Free Republic

Youngsters in Churchill are warned not to dress in furry white costumes, to steer clear of baited traps stuffed with seal meat and to listen for the tell-tale sound of fireworks. That's because these candy-seekers have more to worry about than ghosts and goblins. They need to avoid a different kind of predator on Halloween - the polar bear. School children get a visit from the polar bear patrol team to go over safety tips. On the day of Halloween, several conservation officers take to the sky in a helicopter to see if there are any bears nearby. As dusk...

Earth First! made headlines with its tree-spiking in the 1980s, but the guy who helped make the anti-logging tactic famous didn't invent it. Mike Roselle even titled one chapter of his new book "Why I Quit Spiking Trees." In it, the co-founder of Earth First!, the Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society described how the practice brought old-growth timber cutting to national awareness, but became a public relations disaster for the protesters. "I think the Wobblies can take credit for it if they want, but it's been around as long as logging," Roselle said, referring to the Industrial Workers...

A PROMISING young Canadian musician has been attacked and killed by coyotes while on a tour promoting her new album. Taylor Mitchell, 19, was considered a rising star of the folk music scene, having just earned a Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination. She was hiking alone on the Syline Trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park when a pair of coyotes attacked her. Tourists rushed to her aid when they heard her screams and found Mitchell bleeding heavily from mulitple wounds "all over her body", according to The Canadian Press. "She was losing a considerable amount of blood from her...

Springfield, MO) -- Retired "Price is Right" host Bob Barker may not be on TV anymore, but he's making news in the Ozarks again. The TV icon came home to Drury University to drop another major financial gift on the school. Barker wanted to tell us about the first of its kind program the money will fund. "What we're doing here today is something they're going to be talking about all across the country" says Bob Barker, Drury Alumni. It's a check for $1,000,000 that will start that dialogue. Barker is giving his alma matter the money to establish the...

South African traditional leaders plan to perform ritual animal slaughters to bless stadiums for the 2010 World Cup tournament ahead of the start of the showcase event next June, they said on Friday. Zolani Mkiva, chairman of the Makhonya Royal Trust, a grouping responsible for co-ordinating cultural activities, said the tournament, the first to be held in Africa, needed to be blessed in true "African style." "We must have a cultural ceremony of some sort, where we are going to slaughter a beast (cow)," said Mkiva. South Africa is set to host the World Cup -- the world's most watched...

In my opinion, this over the top idea isn’t sustainable at any level. On a personal note, my cat eats with a footprint more like a Volkswagen microbus. I think I’ll give “Minners” a can of doplhin safe tuna tonight, just for spite. From Stuff.co.nz By TANYA KATTERNS – The Dominion Post Save the planet: time to eat dog? The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found. Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats...

The Dillon ranchers who lost more than 120 buck sheep in an August wolf attack last week lost 23 lambs from the same area when wolves struck again. Kathy Konen said this week that despite the presence of a herder and guard dogs, wolves struck the herd sometime in the early morning hours Oct. 17. She and husband Jon Konen lost 23 weaned lambs. "They're in the area, and they've killed once," she said of wolves. "We knew they would come back and kill again." The Konens in August lost 122 sheep to wolves in the same pasture in the...

About 30 animal rights protesters gathered outside the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on Sunday, waving signs decrying dogfighting in response to Michael Vick's arrival with the Philadelphia Eagles and drawing mostly praise from Raiders fans entering the stadium. Oakland has been the happy ending for many of the animals rescued from Vick's dogfighting and gambling operation in Virginia. Ten of the dogs in Vick's pit bull collection -- the ones that could be saved and rehabilitated -- found new lives in San Francisco's East Bay, fostered and treated by the group BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls). On Sunday,...

In a split decision, a U.S. appeals court upheld the convictions of animal-rights activists charged under a terrorism statute with using their Web site to incite threats and vandalism against a company that tests products on animals. The 2-1 decision was the first federal appellate court ruling on a constitutional challenge to the law. Defense lawyers call the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty case only the latest example of the government infringing on activists' free speech. One compared it to the pursuit of communists and civil-rights activists a half-century ago. "The government is always doing the same thing, prosecuting the loud...

Proposed wilderness designations for parts of the Colorado mountains could threaten the Army's only high-altitude training site for helicopter pilots, an Army officer said Tuesday. The proposed "Hidden Gems" wilderness designations would put all of the high-altitude landing zones used by the High-Altitude Army Aviation Training Site off-limits, said Col. Joel Best, senior aviation officer for the Colorado Army National Guard. "We really can't afford to lose any of that land for the security of this nation," Best said. He spoke at a briefing for Colorado county commissioners and legislators. The site, known by the acronym HAATS, is the only...

Two things struck many people as odd three years ago when sheriff’s deputies came to Sandy Saunders’s 150-acre farm, said they had found “shocking” conditions, arrested him on nine counts of animal cruelty, and seized five horses, three sheep and a goat that have never been returned. The first was that the barn owned by Mr. Saunders, a well-known local environmentalist and gadfly, was a popular and quite public gathering place. In the five weeks before the animals were seized, an annual barn dance there brought out perhaps 200 people, and a political fund-raiser drew 150. A woman who had...

WASHINGTON - The Humane Society of the United States is asking President Barack Obama and Congress to require everyone who raises dogs and cats to be regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, documents show. HSUS also is asking for the creation of an animal protection division within the U.S. Department of Justice that is "similar to the Civil Rights Division, to ensure strong enforcement of federal animal protection laws," thus granting animals rights similar to humans. HSUS also calls for a new position of animal protection liaison in the White House.

The Anti-Defamation League, the country's leading group dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, is rightly sensitive to the offense of trivializing the Holocaust. Why, then, has the ADL said nothing in protest against the Darwinian biologist and bestselling atheist author Richard Dawkins and his comparison of Darwin doubters to Holocaust deniers?...

Moose declining in Minnesota's northwoods, among their few strongholds in lower 48 states Researchers say such sightings of moose, an icon in Minnesota's northwoods, are likely to become more rare. A special advisory committee warned last month that climate change threatens moose. ... Minnesota has an estimated 7,600 moose, nearly all in the forests of northeastern Minnesota, where plentiful swamps, lakes and streams provide good habitat. Yet they're beleaguered by increasingly warm weather and parasites such as brainworms, ticks and liver flukes. "Almost without exception all of the indicators are that the population is declining," said Mark Lenarz, a moose...

I recently received e-mails from friends showing mother cows with their rectums and female organs torn from their bodies by the wolves. These cows were lying down and the blood and raw meat trailed down on their legs. You could tell they were in awful pain. I am sure hundreds of our deer and elk are suffering the same way. All you wolf lovers should take a good look at these pictures and share them with your families and your children, show them what these savage animals are really all about. Anyone that supports these evil acts are evil themselves....

In an case of real life imitating Hollywood, the US scientific community is increasingly concerned that two nonnative python breeds currently slithering free in south Florida could morph into a giant man-eating swamp coil. The capture of five African rock pythons recently near an Everglades already teeming with the gentler Burmese pythons has scientists worried about so-called "hybrid vigor" – a phenomenon that occurs when interbreeding uncorks volatile recessive genes, passing traits such as aggression onto the offspring. Think Africanized bees. The two species have interbred in captivity. While Burmese pythons aren't known to eat people in their native habitat,...

Wildlife officers with the Colorado Division of Wildlife are searching for a bear involved in an attack Thursday night in Aspen. A man ...was attacked in his home by a bear shortly after 8 p.m. the homeowner's three dogs began barking loudly in the ground floor of the house... When the homeowner went downstairs to check on the dogs, he was confronted by a large, black bear. The victim of this attack is being treated at an area hospital.

NEW YORK – President Obama's newly confirmed administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has several times quoted approvingly from an author who likened animals to slaves and argued an adult dog or a horse is more rational than a human infant and should therefore be granted similar rights. A brief video on YouTube captures Cass Sunstein at a 2002 event using the writings of Jeremy Bentham, a 19th Century social reformer and animal rights pioneer. "You've heard a reference to Bentham, so let's listen to him, shall we," he begins in the video. He then...

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif., Sept. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- State Senator Dean Florez (D-Shafter), in an email to one of his supporters, defended his bill, SB250, the latest mandatory spay and neuter measure working its way through the State legislature, which he sponsored. Unfortunately, according to Cathie Turner, Executive Director of the nonprofit organization Concerned Dog Owners of California (CDOC), his defense is riddled with misstatements and inaccuracies.

Our proposed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein wants to ban hunting, animal agriculture and give animals the right to sue in court. His notion is that more can be accomplished by tweaking regulations like the Endangered Species Act to achieve his aims than straightforward attempts to give animals rights to sue in court and be represented by a lawyer as he has proposed. Senators Chambliss and Cornyn have put holds on his nomination, but they and our other representatives need to hear from us. The relevant part is 48 minutes into the video. You only need to listen to about two...

The number of animals and plants protected by the federal Endangered Species Act is about to increase dramatically. For Cass Sunstein, radical animal-rights activist and nominee for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator job, that means he will be better positioned than ever to make livestock farming a thing of the past.How are the two things connected? Our director of research appeared on the Fox News Channel yesterday to explain to Glenn Beck’s audience how much influence Sunstein may soon have over what we eat: Cattlemen in this country own and manage most of the lands...

Within 12 months, the Japanese were killing more than 40,000 dolphins every year. Most were fed to children in school meals, with the rest being exported to China. Ironically, recent scientific research suggests that the Japanese authorities might be endangering the health of their own children through this practice. Dolphin meat is full of toxic mercury, cadmium, DDT and carcinogens such as dioxins and PCBs. Some cuts of dolphin meat have more than 5,000 times the safe level of mercury. Such levels can very quickly lead to severe nervous system problems and even insanity. The dolphin meat is so toxic...

Frank Gwozdz says coyotes have made a meal out of his livestock so often in the past several months that the farmer is thinking of leaving agriculture. “They are wiping me out,’’ Gwozdz said ...from his 110-acre farm in Dartmouth in Southeastern Massachusetts. In the past several months, Gwozdz said, coyotes have killed two cows, four calves, 14 goats, two lambs, two sheep, and numerous geese, ducks, and chickens. “They are getting bolder and bolder,’’ Gwozdz said of the coyotes... Gwozdz said he and his family have tried to deter the animals, sometimes by standing guard into the early morning...

A federal judge has sided with managers of northern Wyoming's Bighorn National Forest and against an environmental group that challenged livestock grazing in the forest. Boise-based Western Watersheds Project filed suit over a 2005 revision to the forest management plan... U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer ruled Monday that forest managers did as the law required -- they took a "hard look" at the environmental consequences of the forest plan.

A harbour seal leapt from the water and dragged a five-year-old girl off a dock at a marina in West Vancouver ... "When she popped to the surface, she said, 'Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, the seal!' ... A neighbour on a nearby boat then told Cunning a seal had jumped out of the water and pulled Caleigh from the dock. "This thing must have taken a running start to be able to launch itself four feet out of the water, grab a 50-pound five-year-old and then drag her underneath the water with a life-jacket on," . He initially thought his daughter's...

Hunters purchased nearly 2,600 wolf licenses Monday, the first day they went on sale in Montana. The sales occurred on the same day U.S. District Judge Mike Molloy of Missoula heard arguments from animal rights and environmental groups seeking to block hunts in Idaho and Montana. Idaho's hunt started Tuesday as Molloy took the arguments under consideration. the slower sales — compared to the 4,000 sold on the first day licenses were available in Idaho — might have been due to the uncertainty of the court decision. If the hunt is halted before the season starts, holders will be refunded...

Police departments in the high country report a rash of bears breaking into cars and homes this summer. Penny Turilli captured video of a bear walking up to her car, parked in her driveway outside her Vail home. The animal opened the door and climbed inside...

Radical environmentalists have occasionally argued that the life of one member of an endangered species is worth more than the life of one member of the human race. Judging by the money it is spending on the Mexican wolf reintroduction program, federal and state governments seem to agree with this extremist viewpoint. $400,000 per Wolf Since the Mexican wolf reintroduction program was launched more than a decade ago, millions of dollars have been spent by the United States, Arizona and New Mexico governments. The goal was to reestablish a target population of 100 wolves in the mountainous areas of southwestern...

Idaho Department of Fish and Game Director Cal Groen sent letters offering up Idaho wolves to any state that wanted to manage them. So far, at least 20 states have rejected Idaho's pitch to trap and export some of its wolves. nobody wants them... In May, the federal government removed more than 1,300 wolves in Montana and Idaho from the endangered species list. Environmentalists have sued to restore federal oversight.

Kathy Konen has lost guard dogs to wolves in the past, but nothing prepared the Dillon rancher for the killing of 120 buck sheep last week. "They were in the sagebrush, on the creek bottom - just all over the pasture," Konen said Thursday. "It's a terrible loss to our livestock program." Konen said they discovered the attack Aug. 16 while checking their sheep in the Rock Creek drainage of the Blacktail Mountains south of Dillon, where they pasture buck sheep in summer. She said they check their sheep every two or three days, so the attack was recent. She...

The elk in New Mexico are big and beautiful — a hunter's dream, a landowner's nightmare. Property owners across the state long have complained about wildlife overrunning their private land and destroying crops. But the problem is boiling over in the Sierra Nacimiento in northern New Mexico, where ranchers say they're being ignored and wildlife managers aren't doing enough to curb the damage or compensate them. Some frustrated property owners say they are considering a last resort: shooting the hungry animals. "We enjoy the elk. We don't mind the elk being around but we cannot feed the elk. If it...

A Houston man today pleaded guilty to a felony charges in connection with the decapitation of a beloved deer known to the Houston area as Mr. Buck. Brandon Eugene Gregory, 24, admitted to one count of taking a wildlife resource without landowner consent, a state jail felony, according to court records. He is expected to be sentenced by state District Judge Herb Ritchie on Nov. 18 after a pre-sentence investigation. He faces 180 days to two years in jail and a fine ranging from $1,500 to $10,000. Gregory was arrested after the death of Mr. Buck, a tame deer that...

RICHMOND, Va. — A dog belonging to the CEO of the Richmond, Va., Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals died after accidentally being left alone for four hours in her hot car. Robin Starr's husband Ed told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he put the 16-year-old mutt named Louie, who was deaf and blind, into his wife's vehicle on Aug. 19 as she was getting ready for work. Starr often took the dog to the office with her. But on that day, she arrived at work without realizing Louie was in the car. Several hours later, at about noon,...

RICHMOND, Va. — An executive for an anti-animal cruelty group says her 16-year-old blind and deaf dog died after she accidentally left him in her hot car for four hours.

A landowner has been cited in Jefferson County after a small group of wolf hybrid dogs were found running loose... Police issued homeowner Kay Simmons a summons ... It was Simmons' 11th violation.

Large groups of bears are creating a nuisance for residents in Bethlehem, and the problem has gotten so bad the town is considering an ordinance. Officials said bears are rummaging through trash bins, eating and attacking farm animals and in some cases coming dangerously close to family pets. "I've been here for 15 years and never saw them until this year," said resident Bob Kimmerle. Kimmerle said he had to fire a gun in the air to scare a bear away after it ate two roosters near his fence. "He put his arm through and pulled them through,"

The strange and sad case of Michael Vick got a bit stranger this week when the newly-signed Eagles quarterback appeared on 60 Minutes -- complete with a spokesman from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) -- to deliver his obligatory mea culpa to a waiting world. What makes this incident stranger than most is that America's love of animals, specifically dogs, has trumped the heretofore indestructible use of racism as a defense for wrongdoing and so has not saved Mr. Vick from the wrath of millions. Accusations of racism have long been employed to excuse the behavior of...

At this troubled and divided moment in our nation’s history, a man has come to the forefront who can unite the Left and the Right. A, young, talented African-American who can bring us together as one. And his name is Michael Vick. The announcement that Vick is returning to the NFL with a million-dollar contract has generated more angst and anger than an ObamaCare town hall meeting. And it’s bipartisan, too. Die-hard liberals who want to release every terrorist at Guantanamo Bay are outraged that dog-killer Michael Vick spent a mere 18 months in jail. Small-government conservatives offended even by...

When do animal lovers become like the animals they purport to protect? When they become animal rights terrorists. Terrorism comes in many forms, from raining death on humans to killing animals in order to save them. Violence, whether directed against animal researchers, abortion doctors or replacement workers at labor strike venues, is the wrong way to redress grievances. The Wall Street Journal reports that animal rights extremism is escalating in Europe. Executives of firms that use animals in lab research are the targets of arson, vandalism and graffiti. The incidents bring to mind the 1992 case of Rodney Coronado, who...

I figured if anyone could throw some light on the ethics of the Eagles' decision to sign a convicted dog murderer, it would be Peter Singer. He's the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and the author of 1975's Animal Liberation, a book widely considered the bible of the animal-rights movement. I left a message - Singer has been home in Australia since the winter - and was about to give up on getting his take on the second chance the team has offered to quarterback Michael Vick. When Singer rang me back, he couldn't have surprised...

Animal-rights activists plan to protest today against Camp Pendleton's use of live pigs in medical training for troops that they argue is antiquated and cruel but officials call life-saving. The demonstration comes on the heels of published reports that the base last week trained Marines at an avocado ranch in northeastern San Diego County owned by a retired Marine who is also an Escondido police officer. During the training, according to news accounts, 2- to 3-month-old pigs ranging from 140 to 200 pounds were sedated before instructors used scalpels to inflict wounds and then watched as Marines worked to keep...

OURAY, Colo. -- A bear was found Friday devouring the body of a 73-year-old woman who had been repeatedly asked not to feed the bears, the Division of Wildlife said. A caretaker saw the bear feeding on the woman's body as she lay outside of her home, just north of Ouray. The caretaker called 911 and dispatchers reported the incident to the DOW. While it's unclear if she was killed by the bear or died of other causes, there were wounds from an animal found on her body, DOW spokesman Joe Lewandowski said. Lewandowski said the woman was known to...

As the blood began to surge from a femoral artery, Lance Cpl. Chad Pham dug his hand into the gaping wound to stanch the flow. Fellow Marines were doing the same all around him, trying desperately to keep their pig patients from bleeding out and dying on stretchers in the dusty clearing of a Valley Center avocado grove. Working as though the pigs were comrades who had just taken a blast from a roadside bomb, the members of Camp Pendleton's 1st ANGLICO unit realized a tourniquet would do no good on this kind of wound, inflicted by a scalpel. Instead,...

Wildlife officials say a bear was found feeding on the body of a 73-year-old woman who had been repeatedly warned not to give dog food to the bruins that live near her home north of Ouray. Colorado Division of Wildlife spokesman ...says the woman was known to feed bears dog food and would not stop, even after repeated requests from wildlife officials. Sheriff's deputies investigating the incident killed an aggressive bear at the woman's home. A necropsy is planned for the 250-pound male to determine the contents of its stomach.

Grand Teton National Park and the National Elk Refuge are encouraging hunters to voluntarily use non-lead ammunition during the upcoming elk and bison seasons. The park and refuge issued a joint release Thursday saying lead is an environmental toxin that can poison animals that eat carcasses shot with lead bullets. Officials say studies have found that lead levels increase in ravens and eagles

When General Electric Co. subsidiary GE Healthcare recently unveiled its plan to use human embryonic stem cells in its drug trials, the company proudly touted one of the plan's potential benefits: Using stem cells derived from the destruction of human embryos may make the experiments on rats unnecessary. "This could replace, to a large extent, animal trials," Konstantin Fiedler of GE Healthcare told a reporter, according to Reuters news agency. "Once you have human cells and you can get them in a standardized way, like you get right now your lab rats in a standardized way, you can actually do...

The holiday home of Novartis chairman and CEO Daniel Vasella has been badly damaged by fire, a week after his mother's grave was desecrated by animal rights militants. Although police do not know who or what caused the fire early on Monday morning in the Tyrol, there is speculation that it is the work of the same group that took the urn of Vasella's mother on July 27. Her gravestone was defiled with a message saying the Basel pharmaceutical company must sever its ties with Britain's Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), the largest contract animal-testing company in Europe. The recent attacks...

President Obama's choice to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs had Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, so upset that he blocked it - a move that puts only a temporary hold on the appointment. Now the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, a hunter advocacy group, says American sportsmen need to step in to make sure the block stays in place. According to the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, Cass Sunstein supports animal rights. This is an important office that has the authority to block rules, including those that protect hunting and conservation. The pro-hunting organization says Sunstein has mentioned the possibility that...

BERN, Switzerland – Drug maker Novartis AG said Tuesday that animal rights activists have stolen the ashes of its CEO's mother and set fire to his Austrian hunting lodge. Swiss authorities, however, said they didn't know who was behind the attacks. In the latest incident, CEO Daniel Vasella's Tyrollean lodge in Bach, Austria, was badly burned early Monday morning. "It was arson with a professional fire accelerator," Novartis spokeswoman Isabel Guerra said in Basel.

Fifteen wolf packs have denned and produced pups in Wyoming outside Yellowstone National Park this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reported. The federal agency, which announced it is continuing to monitor reproduction, did not say in its assessment how many pups might have been born to each pack. Yellowstone packs are raising litters without any apparent deleterious effects... Trappers are also working the Union Pass area near Dubois, where a calf was killed ... Last week, a yearling steer was killed by wolves