In the News: Shelter Pet Stamps, Million Dollar Donations and More

Apr 13th 2010

Stamps Spotlight Shelter Animals
Set to debut April 30, these adorable 44-cent stamps promote shelter animal awareness and encourage adopting homeless animals. The stamps will be available for purchase at your local post office, or pre-order online.

ASPCA Donates $1,000,000 To NYC Homeless Pets
Through the nonprofit Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals, a coalition of animal rescue groups, the ASPCA will funnel a million bucks to help the city's needy animals. While the NY Daily News reports that it's not yet clear whether any of those funds will aid the recently slashed budget of New York City Animal Care and Control (the nonprofit currently contracted to run the shelters in the city), it is certain that some of the money will go toward transferring animals from shelters to rescues and aid low-cost spay-and-neuter programs.

Shortlist For Large Conservation Prize Announced
Six finalists have been announced for the $100K Indianapolis Prize for Conservation, and it looks like big cats and marine animals are popular this year. The finalists are Snow Leopard Conservancy founder Rodney Jackson, Cheetah Conservation Fund founder and executive director Laurie Marker, Blue Ocean Institute founder Carl Safina, University of British Columbia seahorse expert Amanda Vincent, Mexican conservation strategist Gerardo Ceballos and Iain Douglas-Hamilton, the president and chief executive of Save the Elephants. The Indianapolis Prize was initiated by the Indianapolis Zoo and is the "the largest individual monetary award for animal conservation in the world and is given as an unrestricted gift to the chosen honoree."

Sparkles the Fire Safety Dog meets Frankie the Walk 'n' Roll Dog.
Sparkles -- who you might already know -- met up with another special dog, Frankie, to teach school children some very important lessons. Fire safety was a big part of the presentation, but they also focused on how to handle adversity and being different, something with which Frankie, a dachshund in a wheelchair, is quite familiar. And that's not all. These tech-savvy dogs shared their message with a Canadian classroom via Skype.