Animal Protection Party of Canada

Thu, April 14, 2022, 3:21 PM.2 min read

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Animal Protection Party of Canada

TORONTO, April 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — While families prepare to
celebrate this time of year, a season of rebirth, Parks Canada staffers are
preparing yet another round of killing Double-crested cormorants, on Middle
Island in Point Pelee National Park.

“None of this makes any sense,” says Liz White, Party Leader. “The science
does not support any of the Parks claims about negative impacts of the
birds. If Middle Island were pushed 100 metres to the south, into US
territory, there would be no endangered species to protect. Yet, despite
there being no species at risk and COVID numbers in Ontario on the rise, the
park will pack a number of people into a boat with the sole purpose of a
four-day cormorant cull. Why is Parks Canada spending thousands of taxpayer
dollars, risking the health of their staff and area residents, and killing
these beautiful animals, in what is supposed to be a bird sanctuary? Whoever
is making these decisions should be ashamed.”

For years Parks Canada has claimed killing the birds is necessary to
maintain the ecological integrity of the island. “The ecological fact is
that the cormorants, herons and egrets constitute the ecology of the island,
as would the white pelicans that seem to be trying to nest there, but are
frightened away by the disturbance,” says Barry MacKay, naturalist and
Canadian Representative for Born Free USA. “And now that the Ford government
has allowed, essentially, an open season on cormorants for Ontario hunters,
the population could be in real danger of extirpation.”

Human persecution and pesticide poisoning drove Double-crested cormorants to
the brink of extinction over 60 years ago. Thanks to government efforts,
this species has rebounded and is now repopulating parts of its former range
in the United States and Canada, fulfilling a valuable ecological role. Not
only do they benefit biodiversity, they help generate healthy fish
populations and should be considered an integral component of the area’s
natural heritage.

“There are so many other initiatives that Parks Canada could be taking to be
leaders in park management,” continued White. “But instead they choose the
archaic approach of killing animals in their parks. What a waste, wasted
money and wasted opportunities.”

Park managers in the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) have
conducted innovative studies in non-lethal management of cormorants at Tommy
Thompson Park, home to one of the largest waterbird colonies in the Great
Lakes basin. “The TRCA staff are pioneering techniques that are not only low
cost, but also humane and effective. We are grateful for their work and for
their willingness to try new methods so that humans can co-exist peacefully
with this species,” said MacKay.

The female dolphin washed up on Quintana Beach Sunday and was reportedly pushed back to sea while beachgoers tried to “swim with and ride the sick animal.”

Quintana Beach in Quintana, Texas.Google Maps

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April 15, 2022, 6:19 AM PDT

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/animal-news/dolphin-stranded-texas-beach-dies-crowd-tries-ride-animal-rescuers-say-rcna24467

By Minyvonne Burke

A dolphin stranded on a Texas beach died after a crowd of people “harassed” the animal and tried to ride it, rescue officials said.

The female dolphin washed up on Quintana Beach Sunday evening and was reportedly pushed back to sea while beachgoers tried to “swim with and ride the sick animal,” the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network said in a Facebook post.

“She ultimately stranded and was further harassed by a crowd of people on the beach where she later died before rescuers could arrive on scene,” the organization said.

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Harassing stranded sea animals causes stress and can also be dangerous for the people who interact with them, but it is also illegal, rescue officials said in the post.

Violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act could lead to civil penalties of up to $11,000 and up to a year in prison. 

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“If a live dolphin or whale strands in Texas, please DO NOT PUSH the animal back to sea, do not attempt to swim or interact with them, do not crowd them,” the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network said.

Ultimately, a person at the beach called Quintana Beach County Park for assistance. The park called the incident a “tragedy.”

An expedition to the forests of Louisiana say extinction of bird, last definitively seen in 1944, has been exaggerated

Oliver Milman

@olliemilmanWed 13 Apr 2022 02.00 EDT

In terms of elusiveness, it is the Bigfoot or Loch Ness monster of the bird world, so rare and undetectable that the US government declared it extinct last year. But the ivory-billed woodpecker is, in fact, still alive and pecking in the forests of Louisiana, a team of researchers has claimed.

A series of grainy pictures and observations of the bird, which had its last widely accepted sighting in 1944, show that the scrupulously furtive woodpecker is still holding on in the swampy forests of the US south, according to the team’s new research, which is yet to be peer-reviewed.

A three-year quest to find the woodpecker involved scientists trudging through an undisclosed portion of Louisiana woodland to observe the bird and take audio recordings. Unmanned trail cameras, set up to take pictures on a time lapse, and a drone were used to capture photos of the creature.

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Steve Latta, the director of conservation at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh who led the effort, said each member of the team had encounters with the ivory-billed woodpecker and often heard its call, which has been described like hearing a child puff into a tin trumpet.

Latta himself saw the bird fly upwards in front of him, showing the distinctive white edges to its wings. “It flew up at an angle and I watched it for about six to eight seconds, which was fairly long for an ivory-billed woodpecker,” he said. “I was surprised. I was visibly shaking afterwards. You realize you’ve seen something special that very few people had the opportunity to see.”

The size and the markings of the bird captured in the photos is strong evidence that it is not another woodpecker, such as a pileated or red-headed woodpecker, Latta said. “It reinforced to me that, yes, this bird does exist and left me feeling a sense of responsibility to protect it for the future,” he said.

Ivory-billed woodpeckers were once relatively common, stretching from the Carolinas through the south-east US to Texas. They were, or are, the largest woodpeckers in the US, with the males sporting a distinctive red crest on their heads. They enjoy feasting on insects that accumulate in the bark of recently deceased trees.

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Their numbers started to drop sharply in the 19th century due to human interference with their habitat and overhunting, with their scarcity spurring collectors to hunt them further as valuable specimens. They were also eaten by poverty-stricken people of the time who turned to devouring the woodpecker, wild turkeys, gopher tortoises and other wildlife.

With just a few of the birds occupying largely inaccessible forests, confirmed sightings, let alone clear pictures, became almost impossible. Last year, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), after years of listing the woodpecker as critically endangered, declared the species extinct.

“No one has held a camera and got a picture of one in years because it’s a scarce bird in tough swampy habitat and they don’t want people close to them because they’ve been shot at for 150 years,” said Geoffrey Hill, a biologist at Auburn University who took part in another, largely frustrating, trip to find the bird in Florida in 2005.

“They have better eyes than we do, they are high in the trees and actively flee people. They aren’t great thinkers but they have developed a pretty simple strategy to avoid people.”

Hill said Latta’s research was “very interesting” and that he thought it likely that the bird pictured is indeed an ivory-billed woodpecker. He added that the FWS was premature to decide the species was extinct and that several dozen could still be holding on in forests across the south.

“Some people cannot believe a bird can defy documentation by modern humans because we have such dominion over nature but it is endlessly interesting because if it has done that, it’s one pretty impressive bird,” Hill said.

“People who are into birds are fascinated by them. Ivory bills couldn’t care less, though. They hate all people.”