Aroma Pets

Grey squirrel terrorises north Wales community, attacking and injuring 18 people : Independent: 

Reference: Grace Almond : Independent

Former England striker Daniel Sturridge ordered to pay $30,000 to man who found his missing dog

Sturridge, 32, offered a reward of "20, 30 grand" for the return of the Pomeranian, named Lucci, in July 2019.

The former Liverpool striker said thieves had broken into a house in West Hollywood, California, and taken a number of bags in addition to Lucci.

© PA The court document ordering Sturridge to pay up

"Yo, somebody please find my dog. I'll pay anything, I'm dead serious. I want my dog back, man," he said.

The pooch was found by local musician Foster Washington who shared pictures on social media.

"When we found the dog I thought my life was going to be better," Mr Washington said, adding that he had been "fighting this case for over a year".

Other Sturridge has been ordered to pay $30,000 (£22,400). Pic: Daniel Sturridge

Now, a Los Angeles court has ordered Sturridge to pay Mr Washington $30,085.

Court documents show a default judgment was given, meaning Sturridge did not answer the complaint.

Mr Washington, whose rapper name is Killa Fame, said he felt "let down" by Sturridge.

"Hopefully he pays up and doesn't try to appeal it," he said.

"I'm excited about it - I can't believe it's over."

He is yet to arrange payment with Sturridge, he added.

Representatives of Sturridge have been contacted for comment.

Why feeding your pets insects could become all the buzz

First there was recycling, then cutting down on flights, now feeding your pets insects is the latest lifestyle choice to help tackle climate breakdown.

Environmentally minded pet owners are choosing to feed their animals meals made out of crickets, mealworms and black soldier flies in an attempt to curb the huge carbon emissions produced by raising livestock for traditional, meat-based diets.

Experts say pets can be fed insects as they are rich in protein, and that farmed species can also contain high fats, oils, mineral and vitamin levels. Preliminary research also suggests that when insects are farmed commercially, emissions, water, and land usage is lower than farming livestock.

Nicole Paley, deputy chief executive of the Pet Food Manufacturers Association, said: “When made into a nutritionally complete pet food, insect proteins can contribute to nutritious and palatable products that can also be environmentally sustainable. Insect-based products offer an alternative for owners who prefer to feed their pets a diet that is sourced from ingredients other than traditional livestock animals.”

Forecasts by Rabobank, a Dutch multinational, estimate that the insect-based pet food market could increase 50-fold by 2030, when half a million metric tons are projected to be produced.

Andrew Knight, a professor of veterinary science at the University of Winchester, said this would reflect growing consumer interest in alternative pet foods, which included vegan diets, for sustainability reasons.

This is partly a result of owners’ anxieties about the high carbon footprint associated with the pet food industry, which according to a UCLA study represents about 25% of the environmental damage associated with the meat industry, and is equivalent to 64m tons of carbon dioxide a year – the same climate impact as 13.6m cars driving for a year.

However, Knight added that many consumers’ “revulsion to insect-based diets” may act as a barrier to wider take up.

Insect-based pet food is also typically more expensive than traditional ranges. For example, a bag of insect-based Lovefood dry kibble costs £12 a kg, compared with £9.75 for a 2kg bag of Iams dry cat food with chicken.

Solitaire Townsend, co-founder of Futerra, which is working with Mars Petcare to produce Lovebug, its first insect-based pet food range for cats, said their market research suggested that nearly half (47%) of pet owners would consider feeding their pets insects, with 87% of those surveyed noting that sustainability was an important consideration in choosing pet food.

Townsend said that as a vegetarian for climate reasons, she wanted an option “for my cat and my conscience”. She added: “Cats aren’t squeamish about eating bugs, but some people can be. Of course, millions of people across the world eat insects as normal within their diet. Perhaps in the UK it can feel a bit unusual, but I’m old enough to remember when sushi, and even pasta, was the same way.”

Provided by The Guardian Black soldier fly larvae. Experts say pets can be fed insects as they are rich in protein – but consult your vet before any change of diet. Photograph: Sumaya Hisham/Reuters

She said owners should be aware that pets could be sensitive to sudden changes in their diet, and recommended a week-long transition, starting with a ratio of 75% old food to 25% new food and slowly altering the balance.

Justine Shotton, president of the British Veterinary Association, said owners must be careful to ensure that insect-based pet food met their pets’ nutritional needs, and further research was needed.

Related: If we want to save the planet, the future of food is insects

“At the moment, there is not enough evidence to support insect-based protein completely replacing current complete pet food diets, but it is another option which could be considered in the future. Owners should always ensure any changes to a pet’s diet are supervised by a vet with in-depth nutritional knowledge,” she said.

According to the Pet Food Manufacturers Association, there are seven insects authorised by the EU for use as pet food ingredients. The farmed insects are fed on spent grains, palm kernel, fruits and vegetable crop by-products, and while most farms were originally located in the tropics there are now more than 100 in Europe. 

Reference: The Guardian: Rachael Hall: 

Albatrosses, known for monogamy, may be pushed to ‘divorce’ because of climate change, study finds

“It is a truth universally acknowledged,” Jane Austen wrote in the opening lines of “Pride and Prejudice,” “that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Social mores may have shifted since the early 19th century, but the maxim seems still to hold true for albatrosses, very large seabirds that live mostly in the Southern Hemisphere and are known as some of the world’s most reliably monogamous creatures.

Climate change and warming water, however, have disrupted the good fortune of some albatrosses and could lead to a rise in partners breaking up, according to a study published Wednesday by New Zealand’s Royal Society, which provides funding and policy advice in areas involving the sciences and humanities.

“The probability of divorce was directly affected by the environment, increasing in years with warm sea surface temperature anomalies,” the report found.

Warmer water leads to population declines among fish, which means the birds have to spend more time and travel farther to feed. The harsher conditions in turn can effect hormone levels and make it less likely that chicks will survive.

“For the first time, to our knowledge, we document the disruptive effects of challenging environmental conditions on the breeding processes of a monogamous population, potentially mediated by higher reproductive costs, changes in phenology and physiological stress,” the study reported. “Environmentally driven divorce may therefore represent an overlooked consequence of global change.”

Striking photos of nature as the world faces climate change

To reach this conclusion, researchers studied a wild population of 15,500 breeding black-browed albatross pairs in the Falkland Islands over a 15-year period. (The study discounted cases in which one member of a couple died.)

The average annual “divorce rate,” they found, was 3.7 percent, and could be as low as 0.8 percent and as high as 7.7 percent. Couples, they already knew, were statistically more likely to break up after breeding failures, as the birds went in search of more compatible mating partners.

But even when accounting for breeding failures and fish shortages, in years in which sea surface temperatures rose, “the probability of divorce increased,” according to the study. In 2017, for example, surface seawater temperatures were unusually high — and the divorce rate spiked to nearly 8 percent.

One possible explanation for the spike in divorces, Francesco Ventura, a researcher at University of Lisbon and co-author of the Royal Society study, told the Guardian, is that climate change increases stress on albatross relationships.

“We propose this partner-blaming hypothesis — with which a stressed female might feel this physiological stress, and attribute these higher stress levels to a poor performance of the male,” he said.

Researchers also found that “males are likely less prone to initiate divorce than females” because the latter had a higher chance of breeding with a new mate than the former.

In good times, albatrosses can live 50 to 60 years. However, in recent years the seabird’s populations have been plummeting. A 2018 study found that of 22 recognized species of the bird, 18 had seen population declines.

Studies have previously linked this phenomenon to climate change’s effect on albatross feeding patterns and nesting sites, in addition to bycatch, when the birds unintentionally become trapped in large fishing nets. 

Reference: Washington Post: Miriam Berger