By Megan Verlee

·Jul. 31, 2024, 3:16 pm

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• https://www.cpr.org/2024/07/31/ban-on-big-cat-hunting-will-be-on-colorados-fall-ballot/

Colorado voters will decide this fall whether to ban the hunting of bobcats and mountain lions.

The Secretary of State’s office confirmed Wednesday that backers turned in enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Hunters took 502 mountain lions in the 2022-2023 season, according to a harvest report compiled by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. In recent years, an average of 880 bobcats have been killed annually through hunting and fur trapping.

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The initiative would end the hunting seasons for both species, and bar the state from ever allowing lynx hunting (lynx, which were reintroduced in Colorado in 1999, are still considered endangered by the state). Big cats could still be killed by state or federal employees as a part of population management efforts or, with state permission, by ranchers to prevent livestock depreciation. People who accidentally hit an animal with their car would not be penalized.

State analysts project the initiative could cost Colorado around $377,000 annually in lost mountain lion hunting license sales.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife, which oversees hunting in the state, has taken no position on the initiative.

A legislative effort to ban big cat hunting died 4-1 in its first legislative committee in 2022, causing advocates to push the issue to voters.

Colorado has a history of making wildlife policy at the ballot box. This proposal comes four years after Colorado voters approved wolf reintroduction by a razor-thin margin. In previous decades, they also prohibited the use of leghold traps, poisons and snares and ended spring bear hunting.

This initiative joins an already crowded fall ballot, Voters will see seven measures placed there by the legislature and possibly up to a dozen or more from independent groups.

Japanese government confirms it will allow whalers to catch and kill up to 59 fin whales, a species conservationists consider vulnerable

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/01/japan-whaling-expansion-australia-government-response

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Graham ReadfearnWed 31 Jul 2024 22.57 EDTShare

The Australian government is “deeply disappointed” by Japan’s decision to add the world’s second-largest whale species to the list of species its commercial whale hunters will target.

Tanya Plibersek, the environment minister, attacked Japan’s decision to hunt fin whales – the world’s second-longest whale and considered vulnerable.

The Japanese government this week confirmed it would allow itself to take up to 59 fin whales in its commercial hunt, which is confined to the country’s economic zone.

Japan’s new US$47m (A$71m) whaling ship, the Kangei Maru, is being readied for its maiden hunt and has a deck long enough to haul whales up to 25 metres long.

“Australia is deeply disappointed by Japan’s decision to expand its commercial whaling program by adding fin whales,” Plibersek said.

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Japan left the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 2019 after previously killing whales under a clause that allowed whaling for scientific research – a rationale challenged by conservationists.

Japan already catches Bryde’s, minke and sei whales. Fin whale numbers globally are thought to be rising, but remain vulnerable according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The giant mammals can live up to 90 years.

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Plibersek said: “Australia is opposed to all commercial whaling and urges all countries to end this practice.

“Australia’s efforts through the International Whaling Commission have contributed to a whaling-free Southern Ocean and a decline in commercial whaling around the world. Australia will continue to advocate for the protection and conservation of whales and the health of our ocean for future generations.”

Darren Kindleysides, a whale campaigner and the chief executive of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, called the hunts “inhumane, cruel and unnecessary”.skip past newsletter promotion

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“We welcome this strong statement from [Plibersek] in protection of whales and opposing commercial whaling,” he said.

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“Australia has a long and bipartisan history of opposing commercial whaling and we expect Australia to take a strong stance when the IWC meets next month in Peru.”

In 1986 the IWC put a global moratorium in place on commercial whaling. Norway and Iceland have remained members of the commission, but have hunted under loopholes.

Whales are also caught by a small number of countries under IWC rules that allow for some indigenous and subsistence whaling.

Kindleysides said: “The world’s great whales have populations that are threatened. We still know relatively little about whales, but we do know for species like fin whales that they are at risk following the legacy of whaling in the 18- and 1900s, so we must do what we can to protect them.

“We have learned that whales are worth more alive than dead. We have a multimillion-dollar whale watching industry now on the back of the recovery of humpback whales.”