An alligator swims through the Wakodahatchee Wetlands on November 14, 2023, in Delray Beach, Florida, United States. The warm and humid temperature in the state provides a welcome habitat for a wide assortment of animals and waterfowl.
SOURCE: Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
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A “special-use” alligator harvest opportunity has been approved by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The rule change, set to take effect for the 2024 alligator harvest season, aims to complement the existing statewide alligator hunt and create a flexible alternative.
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The alternative allows permittees to hunt at multiple alligator management units during a longer season than the statewide hunt, according to the FWC.
Officials said this is similar to other special-opportunity hunts where applicants pay for each application and can apply an unlimited number of times during the application period to increase their chances of being drawn.
Applicants can apply from May 3 to June 3. The number of permittees will be determined annually and selected randomly through a drawing process.
FWC stated in a news release that two alligators can be harvested per permit. Permittees will be allowed to hunt at any legally accessible alligator management unit from Aug. 15 – Dec. 31.
I started hunting as a young boy, and was taught the importance of gun safety, and the ethic of respect for the animals being pursued as a keystone element of “sportsmanship.” I was taught not to pull a trigger if I wasn’t confident of a clean kill, and to pass even the opportunity for a clean kill if another animal was in a line of fire. The use of lead bullets in hunting is essentially putting dozens of other animals in the line of fire after the fact.
The science on the use of lead ammunition is overwhelming and unequivocal. Condors, eagles, hawks, owls, vultures, ravens, magpies, blue jays and dozens upon dozens of other scavenging animals are at risk from dispersed lead ammunition. Upon impact, lead bullets fragment into hundreds of tiny pieces that scatter into the muscle and entrails of hunted animals, like white-tailed deer.
And that’s exactly what is happening across the country, including here in Maryland, where 76,687 deer were harvested in the 2022-2023 hunting season. The vast majority were killed using lead ammunition.
Therefore, the “gut piles” left behind when a deer is field-dressed become a toxic buffet for scavenging animals, and it takes only a piece of lead the size of a grain of rice to incapacitate and perhaps kill an adult bald eagle. That means the lead in a single 150-grain lead bullet has the potential to poison 10 eagles. And even smaller amounts can be disabling, including brain swelling, respiratory distress, weakness, and loss of vision. Acutely poisoned eagles are often described as behaving as if “drunk.” A study published in the journal Science two years ago found that the use of lead bullets in hunting is poisoning one-half of America’s bald and golden eagles.
In 1991, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service banned the use of lead “shot” in all waterfowl hunting because spent lead pellets were being ingested by, and poisoning, millions of birds annually. So, since then, Maryland waterfowlers, like me, have been required to use non-lead, non-toxic ammunition. It’s been good for both ducks and duck hunters.
It’s also good for our friends and family who share meals of wild game. Unnecessarily, lead is often the hidden ingredient.
As we learned from scientists like Maryland’s Rachel Carson, what’s good for wildlife is also good for people. The lead fragments in game meat are a health risk to humans. A study examining 324 random venison packages from meat processors found that 34% contained as much as 150 separate lead fragments. Scientific evidence like that is why the Maryland Department of Natural Resources 2023-24 Guide to Hunting and Trapping contains this warning: “Meat from game animals taken with lead fragmenting bullets and shot is a lead poisoning risk.”
But despite overwhelming science, most wildlife management agencies continue to allow the use of toxic bullets. It’s unscientific, inhumane and, frankly, irresponsible.
And it’s perplexing because it’s so easy to eliminate these risks to wildlife and human health. Non-toxic alternatives, such as solid-copper bullets are just as good or better at killing deer. Yes, currently they are slightly more expensive, but for a box of 20 rounds, it’s a difference of between $5 to 20 a box.
Seriously? Compared to the price of gas, food, lodging, meat processing, camo clothing, trail cameras, licenses, land leases and other costs in hunting animals like deer, this is a drop in the proverbial bucket.
As a life-long hunter, wildlife conservationist and the former leader of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I say with confidence that it is time to end use of poisonous lead bullets in hunting. And with the legislation introduced by Sen. Karen Lewis Young (SB 983) and Del. Vaughn Stewart (HB 1473), both Democrats, our state can do just that.
Since July 2019, California has required the use of non-toxic ammunition for hunting any wildlife. There is no indication this has affected hunting participation or game harvest. It’s been good for wildlife, from endangered California condors to common crows, and the people who consume game meat.
We can hunt deer and other game, and stop inflicting pain and suffering on untold thousands, likely millions of other innocent wild animals, just as we did in waterfowl hunting.
We have eliminated lead in gasoline, paint and children’s toys. There is no safe level of lead in any animal. Let’s get the lead out of hunting ammunition. It’s one small, relatively painless step for hunters, and one giant leap for wildlife.
Dan Ashe (dashe@aza.org) is president and CEO of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2011-2017).
An Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling has torn open a long-simmering and emotionally charged debate about whether some aspects of in vitro fertilization represent a form of abortion and should be banned under religious principles.
Christian opposition to abortion has long driven the debate over reproductive rights. Abortion opponents say life begins at conception, and even a handfull of cells deserves the same legal protections as a person.
In his concurring opinion last week, Chief Justice Tom Parker, an elected Republican, invoked similar reasoning.
“In summary, the theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the People of Alabama encompasses the following: (1) God made every person in His image; (2) each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and (3) human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.”
But legal scholars say invocating religion is an unusual step for a judge. And IVF advocates are concerned about injecting religion into what they see as a medical decision to have a family.
“The substance of the ruling is not a surprise at all. But the language he used, it’s completely out of bounds ‒ unusual to an extreme degree,” said Jennifer Hendricks, a law professor and family law expert at the University of Colorado Boulder.
On one side of the battle are millions of Americans who used in-vitro fertilization to have desperately wanted children who could otherwise not have been born.
On the other are Christian religious conservatives who argue humans should not be playing God in a laboratory, and that life begins at conception. The Catholic Church in particular opposes IVF, though some religions, including Buddhism and Hinduism, have no hesitations about the procedure.
On Wednesday, the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system, the state’s largest, paused IVF treatments so it could evaluate whether its patients or doctors could be punished for undertaking or undergoing the fertility treatment. And the Associated Press reported that a second IVF provider paused part of its program Thursday.
Although the ruling itself affects only embryos in Alabama, word of the decision has spread quickly across the nation and already is reverberating in Washington. Opinions are highly polarized.
Vice President Kamala Harris slammed the court’s decision, calling it “outrageous” and saying it sets a dangerous precedent for “robbing women of the freedom to decide when and how to build a family.”
But Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she agrees with the court’s contention that frozen embryos created through IVF are children. “Embryos, to me, are babies,” Haley told NBC News. “That’s a life.”
Ruling again pits theology against reproductive rights
Some conservative states have passed laws specifying that life begins at conception, and the Alabama court leaned heavily on Christian faith and the Bible to make its case. The court referred to the embryos as “embryonic children … kept alive in a cryogenic nursery.”
Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Washington D.C.-based nonprofit Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said citing the Bible in this manner is like “giving the middle finger to a foundational promise of our country.”
Alabama’s top court ruling on IVF is part of a larger movement to “impose religious theology,” Laser said, in conflict with the constitutional promise of separating church and state. She saw the verdict in Alabama as part of a larger Christian nationalist movement – the idea that America was created by and for Christians an its laws should reflect that.
“The agenda doesn’t stop with reproductive rights. It’s much, much bigger,” Laser said. “And that should concern every American, because America wouldn’t be America without the separation of church and state.”
Laser noted that moral arguments put forth by lawmakers and judges often impose a singular definition of morality on everyone, including people of other faiths and Christians who don’t align with the same set of values or believe they should be imposed by law.
Along with jeopardizing access to IVF and abortions, Laser said the ruling could affect access to contraception, as some forms work by blocking embryos from implanting in the uterus.
“That’s what could come next,” she said.
IVF was a polarizing issue from the start
In 1979, a year after the world’s first IVF baby was born, a coalition of anti-abortion groups denounced the new technology as “morally abhorrent” and persuaded the federal government to block funding for any research in which embryos were destroyed. But the number of what were then referred to as “test tube” babies continued to rise as desperate families turned to IVF to conceive children. Today, about 2% of all babies born in the U.S. annually are conceived through IVF.
“Over the years, the anti-abortion movement gradually accepted some reproductive technologies, as long as no embryos were destroyed during their use,” said Margaret Marsh, a historian and professor at Rutgers University. “But the peace it made with the new technologies was always an uneasy peace.”
Marsh co-wrote a 2019 history of IVF with her sister, a gynecologist.
Because IVF was developed after Roe became the law of the land in 1973, embryos have typically been treated as private property that donors could implant, give away or have destroyed without consequence. But newly passed “personhood” laws pushed by conservatives and some religious groups are changing that.
Nationally, about 100,000 births a year involve IVF, an emotionally and physically exhausting process by which multiple eggs are harvested, fertilized and implanted to bring about a pregnancy. In most cases, doctors create more embryos than are implanted, allowing patients to store those embryos in liquid nitrogen at -321 degrees for future use, donation or destruction.
In the IVF procedure, a three- to five-day-old fertilized egg, known as a blastocyst, is implanted in a woman’s uterus. At this point it contains between 70 and 200 cells.
Those tiny clusters of cells can only develop inside a womb, and officials estimate there may be as many as 1 million frozen embryos stored nationwide.
IVF families have often struggled for years to get pregnant, and undergoing expensive IVF treatment typically requires the administration of powerful fertility drugs and invasive medical procedures for the chance to have a baby. People turn to IVF for many reasons, including fertility loss after cancer treatments, or military members heading out on long-term deployments who want to delay having children.
Is it OK for a judget to invoke the Bible?
In a commentary attached to the Alabama ruling, Parker leaned heavily on the religious foundation of American laws, connecting them to longstanding Christian tenets such as the 10 Commandments’ prohibition against murder. Parker noted that other countries have adopted IVF policies that reduce the number of unneeded embryos and suggested that IVF regulations in the United States are little better than “the Wild West.”
“The Alabama Constitution’s recognition that human life is an endowment from God emphasizes a foundational principle of English common law, which has been expressly incorporated as part of the law of Alabama,” Parker wrote.
“All three branches of government are subject to a constitutional mandate to treat each unborn human life with reverence,” he continued. “Carving out an exception for the people in this case, small as they were, would be unacceptable to the People of this State, who have required us to treat every human being in accordance with the fear of a holy God who made them in His image.”
The Catholic Church in 1987 issued an opinion setting out its opposition to IVF, arguing in part that it was immoral because it “does violence to human dignity and to the marriage act,” by replacing the act of conception between a married couple with a procedure by a laboratory worker.
“Human beings bear the image and likeness of God. They are to be reverenced as sacred. Never are they to be used as a means to an end, not even to satisfy the deepest wishes of an infertile couple,” the church said. “The marital act is not a manufacturing process, and children are not products.”
Lael Weinberger, a nonresident fellow at Stanford Law School and attorney who previously clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by former President Donald Trump said the court’s decision did not invoke religion and Parker was simply musing about the history and theology of law in his concurring opinion.
“It can’t be the case that the First Amendment prohibits our courts from grappling with the history of law,” Weinberger said.
Weinberger said the new ruling gives the couples who originally sued another chance to file a wrongful death suit. A lower court had dismissed their claims on the basis that embryos were not considered children.
But Nicole Huberfeld, a law professor at Boston University School of Law, said Parker’s opinion stands out because it references Christian beliefs so significantly.
“The thing is that’s unusual is how overtly this concurrence is relying on Christian sanctity of life reasoning,” she said.
The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause typically limits the role religion can play in government, but the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 changed the longstanding process by which it reviewed conflicts between government and religion. The decision to change that process was written by Justice Gorsuch, who said the court needed to rely more heavily on “reference to historical practices and understandings.” Parker, the Alabama judge, specifically referenced Gorsuch in his concurrent opinion.
Past Supreme Courts might have objected to Parker’s reliance on religion, but Huberfeld said she’s not sure whether the current conservative majority ‒ which overturned the right to abortion two years ago ‒ would find it problematic.
“Judges are not supposed to rely on religious principles for legal reasoning,” Huberfeld said. “The Alabama Constitution does use the word ‘God.’ But so does the Declaration of Independence.”
Religion has always affected the way people interpret the law and played a role in the life of Americans, said Hendricks of UC Boulder. But legal standards have typically kept one specific religion, such as Christianity, from imposing its values on everyone.“The concern a lot of people have is that we’re on a path to theocracy here.”
Lindsay Heller, an IVF mom and attorney, said she thanks “whoever is up there” every day for her two kids. But she believes IVF decisions should be between families and doctors ‒ not courts and religion.
“IVF might fall by the wayside if you’re going by someone’s religious values about how life is created,” she said. “A doctor isn’t going to put their license on the line to help someone get pregnant.”
On June 9, about 22,000 South Korean women marched through the streets of Seoul. The protest – reportedly the largest by women in South Korean history – focused on the proliferation of so-called “spy cams,” tiny cameras used to invade women’s privacy, filming them in toilets and up their skirts, with images often posted online. Activists say the government is not taking the issues seriously – except in the rare case where a man is the victim.
To combat this and other behavior South Korean women are taking a definitive and some say radical stand known as the 4B movement which is gaining momentum around the world.
The 4B movement also known as the “birth strike” and “marriage strike” meant to combat South Korea’s extreme patriarchal and misogynistic culture.
This wave is growing in popularity over the last several years – resulting in a serious outcome for population growth. Will this be a growing trend across the world?
South Korea currently has the world’s lowest fertility rate, with women having less than one child on average.
The drop in South Korea’s fertility rate over the past few years results from the “4B Movement,” with the B’s representing the Korean words bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae, and bisekseu for marriage, childbirth, dating, and sex respectively.
The 4B Movement: South Korean Women Rejecting Traditional Expectations
In 2019, the 4B Movement emerged in South Korea, it’s been getting a lot of notice on TikTok, gaining more traction and sparking debate.
This movement’s central tenets challenge deeply ingrained societal norms, advocating that women should reject the following:
Bihon: Heterosexual marriage
Bichulsan: Childbirth
Biyeonae: Dating men
Bisekseu: Heterosexual relationships
Unraveling the Roots of the 4B Movement
The 4B Movement stems from a complex mix of social, economic, and cultural factors that have created a climate of deep-seated discontent and also rage among many young South Korean women, including:
Persistent Patriarchy & Misogyny: Despite South Korea’s position as a developed, modernized nation, patriarchal structures are deeply embedded in its society. Women often face discrimination in the workplace, are pressured to conform to unrealistic beauty standards (Korea is the #1 country for plastic surgery procedures), and carry a disproportionate burden of domestic labor and childcare.
Economic Hardships and Disillusionment: South Korea’s hyper-competitive economy and the skyrocketing cost of living have made it increasingly difficult to form families and raise children. Many young women feel disillusioned with the lack of opportunities and the expectation that their primary role should be as wives and mothers.
The #MeToo Reckoning: The global #MeToo movement had a significant impact on South Korea, exposing widespread sexual harassment and violent assault with little reprehension or justice by authorities. This ignited a broader critique of gender inequality and inspired women to demand greater autonomy and bodily agency.
Online Feminist Communities:Social media has empowered feminist movements in South Korea. These platforms raise awareness, help share personal experiences, and organize around common causes. The 4B movement has found fertile ground in these spaces with people around the globe.
The Evolution of South Korean Feminism
The 4B movement can be understood as part of a broader trajectory within South Korean feminism.
Previous feminist movements, like the Escape the Corset movement, focused primarily on challenging unrealistic beauty standards and the objectification of women.
The 4B movement expands on this, taking a more radical stance against the entire institution of heterosexual marriage and the traditional family structure within South Korean society.
Criticisms and Concerns
The 4B movement is not without its critics of course, with detractors arguing that it:
Is Too Extreme: Some argue that the movement’s total rejection of heterosexual relationships and reproduction is too extreme and unrealistic.
Contributes to Low Fertility Rates: There are concerns that the 4B philosophy could further contribute to South Korea’s alarmingly low birth rate, posing demographic challenges for the country.
Oversimplifies Complex Issues: Others find its stance overly simplistic, ignoring the diversity of women’s experiences and the potential for positive partnerships with men.
Implications of the 4B Movement
There are valid concerns related to the plummeting birth and fertility rates namely the drastically changing demographic makeup of the country.
As South Korea’s population ages, there is no younger generation to balance the population demographics.
This trend is what led to the projection that over half of Korea’s population will be over the age of 65 by 2065.
This has serious implications related to Korea’s economic and military capacity.
Other countries have echoed South Korea’s “birth strike” – making it a transnational feminist movement.
Women in China have started their own “four nos” movement, causing the population to start shrinking, and Japan is also experiencing a drastically lowered birth rate because of women’s reluctance to marry and have children.
The Significance of the 4B Movement
Regardless of one’s opinion on its specific tenets, the 4B movement serves as a powerful, if controversial, expression of the profound frustrations of a generation of South Korean women.
It highlights the persistent gender inequalities (women still earn 30% less than men) within society and forces a public conversation about the traditional roles expected of women.
The movement also reflects a broader shift in the perception of marriage and family across many developed nations, where more individuals are opting out of traditional arrangements.
While the 4B movement may not present a universally adopted solution, it has undoubtedly placed women’s rights and their desire for greater agency at the forefront of South Korea’s national discourse.
The long-term impact of this movement remains to be seen, but it has set in motion a crucial debate, sparking conversations that will likely shape the future of gender relations in South Korea for years to come.
While there’s no evidence of other countries formally adopting the exact 4B Movement as it exists in South Korea, themes and ideas aligned with the movement are finding resonance elsewhere:
Similar Movements: The 6B4T movement in China shares many of the 4B Movement’s core tenets, with additional focuses on rejecting oppressive beauty standards and hypersexualized media depictions.
Global Feminist Concerns: Many of the issues underlying the 4B Movement – gender wage inequality, social pressure on women, objectification, exploitation, gender-based violence, misogynistic attitudes, economic hardship – are certainly not unique to South Korea. Many other women in other countries face similar challenges, albeit in varied contexts.
Changing Attitudes Towards Marriage & Family: Declining fertility rates and rising numbers of single-person households are trends seen in many developed nations like Japan and parts of Europe. This reflects changing priorities and a greater emphasis on individual choice.
In conclusion:
Korean women, faced with precarity and vulnerability in their professional and personal lives, are increasingly rejecting the expected path of motherhood not only in a challenge to patriarchy, but in refusing to engage with the patriarchal system perpetuated through traditional understandings of marriage and family. South Korea’s patriarchal strategy to deal with its demographic security will not be effective, because Korean women have said ‘enough’.
The underlying concerns and desire for greater autonomy that the 4B movement expresses are shared by women around the world and could fuel adaptations of feminist philosophy and activism tailored to the specific conditions within other nations.
Exposing the Big Game 