WASHINGTON,March 22, 2022/PRNewswire/ — Animal welfare and conservation non-profitBorn FreeUSA, working in collaboration withHumane Society Internationaland theHumane Society ofthe United States, has today released a shocking undercover investigation exposing the cruelty of animal trapping, including for the fur trade, inthe United States.
An undercover investigation by Born Free USA, Humane Society International and the Humane Society of the United States exposes the inherent cruelty of animal trapping in the U.S.
An undercover investigator attended the National Trappers Association Convention inIowainJuly 2021and a state-sponsored Trappers Education Course, provided in partnership between the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Iowa Trappers Association, inNovember 2021, before going out with three trappers to witness how animals are trapped and killed. The investigation’s findings are harrowing and reveal the inherent cruelty of trapping.
Bird flu is an increasing threat to poultry producers and backyard chicken owners. They’re preparing for the worst as wild birds’ spring migration peaks in a few weeks.
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
A highly contagious and lethal strain of bird flu is spreading across some eastern and central parts of the U.S. Since February, more than 13 million chickens, turkeys and other birds have died of illness or have been culled to stop the spread. As Iowa Public Radio’s Katie Peikes reports, poultry producers and owners of backyard flocks are trying to learn from the past outbreaks to protect their birds.
KATIE PEIKES, BYLINE: A deadly bird flu outbreak ripped through U.S. poultry seven years ago. That’s when more than 50 million chickens and turkeys died…
The CDC said it’s monitoring the worst avian influenza outbreak since 2015, which has devastated poultry farms along the East Coast and in the Midwest.
Federal health officials are closely watching a highly lethal type of bird flu that’s devastated poultry farms along the East Coast and the Midwest in recent weeks. There are no signs the strain of avian influenza poses a danger to people yet, but experts are on the lookout for potential mutations of the virus that could make it more of a threat.
Although the risk to humans remains low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it will monitor people who’ve been exposed to domestic and wild species infected with H5N1 — a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus that spreads easily among birds.
Since February, the H5N1 virus has been detected in commercial and backyard flocks in at least 17 states, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, making it the worst bird flu outbreak since 2015, when nearly 50 million birds were slaughtered or died. The spread of the disease has largely been blamed on the migration of wild birds flying over domestic flocks and transmitting the virus through their droppings.
At this time, no human cases of H5N1 have been detected in the United States, CDC spokesperson Kate Grusich said in a statement to NBC News. “Based on past experience with earlier H5N1 bird flu viruses — and what is known about this group of viruses from existing epidemiologic and genetic sequence data — CDC believes the health risk to the general public is low,” she said.
The worry, experts say, is that a continued spread among birds could give the virus more chances to pick up new mutations and become more of a risk to people.
“New strains of influenza that are introduced to the human population and can cause global pandemics often originate from these animal sources, in particular birds,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “There is a risk that some of these bird flu strains may pick up the genetic capacity to infect humans.”
More than a dozen types of bird flu have been identified, according to the CDC. Since 2015, there have been sporadic cases in humans from bird flu viruses, though most often occur in people who had prolonged exposure to infected poultry.
Schaffner said the virus often has trouble infecting humans — once the virus is inhaled, it must latch on to the cells located in the back of the throat, the nose and the upper parts of the bronchial tubes, which are in the lungs. He noted that the disease can’t be transmitted to humans through properly cooked food.
But when the bird flu does infect people, it can be quite severe, with a mortality rate estimated to be at approximately 60 percent, according to the CDC.
The CDC said data so far shows the current H5N1 virus lacks mutations seen in the past that have been associated with bird flu viruses spreading easily among poultry, infecting people more easily and causing severe illness.
The agency said it is working closely with the Agriculture Department and states to track the spread and conduct additional laboratory work to be ready in case human infections occur.
Meanwhile, farms across the U.S. are taking steps to increase biosecurity measures.
Dr. Mendel Miller, the assistant state veterinarian for South Dakota, told NBC News that the state has euthanized just short of 200,000 infected birds.
As soon as state health authorities detect a potential case of bird flu, they immediately quarantine the facilities and prevent the movement of poultry products, he said.
“Everybody’s trying to do what they can biosecuritywise, trying to prevent the introduction of the virus,” Miller said. “Whether it’s a backyard flock or more of a large, commercial type flock, everybody needs to do their part to prevent the spread of the disease.”
The measures may do little to stop the spread of the virus, according to Henry Niman, a virologist and biochemist in Pittsburgh who has been tracking the bird flu’s spread. He is expecting an “explosion” of bird flu cases in birds in the coming weeks.
“This outbreak I think is likely going to be bigger than 2015,” he said, noting that the disease is already widespread in other regions of the world, such as Europe and Canada.
The virus likely began circulating in Europe before it came down to the East Coast of North America, Niman said.
“There’s a lot of birds that have been positive and there have been some outbreaks in the Delmarva Peninsula, which is in Delaware and Maryland. That peninsula has a lot of poultry,” he said. “It is starting to take off in the Midwest.”
Niman anticipates a “limited” number of human cases in the U.S., likely people who have close contact with birds who may then transmit the virus to close family members.
Mike Stepien, a spokesperson for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, an agency within the Agriculture Department, said in an emailed statement that the virus does not present an immediate public health concern at this time.
Bird owners can take some simple steps to protect their birds from the virus, he said, including:
Practice good biosecurity, such as cleaning up feed spills to avoid attracting wild birds.
Prevent contact between domestic birds and wild birds.
Report sick birds or unusual bird deaths to state/federal officials, either through their state veterinarian or through the Agriculture Department’s toll-free number at 1-866-536-7593.
A federal program called Wildlife Services, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, just announced it killed 404,538 native animals last year. According to its new report — which probably underestimates the real number — in 2021 the secretive, multimillion-dollar program massacred 324 gray wolves, 64,131 coyotes, 433 black bears, 200 mountain lions, 605 bobcats, 3,014 foxes, 24,687 beavers, and 714 river otters. It also unintentionally killed at least 2,746 animals, from bears to bobcats to songbirds — and even pet dogs.
“Killing carnivores to supposedly benefit the livestock industry just leads to more conflicts and more killing,” said Collette Adkins, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Carnivore Conservation program. “This is a stomach-churning, truly vicious cycle, and we’ll continue to demand change from Wildlife Services.”
With litigation and advocacy, the Center has been fighting Wildlife Services’ cruel killing for almost a decade, winning in states like California, Idaho, Minnesota and Washington. Help us win with a donation to our Stop Wildlife Services Fund.
Carbon dioxide emissions increased by almost 5% last year, meaning that the world now has a two-in-three chance of reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming over pre-industrial levels within the decade, according toa new studypublished in the online journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, carbon emissions dipped11%in 2020, potentially buying the world time to transition to clean sources of energy. But in 2021, as economic activity rebounded, the emissions that cause climate change increased 4.8% from 2020.
“These 2021 emissions consumed 8.7% of the remaining carbon budget for limiting anthropogenic warming to 1.5 °C, which if current trajectories continue, might be used up in 9.5 years at 67% likelihood,” the report stated.
The Caldor Fire in California, which encompassed more than 170 square miles with only 5%…
Hunting bullets, and by extension guns that use them, have been banned in the Occitanie village of LhermPic:Maksim Safaniuk / ShutterstockByHannah Thompson
A mayor in southern France has banned the use of bullets and therefore guns used for hunting in his commune, in a bid to drastically reduce hunting in the wake of the accidental killing of a 25-year-old woman last weekend.
Frédéric Pasian, mayor of the village of Lherm (Haute-Garonne, Occitanie) took out the decree as a means to strictly regulate hunting.
The ruling is also intended to send a symbolic message after the fatal killing of a young woman by a hunting bullet in Cantal on Saturday, February 19, in a case that has shocked…
For years, researchers have sought to understand why Vikings abandoned one of their settlements in Greenland after centuries of success. While some experts have suggested that dropping temperatures may have been the cause, new research suggests the cold wasn’t a factor.
A study detailing the findings published Wednesday in the journalScience Advances.
The colder temperature hypothesis has persisted for years because of something called the Little Ice Age that occurred between 1300 and 1850, when cooling temperatures persisted in the North Atlantic region.
The Vikings established their settlement, known as the Eastern Settlement, in southern Greenland in 985. They…
“TACS” is the common shorthand for smaller and “smarter” tactical nuclear weapons. Some are even equipped with a “Dial-A-Yield” function, that can regulate the size of the bomb’s destruction. For some military analysts, this makes the unthinkable prospect of nuclear war almost thinkable.
One might surmise from the euphemistic verbiage: “Tactical nukes—that couldn’t be that bad. Maybe it’s just the future of war we’d have to adjust to.” Well, think again.
“They’re more similar than you might expect in terms of their destructiveness,” Pollack told The Daily Beast. “Even this small nuke is extremely destructive depending on where you drop it. It would be a very large explosion that would generate an electro-magnetic pulse, and it would probably start fires.”
Maybe it’s just rhetoric, nuclear blackmail, but if Putin does the unthinkable, asked Pollack, “How do we respond in a way that avoids Armageddon?”
Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, said, “The reason these weapons are called tactical, they’re more likely to be used on the battlefield.”
“The Russians started it,” Korb continued, referring to Russia’s “escalate to de-escalate” doctrine, “and the argument was if we had them, they would counter-balance the Russians.” Nuclear weapons are meant to keep the enemy guessing, said Korb, and “if [Putin] goes nuclear, he doesn’t know how we will respond.” Would Biden—or the world—accept tit for tat nuclear strikes on civilian population centers?
The answer is almost certainly: No. Whatever it’s called in the moment, history will remember it as “World War III.”
Related video: Former CIA director explains the missteps of Russia’s ‘underwhelming performance’ (FOX News)
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“The TACs are new, they weren’t there during the Cold War,” Korb added. “We just had the big ones. In theory, the U.S. would not respond with a big one, but you don’t know that. If Putin launches one with a smaller yield, he doesn’t know if we will respond using a strategic weapon. That’s deterrence. He doesn’t know that, and we want to keep him not knowing that.”
Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired U.S. Army colonel and chief of staff to the late Colin Powell, said the U.S. military—prodded by a lucrative niche nuclear industry—“almost simultaneously” moved toward modernizing TACs just as the Russians did.
“Each side blamed the other,” he said. The Russians in 2013-2014 conducted military exercises to practice using small yield nukes to blunt an attack from NATO, escalating the likelihood that these weapons would eventually be used.
Wilkerson ridiculed the notion that there’s any real difference with a smaller yield TAC. “You see the plume, you don’t know whether it’s tactical or strategic,” he said, and a commander is going to hit back hard rather than wait for an after-attack assessment.
“We’re back in a time I thought we’d left behind, that we’d learned our lessons,” Wilkerson continued. “I’ve watched [Putin] for a long time. He’s a pragmatic, practical man. I don’t care what kind of a beast you think he is…he hasn’t gone from master chess player to being mad, which is what you’d have to be to do this [use nuclear weapons]. But I can’t rule it out, especially as a false flag. It shouldn’t come to this.”
Wilkerson maintains that nuclear war must be avoided at all costs, crediting President Biden with resisting the political pressure to impose a no-fly-zone over the skies of Ukraine. “If 45 million Ukrainians have to be sacrificed on the altar of no nuclear war, I’m for it. It’s not worth saving any state if it means blowing up 7 billion people” he said.
Joseph Mazur, professor emeritus at Marlboro College, wonders how much the average American knows about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For a piece on “The Madness of Nuclear Threats,” published in Psychology Today’s online blog, Mazur conducted an informal (but telling) survey.
Mazur questioned 12 adults and four teenagers, none of them experts, on what happened to Hiroshima after the U.S. dropped “the bomb.” They knew what happened in broad terms, but had little inkling of the extent of human suffering and destruction. The adults guessed that the “Little Boy” bomb dropped over Hiroshima killed between 1,000 and 25,000 people. The teens guessed 5,000. In reality, the atom bomb destroyed five square miles of the city and killed between 130,000 and 225,000 people.
“Today, the tiniest tactical nuclear weapon is capable of destruction far worse than what happened in Hiroshima,” Mazur wrote. “Even if just one ‘small’ nuclear weapon were to be launched in the current conflict, there would not be enough therapists in the world to deal with the mental health trauma that would come from watching the aftermath in real-time.”
Putin announced last month he was putting Russian nuclear forces into “special combat readiness,” which set off an understandable frenzy about what Putin might do next to save himself from humiliating military losses. “As far as we can tell, they haven’t moved any systems,” said Pollack. “There are more people on duty, but more people in command centers shouldn’t be that alarming.”
Pressed on Putin’s intentions, Pollack answered, “I don’t think he’s inclined to [use TACs] while he’s busy mauling Ukraine’s cities with heavy weapons. Proponents of TACS say we have to be prepared in order to deter nuclear war, and I would say, what do we do if deterrence fails?”
“The Trump administration in 2018 wanted an extra option if the Russians used a small one against us and we would not respond because we only have the big one. I don’t buy this,” added Pollack. “Nobody will care about actual kilotons but everyone in the world would know if a nuclear weapon was used.”
Biden, as a presidential candidate in 2019, was asked about new low-yield warheads. He responded, “Bad idea,” adding that having these would make presidents “more inclined to use them.” That was the right answer for these times.
There is still hope to preserve an uneasy deterrence, and to keep Putin wondering about Biden—at least as much as Biden wonders about him.
A Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries agent cited three men for alleged hunting violations on March 13 in Concordia Parish.
Agents cited Elliott A. Ater, 32, of Ferriday, Dustin P. Martin, 38, of Epps, and Ryan A. Mcintosh, 26, of Waterproof, for hunting without a basic license and violating outlaw quadruped night hunting regulations. Mcintosh was also cited for hunting deer without a basic license, hunting deer without a big game license, failing to comply with deer tagging regulations, hunting deer during illegal hours, hunting deer using illegal methods, and hunting deer with an electronic sight.
Martin was also arrested for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of methamphetamine and possession of a firearm while in possession of a controlled dangerous substance.
Agents received a call regarding several subjects illegally hunting in Concordia Parish. After further investigation, agents determined…
Black bears get a spring reprieve in some states March 23, 2022Not only do spring hunts make it far too easy for trophy hunters to kill vulnerable and malnourished bears, but they often leave newborn and yearling cubs orphaned—many of whom die from starvation, predation or exposure to weather. Sarkophoto/iStock.comSpring is a crucial time for black bears:After emerging from their dens following months in winter hibernation, many spend the first few weeks building up strength by eating mainly grasses and other plants. Mother bears are especially weak, having spent the last few months nursing cubs hungry for their fat-rich milk.That’s why we were so heartened when the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission voted last weekend against reinstating a spring black bear hunt. Spring hunts are a nasty form of cruelty, and Washington was one of just eight states to allow them. Not only do spring hunts make it far too easy for trophy hunters to kill vulnerable and malnourished bears, but they often leave newborn and yearling cubs orphaned—many of whom die from starvation, predation or exposure to weather. And all for nothing:As we’ve long known, trophy hunting is not an effective means of preventing conflicts with humans, partly because trophy hunters generally kill bears far from human habitation.The victory in Washington came about largely because that state’s residents, along with the HSUS and a robust coalition of wildlife and animal welfare organizations, raised their voices and submitted thousands of comments in opposition to reinstating the spring bear hunt. (The commission had voted to stop the hunt last November after the HSUS, our coalition partners, and Washington residents spoke out against it, but trophy hunting proponents brought forward a proposal to reinstate it.)Time and again, when members of the public are given the chance to weigh in, they say in no uncertain terms that events like the spring bear hunt are cruel and unsporting. Even a report conducted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and Responsive Management confirmed this sentiment:Their 2019 survey of American attitudes toward hunting revealed that a majority of Westerners oppose spring bear hunts.And Washington isn’t the only state making progress on behalf of bears. Last month, the California Fish and Game Commission advanced an HSUS petition that could make the state a much more hospitable one for black bears. The petition—which is now with the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife for their recommendation—asks California to stop the hunting season on bears until the state does three things:Carries out a population study using empirical evidence, not a population model based on bears killed by trophy huntersStudies the effects of climate change on bears, because we know that increased drought and wildfires are making their lives even more challenging (last year, more than three million acres of wildland ecosystems burned in California)Updates its outdated bear management plan based on the best available scienceCalifornia’s current bear management plan, drafted in 1998, is woefully out of date. We’re asking the state to revisit its plan based on the climate crisis—and to update it with the new science, rather than relying on knowledge from a quarter-century ago. I hope to report back with good news after the Fish and Game Commission considers our petition at their meeting next month.I also hope to share news from Arizona soon, too:On April 1st, that state’s Fish and Game Commission is scheduled to vote on updated hunting guidelines. While the proposed guidelines still allow heavy levels of trophy hunting on bears, mountain lions and bobcats, there are some positive changes. The wildlife agency is proposing a significantly shortened spring bear hunting season and prohibiting the hunting of cubs and mother bears with cubs. Arizonans can call on the commission to end spring bear hunting altogether by submitting comments online right now.We’ve also seen signs of progress across the country, on the East Coast:In Maryland, the Department of Natural Resources solicited public comments on a proposal to expand the annual bear hunting season from five days to more than two weeks—essentially doubling the season’s length. After we asked not to expand the hunt at all, the Maryland Wildlife and Heritage Service proposed—and the Wildlife Advisory Commission approved—a one-day expansion of the hunt. This modest victory came after the HSUS and state residents raised concerns about Maryland’s bear population, citing uncertainty about their numbers and food sources. We will continue to push for a more accurate population count, based on gold-standard methods rather than using the numbers of dead bears to estimate what the living population might look like.Backed by an army of animal advocates and armed with the best possible science, we’ll continue fighting in Maryland—and across the United States—to protect black bears and give them the best chance at survival we can.The post Black bears get a spring reprieve in some states appeared first on A Humane World.Related StoriesWith respect to potential bear conflicts, the responsibility is oursWith respect to potential bear conflicts, the responsibility is ours – EnclosureWhen it comes to fur and foie gras, cruelty should not be a choice
