Illegal Timber from Southeast Asia – laundered with and E U seal of approval? This could soon become reality. The EU is preparing a trade deal on tropical timber with Vietnam, a hotbed of timber trafficking. Tell the EU that Vietnam does not deserve a trade agreement until it has cleaned up its act.
https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/petitions/1106/an-eu-seal-for-illegal-timber-from-vietnam-no
One of the world’s leading investigators into the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn has been killed in Kenya.
Esmond Bradley Martin, 75, was found with a stab wound to his neck at home in the capital Nairobi on Sunday.
The former UN special envoy for rhino conservation was known for his undercover work establishing black-market prices.
The US citizen had recently returned from a research trip to Myanmar.
Bradley Martin was in the process of writing up his findings when he died, reports the BBC’s Alastair Leithead from Nairobi.
His wife found him in their house in Langata. Police are investigating the circumstances but suspect it was a botched robbery.
Our correspondent says Bradley Martin had spent decades risking his life to secretly photograph and document the illegal sales of ivory and rhino horn, travelling to China, Vietnam, and Laos to pose as a buyer – helping to find out the level of black market prices.
He first went to Kenya from the US in the 1970s when there was a surge in the number of elephants being killed for their ivory.
Image copyright AFP
Image caption Conservationists believe that the ivory trade is largely responsible for the world’s declining elephant numbers
His work on illegal wildlife markets helped pressure China to ban the rhino horn trade in the 1990s, and domestic sales of ivory, which came into force this year.
Fellow conservationists have been paying tribute to him on social media.
Skip Twitter post by @paulakahumbu
2/3 Esmond was at the forefront of exposing the scale of ivory markets in USA, Congo, Nigeria, Angola, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos and recently Myanmar. He always collaborated with Save the Elephants and worked with many of us generously sharing his findings & views.
— Dr. Paula Kahumbu (@paulakahumbu) February 5, 2018
Always sharply dressed with a colourful handkerchief falling from his top pocket, Esmond Bradley Martin would immediately cut to the chase, honing in on the latest issue that was consuming him.
He was a well-known and highly respected character in the conservation community – passionate and unwavering in his efforts to crack down on illegal wildlife crime.
In a major report last year from Laos, he and his colleague Lucy Vigne established that the country had the world’s fastest growing ivory trade.
They risked their own safety staying at a Chinese casino inhabited by gangsters and traffickers in order to visit the illegal markets and find out the latest prices by posing as dealers.
His life’s work was combating the illegal trade of wildlife and he produced a huge body of highly respected research and investigative reports.
He will be a huge loss to the international conservation community.
As revolting as the revelations about some HSUS officials are, those who
recently resigned or were let go did at least bring farmed animals as
individuals with feelings and intelligence into mainstream focus for the
first
time in HSUS history. This is not to excuse anything, but to say that a
change
in HSUS leadership and workplace conduct may not mean that the organization
will
now show more progressive leadership on behalf of farmed animals and
veganism. I
worry it will revert to its more traditional programs and attitudes even if
the
offensive office behavior is eliminated.
As for sexual harassment of women and worse, while women rightly object to
being
treated as objects whose bodies may be physically assaulted and
disrespected by
men, this experience, magnified a trillion times over, is precisely what
chickens and pigs and cows and all farmed animals, “laboratory” animals,
aquatic
animals, “entertainment” animals and others endure endlessly at the hands
of our
species.
If we are outraged that certain male employees in our movement have
disrespected
their female colleagues physically and professionally, we had better stand
up
and be counted for our nonhuman animal victims for whom interspecies sexual
assault and every form of intimate, repulsive violence perpetrated by human
beings against them and their bodies is their experience of being alive in
the
flesh. Veganism is not a superficial “food choice.” It is ethical activism
on
behalf of the most profoundly, helplessly victimized beings on the planet.
Animal agriculture is now, and always has been, rooted in violating the sex
organs, mating choices, and reproductive processes of helpless animals.
Humans
“breeding” animals – the very word breeding – is an obscenity. We cannot
claim
to care about animals while obscenely consuming their muscles, their nursing
mother’s milk and their eggs, or suggesting to others that these
obscenities may
be practiced “humanely.”
As animal advocates, we must amplify the animals’ voices and be their
Voice: “ME
TOO!”
For a comprehensive look at interspecies sexual assault of farmed animals
for
business and pleasure, please see and share my article Interspecies Sexual
<http://www.upc-online.org/turkeys/170613_interspecies_sexual_assault-a_moral_perspective_full_article.html>
Assault: A Moral Perspective
<http://www.upc-online.org/turkeys/170613_interspecies_sexual_assault-a_moral_perspective_full_article.html>
.
Karen Davis, PhD
President
United Poultry Concerns
—
United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that promotes
the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl.
Don’t just switch from beef to chicken. Go Vegan.
http://www.UPC-online.org/ http://www.twitter.com/upcnews
http://www.facebook.com/UnitedPoultryConcerns
View this article online
<http://upc-online.org/alerts/180205_animal_people_and_sexual_misconduct.html>
A Britton-area man is caught up in a federal investigation after shooting an animal that may be a gray wolf.
Mike Werner said he was hunting coyotes by a slough near Clear Lake in Marshall County on Jan. 13 when he shot and killed what he thought was a bigger, dark coyote that came up behind him about 100 yards away.
Immediately after shooting the animal, Werner said he realized it was much larger than a coyote and resembled a wolf.
Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are investigating the case.
Casey Dowler, a conservation officer with the state Game, Fish and Parks Department in Marshall County, said the animal is being tested at a federal lab.
Dowler would not give anymore information on the case since there is an active federal investigation into the shooting of the animal.
GFP Conservation Officer Supervisor Mike Klosowski said harvesting, trapping or recreational hunting of wolves is illegal.
Klosowski said any case involving gray wolves falls under the management of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He said GFP has no wolf management authority at this time.
“So when we have an incident where a gray wolf is killed by a member of the public, we’d likely respond to the call, do a preliminary investigation then pass it off to Fish and Wildlife Service,” Klosowski said. “Then they would do any kind of prosecution on their end, or not prosecute on their end.”
Klosowski said gray wolf sightings are uncommon in northeastern South Dakota, but transient wolves do come through the state from time to time.
“To the east we have Minnesota. Northern Minnesota has a healthy population of gray wolves,” he said. “Then when you go out west near Yellowstone National Park, you have a very healthy population of wolves out there too.”
He explained that wolves are known to venture away from their pack to start their own pack in a new territory.
Klosowski said if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were to prosecute someone for killing a gray wolf the case would go to court.
Knowing that wolves are protected under the Endangered Species Act and in South Dakota, Werner said he left the animal where it was shot and called the local game warden.
Werner said the animal had an old trapping injury on its foot, where it was missing a couple toes and part of its foot pad.
On another foot, the animal had a trapping device. Werner believes the animal was trapped and was able to break free of the chains that kept him immobilized.
Werner said if the lab testing results show the animal to be a dog-coyote hybrid, he will be able to take the animal home.
Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were unable to comment on the ongoing investigation.
“The Canton Bulldogs–Massillon Tigers betting scandal was the first major scandal in professional football in the United States.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canton_Bulldogs–Massillon_Tigers_betting_scandal
6 min. Video, Part 1 of Interview with investigative journalist Dan Moldea, ca 2015, after the 2014 e-book release of his 1989 book “Interference : How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football.” http://youtu.be/AXlg_E2WTL0 He alleges that no fewer than 70 NFL games have been fixed, no fewer than 26 past and present team owners have had documented ties to illegal gambling and/or organized crime syndicates; no fewer than 50 legitimate investigations of NFL corruption have been killed, and more.
Link to 1983 PBS documentary about the Mafia and NFL. The reporter, Jessica Savitch, died mysteriously later that same year: http://youtu.be/UWJncbnhgvY
“John Mecom, Jr., wealthy Texas oilman, took over as president and majority stockholder when the National Football League established the New Orleans Saints franchise in 1966. He…
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The helmeted hornbill is being hunted to extinction: Poachers in Indonesia are killing these majestic birds for the “red ivory” of its beak, which sells for thousands of dollars per kilo in China. Tell Indonesia, Malaysia and China to properly enforce the existing ban on poaching and trafficking and say this unique species.
https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/petitions/1088/hands-off-the-helmeted-hornbill
Triple B, 2018
February 2, 2018; 115 wild horses were captured (47 studs, 43 mares, 25 foals). Cumulative total: 204.
Sweet siblings will go to PVC in the morning
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Hunting coyotes with hounds in Forest County, Wisconsin, January 27, 2018.
Recently, Wolf Patrol has been calling attention to Wisconsin’s controversial hound hunting practices and state policies such as hunting from roads and the compensation program for hounds injured or killed by wolves. Our position is that hunting is something that should be done away from roads. Not only because of public safety, but because its not ethical. We also have categorized Wisconsin’s compensation program that reimburses hound hunters up to $2,500 for damages caused by wolves as a “hounder welfare program” that in our opinion enables and supports the cause of the conflict, that is the running of hounds in known wolf areas.
Since last week’s run-in with a coyote hound hunting party outside of Laona, Wisconsin there has been attention to both of these issues, and Wolf Patrol has implied that hound hunters were breaking the law when…
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