‘If there’s one lion left in the wild, they will pay to hunt it. These people would pay billions to kill it. To be the last human on Earth to kill a lion.”
Rogue Rubin did not set out to spend six years undercover posing as a trophy hunter. As a 5ft 2in vegetarian who lives in Australia, she is what those hunters would call a “bunny hugger.”
The filmmaker had gone to South Africa with the idea of making a documentary about lion conservationists and all the good work they do. But when she arrived, she found something different.
“I didn’t meet these amazing humans,” she toldNewsweek. “I discovered…
Black bears are the most hunted large carnivore in the U.S.Alamy Stock Photo
This time of year is a special moment in the lives ofblack bears. After consuming about 20,000 calories and gaining three to five pounds every day during the late summer and early fall, black bears head to their winter dens. Becausebears hibernate in their dens for three to six months(depending on latitude) they risk starvation if they don’t chow down beforehand. And for female bears, the stakes are especially high, as their ability to produce healthy cubs depends on eating enough prior to hibernation to stay healthy through the winter.
But some bears weren’t so lucky to make it to their dens this year. Autumn bear hunts occur in 33 states across the U.S., cutting short the lives of many of these beloved animals and ending bear…
By Yaron SteinbuchNovember 19, 2021 8:55am UpdatedFrying pan ‘tornado’ adds a twist to the kitchenhttps://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.489.0_en.html#goog_605455314
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The first known case of COVID-19 was a vendor at a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan – not an accountant whose case contributed to speculation the deadly bug could have leaked from a lab, according to a new US study.
Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, wrote in the journal Science that the first known case of the illness was a woman who had worked at the Huanan market — who reported symptoms on Dec. 11, 2019, according to Agence France-Presse.
An accountant who was widely thought to be the first person with COVID-19 reported that his first symptoms appeared on Dec. 16, Worobey said.
The confusion over who reported symptom onset first was caused by a dental problem the accountant had several days earlier on Dec. 8.
“His symptom onset came after multiple cases in workers at Huanan Market, making a female seafood vendor there the earliest known case, with illness onset 11 December,” the study said.
Most early symptomatic cases were linked to the market, specifically to a section where raccoon dogs were caged, according to the study, providing strong evidence of a live-animal market origin of the pandemic.
The origin of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — remains a major source of tension between Beijing and Washington.
The study said a female seafood vendor at the market is the earliest known case, with illness onset on December 11.
A World Health Organization-led team spent four weeks in and around Wuhan with Chinese scientists and said in a joint report early this year that the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal — but that further research was required.
Worobey was one of the roughly 15 experts who published a column in Science in May demanding serious consideration of the thesis that the virus had leaked from a Wuhan lab.
The Trump administration and, later, intelligence officials in the Biden administration pointed to the possibility of a virology research lab in Wuhan, as Chinese government officials sought to deflect blame – leading to more uncertainty about the origins.
Worobey, who specializes in tracing the genetic evolution of viruses, said that what he found strengthens the theory that the virus originated in animals sold in the market — much like the first SARS outbreak in 2002-2004.
Most early symptomatic cases were linked to the market, specifically to a section where raccoon dogs were caged.
Other research helped the virologist map the earliest cases that clusters them all around the market.
“That so many of the more than 100 COVID-19 cases from December with no identified epidemiologic link to Huanan Market nonetheless lived in its direct vicinity is notable and provides compelling evidence that community transmission started at the market,” Worobey wrote.
“It tells us that there’s a big red flashing arrow pointing at Huanan Market as the most likely place that the pandemic started,” he told CNN. “The virus didn’t come from some other part of Wuhan and then get to Huanan market. The evidence speaks really quite strongly to the virus starting at the market and then leaking into the neighborhoods around the market.”
Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance and one of WHO’s investigators, said he “was really impressed with the detective work” by the expert.
“Everything he says about the Dec 8th case fits with what we experienced in Wuhan on the WHO trip — there was a cluster of early cases coming into hospitals in late December and clinicians worked back to the presumed date of onset,” Daszak told CNN in an email.
“They just made a mistake with this person because he likely visited hospital for another reason. This puts the first known case as a Huanan market worker, not the accountant who lived near one of the Wuhan lab campuses,” Daszak wrote.
“This is now adding to around 10 pieces of other scientific evidence that I’ve seen since the end of our WHO work, all of which point towards an origin through the wildlife farms and markets. No single piece of evidence is totally conclusive, but when you lay them all out, it really tips the balance towards the ‘natural’ origin,” he added.
A piglet with notched ears which is a standard and permanent way that individuals at catalogued in the animal exploitation industry.
A recent post on Facebook was illustrated by the image below which is the work of the highly acclaimed animal rights artist and advocate, Jo Frederiks. The text read;
‘The distinctions we make between the species that we love as family and those we persecute as resources are completely artificial. ‘Farm animal’, ‘food animal’ and ‘pet’ are all made-up terms, invented by humans, just like the laws that we invent to let us do what we want to them. Our victims get no say in the matter, yet they all share with us the quality of sentience, experiencing the world with minds and memories, through their environment, their senses and their interactions with others.
KENTWOOD, Mich. (AP) — An 82-year-old driver who struck and killed a pedestrian in western Michigan will not face charges for leaving the scene after insisting that he believed he had hit a deer, a prosecutor said.
The man called 911 to report a collision and even returned to a Kentwood neighborhood to retrieve a dead deer and put it in the trunk of his Lincoln MKZ.
“It’s kind of too weird to be true almost, but apparently it is true,” Kent County prosecutor Chris Becker told WOOD-TV.
“He’s an elderly gentleman, over 80 years old, so there’s nothing in his record to make us think he’s some sort of criminal mastermind to think that quickly and react as he did,” Becker said.
The incident occurred in a Grand Rapids suburb in September 2020. Page Stokes, 32, was struck at night while crossing a street to get to a store. Her body, however, wasn’t discovered until the next morning in a front yard.
Kentwood police learned that the driver had called 911.
“I hit a deer. (It) jumped in front of my car. … I’ll go back there and then move him out of the road … because I left him there, you know,” the man said, according to the call obtained by WOOD.
Police found the car at a repair shop — with a deer in the trunk. Investigators, however, said damage to the car didn’t seem to match up with the dead deer. Stokes’ DNA was found on the vehicle.
“We have to show he left the scene knowing, or at least having a pretty good idea, that he hit a person, not a deer,” Becker said. “Unfortunately, all the evidence shows is that he really truly believed he’d hit a deer.”
The man and his wife declined to speak to the TV station.
Stokes’ family is considering a civil lawsuit against the driver.
“Page was a loving daughter,” her mother, Pam Strickland, said. “She loved life. She loved her children. She loved her nieces and nephews. There was nothing she wouldn’t do.”
I began preparations in earnest about a week ago for Saturday’s opening of the 2021 Wisconsin gun deer hunting season.
My plan is set, riflesighted in,clothing and gear packed.
After doing this for more than 40 years, the kit is whittled down to the necessities.
Which items are most important?
When it comes to safety, it’s a no-brainer: my blaze orange clothing, my full body harness and my lifeline.
I’ve worn blaze orangesince it was required in 1980 in the Badger State. The bright outerwear, along with Wisconsin’s excellent hunter education program which started in 1967, are considered key reasons for vastly improved hunter safety in recent decades.
STANTON TOWNSHIP — A man who had been reported lost was found in stable condition at his Stanton Township hunting camp Monday after having been without heat for about 24 hours.
The 62-year-old man had been brought to the camp by a male and female acquaintances, who forgot the camp’s location, the Houghton County Sheriff’s Office said. The man’s immediate family and friends did not know his whereabouts.
He was found at 8:30 p.m. Monday, about an hour and a half after he was reported missing.
The Houghton County Sheriff’s Office urges hunters to leave a hunting plan with a family member or friend before they depart. The plan should say where and with whom they will hunt and when they expect to return. It should also contain specific directions to your destination, as well as alternate destinations in case of bad weather.
A female elephant calf in Indonesia has died days after her rescue and an emergency amputation by conservation authorities in Aceh province.
Authorities link the elephant’s death to the severe wounds on her trunk believed to have been inflicted by a snare trap set by wildlife poachers.
Veterinarians amputated half of her trunk, and reported that the elephant appeared to be recovering from the procedure. She died on Nov. 16.
Snare traps, typically made of steel or nylon wire and usually set for bushmeat like wild boar, are indiscriminate in what they catch, resulting in the capture of non-target species, as well as females and juvenile animals.
ACEH BESAR, Indonesia — A Sumatran elephant calf has died days after conservation officials in Indonesia amputated half of her trunk due to severe injuries from a suspected snare trap.
Hunters are often the victims of serious injuries and even death, even while lawfully hunting and acting safely. Hunting season brings out a variety of hunters, from young to old, and it is often a family rite of passage passed down for generations. When a hunter is injured or killed due to another’s negligence or reckless conduct, it is possible to file a hunting accident lawsuit.
Statistics show that approximately one thousand people in the United States and Canada are accidentally shot by hunters every year in a hunting accident. Approximately ten percent, or one hundred accidents, result in a fatality. These numbers are consistent from year to year in both countries.
While hunting is a sport and also serves as a conservation role, there are common ways that both hunters and non-hunters are unintentionally injured and killed. The most frequent causes of hunting injuries…
A piglet with notched ears which is a standard and permanent way that individuals at catalogued in the animal exploitation industry. 
Exposing the Big Game 