Grizzlies targetted to increase moose and caribou hunts
November 2011. A report, written by 3 retired Alaskan Department of Game bear experts and a scientist from the US National Wildlife Federation, shows that Alaska has been quietly increasing the hunting of grizzlies in the hope that reducing grizzly numbers would lead to an increase in caribou and moose numbers. A license to hunt a caribou or moose costs $3-500 on average; Are the Alaskan Department of Game trying to increase their revenue on moose and caribou hunts by reducing grizzly numbers?
There is no science to show that if grizzly numbers are repressed then moose and caribou numbers will increase. And why not? Because since 2000, long-term research studies on grizzly populations in the Liberal Hunt Area have been terminated without replacement.
Hunting regulations for grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) in much of Alaska since 1980 increasingly were designed to reduce bear abundance in the expectation such regulations would lead to increased harvests by hunters of moose (Alces alces) and caribou (Rangifer tarandus). Regulations were liberalized during 1980-2010 primarily in the ‘Liberal Grizzly Bear Hunting Area' (or Liberal Hunt Area) which encompassed 76.2% of Alaska.
213% increase in Grizzly hunts
By 2010, these changes resulted in longer hunting seasons, more liberal bag limits, and widespread waiver of resident tag fees. During 1995-2010, there were 124 changes that made grizzly bear hunting regulations more liberal and two making them more conservative. The 4-year mean for grizzly bear kills by hunters increased 213% between 1976-1980 (387 grizzly bears) and 2005-2008 (823 grizzly bears).
Current grizzly bear management in the Liberal Hunt Area is inconsistent with the recommendations of the National Research Council's 1997 report on predator management in Alaska. Current attitudes, policies and absence of science-based management of grizzly bears in Alaska are increasingly similar to those that resulted in the near extirpation of grizzly bears south of Canada in the 19th and 20th centuries.
If current trends continue, they increase risks to portions of the largest and most intact population of grizzly bears in North America.
2011 The Wildlife Society. Read the full report.
Showing posts with label hunting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hunting. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
World famous black bear Hope is believed killed
The bear "born on the internet" is believed to have been shot and killed by a hunter in Minnesota, US.
Hope was recognised internationally after her birth was filmed and broadcast live via a webcam in 2010.
The black bear and her mother Lily were subjects of a study by US biologist Dr Lynn Rogers and featured in the BBC documentary The Bear Family and Me.
Recreational hunting is permitted by licence in the state but hunters are asked not to shoot collared bears.
Dr Rogers and his colleagues at the Wildlife Research Institute were tracking 13 bears, each wearing identifying collars.
Using the GPS tracker in Hope's mother Lily's collar, the researchers confirmed her visits to a known hunter's bait site, but they could not account for the rest of the family.
The biologists have been working with the Minnesota Department for Natural Resources (DNR) who licence hunting in the state.
Read more ...
Thursday, November 10, 2011
For the first time in 75 years, an entire genus of mammal is on the brink of extinction
You're looking at three of the last known hirola on Earth. Since the 1970s, unregulated hunting, habitat destruction and drought linked to climate change have driven the number of these large African antelopes living in Kenya and Somalia from over 14,000 to fewer than 400.
Of course, countless species go extinct every day — even the most conservative estimates show that the world is losing species at a rate 100 times greater than the world has seen in thousands of years.
But these hirola are not only among the last of their species, they're among the last of an entire genus — the taxonomic rank above species and below family. (As a point of reference, if the genus Canis were to go extinct, it would mean the disappearance of the planet's dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals, and numerous other species.)
If the critically endangered hirola cannot be saved, it will be the first time the Earth has lost an entire genus of mammal in three-quarters of a century. (The death of the last known Tasmanian tiger in 1936 spelled not only the end of the genus Thylacinus, but the family Thylacinidae, as well.)
According to National Geographic, conservation efforts to save the hirola are already well under way; the Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy is in the process of erecting what it claims will be a predator-free sanctuary for the species.
Whether or not hirola should be considered any more important, from a conservation standpoint, than any other animal facing the threat of extinction is obviously a subject for debate. But the more important question raised by the plight of the hirola is whether it heralds the coming of an age where the term "endangered genus" (or even "endangered family") will become as commonplace as "endangered species" is today. With levels of global biodiversity declining as rapidly as they are, such a future is frighteningly easy to envision.
http://io9.com/5857522/for-the-first-time-in-75-years-an-entire-genus-of-mammal-is-on-the-brink-of-extinction
Of course, countless species go extinct every day — even the most conservative estimates show that the world is losing species at a rate 100 times greater than the world has seen in thousands of years.
But these hirola are not only among the last of their species, they're among the last of an entire genus — the taxonomic rank above species and below family. (As a point of reference, if the genus Canis were to go extinct, it would mean the disappearance of the planet's dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals, and numerous other species.)
If the critically endangered hirola cannot be saved, it will be the first time the Earth has lost an entire genus of mammal in three-quarters of a century. (The death of the last known Tasmanian tiger in 1936 spelled not only the end of the genus Thylacinus, but the family Thylacinidae, as well.)
According to National Geographic, conservation efforts to save the hirola are already well under way; the Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy is in the process of erecting what it claims will be a predator-free sanctuary for the species.
Whether or not hirola should be considered any more important, from a conservation standpoint, than any other animal facing the threat of extinction is obviously a subject for debate. But the more important question raised by the plight of the hirola is whether it heralds the coming of an age where the term "endangered genus" (or even "endangered family") will become as commonplace as "endangered species" is today. With levels of global biodiversity declining as rapidly as they are, such a future is frighteningly easy to envision.
http://io9.com/5857522/for-the-first-time-in-75-years-an-entire-genus-of-mammal-is-on-the-brink-of-extinction
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Switching Senses: Leeches Shift the Way They Locate Prey in Adulthood
ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2011) — Many meat-eating animals have unique ways of hunting down a meal using their senses. To find a tasty treat, bats use echolocation, snakes rely on infrared vision, and owls take advantage of the concave feathers on their faces, the better to help them hear possible prey. Leeches have not just one but two distinct ways of detecting dinner, and, according to new findings from biologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), their preferred method changes as they age.
Medicinal leeches, like many aquatic animals, use water disturbances to help them find a meal. Juvenile leeches eat the blood of fish and amphibians, while adults opt for blood meals from the more nutritious mammals. Since it was known that leeches change their food sources as they develop, the Caltech team wanted to know if the way they sense potential food changed as well. Their findings are outlined in a paper now available online in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
The group set up experiments to test how much leeches rely on each of the two sensory modalities they use to find food: hairs on their bodies that can note disturbances in the water made by prey moving through it and simple eyes that can pick up on the passing shadows that those waves make. They monitored both juvenile and adult leeches as they reacted to mechanical waves in a tank of water or to passing shadows, as well as to a combination of the two stimuli. The leeches in both age groups responded in similar ways when only one stimulus was present. But when both waves and shadows existed, the adult leeches responded solely to the waves.
"We knew that there was a developmental switch in what kind of prey they go after," says Daniel Wagenaar, senior author of the paper and Broad Senior Research Fellow in Brain Circuitry at Caltech. "So when we saw a difference in the source of disturbances that the juveniles go after relative to the adults, we thought 'great -- it's probably matching what we know.'"
However, the team was very surprised to see that the individual sensory modalities aren't modified during development to help decipher different types of prey. The leech's visual system doesn't really change as the animal matures; neither does the mechanical system. What does change, however, is the integration of the visual and mechanical cues to make a final behavioral decision.
"As they mature, the animals basically start paying attention to one sense more than the other," explains Cynthia Harley, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral scholar in biology at Caltech. She says that the team will now focus their studies on the adult leeches to learn more about how this sensory information is processed both at the behavioral and cellular levels.
Paper coauthor Javier Cienfuegos, now a freshman at Yale, contributed to the study while a high school student at the Polytechnic School, which is located next to Caltech's campus. He ran about half of the experimental trials and was "instrumental in the success of the study," says Harley.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111101141343.htm
Medicinal leeches, like many aquatic animals, use water disturbances to help them find a meal. Juvenile leeches eat the blood of fish and amphibians, while adults opt for blood meals from the more nutritious mammals. Since it was known that leeches change their food sources as they develop, the Caltech team wanted to know if the way they sense potential food changed as well. Their findings are outlined in a paper now available online in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
The group set up experiments to test how much leeches rely on each of the two sensory modalities they use to find food: hairs on their bodies that can note disturbances in the water made by prey moving through it and simple eyes that can pick up on the passing shadows that those waves make. They monitored both juvenile and adult leeches as they reacted to mechanical waves in a tank of water or to passing shadows, as well as to a combination of the two stimuli. The leeches in both age groups responded in similar ways when only one stimulus was present. But when both waves and shadows existed, the adult leeches responded solely to the waves.
"We knew that there was a developmental switch in what kind of prey they go after," says Daniel Wagenaar, senior author of the paper and Broad Senior Research Fellow in Brain Circuitry at Caltech. "So when we saw a difference in the source of disturbances that the juveniles go after relative to the adults, we thought 'great -- it's probably matching what we know.'"
However, the team was very surprised to see that the individual sensory modalities aren't modified during development to help decipher different types of prey. The leech's visual system doesn't really change as the animal matures; neither does the mechanical system. What does change, however, is the integration of the visual and mechanical cues to make a final behavioral decision.
"As they mature, the animals basically start paying attention to one sense more than the other," explains Cynthia Harley, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral scholar in biology at Caltech. She says that the team will now focus their studies on the adult leeches to learn more about how this sensory information is processed both at the behavioral and cellular levels.
Paper coauthor Javier Cienfuegos, now a freshman at Yale, contributed to the study while a high school student at the Polytechnic School, which is located next to Caltech's campus. He ran about half of the experimental trials and was "instrumental in the success of the study," says Harley.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111101141343.htm
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Mastodons were hunted in North America 800 years earlier than thought
Humans were killing large mammals in North America long before 'Clovis culture', study of mastodon remains suggests
Humans were hunting large mammals in North America about 800 years earlier than previously thought, new analysis of a controversial mastodon specimen – with what appears to be a spear tip in its rib – seems to confirm.
The find suggests humans were hunting mastodons using tools made from bone about a thousand years before the start of the "Clovis culture", reputedly the first human culture in North America. Other evidence points to mammoth hunting using stone tools around this time, but the notion of pre-Clovis hunting has remained highly controversial.
The mastodon was found in 1977 by a farmer called Emanuel Manis. He contacted archaeologist Carl Gustafson, who excavated the skeleton and noticed a pointed object embedded in its rib. Gustafson took a fuzzy x-ray and interpreted the object as a projectile point made of bone or antler.
By dating organic matter around the fossil, he estimated that it was about 14,000 years old. Other archaeologists challenged Gustafson's dates and his interpretation of the fragment as a man-made point.
Decades later Professor Michael Waters from Texas A&M University contacted him about re-examining the specimen using modern technology. His analysis was published on Thursday in the journal Science.
Waters placed the mastodon in an industrial-grade CT scanner at the University of Texas. "It's more powerful than a hospital one. They're taking slices every 0.06mm, half the thickness of a piece of paper," he says. "The 3D rendering clearly showed that the object was sharpened to a tip. It was clearly the end of a bone projectile point."
Waters analysed collagen protein from the mastodon's rib and tusks to confirm that the animal died about 13,800 years ago, almost exactly as Gustafson predicted.
He also extracted DNA from the rib and the spear point. Analysis showed that both belonged to a mastodon, suggesting the animal had been killed with a weapon fashioned from the remains of its own kind.
"It should certainly be considered as evidence of hunting. You're bending over backwards to explain it as something else," said Prof Daniel Fisher from the University of Michigan.
Two other sites in Wisconsin appear to show people were hunting woolly mammoths and using stone tools between 14,200 and 14,800 years ago. The Manis specimen suggests they also hunted mastodons and used bone tools.
Together, the three sites provide strong evidence for pre-Clovis hunting. "They're incontrovertible," said Waters. "Clearly, people were hunting mammoths and mastodons again and again, playing a part in their ultimate demise."
He believes the beasts probably succumbed to gradual hunting pressure from humans, rather than a quick "Clovis blitzkrieg".
Despite Waters's efforts, the fragment in the Manis mastodon's rib is still stoking debate. "It's not definitely proven that it is a projectile point," said Prof Gary Haynes from the University of Nevada, Reno. "Elephants today push each other all the time and break each other's ribs so it could be a bone splinter that the animal just rolled on.".
Waters does not credit this alternative hypothesis. "Ludicrous what-if stories are being made up to explain something people don't want to believe," he said. "We took the specimen to a bone pathologist, showed him the CT scans, and asked if there was any way it could be an internal injury. He said absolutely not."
Waters added: "If you break a bone, a splinter isn't going to magically rotate its way through a muscle and inject itself into your rib bone. Something needed to come at this thing with a lot of force to get it into the rib."
The spear thrower must have had a powerful arm, because the fragment would have punctured hair, skin and up to 30cm of mastodon muscle. "A bone projectile point is a really lethal weapon," said Waters. "It's sharpened to a needle point and little greater than the diameter of a pencil. It's like a bullet. It's designed to get deep into the elephant and hit a vital organ … I've seen these thrown through old cars."
What would it take to finally convince the sceptics? "I'm not going to dig my heels in and stonewall it," said Haynes. "If they yanked it out and showed that there are scraping marks and it's been polished and shaped, that would convince me."
Waters said he would not tamper with such an extraordinary specimen. "That would destroy it. I would be a pariah. It's unnecessary with modern technology. I could take 3D printers and recreate the object itself."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/20/mastodon-hunted-north-america
Humans were hunting large mammals in North America about 800 years earlier than previously thought, new analysis of a controversial mastodon specimen – with what appears to be a spear tip in its rib – seems to confirm.
The find suggests humans were hunting mastodons using tools made from bone about a thousand years before the start of the "Clovis culture", reputedly the first human culture in North America. Other evidence points to mammoth hunting using stone tools around this time, but the notion of pre-Clovis hunting has remained highly controversial.
The mastodon was found in 1977 by a farmer called Emanuel Manis. He contacted archaeologist Carl Gustafson, who excavated the skeleton and noticed a pointed object embedded in its rib. Gustafson took a fuzzy x-ray and interpreted the object as a projectile point made of bone or antler.
By dating organic matter around the fossil, he estimated that it was about 14,000 years old. Other archaeologists challenged Gustafson's dates and his interpretation of the fragment as a man-made point.
Decades later Professor Michael Waters from Texas A&M University contacted him about re-examining the specimen using modern technology. His analysis was published on Thursday in the journal Science.
Waters placed the mastodon in an industrial-grade CT scanner at the University of Texas. "It's more powerful than a hospital one. They're taking slices every 0.06mm, half the thickness of a piece of paper," he says. "The 3D rendering clearly showed that the object was sharpened to a tip. It was clearly the end of a bone projectile point."
Waters analysed collagen protein from the mastodon's rib and tusks to confirm that the animal died about 13,800 years ago, almost exactly as Gustafson predicted.
He also extracted DNA from the rib and the spear point. Analysis showed that both belonged to a mastodon, suggesting the animal had been killed with a weapon fashioned from the remains of its own kind.
"It should certainly be considered as evidence of hunting. You're bending over backwards to explain it as something else," said Prof Daniel Fisher from the University of Michigan.
Two other sites in Wisconsin appear to show people were hunting woolly mammoths and using stone tools between 14,200 and 14,800 years ago. The Manis specimen suggests they also hunted mastodons and used bone tools.
Together, the three sites provide strong evidence for pre-Clovis hunting. "They're incontrovertible," said Waters. "Clearly, people were hunting mammoths and mastodons again and again, playing a part in their ultimate demise."
He believes the beasts probably succumbed to gradual hunting pressure from humans, rather than a quick "Clovis blitzkrieg".
Despite Waters's efforts, the fragment in the Manis mastodon's rib is still stoking debate. "It's not definitely proven that it is a projectile point," said Prof Gary Haynes from the University of Nevada, Reno. "Elephants today push each other all the time and break each other's ribs so it could be a bone splinter that the animal just rolled on.".
Waters does not credit this alternative hypothesis. "Ludicrous what-if stories are being made up to explain something people don't want to believe," he said. "We took the specimen to a bone pathologist, showed him the CT scans, and asked if there was any way it could be an internal injury. He said absolutely not."
Waters added: "If you break a bone, a splinter isn't going to magically rotate its way through a muscle and inject itself into your rib bone. Something needed to come at this thing with a lot of force to get it into the rib."
The spear thrower must have had a powerful arm, because the fragment would have punctured hair, skin and up to 30cm of mastodon muscle. "A bone projectile point is a really lethal weapon," said Waters. "It's sharpened to a needle point and little greater than the diameter of a pencil. It's like a bullet. It's designed to get deep into the elephant and hit a vital organ … I've seen these thrown through old cars."
What would it take to finally convince the sceptics? "I'm not going to dig my heels in and stonewall it," said Haynes. "If they yanked it out and showed that there are scraping marks and it's been polished and shaped, that would convince me."
Waters said he would not tamper with such an extraordinary specimen. "That would destroy it. I would be a pariah. It's unnecessary with modern technology. I could take 3D printers and recreate the object itself."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/20/mastodon-hunted-north-america
Friday, August 19, 2011
260.8kg tiger shark catch sets a new world record
BRETT Sinclair broke a world record when he hooked this massive 260.8kg tiger shark during a game fishing competition near Port Hedland in WA's north.
Amazingly, he caught it on just 6kg fishing line, which is usually used to catch snapper and salmon. He beat the world's previous best catch on a 6kg line by more than 100kg.
The 27-year-old from Sydney was participating in the Dampier Classic when he landed the beast from a rented boat just after midnight on August 1.
It took more than three hours to reel the giant shark in.
"We had already caught a small tiger shark an hour or two before," Mr Sinclair said.
"When this one took the bait I thought it would be about the same size. I actually asked the other lads if they wanted to grab the rod and have a go but luckily they said no."
Mr Sinclair, an industrial chemist, was on the boat with his cousin and the boat's captain.
When the shark started to run we had to drop the anchor and go after it. It took hours for the shark to tire."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/now-thats-what-i-call-a-shark/story-fn7x8me2-1226114439198
Amazingly, he caught it on just 6kg fishing line, which is usually used to catch snapper and salmon. He beat the world's previous best catch on a 6kg line by more than 100kg.
The 27-year-old from Sydney was participating in the Dampier Classic when he landed the beast from a rented boat just after midnight on August 1.
It took more than three hours to reel the giant shark in.
"We had already caught a small tiger shark an hour or two before," Mr Sinclair said.
"When this one took the bait I thought it would be about the same size. I actually asked the other lads if they wanted to grab the rod and have a go but luckily they said no."
Mr Sinclair, an industrial chemist, was on the boat with his cousin and the boat's captain.
When the shark started to run we had to drop the anchor and go after it. It took hours for the shark to tire."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/now-thats-what-i-call-a-shark/story-fn7x8me2-1226114439198
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Another hunting safari operator identified as key player in rhino poaching ring
Rhino poachers exposed in South Africa - Courtesy of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force
July 2011. Marnus Steyl, a South African lion breeder and safari operator has emerged as a key supplier of millions of rands worth of rhino horn to a ruthless South-East Asian wildlife trafficking syndicate. Steyl allegedly stood to make at least 16 million rand in just a few weeks by supplying 50 sets of rhino horn to a Laotian company fronting for the syndicate.
It has been established that the Xaysavang Trading Export-Import Company - which reportedly operates from a hotel in central Laos - placed the order on April 23rd. The order, which was signed by one of the company directors, states bluntly, "1 month can shoot 15 rhino."
Chumlong Lemtongthai, a senior Xaysavang director and Thai citizen was arrested 2 weeks ago at a house in Edenvale, Johannesburg. Lemtongthai's "man on the ground" in South Africa, Punpitak Chumchom, was recently forced to leave South Africa.
Marnus Steyl allegedly locates the rhinos that are to be hunted, the trophies are then exported to Thailand and Laos where they are ground up and sold on the black market for so called ‘medicinal purposes'.
Lemtongthai's arrest was the culmination of a year long investigation by the South Africa Revenue Service, aided by the Hawk, South Africa's Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation.
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/rhino-arrest.html#cr
July 2011. Marnus Steyl, a South African lion breeder and safari operator has emerged as a key supplier of millions of rands worth of rhino horn to a ruthless South-East Asian wildlife trafficking syndicate. Steyl allegedly stood to make at least 16 million rand in just a few weeks by supplying 50 sets of rhino horn to a Laotian company fronting for the syndicate.
It has been established that the Xaysavang Trading Export-Import Company - which reportedly operates from a hotel in central Laos - placed the order on April 23rd. The order, which was signed by one of the company directors, states bluntly, "1 month can shoot 15 rhino."
Chumlong Lemtongthai, a senior Xaysavang director and Thai citizen was arrested 2 weeks ago at a house in Edenvale, Johannesburg. Lemtongthai's "man on the ground" in South Africa, Punpitak Chumchom, was recently forced to leave South Africa.
Marnus Steyl allegedly locates the rhinos that are to be hunted, the trophies are then exported to Thailand and Laos where they are ground up and sold on the black market for so called ‘medicinal purposes'.
Lemtongthai's arrest was the culmination of a year long investigation by the South Africa Revenue Service, aided by the Hawk, South Africa's Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation.
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/rhino-arrest.html#cr
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Entire pride of desert lions wiped out by hunting and poison
Entire pride wiped out by hunting and poisoning
July 2011. In April 2001 four lions came walking into the Hoarusib River valley on Namibia's Skeleton Coast. The three adult males and one adult female came walking all the way in from the upper Barab River, two hundred and fifty kilometres to the south. It was the first time in thirteen years that lions had taken up residence in the Hoarusib River valley.
Mixed feelings
The human population received them with mixed emotions. Local tour operators were happy to have them back while the pastoral residents of Purros were up in arms. The lions got into trouble from the outset. Their first meal in the Hoarusib was the prized stud bull belonging to Headman Daniel Karotjaiva's, followed by several cows and donkeys.
Compensation scheme
Wilderness Safaris and other operators started a compensation scheme in order to ensure the survival of the lions. This was the start of an uneasy relationship between man and lion in the Hoarusib River.
The lions soon moved down river into the Skeleton Coast Park. Shortly after their arrival the female gave birth to two female cubs at the fresh water spring at the mouth of the Hoarusib River. These were the first cubs to be born in sight of the sea in the Park for more than a decade.
Oryx diet
During the dry season the lion remained within the boundaries of the Park. Large herds of oryx concentrated on the banks of the river where they were ambushed by the lions. The lions were safe within the boundaries of the Park.
The trouble started during the rainy season when the oryx dispersed to feed on the plains where the rain had fallen. It was difficult for the lions to hunt. They would then leave the Park and kill live stock around Purros village.
2002 - More cubs
In 2002 another two female cubs were born at the mouth of the river. These two females became the regular residents of the Hoarusib River for the next decade. They were often seen on safari.
These lionesses were closely monitored by Dr. Flip Stander of the Desert Lion Conservation Fund. They became known as Tawney and Morada; they were often visited by Leonardo, the dominant male.
Living in close proximity to humans
The lions became bolder as they grew older. They started frequenting the settled areas. Dr. Stander and Wilderness Safaris addressed the problem by creating a lion task force from local community members. A 4x4 vehicle was bought. The members were trained by Dr. Stander in the use of and given radio telemetry equipment. Now the local community could monitor the lions. If the lions came close to Purros the cattle could be herded out of the river. The telemetry equipment was also used by local guides to take tourists to the lions.
One of the main threats to the lions was that the community has got so used to living without lions for more than a decade, that they have stopped herding their cattle. Now with the lions back, they were reluctant to resume herding.
Problem lions
In the course of time the lions reared cubs. In 2009 things came to a head when Leonardo, Tawney and Morada and three sub adult cubs stayed at the villages of Purros and Okongombe Themba, killing donkeys and scaring people.
Translocation
In November 2009 Dr. Stander recruited the help of Wilderness Safaris again. Wilderness staff, vehicles, fuel and equipment was used to remove the lions from Purros. All six lions were translocated to Sarusas spring in the Skeleton Coast Park. When they returned eight days later, they were physically prevented from re-entering the village by Wilderness staff and the lion task force. However one of the females slipped through the lines to kill another donkey. She was immobilized again and taken to the Hoarusib mouth.
Hunting safari
After three weeks the lions left the vicinity of Purros and moved down river. The community thanked Dr. Stander and the Wilderness Safaris staff, saying that they acknowledge that people are concerned about their plight. Dr. Stander pleaded with them not to kill Leonardo, the breeding male. He asked that they rather shoot one of the younger males for compensation for their stock losses. This was done a few months later in a legal hunt.
Everyone felt that a breakthrough was made. It was a good example of cooperation by all parties, buying time for the lions. Dr. Stander estimated that the operation had cost Wilderness Safaris close to 100,000 Nam dollars.
Leonardo killed by hunter
All of this was made undone shortly afterwards when Leonardo the breeding male was killed by an independent hunter in controversial circumstances that created a media outcry. The other male was also later shot by herders when it wandered into a different conservancy.
Rest of the pride poisoned
That left only the two sisters, Tawney and Morada and a young female, Maya in the Hoarusib River. Their lives came to an end on Saturday 10 July 2011. They were killed by strychnine poisoning fifteen kilometres north of Purros. Strychnine is often used by stock owners to poison predators. One can only wonder who killed the lions.
Benefits and losses
For a decade a lot of people worked together to try and find a compromise between humans and lions in the Hoarusib River. For a decade the lions caused losses, but also brought benefits to the people in the valley.
Was their death inevitable? Could a solution be reached? Are we any closer to sustainable lion tourism in the Kunene Region? Are their still too many rogue elements around? Be as it may-the lions of the Hoarusib River are dead.
Leonardo's death
The shooting of Leonardo is surrounded by controversy. He was apparently shot by a hunter, Keith Wright, and his client, who only had a permit to shoot a female lion on a different conservancy.
Furthermore, Leonardo was carrying a large collar which marked him out as a ‘research' lion. We believe that the collar has never been recovered and that the hunter has been charged by the authorities over this incident.
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/desert-lions.html#cr
July 2011. In April 2001 four lions came walking into the Hoarusib River valley on Namibia's Skeleton Coast. The three adult males and one adult female came walking all the way in from the upper Barab River, two hundred and fifty kilometres to the south. It was the first time in thirteen years that lions had taken up residence in the Hoarusib River valley.
Mixed feelings
The human population received them with mixed emotions. Local tour operators were happy to have them back while the pastoral residents of Purros were up in arms. The lions got into trouble from the outset. Their first meal in the Hoarusib was the prized stud bull belonging to Headman Daniel Karotjaiva's, followed by several cows and donkeys.
Compensation scheme
Wilderness Safaris and other operators started a compensation scheme in order to ensure the survival of the lions. This was the start of an uneasy relationship between man and lion in the Hoarusib River.
The lions soon moved down river into the Skeleton Coast Park. Shortly after their arrival the female gave birth to two female cubs at the fresh water spring at the mouth of the Hoarusib River. These were the first cubs to be born in sight of the sea in the Park for more than a decade.
Oryx diet
During the dry season the lion remained within the boundaries of the Park. Large herds of oryx concentrated on the banks of the river where they were ambushed by the lions. The lions were safe within the boundaries of the Park.
The trouble started during the rainy season when the oryx dispersed to feed on the plains where the rain had fallen. It was difficult for the lions to hunt. They would then leave the Park and kill live stock around Purros village.
2002 - More cubs
In 2002 another two female cubs were born at the mouth of the river. These two females became the regular residents of the Hoarusib River for the next decade. They were often seen on safari.
These lionesses were closely monitored by Dr. Flip Stander of the Desert Lion Conservation Fund. They became known as Tawney and Morada; they were often visited by Leonardo, the dominant male.
Living in close proximity to humans
The lions became bolder as they grew older. They started frequenting the settled areas. Dr. Stander and Wilderness Safaris addressed the problem by creating a lion task force from local community members. A 4x4 vehicle was bought. The members were trained by Dr. Stander in the use of and given radio telemetry equipment. Now the local community could monitor the lions. If the lions came close to Purros the cattle could be herded out of the river. The telemetry equipment was also used by local guides to take tourists to the lions.
One of the main threats to the lions was that the community has got so used to living without lions for more than a decade, that they have stopped herding their cattle. Now with the lions back, they were reluctant to resume herding.
Problem lions
In the course of time the lions reared cubs. In 2009 things came to a head when Leonardo, Tawney and Morada and three sub adult cubs stayed at the villages of Purros and Okongombe Themba, killing donkeys and scaring people.
Translocation
In November 2009 Dr. Stander recruited the help of Wilderness Safaris again. Wilderness staff, vehicles, fuel and equipment was used to remove the lions from Purros. All six lions were translocated to Sarusas spring in the Skeleton Coast Park. When they returned eight days later, they were physically prevented from re-entering the village by Wilderness staff and the lion task force. However one of the females slipped through the lines to kill another donkey. She was immobilized again and taken to the Hoarusib mouth.
Hunting safari
After three weeks the lions left the vicinity of Purros and moved down river. The community thanked Dr. Stander and the Wilderness Safaris staff, saying that they acknowledge that people are concerned about their plight. Dr. Stander pleaded with them not to kill Leonardo, the breeding male. He asked that they rather shoot one of the younger males for compensation for their stock losses. This was done a few months later in a legal hunt.
Everyone felt that a breakthrough was made. It was a good example of cooperation by all parties, buying time for the lions. Dr. Stander estimated that the operation had cost Wilderness Safaris close to 100,000 Nam dollars.
Leonardo killed by hunter
All of this was made undone shortly afterwards when Leonardo the breeding male was killed by an independent hunter in controversial circumstances that created a media outcry. The other male was also later shot by herders when it wandered into a different conservancy.
Rest of the pride poisoned
That left only the two sisters, Tawney and Morada and a young female, Maya in the Hoarusib River. Their lives came to an end on Saturday 10 July 2011. They were killed by strychnine poisoning fifteen kilometres north of Purros. Strychnine is often used by stock owners to poison predators. One can only wonder who killed the lions.
Benefits and losses
For a decade a lot of people worked together to try and find a compromise between humans and lions in the Hoarusib River. For a decade the lions caused losses, but also brought benefits to the people in the valley.
Was their death inevitable? Could a solution be reached? Are we any closer to sustainable lion tourism in the Kunene Region? Are their still too many rogue elements around? Be as it may-the lions of the Hoarusib River are dead.
Leonardo's death
The shooting of Leonardo is surrounded by controversy. He was apparently shot by a hunter, Keith Wright, and his client, who only had a permit to shoot a female lion on a different conservancy.
Furthermore, Leonardo was carrying a large collar which marked him out as a ‘research' lion. We believe that the collar has never been recovered and that the hunter has been charged by the authorities over this incident.
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/desert-lions.html#cr
Friday, July 1, 2011
Scientists cast doubt on North America’s hunting based conservation
Recreational hunting is not the only factor in wildlife conservation.Scientists call North American wildlife conservation model flawed
June 2011. Often touted as the greatest environmental achievement of the 20th century, the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is anything but, say wildlife ecologists and environmental ethicists from Michigan Technological University and Michigan State University.
Read on...
June 2011. Often touted as the greatest environmental achievement of the 20th century, the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is anything but, say wildlife ecologists and environmental ethicists from Michigan Technological University and Michigan State University.
Read on...
Monday, April 11, 2011
Zimbabwe Expert: The Truth About Killing 'Problem' Elephants
Apr 1, 2011 – 2:13 PM
Zimbabwe's premier conservationist, a 62-year-old man who says he's endured assassination attempts for trying to preserve wildlife in one of Africa's poorest and most repressive countries, can't watch the video showing Bob Parsons, the billionaire CEO of GoDaddy.com, shooting and killing an elephant.
"I've seen so many of the atrocities against elephants and other wildlife here that it sickens me to the bottom of my soul," Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, told AOL News today on the telephone from Harare.
"But I have read what Parsons said, and he is totally misinformed about what is going on here. I wish he knew the truth."
Parsons, whose video sparked outrage when it circulated Thursday, is shown shooting a bull elephant on a recent hunting trip in Zimbabwe and then posing triumphantly next to the carcass. He called the animal a "problem elephant" that was in a herd attacking local crops and houses.
Some villagers, sporting GoDaddy caps, are also shown in the video carving up the dead elephant and eating the meat, as AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" plays on the soundtrack.
Parsons brushed off criticism in interviews and said that only a few animal rights groups like PETA were upset.
The villagers "are on the brink of starvation," he told CBS News. "They need their crops and need to eat. Elephants are not endangered and probably there are too many of them. A lot of people are up in arms about this. Their hearts are in the right place, but they don't understand the situation. If they'd go on one of my trips to Zimbabwe, they'd understand."
But Rodrigues, who grew up on a farm in Zimbabwe, said hunters like Parsons don't understand the level of government corruption in the country, how it's led to the collapse of the economy and how it's affected the wildlife.
AOL News spoke with Rodrigues about the plight of elephants in a country that was once a top destination for tourists who could enjoy wildlife protected by strong environmental policies -- but has deteriorated under an increasingly lawless regime.
AOL News: Bob Parsons said killing the elephant was justified because there are too many of them in Zimbabwe and they're attacking farmers and their crops who have no way of getting rid of them. True?
Johnny Rodrigues: No. For one thing, the government deliberately inflates the number of elephants so they can allot a certain number to be killed. Last year they said 500 elephants could be killed. They say there are 100,000 elephants. From what I have found, the figure is more like between 30,000 and 35,000. They lie about the number so they can allow hunters to kill them. They use the income generated to pay the wages to the park staffers and to keep the parks running because they have no money. The villagers don't see a penny. [Park authorities] just sell them the meat.
Illegal poaching occurs all over Africa. How is the situation different in Zimbabwe?
The problem in Zimbabwe is the guardians of the wildlife are the perpetrators. We're the only country in Africa that shoots game to pay wages to national park guardians and ration meat to their staff. It's sick. You wouldn't tolerate it. Zimbabwe is the only country where some of the park guardians are politically connected and don't care about the animals. They're the ones benefiting economically from their killing, even though they are the ones who are supposed to protect them.
Are elephants actually killed in the national parks?
They are not supposed to be, but they are. The government uses claims that elephants are destroying crops and attacking villagers to allow them to be hunted in national parks and safari areas.
Why are the elephants coming into villages and threatening the farmers?
Elephants are the most traumatized animals in Zimbabwe. They are being shot even in supposedly safe areas. Elephants travel in family units, and when one of their loved ones are shot and killed, the rest of the family remembers and they are traumatized and they will attack. They are very intelligent animals with phenomenal memories. When they see humans now, they remember.
What do they remember?
They remember it is humans who have caused all their stress, who have taken away their family members. They either attack or run away when they see a vehicle. It's very sad because we could co-exist. But humans, especially in Africa, are encroaching on land reserved for the animals, and the animals are running out of land.
What would you say to Bob Parsons if you could speak to him?
I would tell him he is supporting a terrible system that is not helping the poor people on the ground. Coming here with all his wealth for these unethical hunts and killing elephants is not helping anyone. It's perpetuating a horrible cycle in this country of traumatized animals and desperate people. And by telling them to eat meat the way he did and giving them his caps is like treating them like slaves.
What would you tell him about the bull elephant he killed, based on what you know about them?
Elephants are all part of families. The bull elephant Parsons killed has a family. It's the same as a robber coming into Parsons' house and shooting him in front of one of his kids. Parsons should look at some of the incredible research on elephants and elephant family behavior. He'd be shocked. Elephants are among the smartest, most sensitive animals alive.
How many elephants were there, say 100 years ago in Zimbabwe. Do you even know?
There were at least 700,000 to 800,000, but there's no comparison to today. They roamed all over. Man has totally encroached on their territory.
Can you report illegal poaching crimes to officials in Zimbabwe?
You will see some illegal poaching in Zambia, say, but it is a country with law and order. The authorities will do something about it. Here when you bring in a dossier of documents about illegal poaching to the attorney general, nothing happens. Even if you get to see a police investigator once, you'll never see them again. They disappear. It's what happens when there is no democracy and a breakdown of law and order.
People get killed in Zimbabwe for speaking out. Why do you take the risk?
It's very dangerous, but I've been exposing what's going on in this country for 12 years. I have death threats and attempts on my life. Strange things happen here to people like me.
What kind of strange things?
People coming around, beatings, being locked up, disappearing for a few months. But somebody has to speak out. I fought for this country in the war, so I feel I have a right to be a voice for the voiceless. I am trying to preserve our wonderful wildlife in this beautiful country. That's more important than anything that happens to me.
Have international wildlife groups reached out to Zimbabwe?
Unfortunately not really. The political situation is so difficult that it keeps people away.
What about those who believe that man comes first and while it's unfortunate that animals suffer, we are more important and this is a bit of a non-issue?
Preserving our wildlife and our flora and fauna is not only part of our heritage in Zimbabwe -- it was also the biggest foreign currency earner. The government is destroying a self-sustaining industry that all the people here benefit from. The communities that live around the wildlife areas benefit from selling their wares. No tourists want to come here and see all this bloodletting and miserable animals.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/01/zimbabwe-conservationist-responds-to-godaddy-ceos-elephant-hunt/
Zimbabwe's premier conservationist, a 62-year-old man who says he's endured assassination attempts for trying to preserve wildlife in one of Africa's poorest and most repressive countries, can't watch the video showing Bob Parsons, the billionaire CEO of GoDaddy.com, shooting and killing an elephant.
"I've seen so many of the atrocities against elephants and other wildlife here that it sickens me to the bottom of my soul," Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, told AOL News today on the telephone from Harare.
"But I have read what Parsons said, and he is totally misinformed about what is going on here. I wish he knew the truth."
Parsons, whose video sparked outrage when it circulated Thursday, is shown shooting a bull elephant on a recent hunting trip in Zimbabwe and then posing triumphantly next to the carcass. He called the animal a "problem elephant" that was in a herd attacking local crops and houses.
Some villagers, sporting GoDaddy caps, are also shown in the video carving up the dead elephant and eating the meat, as AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" plays on the soundtrack.
Parsons brushed off criticism in interviews and said that only a few animal rights groups like PETA were upset.
The villagers "are on the brink of starvation," he told CBS News. "They need their crops and need to eat. Elephants are not endangered and probably there are too many of them. A lot of people are up in arms about this. Their hearts are in the right place, but they don't understand the situation. If they'd go on one of my trips to Zimbabwe, they'd understand."
But Rodrigues, who grew up on a farm in Zimbabwe, said hunters like Parsons don't understand the level of government corruption in the country, how it's led to the collapse of the economy and how it's affected the wildlife.
AOL News spoke with Rodrigues about the plight of elephants in a country that was once a top destination for tourists who could enjoy wildlife protected by strong environmental policies -- but has deteriorated under an increasingly lawless regime.
AOL News: Bob Parsons said killing the elephant was justified because there are too many of them in Zimbabwe and they're attacking farmers and their crops who have no way of getting rid of them. True?
Johnny Rodrigues: No. For one thing, the government deliberately inflates the number of elephants so they can allot a certain number to be killed. Last year they said 500 elephants could be killed. They say there are 100,000 elephants. From what I have found, the figure is more like between 30,000 and 35,000. They lie about the number so they can allow hunters to kill them. They use the income generated to pay the wages to the park staffers and to keep the parks running because they have no money. The villagers don't see a penny. [Park authorities] just sell them the meat.
Illegal poaching occurs all over Africa. How is the situation different in Zimbabwe?
The problem in Zimbabwe is the guardians of the wildlife are the perpetrators. We're the only country in Africa that shoots game to pay wages to national park guardians and ration meat to their staff. It's sick. You wouldn't tolerate it. Zimbabwe is the only country where some of the park guardians are politically connected and don't care about the animals. They're the ones benefiting economically from their killing, even though they are the ones who are supposed to protect them.
Are elephants actually killed in the national parks?
They are not supposed to be, but they are. The government uses claims that elephants are destroying crops and attacking villagers to allow them to be hunted in national parks and safari areas.
Why are the elephants coming into villages and threatening the farmers?
Elephants are the most traumatized animals in Zimbabwe. They are being shot even in supposedly safe areas. Elephants travel in family units, and when one of their loved ones are shot and killed, the rest of the family remembers and they are traumatized and they will attack. They are very intelligent animals with phenomenal memories. When they see humans now, they remember.
What do they remember?
They remember it is humans who have caused all their stress, who have taken away their family members. They either attack or run away when they see a vehicle. It's very sad because we could co-exist. But humans, especially in Africa, are encroaching on land reserved for the animals, and the animals are running out of land.
What would you say to Bob Parsons if you could speak to him?
I would tell him he is supporting a terrible system that is not helping the poor people on the ground. Coming here with all his wealth for these unethical hunts and killing elephants is not helping anyone. It's perpetuating a horrible cycle in this country of traumatized animals and desperate people. And by telling them to eat meat the way he did and giving them his caps is like treating them like slaves.
What would you tell him about the bull elephant he killed, based on what you know about them?
Elephants are all part of families. The bull elephant Parsons killed has a family. It's the same as a robber coming into Parsons' house and shooting him in front of one of his kids. Parsons should look at some of the incredible research on elephants and elephant family behavior. He'd be shocked. Elephants are among the smartest, most sensitive animals alive.
How many elephants were there, say 100 years ago in Zimbabwe. Do you even know?
There were at least 700,000 to 800,000, but there's no comparison to today. They roamed all over. Man has totally encroached on their territory.
Can you report illegal poaching crimes to officials in Zimbabwe?
You will see some illegal poaching in Zambia, say, but it is a country with law and order. The authorities will do something about it. Here when you bring in a dossier of documents about illegal poaching to the attorney general, nothing happens. Even if you get to see a police investigator once, you'll never see them again. They disappear. It's what happens when there is no democracy and a breakdown of law and order.
People get killed in Zimbabwe for speaking out. Why do you take the risk?
It's very dangerous, but I've been exposing what's going on in this country for 12 years. I have death threats and attempts on my life. Strange things happen here to people like me.
What kind of strange things?
People coming around, beatings, being locked up, disappearing for a few months. But somebody has to speak out. I fought for this country in the war, so I feel I have a right to be a voice for the voiceless. I am trying to preserve our wonderful wildlife in this beautiful country. That's more important than anything that happens to me.
Have international wildlife groups reached out to Zimbabwe?
Unfortunately not really. The political situation is so difficult that it keeps people away.
What about those who believe that man comes first and while it's unfortunate that animals suffer, we are more important and this is a bit of a non-issue?
Preserving our wildlife and our flora and fauna is not only part of our heritage in Zimbabwe -- it was also the biggest foreign currency earner. The government is destroying a self-sustaining industry that all the people here benefit from. The communities that live around the wildlife areas benefit from selling their wares. No tourists want to come here and see all this bloodletting and miserable animals.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/01/zimbabwe-conservationist-responds-to-godaddy-ceos-elephant-hunt/
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Fox shoots man
Thursday, January 13 07:47 pm
A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday. Skip related content
The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region.
"The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying.
Fox-hunting is popular in the picturesque farming region of northwestern Belarus which borders Poland.
(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Matthew Jones)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20110113/tod-oukoe-uk-belarus-fox-cb1d00a.html
(Submitted by Marije Tintin)
A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday. Skip related content
The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region.
"The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying.
Fox-hunting is popular in the picturesque farming region of northwestern Belarus which borders Poland.
(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Matthew Jones)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20110113/tod-oukoe-uk-belarus-fox-cb1d00a.html
(Submitted by Marije Tintin)
Fox shoots man
Thursday, January 13 07:47 pm
A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday. Skip related content
The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region.
"The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying.
Fox-hunting is popular in the picturesque farming region of northwestern Belarus which borders Poland.
(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Matthew Jones)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20110113/tod-oukoe-uk-belarus-fox-cb1d00a.html
(Submitted by Marije Tintin)
A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday. Skip related content
The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region.
"The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying.
Fox-hunting is popular in the picturesque farming region of northwestern Belarus which borders Poland.
(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Matthew Jones)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20110113/tod-oukoe-uk-belarus-fox-cb1d00a.html
(Submitted by Marije Tintin)
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Urban fox hunt video was hoax aimed at the media, say film-makers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/06/urban-fox-hunt-chris-atkins
Urban fox hunt video was hoax aimed at the media, say film-makers
Chris Atkins and Johnny Howorth, the team behind Starsuckers, say film was
satirical swipe at press coverage of fox attacks
• Paul Lewis
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 August 2010 17.35 BST
It was the internet video that sparked a media outcry: grainy footage that seemed to show four masked men drugging a fox and later beating it to death with cricket bats in a London park that was posted on YouTube and Facebook earlier this week.
But the Guardian can reveal that the new sport of "urban foxhunting" was an elaborate hoax. The film-makers, Chris Atkins and Johnny Howorth, said no real foxes were harmed in the film, which was intended as a satirical swipe at "media hysteria" over the danger of urban foxes.
Animal rights campaigners had expressed fury over the "bloodthirsty" huntsmen, eliciting the support of MPs on Twitter and prompting an inquiry by the Metropolitan police's wildlife crime unit.
YouTube and Facebook removed the footage and the controversy was covered in news outlets including the Guardian, the Times, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail. The BBC was also duped, sending a reporter to Victoria Park, Hackney – the supposed scene of the crime. Amid a growing furore, the animal welfare group League Against Cruel Sports launched a campaign against urban foxhunting, while the RSPCA said it was investigating.
In today's London Evening Standard, columnist Sebastian Shakespeare went so far as to celebrate urban foxhunting as the first and best example of David Cameron's "big society" in action. In fact, the dead animal in the footage was played by a stuffed fox, the film-makers told the Guardian, while the live fox was played by a pet dog, Monty, with a bushy tail taped to its hindquarters.
The pair said they made their film "deliberately Pythonesque" in a bid to lampoon the media hysteria over urban foxes, and were surprised when the video was so widely assumed to be authentic.
Urban fox hunt video was hoax aimed at the media, say film-makers
Chris Atkins and Johnny Howorth, the team behind Starsuckers, say film was
satirical swipe at press coverage of fox attacks
• Paul Lewis
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 August 2010 17.35 BST
It was the internet video that sparked a media outcry: grainy footage that seemed to show four masked men drugging a fox and later beating it to death with cricket bats in a London park that was posted on YouTube and Facebook earlier this week.
But the Guardian can reveal that the new sport of "urban foxhunting" was an elaborate hoax. The film-makers, Chris Atkins and Johnny Howorth, said no real foxes were harmed in the film, which was intended as a satirical swipe at "media hysteria" over the danger of urban foxes.
Animal rights campaigners had expressed fury over the "bloodthirsty" huntsmen, eliciting the support of MPs on Twitter and prompting an inquiry by the Metropolitan police's wildlife crime unit.
YouTube and Facebook removed the footage and the controversy was covered in news outlets including the Guardian, the Times, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail. The BBC was also duped, sending a reporter to Victoria Park, Hackney – the supposed scene of the crime. Amid a growing furore, the animal welfare group League Against Cruel Sports launched a campaign against urban foxhunting, while the RSPCA said it was investigating.
In today's London Evening Standard, columnist Sebastian Shakespeare went so far as to celebrate urban foxhunting as the first and best example of David Cameron's "big society" in action. In fact, the dead animal in the footage was played by a stuffed fox, the film-makers told the Guardian, while the live fox was played by a pet dog, Monty, with a bushy tail taped to its hindquarters.
The pair said they made their film "deliberately Pythonesque" in a bid to lampoon the media hysteria over urban foxes, and were surprised when the video was so widely assumed to be authentic.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Woolly mammoth hunters helped change climate
Thu Jul 15, 2010 1:24pm GMT
By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE Alaska (Reuters) - Ancient hunters who stalked the world's last woolly mammoths likely helped warm the Earth's far northern latitudes thousands of years before humans began burning fossil fuels, according to a study of prehistoric climate change.
The demise of the leaf-chomping woolly mammoths contributed to a proliferation of dwarf birch trees in and around the Arctic, darkening a largely barren, reflective landscape and accelerating a rise in temperatures across the polar north, researchers at the Carnegie Institution for Science concluded.
The northward march of vegetation affected the climate because of the "albedo effect," in which replacement of white snow and ice with darker land surfaces absorbs more sunlight and creates a self-repeating warming cycle, the study found.
The end of the last Ice Age, marked by a worldwide rise in temperatures and the dramatic retreat of glaciers that once covered much of the Northern Hemisphere, was already under way when the extinction of woolly mammoths began.
But the latest findings, scheduled to be published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal, suggest human activity played a role in altering Earth's climate long before mankind began burning coal and oil for energy, though the effects of prehistoric hunting were minute by comparison.
FIRST HUMAN IMPACT ON CLIMATE
If mammoth hunters helped hasten Arctic warming, that would potentially be the first such human impact on climate, preceding that caused by ancient farmers, Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology and a co-author of the study, said on Tuesday.
With the advent of agriculture about 7,000 years ago at more southern latitudes, humans are believed to have modified the climate through deforestation and cultivation of new plants, he said.
The earlier climate consequences of declining mammoth populations were extremely subtle.
The flourishing of plant life as the voracious, vegetarian beasts were disappearing about 15,000 years ago helped warm the Arctic and boreal regions in what is now Siberia and North America by 0.2 degrees Celsius over a period of several centuries, though certain spots saw a temperature rise of up to 1 degree Celsius, the study found.
Ancient human-caused warming was tiny compared to modern-day warming, in which the Earth's temperature has risen about 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.33 degrees F) since the start of the 20th century, with temperatures rising at least twice as fast in the Arctic, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The research attributes about a fourth of the Arctic's vegetation-driven warming to the decline of the woolly mammoth. If human hunters helped kill off the large mammals, they bear some responsibility for warming the climate, the scientists concluded.
"We're not saying this was a big effect," Field said. "The point of the paper isn't that this is a big effect. But it's a human effect."
The study analyzed pollen records in sediments of lakes in Alaska, Siberia and Canada's Yukon Territory. Through those records, scientists were able to reconstruct forest growth in what was once woolly mammoth habitat.
The scientists also analyzed behaviour of African elephants, the modern analogue to the woolly mammoth, which knock down trees as they dine on the leaves that they prefer to less-nutritious grasses.
The Earth already was warming at the time when mammoths were disappearing, but there is evidence that dramatic growth of vegetation in the far North followed the large animals' demise rather than preceded it, Field said.
"What we tried to do was say how much of the tree increase was due to the extinction of mammoths," he said.
It was not possible, however, to quantify how much of the extinction was due to human hunting, he said. Whether hunters ultimately pushed mammoths over the brink remains a subject of scientific debate, he said.
If humans did kill off the mammoths, "I'm sure they didn't have anything but a very local picture of what they were doing," Field said.
(Editing by Steve Gorman and Sandra Maler)
http://af.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idAFTRE66E2FO20100715
By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE Alaska (Reuters) - Ancient hunters who stalked the world's last woolly mammoths likely helped warm the Earth's far northern latitudes thousands of years before humans began burning fossil fuels, according to a study of prehistoric climate change.
The demise of the leaf-chomping woolly mammoths contributed to a proliferation of dwarf birch trees in and around the Arctic, darkening a largely barren, reflective landscape and accelerating a rise in temperatures across the polar north, researchers at the Carnegie Institution for Science concluded.
The northward march of vegetation affected the climate because of the "albedo effect," in which replacement of white snow and ice with darker land surfaces absorbs more sunlight and creates a self-repeating warming cycle, the study found.
The end of the last Ice Age, marked by a worldwide rise in temperatures and the dramatic retreat of glaciers that once covered much of the Northern Hemisphere, was already under way when the extinction of woolly mammoths began.
But the latest findings, scheduled to be published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal, suggest human activity played a role in altering Earth's climate long before mankind began burning coal and oil for energy, though the effects of prehistoric hunting were minute by comparison.
FIRST HUMAN IMPACT ON CLIMATE
If mammoth hunters helped hasten Arctic warming, that would potentially be the first such human impact on climate, preceding that caused by ancient farmers, Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology and a co-author of the study, said on Tuesday.
With the advent of agriculture about 7,000 years ago at more southern latitudes, humans are believed to have modified the climate through deforestation and cultivation of new plants, he said.
The earlier climate consequences of declining mammoth populations were extremely subtle.
The flourishing of plant life as the voracious, vegetarian beasts were disappearing about 15,000 years ago helped warm the Arctic and boreal regions in what is now Siberia and North America by 0.2 degrees Celsius over a period of several centuries, though certain spots saw a temperature rise of up to 1 degree Celsius, the study found.
Ancient human-caused warming was tiny compared to modern-day warming, in which the Earth's temperature has risen about 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.33 degrees F) since the start of the 20th century, with temperatures rising at least twice as fast in the Arctic, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The research attributes about a fourth of the Arctic's vegetation-driven warming to the decline of the woolly mammoth. If human hunters helped kill off the large mammals, they bear some responsibility for warming the climate, the scientists concluded.
"We're not saying this was a big effect," Field said. "The point of the paper isn't that this is a big effect. But it's a human effect."
The study analyzed pollen records in sediments of lakes in Alaska, Siberia and Canada's Yukon Territory. Through those records, scientists were able to reconstruct forest growth in what was once woolly mammoth habitat.
The scientists also analyzed behaviour of African elephants, the modern analogue to the woolly mammoth, which knock down trees as they dine on the leaves that they prefer to less-nutritious grasses.
The Earth already was warming at the time when mammoths were disappearing, but there is evidence that dramatic growth of vegetation in the far North followed the large animals' demise rather than preceded it, Field said.
"What we tried to do was say how much of the tree increase was due to the extinction of mammoths," he said.
It was not possible, however, to quantify how much of the extinction was due to human hunting, he said. Whether hunters ultimately pushed mammoths over the brink remains a subject of scientific debate, he said.
If humans did kill off the mammoths, "I'm sure they didn't have anything but a very local picture of what they were doing," Field said.
(Editing by Steve Gorman and Sandra Maler)
http://af.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idAFTRE66E2FO20100715
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Dog 'shoots' owner in New Zealand
A New Zealand man is recovering from surgery after being shot in the buttock by his dog.
By Paul Chapman in Wellington
Published: 7:00AM BST 13 Jul 2010
Police believe the animal stood on the trigger of a .22 bolt-action rifle in a freak accident.
The dog's 40-year-old owner was getting into the rear seat of a four-wheel drive vehicle with the rifle next to him when the animal jumped in.
He was among a group of four people who had slaughtered a pig at Te Kopuru, 90 miles northwest of Auckland on New Zealand's North Island.
The group told police they had thought the gun, which in fact contained five shells, was unloaded.
Mark Going, a St John Ambulance manager, said paramedics who attended were told the rifle had been fired through the seat, lodging a bullet in the man's left buttock.
The victim, who was in extreme pain, was airlifted by rescue helicopter to Whangarei Hospital where surgeons removed the bullet.
He was in a stable condition in hospital on Tuesday.
The owner has not been named, neither has the breed of dog.
Senior Constable Ian Anderson, of nearby Dargaville, said the victim was lucky not to have been more seriously hurt.
Police are testing the rifle and speaking to witnesses.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7886794/Dog-shoots-owner-in-New-Zealand.html
By Paul Chapman in Wellington
Published: 7:00AM BST 13 Jul 2010
Police believe the animal stood on the trigger of a .22 bolt-action rifle in a freak accident.
The dog's 40-year-old owner was getting into the rear seat of a four-wheel drive vehicle with the rifle next to him when the animal jumped in.
He was among a group of four people who had slaughtered a pig at Te Kopuru, 90 miles northwest of Auckland on New Zealand's North Island.
The group told police they had thought the gun, which in fact contained five shells, was unloaded.
Mark Going, a St John Ambulance manager, said paramedics who attended were told the rifle had been fired through the seat, lodging a bullet in the man's left buttock.
The victim, who was in extreme pain, was airlifted by rescue helicopter to Whangarei Hospital where surgeons removed the bullet.
He was in a stable condition in hospital on Tuesday.
The owner has not been named, neither has the breed of dog.
Senior Constable Ian Anderson, of nearby Dargaville, said the victim was lucky not to have been more seriously hurt.
Police are testing the rifle and speaking to witnesses.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7886794/Dog-shoots-owner-in-New-Zealand.html
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Wild Colorado: The beavers are back
Saturday, May 15, 2010Beavers are common throughout North America today, despite almost being hunted to extinction in the 1800s
By Julie Sutor
summit daily news
SUMMIT COUNTY — The Colorado High Country is known for its abundance of charismatic wildlife, but there is perhaps no other species that has played as pivotal a role in its history as the beaver.
Beavers — and their thick, soft pelts — were the initial draw to Summit County for white settlers. Beaver furs were highly coveted in Europe for centuries, and the animals were hunted nearly to extinction on that continent by the mid-1500s. The North American beaver trade served as a new, seemingly endless supply, and beaver hats were all the rage again in Europe by the mid-1600s, funding the continued development and settlement of the American colonies.
“Across the entire sweep of North America, the fur trade was the cutting edge of the frontier, and the driving force behind the exploration of the country,” author Alice Outwater wrote in her book, “Water: A Natural History.”
In the early 1800s, as many as a thousand white trappers were hunting beavers in the Rocky Mountains at any given time, according to Outwater. Beaver trapping drove white settlement in Summit County through the middle of the 19th century. It is believed that beaver trappers were likely the first to discover gold in Summit County, drawing the second wave of white settlers to the area, according to Caitlin Lewis of the Frisco Historic Park and Museum.
By the mid 1800s, American beavers were on the brink of being wiped out, and their salvation and eventual recovery hinged on the whims of fashion: In the 1840s, silk top hats replaced beaver-felt hats as the must-have headwear.
By the 1870s, beaver populations began to slowly rebound in Colorado. However, their return was slowed by mining and agriculture, which infringed on their habitat and diverted and polluted their waters.
“Beavers have always had a tough time in Colorado, whether from trapping for their pelts or from development,” said Randy Hampton of the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
In the last 50 years, as environmental regulations improved water quality and habitat, beavers at last staged their comeback in the Rockies.
“Beavers have responded fairly well, and now they're found pretty much everywhere around the state where there's water,” Hampton said.
Keystone species
Beavers are a keystone species, meaning that their presence will dictate the overall health of their ecosystem. Their incessant activity in creating dams along streams and rivers fundamentally alters riparian areas, leading to the formation of pools, ponds, wetlands and meadows, which all serve as habitat for other species, including fish, plantlife, amphibians, deer and other wildlife on up the food chain. Without beavers, fish lose important breeding and spawning areas, as waters run too cold and fast for reproductive activity. That impact to fish then cascades throughout the entire ecosystem.
“Beavers do more to shape their landscape than any other mammal except for human beings,” Outwater wrote.
In 2007, Canada-based ecologist Jean Thie identified a half-mile-long beaver dam visible from space. Thie located the dam in Alberta's Wood Buffalo National Park, using Google Earth.
A mating pair of beavers creates its home by burrowing into the bank of a stream from underwater. The beavers excavate upward, creating a den above the high-water line, which they then line with vegetation. Having an underwater entrance to the den provides protection from predators. Beavers build dams in order to maintain the water level above the den's entrance.
Today, as beavers busily dam up Colorado's waters, they inevitably come into conflict with humans, altering the course of waterways and creating small floods.
“In Glenwood Canyon, CDOT is constantly dealing with beavers plugging up the streams, causing flooding concerns that could, over time, threaten the interstate. They alter the ecosystem in good ways and bad ways. It's one of those things where we have to find a balance,” Hampton said.
Tularemia likely in Colorado beaver deaths
Small numbers of beavers found dead in San Miguel and Gilpin counties in late April most likely died as the result of infection from the bacteria that causes tularemia, the Colorado Division of Wildlife has concluded. There is no evidence of tularemia infections in Summit County beavers.
Water-borne tularemia occurs naturally in Colorado, and sometimes infects beavers, muskrats and other animals that spend time in the water. Rabbits are also commonly infected. Both of the recent outbreaks in beavers appear to be localized.
“Seeing two small outbreaks in different parts of the state at the same time is probably just a coincidence,” said Dr. Lisa Wolfe, wildlife veterinarian with the Division of Wildlife. “Water-borne tularemia outbreaks tend to be reported in spring, so these seem to be pretty typical cases.”
In San Miguel County, four beavers were found dead near ponds in Telluride. Another beaver was found dead in Specie Creek, about 15 miles northwest of Telluride. In Gilpin County, three beaver carcasses were found south of Rollinsville.
After on-site investigations suggested the possibility of tularemia, DOW staff transported some of the carcasses from both counties to labs in Grand Junction or Fort Collins for postmortem examinations. Testing to confirm the diagnosis is still under way.
The causative bacterium, Francisella tularensis, poses a low threat to human health, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Simple steps recommended by CDPHE to protect against tularemia include not drinking untreated water, wearing gloves when skinning game, wearing insect repellent (due to the risk of transmission through deer fly or tick bites) and preventing pets from feeding on animal carcasses.
Other beavers will likely move into the areas soon, according to wildlife officials.
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20100515/NEWS/100519852/1078&ParentProfile=1055
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Rattlesnake rodeo: 75 snakes on show ... and fried rattlesnake sandwiches
Seventy-five Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes are menacing even locked inside a wooden cage, but the cringe factor is just part of the attraction at the Opp Rattlesnake Rodeo.
Published: 12:26PM BST 21 Apr 2010
For 50 years, hunters have been tramping through piney woods and grassy fields in south Alabama looking for these snakes, which live underground in holes. The ones they find are yanked out and put on display at the two-day festival. Afterward, they're killed.
This year, the writhing, 8lb snake in handler Scotty Short's grip is part of the rodeo show. Dozens of people gather around with cameras as he holds up the rattler, using a metal hook to expose its long, curved fangs.
Next year, the same reptile's scaly hide might be for sale as a wallet or belt at a souvenir booth. Its severed, dried head or rattles might be trinkets at another display table.
The rattlesnake rodeo has made this sleepy south Alabama town of 6,600 known all over the South – the 50th anniversary event drew about 25,000 people in March. Similar snake roundups are held in more than two dozen communities from Texas to Pennsylvania.
Supporters say it's all in fun. The hunters get rid of a nuisance to many landowners; people pay to see their catch and learn about rattlers. And then there's the fried rattlesnake on white bread for $5, paper towel included.
But environmentalists and reptile experts are pushing to end the roundups, particularly in the Southeast. There, they say, Eastern diamondback populations are declining to dangerously low levels, largely because of festivals like the annual hunt in Opp.
Longtime snake hunter Don Childre of Opp doesn't see the harm. Childre said hunters have refined their methods to avoid harming other species that live in the burrows favoured by snakes, and he hasn't seen any decline in the number or size of snakes brought in each year.
"We've hunted the same places for 50 years and still are getting snakes out of them," said Childre. "We could probably get 500 or 600 snakes if we wanted to."
Rattlesnake roundups in two Georgia towns are the only others still held in the Deep South – down from about 50 in the 1960s – and the Center for Biological Diversity says it's time for those hunts to end, too.
Somehow, Opp just wouldn't be the same without the rodeo.
Located about 20 miles north of the Florida line, Opp is an old railroad town. It held its first rattlesnake rodeo at the urging of a businessman who put on shows at a local restaurant with bears, bobcats and other animals.
The rodeo grew, and a handful of men took on the responsibility of providing the snakes.
For years, the hunters poured small amounts of harmful gasoline into gopher tortoise holes to flush out the snakes that also live in the burrows.
Today, hunters shove stiff plastic tubes into the holes and put the end to an ear to listen for rattling. If they hear a snake, they insert another tube with a treble hook tied to the end to snag.
"Sometimes you'd have to wait for 30 minutes for them to come out with the gas," said Childre, the city planner in Opp when he's not hunting. "This way you can pull 'em right out."
Childre said only a half-dozen or so men actually hunt snakes for the Opp event. Their combined take is usually limited to 100, far fewer than in the past.
Biologist Bruce Means has spent years studying Eastern diamondback snakes, and he's researched the effects of southern snake roundups by going through old news clippings and the events' own promotional materials.
Means, who teaches at Florida State University, published a report last year that put the effect of the events in stark terms. Looking at the numbers from Opp and three roundups in Georgia, one of which has since ended, he wrote:
"Both numbers of snakes and weights of the largest snakes that participants turned in annually declined in the last two decades. Statements by roundup officials and rattlesnake hunters support that roundup hunting has depleted local rattlesnake populations and forced hunters to travel further to collect snakes in recent years."
Tierra Curry, a conservation biologist with the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, gives the Opp event credit for limiting its catch. Eight rattler roundups in Pennsylvania are even better because they release the snakes after catching them, she said.
Attendees of the Opp rodeo didn't seem too concerned about how the snakes are captured or what happens to them after the show. Billy Garner of Forestdale picks up a stuffed rattlesnake from a sales table and holds it out for his wife Julia to see.
Over at the live snake pen, Cheryl Lombard of Vicksburg, Mich., watches in fascination as a handler picks up a big rattler with a metal hook made from an old golf club.
She wants to try fried snake, but she keeps a distance from the live ones.
"You couldn't pay me to get near one," she said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7614042/Rattlesnake-rodeo-75-snakes-on-show-...-and-fried-rattlesnake-sandwiches.html
Published: 12:26PM BST 21 Apr 2010
For 50 years, hunters have been tramping through piney woods and grassy fields in south Alabama looking for these snakes, which live underground in holes. The ones they find are yanked out and put on display at the two-day festival. Afterward, they're killed.
This year, the writhing, 8lb snake in handler Scotty Short's grip is part of the rodeo show. Dozens of people gather around with cameras as he holds up the rattler, using a metal hook to expose its long, curved fangs.
Next year, the same reptile's scaly hide might be for sale as a wallet or belt at a souvenir booth. Its severed, dried head or rattles might be trinkets at another display table.
The rattlesnake rodeo has made this sleepy south Alabama town of 6,600 known all over the South – the 50th anniversary event drew about 25,000 people in March. Similar snake roundups are held in more than two dozen communities from Texas to Pennsylvania.
Supporters say it's all in fun. The hunters get rid of a nuisance to many landowners; people pay to see their catch and learn about rattlers. And then there's the fried rattlesnake on white bread for $5, paper towel included.
But environmentalists and reptile experts are pushing to end the roundups, particularly in the Southeast. There, they say, Eastern diamondback populations are declining to dangerously low levels, largely because of festivals like the annual hunt in Opp.
Longtime snake hunter Don Childre of Opp doesn't see the harm. Childre said hunters have refined their methods to avoid harming other species that live in the burrows favoured by snakes, and he hasn't seen any decline in the number or size of snakes brought in each year.
"We've hunted the same places for 50 years and still are getting snakes out of them," said Childre. "We could probably get 500 or 600 snakes if we wanted to."
Rattlesnake roundups in two Georgia towns are the only others still held in the Deep South – down from about 50 in the 1960s – and the Center for Biological Diversity says it's time for those hunts to end, too.
Somehow, Opp just wouldn't be the same without the rodeo.
Located about 20 miles north of the Florida line, Opp is an old railroad town. It held its first rattlesnake rodeo at the urging of a businessman who put on shows at a local restaurant with bears, bobcats and other animals.
The rodeo grew, and a handful of men took on the responsibility of providing the snakes.
For years, the hunters poured small amounts of harmful gasoline into gopher tortoise holes to flush out the snakes that also live in the burrows.
Today, hunters shove stiff plastic tubes into the holes and put the end to an ear to listen for rattling. If they hear a snake, they insert another tube with a treble hook tied to the end to snag.
"Sometimes you'd have to wait for 30 minutes for them to come out with the gas," said Childre, the city planner in Opp when he's not hunting. "This way you can pull 'em right out."
Childre said only a half-dozen or so men actually hunt snakes for the Opp event. Their combined take is usually limited to 100, far fewer than in the past.
Biologist Bruce Means has spent years studying Eastern diamondback snakes, and he's researched the effects of southern snake roundups by going through old news clippings and the events' own promotional materials.
Means, who teaches at Florida State University, published a report last year that put the effect of the events in stark terms. Looking at the numbers from Opp and three roundups in Georgia, one of which has since ended, he wrote:
"Both numbers of snakes and weights of the largest snakes that participants turned in annually declined in the last two decades. Statements by roundup officials and rattlesnake hunters support that roundup hunting has depleted local rattlesnake populations and forced hunters to travel further to collect snakes in recent years."
Tierra Curry, a conservation biologist with the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, gives the Opp event credit for limiting its catch. Eight rattler roundups in Pennsylvania are even better because they release the snakes after catching them, she said.
Attendees of the Opp rodeo didn't seem too concerned about how the snakes are captured or what happens to them after the show. Billy Garner of Forestdale picks up a stuffed rattlesnake from a sales table and holds it out for his wife Julia to see.
Over at the live snake pen, Cheryl Lombard of Vicksburg, Mich., watches in fascination as a handler picks up a big rattler with a metal hook made from an old golf club.
She wants to try fried snake, but she keeps a distance from the live ones.
"You couldn't pay me to get near one," she said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7614042/Rattlesnake-rodeo-75-snakes-on-show-...-and-fried-rattlesnake-sandwiches.html
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Seal meat to be on menu at Canadian Parliament
Mon Mar 8, 2010 11:54pm IST
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's parliamentary restaurant will be serving seal meat on Wednesday in a gesture of defiance aimed at a European Union ban on imports of seal products.
Canada's Conservative government says it will fight the EU ban, which was imposed last July on the grounds that the annual seal hunt off the east coast was cruel and inhumane.
A dish of double-smoked bacon-wrapped seal loin in a port reduction will be on the menu on Wednesday, the office of Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette said on Monday.
"All political parties will have the opportunity to demonstrate to the international community the solidarity of the Canadian Parliament behind those who earn a living from the seal hunt," she said in a statement.
Ottawa says the hunt -- which takes place in March and April -- provides valuable income for Atlantic fishing communities. The seals are either shot or hit over the head with a spiked club called a hakapik.
An aide to Hervieux-Payette said that, depending on supplies, seal meat could be available once a week when in season. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Rob Wilson)
http://in.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idINTRE6274A120100308
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's parliamentary restaurant will be serving seal meat on Wednesday in a gesture of defiance aimed at a European Union ban on imports of seal products.
Canada's Conservative government says it will fight the EU ban, which was imposed last July on the grounds that the annual seal hunt off the east coast was cruel and inhumane.
A dish of double-smoked bacon-wrapped seal loin in a port reduction will be on the menu on Wednesday, the office of Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette said on Monday.
"All political parties will have the opportunity to demonstrate to the international community the solidarity of the Canadian Parliament behind those who earn a living from the seal hunt," she said in a statement.
Ottawa says the hunt -- which takes place in March and April -- provides valuable income for Atlantic fishing communities. The seals are either shot or hit over the head with a spiked club called a hakapik.
An aide to Hervieux-Payette said that, depending on supplies, seal meat could be available once a week when in season. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Rob Wilson)
http://in.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idINTRE6274A120100308
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Zoo partners with SWAT team for animal emergencies
By Tom Buckham
NEWS STAFF REPORTERS
Updated: February 28, 2010
Over its 135-year history, the Buffalo Zoo has never needed a sharpshooter to confront a predator on the loose.
And though it doesn’t expect to confront that scenario anytime soon, the zoo is asking the Buffalo Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics team to be ready to answer the call, just in case.
Members of the police unit have toured the Delaware Park zoological gardens to familiarize themselves with the layout — especially exhibits containing dangerous animals—and a memorandum of understanding between the zoo and the police is being readied, zoo President Donna M. Fernandes said.
The arrangement will include an emergency phone line to the SWAT team, she said.
Rifles always have been kept handy on zoo grounds, and the staff invariably included one or more marksmen capable of dealing with an animal escape or an attack on a keeper. Firing a sedative dart to immobilize the critter would be the preferred course of action.
But never has a bear, lion, tiger or other dangerous critter escaped from its habitat or otherwise posed a threat to the public or zoo workers.
“We’ve been lucky,” Fernandes said.
Deadly force was required once — in 1979, when police were forced to shoot two polar bears to death after an inebriated intruder climbed into their enclosure one night and was mauled.
The changing face of the zoo staff, which is now mostly female, led the zoo to approach the Police Department, which always had jurisdiction in the event a wild animal left the zoo grounds, about responding to an emergency inside the gates.
“We had a lot more hunters on the staff when it was 75 percent men,” Fernandes said. “There were at least 10 when I came here 10 years ago.”
Some of those men remain, and a few female employees are experienced shooters, too, she said. In addition, the staff receives regular training for emergencies.
But most employees are only present during the workday, while SWAT members can respond to a dangerous situation at any hour, Fernandes said.
“We want to make sure we have adequate coverage around the clock, seven days a week,” she said.
http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/02/28/972172/zoo-partners-with-swat-team-for.html
NEWS STAFF REPORTERS
Updated: February 28, 2010
Over its 135-year history, the Buffalo Zoo has never needed a sharpshooter to confront a predator on the loose.
And though it doesn’t expect to confront that scenario anytime soon, the zoo is asking the Buffalo Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics team to be ready to answer the call, just in case.
Members of the police unit have toured the Delaware Park zoological gardens to familiarize themselves with the layout — especially exhibits containing dangerous animals—and a memorandum of understanding between the zoo and the police is being readied, zoo President Donna M. Fernandes said.
The arrangement will include an emergency phone line to the SWAT team, she said.
Rifles always have been kept handy on zoo grounds, and the staff invariably included one or more marksmen capable of dealing with an animal escape or an attack on a keeper. Firing a sedative dart to immobilize the critter would be the preferred course of action.
But never has a bear, lion, tiger or other dangerous critter escaped from its habitat or otherwise posed a threat to the public or zoo workers.
“We’ve been lucky,” Fernandes said.
Deadly force was required once — in 1979, when police were forced to shoot two polar bears to death after an inebriated intruder climbed into their enclosure one night and was mauled.
The changing face of the zoo staff, which is now mostly female, led the zoo to approach the Police Department, which always had jurisdiction in the event a wild animal left the zoo grounds, about responding to an emergency inside the gates.
“We had a lot more hunters on the staff when it was 75 percent men,” Fernandes said. “There were at least 10 when I came here 10 years ago.”
Some of those men remain, and a few female employees are experienced shooters, too, she said. In addition, the staff receives regular training for emergencies.
But most employees are only present during the workday, while SWAT members can respond to a dangerous situation at any hour, Fernandes said.
“We want to make sure we have adequate coverage around the clock, seven days a week,” she said.
http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/02/28/972172/zoo-partners-with-swat-team-for.html
Friday, February 19, 2010
Hunters may have lit fires next to kiwi
By GILES BROWN - The Press
Last updated 05:00 09/02/2010
Residents of a tiny West Coast town believe irresponsible hunters may be behind nearby scrub fires which endangered the world's rarest kiwi.
Six fires damaged more than 10 hectares of swampland near Okarito, north of Franz Josef, at the weekend.
The area is a sanctuary for 350 rowi, or Okarito brown kiwi, and part of BNZ's Operation Nest Egg mission to protect the birds.
The arson has aroused anger in Okarito with some saying it could be the work of hunters hoping to encourage new growth to attract deer.
Richard Saunders, owner of Okarito Nature Tours, said suspicion fell on hunters about two years ago when there were fires in the same area.
"The regrowth attracts deer and then they can drive by and shoot them from the ute. It's incredibly lazy hunting."
Ian Cooper, who takes people into the bush to learn about the birds with his company Okarito Kiwi Tours, said there was a "tradition" of hunters having burnoffs to attract their prey.
"They might think it's the right thing to do because it's not going to endanger the forest but go into the swamp and attract the deer, especially at this time of year with the roar coming on."
However, Cooper, who hunts in the area, said many hunters would be horrified if that was the case.
One hunter, who did not want to be named, said it was unlikely hunters were responsible because deer did not graze on swampland and would not be attracted by regrowth there. "No self-respecting hunter would do that. Anyone who did that wants dealing to," the man said.
Yesterday, Iain Graham, DOC's Operation Nest Egg ranger for the area, used transmitting equipment to confirm two pairs of birds that lived near the fires were still alive.
Because fires were set at night the kiwi were likely to have been out foraging and would not be trapped in their burrows and unable to escape.
"We can't understand why anyone would want to do this in a national park. I'm a hunter myself and I can't understand why anyone would do that because the deer don't spend time out there," Graham said.
A plane with detection equipment would fly over the 11,000ha sanctuary in the next week and confirm if any of the 120 birds DOC monitored had been killed.
Constable Paul Gurney, of Franz Josef, said he was keeping an open mind over who the culprits may be. "Inexperienced hunters might try that sort of thing to get the growth back. But there's plenty of people who have ill-will towards DOC. Someone knows who's done this and if they've a shred of decency they should tell us who it
is."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/west-coast/3305278/Hunters-may-have-lit-fires-next-to-kiwi
Last updated 05:00 09/02/2010
Residents of a tiny West Coast town believe irresponsible hunters may be behind nearby scrub fires which endangered the world's rarest kiwi.
Six fires damaged more than 10 hectares of swampland near Okarito, north of Franz Josef, at the weekend.
The area is a sanctuary for 350 rowi, or Okarito brown kiwi, and part of BNZ's Operation Nest Egg mission to protect the birds.
The arson has aroused anger in Okarito with some saying it could be the work of hunters hoping to encourage new growth to attract deer.
Richard Saunders, owner of Okarito Nature Tours, said suspicion fell on hunters about two years ago when there were fires in the same area.
"The regrowth attracts deer and then they can drive by and shoot them from the ute. It's incredibly lazy hunting."
Ian Cooper, who takes people into the bush to learn about the birds with his company Okarito Kiwi Tours, said there was a "tradition" of hunters having burnoffs to attract their prey.
"They might think it's the right thing to do because it's not going to endanger the forest but go into the swamp and attract the deer, especially at this time of year with the roar coming on."
However, Cooper, who hunts in the area, said many hunters would be horrified if that was the case.
One hunter, who did not want to be named, said it was unlikely hunters were responsible because deer did not graze on swampland and would not be attracted by regrowth there. "No self-respecting hunter would do that. Anyone who did that wants dealing to," the man said.
Yesterday, Iain Graham, DOC's Operation Nest Egg ranger for the area, used transmitting equipment to confirm two pairs of birds that lived near the fires were still alive.
Because fires were set at night the kiwi were likely to have been out foraging and would not be trapped in their burrows and unable to escape.
"We can't understand why anyone would want to do this in a national park. I'm a hunter myself and I can't understand why anyone would do that because the deer don't spend time out there," Graham said.
A plane with detection equipment would fly over the 11,000ha sanctuary in the next week and confirm if any of the 120 birds DOC monitored had been killed.
Constable Paul Gurney, of Franz Josef, said he was keeping an open mind over who the culprits may be. "Inexperienced hunters might try that sort of thing to get the growth back. But there's plenty of people who have ill-will towards DOC. Someone knows who's done this and if they've a shred of decency they should tell us who it
is."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/west-coast/3305278/Hunters-may-have-lit-fires-next-to-kiwi
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