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 […]
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 […]
Thin ice & few buyers for pelts, but Canadian sealers kill 60,000 seal pups anyway
2018 seal hunt close to the end ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland––Perhaps the surest sign that the annual Atlantic Canada seal hunt is fading into history is the lack of prominence it has had this spring in the St. Johns Telegram, the leading media voice serving Newfoundland since 1879, which through April 2018 had barely mentioned it […]
Washington bans Atlantic salmon sea pens––what’s in it for the fish?
Five-year phase-out of Atlantic salmon farming mandated by law OLYMPIA, Washington––What is in it for the fish? That is a question hardly anyone is asking, or is likely to ask, as Washington state embarks upon a legislatively mandated five-year phase-out of the sea pen-raised Atlantic salmon industry in Puget Sound. The phase-out bill was introduced […]
Campaign to pull the plug on Navy dolphin program takes to the air
Dolphin base looks like a sewage treatment plant SAN DIEGO, California––Campaigning for an end to marine mammal use by the U.S. Navy, former dolphin trainers Ric Trout and Russ Rector got a big boost on April 27, 2017 from CBS News 8 reporter Steve Price, who extensively aired recent video clips of the main […]
Seal hunting in Atlantic Canada nears a bitter, bloody end
Betting sealing will recover is like saving Confederate dollars in hopes the South will rise again (Donald Trump not withstanding) ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland––CBC Morning listeners, recipients of fundraising “alerts” from the Humane Society of the United States, and readers of The Dodo awakened on March 28, 2017 to reports, devoid of context, that the 2017 […]
Which are more deadly, balloons or alligators?
Editorial by Merritt Clifton Readers who troll my wife Beth’s personal Facebook page have probably seen a collage image she posted last summer showing me jogging along an embankment littered with alligators, stepping over their heads as I go, trailing a leaky helium balloon behind me. Obviously I didn’t really go hopping past alligators: the […]
“Salmon farming is an environmental disaster”
by John F. Robins, Animal Concern Scotland About thirty years ago an Animal Concern Director and I attended one of the first annual conferences of the Scottish fish farming industry. It was held in a wee hall in Oban and there were perhaps a hundred people attending. A student from University of Stirling gave a […]
Witness to Extinction: How We Failed to Save the Yangtse River Dolphin
by Samuel Turvey Oxford University Press (198 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016), 2008. 224 pages, paperback. $29.95. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Samuel Turvey, born in Lohja, Finland, as a child enjoyed a rare sighting of the Lake Saimaa seal. Landlocked by receding glaciers about 9,500 years ago, the Saimaa seal has adapted to living […]