herds of dromedary camels took well to a life of leisure and bountiful breeding. There are now more than a million of them and that figure is predicted to double within a decade. A cull seems the most immediate solution to the damage being done by the hordes, and the political will to carry it out is there. But the deeply Christian (usually Catholic) faith of many Aboriginal tribes in central Australia is proving to be a stumbling block. For them, the camel is a religious symbol.

Northern Territory’s environment minister Alison Anderson (who is Aboriginal herself) says: “The Three Wise Men rode in on three camels and my people think that we have to leave a million camels out there to run around . . . that’s the fear that we have to start talking to indigenous people about because they think if you kill God’s animals we’re going to have serious drought,” she told ABC radio.

Meet Maji! What's he thinking right now?

From The Maker's Diet:

Myth: Meat consumption contributes to famine and depletes the earth's natural resources...The fact is, two-thirds of the earth's landmass is unsuitable for farming, but easily provides food for grazing animals.

...two-thirds of the plants and plant products fed to animals are unsuited for human consumption. Both the animals and the plants are renewable resources, in no danger of depletion.

People do need to eat an abundance of plant products for good health, but the problem has never been a shortage of these foods, rather their equitable distribution as well as widespread poverty. Even the Population Reference Bureau attributed the world hunger problem to poverty, not eating meat, and did not consider mass vegetarianism to be a solution to world hunger.

-D

I noticed on a map one day that the entire coast of Oregon consisted of parks. As it turns out, there is 363 continuous miles of protected shoreline. In a day and age where companies and individuals have sectioned off shoreline, or destroyed its natural beauty by building right to the shore, Oregon's approach is refreshing. Of course, we have to be careful of the government trying to take private land. However, Oregon's approach should be carefully considered in preserving nature. I'm all for advancement and economic development, but at what point does it become excessive, over-development? Maybe the answer lies in comparing the two extremes.

Science Daily:  Good news and bad on the UICN's global endangered bird list.

The Obama Administration's new "regulatory czar" says animals should be able to bring lawsuits with human legal representation.

Martin LeBar comes along side this issue from the perspective of whether animals even have moral agency.  It's a fair point.  I'm an armchair lawyer with only a masters-level civil law course, but I'd assume that without standing to sue or the moral agency to obtain "judicial relief" it would be tough for a critter to bring its case to court.

And is there any biblical law concerning such a thing?  If there were a precedence for God allowing critters to have their day in court it would probably be in Scripture. 

The only thing I can find is the story of Balaam's donkey.  Now there's a critter who would have had a case against his owner if there ever was.  This Yahoo poster summarizes what happened:

After beating the donkey three times, Balaam's eyes are opened to the Angel, and he falls down facedown. The Angel chastises Balaam for beating his donkey, and tells him to say only what God instructs him to say-- not what Balak or the Moabites want him to say.

Is the Angel ruling in favor of Donkey's rights here?  Will let you be the judge of that.