Scientists Finally Uncover the True Origins of the Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid
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Bobcats are still recovering in Indiana. Now trappers want to kill them.
BY
Kitty Block
SHARE https://www.humanesociety.org/blog/indiana-bobcat-trapping-season
Robert Yone
/
Alamy Stock Photo
It is the sad paradox of wildlife conservation that as soon as a species seems to make progress toward recovery from near extirpation, some people rally to be permitted to hunt and trap them again. This is exactly what’s happening in Indiana right now with the state’s only remaining native wildcat, the bobcat.
Earlier this year, a small but powerful group of recreational fur trappers helped push a bill through the state legislature that forces the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to establish a bobcat-trapping season by July 2025. And last week, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources proposed that trappers be allowed to kill 250 of them using horrific methods including strangling neck snares and steel-jawed leghold traps, even though these small wildcats are only starting to return to their native habitats in Indiana’s woods. But there is hope: concerned residents of the state still have time to prevent even one bobcat from being killed.
The new law mandating a bobcat season allows the Department of Natural Resources flexibility in setting the quota of bobcats that can be legally killed—the agency can even set this number as low as zero.
The Natural Resources Commission will take public comments into account before making its final decision, and they can still decide to set the quota to zero. For that to happen, though, the Commission needs to hear from Indiana residents now. The public comment period for Indiana residents is open and can be accessed by clicking “Submit Comment Here” under Bobcat Amendments at NRC: Rulemaking Docket.
This is not the first time that hunting and trapping groups in Indiana have tried to force the hand of the state to allow the killing of bobcats, but wildlife advocates have always managed to resoundingly defeat these misguided proposals. We celebrated a win in 2018, after a proposal to open a bobcat season was completely withdrawn by the Department due to overwhelming public opposition that we mobilized with strong allies in the state. A bill to open a bobcat season similarly failed in 2019.
Unfortunately, Senate Bill 241 passed in March 2024. Bobcat sightings on trail cameras, were touted as being justification for a bobcat season; misinformation and fearmongering abounded. One proponent claimed that simply seeing a bobcat meant that there were too many, and others stated that bobcats were eating too many turkeys, despite research by the Department of Natural Resources that did not document any consumption of turkeys by bobcats.
Powerful hunting and trapping groups lobbied hard for the bill, but Indiana residents who care about wildlife showed up in force, too. In a particularly inspiring move, students from Bloomington Montessori School traveled to the capitol to visit their state representative, respectfully telling him that they value bobcats and don’t want to see them trapped and killed. These young advocates were able to change his vote. Sadly, though, SB 241 became law despite their efforts.
Students from Bloomington Montessori School traveled to the state capitol building to convince their state representative to change his vote on a bill pushing to open a trapping season for bobcats in Indiana.
Anne Sterling
/
The HSUS
There are many reasons to oppose the bobcat-trapping season. The proposal allows the use of cable neck snares, which are intended to strangle an animal to death by slowly cutting off their air supply, leading to hours or days of suffering. These snares can also catch animals by their torsos or feet, and the cable can become deeply embedded in their skin. Snares hung on a bush or tree can be difficult for people out walking their dogs to spot. This is why snares have come to be referred to as “silent killers” of dogs; unable to cry out for help, dogs may hunker down and pass out before slowly and quietly suffocating to death without their owners being able to rescue them. And snares frequently catch nontarget wildlife such as eagles and deer fawns, as well.
The proposal would also allow the use of steel-jawed leghold traps, contraptions that trappers bury underground and that snap shut when an animal steps on them. Like snares, leghold traps don’t discriminate, jeopardizing wild and domestic animals alike. They can cut through skin causing lacerations, and animals can damage their teeth and gums as they desperately try to free themselves. Trappers are permitted to leave traps unattended for hours; an animal caught in a leghold trap can be left to struggle for up to 24 hours, without access to water, shelter or food, until the trapper arrives to kill them by bludgeoning, strangling suffocation or shooting.
Very few Hoosiers trap (less than 0.06%). Those who do largely “enjoy” the activity as a recreational hobby or to score animal trophies. Only some of that 0.06% sell the fur skinned from trapped animals overseas in the fur markets of Europe, China or Russia. But the fur market is declining in the U.S. and worldwide as consumers demand that retailers stop selling it, and designers all over the world increasingly reject using animal fur in their products.
Hunting, trapping and habitat loss nearly wiped out bobcats in Indiana. In the mid-1900s, the species was listed as endangered under state law, and bobcats retained this status until 2005. The protections from hunting and trapping that come with endangered species status allowed bobcats to slowly begin to recover, making their way back to landscapes that were missing the ecologically essential little carnivores.
Most Hoosiers celebrate the return of Indiana’s only remaining native cat. Shy and elusive, bobcats are essential members of North American ecosystems who contribute to overall biodiversity and ecosystem health. Their diet consists mainly of rodents, rabbits, and squirrels, and they help clean up carcasses, helping to recycle nutrients back into soils. They can even help mitigate zoonotic diseases and chronic wasting disease. Kittens, who are playful and curious, depend on their mothers until they are about a year old. Bobcats even purr! Conflicts with bobcats and people are very rare, but Indiana residents who experience conflicts can legally obtain a permit to kill the bobcat.
In addition to submitting written comments in the coming months, the public can address the Natural Resources Commission and the Department of Natural Resources directly. A public hearing is currently scheduled for November 14, at 5 pm EST at the Southeast-Purdue Agricultural Center in Butlerville (4425 East 350 North). It will also be livestreamed here. It is essential that Indiana animal advocates make their voices heard for bobcats. Trapping is cruel, and the only justifiable number of bobcats trapped and killed in Indiana is zero.
Follow Kitty Block @HSUSKittyBlock.
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Protected eagles targeted in Malta
September 25, 2024 17:53
A flock of 5 short-toed eagles came under fire along the Victoria lines on Tuesday as members of BirdLife Malta followed the prized birds in an attempt to prevent them from being killed.
The organisation said in a statement the shots at these birds were fired as they attempted to find a resting place for the night, with one bird being filmed as it was shot down at Bingemma, while volleys of shots at these birds were fired along Tas-Santi, Dwejra and Mtarfa into the evening.
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Video footage of the Bingemma incident was passed on to police with a hunter identified as being the same person involved in a separate illegal hunting incident during the closed season last August.
Information about a second, separate incident was also shared with police for further investigation.
The following morning, only two eagles were seen flying out of the northern part of the island, while searches undertaken by police are believed to have been futile.
“Despite peak migration, only two EPU units are currently operative around the island, with occasionally a single unit struggling to keep up with reports of illegal hunting by NGOs,” Birdlife said.
BirdLife Malta said such incidents are a direct consequence of the lack of proper governance of hunting whereby thousands of birds listed in taxidermy collections have gone unchecked for years, with recent allowances in transfers rekindling demand for such birds to become taxidermy specimens.
The organisation added that it was holding Minister Clint Camilleri politically responsible for allowing the opening of a hunting season without the necessary police resources and for allowing a system where a hunter who was caught red-handed hunting illegally is, a month later, persisting in more wildlife crime.
It also remarked on the continuing situation with hunting federations taking no responsibility for their members’ actions.
Short-toed Eagles only appear annually in few numbers between September and November, and they are highly prized for taxidermy.
“As was the case yesterday, hunters do not hesitate to use the opportunity of an open hunting season for game birds to target protected species. A 3pm hunting curfew to protect such birds of prey on arrival was changed to 7pm in 2015, effectively allowing hunting to coincide with the arrival of these highly protected species,” Birdlife said.
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Green light to wolf protection status revision, EU countries want more flexibility for trapping and culling
European Commission proposal to downgrade wolves from “strictly protected” to “protected” species approved in COREPER. It is expected to be formally approved tomorrow by the ministers of the 27, and then the EU will request an amendment to the international Bern Convention
<img src="https://www.eunews.it/wp-content/litespeed/avatar/5d23c06eea463262126e6eca4aea1d3b.jpg?ver=1727181155" alt="Simone De La Feld @SimoneDeLaFeld1” height=”80″ width=”80″ srcset=”https://www.eunews.it/wp-content/litespeed/avatar/a615b8d9e3d771c9fd3e856add6b4108.jpg?ver=1727181158 2x”> by Simone De La Feld @SimoneDeLaFeld1
(Photo by THOMAS KIENZLE / AFP)
Brussels – More than “Beware of the wolf,” “Wolf beware!” It is getting closer to revising the predator’s protection status proposed by the European Commission last December from “strictly protected” to “protected” species: member state ambassadors gave their green light today (Sept. 25). Now the confirmation by the ministers of the 27, meeting tomorrow for the EU Competitiveness Council, is a mere formality.
The adjustment of the protection status “will be an important step in addressing the challenges posed by the increasing wolf population while maintaining the goal of achieving a favourable conservation status for the species,” commented Adalbert Jahnz, spokesperson for the European Commission. With the downgrading to “protected species”, the now 20,000 wolves in Europe will move out of the inner circle of large carnivores protected by the Habitats Directive: the brown bear, the wolverine, the golden jackal, and the Eurasian and Iberian lynxes, for which there is a ban on deliberate killing and capture, as well as the deterioration or destruction of their breeding and resting sites in all EU territories.
European sources explain that member states will be given more flexibility to “deal with the most difficult cases of coexistence between wolves and communities in states that need it.” More room for trapping to culling, in any case already allowed by the Habitats Directive itself, allows derogating from obligations on large carnivores when measures to prevent or reduce predation risks are not enough. Reportedly, at COREPER (the body that brings together EU ambassadors), Italy supported the proposal, while only two countries opposed it, and four others chose to abstain. Not enough to block the decision made by a qualified majority. “We are waiting for formal approval by the Council, and then the EU will submit the proposal to the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention in time for the next meeting of the Committee, scheduled for the first week of December,” Jahnz announced.
Amending the international Bern Convention on the conservation of European wildlife and natural habitats, to which the EU and its member states are parties, is the “precondition for any change under EU law.” Only once the treaty has been amended can the European Commission amend the regime under the Habitats Directive.
The Convention is based on scientific data available at the time of the treaty negotiations in 1979. While the European Commission’s proposal is based on “requests that have been made to us by local and national authorities,” Jahnz pointed out, “as something necessary and useful to address the challenges posed by wolves. In September 2023, Ursula von der Leyen had invited the scientific community, local authorities, and all stakeholders to submit updated data on wolf populations and their impacts. On the basis of that “in-depth examination of the changing reality analysis,” Brussels proposed the downlisting of the species a few months later—in line with what the European Parliament called for as early as November 2022.
“A step forward that fills us with satisfaction. It is unacceptable that it has taken years to recognize a reality before everyone’s eyes,” commented the head of the Lega’s delegation in Brussels, Paolo Borchia. Fratelli d’Italia MEP Pietro Fiocchi reiterated the concept: “We are on the right track, and today’s result rewards the battles over downgrading that we have been conducting for a long time alongside Italian farmers.” The same Fiocchi who posed with a shotgun in posters for June’s European elections and former executive of the family company that produces ammunition.
Almost as playing defence, the European Commission spokesman pointed out that “the solution to all the problems posed by wolves also and above all lies in investment in appropriate damage prevention measures.” But according to WWF, the EU has taken “a grave decision that dangerously opens the door to wolf culls in Europe and ignores the call of more than 300 civil society organizations and hundreds of thousands of people who have urged governments to follow the recommendations of science and intensify efforts to foster coexistence with large carnivores through preventive measures.”English version by the Translation Service of Withub
Efforts to control bird flu are not working: Are humans next?
Poachers target short-toed eagles
By
–
September 25, 2024 4:58 PM
A flock of 5 short-toed eagles came under fire along the Victoria lines on Tuesday, as members of BirdLife Malta chased the birds in an attempt to prevent them being killed.
Shots at these birds were fired as they attempted to find a resting place for the night with one bird being filmed as it was shot down at Bingemma, while volleys of shots at these birds were fired along Tas-Santi, Dwejra and Mtarfa into the evening.
The bird conservation group said video footage of the Bingemma incident were passed on to police with a hunter identified as being the same person involved in a separate illegal hunting incident during closed season last August.
Information pertaining to a second separate incident was also shared with police for further investigations.
Earlier this morning only two eagles were seen flying out of the northern part of the island, while searches undertaken by police are believed to so far have proven futile.
Despite peak migration, only two Environmental Protection Units within the Police Force are currently operative around the island, with occasionally a single unit struggling to keep up with reports of illegal hunting made by NGOs.
In a statement on Wednesday, BirdLife Malta said such incidents were a direct consequence of the lack of proper governance of hunting whereby thousands of birds listed in taxidermy collections have gone unchecked for years, with recent allowances in transfers rekindling a demand for such birds to become taxidermy specimens.
It also said it held Minister Clint Camilleri, an avid hunter himself, politically responsible for allowing the opening of a hunting season without the necessary police resources, and for allowing a system where a hunter who was caught red-handed hunting illegally, is a month after, persisting in more wildlife crime decimating highly protected species. It also remarked on the continuing situation with hunting federations taking no responsibility for such acts by their members.
Short-toed Eagles only appear annually in few numbers between September and November, and they are highly prized on taxidermy lists by hunters.
A 3pm hunting curfew to protect such birds of prey on arrival had been changed to 7pm in 2015, effectively allowing hunting to coincide with the arrival of these highly protected species.
Exposing the Big Game 
![https://www.eunews.it/wp-content/litespeed/avatar/5d23c06eea463262126e6eca4aea1d3b.jpg?ver=1727181155"](https://www.eunews.it/wp-content/litespeed/avatar/5d23c06eea463262126e6eca4aea1d3b.jpg?ver=1727181155"){kind=link}
