21 malnourished rabbits confiscated
30.06.11
Oakland monster officials were scrambling Wednesday to find homes for 21 malnourished, deformed rabbits seized from a Lake Merritt field backyard, where they were being raised for food.
The bunny bust comes just as Oakland enters into the debate over urban agriculture regulations, deciding how to monitor livestock - its treatment and slaughter - in one of the country's hotbeds of urban homesteading.
"This blurs the lines for brute cruelty. When is it OK to raise something for food, and when is it cruelty?" said Megan Webb, director of Oakland carnal services. "This is an issue we're all going to have to sort out."
In the case of the 21 rabbits, a neighbor alerted the East Bay SPCA to the rabbits' condition last week, and on Tuesday, staff from Oakland carnal services and the SPCA raided the home.
The rabbits were found in the common space of an apartment complex near Lake Merritt. They were crowded into two small wire cages, babies in one cage and adults - some pregnant - in the other.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
History of Seething Wells explored
01.07.11
A historic site that played an instrumental part in preventing the spread of a killer disease will have its past explored thanks to a Heritage Lottery Fund grant.
The Seething Wells water works was one of the first sites to supply London with clean water in the 19th century.
Doctor John Snow made the link between spread of cholera and polluted water at the same time that Seething Wells was built and used it as evidence to prove his theory.
The filter bed site is currently part of controversial plans to introduce floating housing and a nature reserve to Surbiton , and
residents are looking to learn more.
Surbiton-based community interest company, the Community Brain, has won a £47,800 grant to run the project and is looking for volunteers to research the history and engineering at the site.
Project officer Howard Benge said: "Seething Wells is a real testament to the 19th century engineers and inventors, who piped fresh water from Surbiton to London.
Source: Surrey Comet