Killed by arrow in deer hunting stronghold, but in mid-town
STEELTON, Pennsylvania––Imagine an avid archery deer hunter, a poacher actually, who spots a big buck in rut just before dawn on Chambers Hill, overlooking Steelton, Pennsylvania.
Leaving his pickup truck, the archer follows the buck down into town through several cemeteries and/or the Dauphin Highlands Golf Course, south to the bank of the Susquehanna River, looking for a safe place to shoot, field-dress the carcass, and retrieve the remains without being seen.
Goldie Smith, right; deer on Chambers Hill, left; bowhunter, bottom. (Beth Clifton collage)
Spring Creek to the Susquehanna River
The most likely route to the river for a big buck in rut, old enough to be wary of being shot…
The world’s oceans were the hottest ever recorded in 2022, demonstrating the profound and pervasive changes that human-caused emissions have made to the planet’s climate.
More than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions is absorbed in the oceans. The records, starting in 1958, show an inexorable rise in ocean temperature, with an acceleration in warming after 1990.
Sea surface temperatures are a major influence on the world’s weather. Hotter oceans help supercharge extreme weather, leading to more intense hurricanes and typhoons and more moisture in the air, which brings more intense rains and flooding. Warmer water also expands, pushing up sea levels and endangering coastal cities.
The temperature of the oceans is far less affected by natural climate variability than the temperature of the atmosphere, making the oceans an undeniable indicator of global heating.
Last year is expected to be the fourth or fifth hottest recorded for surface air temperatures when the final data is collated. During 2022, we saw the third La Niña event in a row, which is the cooler phase of an irregular climate cycle centred on the Pacific that affects global weather patterns. When El Niño returns, global air temperatures will be boosted even higher.
The international team of scientists that produced the new ocean heat analysis concluded: “The Earth’s energy and water cycles have been profoundly altered due to the emission of greenhouse gases by human activities, driving pervasive changes in Earth’s climate system.”
Prof John Abraham, at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota and part of the study team, said: “If you want to measure global warming, you want to measure where the warming goes, and over 90% goes into the oceans.
“Measuring the oceans is the most accurate way of determining how out of balance our planet is.
“We are getting more extreme weather because of the warming oceans and that has tremendous consequences all around the world.”
Prof Michael Mann, at the University of Pennsylvania, also part of the team, said: “Warmer oceans mean there is more potential for bigger precipitation events, like we’ve seen this past year in Europe, Australia, and currently on the west coast of the US.”
He said the analysis showed an ever-deeper layer of warm water on the ocean surface: “This leads to greater and more rapid intensification of hurricanes – something we’ve also seen this past year – since the winds no longer churn up cold sub-surface water that would otherwise dampen intensification.”https://interactive.guim.co.uk/uploader/embed/2023/01/ocean_temperatures/giv-65622LVvystn8PP0/
Research released on Monday by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed that many extreme weather events in 2022 had been made more likely and more intense by the climate crisis, such as the heavy rain that caused devastating floods in Chad, Niger and Nigeria.
The analysis, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, used temperature data collected by a range of instruments across the oceans and combined separate analyses by Chinese and US teams to calculate the heat content of the top 2,000 metres, where most of the heating occurs.
The oceans absorbed about 10 zettajoules more heat in 2022 than in 2021, equivalent to every person on Earth running 40 hairdryers all day, every day.
The researchers also analysed salinity, which along with temperature determines water density and is a vital driver of ocean circulation. An index of the variability in salinity across the oceans reached a record high in 2022, showing continued amplification of the global hydrological cycle.
Another important feature of the oceans is stratification, where the layering of water by density becomes stronger. This restricts the mixing of deeper, cooler and more nutrient-rich waters with surface waters.
The long-term trend of increasing stratification continued in 2022, the scientists found, with “important scientific, societal, and ecological consequences”.
One consequence, said Abraham, is that less mixing in the ocean means the surface layer absorbs less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, increasing global warming.
The researchers also said: “There are increasing occurrences of record-shattering heatwaves and droughts in the northern hemisphere, consistent with intensive ocean warming in the mid-latitude Pacific and Atlantic oceans.”
The heating of the oceans, and the impacts on extreme weather, will increase until humanity reaches net zero emissions.
In October, the World Meteorological Organization reported that the atmospheric concentration of all the main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – had reached record highs. WMO head Prof Petteri Taalas said: “We are heading in the wrong direction.”
It is legal to recreationally trap and sell fisher pelts from Vermont on the international fur market. Photo: Front Porch Forum
Last year, the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (VFWD) contracted with a leading natural resource survey firm, Responsive Management, to conduct a survey of Vermont residents’ knowledge and opinions of the department and their current furbearer conservation efforts. On November 29, 2022 VFWD received the final telephone survey report, which was conducted in October. VFWD staff says they will be analyzing the results from this science-based research project for many months to come and that the findings will be, “used to inform VFWD current and future furbearer management and outreach efforts.”
VFWD’s key takeaways from the survey include the claim that the majority of Vermonters support regulated trapping. But when those same Vermonters were asked whether they supported trapping for fur for clothing, recreation or “to make money”…
Sightings are so rare that no one has recorded the call of these elusive waders but a mission has begun to finally learn where they go when they disappear
Fewer than 350 Australian painted-snipes are thought to remain but the reason there are so few is not entirely clear because researchers lack knowledge about the species.Photograph: David Stowe
“Near-mythical” is how the ecologist Matthew Herring describes the Australian painted-snipe – one of this continent’s rarest birds.
“Some of these terms get thrown around,” Herring says, “but they really are.”
It is believed there are only about 340 individuals left, but that’s not all that makes them rare. Australian painted-snipes exemplify the saying “out of sight, out of mind”. Even birdwatchers with decades in the field forget they exist.
FILE – In this Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017 photo, a black bear checks out his surroundings in Granite Basin in Juneau, Alaska. The National Park Service is proposing a rule that would prohibit bear baiting in national preserves in Alaska, the latest in a dispute over what animal rights supporters call a cruel practice. The park service said Friday, Jan. 6, 2023 it is proposing a rule barring bear baiting in national preserves in Alaska.Becky Bohrer/AP
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Bear hunters in Alaska would no longer be able to use bait, such as pastries, dog food or bacon grease, under a proposed rule by the National Park Service on Friday that would prohibit bear baiting in national preserves in the state.
It’s the latest in a dispute over what animal rights supporters call a cruel practice. The…
Remsen, N.Y. — A man accidentally shot himself while hunting in Oneida County Saturday afternoon, deputies said.
Around 1 p.m., deputies received a report of a man with a gunshot wound to the abdomen in the woods off Old Stage Road in the town of Remsen, according to a news release from the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office. The man was walking to the nearest road, deputies said.
Deputies found the man and he was rushed to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Utica. He is expected to make a full recovery, deputies said.
The man shot himself while hunting in a tree stand, deputies said. He lost control of his gun and one round from his .22 caliber gun fired into his abdomen, they said.
The incident is still under investigation, they said.
Thirteen bison are dead after being hit by a semi-truck on a Montana highway on Wednesday night, police have said.
The semi-truck also collided with two vehicles, according to a statement from the West Yellowstone police department. No people in the vehicles involved in the accident were hurt.
Those Bison not killed outright by the crash but were severely injured were euthanized, according to the release.
The accident happened on U.S. Highway 191, just north of the town of West Yellowstone, which serves as a western entrance to Yellowstone National Park.
Only the semi-truck hit the bison, although an initial statement said that the other vehicles involved in the accident also struck the animals. Police wrote a correction in its latest press release.
An official investigation into the accident is being conducted, police said.
Hard to See at Night
Bison can be hard to see at night because of their dark brown color and because their eyes don’t reflect in headlights like deers’ eyes do, police said.
Bison are usually found in these areas and nearby roads because of the abundance of wildlife in the wider area. During winter months, they can also often be found “near paved roadways and snowmobile trails due to these areas being easier for them to travel,” police said.
“We are always saddened by any of these incidents, particularly when so many animals are lost,” they said.
“We would like to take this opportunity to remind all drivers to slow down and drive appropriate to the road and weather conditions. Although speed may not necessarily have been a factor in this accident, road conditions at the time would dictate travelling below the posted speed limit.”
Yellowstone National Park is home to a population of bison that fluctuates from between 2,300 to 5,500 animals, according to the National Park Service. The park is the only place in the United States where bison have continually lived since prehistoric times, says the service.
The Associated Press and CNN Wire contributed to this report.
Those Bison not killed outright by the crash but were severely injured were euthanized, according to the release.
A Rover Scout holds a placard and a banner amid traffic during a No Horn campaign in Dhaka, Bangladesh.Photograph: Sazzad Hossain/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock
Noise pollution is one of the gravest yet least recognized health threats of our time. Even moderate levels of noise – the kind that surrounds us in any urban environment – increase risks of cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, developmental delays and dementia. Now, scientists are revealing that non-humans, too, suffer from noise pollution – and that they are far more sensitive than humans.
Perhaps nowhere is this more urgent than in the global oceans. Marine animals see and sense the world through sound, which travels faster and farther underwater than light. Whales – which use sound to find prey and navigate…
MINNEAPOLIS —A judge has sentenced a central Minnesota man accused of killing a 500-pound black bear in his backyard to probation and temporarily stripped him of his hunting privileges.
Morrison County District Judge Leonard Weiler sentenced Michael Theilen, 42, on Wednesday after Thielen pleaded guilty to taking and possessing big game out of season, a misdemeanor,the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
Weiler gave Theilen two years’ probation and stripped him of his hunting privileges in Minnesota and across most of the rest of the country for three years.
His loss of hunting privileges extends to every state that is part of the Interstate Wildlife Violators Compact. The only states Thielen could hunt in are Massachusetts and Hawaii, according to the National Association of Conservation Law Enforcement Chiefs.
The judge also ordered Thielen to pay $800 in restitution and $685…
The movie adaptation of Tim Winton’s novel Blueback is out this week. It focuses on a friendship with a big friendly fish – the blue groper; and the powerful response to humans threatening the animal. As with My Octopus Teacher, it’s a highly emotive story, and seen by most people as unusual or unique. Because humans only befriend domestic animals such as cats and dogs. Or do they?
Let’s start with the blue groper. This is a charismatic Australian native, with many interesting characteristics. They are protogynous hermaphrodites, starting life as juveniles with the potential to be male or female; and always starting as green-coloured females. The dominant male has a harem and, if he dies, the largest female will become male and adopt the striking blue hue which gives the fish its name. These fish can live up to 70 years and are the state emblem of New South Wales.
Beyond the science, these are extraordinarily curious and friendly fish. As a regular snorkeller and diver, I am often greeted by a groper who will shove his face in my camera, rub up against my hands, bop me with his lips and follow me around. Gropers appear to recognise divers and are curious about what we are doing. It is illegal to spear these animals in my home state but such is my emotional response to their friendliness, I can imagine jumping in front of a weapon aimed at one of my friends.
Octopuses are similarly interactive and interested in us. They are invertebrates who have developed unique, extraordinary intelligence, diverging from us evolutionarily more than 600m years ago. They use tools and mimicry, construct shelters, steal things and are known to be escape artists when kept in captivity.
In Sydney we primarily interact with the gloomy octopus (Octopus tetricus). One of my life’s highlights was the first time one of these creatures unfurled a tentacle and explored my hand. Since then I’ve had many interactions, including octopuses riding on my hand, trying desperately to steal my camera, and some who tell me to go away by blowing sand at me. Unfortunately, octopuses don’t live long – usually becoming senescent after breeding and lasting only one to two years. The ones we see regularly are often eaten by smooth stingrays in the blink of an eye. It’s hard to get too fond of them as the end is always near.
Once you have a relationship and an attachment to another living creature, they become part of your sphere of compassion
Moving to the land, and most of us are familiar with wild birds seeking human company. Yes, they are often after food, but who isn’t? My neighbourhood is dominated by sulphur-crested cockatoos, but it only takes a little patience to have a rainbow lorikeet or a king parrot work up the courage to stand on a human hand.
Even tiny insects can notice humans and change their behaviour to interact with us. Jumping spiders are in almost everyone’s garden but you might miss them if you don’t look hard. Most are less than half a centimetre long. Lock eyes with one, however, and there’s no doubt that they see you, moving their bodies to make eye contact. Also fans of cameras, they sometimes jump right at you!
Relationships with wild animals are possible and common – you can have your own Blueback or My Octopus Teacher experience. Return to the same place often enough and you’ll get to know the regulars. Getting to know animals as individuals with varying personalities and behaviour grants them elevated importance. But be aware that it is likely to push you closer to vegetarianism and inspire you towards conservation. Because once you have a relationship and an attachment to another living creature, they become part of your sphere of compassion. And then there is no choice but to protect both the animal and its environment. A “pet” blue groper or a labrador? You can have both, and it will probably make you a better human.
Kate Ahmad is a neurologist and diver with an interest in human and animal behaviour and conservation
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Exposing the Big Game 