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Seriously, Stop Feeding Wild Animals!





It's definitely not ok to feed the ducks. Here's what happens to wild animals when you feed them and why it's a really bad idea...As science fiction movies and pandemic scares have taught us, diseases can indeed pass from animals to people. But it goes the other way, too. In fact, a recent study found that humans have been giving monkeys staph infections in Africa -- by feeding them peanuts. Not cool, humans. In today's DNews dispatch, Trace Dominguez looks at the Africa study and the ultimate wisdom of that enduring admonition: "Please Don't Feed the Animals." A report in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology found that particular groups of green monkeys in The Gambia were contracting Staphylococcus aureus -- otherwise known as staph infection. Scientists were able to sleuth out the situation and discovered that the trouble started in areas where humans were encroaching on the monkeys' habitat. Many deadly diseases that afflict humans were originally acquired through contact with animals. New research published in ASM’s Applied and Environmental Microbiology shows that pathogens can also jump the species barrier to move from humans to animals. The study, that will publish July 29, shows that green monkeys in The Gambia acquired Staphylococcus aureus from humans.







The study carried out in Bangul, Gambia was published on July 29, the very day Uranus stationed direct. A chart for the mundane event highlights a Saturn-Neptune square straddling the meridian with Uranus in hard aspect to Saturn. The square between  Saturn and Neptune is asking us to balance  a perceptual conflict, when addressing moral questions. According to the Neptunian vision, every life  is equally worthy of loving attention and compassionate assistance. From Neptune's perspective, we ought to do whatever we can, in every moment, to immediately ease others' suffering. Should we see somebody struggling, we lend them a hand, no questions asked or judgments offered. Anything less is a symptom of a shut-down heart.

Neptune dissolves boundary and has no limits, and can be associated with ungrounded ideologies, fantasies, and unattainable utopian visions. During a Saturn-Neptune time, such beliefs can get called into question. In January 1964, at the tail end of a Saturn-Neptune square cycle, the Surgeon General of the US released its landmark report warning the public about the dangers of smoking, piercing the illusion of years of successful manipulative ad campaigns by cigarette companies.

Under Saturn’s influence a more responsible approach to our inner landscape can clear up foggy, unclear behavior. Discerning Saturn energy can help reveal delusions we’ve bought into, cutting through our mental haze to reveal what’s real.


In this case here, Uranus in Aries, the combination we associate with new ideas, in hard aspect to the Saturn-Neptune square is correcting the traditional  view that it is good to feed wild animals.

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