They may not be the biggest or dirtiest, but New York’s rats are no less detestable. Over the weekend I had the pleasure of watching nature do its part to control the furry rodents in Prospect Park. A Red-tailed Hawk swooped down and plucked a rat out of Long Meadow, before shredding and devouring its carcass as a small crowd of onlookers quietly applauded.

Photos by Will Sherman

With captured creatures and their cadavers, photographer Amy Stein explores the human animal relations through constructed encounters inspired by true tales. Last night at Chelsea’s Clamp Art gallery, the photographer opened “Domesticated,” an exhibition of animals, both tame and wild, dealing with the impacts of human development around small town Pennsylvania. Stein’s environmental interplay is on view through October 31st at 521-531 West 25th Street.

This week, this biggest worldwide concentration of douchebags is located on the Côte d’Azur of France at the Cannes Advertising Festival. It’s our sycophantic industry’s biggest self-fellating event. But thanks to the economic downturn, plus the discovery that some winning ads from recent festivals were fakes (tres horrible!) that never ran, this year’s show has lost a bit of lustre. Still, I’ve scrolled through scores of early winning entries to find my favorite so far. As we’ve said often here on ANIMAL, we strongly condemn the rampant Photoshop abuse of animals in ads. But we couldn’t help but chuckle at these Gold Lion winners for Fiat (the panda one is precious). Not only does this campaign unexpectedly and memorably relay the low CO2 emission selling point, it also (misleadingly?) implies that little Fiats are crash-test safe. Brilliant. |Images: coloribus|

Geese have been the target of much aviation animosity ever since a gaggle of the migratory birds claimd responsibility for forcing US Airways’ hero pilot Sully Sullenberger to ditch his passenger-filled plane in the Hudson River. Now comes news that a multi-agency taskforce is preparing for goose genocide, slaughtering 2,000 of the big birds within five miles of Kennedy and La Guardia Airports.

Even though migratory Canada geese were to blame, “the incident served as a catalyst to strengthen our efforts in removing geese from . . . city property near our runways,” Mayor Bloomberg said.

The $100,000 slaughter is being timed to coincide with the molting season, when the birds cannot fly away to freedom. Additionally, new radar systems are being installed to detect the birds, airport supervisors are being taught to shoot them, and falcons are being trained to better attack them. Below is a map of the 5-mile kill zones surrounding the city’s airports.

In Malawi, nine elephants were darted, drugged and trucked off to Majete Wildlife Reserve as part of a larger effort to avoid future conflicts between the animals and villagers. |Photo Journal|