December was a quiet month. Happy New Year everyone! Several Flayrah articles have been getting an unusual number of 5-star votes lately. Even if our traffic increased, that's still an unlikely voting distribution, so there may be some kind of bot at work. Meanwhile, our contributors for this month are dronon and Rakuen Growlithe.

Rakuen Growlithe: Despite a lack of scientific justification (in fact, it's against the advice of conservationists), the EU is reducing protections for wolves.

dronon: Furry artist Richard Bartrop has passed away. (FA page.)

dronon: Trailer for the Latin American animated film Dalia and the Red Book.

dronon: There's an Okami game sequel in the works!

Rakuen Growlithe: The gene responsible for ginger coat colour in cats has recently been discovered. It is located on the X chromosome which explains why it is more likely in male (XY) cats.

L'ogre Lion is a three-volume French hardcover comic published from 2022 to 2024. The story and art are by Bruno Bessadi, with colouring by Joo, and it was published by Drakoo. Reading it with mid-level French, I had to look up a lot of words, and I doubt that it'll get an English translation, so... spoilers ahead!

This is an action-fantasy comic with lots of anthropomorphic mammals! The story begins in a medieval European setting. A badly-scarred lion stumbles through the woods, not native to this part of the world. (People keep mistaking him for a lynx.) He's afflicted in three ways: with amnesia, with a recurring nightmare of his dead children, and with an extremely angry, vengeful spirit inside of him.

Whenever the lion dies, he suddenly transforms into an 8-foot-tall antelope who slaughters any carnivores nearby, before the pain of manifesting in the mortal realm becomes too difficult to bear. The antelope then retreats into the spiritual realm, and restores the lion to life. Needless to say, the lion is not happy.

On December 16, 2024, an announcement for a new short film reveals an emotional tale featuring two furries who have made a lasting real-life connection starting from the world of VRChat. This new short film is called "The Reality of Hope", which follows the journey of 'PhotographOtter', and 'Hiyu'; portraying a story of two close friends in VRChat, living in separate countries, and a life-saving decision in live organ donation.

Midwest Furfest finished its festivities for 2024 with 16,800 people in attendance, and raised $136,000 for their charity the Street Dog Coalition. This shows continued healthy, yet slowing growth. It also allowed Anthrocon for the first time since 2017 to retain the lead as the largest furry convention to the end of the year and recapture their status as the largest furry convention in the world.

It was highlighted that despite MFF being such a large convention, there was relatively little to no drama about the service or situation on the ground on social media. The only critique shared heavily was a member of contracted staff being a bit heavy handed with getting ID for 18+ events. However, part of this good vibes may be due to the continuing shift of media platforms from X (formally Twitter) to Bluesky, which accelerated after the US Elections in November.

It was noted that the Rosemont, IL convention certainly is impressive in getting people through the registration line. Where Anthrocon had line waits of several hours, the winter convention didn’t have many complaints about line waits.