Earth Day and the Fermi Paradox. Our future bleak; do intelligent species destroy themselves- Today is Earth Day, the 43rd since its inception in 1970. Earth Day is always a day for some celebration, thought, political and social action, and fear for the future of life on the planet. For example, this Earth Day is also the last day to comment on the Keystone XL pipeline. In the last couple years, despair seems to have increased as we experience the actuality of climate change, but at the same time our political and economic systems become less pliable.
Our institutions seem to have become more and more indifferent, even hostile, to measures that might save the plants and animals of the one known place with life in the universe, including intelligent life. Talk of an apocalypse by both the religious and the secular has increased. In fact, it is very unlikely the all life on Earth could be destroyed. It seems hard to believe that life has not evolved elsewhere, including intelligent life. The Fermi Paradox- Tar sands oil spill: ruptured pipe pours 200,000 gallons of oil into suburban neighborhood (photos) Last Saturday, an oil pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Canada ruptured in Mayflower, Arkansas spilling between 3,500-5,000 barrels of crude (at most 210,000 gallons) into neighborhood streets and lawns. Families from 22 homes have been evacuated while clean-up crews have scrambled to contain the spill. ExxonMobil, which runs the 65-year-old Pegasus pipeline, has stated it will pay for any damage, however critics say the oil spill is more evidence that the Obama Administration should turn down the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
The spill—although small compared to the Enbridge tar sands oil spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2010 (which spilled over a million gallons)—has already taken a toll on local wildlife. The Associated Press reports that officials have collected a number of oiled animals from a nearby marsh that was befouled, including 16 birds, nine reptiles, a beaver, and a muskrat. Seven ducks have been found dead. Mayflower neighborhood after oil spill. Related articles. About Cull of The Wild. Cull of The Wild: The Truth Behind Trapping The Animal Protection Institute (API) is proud to introduce our award-winning video CULL OF THE WILD: The Truth Behind Trapping. Featuring new and archival footage and exclusive interviews with trappers, biologists, veterinarians, several members of Congress, and wildlife advocates, CULL OF THE WILD: The Truth Behind Trapping exposes the inherent cruelty of trapping and refutes the myths perpetuated by trapping proponents. Trapping is a relic from a less enlightened time when fur was the height of fashion and the lone trapper was an icon of the American West.
The reality is indescribable and indiscriminate animal suffering. CULL OF THE WILD: The Truth Behind Trapping makes the case that trapping -- whether for profit, recreation, or wildlife management -- is unjustified in the 21st century. Cast/Crew: Producer: Camilla Fox Director/Editor: Vanessa Schulz Assistants: Christopher and Donna Simms Narrator: Jim Cissell Excerpts From The Video.
Buffalo Field Campaign West Yellowstone Montana- Stop the Slaughter. Wild Horses: The Fight to Save Wyoming’s Wild Horses is On | Wild Hoofbeats. For Immediate Release Contact: Suzanne Roy, 919-697-9389, sroy@wildhorsepreservation.org Ginger Kathrens, 719-633-3842, ginger@thecloudfoundation.org Wild horses running from a helicopter at a roundup in Adobe Town Federal Court Sanctions Gov’t Plans to Eliminate Wild Free-Roaming Horses from Wyoming Checkerboard Wild Horse Advocates Vow to Continue Fight Against Plan to Reduce Wyoming’s Wild Free-Roaming Horse Population by 46% Cheyenne, WY ( April 4, 2013) – A federal court in Wyoming has approved a consent decree between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Rock Springs Grazing Association (RSGA) that will wipe out wild free-roaming horses from the Wyoming Checkerboard, a two-million acre swath of public and private land in the southern part of the state. “This is a sad day for wild horses in Wyoming, a state that ironically promotes its mustangs in the state’s ‘Roam Free’ tourism ads,” said Ginger Kathrens, director of The Cloud Foundation.
The Seals of Nam. Patricia Randolph's Madravenspeak: Vote April 8 against violence toward nature and wildlife. “The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity — that’s all there is. That’s where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world.” — Gaylord Nelson After 80 years of apathy and neglect, it is time for millions of us to attend our annual Wisconsin Conservation Congress election to protect “all there is.”
In a state known for its high voter turn-out, Wisconsin citizens have ignored this annual election, leaving it to an increasingly sadistic thrill-killing minority. A million innocent wild animals are being mangled in archaic traps. Hundreds of thousands of animals are being killed for trophy and fun on our public lands, which are being prioritized to killing.
This election matters. Wisconsin desperately needs a surge of democracy one night a year to care for all that is real. Then you have all night to answer the questionnaire. Donations to Wisconsin's endangered resources program hit 10-year low. Ominous Sign for the Serengeti. As the illicit blood ivory trade to China clearly illustrates, massive new Chinese investment does not bode well for Africa's wildlife. China is intent on extracting as many resources from Africa as it can. And it doesn't attach strings to protect natural areas as Western donors often do. The Serengeti, it may turn out, is simply in the way. A spokesman for the Chinese government said the new president considers Tanzania a top priority. In Tanzania this week, China's president will inaugurate the construction of a new sea port at Bagamoyo. A Tanzanian spokesman said that China will be supporting Tanzania in other projects, including a satellite city and airport.
As we have reported, big plans for transport corridors throughout East Africa have been thrown about for years. The World Heritage Site of Lamu in Kenya is undergoing massive port development. An article in the Tanzanian press last November stated that this transport corridor... Help with your donation. Slaughter of the African Elephants. Elephant tragedy in Chad puts a fine point on the need for cooperation. I was completely shocked to hear that 86 elephants were killed close to the Chad border with Cameroon and their ivory hacked out. It is the worst killing spree of elephants since early 2012 when poachers from Chad and Sudan killed as many as many as 650 elephants in a matter of weeks in Cameroon’s Bouba Ndjida National Park.
Elephants in Central Africa continue to be under siege from unscrupulous poachers. The killing of these families of elephants, including pregnant cows, is evidence of the callous brutality demanded to feed the appetite of the ivory trade. Information received by the International Fund for Animal Welfare indicates that local communities close to Fianga city, in south-west Chad, where the elephants were killed have been asking their government for help in resolving local elephant conflict issues for at least two years.
Cross border cooperation and intelligence-led enforcement are the only way we can bring these ivory traffickers to justice. "Faux" Fur is Often Real Fur from Real Animals. Don't Buy It. The “Kill Everything” State Continues to Live Up to That Reputation. Photo via Wikimedia Commons. Not content being able to kill just about any species that walks, flies, or swims in Wisconsin, now the “kill everything state” has a new target: woodchucks. Instead of that “laser focus” on jobs that the Legislature wants us to believe they have, they keep coming up with more and more killing proposals each week.
From this article: Rep. Andre Jacque (R-De Pere) is putting the finishing touches on a bill that would remove woodchucks from Wisconsin’s protected species list and allow people to kill an unlimited number of woodchucks during a season that would run nearly year-round. Jacque said woodchucks don’t serve protected status because they’re abundant and a nuisance. “There really isn’t a good justification for why woodchucks are on the protected list,” Jacque said. What a genius. Jacque hasn’t formally introduced the bill, but he already has bipartisan support. This rocket scientist also voted for the wolf kill bill. Good job Wisconsin! Like this: In England This is a Crime. In Wisconsin This is “Recreation,” “Heritage,” “Conservation,” and “Training”
Photo via Wikimedia Commons Pitched in an unfair “cage fight” to the death, a terrified fox is given no chance of escaping the jaws of two powerful terriers while a gang of thugs joke and laugh at the brutality they are capturing on camera. In another sickening scene, one of the dog-fighters brazenly holds up the body of a blooded fox in one hand while cradling his terrier in the other to show off his handiwork. Northern Wisconsin? Nope, England. And there it is a crime.
Today, I came across an article about sadists in England that would put their dogs in pens with foxes and allow them rip the fox to shreds. From the article: “They revelled in the cruelty they inflicted and kept thousands of images for repeat gratification. Compare the above description to the newspaper “outdoor” pages here in Wisconsin that glamorize killing and the use of dogs against wildlife in Wisconsin.
Come on Wisconsin. Please participate and make your voices heard. Montana Legislature 2013. HEARING RECORDING: BFC TESTIMONY: (PDF, 90kb; PDF, 45kb) BILL TEXT: SPONSOR: Rep. Alan Doane STATUS: VICTORY FOR BUFFALO-OUR WILDLIFE! HB 249 was TABLED in House Appropriations committee 2/26/13 FISCAL NOTE: (PDF, 61 kb) IMPACT TO BUFFALO/OUR WILDLIFE: Under HB 249, Montana taxpayers and hunters will pay nearly $600,000 over the next several years to establish a 'right to take' wild buffalo on private land ~ simultaneously robbing Montanan's of our taxpayer money to destroy our public wildlife.
Since 1919, in Montana, "A person who willfully moves or causes to be moved" domestic livestock "from their owner's customary range without the permission of the owner" does so on fear of being subject to fines and penalties and imprisonment. (MCA 81-5-101. LC 1946 Revise laws related to bison. Meet the Federal Agency that Shoots Wild Animals with Your Tax Dollars. A small prop plane takes off into a sun-dappled sky and circles over Western pastureland, being filmed from a distance, as a woman’s offscreen voice intones “three more shots … two more shots,” counting off the distant sound of rifle fire.
“What are they doing, shooting the pups?” She asks. That’s a scene from the new NRDC documentary “Wild Things,” which was screened late last month for policy makers on Capitol Hill and is providing new momentum for reforming Wildlife Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture responsible for killing 100,000 coyotes, bobcats, foxes, wolves, bears, and mountain lions every year. Methods of death include spring-loaded poison cartridges -- a.k.a. traps that shoot sodium cyanide into an animal’s mouth when it tugs on bait -- and gunning down predators from low-flying aircraft. “It’s blatant killing,” former Wildlife Services employee Gary Strader says in the film, explaining the mindset of the agency where he used to work. No, Trapping in Wisconsin State Parks Can’t Be Done Without Hurting Someone. Some articles in the mainstream media are so completely one-sided that they’re nothing short of sales pitches for animal exploiters.
Reading them gives me the overwhelming urge to call “bullshit” at the top of my cyber-lungs (apologies to those with tender sensibilities). The following are excerpts from one such article (this one is from a Wisconsin newspaper). My comments are between paragraphs (in parenthesis)…. Carolyn Schueppel was walking her dog in a privately owned conservation area near Lake Waubesa where dogs were commonly, but illegally, let off the leash. (Sick. “It was horrible,” Schueppel says. (Typical, the animal exploiter ruins it for the rest of us.) A year later Fred Strand and his golden retriever, Hank, were hunting for grouse and woodcock in northern Wisconsin when Hank stepped on a foothold trap intended to catch wolves.
(Had it been a wolf, rather than a dog, the story would not have ended “happily.”) (100 yards is not very far. (Yep, it sure is.) (Gee, lucky kid…) The Strangeness of Dingoes Not a Dog | Christine Kenneally. On a windy autumn day on a green hill near Gisborne in Victoria, Lyn Watson, the co-founder of the Dingo Discovery Sanctuary and Research Centre, calls out to Snapple, a male dingo. The red-blond canine trots over and sits patiently as Watson demonstrates all the ways a dingo is not a dog. First, she puts a hand under the animal’s chin and one at the top of its head, then – as if it has a hinge at the back of its neck – she gently pushes back until the top of the dingo’s skull touches its spine. With Snapple’s head upright again, Watson turns its ears like radar dishes. When dingoes hunt, one ear points directly forward and one directly back. Next, Watson rotates the dingo’s head from side to side, and it travels at least 200 degrees each way.
It’s like the famous head-spinning scene in The Exorcist, except it’s adorable. Why do dingoes have hinged heads? Yet dingoes were her first love. By contrast, the dingo is a dolphin-like mix of acrobatics and inquisitiveness. Buffalo Field Campaign: Working to Stop the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter. Greater Yellowstone Coalition - Yellowstone Bison: Targeted by Montana Legislature. Latest News: Thanks in large part to GYC’s effort to secure more habitat for bison outside Yellowstone National Park, today bison are roaming north of Yellowstone in the Gardiner basin. The Montana Supreme Court recently declined to hear an appeal brought by Park County to prevent habitat expansion in the Gardiner basin.
Our nation’s wild bison will now continue to have access to habitat north of the Park boundary when they migrate each winter! Meanwhile, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has put forth a proposal to allow bison year round in several places on public lands: most notably, the Hebgen Basin, Gardiner Basin and the upper Gallatin River corridor. GYC supports an alternative that would allow Yellowstone bison to roam on habitat on as many as 421,000 acres outside the park. To read about the alternatives, and our support of Alternative B, click here. Wild bison from Yellowstone National Park are some of the most intensely tested wildlife in the country. 6 of the Strangest Reasons Why Wildlife Is Killed. Fraser Island could get dingo sanctuary. Call to put bite on visitors for care. Source: The Courier-Mail A VISITOR fee should be set to pay for the conservation and management of Fraser Island dingoes, a report has recommended to the State Government.
It also says there should be no supplementary feeding of dingoes, that high-risk sites be fenced and that a captive population should possibly be set up to safeguard the purebred dingo population's genetics. The report by consultant EcoSure to Environment Minister Andrew Powell has found that the previous government's management plan was mostly sound and that the euthanasia of dingoes by rangers has likely declined rather than increased over the years. In all, 135 dingoes have been destroyed since 1992 and most problems arise in the island's peak tourist periods - Easter, the mid-year tailor fishing season and Christmas.
But he rejected the idea of a fee to visit the island which already has a $42 monthly vehicle access permit. He said it was now up to Mr Powell to back rangers to handle dingo issues as they saw them. Japan Finally Comes Clean—They Don't Kill Whales for 'Science' J:\JUDGE FOLDER\DRAFT ORDERS\RRs for EJL on 6 mo list\WWP_USFS_R&R(FINAL).wpd. Provide Safe Haven to Captain Paul Watson, Founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Rudolph's Red Nose: Reindeer Science Revealed. Patricia Randolph's Madravenspeak: DNR creates culture of violence, slaughtering innocents. Captain Watson Offers $20,000 Reward to Help Apprehend Gulf Dolphin Killers. “I’d like to put an arrow in that.” Restraining Orders Now Protect Pets from Abusers. 2011 Elephant Poaching Surged To Record Levels, WWF Report Finds (PHOTOS) Ban Wolverine Trapping—as a Matter of Principle. Haunting photo of dingo later euthanised wins journal award.
Allowing hunting in state parks could drive away users, reduce revenues. Buffalo Field Campaign West Yellowstone Montana- Stop the Slaughter. APHIS - Newsroom. Outstanding Opinion Piece From Former Hunter/Trapper. Cornstalks Everywhere But Nothing Else, Not Even A Bee : Krulwich Wonders... U.S. bans BP from new government contracts after oil spill deal. Sidon man accused of 30 game violations. Great News! The “Sportsmen’s” Act is Dead…for Now. ANIMAL PEOPLE ONLINE. Wild Horses: Only the Complete Destruction of Red Desert Herds Will Do | Wild Hoofbeats.
Buffalo Field Campaign Weekly Update from the Field 11/15/12. ":allowing widespread grazing in the face of a looming climate crisis will end up being very costly in terms of ecosystem services such as water for municipalities, agriculture and fish".............."We're not saying cows have to come off everywhere in t. Western Watersheds Project Wins in California - Western Watersheds Project. Patricia Randolph’s Madravenspeak: Come January, state parks no longer safe. 500,000 hunters take to the woods in Missouri every year to hunt deer,,,,,,,,,,,,,Despite the best attempts of this army of deerslayers, state conservation officials acknowledge that whitetails continue to overbrouse the ground and shrub layers, narrowing. Memos to the President. Taiji Again worse than ever. Provincial, non scientific and just plain bad are the adjectives that best describe the South Dakota Game Commission's manner of reaching a decision on the expansion of Puma hunting in the State--- A LEAVE ME ALONE, IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS response the.
A grisly death in Alaska. Poisoning Paradise - Ecocide New Zealand. Could climate change denial be a right-wing conspiracy - National wildlife conservation. The Outstanding Washington State University LARGE CARNIVORE LAB is in overdrive trying to determine exactly how many Lynx roam Washington State----At last count, only 30 individuals were left in the Pacific Northwest and Head Researcher Rob Wielgus is pus. The spooky albino squirrel who has made a graveyard his favourite haunt. (1) Western Watersheds Project. Western Watersheds Project. HJR 2 is bad for wildlife managers - October 17. Risso's dolphins killed in The Cove as Sea Shepherd streams live. “If you kill a big adult male(PUMA), three male ‘teenagers’ will come to the funeral”.................. "The behavior of the youngsters is different from their older counterparts"........... “They’re teenagers,",,,,,,,,,,“They’re sexually mature, but ment.
Jim Robertson || Earth Books || Author Profile. Animals in the Wild: Wildlife Photography by Jim Robertson. No Market for the Truth? See it Through Her Eyes: Virtual View inside a Gestation Crate | Voices of Compassion. In India, Poachers Are Now Killing Elephants With Electrified Power Lines. Guns Blazing: Poachers Move From Animals to Humans. Further Proof That People Who Feed Wild Animals Tend to Cause Their Deaths.
Senator Maria Cantwell: Please Sponsor Grazing Reform Legislation. Friends of Animals | Alert: Help Deny Permit for Import of 18 Wild-Caught Beluga Whales from Russia to United States Aquariums. 2 Rhinos are poached every day | African Wildlife Foundation. Animal Legal Defense Fund : Animal Bill of Rights. FOUR LOUISIANA MEN CHARGED WITH POACHING IOWA DEER - Hamburg, IA - Hamburg Reporter - Hamburg, IA. FAREWELL MESSAGE THAT BLM HAS LOST ITS WAY.