PHILADELPHIA (AP) — If Warren Gamaliel Harding Brown could see the hunting camp his grandson has crafted in the Poconos, he’d admire the large, stone fireplace, the taxidermied deer head, and the turkey feathers on display beside some spent shotgun shells. Jonathan Wright named the the place “Pocono Browns” and doesn’t promote it as a Black-owned hunting camp, but it’s fair to say there aren’t many in the Northeast. Most hunters who rent his place are white, he said, but Black hunters, particularly newer ones, have sought him out. Jonathan Wright says he wants “people of all backgrounds” but is interested in getting get more Black hunters, particularly young kids and their dads. “It’s a form of wellness, and peace,” he said.
By Shreya | Updated: Saturday, December 19, 2020, 12:43 [IST] Jaipur, Dec 05: The Forest department of the Rajasthan government on Saturday sounded a ”Red Alert” at all reserves, sanctuaries and parks in the state as incidents of hunting, poaching and animal traps have come to the fore. The order comes against the backdrop of a camera trap footage showing a Ranthambore tiger, T-108, with a wire snare around its neck. Representational Image Under the ‘Red Alert’, all forest officials have been directed to intensify search operations and seek local police assistance to nab hunters and criminals. International Tiger Day 2020: India has 70 per cent of global tiger population The department has cancelled leaves of all field officers, and directions have been issued for effective patrolling against illegal activities in protected areas. The order said reports had earlier been received from Ranthambore Tiger Reserve about animals such as cows and buffaloes getting caught in traps laid by hunters. “Recently, five hunters were arrested in Mount Abu for hunting a sambar deer, looking to which red alert is announced till February 2021,” it stated. The sub-adult Ranthambore tiger T-108 was spotted twice on camera traps – 12.50 am on Thursday and 6 am on Saturday – with a wire around his neck which looks like a trap. The department sought a permission to tranquillise the big cat from the NTCA on Friday. The tiger was tranquillised at 11 am on Saturday, and released in the wild at 11.45 am after removing the wire, officials said.
A Sharon Grove man charged in connection to a Hopkinsville man’s death during a fall hunting accident was arrested Sunday afternoon.The Christian County Grand Jury indicted Julian Newton Jr. Friday on charges of second-degree manslaughter, first-degree wanton endangerment, taking wildlife from a vehicle, and illegal taking of a deer.
The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife investigated the incident that occurred on McKinney Road on October 18. Officials said Newton had thought Charles Newton and his wife had already left the area when he shot what he thought was a deer. They add he was using a muzzleloader and hunting from his vehicle in a field.
Charles Newton was pronounced dead at the scene by the Christian County Coroner’s Office.
No additional information on Julian Newton’s arrest has been released.
A Jefferson County grand jury has upgraded charges against a Mobile man in the shooting death of an 11-year-old boy during a turkey hunt.
Joshua Stewart Burks, 36, was initially charged with reckless manslaughter in the death of Troy Ellis.
The grand jury, which heard the case on Dec. 10, upped the charge to capital murder of a person under the age of 14. Burks was booked back into the Jefferson County Jail at 3:18 p.m. Friday and was released at 5:30 p.m. after posting $60,000 bond. He was previously out on $15,000 bond.
Obed Ellis, Troy’s father and a football coach at Mortimer Jordan High School, was also injured in the shooting. Troy was a fifth grader at Cahaba Elementary School in Trussville when he was…
(CNN)The United Kingdom has identified a new, potentially more contagious coronavirus variant linked to a recent surge in cases in England.The new variant is being called VUI-202012/01 — the first “Variant Under Investigation” in the UK in December 2020. While scientists hunt for more information about the variant, its impact is already being felt.Multiple countries have now imposed restrictions on travelers from the UK. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Sunday that the variant was “out of control” and Prime Minister Boris Johnson was due to chair an emergency meeting Monday as his government tried to manage the fallout.Here’s what you need to know.Content by Voltaren Arthritis Pain GelChasing the Joy of MovementThis is how world champion cyclist Kristin Armstrong manages her osteoarthritis in a life of constant movement.
What is a variant and why are officials concerned about this one?
A variant occurs when the genetic structure of a virus changes, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All viruses mutate over time and new variants are common, including for the novel coronavirus.As with other new variants or strains of Covid-19, this one carries a genetic fingerprint that makes it easy to track, and it happens to be one that is now common. That alone does not necessarily mean the mutation has made it spread more easily, nor does it not necessarily mean this variation is more dangerous.However, the UK government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group said it had “moderate confidence” that this new variant “demonstrates a substantial increase in transmissibility compared to other variants.”Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said this particular variant “contains 23 different changes,” which he described an unusually large number. Whitty said the variant was responsible for 60% of new infections in London, which have nearly doubled in the last week alone.That finding has immediate implications for virus control. More cases could place an even greater strain on hospitals and health care staff just as they enter an already particularly difficult winter period, and ultimately lead to more deaths.
Where did the variant originate and how has it taken hold?
The new variant of Covid-19 originated in southeast England, according to the World Health Organization.PHE have said that backwards tracing, using genetic evidence, suggests the variant first emerged in England in September. It then circulated in very low levels until mid-November.”The increase in cases linked to the new variant first came to light in late November when PHE was investigating why infection rates in Kent [in southeast England] were not falling despite national restrictions. We then discovered a cluster linked to this variant spreading rapidly into London and Essex,” PHE said.Multiple experts have also suggested that this new variant could have been amplified because of a superspreader event, meaning the current spike in cases could also have been caused by human behavior.”A higher genomic growth rate in the samples sequenced, may not necessarily mean higher transmissibility, e.g. if there was a rave of several thousand people where this variant was introduced and infected many people mostly in that rave, this may seem very high compared to a lower background of non-variant virus,” Julian Tang, clinical virologist at the University of Leicester, told the Science Media Centre.
Which countries are affected?
The variant has already spread globally. As well as the UK, the variant has also been detected in Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Australia, according to the WHO.Australia has identified two cases of the variant in a quarantined area in Sydney and Italy has also identified one patient infected with the variant.A similar but separate variant has also been identified in South Africa, where scientists say it is spreading quickly along coastal areas of the country.
Is the new variant more deadly?
There is no evidence to suggest that the new variant is more deadly as of now, according to Whitty, who said that “urgent work” was underway on Saturday examining the implications for mortality.”We are not seeing any increased virulence (clinical severity) or any gross changes in the [spike protein] that will reduce vaccine effectiveness — so far,” Tang told the Science Media Centre (SMC.)Multiple experts have pointed out that for some viruses increasing transmissability can accompany decreasing virulence and mortality rates. This may mean that the variant is less lethal, though it’s currently too early to tell.”New viruses will adapt to a new host over time — with decreasing mortality, and possibly increasing transmissibility,” Tang said.”As viruses are transmitted, those that allow for increased virological ‘success’ can be selected for, which changes the properties of the virus over time. This typically leads to more transmission and less virulence,” Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said to the SMC.
Will the developed vaccines work against this variant?
Whitty said Saturday that current vaccines should still work against the new variant.His remarks were echoed in the US by the head of Operation Warp Speed. “Up to now, I don’t think there has been a single variant that would be resistant to the vaccine,” Moncef Slaoui told CNN on Sunday. “We can’t exclude it, but it’s not there now.”The UK, the US and the EU have authorized the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine and several others are in development.
What measures are being taken to contain the variant?
England’s chief medical officer has urged people in Britain to take steps to reduce the virus’ spread.”Given this latest development it is now more vital than ever that the public continue to take action in their area to reduce transmission,” Whitty said on Saturday.Large swathes of England, including London and the southeast, are now under strict Tier 4 Covid-19 restrictions, which is only the latest disruption to a Christmas holiday shadowed by the pandemic.Dozens of countries across Europe, the Middle East and the Americas have also announced travel bans for the UK.Others, such as Greece and Spain, have imposed restrictions that require travelers arriving from Britain to undergo coronavirus tests or quarantine.America’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN on Monday that he would advise against additional restrictions on UK travel. The US must “without a doubt keep an eye on it,” Fauci said, but “we don’t want to overreact.”The US has maintained a ban on travel from the UK, Ireland, and Europe’s Schengen zone as well as number of other countries since March.
Astronomers have encountered a mystery surprisingly close to Earth. The Guardian and Scientific American have learned that Breakthrough Listen astronomers using the Parkes telescope in Australia discovered a strange radio signal coming from Proxima Centauri, the star system closest to the Sun. The signal occupies an oddly narrow 982MHz band that’s unused by human-made spacecraft, yet not possible through known natural processes. The frequency shifts up, too, rather than down like you’d expect for a planet.
Don’t count on this as a sign of aliens. Although Proxima Centauri does host a potentially habitable planet, the signal hasn’t been detected since its initial observation between April and May 2019. Breakthrough Listen said it was still “carefully investigating” and that unusual signals are typically interference researchers couldn’t “fully explain.” As it is, it’s highly unlikely that a radio-capable civilization could live virtually next door without detection — Earth would have been bathed in radio signals from a planet ‘just’ 4.2 light-years away.
The most likely explanations so far are either a previously unknown source of Earth-based interference or a newly discovered natural phenomenon.
It’s still notable. Signal analysis lead Sofia Sheikh said Breakthrough Listen hadn’t seen a signal pass through “this many of [its] filters” used to catch interference and natural explanations. It’s comparable to the “Wow!” signal from 1977, she said — it’s at least attention-getting. Even though the cause is likely something other than extraterrestrial life, the eventual answer could be very useful.
Passengers wearing face masks wait next to the Eurostar Terminal at Gare du Nord train station in Paris on Monday. France is banning all travel from the U.K. for 48 hours in an attempt to make sure that a new strain of the coronavirus in Britain doesn’t reach its shores.Lewis Joly/AP
Updated 2:30 p.m. ET
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Monday attempted to reassure skittish European neighbors that his government had the threat of a new strain of the coronavirus under control.
In a press conference at No. 10 Downing St., Johnson also said he was in talks with France, one of several nations which have banned entry from the U.K. since the weekend, causing chaos for travelers and cargo shipments.
Johnson said he and the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, had “a very good call” earlier in the day…
In early 2020, ornithologist Noah Strycker found himself walking amongst several thousand chinstrappenguinson Elephant Island, a remote blip of snow-covered rock just off the Antarctic Peninsula. He was there to carry out a census of the island’s penguin colony, which hadn’t been properly surveyed since 1970. “I’ll never forget the sight, sound, and…smell,” joked Strycker, a graduate student at Stony Brook University in New York, as well as a professional bird watcher, and author.
The survey that he and his colleagues eventually produced revealed that chinstrap penguin numbers are in decline. But despite this, this species actually forms the biggest colony of penguins on Earth – gathering in the millions…
Dec. 16, 2020: Despite mass resident protests, the Island Walk community’s Board of Directors plans to KILL THE MUSCOVY DUCKS, as they voted to do last week. These peaceful ducks are beloved by the community and they harm no one.
PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION ASAP SO THAT TOGETHER WE CAN SAVE THE REMAINING MUSCOVY DUCKS LIVING WITHIN OUR BEAUTIFUL NATURE-LOVING COMMUNITY OF ISLAND WALK, FLORIDA.
Wildebeests have large herd sizes, but they’re not the largest animal group ever recorded.(Image: © James Warwick)
