A mouse
Emptying one of the water tubs I use for solar irrigation of various pots in the garden, sadly I found a drowned mouse. I left it on the ground intending to come back, pick it up with a recyclable plastic bag and put it in the dustbin. Soon after there was that horrible, pungent smell of death and lots of flies buzzing around. When I came back half an hour later, it had vanished. I suspect a Mapgie. Far better to ‘recycle’ the mouse in this way than to follow my plan.
Snakes
This article outlines an unforeseen consequence of climate disruption and landscape change just as we in the UK will become more vulnerable to diseases borne by insects:
PETA on bullfighting, dogs and more
PETA has sent out a particularly powerful mailing about bullfighting, including some extremely graphic and horrifying images, sent in a sealed envelope bearing a written warning. I was hugely impressed with their campaign to persuade the last pope to help bring an end to it and now they are appealing to Leo XIV. There could hardly be an activity more out of line with the teachings of the Catholic Church. It was denounced by Pius V in 1567 as a ‘cruel spectacle of the devil’ and pope Francis wrote in his encyclical Laudato that “every act of cruelty towards any creature is contrary to human dignity”. And yet bullfights take place in honour of Catholic saints and other holy celebrations, with some priests even promoting them.
PETA’s spring newsletter is full of news of campaigns and triumphs: Oreo has stopped animal testing, a jockey caught using an electric shock device has been banned from racing in California ever again, and the forced swim test is on its way out, as is the live-fire trauma training on animals used by the US military as well as the use of glue traps. We are urged not to crop dogs’ ears (just why?), to try vegan ice cream, and to avoid goats’ cheese (easy for me since I don’t like it at all), and leather bags and feathers being used in the fashion industry, including the down used in winter clothing. Real progress has been made in the fight against experiments on animals and a tour operator has erased all mention of Alaska’s Iditarod dog-sled race. PETA supports my instinctive opposition to dog crates and is closing in on the caged bird trade.
Bears
That is all hugely impressive and encouraging but there is always a backward step somewhere – the UK government increased orders for bearskin caps by 336% between 2024 and 2025.
Penguins
There’s more good news. Sea Life (Merlin Entertainments) has agreed to improve conditions for the penguins cruelly imprisoned in London (see Birdwatch, Thylacine extinction, Penguins in prison, HS2, Pheasants and Woodcock, Ticks – Animal Wild) to include daylight and a larger pool and to stop breeding penguins altogether.
Palm oil
I have also read exciting news about the early stages of a substance chemically identical to palm oil being produced synthetically. Palm oil is ubiquitous. Britain alone imports 500,000 tonnes a year, contributing to the cutting down of virgin rainforests to make way for palm plantations.
ISDS and SLAPPS
I have written about the investor-state dispute settlement system before. Outrageously, in this case, British taxpayers may have to pay between £150 million and £300 million to a company to compensate them for the planned coalmine which they were behind, now abandoned, far in excess of their investment. Planning permission was never granted.
Fossil fuel companies also use Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) in attempts to silence or eradicate groups like Greenpeace, “which faces a $345 million judgment in the United States for joining a peaceful protest against the oil company Energy Transfer.”
Cows
A curiosity – I watched a cow digging this rather large, deep hole (at the head of this post) on a common nearby, something I have never witnessed before. It seems they do it to access cooler ground on a hot day (which this was) and the hole is indeed more or less cow-shaped. The location is not exactly ideal. I don’t recommend googling any combination of the words “cows” and “holes” however unless you want to learn about cannulated cows who have had a rubber cylinder permanently inserted into their sides for research purposes. This seems to me so horrific that I have to wonder what kind of mind first dreamt it up.
I was interested to learn recently about Adaptive Multi-Paddock Grazing, a rotation system that seems to be better for the soil, the plants, the animals and the ecosystem.
Volunteering
I have begun volunteering for animals again in a very small way with the Cinnamon Trust. All good so far. The Trust seems to treat its volunteers extremely well but I have been thinking about the trouble with volunteering drawing on previous experiences, and it’s that because you are giving your time for free (as well as incurring expense), there can be an assumption that you don’t value it and it isn’t worth anything. I have come across this attitude too often at management level but of course there have been many exceptions.
Maths
Finally, a little bit of maths for fun. I have often wondered and joked about the peculiar French numbering system (it all makes sense up to 69, but then we get 60 + 10 for 70, 4 x 20 for 80 and so on). Now I followed a mention of the seemingly even crazier Danish system. It uses a vigesimal system for 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90, i.e. counting is in 20s rather than 10s.
50 is halvtreds, ‘half-third-times-twenty’ or two and a half times 20 and so on. “Halv” means you are halfway to the next multiple of 20. There’s a logic to it but it does seem cumbersome.
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