Animals 24-7

News & perspective for the humane community

Shark-dragger gets five weekends in jail, fine of $2,500

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Copped a plea;  last alleged participant will go to trial TAMPA––Florida man Michael Wenzel,  22,  who shot a shark in June 2017,  then was videotaped exulting as the dying shark was dragged behind a speedboat,  will spend five weekends in jail for related offenses,  beginning on March 8,  2019,  is to pay a fine of […]

Study: killing cormorants tripled losses of salmon & steelhead

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“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,  […]

U.K.: “Nation of animal lovers” or of wildlife assassins?

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Royal SPCA,  Royal Society for the Protection of Birds,  et al disregard & even promote cruelty on a shocking scale             LONDON,  U.K.––The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Great Britain,  the world’s oldest western-style animal advocacy organization,  founded in 1824 and granted a royal charter in 1840 by Queen Victoria,  wants […]

Why killing predators won’t bring back the salmon

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Gulls join sea lions,  seals,  & cormorants in the crosshairs             VICTORIA,  British Columbia;  PORTLAND, Oregon––Blaming seals and sea lions for declining salmon stocks,  Pacific Balance Pinniped Society founder Thomas Sewid is frustrated these days because,  Sewid posted to Facebook on January 23,  2019,  “My firearm possession and acquisition license is expired.  I cannot hunt […]

Frustrated fishers push to kill West Coast sea lions & seals

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Newly formed Pacific Balance Pinnipeds Society gives voice to anger             VANCOUVER,  B.C.;  PORTLAND,  Oregon––Removing a longtime irritant to the British Columbia wild salmon fishing industry––and a major economic competitor––the British Columbia government and First Nations have agreed to phase out 17 commercial salmon farms operated since 1987 by a company called Marine Harvest off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island.             The […]

Ontario allows hunters to kill 50 cormorants a day

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“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 […]

Mystery marine toxo host kills sea mammals; cats wrongly blamed

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Toxoplasma gondii finding in beluga whales points same way as sea otter and monk seal studies––& not toward cats             MONTREAL––A new study widely publicized for allegedly linking domestic cats to losses of endangered beluga whales in the St. Lawrence River estuary actually shows almost the opposite,  read in context––and contributes to a growing stack of […]

$10 billion from China buys big changes in Kenya wildlife tourism

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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

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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

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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 […]