PETA India’s request to Kerala on Tuesday comes within two months of the group installing a warning billboard in Delhi about the meat industry’s link to the spread of bird flu
IANS | Thiruvananthapuram | September 22, 2021 10:40 am
Photo: IANS
The death of a 12-year-old child in Kerala from the Nipah virus has prompted People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India to urge Kerala’s minister for animal husbandry and dairy development, J. Chinchrani, to close down pig farms in the state to prevent further spread of the infection and a potential epidemic.
PETA India’s request to Kerala on Tuesday comes within two months of the group installing a warning billboard in Delhi about the meat industry’s link to the spread of bird flu. In Delhi, an 11-year-old boy had succumbed to complications from H5N1 bird flu, an infection with a 60 percent mortality rate, in July.
“The crowded animal farms of the meat industry create hotspots for zoonotic diseases. These killer facilities need to be shut down immediately and permanently before they cost more lives,” said PETA India Vegan Foods and Nutrition Specialist Dr. Kiran Ahuja.
As the strongest gravitational force next to the sun, this isn’t that uncommon. But it serves to remind us that, while the Earth isn’t moving in a shooting gallery of apocalyptic asteroids, asteroid detection technology must continue to expand, lest one day we awake to learn it’s the last any of us will ever live before an extinction-level impact.
Jupiter gets punched in the face a lot
On September 13, 2021, at roughly 6:39 PM EDT, amateur astronomers monitored and recorded a colossally bright flash of what seemed to be an impact on Jupiter. Harald Paleske of Germany was recording the shadow of Jupiter’s moon, Io, as it passed in front of the planet. But other astronomers involved included José Luis of Brazil, Michel Jacquesson and Jean-Paul Arnould in France, Simone Gelelli of Italy, and Didier Walliang and Alexis Desmougin of the Société Lorraine d’Astronomie, also on France. Many also filmed the event, and suspect an impact on Jupiter.
While still unconfirmed, the putative event would mark only the eighth impact witnessed on Jupiter since the initial impact of Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994, which disintegrated into separate parts as Jupiter’s immense tidal forces ripped it open, transforming the singular asteroid into a rapid-fire event of glorious mayhem. Sadly, no one on Earth was able to see the explosions, since the impacts happened on Jupiter’s far side. But a 7.2-ft (2.2-m) Hawaii-based telescope photographed the heat signatures of each impact site as they swiveled into view. The Hubble Space Telescope also snapped grim pictures of the dark, bruise-colored smears strewn beneath the clouds, aptly named “scars.”
NASA is upgrading Earth’s planetary defense against NEOs
As of writing, scientists are unsure how often Jupiter is impacted by something so massive or high-velocity that it generates an impact flash we can see from Earth, but the consensus is it’s fairly often; between 20 and 60 times every year. If the Earth experienced significant impacts with the same frequency, its surface might look very different, and so would whatever survived. But luckily, Jupiter’s unconscionably strong gravitational field is gigantic, and accelerates incoming meteorites to unkind speeds, multiplying the kinetic energy of the incoming bodies by several orders of magnitude, which is proportional to the level of energy released upon impact (think of how baseballs hurt more if they slam into you with greater speed).
But Jupiter doesn’t take every cosmic hit headed Earth’s way. Some scientists suspect we’re overdue for another asteroid impact of a similar scale to the one that spelled doom for the dinosaurs. These happen once every 50 to 60 million years. Lucky for us, NASA gave the green light for a new space telescope, called the Near-Earth Object Surveyor (NEO Surveyor), in June. And it’s designed to upgrade Earth’s planetary defense network by detecting cosmic bodies with potentially dangerous orbital trajectories. “[W]e think there are about 25,000 NEOs large enough to wipe out an area like Southern California,” said NEO Survey Project Leader Amy Mainzer in a statement from the University of Arizona. “Once they get bigger than about 450 feet in diameter, they can cause severe regional damage. We want to find these, and as many smaller ones as possible.” This could take a few years to launch, and we have other means of detecting NEOs. But whenever a monumental impact flashes from the cloud tops of Jupiter, remember: That might have been us.
Default Mono Sans Mono Serif Sans Serif Comic Fancy Small CapsDefault X-Small Small Medium Large X-Large XX-LargeDefault Outline Dark Outline Light Outline Dark Bold Outline Light Bold Shadow Dark Shadow Light Shadow Dark Bold Shadow Light BoldDefault Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%Default Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%By Amber RuchPublished: Sep. 21, 2021 at 1:00 PM PDT|Updated: 20 hours ago
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Mo. (KFVS) – A young hunter is accused of killing a man with an arrow during an attempted theft.
According to Jefferson County Sheriff Dave Marshak in a news release, deputies were dispatched to a property in the 100 block of Valley Springs Road around 4:12 p.m. on Friday, September 17 for a report of an assault with a deadly weapon.
When they arrived, they found the body of 40-year-old Michael J. Stotts, of Dittmer. He was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS personnel.
According to statements given at the scene by the family’s attorney, a juvenile was walking to a tree stand on the property to deer hunt. He was carrying a bow and arrows.
Default Mono Sans Mono Serif Sans Serif Comic Fancy Small CapsDefault X-Small Small Medium Large X-Large XX-LargeDefault Outline Dark Outline Light Outline Dark Bold Outline Light Bold Shadow Dark Shadow Light Shadow Dark Bold Shadow Light BoldDefault Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%Default Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%By Amber RuchPublished: Sep. 21, 2021 at 12:19 PM PDT|Updated: 20 hours ago
VAN BUREN, Mo. (KFVS) – Sixteen people were cited for illegal squirrel hunting in and around the Current River Conservation Area.
According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, out-of-state hunters harvested 471 squirrels over a two-day period.
Missouri regulations only allow each hunter to kill 20 squirrels in 48 hours.
Agents say the group harvested 151 squirrels over the limit.ADVERTISEMENThttps://574fd7877dd800c28bb3d884c95343a6.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
They said they learned about the incident after a tip from a concern
New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades.
Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some consequence of the fires.
Primates were the most affected, as they depend on trees for movement, food and shelter. Rare and endemic species with restricted habitats suffered the strongest impacts.
The study assessed two decades of fires between 2001 and 2019 and confirmed the impact of environmental policies on deforestation cycles in the Amazon; law enforcement was concluded to have direct impact on the extent and volume of fires.
Since 2019, deforestation and fires have caused the Brazilian Amazon to lose about 10,000 square kilometers of forest cover per year – a high and alarming increase…
Wolves in Idaho and Montana have been subjected to increasingly aggressive killing since they lost their federal protections in 2011. Alamy Stock Photo424SHARES
This promising progress gives us some hope that much-needed protections are on their way for these imperiled animals. The FWS will now begin a formal review process—collecting scientific and other information about the threats these wolves face—to determine whether to extend endangered species protections to wolves in western states. The no-holds-barred wolf slaughter sanctioned by Idaho and Montana make clear that this federal protection is essential to gray wolves’ survival in the region.
Recent changes in Montana’s laws mean that about 85% of the state’s wolves are now in danger of being killed. New laws there allow the use of strangulation snares and the use of bait to hunt and trap wolves, as well as permitting night hunting. Another law brings back what is essentially a wolf bounty system that incentivizes hunters to kill wolves by reimbursing them for their costs. And while the state previously set strict quotas in areas bordering Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park to limit the killing of the wolves who live in and around these iconic natural landmarks, these quotas have now been eliminated. In short, Idaho and Montana have now joined Wyoming in allowing what amounts to unlimited and unregulated killing of wolves.
While the FWS’s determination that these destructive new laws may require federal intervention is an important step, it’s not fast enough. Wolves in Idaho and Montana are under attack right now. Idaho’s new law took effect on July 1, and Montana’s general wolf hunting season began on September 15. Wolves simply cannot afford to suffer through months of wanton slaughter while the FWS completes its review. That’s why our petition asked the agency to immediately restore endangered species protections to wolves in the region on an emergency basis.
Disappointingly, the FWS hasn’t yet heeded these calls. But we won’t give up in our fight for these iconic animals. We’ll continue to push the agency to immediately protect these wolves before it’s too late.
The skyline of Boston is still in view when Colin Greeley catches his first glimpse of water rising off the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean. A family of whales is about to breach the surface to take a breath before diving back into the sea.
Greeley is leading a whale-watching expedition for City Cruises into Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, a feeding ground famous for its sightings of whales and dolphins from up and down the East Coast.
On this day, Greeley was hoping to spot the elusive and endangered North Atlantic right whale.
“We get to see thousands of people every summer, so we have a chance to educate people about why it’s important to protect as many species as possible,”…
Scientists say they’re seeing “unprecedented numbers” of seabirds dying for this time of year as they work to investigate the cause.
The issue was initially discovered in Scotland, but now dead birds have been spotted at Bempton on the East Yorkshire coast near Bridlington.
The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), which is investigating the cause of the deaths, said the majority of the birds were guillemots.
While the cause has not been confirmed, some scientists say it could be related to a lack of food, as the many of the dead birds are half their usual weight.
Guillemots
Dr. Francis Daunt, seabird ecologist at CEH said: “We are seeing unprecedented numbers of guillemots dying for the time of year, over a huge area of the Eastern UK coast from Norfolk to Orkney.
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This story was originally published byHuffpostand is reproduced here as part of theClimate Deskcollaboration.
New laws liberalizingthe hunting and trapping of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies might warrant putting the animals back under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this past Wednesday.
Backed by the ranching industry, which views wolves as a growing liability in states with extensive cattle and sheep grazing, bothIdaho and Montana enacted laws earlier this yearmaking it easier to hunt and trap wolves, legalizing tactics previously reserved for far…
Jupiter, with the shadow of its moon, Io.
