Tausi Insider

Photo : Crazy nook ( Shutterstock ) Whether you’re hosting a huge Thanksgiving dinner or plan to spend New Years Eve cuddled up inside this year, your home is likely to be the setting of at least some of your holiday plans. You might be thinking about how to maximize your hosting capabilities to please the humans entering your space, but you shouldn’t forget your pets this season, either. Their comfort and safety is important, but the holiday season can be rough for them. Here are a few seasonal pet safety tips beyond the basics you already know , like keeping them away from your burning candles. Holiday decor can be a danger to pets Videos of cats climbing Christmas trees are funny— until they’re not . OK, that’s an exaggeration , but some holiday decor is more perilous to your pets than others . According to the ASPCA , the first thing to do is to make sure your tree is anchored down well so it doesn’t topple over if your cat decides to climb it or your dog gets the nightti...

Plants, insects and other animals are vanishing at an alarming rate. Seventy per cent of global biodiversity has been lost in the past 50 years. HAIDAR HAMDANI/AFP/Getty Images Emmanuel Nyirinkindi is vice president of cross-cutting solutions at the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. Growing up in Uganda, I was always fond of the sounds of grey-crowned cranes, our national bird. Hearing their sounds grow fainter as their very existence is threatened saddens me. Some wetlands where the cranes go to breed are being contaminated by pesticides or drained for farmland. What I’ve noticed is not unique. Now I call Washington home, and it’s startling to think that almost three billion birds have disappeared in North America in the past half century, from forests, from grasslands, even from backyards. The natural world is growing quieter, as species silently disappear one by one. It is not only birds on the decline. Plants, insects and other animals are vani...

People visit the immersive video experience hosted by the National Geographic Society at a press event during COP15 in Montreal on Dec. 7. ANDREJ IVANOV/Getty Images Anyone showing up to the United Nations biodiversity conference, known as COP15, will discover it takes time just getting in the door. Having first shown proof of vaccination in order to obtain a conference badge, the would-be attendee is then handed a box of KN95 masks and a two-week supply of COVID-19 test kits. The next stop is to show a negative result from a rapid test before being admitted. For the thousands of participants, it’s a fitting reminder that the pandemic is still with us – fitting because global pandemics are a risk we all face when wildlife is destroyed or harvested in ways that expose humans to the viruses of other species. But there is another way that the pandemic reveals what is at stake as countries work toward a pact to protect nature for future generations. At COP15, a movement grows to manage n...

Photo : Niferure ( Shutterstock ) This week’s out-of-touch guide features three prominent young influencers: One may have abandoned a pig, one is accused of being a pig, and the third is MrBeast. Plus, TikTok’s death row meals trend is dissected, as is the anger of our nations’s nerds. Pugilist Paul’s problematic pet pig Pearl   Let’s talk about Logan Paul’s pig, wanna? Paul, an online superstar and “boxer,” adopted a baby pig nearly two years ago. This week, animal sanctuary Gentle Barn posted a video on TikTok reporting that they’d rescued that same pig. It was apparently abandoned, nearly dead, in a field. The sanctuary nursed Pearl back to health and pointed out that many people adopt what they think are “teacup pigs” that turn out to just be pigs— huge animals that demand a ton of care. Of course, some people leapt to the conclusion that Paul callously abandoned his former pet when it grew too large, but the truth seems to be more complicated. According to Paul, he re-hom...