Disqualified by protest sparked by hunting photos SALEM, Oregon––Hunters nationwide are worried over the outcome of a high-profile confrontation among ranking Democrats over who will serve on the Oregon Fish & Wildlife Commission. Their side lost. This signaled a significant loss of grip in a largely rural state where for decades hunters were politically […]
Wolves, grey whales, & sea lions targeted to preserve meat-getting traditions
Cultural demand for killing wildlife is much stronger than economic interest SEATTLE––The good news for wolves, grey whales, and California sea lions in the Pacific Northwest is that all three once-endangered predators, now long off the U.S. endangered species list, are reclaiming small niches in habitat that for millennia they dominated, before human activity––especially […]
Killing contests: culture war losers flip the bird
The whole point is to be part of a gang doing the socially unacceptable To non-hunters, little could present a worse advertisement for hunting than the photographs, widely distributed via social media, of the 149 corpses of coyotes hung by their tails from a barbed wire-topped chain link fence outside American Legion Post 76 in […]
Study: killing cormorants tripled losses of salmon & steelhead
“This goes down as one of the really significant failures in wildlife management in recent decades.” PORTLAND, Oregon––Cormorant massacres at East Sand Island, near the mouth of the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington, not only did not save any salmon and steelhead from predation in 2015 through 2017, but may have tripled predation losses, […]
Ontario allows hunters to kill 50 cormorants a day
“The worst wild game management decision in Canadian history” by Barry Kent MacKay Artist & naturalist: www.barrykentmackay.ca Director of Canadian & Special ProgramsBorn Free Doug Ford, the recently elected prime minister of Ontario, who at one time claimed to be an ethical vegetarian, has just proposed what I believe is the single worst wild […]
Meet Blake Fischer, baboon family killer & apostle of bowhunting
Frequent model for his father’s bowhunting magazine BOISE, Idaho––The Blake Owen Fischer baboon family killing-and-display saga did not end on October 15, 2018, when Idaho Governor Butch Otter announced that Fischer, 40, had resigned from the Idaho Fish & Game Commission. Indeed, the most influential part of the story has yet to transpire. What […]
$10 billion from China buys big changes in Kenya wildlife tourism
Effects parallel those of bringing rail travel to Yellowstone in 1902 NAIROBI, Kenya––Looming over Kenya like the Standard Gauge Railway trestle at the northern edge of Nairobi National Park, or the marabou storks overlooking the dense traffic on the highway into Nairobi from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, is the question of how $10 billion […]
Trophy hunting scheme & Chinese-built railway fire debate in Kenya
ANIMALS 24-7 reports from the scene NAIROBI, Kenya––Most of the delegates to the 2018 Africa Animal Welfare Conference, opening on September 3 at the United Nations Complex in Nairobi, will have already seen the second most controversial wildlife-related topic in Kenya, a four-mile Chinese-built railway overpass crossing Nairobi National Park, on their 20-mile ride […]
What did the deer know before the deadly Carr Fire?
At least 17 fires in 170 years have swept the same canyons, but none before as big or fast-moving FRENCH GULCH, California––The Carr Fire, called a “wildfire tornado” by Cal Fire officials as it burned with enough intensity to create its own weather system, began about five miles where ANIMALS 24-7 social media editor Beth Clifton […]
Sages testify about overgrazing in wild horse habitat
Western range issues can be seen from space BILLINGS, Montana––No one needs to take anyone else’s word about the condition of the western range. Monitor Google Earth for a while and ancient sages will tell you all about it. First, though, it is necessary to understand the evolutionary and ecological relationships among sagebrush, grasslands, […]