Blog

The United States of America is the world’s oldest democracy, founded on the principle that citizens should have a say in how they are governed. While not a true democracy, we do have a representative democracy, where we elect officials to represent our interests....

This Spring, HAP is celebrating a major victory for reptiles: “On Tuesday, March 23, Pittsburgh City Council unanimously passed Ordinance No. 36, which bans the ownership of any Crocodilian species or any Red-eared slider, which includes alligators, crocodiles,...

I don’t know how everyone else feels, but the milder weather outside this past week in Pittsburgh has me thinking Spring! My partner and I moved into our first house back in the Summer of 2020. Until then, I’d always lived in apartments without any usable outdoor...

This year, I began listening to a new podcast, The Last Archive, and was excited to hear an episode dedicated to a local legend, environmentalist Rachel Carson. Many of us in Pittsburgh have enjoyed hikes on the Rachel Carson Trail, and all of us in the U.S. have...

Imagine being stuck in a transparent porta-potty where no one walking past you cared to clean or help you escape. Awful, right? That’s how my Betta fish friends were living when they were surrendered to Ahimsa Safe Haven from a grocery store. You’ve probably read or...

Although many of us use outdoor recreation spaces extensively, this may be a year when our state, county, and city parks have been more valuable to us than ever before. We may think of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania as places with expansive amounts of green space...

​The holidays are upon us, and while 2020 means adjusting our typical holiday celebrations, that doesn’t mean the gift-giving has to stop! This year, choose compassionate gifts for everyone on your list! Compassion encompasses not just the animals, but also the...

Back in March and April, the novel coronavirus was still...well, novel. People were coping with quarantines, and news programs were still, between the harder-hitting segments, doing cute human interest stories about at-home bread baking and socially distanced Mother’s...

This year, more than 49,000,000 turkeys will be served as part of Americans’ Thanksgiving feasts. This will be the end of a short and miserable life for a bird that was once referred to by Benjamin Franklin as a “respectable bird” and a “bird of courage.” Turkeys,...