COVID-19 triggers sustained crackdown on illegal fishers, poachers, & traffickers BEIJING, China—Cracking down on wildlife-related crime in response to the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, China prosecuted more than 15,000 alleged perpetrators in the first nine months of 2020. About 7,000 prosecutions were for illegal fishing, 4,000 for poaching land animals and birds, and 3,000 for […]
David Wills, ex-Humane Society of the U.S. vice president, gets life in prison
Life sentence rendered after case was before the courts for five years CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas––David Keith Wills, 68, former Michigan Humane Society executive director and vice president for investigations at the Humane Society of the U.S., was on September 22, 2020 formally sentenced to serve life in federal prison. Wills was convicted on October 8, […]
COVID-19 brings no net gains for marine life––except in Iceland
“There is no market,” but fish, shellfish, seals, & whales are all still hunted WESTERLY, Rhode Island; HONOLULU, Hawaii; REYKJAVIK, Iceland––Restaurant closures ordered because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have economically crippled the U.S. commercial fishing industry from Long Island Sound to Hawaii, and have hit the fishing industry worldwide, but––except in Iceland, where a case […]
David Wills, ex-humane exec, convicted; may get life in child sex case
17-count conviction follows two-week trial; sentence pending ROCKPORT, Texas––David Keith Wills, a former executive of four humane organizations including the Humane Society of the United States, faces a potential sentence of life in prison, following his conviction on October 8, 2019 by a U.S. federal court jury in Rockport, Texas on 17 counts pertaining […]
The SeaQuest empire, the Covino family, & who is “The Codfather?”
PETA rap sheet lists 87 brushes with the law in only nine years DENVER, LYNCHBURG, FORT LAUDERDALE––SeaQuest Interactive Aquariums chain founders Vincenzo “Vince” and Ammon Covino might prefer right now that attention be focused on soon-to-open locations in Lynchburg, Virginia and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as well as on locations in Roseville, Minnesota; Trumbull, Connecticut, and […]
$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 […]
Watchable wildlife species often seen at Hidden Beach
Hidden Beach habitat use overview (See also Exploiting starving orcas to push a boondoggle.) Photographed at Hidden Beach by Beth Clifton Grey whales photographed from Hidden Beach, frequented by as many as three whale at a time for more than a month in spring 2018. Sydney the harbor seal, born just north of Hidden Beach […]
Exploiting starving orcas to push a boondoggle
Habitat “restoration” scheme likely to hurt more than help Small fish were jumping by the dozens in the shallows tonight at Hidden Beach, near Greenbank, Washington. Speakers from Northwest Straits and the Island County Marine Resources Committee with alphabet soup behind their names had just alleged only minutes before, to about 50 attendees at an […]
Hidden Beach: why grey whales feast while orcas starve
What the whales are telling us HIDDEN BEACH, Washington––A single well-timed photo on a recent April 2018 morning could have captured in one frame almost the whole story of marine mammals in the Saratoga Passage, on Puget Sound, and indeed worldwide, amid intensified competition for food, accentuated by the effects of global warming. […]
Shellfishing & oil minions blame sea otters for effects of global warming
Still endangered after century of recovery, sea otters become scapegoats ANCHORAGE, Alaska––Sea otters are now taking the rap from frustrated Alaskan shellfishers for one of the best-documented and longest foreseen effects of global warming: oceanic acidification, inhibiting the ability of species such as abalone, urchins, clams, crabs and sea cucumbers to build and maintain shells. […]