Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate presidential election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan.
The lawsuit asserts that “unlawful election results” in those four states, which President-elect Joe Biden won, should be declared unconstitutional.
The filing argues that those states used the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to unlawfully change their election rules.
Experts in election law were quick to dismiss the likelihood of the nine Supreme Court justices taking the case.
US President Donald Trump waves upon arrival, alongside Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton (L) in Dallas, Texas, on June 11, 2020, where he will host a roundtable with faith leaders and small business owners.Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images
TORONTO — Brampton firefighters and members of the Toronto Wildlife Centre crawled and chipped their way across a frozen pond on Monday in an effort to save a swan in distress.
Local animal activists said they feared the bird may be suffering from lead poisoning.
“This pond is on the site of a former gun shooting range, it’s full of lead,” said Dr. Maureen Harper, a retired veterinarian. She spotted the swan looking gaunt and weak on Friday.
“This is like deja vu for me. We lost a swan here in 2018 due to what we believe was lead toxicity. I’m completely exasperated to think we’re going through the same scenario again.”
Following the death of the bird two years ago, the Ministry Of Environment…
REMINDER ~ December 8 @ 1:00 pm PT ~Dr. Michelle Lute, Project Coyote National Carnivore Conservation Manager, presents:(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Coexisting What does it mean to coexist with wildlife? How do we define coexistence and measure it in the real world? Do professionals agree on how, where and when we’re coexisting with some of the most controversial carnivores? What role do animal welfare and rights considerations play in conservation and coexistence? Lastly, what are people doing to implement best coexistence practices on the ground? In this free webinar, wildlife advocate and Project Coyote National Carnivore Conservation Manager Dr. Michelle Lute explores these questions and offers preliminary answers from academic and practical perspectives, rooting discussion in case studies and real-world examples.REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED ~ PLEASE CLICK HERE TO REGISTERDr. Lute is a conservation scientist and advocate with fifteen years’ experience in biodiversity conservation on public and private lands around the globe. She dedicates her professional life to promoting human-wildlife coexistence through effective public engagement, equitable participatory processes, and evidence-based decision-making. Across her career in academic, government, and non-profit sectors, the common thread throughout Michelle’s work is developing solutions to challenging human-wildlife issues. As is often the case, so-called human-wildlife conflicts are more about disagreements between humans and thus solutions require an interdisciplinary approach.Read Michelle’s recent op-eds here:Tell Missouri Department of Conservation not to allow trophy hunting of black bears In the age of extinction, we need wolves Following her talk, Michelle will take questions (via Chat) from attendees. The webinar is expected to last approximately one hour. (The webinar will be recorded and the video will be available on our website soon after the live event.)Details:Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2020Time: 1:00 PM PT / 2:00 PM MT / 4:00 PM ET Registration is required ~ please click here to register.
Evolution may be more intelligent than we thought, according to a University of Southampton professor.
Professor Richard Watson says new research shows that evolution is able to learn fromprevious experience, which could provide a better explanation of how evolution bynatural selectionproduces such apparently intelligent designs.
By unifying the theory of evolution (which shows how random variation and selection is sufficient to provide incremental adaptation) with learning theories (which show how incremental adaptation is sufficient for a system to exhibit intelligent behaviour), this research shows that it is possible for evolution to exhibit some of the same intelligent behaviours as learning systems (including neural networks).
In an opinion paper, published inTrends in Ecology and Evolution, Professors Watson and Eörs Szathmáry, from the Parmenides Foundation in Munich, explain how formal analogies can be used to transfer specific models and…
By: Jessica Bridgers | Reading time: 4 minutesAdvocates are asking the United Nations to consider the role of animals in their COVID-19 recovery policies. They fear the return to ‘business as usual’ could lead to another deadly pandemic. Almost as soon as it became clear that our societies and economic systems would not continue as normal through the COVID-19 pandemic, calls to “Build back better” and even to “Build forward” began to grow louder and more urgent across the world.
COVID-19 is yet another in a series of diseases that have emerged from humans’ interactions with animals and has been preceded by HIV, Ebola, swine flu, and avian influenza, to name a few.
But even as the policies to achieve this “build back” are being proposed, debated, and implemented, the root causes of the pandemic lack full recognition, muting the ability of these policies to prevent history from repeating itself, perhaps with an even more deadly pandemic, in the future.
Now that we are close to the approval of a vaccine, it appears that the circulation of COVID-19 in mink on European fur farms has contributed to the emergence of new variants of the virus. Some worry that these variants will reduce the effectiveness of the vaccines currently in development, underscoring how our intransigence in addressing our relationship with animals continues to put us at risk.
“Today we stand at a crossroads,” writes Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE in the foreword of The Animals’ Manifesto, a new joint-manifesto from 150 animal and environmental protection agencies calling for the inclusion of animal welfare in COVID-19 recovery policies.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is still affecting almost all countries of the world,” writes Goodall. “How shocking to realize that we brought this on ourselves.Through our disrespect of the natural world, and our disrespect of animals.”THE ANIMALS’ MANIFESTO
In The Animals’ Manifesto, over 150 organizations across the globe are calling on world leaders, international institutions, political parties, and stakeholders to assess the direction of current COVID-19 response efforts, realign these with the glaring need for transformative change, and finally address humanity’s exploitation of animals. Specifically, the organizations are calling for:Steps to incorporate One Health and One Welfare into policies. One Health recognizes the linkages between human, animal, and environmental health, while One Welfare extends this concept to other aspects of wellbeing, such as food security, livelihoods, and humane treatment. Incorporating a One Welfare approach is key to ensuring an equitable, sustainable, and humane future. Concrete politics and actions that transform farming systems, change food consumption habits, end the unnecessary exploitation of wildlife, increase vaccine development efficiencies, and ensure the wellbeing of animals in communities—such as companion animals and working equines. Visionary, prudent, and necessarily bold leadership by global institutions at the center of the COVID-19 response, including the UN General Assembly, the UN Environmental Programme, the UN Development Programme, and international financial institutions. To read the full manifesto, click here. While COVID-19 should have been a clarion call to fully address our broken relationship with animals and chart a new course forward, many global institutions are still sidestepping the issue.
Last week, the UN General Assembly hosted a Special Session on COVID-19. The Concept Note and Program circulated in a letter by the President of the General Assembly (PGA) stated that the two-day event will allow stakeholders to reflect on COVID-19 response thus far and “forge a united, coordinated, and people-centered path forward,” yet the word “animal” did not appear even once in the PGA’s letter.
In other policy frameworks, rather than work towards a socially just end to the commercial trade of wildlife, policymakers are calling simply to make the wildlife trade “safe.” And international financial institutions like the International Finance Corporation are continuing to funnel millions of dollars into intensive pig farms in countries like China, where the CDC is already monitoring a new group of swine flu viruses that have “pandemic potential.”
“Will we continue with ‘business as usual’ or, shall we choose to get together and develop a new relationship with the natural world?”
In the United States, the mink industry had its worst year on record. The number of mink bred and killed for their fur in China, Finland and Canada has also declined in recent years.Photo by iStock.com
The year 2020 has seen phenomenal progress in our work to end the use of fur. Nations moved to announce an end to fur production and/or sales, citing the “immoral” nature of this trade that results in the suffering and death of millions of animals each year for nothing more than a coat or trim on a purse. More retailers moved to end fur sales this year as well, building upon our successes on this front in previous years.
The coronavirus pandemic added more urgency to ending the trade, after mink in 10 nations tested positive for the virus. The Netherlands and Denmark even recorded transmissions of the virus…
Understanding demography of recovering populations can improve conservation efforts.•
We monitored a recovering tiger population for 13years and estimated demographic parameters.•
Density, female survival and tenure increased in disturbance-free zone.•
Density increased, but survival and female tenure lower in a zone with pastoralist presence.•
Inviolate, prey-rich areas with connectivity to source populations are critical for natural recoveries.
Abstract
Efforts are on to recover tiger populations range-wide, but we lack suitable metrics to characterise and evaluate such recoveries. Identifying such metrics requires an understanding of tiger population dynamics and its ecological correlates in either recovering populations or those exposed to anthropogenic influences. We monitored a recovering tiger population from 2004 to 2017 in Rajaji National Park, India…
To predict future wildfires, researchers are building models that better account for the vegetation that fans the flames.
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Excerpts :“But now, as the subarctic undergoes rapid warming, some hotter, drier forests are burning much more often, killing immature spruce trees before they have time to set cones. The problem is not limited to the far North. Around the world, wildfires are growing more frequent—as well as larger, hotter, and more destructive (2).
“Researchers can no longer look to the past as an accurate predictor of the future. Forests adapted to rare fires may not persist through frequent ones.””To bring models closer to reality, Hansen says, they should simulate the grasses and shrubs that establish when forests don’t recover. Field studies show that fire aids some invasive grasses…
The farm operators and affected staff are self-isolatingAuthor of the article:Scott BrownPublishing date:Dec 07, 2020 • Last Updated 1 hour ago • 2 minute read
FILE PHOTO — A COVID-19 outbreak has been declared at a Fraser Valley mink farm. PHOTO BY RIC ERNST /Vancouver Sun
An outbreak has been declared at a Fraser Valley mink farm after eight people at the site tested positive for COVID-19.
Fraser Health says a team is now screening all farm employees and conducting contact tracing, while the farm operators and affected staff are self-isolating.
COVID-19: Outbreak declared at Fraser Valley mink farm
“The mink farm has been ordered to restrict the transport of animals, products and goods from the farm,” Fraser Health said in a news release. “Animal welfare is being supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and testing of animals is underway. Enhanced measures are in place to ensure safety of animals and farm owners.”
Minks have been discovered to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 virus, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Last month, the government in Denmark, the world’s largest producer of mink pelts, ordered a massive cull of the country’s 17 million minks, which are farmed for their pelts, to head off infection carrying over to the human population.
To date, no infections have been reported in mink here in B.C., but outbreaks have killed thousands of the animals across the border at farms in Utah, Wisconsin, Michigan and Oregon.
There are 14 mink farms in the Fraser Valley. Fraser Health did not identify which farm had the outbreak.
A Fraser Health spokesperson told Postmedia that it is not known if any of the farm’s animals had been tested for the virus.
Earlier this fall, government officials inspected every mink farm in B.C. to ensure that all measures were being taken to make certain that the virus that causes COVID-19 does not pass between animals and humans.
“Ministry of Agriculture staff have been in contact with the province’s licensed mink farms within the last several months to ensure that all necessary precautions are being taken to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 through human to animal or animal to human transmission,” the ministry said.
The ministry said the farms had been advised to increase sanitation and enhance “biosecurity measures.”
Lesley Fox, the executive director for the Fur-Bearers, a charity group established to eradicate the commercial fur industry, said the Fraser Valley outbreak shows that the government’s safety measures weren’t good enough.
“The ministry knew this was a problem — they knew mink are highly susceptible to this virus and despite whatever efforts they made … it was a failure. They can’t contain it,” said Fox, who noted that her group had called on the ministry to conduct testing of both the mink and farm workers.
Fox said if animals on the farm are also infected, the potential for spread is huge.
“Those animals are kept in outdoor sheds and mink escape from farms all the time,” she said.
The Fur-Bearers launched a petition last week calling on the federal government to carry out testing on mink farms, develop a plan to quarantine and sanitize infected farms, and create a program to help mink farmers in transition away from the fur industry.
![LANGLEY, BC: OCTOBER 24, 2013 -- Joseph Williams of Williams Fur Farm in Langley B.C. displays a mink Thursday October 24, 2013. He and his two brothers have operated the farm for the past three years and raise several thousand each year. (Ric Ernst / PNG) (Story by Larry Pynn) TRAX #: 00024804A [PNG Merlin Archive]](https://smartcdn.prod.postmedia.digital/vancouversun/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sun1024n-mink-0054.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=288)
