GABORONE, June 22 (Xinhua) — Legislators in Botswana will urge the government to consider lifting hunting ban and shooting of elephants.
Thato Raphaka, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism on Friday confirmed parliament has adopted a motion asking government to consider lifting the ban on hunting and shooting of elephants in areas that are not designated as Game Reserves and National Parks.
“Prior to the adoption of this motion, Government had already appointed a Cabinet Committee to consult with communities on hunting ban,” said Raphaka.
Government has already made indications to start consultations, though the ban on hunting and shooting of elephants is still in force.
Botswana in 2014 imposed a hunting ban citing evident decline of several wildlife species in the country.
New fears are starting to grow as there’s a strain of bird flu that’s killed over one-third of those it infects. Some experts warn that it has the potential to be the next pandemic.
As of June 15, 1,625 people in China have become infected with this virus and 623 are now dead — a total of 38 percent.
Bird flu, or avian influenza, has multiple subtypes. But, two have become the most concerning.
One strain of the bird flu, identified as H7N9, was first detected in people in 2013 in China, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Before 2013, this strain hadn’t been seen in any other population except birds, according to the World Health…
Global shark fisheries have for decades engaged in the deliberate catch of dolphins, seals and other marine mammals to use as bait for sharks, a new study has found.
The researchers found the practice picked up when prices for shark fin, a prized delicacy in Chinese cuisine, went up from the late 1990s onward.
The researchers have warned that the targeting of these species could hit unsustainable levels, and have called for more studies into the species in question as well as better enforcement of existing law protecting marine mammals.
Shark-fishing outfits have for decades been catching dolphins, seals and other sea mammals to use as bait, helping drive some of those species closer to extinction, researchers have found.
In their study published June 7 in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, the researchers recorded the deliberate harvesting of small cetaceans and marine mammals for use primarily as shark bait by fishers from 33 countries, particularly in Latin America and Asia.
Two-thirds of 42 identified aquatic mammal bait species were “deliberately killed or targeted” for shark bait in at least one country, the authors concluded from analyzing 145 source materials — peer-reviewed articles, books, government reports and academic theses — ranging from 1970 to 2017.
Atlantic humpback dolphins inhabit shallow coastal waters and are often caught by small-scale fishers in West Africa. Image by Tim Collins.
Their analysis also indicated that small cetaceans are the group of aquatic mammals most vulnerable to the practice. Eleven of all the identified species are listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“Bycatch — the incidental capture of dolphins, sea turtles, birds and other non-targeted species in fishing operations — is a well-known problem,” the researchers wrote in an accompanying statement. “Less well-known is the widespread practice of acquiring and using aquatic mammals for bait.”
The researchers noted that the trend picked up when the global price and demand for shark fins increased drastically from the late 1990s, outweighing the market value or desirability of consuming cetacean meat in many areas.
In Asia, the study reported, the use of small aquatic marine mammals appeared to be most prevalent in Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan, and the main purpose was to attract sharks.
A 2013 study in the journal Marine Policy estimates that between 63 million and 273 million sharks are killed each year, including those killed for their fins. Hong Kong is one of the world’s biggest shark fin trading hubs, and accounts for 50 percent of the global shark fin trade. Shark fin is seen as a symbol of class and wealth, and is served at special events or occasions.
The researchers noted that the Philippines was one of just two countries in their study where fishing outfits targeted more than 10 different species of aquatic mammals. In Brooke’s Point, Palawan, up to 150 dolphins were estimated to have been killed per season for use as bait in traps for chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius). Demand for dolphins was such that fishers adapted their fishing gear and methods to increase their effectiveness in hunting the cetaceans.
In Latin America, the use of aquatic mammals as bait was found to happen in Argentina and Brazil, where small cetaceans and the South American sea lion (Otaria byronia) are captured to target sharks and crabs.
Vanessa Mintzer, a marine researcher at the University of Florida and lead author of the report, warned that the killing of marine mammals for bait could reach unsustainable levels and lead to a population decline.
“With this global review we wanted to see whether, and where, other species were killed for bait, and learn about possible solutions to stop the problem,” Mintzer said.
Map highlighting the number of aquatic mammal species by country that have been used as bait in fisheries between 1970 and 2017 (GIS layers: S. Claus et al., 2018).
However, the authors noted that their efforts to fully understand the extent of this practice were hampered by a dearth of information on the status of the populations being killed, and whether, or how fast, they were declining, despite previous sources revealing the widespread killing of marine mammals for bait.
“The killing of marine animals for bait is, in general, a clandestine activity,” Mintzer said. “As a consequence, the level of killing and impact on the species identified in the review will likely remain largely unknown for the foreseeable future.”
The researchers have urged marine scientists studying the species in question in locations identified as “hotspots” in the report to obtain better data in order to come up with a solution.
They also called for improved enforcement of existing laws that make it illegal to kill marine mammals, as well as for local communities and fishers to be involved in education and sustainable fishing programs and policies — rather than rely on top-down implementation — to ensure successful enforcement.
“We need to identify other affected populations now to facilitate timely conservation actions,” Mintzer said.
Banner image of bottlenose dolphins swimming courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The cat was one of only two known jaguars known to be roaming the US, and part of a group of three to be detected in the last three years, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
However, a photo released Thursday shows what experts identified to be a pelt with markings that match Yo’oko, meaning…
A Hammond man hunting on private property in Gary was seriously injured by an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound Sunday morning.
Indiana Department of Natural Resources spokesman Tyler Brock said in a release Sunday that conservation officers were called to the 3300 Block of Martin Luther King Drive. They discovered that at approximately 7:30 a.m., 23 year old Christopher Morey of Hammond was teal hunting in a marsh on private property, according to Brock.
Morey briefly walked away from his hunting spot to get a bottle of water from another hunter, leaving his 12 gauge pump shotgun resting on a mound of vegetation, according to the release.
Morey returned to his hunting spot and picked up his shotgun with the muzzle pointing at his left forearm, Brock said. Moving the gun, however, caused the trigger to brush up against a rigid plant, which caused a…
WORCESTER, MA (WCVB/CNN) – A couple in Massachusetts wants to know who shot hunting arrows at their home.
They found one of the sharp projectiles in the roof, while a second was on the deck and a third was in the grass in their backyard.
Retirees Accurzio and Loretta Sclafani feel targeted after arrows hit their home Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“It was right like, two feet in front of the cupola,” Loretta Sclafani said. “So, I’m thinking these kids – maybe kids – and they’re trying to target. Maybe that’s a target. You know there’s the cupola and the chicken up there, maybe they’re trying to, I don’t know.”
Accurzio Sclafani is convinced they are hunting arrows.
“That’s what they use for deer, even bear,” he said.
Sgt. Kerry Hazelhurst with Worcester police said they are going into the…
I’ve received an outpouring of emails from animal advocates expressing
gratitude
for my post. A recurrent theme is: “Thank you for letting me know it’s not
just
me who finds fawning over this man and eulogizing him baffling, weird,
unfortunate, and depressing. I thought I was living in a parallel universe.”
A few complained that by criticizing Anthony Bourdain and his vegan
defenders, I
dishonored a “depressed” fellow human and his family. I suppose probably
everyone who systematically, consciously and deliberately inflicts pain,
suffering and death on others could be diagnosed with clinical depression or
some other mental problem. Should mass murderers and serial abusers (of
human
beings), instead of being “judged” (heaven forbid we be “judgmental”!), be
lavished with praise and larded with “tolerance”?
(Some vegans are judging me for being “judgmental.”)
Some Bourdain sympathizers have said such things as: since virtually
everyone
“eats meat,” they are just as guilty as, or even more guilty than, Anthony
Bourdain; he at least “looked his victims in the eye.”
I have never believed that people who “kill their own meat” are on a higher
plane of morality than those who thoughtlessly buy meat in a supermarket or
a
restaurant. I distinguish between people who’ve grown up on farms, where
killing
animals up close and personal is so routine that they don’t question or
feel it
anymore, and those who, not having grown up that way, suddenly decide that,
instead of just buying meat at the store, they’re going to kill the animals
themselves. (Typically, such people, including the Anthony Bourdains, Mark
Zuckerbergs and Michael Pollens, do both, and encourage their groupies to
copy
them, it’s so cool!)
The defense for killing your own animals is: you’re acting more “honorably”
and
“authentically” and “un-hypocritically” when you experience your victim’s
living
body, which you are personally going to destroy, than when your victim has
already been conveniently “disappeared” into a food product by others
somewhere
in a “packing plant.”
One more point – which I’ve been making for decades* – is why, in the words
of a
person who wrote to me earlier this week, do some vegans “take the
viewpoint of
someone who vocalized complete hatred of ethical vegans?” What underlies the
self-deprecation, the judging of oneself from the point of view of The
Destroyer? Of course, animal people who share the same goals for animals
have
different temperaments that shape their style of advocacy. I would never
argue
that every advocate who chooses a “softer” approach to advocacy is a
sellout or
a betrayer of animals. But there’s a difference between softness as a
thought-through strategy, and softness as a cover for lack of confidence in
one’s cause and one’s skills, compounded by a penchant for passivity and a
fear
of confrontation, however mild, with mainstream opinion.
Once in the 1990s, I was sitting around with a group of activists including
one
who was prominent in our movement at the time. He complained about how hard
it
was for him to be an animal rights activist. He did not like being or
feeling
like an “outsider.” He resented being associated with people the mainstream
considered “wacko.” He almost went so far as to resent the animals
themselves
for putting him in this predicament. He eventually left the movement. Just
as
well. With friends like that, animals don’t need enemies.
As for calling Anthony Bourdain a monster, I stand by my closing statement
in
“Honoring Anthony Bourdain”: “From the point of view of his victims – and
from
my point of view as an animal rights activist – he was a monster who could
never
be missed.”
If you think he was *not* a monster from the point of view of his victims,
what do
you think he was – *from their point of view*? Which, without sounding
presumptuous, I share. By the way, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. Should
he get
a break and even be honored because he was, as well as a mass murderer, a
pathologically “flawed” human being who needed help? Was he evolving? Could
he
have been saved?
Pandemonium broke out on Friday in Issele Uku , Aniocha North local Government Area of Delta State when a 20-year-old hunter in a mysterious circumstances allegedly shot dead his colleague in the bush.
It was gathered that the victim and the suspect went for hunting inside the community bush on Thursday night but expedition was not successful, hence they agreed to take some rest in a makeshift inside the bush.
But this was not to be when the suspect identified as Chiedu Okorie left his unsuspecting colleague, a 48- year-old Mathias Okefa into other areas in search for animals.
Unfortunately for him, his efforts proved abortive, and on his way to the makeshift, he sighted what looks like an Antelope, a situation he allegedly shot at it only to discover it was his colleague.
SEABIRDS have once again been found washed up on beaches in Western Alaska.
Beginning in May, birds have been reported dead or behaving strangely in communities throughout the Bering Strait region, from Shishmaref to Unalakleet and on St. Lawrence Island.
Large-scale die-offs of seabirds and other marine animals have been occurring around the state for several years, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) wants to know why. That takes the help of boots-on-the-ground partners across Alaska.
Gay Sheffield is one of those partners. She’s a marine biologist with Alaska Sea Grant in Nome, and she has helped coordinate the collection of dead birds. She says only one bird has been tested so far this year: a murre, collected in Unalakleet in May.
“The murre was tested for harmful algal blooms, tested for avian cholera, was tested for bird flu, and a full necropsy—or a little bird autopsy—was done, and the result was that the bird had starved to death.”
But, she says, knowing that a bird ultimately didn’t get enough food doesn’t answer the larger question of why it died.
Robb Kaler is a wildlife biologist at USFWS’s Migratory Bird Management office in Anchorage. He’s been monitoring the seabird die-offs statewide.
“They’re dying of starvation, but there might be other contributing factors.”
Kaler says factors contributing to bird deaths could include neurotoxin poisoning from algal blooms, increased storminess, or shifts in the type of fish available to birds to eat. And, he says, many of the factors could be connected to warming sea surface temperatures off the coast of Alaska.
Both Sheffield and Kaler underscored the importance of collecting more freshly dead birds. More samples mean more testing — and more information that can be returned to communities where healthy seabirds mean food security.
Kaler says:
“We need to provide them with answers on whether these birds are safe to consume or not, whether their eggs are safe to consume.”
Several birds were recently collected from Shishmaref and Gambell. Test results are forthcoming.
To report a seabird or other marine animal found dead or behaving strangely, contact Gay Sheffield at 434-1149 or Brandon Ahmasuk at Kawerak at 443-4265. You can also call U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Dead Seabird Hotline at (866) 527-3358.
Image at top: A dead murre that washed ashore in Nome in June 2018. Photo: Zoe Grueskin, KNOM.
Exposing the Big Game 
