Nevada Allows Moose Hunting
Reply
Louisiana Man, Paralyzed In Hunting Accident, Walks Again After 2 Surgeries In Florida
He still goes hunting, too.
“As a matter of fact, I killed a deer two years ago,” he said. “My son-in-law took me hunting. I’ve still got my eye for shooting.”
Kristi Noem’s story of murdering her dog keeps getting worse
Kristi Noem’s story of murdering her dog keeps getting worse
by Mark Sumner for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Monday, April 29, 2024 at 11:00:14a PDT
501 NEWRecommend Story757Share
Kristi Noem has done plenty of terrible things as governor of South Dakota. That includes disregarding COVID-19 safety rules and being among the first to treat the whole pandemic as a political opportunity. No pencil-pushing scientist was going to tell her what to do, even if that meant citizens in South Dakota had to be airlifted out of state for treatment due to overcrowding.
She’s banned from visiting 10% of the land in her own state because of her continuous disrespect for Native Americans. She insists on staging fireworks displays in the middle of a drought. And she’s currently being sued after doing a commercial for a cosmetic dentist in Texas to pay for her new set of teeth.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.637.1_en.html#goog_488818987
Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The Trump trial continues
to make news
With all that, Noem had still barely made a dent in the national news until she told a grisly story of how she shot a family dog and tossed its body in a gravel pit when it failed to perform to her satisfaction. But just because she’s been revealed as an empathy-deprived monster, don’t assume that she’s not at the top of Donald Trump’s shortlist for vice president.
In 2008, I bundled our 17-year-old golden retriever named Tigger into my arms and took her to the vet. Tigger’s parents had been national champions with more initials after their names than a Harvard professor, but she had been born deaf, making her poorly suited for the whistles and voice commands of retriever trials and agility training. Instead, she came home with us, a tiny yellow fuzzball, to be my son’s dog through every level of school, steal slices of pizza from the table, and shed small mountains of yellow fur.
At 17, she was a two-time cancer survivor, missing her tail and with long surgical scars. Now the cancer was back again. For once, she didn’t even want a potato chip. She had been in pain for weeks, trembling, incontinent, and losing weight. But once we were in the room at the vet, she seemed to understand what was going on. She stood up straight, wagged her little nub of a tail, and gave me a look that said, “I’m fine. Let’s go home.”
That was, without a doubt, one of the hardest days of my life. I can’t think of it without worrying that I did something unforgivably wrong.
A lot of people have stories like mine, which can make Noem’s casual admission about shooting her dog Cricket because it failed to meet her performance standards nothing short of horrifying. Truthfully, it sounds like Cricket was a hoot, and the fact that Noem’s child asked about Cricket the moment she stepped off the school bus certainly suggests that this was more than just one of a pack of hunting dogs that hung around the Noem farm.
Following Rolling Stone’s story about Noem’s book, there have been reactions, and reactions to those reactions. That includes Noem defending herself by pointing out that she didn’t just shoot a dog and a goat, she also put down three horses. On Sunday, Noem issued a statement saying that “South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down.” What she means by this is that Noem was silly enough to load an untrained dog into a truck and take it straight into the middle of a bunch of chickens. However, the operative word of that South Dakota law is “can.” Noem didn’t have to shoot the dog, she decided to shoot the dog. Because giving it proper training and attention was too much bother.
That wasn’t her only incomprehensible decision. It’s bad enough that Noem took this action in making her life simpler by murdering an animal that depended on her. But what may be of equal importance is that Noem chose to tell this story. She may now be complaining that “some people are upset about a 20 year old story,” but she’s the one who decided to lift this incident out of her life and plop it on a page.
Did she think that people would not be upset? Did she think this would be seen as an example of her South Dakota toughness? The simple decision to tell this story, along with the way she told it, shows that her perceptions are badly skewed.
At Semafor, one Republican brushes Noem off as a lightweight and says they don’t want a “Kamala problem” (they wish), but anyone who thinks this incident is going to knock Noem from the list of Trump’s VP potentials should think again.
Noem may open her tale of pet murder by saying “I hated that dog”—which more than a little undercuts her excuses—but she’s not alone in that feeling. As GQ noted back in 2020, Trump also hates all dogs. When Trump wants to insult someone, he compares them to a dog. When he wants to demean someone’s death, he says they died like a dog. “In Trump’s tiny mind,” writes GQ, “dogs are venal, treacherous creatures.”
Trump isn’t going to throw Noem away over a dog. He may even give her a gold star. Because what Noem has generated is a lot of discussion and a metric shit-ton of disgust. She’s identified one of those things that would seem to be beyond the boundary of acceptable behavior.
You know, like insulting prisoners of war. Or demeaning Gold Star families. Or attacking the children of a judge.
Trump loves to find those boundaries and rip them apart. He revels in his ability to convince his followers to join in the destruction. It’s not hard to see Trump loving Noem’s story of dog murder.
It may even make him a little jealous.
When man’s best friend becomes a politician’s worst nightmare
Kristi Noem created a firestorm on social media over the weekend and dog lovers from both sides of the aisle condemned her decision to kill her dog.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem became the latest politician to face dog-related backlash after she admitted that, 20 years ago, she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog, Cricket. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
04/29/2024 08:02 PM EDT
An adorable dog can soften a politician’s image, create viral social media moments and help voters identify with an office-seeker vying for their vote.
But take a misstep when it comes to the family pooch and prepare to face the wrath of dog lovers everywhere.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem became the latest politician to face dog-related backlash after she admitted in her upcoming book that, 20 years ago, she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog, Cricket. According to The Guardian, Noem writes that she “hated” the “aggressive” dog, who she says ruined a pheasant hunt and attacked her neighbor’s chickens.
The story created a firestorm on social media over the weekend and dog lovers from both sides of the aisle condemned her decision to kill her dog. Noem, who has been floated as a possible contender to be former President Donald Trump’s running mate, still stands by her decision from 20 years ago.
Noem isn’t the first politician to spark anger among critics from treatment of a dog over the years. Here’s a look at politicians who have been condemned for their behavior toward their pet pups.
Joe Biden
President Joe Biden faced fierce criticism after two of the first family’s German shepherds were involved in several biting incidents.
Last year it was reported that Biden’s 2-year-old German shepherd Commander was involved in 11 biting incidents with White House staff and the Secret Service. In February, CNN reported that Commander was involved in 24 biting incidents with Secret Service personnel. Commander was removed from the White House campus in October.
Three years ago, Major, also a German shepherd, was sent to live with friends of the family after his own biting incidents.
The incident spurred action from Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who sent a letter to Biden and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su in October seeking to examine workplace safety conditions at the White House.
Foxx told POLITICO that she wrote the letter to remind the White House that it is “not immune to the laws of the land.”
“The President and First Lady care deeply about the safety of those who work at the White House and those who protect them every day,” Elizabeth Alexander, the first lady’s communications director, told POLITICO in October. “They remain grateful for the patience and support of the U.S. Secret Service and all involved, as they continue to work through solutions.”
Andrew Cuomo
After New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned and moved out of the governor’s mansion nearly three years ago, the Albany newspaper Times Union reported that he wasn’t trying to take his dog, Captain, with him.
Cuomo reportedly asked mansion staff members if anyone would be interested in caring for Captain, a 4-year-old mix of shepherd, Siberian and malamute, who had nipped a few people since Cuomo adopted him in 2018, according to the report.
MOST READ
- 72 Minutes Until the End of the World?
- More ‘LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat’: Trump keeps up attacks on RFK Jr.
- The Trump Trial Takes a Turn
- What Canada Wants Trump to Know If He Wins
- Chinese professors warn of ‘culture of fear’ in Florida after DeSantis’ hiring restrictions
Democrats and Republicans called out Cuomo on social media for seemingly leaving his pup behind.
“Not only the Worst Governor in America. The Worst Dog Owner in America.” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) wrote in a post. “You can tell people’s character by how they treat their animals.”
“I’ll take the puppy,” Ron Kim, a New York State Democratic assemblymember, wrote on what was then called Twitter.
Cuomo refuted the dog desertion claims, saying on social media that “Some people just can’t get the facts straight.”
“Yes, I was downstate monitoring storm response for a few days, but Captain and I are a man and his dog,” Cuomo wrote in the post. “He is part of our family and that’s the way it will always be.”
Ted Cruz
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) caught heat three years ago after a journalist posted a photo of his family’s white, fluffy dog Snowflake looking out the window of the senator’s dark house while Cruz and his family traveled to Cancun during a statewide emergency.
The photo of the seemingly sidelined poodle immediately added to the backlash Cruz was already facing for flying his family out of the country during a storm that left millions of Texans without power.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a jab at Cruz on X after the photo began to circulate, saying, “Don’t vote for anyone you wouldn’t trust with your dog.”
Cruz denied that Snowflake had been left to fend for itself, saying that the dog had a sitter “and actually the heat and power was back on.”
“I spend too much time on Twitter, so I see apparently I’ve literally fed Snowflake to the wolves,” Cruz said at the time.
Pam Bondi
Before Pam Bondi was elected as Florida’s attorney general in 2010, she was involved in a custody battle with Hurricane Katrina victims over a St. Bernard.
Bondi adopted the dog in 2005 after he was separated from his family during Hurricane Katrina. But a Louisiana family had been trying to find their dog, originally named Master Tank but renamed by Bondi to Noah, and located his whereabouts in 2006.
Bondi refused to return him and accused the family of neglect because the dog had been facing longer-term problems like heartworms. The family said the dog had heartworms since he was 10 months old, according to St. Petersburg Times.
The family sued, and the dispute lasted 16 months as it played out on CNN and Fox News. Both sides settled the case just before it went to trial and Bondi returned the dog to the family with food and medication.
Mitt Romney
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is still reminded of an incident that involved his Irish Setter Seamus despite it happening decades ago.
The story first surfaced in 2007 when The Boston Globe reported that in 1983, a 36-year-old Romney put the family dog in a crate on the roof of his car because there was no room in the station wagon during a 12-hour car ride from Massachusetts to Canada. The dog eventually got sick and Romney stopped at a gas station to wash the dog. Romney put Seamus back in the carrier, returned it to the top of the car and proceeded with the rest of the trip.
Romney later defended the decision, stating Seamus was in an “airtight” kennel and that the dog climbed on top of the car regularly.
The story garnered immediate condemnation from many politicians but especially became a favorite stick to whack Romney with when he ran for president.
During the 2012 presidential race, Republican rival Rick Santorum said that voters need to consider if Romney is the “kind of person you want to be president of the United States.” Also that year, fellow rival Newt Gingrich came out with an ad attacking Romney for the story. Former President Barack Obama also mocked Romney for the incident.
The saga even played out on the March 2012 cover of The New Yorker, which featured Romney driving a car with Santorum sticking his neck out of a doghouse that is tied to the roof of the vehicle.
Could bird flu cause a human pandemic?
Here’s what’s worrying experts right now about H5N1’s spread among dairy cows — and what isn’t.
By Keren Landman, MD Apr 30, 2024, 12:10pm EDT
https://www.vox.com/even-better/24145304/bird-flu-h5n1-avian-influenza-pandemic
Share this story
- Share this on Facebook (opens in new window)
- Share this on Twitter (opens in new window)
- SHAREAll sharing options
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73317808/1255046695.0.jpg)
Keren Landman, MD is a senior reporter covering public health, emerging infectious diseases, the health workforce, and health justice at Vox. Keren is trained as a physician, researcher, and epidemiologist and has served as a disease detective at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last year, when an H5N1 avian flu virus — commonly known as bird flu — was spilling over from bird populations into a variety of wild mammals, Seema Lakdawala, a virologist and influenza A transmission specialist at Emory University, was “not overly concerned” about human risk. We don’t have “much of an interface with seals or with foxes, for that matter, or polar bears,” she says.
But when it comes to cows, that interface is vast. People on dairy farms regularly interact with cows and their milk; when the animals and their milk are infected with a virus that can cause disease in humans, and that mutates constantly, each of those interactions functions as an opportunity for the virus to workshop its adaptability. Now, says Lakdawala, “I am more concerned than I have been, and it’s not for the general public — it is for dairy workers.”
The H5N1 outbreak among cows on 34 dairy farms in nine states has so far led to only one very mild human infection. However, the virus was likely spreading among cows for months before it was detected. Lakdawala’s greatest concern is that this highly changeable virus has now arrived at an important point of human-animal convergence, and that we are not prepared.
For a virus to cause a human pandemic, it has to have three important characteristics, say flu experts. It has to cause human disease; it has to be something our immune systems haven’t encountered before; and it must spread easily among humans, especially through the air. The latest events do not yet demonstrate that H5N1 has new capacities in any of these categories. However, they hint that the virus has the machinery to evolve those capacities — and that it could do so before we know it.
In dairy cows, H5N1 has found an excellent laboratory for evolving traits dangerous to humans
Although Lakdawala was concerned when mink, seals, and other mammals were infected with H5N1 last year and the year before, cows are different. An outbreak among “mammals with a large interface with humans” is a red flag to her.
It’s a numbers game. Although all viruses mutate routinely, flu viruses are particularly good at shapeshifting and can even swap entire chunks of genetic material with other flu viruses if an animal is co-infected with more than one of them. These mutations happen randomly, and most don’t make the viruses more dangerous to humans — but it’s entirely realistic to imagine that some occasionally do. If that occasionally human-threatening mutation happens to a flu virus that has infected, say, a wild fox, it doesn’t pose a particularly high risk of causing a pandemic among humans. After all, few wild foxes have contact with humans. If it happens in a cow, however, there are far more opportunities for the virus to effectively workshop its new features.
People who work on dairy farms are constantly interacting with cows and their milk — they check udders, hook and unhook milking machines, and perform other tasks to care for the animals. That puts them in lots of contact with any virus infecting the cows. If the virus were one that didn’t infect and kill people or that doesn’t mutate and adapt as easily as the flu does, perhaps it wouldn’t be as concerning — but H5N1 does infect people at close proximity to animals, and at least half of the more than 900 people who’ve been infected with the virus since it came on the scene in 1996 have died.
“There is a high viral load in milk of these infected cows, and so it is a concern to me in terms of spillover [from] cows into workers,” says Lakdawala. “And the more often the virus has an attempt to spill over, the more likely it is to adapt.”
We already know the virus is adapting in mammals, she says. “The more spillover events, the more attempts that the virus has to find a successful variant that can take off or infect the human — and then one infected individual, three infected individuals, go home” to their families, where they could potentially spread the virus further.
It’s not a pandemic right now, she says, but now is the time to act to reduce the opportunities for spillover events.
For the first time, we have proof of H5N1 spreading among a mammalian species
When a virus leaps from one species into another, that’s not usually enough to cause a large outbreak. You could look at H5N1’s history: Although the virus has leapt from animals into people hundreds of times, it has very rarely spread among people. When infections effectively stop spreading once they cross species lines, the non-transmitting species is called a “dead-end host.”
Birds readily transmit H5N1 to other birds, but until recently, scientists have thought mammals getting infected with H5N1 were dead-end hosts. In the past couple of years, they’ve had some sneaking suspicion that minks and other mammals getting infected with the virus were spreading it among themselves — but they never had definitive proof. That is, they couldn’t rule out the possibility that all the animals had gotten infected by eating bits of the same sick bird, or through another so-called “common source” exposure.
It’s much harder to contain a pathogen’s spread within a species if members of that species can transmit it to each other. What the dairy cow outbreak shows for the first time is that mammals can indeed now infect each other with H5N1 — and can do it efficiently.
“Genetic data and epidemiologic data are all quite strongly suggesting that these viruses are getting transmitted in some way between these cows,” says Louise Moncla, a veterinary pathobiologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine whose team has analyzed genetic data from infected cows that the US government recently made available.
This virus’s mode of transmission isn’t apparent yet — and it matters
It’s not yet clear how the virus is being spread through and between dairy cow herds. High viral loads in cows’ udders and in their unpasteurized milk make it possible that contact with contaminated milking machines is doing most of the transmission. However, it’s also possible the virus is spreading through the fecal-oral route or through contaminated air; the latter would be particularly concerning because it’s so much harder to prevent. (Moncla notes that while the classic genetic fingerprint for a bird flu’s ability to spread through air between mammals is absent from this strain of H5N1, that doesn’t mean we’ve ruled out respiratory spread.)
Regardless of exactly how H5N1 is spreading among cows, the significance that they’re transmitting the virus to each other is clear to flu experts: If the virus has adapted to spread among one mammalian species, it raises the specter that it can also adapt to spread among humans.
There is a precedent for flu viruses to spread from livestock to humans, leading to a pandemic: The H1N1 flu outbreak began when a flu virus spread from pigs to humans. It caused far less death than expected through a stroke of luck — because the virus had similarities to strains that circulated in the first few decades of the 20th century, many older adults still had some flu immunity left over from childhood infections.
If H5N1 develops the ability to spread among humans, it would be a novel infection to most immune systems, giving us much less protection from old flu infections. There are “no signs of that [ability] so far in the cattle sequences,” says Andrew Pekosz, a virologist who studies respiratory virus biology at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. “That’s a good thing.”
Still, because we don’t know much about how influenza A viruses like H5N1 behave in cows, we don’t yet know what cautionary measures will do the most to slow their spread. In 2011, scientists learned that the influenza D virus causes respiratory illness in cattle. However, not all flu viruses are created equal: “I did not ever anticipate seeing an influenza A in cattle,” says Lakdawala.
While influenza D infections don’t appear to cause much disease in humans, influenza A viruses very much do: All of the past global flu pandemics have been caused by influenza A viruses.
Because this is such an unusual event, says Moncla, “we know very little about how flu replicates and transmits in cows.” That makes it hard to quickly design and implement precautions to prevent the virus from spreading to the people who handle them.
“What would calm me down is if we started implementing interventions that would mitigate the presence of the virus and its transmission amongst cattle, and spilling over into humans,” says Lakdawala. “Say, okay: Every dairy farm worker is gonna wear a face shield,” she said.
It would help to know whether cows that are infected but asymptomatic have infectious virus in their milk, and whether they can transmit virus to each other, says Pekosz. Ongoing studies by academics and federal agencies should help answer those questions.
Here’s why you shouldn’t panic
At the moment, there are more “coulds” than “ares” with H5N1: Although the virus is showing that it could adapt further to spread among humans, so far it hasn’t; and while it’s reasonable to conduct studies to ensure pasteurization works against this particular strain of H5N1, there’s no reason to think it won’t.
It’s also worth noting that according to the USDA spokesperson, the virus has so far not caused severe disease or death in the cows it has infected — they’ve all recovered with supportive care. In that way, this outbreak is very different from the ones we’ve seen in some other mammals.
Furthermore, testing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already demonstrated that existing antiviral medications are effective at preventing human infections with this strain of H5N1 and that two existing candidate vaccines could be used to rapidly scale up mass production of human vaccines against this virus if needed.
So for now, the general public shouldn’t be overly concerned about the virus, says Pekosz. “Scientists are … working extra overtime for this. But the general public should still feel safe.”
Stephen Colbert: ‘If you like puppies, you’re not going to like Kristi Noem’
Late-night hosts discuss the South Dakota governor and possible Trump VP pick revealing she killed her family dog
Guardian staffTue 30 Apr 2024 11.25 EDTShare
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/apr/30/stephen-colbert-kristi-noem-dog
Late-night hosts talk about Kristi Noem’s puppy-killing admission and Donald Trump’s day off from court.
Stephen Colbert
“If you like puppies, you’re not going to like Kristi Noem,” said Stephen Colbert on Monday evening, referring to the governor of South Dakota and a possible running mate for Donald Trump. In her new book, first obtained by the Guardian, Noem admitted to killing her dog. “Now, I know that sounds terrible, but it’s much worse,” said Colbert. “Because this wasn’t some rabid, 90lb hell hound on a meth bender.” It was a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer named Cricket.
“It is worth pointing out: no one made Noem confess to puppy-snuffing,” the Late Show host said. “She volunteered this information,” even saying: “I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here.”
“So, why? Why did Cricket need to kick it?” Colbert wondered. According to Noem, the puppy was “untrainable”. “Well yeah! She was 14 months old!” Colbert exclaimed.
Noem wrote – “again, in a story no one asked her to tell us”, Colbert noted – that she took Cricket on a pheasant hunt that the puppy ruined, going “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life”.
“But who among us hasn’t seen a dog running through the fields, not a care in the world, and thought ‘you deserve to die,’” Colbert deadpanned.
Cricket then “made the fatal mistake of continuing to be a normal puppy on the way home”, Colbert noted. Noem wrote that on the way home, Cricket attacked her neighbor’s chickens. “Governor Noem, if you don’t like untrainable animals that wolf down chicken, I have bad news about your party’s nominee,” Colbert quipped.
With the chickens, Cricket was “the picture of pure joy”, prompting Noem to write: “I hated that dog.”
“This book is starting to sound less like a political memoir and more like the scrawled manifesto of a guy whose neighbors said, ‘He just kinda kept to himself, you know?’” Colbert said.
Noem said she led Cricket to a gravel pit and shot her, as well as a goat, for smelling bad. “Oh my God, what kind of reverse John Wick farm is she running out there?” Colbert exclaimed.
Seth Meyers
“It’s one thing to kill a dog named Cricket, it’s another to brag about it in a book,” said Seth Meyers on Late Night.
“She thought telling that story would make her look cool,” Meyers mused. “What’s going on? Does she think cats can vote? And even if they could, those lazy sons of bitches aren’t going to wait in line at a high school for three hours.
“It’s horrible enough to kill a dog, but even crazier to brag about it,” he continued. “That’s a level of psycho I didn’t even know existed. Even Buffalo Bill [from The Silence of the Lambs] had the self-awareness to keep his abhorrent behavior indoors. He didn’t walk around town saying, ‘Hey, check out my new outfit. It’s a skin suit!’”
Noem defended her actions on X, formerly Twitter, writing: “tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm” and that she just had to “put down 3 horses a few weeks ago”.
“Way to change the narrative,” Meyers mocked. “‘Yeah, I killed a dog. But in my defense: also, three horses. Sleep with your eyes open, donkey!’”
Meyers also noted another weird Noem moment this year, when she appeared in an ad for a cosmetic dentistry company from Texas. “These stories tell us a lot about Kristi Noem, but they also say a lot about Donald Trump,” he said. “She wants to be his VP, and thought both of those things were positives. That when her name came up, Trump would say ‘nice teeth, kills dogs, a lot to like!’”
Jimmy Kimmel
The Trump hush-money trial in New York took Monday off, “giving our former president a well-deserved chance to nap and fart at home”, joked Jimmy Kimmel.
According to Trump’s friend John Catsimatidis, Trump has been miserable in court. “There is no more horrible thing than just having to sit there and be quiet,” he said.
“Well if that’s the case, he’s going to love prison,” said Kimmel.
On Friday, Trump publicly wished Melania a happy birthday to the cameras outside the courthouse. “You know you could also call her on the phone,” Kimmel deadpanned. “How oblivious do you have to be to wish your wife a happy birthday outside the courtroom where you’re on trial for paying off a porn star?”
Trump was in Miami over the weekend, where he met with his former presidential rival Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor reportedly promised to help raise money for Trump’s campaign. “Poor Ron DeSantis. What a pathetic little worm,” said Kimmel. “They say he did it because he wants to run for president again in 2028, which seems like a great idea,” Kimmel deadpanned. “What he doesn’t realize is that Trump is also going to be running for president in 2028.”
First case of walrus dying from bird flu recorded in Arctic
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/30/first-walrus-bird-flu-death-arctic-islands
Virus has already killed other mammals including sea lions and seals, while also taking toll on farm animals
Guardian staff and agenciesTue 30 Apr 2024 01.01 EDTShare
The first case of a walrus dying from bird flu has been detected on one of Norway’s Arctic islands, a researcher has said.
The walrus was found last year on Hopen island in the Svalbard archipelago, Christian Lydersen, of the Norwegian Polar Institute, told AFP.
Tests carried out by a German laboratory revealed the presence of bird flu, Lydersen said. The sample was too small to determine whether it was the H5N1 or the H5N8 strain.
“It is the first time that bird flu has been recorded in a walrus,” Lydersen said.
About six dead walrus were found last year in the Svalbard islands, about 1,000km (620 miles) from the north pole and halfway between mainland Norway and the north pole.
Lydersen said it was “not improbable” that some of them had the bird flu.
Frank Wong, a molecular microbiologist at the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory, said transmission to walrus was of significant concern to marine mammals. Animals such as sea lions and fur seals had previously died from the disease, he said.
He said bird flu was still a “bird adapted virus” which is transmitted by birds like ducks and geese. The sporadic infection and spread of bird flu in mammals was likely due to mammals ingesting infected dead birds and living in colonies in close contact with other animals.
Walrus, which can grow to a weight of two tonnes, eat mainly fish and shellfish, but sometimes also consume marine birds.
Lydersen said it was important to monitor developments as walrus tend to group together in summer months when the ice flow melts.
There could also be a risk from a polar bear eating an infected walrus corpse.
Bird flu has taken a growing toll on farm animals since 2020.
It has already killed one polar bear in Alaska, according to US authorities. Thousands of marine mammals have died from bird flu viruses in South America, according to Antarctic researchers.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
Kristi Noem Killed Her Dog—and Committed ‘Political Suicide’
CRICKETS FOR KRISTI
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kristi-noem-killed-her-dogand-committed-political-suicide
Noem was seen as a possible VP pick for Trump, but even MAGA world is revolted over her shocking admission she shot and killed a family dog.
Reese Gorman
Jake Lahut
Updated Apr. 30, 2024 3:06AM EDT / Published Apr. 29, 2024 8:01PM EDT
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s gruesome recounting of how she killed her dog may have also killed something else: her hopes to be Donald Trump’s running mate.
In Trump’s orbit, Noem’s decision to disclose in her forthcoming memoir that she once shot and killed a family dog is being seen as pure political self-immolation—part of a series of “lapses in judgment” and a sign of “desperation that President Trump especially doesn’t like,” according to a over a half-dozen GOP sources who spoke to The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity to detail confidential conversations.
“Everyone around Trump is talking about this,” said a MAGA operative.
- Local Kennel Owners Dogpile on Puppy-Killer Kristi Noem‘IGNORANCE AND CRUELTY’AJ McDougall, Brett Bachman
“Haven’t seen a more public suicide than Jim Jones at Jonestown,” another Trumpworld source told The Daily Beast.
For years, Noem has been seen as a rising star in Republican politics, thanks to her combative, unabashedly MAGA image. She routinely appears in news reports as one of Trump’s top contenders for his vice-presidential slot in 2024.
At this point, though, even Republicans may agree that by deeply offending a bipartisan constituency—pet lovers—Noem isn’t just politically incorrect but politically incompetent.
In a startling revelation from her new memoir No Going Back, set to be published next month, Noem details the shocking end of her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, Cricket.
Noem recounts she killed the dog, who lived on the family’s farm in South Dakota, because of its “aggressive personality” and lack of hunting skills. She also writes that Cricket escaped her truck and attacked a group of chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.” This was the final straw.
“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket was simply “untrainable,” “worthless as a hunting dog,” and “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with.” It was then, she says, she realized “I had to put her down.”
But Noem did the dirty work herself, leading Cricket to a gravel pit and then shooting the dog.
This graphic and shocking excerpt has been poorly received by many, including those in Trumpworld, and it may have sunk whatever hopes she had to be Trump’s running mate.
The Trumpworld source added that Noem had “a very slight shot before” of being Trump’s running mate but that it is “less than zero now.”
“A vice president is chosen to solve problems and add real value. A proven gaffe machine does neither,” a source close to the Trump campaign told The Daily Beast.
Not only that, but a MAGA operative said Noem’s chances at a Cabinet position could also be toast. Her involvement with the Trump campaign at all could be limited going forward, too.
Operatives around Trump “are fixated on the ads that would run if she were anywhere involved with President Trump’s campaign, regarding the dog,” the Trump operative said. “I mean, this stuff is devastating. There’s nothing more popular in politics than dogs, and she killed one—and she continues to talk about it… That’s what’s baffling and shows out-of-control judgment.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Noem also did not respond to a request for comment.
Indeed, amid all the blowback, Noem has refused to apologize. She wrote in subsequent posts on X that she “understands” why people might be upset but that “tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm.”
The governor also tried to spin the execution as an example of how she doesn’t “shy away from tough challenges.”
“Whether running the ranch or in politics, I have never passed on my responsibilities to anyone else to handle,” Noem said on X. “Even if it’s hard and painful. I followed the law and was being a responsible parent, dog owner, and neighbor.”
The widespread and swift backlash to Noem’s bizarre and off-putting story within Trumpworld is an exception to the general rule that Trump’s most trusted allies typically are protected when a bad news cycle comes for them after a self-inflicted wound.
Take Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and his Trumpian ability to survive serious scandal. Or look at how the likes of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have been able to avoid—at least in the friendly confines of Trumpworld—being forever tied down to episodes they’d like to forget, from the infamous ‘Beetlejuice’ escapades for Boebert to Greene’s remarks about “Jewish space lasers.”
Yet Noem might be in a league of her own.
Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and director of public affairs at the Department of State under Trump, said Noem may have carved out a new category for herself in the lexicon of political blunders.
“For Kristi Noem, it’s hard to even call this an unforced error,” Bartlett said, “because she deliberately told this story from something she thought would be a position of strength.”
A Trump-aligned strategist called Noem’s decision “one of the worst PR handlings I’ve ever seen.”
“In America we love beer, baseball, and dogs. It’s bipartisan,” the strategist said. “And to think that Donald Trump would think you’re tough ’cause you killed a dog? It’s the weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
The canine blow-up has also raised questions about who is advising Noem, or whether she listens to any sound political advice at all.
“They just don’t know how to handle this,” another veteran GOP strategist said of Noem’s team. “Confirming it yourself, and doing so in a book—this wasn’t a slip of the tongue—it shows kind of a string of bad judgment along the way.”
“What she put in the book is the most positive version of this story she could possibly have,” the strategist added. “Think of it that way.”
Noem’s main champion in Trumpworld has long been Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager in 2016. Several Republicans who spoke with The Daily Beast said Noem’s account of shooting the puppy may well blow back on Lewandowski, who insisted in a Monday talk radio interview in New Hampshire that Noem was “still in the top three” contenders for Trump’s VP pick.
Lewandowski did not return a request for comment.
What’s made matters worse for Noem is that she has aggressively maneuvered to put herself in the VP conversation—magnifying the scrutiny on her missteps not just by Trump’s top lieutenants but by others who are angling for the No. 2 spot, too.
“She’s sort of put herself in the VP-or-bust bucket,” the MAGA operative said, “and that’s a really bad place to be.”
Bartlett said Noem may have fallen into a trap in her “misguided attempt” to project “some sort of Midwesternly strength.”
“Connecting with rural America to show strength and hard decisions could have been a true asset,” Bartlett said, “but shooting a puppy never is.”
Consuming Bird Flu Contaminated Cow Milk Discouraged
Fact checked by Robert Carlson, MD
+ 1
Published
April 28, 2024
Fact checked
April 29, 2024
Unhealthy zoonotic pathogens can be transmitted through unpasteurized milk
Migratory bird flyways – U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service 2024
GENEVA (Precision Vaccinations News)
Over the past few years, significant media attention has been paid to detecting avian influenza (bird flu). While the overall human health risk is being evaluated, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently shared clarifying data points.
During 2020, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4b viruses arose from previously circulating influenza A(H5Nx) viruses. They spread predominantly via migratory birds to many parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe.
In late 2021, these bird flu viruses crossed to North America and, in late 2022, to South America.
According to the WHO statement on April 26, 2024, the epizootic has led to unprecedented deaths in wild birds, domestic poultry, and various mammals such as bears.
The WHO has confirmed that relatively few human infections have been reported despite the high number of A(H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4b detections.
Since the beginning of 2021, 28 A(H5N1) detections in humans have been reported to the WHO.
Of the 28 human cases, all were sporadic infections in people exposed to A(H5N1) viruses through direct or indirect contact with infected birds, infected mammals, or contaminated environments, such as live poultry markets or other premises with infected animals.
Specifically, no human-to-human transmission has been reported in these cases.
However, active investigations are continuing to determine whether there is any.
Most A(H5N1) human cases reported in Europe and North America were asymptomatic or mild, with fatigue reported for the cases detected in the U.S.
On April 1, 2024, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported the first confirmed human case of A(H5N1) virus in Texas. This person successfully recovered.
Based on available information, the WHO currently assesses the overall public health risk posed by A(H5N1) to be low. For those exposed to infected birds or animals or contaminated environments, the risk of infection is considered low to moderate.
Furthermore, investigations are ongoing to understand the risk to humans from consuming milk contaminated with the A(H5N1) virus. According to the WHO, dangerous zoonotic pathogens can be transmitted through unpasteurized milk.
As investigations continue in the U.S. and elsewhere, more information regarding ‘contaminated cow milk’ will be available in the coming days and weeks.
Historically, the U.S. CDC has advised against consuming un-cooked birds and mammals infected with avian influenza viruses.
The good news is that the U.S. FDA has already approved one bird flu vaccine (Audenz™).
As of April 28, 2024, the government has invested hundreds of millions in additional avian influenza vaccine candidate production. In late 2023, about 32 million bird flu vaccines were available in the U.S. National Strategic Stockpile.
Exposing the Big Game 