DEAR READERS: When we open our hearts, we do not need to look far to experience the miraculous: We may feel awed in the presence of a soaring tree, or see the love in the eyes of a dog we have rescued and adopted. We can bear witness with the lives around us, human and nonhuman, sharing the joys and tribulations of mortal existence. In extending loving care and respect to all sentient beings, we can bring heaven down to where Earth abides.

This realm of illimitable and ineffable experience and healing is beyond words. As Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote:

"For words, like Nature, half reveal / And half conceal the Soul within."

My book "The New Eden: For People, Animals and Nature," illustrated by the late Susan Seddon Boulet, contains a narrative poem. These words came to me:

"The first people knew / The One Soul in many / And the many in the One."

I was one of the pioneers in what has become a recognized specialty in my profession: veterinary behavioral medicine. It has taken decades for the profession to recognize the emotional distress and behavioral disorders in companion animals and those confined in zoos and farms, and even longer to establish some standards on how they are best prevented and treated.

For an inspiring and reflective read on this subject, all should enjoy the 2013 book "The Soul of All Living Creatures: What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human" by veterinary behavioral medicine specialist Vint Virga, DVM. Virga takes the reader through the identification of various causes of animal suffering and distress, followed by their treatment. He then reflects on how we share similar afflictions and what we can do to make our own lives whole and healthy -- along with the animals under our care, and, indeed, all our relationships!

DEAR DR. FOX: I just wanted to share a quick note of gratitude for your informational books and videos. Sometime in the early 1990s, I first watched your video series on caring for your pets. After nearly 20 years of not having a pet, my fiancee and I now have a kitten named Licorice, who has quickly become a beloved member of the family. Daily, I recall the important information that I learned from your videos and books as a lad. I am confident that if she could communicate via language, Licorice would extend her gratitude for all of your educational materials. She really enjoys her daily grooming and relaxing massages.

I was glad to find your website and learn more about your further efforts to make the world a better place for both animals and humans. Keep up your great work. -- A.T.M., Los Angeles

DEAR A.T.M.: I much appreciate your words of support for my efforts to increase public understanding and care of animals domesticated and wild, as well as for the natural environment we share. Readers can find my videos on my website (drfoxonehealth.com). Topics include the basics of understanding cat and dog behavior, communication and massage therapy; the plight of farmed animals; the risks of genetic engineering; the ethical imperative of "eating with conscience" and the spirituality of Earth care.

MICROCHIPPING OF DOGS, CATS SOON COMPULSORY IN U.K.

In large part because of pet theft, the microchipping of all owned dogs and cats in England will soon become compulsory. (For details, see www.gov.uk/government/news/reforms-to-pet-microchipping-regulations-in-england-set-out.)

I see this as especially important for indoor cats who manage to sneak outdoors, and for those cats whose owners still allow them to go outdoors whenever they choose (about which I have railed frequently in this column). A similar initiative is long overdue here in the U.S., and is something for which municipal authorities and state veterinary associations should be advocating.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR DR. FOX: Your article about neonicotinoid insecticides is much appreciated. I want to inform you and your readers that the American Bird Conservancy is disappointed in the EPA's decision to deny a 2017 petition to reclassify pesticide-coated seeds. The announced rulemaking does not go far enough.

Pesticide-coated seeds are a major threat to birds, but are currently exempt from regulatory safeguards. Sadly, the EPA has announced it does not plan for that to change anytime soon. Pesticide-coated seeds fall through a loophole in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act called the Treated Articles Exemption. The exemption allows dangerous chemicals to be used without any protections for wildlife or water quality.

Nearly 100% of corn and roughly 50% of soybeans grown in the United States are the products of pesticide-coated seeds. This issue has received attention from agencies and congresspeople, namely Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who has asked for better regulation of this use of pesticides.

Concerningly, seed coatings are the main use of neurotoxic, bird-killing neonicotinoid insecticides ("neonics"). Birds that ingest coated seeds may die, and when the pesticide sloughs off and infects soil and water, it indiscriminately kills non-target invertebrates. ABC found that a single seed coated with neonicotinoid insecticide is enough to kill a songbird. Even more troublingly, most of the pesticide (as much as 97%) leaves the seed, blanketing surrounding lands as bee-killing dust or leaching into the local ecosystem. Once in soil and water, it indiscriminately kills insects and aquatic invertebrates, depriving birds of important food sources. Barn swallows are among the species most heavily impacted by insect loss; 40% have disappeared in the last five decades.

Soybeans and corn grown with coated seeds show negligible benefit to crop yield, but farmers who do not want to use these seeds are given little choice; most corn and soybean seeds come pretreated, and farmers have to special-order untreated seeds. The coatings come at a huge markup, making them lucrative profit opportunities for seed distributors and pesticide manufacturers.

Changing the special status of coated seeds is a long overdue step for wildlife conservation. We are facing a catastrophic loss of birds in North America: There are nearly 3 billion fewer than in 1970, with prey loss and poisoning as major contributors.

ABC urges the EPA to close this loophole. Moving treated seeds within the grasp of scientific regulation would benefit birds and humans for decades to come. Exempting them puts us all in danger. -- Hardy Kern, Director of Government Relations, American Bird Conservancy; Washington, D.C.

DEAR H.K.: I applaud what your organization is doing to help save the birds and the ecosystems upon which they -- and we -- depend. These substances are widely used in the U.S. agriculture industry and are given to companion animals to control fleas and ticks. But they are rarely, to my knowledge, questioned by veterinarians while being constantly advertised to pet owners on TV.

The great irony is that in Europe, these pesticides are condemned for agricultural use (with emergency exceptions), but not for use on companion animals! Concerns are now being voiced by some of my veterinary colleagues in the U.K.

Studies show that chemicals in topical flea treatments pollute water and can cause seizures and other health issues in companion animals, as I document on my website (drfoxonehealth.com/post/companion-animal-risks-of-flea-and-tick-insecticides). The American Veterinary Medical Association needs to step forward on this animal and environmental health issue. The political and economic power of the pesticide manufacturers must be confronted by responsible legislators and regulatory agencies. The use of these chemicals in the court of science-informed public opinion should be judged as a crime against nature -- and therefore, from a One Health perspective, a crime against humanity.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR READERS: Wolves lived in nature for many generations before us. When the indigenous Anishinaabe peoples arrived in North America, they came to regard the wolf as a kindred spirit -- one that shared many human traits of kinship, cooperation and survival skills.

Now, the descendants of these wolves are being killed for sport, prized as trophies, trapped for their fur and poisoned for killing livestock. Their hunting ranges are depleted and fragmented, always shrinking with human encroachment -- especially under the impetus of the timber and commodity crop industries. The recent open season on wolf-killing in Wisconsin, Montana and Idaho -- as a purported "management" policy -- is reminiscent of the genocide of Indigenous peoples in America's recent past.

The Star Tribune's Outdoors reporter Dennis Anderson so downplayed the wolf hunt in Wisconsin ("Wolves weren't butchered after all," Star Tribune, Oct. 13) that one must wonder: What is at the root of his borderline-rabid antipathy toward this species? Anthropologically, one does not need to dig deeper than the European occupation of these wildlands, once rich in biodiversity, and the concerted extermination of wolves and other perceived threats to settlement and expansion. Anderson's outdated, though still widely shared, view of wolf management through the setting of annual kill-quotas is not science-based. Rather, it is born of cultish tradition and economy-driven support of the recreational hunting, commercial trapping and livestock industries.

Without human interference, wolf numbers are self-regulating through pack structure and prey availability in their territories. Wolves may well prey on livestock when their main food source, white-tailed deer, is reduced by some 15% annually by Minnesota hunters.

Those who call for an end to all forms of animal exploitation, and for wolf protection in particular, are variously ridiculed by those who deny justice for all. In 1920, Aldo Leopold, called the "father of wildlife management," called for the extermination of wolves and mountain lions throughout the West. He later wrote in his 1949 book, "A Sand County Almanac," about how wrong he had been: "We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then and have known ever since that there was something new to me in those eyes, something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean a hunter's paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view."

Leopold helped establish what today is called the Land Ethic, asserting, "We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. ... All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals -- or collectively, the land."

In sharp contrast, Anderson of the Star Tribune writes, "Knowledgeable wolf researchers weren't surprised by the Wisconsin wolves' resiliency, especially in the light of what occurred last year with wolves in Montana and Idaho." He elaborates, reporting that wolf-kills in these states were liberalized in the extended 2020-2021 season to reduce livestock depredation. Montana gave multiple permits to hunters and trappers and allowed baiting, night hunting and snaring, noting the wolf-kill total was "generally unchanged" in 2021-2022.

Clearly, from his perspective and others of like mind, wolves are a natural resource to be sustainably managed by killing/harvesting. There is no risk in reducing their numbers, the thinking goes, because the wolves will eventually "recover." But their "recovery" is all but impossible due to hunting quotas, illegal poaching, pack disruption, dispersal, starvation and injury, especially gut-shots.

But perhaps times are changing and Leopold's legacy of establishing a Land Ethic and respect for wildlife is becoming part of the democratic spirit of a more advanced and empathic U.S. civilization. Six endangered gray wolves found dead in northwest Washington were poisoned, according to the state Fish and Wildlife Department, and advocacy groups are offering a $51,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the parties responsible. (Full story: Associated Press, Oct. 10)

Compensating livestock owners who use nonlethal methods of predator control, as with guard dogs, for veterinary-verified wolf-kills would be preferable to wolf extermination, and a welcome step toward coexistence.

An amendment to the U.S. Constitution incorporating the essence of a bill of rights for animals, as codified in my 2011 book "Animals and Nature First," could establish the U.S. as a leader in this area. Ideally, we would then see the formation of a United Environmental Nations, working together to achieve the One Health imperatives of planetary conservation, protection and restoration.

We are surely not powerless to stop the wanton destruction, needless killing and endless suffering. In a restored ecological democracy, there would be justice for all.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)