Free Republic

On April 17 and 18, Colorado Parks and Wildlife received reports of livestock depredation by wolves in Grand County. The agency confirmed that four cattle were killed... Four yearling cattle have been killed by a wolf or wolves in Grand County. Colorado Parks and Wildlife believes the depredation occurred between Monday night and Tuesday morning. In an email to Sky-Hi News, Parks and Wildlife officials stated that they responded to a possible livestock depredation incident on Wednesday morning and then again on Thursday morning. Both incidents occurred on the same property. On Wednesday, the agency investigated three yearling cattle that...

On February 8th, 2024, my brother had started his morning exercise walk. It was 6:27 am his time when I received the phone call; it was still dark in northern Wisconsin. It wasn’t what I expected.Only 200 yards from his home, on a lonely country lane with dense forest and brush on both sides, he was confronting a pack of wolves, their reflective eyes easily visible in the beam of his headlamp. The pack of six was less than 30 yards away. Wolves are common in the area. Common and protected. The brush was fairly thick; the eyes were relatively...

Colorado completed the transfer of 10 wolves into the state last week after the animals were captured in Oregon. For the people involved, it was framed as a success, a joyful occasion at an invitation-only event. For the rest of the public, the release details were kept secret, and many livestock producers were in the middle of a meeting with state wildlife officials when it was announced that the release of the first five wolves had taken place. Step 1: Ignore History On Monday, Dec. 18, Colorado Governor Jared Polis declared, “Today, history was made in Colorado. For the first...

The cost of a dozen eggs has now surpassed the price of a pound of beef, marking the first time that’s happened since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping data in 1980. The average price of a dozen large Grade A eggs ran at $4.82 in January 2023, while a pound of ground beef was $4.64. In January 2022, eggs were $1.93, and beef was $4.77, but egg prices have soared by 70% in the last year alone. Farm Action, a farmer-led advocacy group, says the “real culprit” behind sky-high prices is a “collusive scheme” among top U.S....

Two people and their dog were found dead at Banff National Park on Saturday after a grizzly bear attack. A GPS device alerted Parks Canada on Friday night, indicating a bear attack was happening within the Red Deer River Valley region west of Ya Ha Tinda Ranch in Canada’s Banff National Park... Due to poor weather conditions, an emergency team reportedly could not fly to the location via helicopter, so they traveled by ground during the night. When the team arrived at the scene, they reportedly found two individuals who were deceased and ... The victim’s identities have not been...

Bandages infused with casein, a protein that occurs naturally in cow's milk, significantly improved wound healing in rats compared to those in control groups, according to a study. The study is the first to test casein's reputed healing benefits on an animal model. The promising results suggest that casein, which is cheap, abundant and has antimicrobial properties, has potential to replace expensive materials such as silver in wound dressings. Casein is a protein found in the milk of mammals and is most abundant in cow's milk, where it makes up to 80% of the substance. In the last decade, interest...

The Biden administration announced Thursday that it is moving ahead with prohibitions on the type of equipment hunters are allowed to use on federal refuges, a move strongly opposed by sportsmen groups. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) released its 2023-2024 hunting and fishing rule — an annual plan laying out regulations for the upcoming hunting season — banning cost-effective lead ammunition and fishing tackle across eight national wildlife refuges by 2026. Such an action has been supported by eco groups, but opposed by hunters, who argue that it could serve as a backdoor attack on hunting broadly. "This...

We’ll say it again now that Gov. Jared Polis has inked his purported “relief” for soaring property taxes: His plan is largely an illusion. Ignore the stagecraft of Wednesday’s signing ceremony for Senate Bill 23-303. It was a nice publicity stunt — the governor and assorted lawmakers turning up at the home of a Commerce City resident who supposedly would benefit. It was all sleight of hand. As we noted here only weeks ago, the Polis plan is as if someone offered to help you pay your bills — then reached into your pocket, grabbed your wallet, pulled out some...

We recently looked at the growing threat posed by the presence of violent drug gangs on pubplic land, such as national parks, and the wisdom of no longer mandating that park visitors be rendered unable to defend themselves from that danger. While the greatest threat of violence is undoubtedly posed by rogue humans, a recent tragedy reminds us that sometimes, lethal danger walks on four legs. we were constantly told that wild places like national parks are "oases of peace in a violent society," and thus having a means of self-defense in such places is unnecessary. Some of our national...

A Steamboat Springs couple recently had a scary encounter with a mountain lion at Mad Creek. Mark Stanford and his wife, Kristen Joaquim, were having a picnic Monday for Joaquim's birthday at the Mad Creek barn, and they started hiking back to the parking area at about 7:45 p.m. "I looked up and saw a set of eyes staring back at me," Stanford said. He said he saw a yellow-green reflection off the eyes, and he tried to size up the animal. "I could see that it was a big cat," Stanford said. "I knew that they had sighting ups...

North Park rancher Greg Sykes said he has tried to do things the right way since wolves migrated across the boarder from Wyoming into the area near Walden. He has kept an eye on the predators as they could be seen in the distance around the ranch he manages and got guardian dogs to watch over his cattle. “I was that one rancher that said, ‘OK, they’re here. Let’s figure out how to get along,'” Sykes said. “That’s what I intended to do.” Early on Monday, March 13, wolves killed one of his cattle dogs named Cisco, according to Colorado...

School leaders in rural northwest Oregon are worried about big budget cuts. The Oregon Department of Forestry is working on a plan to protect habitats for endangered species across 640,000 acres of state forest. The loss of timber revenue will affect local schools. The Jewell School District expects to be the most heavily impacted because it gets almost all of its funding from timber revenue. It could see budget cuts of 40 percent. The Jewell School District has about 150 students and a budget of $5 million. District superintendent Cory Pederson estimates the cuts will bring his annual budget down...

Nebraska officials say a pair of migrants shot and killed a North American bald eagle - a protected animal and the national emblem of the United States - with the intention of eating the bird. Two Honduran nationals, Ramiro Hernandez-Tziquin, 20 and Domingo Zetino-Hernandez, 20, both of Norfolk were cited for unlawful possession of the eagle. Hernandez-Tziquin was also cited for having No Drivers License," the Stanton County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release on Feb. 28. The sheriff’s office said officials responded to an area near the Wood Duck Recreation Area, which is about 100 miles northeast of...

The head of Philadelphia's FBI field office is facing an investigation after she shot and killed a pit bull outside a Center City apartment building Monday evening. The shooting of a pit bull by an off-duty FBI agent on a busy Center City street this week has sparked an uproar on social media and protests by animal rights activists outside the FBI’s offices on Arch Street. Here’s what we know about the incident, the agent involved, and what happens next: What do we know about the incident? Philadelphia police and the FBI have confirmed that an off-duty FBI agent shot...

The Gunnison Stockgrowers’ Association filed a 22-page comment with the Colorado Wildlife Commission detailing the group members’ concerns about the Draft Wolf Plan process laid out by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Ken Spann, who has delivered public comment to the CPW Commission on behalf of the group, said the endorsement of the comments lies in every acre of agricultural land in Gunnison County. The basis of their concerns is the survival of the area’s long standing ranching operations as well as the existing big game and other wildlife in the Gunnison Valley. According to Spann, established in 1894, the Gunnison...

This week, Bloomberg surfaced photos from Beyond Meat’s Pennsylvania plant allegedly showing evidence of mold, listeria, and other food safety issues. Products from the plant tested positive for listeria 11 times between the second half of last year and the first half of this year, according to Bloomberg, and internal reports from the company reveal that substances such as wood, metal, and plastic have been found in food from the plant. ("The most recent Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture inspections of the facility (in March and September 2022) found no instances of nonconformance with regulations, and we remain in good standing...

New wolf depredation incidents are being reported in northern Colorado. First, in Rio Blanco County, just south of Meeker, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has confirmed 18 head of 600-pound calves were attacked and killed by wolves ... on the LK Ranch, owned by Lenny and Jackie Klinglesmith. The cattle were up in their summer pasture, when the wolf depredation incidents were discovered. Travis Duncan with Colorado Parks and Wildlife says necropsies on each animal have been performed and it is an active investigation. ... A second Colorado wolf depredation incident was in the past few days in Jackson County, near...

Los Angeles Rams linebackers Bobby Wagner and Takkarist McKinley tackled an animal rights activist who disrupted the team’s game against the San Francisco 49ers during Monday Night Football. Just before halftime, a member of Direct Action Everywhere, an animal rights group, who were attending Monday night’s game ran across the 49ers Levi’s Stadium with a device releasing red and pink smoke to raise awareness about a massive pig factory farm allegedly hiding its abuses inside the facility. The nonprofit reports Allison Fluty and Alex Taylor were cited, with one still in police custody, after running onto the field at separate...

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — Wildlife officers on Wednesday were tracking a mountain lion that attacked a 7-year-old boy and prompted the closure of a sprawling Southern California park, authorities said. The child and his father were walking up stairs at Pico Canyon Park near Santa Clarita around dusk on Monday when a cougar emerged from brush and bit the boy on the buttocks, said Capt. Patrick Foy with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Foy said the father, who was walking behind, heard his son cry out and charged toward the big cat. “The lion let go and retreated...

Washington, D.C. (Vocus/PRWEB ) January 15, 2009 -- The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom said today that Cass Sunstein, the Harvard University Law School professor tapped by President-elect Obama to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has a secret aim to push a radical animal-rights agenda in the White House. Sunstein supports outlawing sport hunting, giving animals the legal right to file lawsuits, and using government regulations to phase out meat consumption. In a 2007 speech at Harvard University, Sunstein argued in favor of entirely "eliminating current practices such as … meat eating." He also proposed: "We ought...