Monthly Archives: May 2015

Wisconsin’s Obsession With Indoctrinating Children into the Killing Culture

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rali74's avatarOur Wisconsin, Our Wildlife

Photo via Wikimedia Commons Photo via Wikimedia Commons

One of the biggest and most disturbing fallacies that “outdoors” writers for newspapers and “fish and wildlife” departments like to perpetrate is the idea that the only way people can enjoy nature is to participate in the killing “sports.” With decreased participation in bloodsports also comes a decrease in the money generated that pays for the “fish and wildlife” agencies. This provides quite the conundrum for these agencies. They could make an effort to push for ecotourism and to get people outdoors to enjoy the wonders of nature. They could welcome participation and funding from non-killing or “silent” sports aficionados like hikers and wildlife watchers. But as usual the wildlife exploiting government agencies and their kill everything propaganda mouthpieces in the media choose to take a third path. They choose to extol the greatness of killing and work to indoctrinate youth into the bloodsports in an…

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More legal wrangling over uranium mine near Grand Canyon

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Bob Berwyn's avatarSummit County Citizens Voice

The confluence of Havasu Creek with the Colorado River (river mile 157) is a popular place for boaters to stop and admire the striking blue-green water of Havasu Creek. The turquoise color is caused by water with a high mineral content. At the point where the blue creek meets the turbid colorado river there often appears a definite break. NPS photo by Erin Whittaker. The confluence of Havasu Creek with the Colorado River (river mile 157) is a popular place for boaters to stop and admire the striking blue-green water of Havasu Creek. The turquoise color is caused by water with a high mineral content. At the point where the blue creek meets the turbid colorado river there often appears a definite break. NPS photo by Erin Whittaker.

Impacts to water quality, cultural resources at stake, as conservation groups seek new environmental study

Staff Report

FRISCO — A U.S. Forest Service decision to allow uranium mining near the Grand Canyon will be tested in court once again.

Conservation groups last week said they’ll appeal a lower court ruling that affirmed the agency’s decision on the mine, located about six miles from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell last month said conservation groups and the Havasupai Tribe failed…

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Morrissey’s open letter to Al Gore and Live Earth

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http://www.gigwise.com/news/100119/read-morrisseys-open-letter-to-al-gore-and-live-earth

He demands that no meat be served at this year’s Live Earth festival

29th April 2015 by Rebecca Schiller

Morrissey has written an open letter to Al Gore and Live Earth co-founder Kevin Wall, demanding that they do not serve meat at this year’s Live Earth event.

“Serving meat and dairy products at an event to combat climate change is like selling pistols at a gun-control rally,” he wrote in the letter, which was published via Rolling Stone. “Your responsibility is to alert people to a crisis, not sell out to the vendors responsible for it.”

“Since you can’t miss the fact that meat consumption is killing the planet-your own sponsor organization, the United Nations, states this-and since venues can and will cater vegan food for events, if you choose to serve animal flesh at Live Earth, you’ll be making a mockery of the very concept of the event, in which case it should be renamed ‘Dead Earth: We Contributed!’”, he continued.

Morrissey is no stranger to voicing his contempt for venues that serve meat. Most recently, he canceled a show in Iceland because the venue refused to go vegetarian for the evening. He was meant to perform at Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik, but said of the cancellation: “I love Iceland and I have waited a long time to return, but I shall leave the Harpa Concert Hall to their cannibalistic flesh-eating bloodlust … ”

You can read Morrissey’s full letter to Al Gore and Kevin Wall below:

Dear Mr. Gore and Mr. Wall,

I am writing to ask you to do the one thing that will do the most good for the planet and the majority of its inhabitants: not serve meat or dairy products at Live Earth 2015. I don’t mean offering a vegan option-I mean not serving animal products at all. Otherwise, the event will make no sense-it’ll be “greenwashing.” Serving meat and dairy products at an event to combat climate change is like selling pistols at a gun-control rally. Your responsibility is to alert people to a crisis, not sell out to the vendors responsible for it.

Not only is it possible for venues to provide a 100 percent meat-free menu-as is done now at every concert venue in which I perform, including Madison Square Garden, where I have a show at the end of June-it’s also a moral duty.

We already know that raising animals for food is a leading cause of climate change and that moving toward a vegan diet is necessary to combat climate change’s worst effects. Animal agriculture severely affects the world’s freshwater supply and is a major contributor to global greenhouse-gas emissions, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and air and water pollution, among many other harmful effects.

Since you can’t miss the fact that meat consumption is killing the planet-your own sponsor organization, the United Nations, states this-and since venues can and will cater vegan food for events, if you choose to serve animal flesh at Live Earth, you’ll be making a mockery of the very concept of the event, in which case it should be renamed “Dead Earth: We Contributed!”

Don’t be a denier of the causes of climate change. You know the facts. Make the right choice.

Sincerely, Morrissey

Morrissey wrote the above letter on behalf of PETA, who have previously requested that Gore and Wall serve only vegan food at Live Earth. “Live Earth can’t be a leader in fighting climate change if it betrays its own values by failing to offer only vegan food at everything associated with this event,” PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk said in a statement. “Animal agriculture is as toxic to the soil, water, and air as it is to animals’ and humans’ health. PETA is encouraging organizers to practice what Live Earth preaches by leaving animals off their menu.”

Rolling Stone reports that Live Earth representatives did not immediately respond for a request for comment regarding the open letter.

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Washington state tribe’s whale hunting request triggers new backlash

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dead whale

http://planetark.org/wen/73140

Date: 30-Apr-15
Country: USA
Author: Eric M. Johnson

A Native American tribe’s request to resume its sacred canoe and harpoon hunts of federally protected gray whales off the Washington state coast has drawn fresh opposition while the treaty-enshrined proposal is weighed by U.S. fisheries managers.

The application is at the heart of a decades-long quest by the Makah Tribe to hunt the marine mammals for both subsistence and religious purposes, which the tribe says it has done over millennia in the Pacific Ocean and Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Conservationists have criticized the practice as an unnecessary and barbaric death for animals that have high sentience and intelligence levels.

“The bottom line is that the Makah don’t have a legitimate need to kill the whales,” said D.J. Schubert, a biologist with the Animal Welfare Institute, a non-profit group.

The Makah Tribe is the only Native American tribe outside Alaska to hold whaling rights, enshrined in an 1855 U.S. treaty, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is evaluating the request.

The Makah tribe ceased the practice in the early 20th century as whale populations dropped. But after gray whales were de-listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1994, tribe members harvested one whale in 1999 with the U.S. government’s approval.

In 2004, a U.S. appeals court ruled the Makah must seek a waiver from the Marine Mammal Protection Act to hunt whales, and that NOAA officials must analyze the environmental impact of the request.

The tribe sought a waiver a year later, asking to take as many as five gray whales annually from an estimated stock of 20,0000, NOAA said.

The tribe did not respond to requests for comment. It says on its website that “whaling and whales are central” to its culture, describing capturing an animal that can weigh 80,000 pounds (36 metric tonnes) using little more than a harpoon thrown from a canoe. NOAA says whalers use .50-caliber gun for the final kill.

In 2007, lacking government approval, Makah whalers killed a gray whale.

A NOAA study from March looked at range of options, including allowing the tribe to hunt up to five whales a year during limited seasons and under other restrictions.

The final analysis, which NOAA hopes to finish by year’s end, will be evaluated during a hearing by an administrative law judge who will decide whether to grant the hunting request.

(Editing by Daniel Wallis and Bill Trott)

Reuters