Free Republic

Norway's government on Thursday (Mar 2) apologised to indigenous Sami reindeer herders affected by wind farms that were declared illegal after they were built, following a week of protests by activists. The country's highest court unanimously ruled in October 2021 that the expropriation and operating permits issued for the construction of 151 turbines in the Fosen region of western Norway were invalid. The court found that the project violated the rights of Sami families to practise their culture of reindeer husbandry.

IQALUIT, Nunavut (CP) - A mysterious skull discovered on the edge of the Arctic Circle has sparked interest in what creatures roamed Baffin Island in the distant past, and what life a warming climate may support in the future. Andrew Dialla, a resident of Pangnirtung, Nunavut, says he found the skull protruding from the frozen tundra during a walk near the shore with his daughter about a month ago. The horned skull is about the size of a man's fist. It resembles a baby caribou skull, except at that age, a caribou wouldn't have antlers, researchers and elders have pointed...

Located in northern Newfoundland, the site of L'Anse aux Meadows was founded by Vikings around A.D. 1000. Until now, archaeologists believed that the site was occupied for only a brief period... In August 2018, an archaeological team excavated a peat bog located nearly 100 feet (30 meters) east of the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows. They found a layer of "ecofacts" -- environmental remains that may have been brought to the site by humans -- that were radiocarbon dated to the 12th or 13th century. These ecofacts include remains of two beetles not native to Newfoundland -- Simplocaria metallica,...

A hunter from Minnesota was cited for taking a caribou over bag limit in the Northwest Arctic after a bullet from his gun passed through the caribou that was his intended target and hit another caribou, killing it. Alaska Wildlife Troopers in Kotzebue cited Nathan Olson, 38, on Sept. 1, Alaska State Troopers wrote in an online dispatch Wednesday.

Crayfish, Caribou, and Scientific Evidence in the Wild by James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Th.D. * An unusual law has helped some creation science evidence to “go wild.” Unsurprisingly (for Bible believers), mounting evidence increasingly shows that only the Genesis explanation of our world’s origin—and Earth’s present ecological equilibrium—makes sense. Animal ecology is purposefully balanced; it’s not a simple hodgepodge of evolutionary “accidents.” We can thank Congress for much of what we now know about American wildlife, specifically, the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration [Pittman-Robertson] Act (P-R Act) in 1937.1 The P-R Act focuses financing of scientific research projects involving...

They're probably about half as old as scientists once thought they were. But a pair of butchered bones found in a cave near the Alaska-Yukon border are "definite" evidence of human presence in North America just after the end of the last Ice Age, perhaps as much as 14,000 years ago, according to a new study. The bones were originally discovered in the late 1970s by Canadian archaeologist Dr. Jacques Cinq-Mars at a site known as Bluefish Caves, high in northwestern Yukon Territory. In one of the caves, dubbed Cave 2, archaeologists found more than 18,000 fragments of bones from...

Energy: While taking credit for increased oil and gas production on private and state lands, the president moves to put 12 million acres of the oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off limits. OPEC and the Saudis are smiling. Whoever's in charge of presidential optics these days fits the classic definition of the blind leading the blind. It's bad enough that President Obama doesn't have time to get to Paris for a global protest against terrorism after the Charlie Hebdo attack but can meet and greet the San Antonio Spurs. But then he privately slams an invitation by Congress to Israeli...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---More than 100 feet deep in Lake Huron, on a wide stoney ridge that 9,000 years ago was a land bridge, University of Michigan researchers have found the first archeological evidence of human activity preserved beneath the Great Lakes. The researchers located what they believe to be caribou-hunting structures and camps used by the early hunters of the period. "This is the first time we've identified structures like these on the lake bottom," said John O'Shea, curator of Great Lakes Archaeology in the Museum of Anthropology and professor in the Department of Anthropology. "Scientifically, it's important because the...

An elaborate array of linear stone lanes and V-shaped structures has been discovered on an underwater ridge in Lake Huron, marking what is thought to be the most complex set of ancient hunting structures ever found beneath the Great Lakes, according to a new report. Researchers based at the University of Michigan think the roughly 9,000-year-old-structure helped natives corral caribou herds migrating across what was then an exposed land-corridor the so-called Alpena-Amberley Ridge connecting northeast Michigan to southern Ontario. The area is now covered by 120 feet of water, but at the time, was exposed due to dry conditions of...

West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin has hit out at Sarah Palin after she was seen shooting a caribou on the latest episode of her TV reality show. The screenwriter, who also recently penned the Facebook film The Social Network, accused the contender for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination of killing an animal 'for political gain'. And in a statement on the Huffington Post website, he accused her of making a 'snuff film' and branded her a 'phony Pioneer girl' and a 'witless bully'.

Remember how President Obama promised Lobbyists wouldn’t be running his administration? With more than 1,000 lobbyists coming through the front door of the White House for meetings inside, Laura Ingraham reports on Fox News today that many meetings with lobbyists are simply taking place across the street at the local Caribou Coffee shop! Ingraham says in order to make it look like...

* The organization Defenders of Wildlife would like you to believe that the group's name describes what they are all about. This is the mission statement: Defenders of Wildlife is a national, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities.While that may have indeed been the organization's goal at one time in its history, today that mission statement is a lie. Truth is, Defenders is nothing more than a front group for radical leftist politics. Consider that if the group's real purpose was protecting animals in their natural communities, they would...

Energy: With Ahab-like determination, environmentalists have once again blocked oil exploration in the American Arctic. They may just have succeeded in putting the American economy on ice.On Friday, a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals Court panel in Washington, D.C., struck down the Bush administration's five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing off Alaska's northern coast. The plan was vacated, the panel ruled, because of allegedly insufficient environmental review because its "environmental sensitivity rankings are irrational." What is irrational is that despite a more than three-decade long record of environmental sensitivity at Prudhoe Bay and elsewhere, and despite booming polar...

Eight people have been charged with indiscriminately gunning down dozens of caribou on the Arctic tundra near Point Hope last summer, sorting through the carcasses and salvaging meat from only the most pristine animals, according to documents filed in Kotzebue Monday. Court records describe an opportunistic hunt, with groups of young adults out collecting bird eggs or hunting over the Fourth of July weekend opening fire with .17- and .243-caliber rifles when crossing paths with animals from the massive Western Arctic Caribou Herd. More than 100 animals were apparently killed. But Alaska Wildlife Troopers traversing the 40-mile Suicide Trail about...

<p>This undated photo provided by the Heath family shows Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin with one of her daughters posing with the caribou she shot in Alaska.</p>

Clashing visions of justice between Alaska Wildlife Troopers and elders from the Inupiat Eskimo village of Point Hope threaten to stall progress in finding hunters responsible for massacring 120 caribou on the Arctic tundra this month. Meat from at least 60 animals was left to rot as still-nursing calves were stranded nearby, and troopers now say village officials are refusing to cooperate as they probe what one investigator called the worst, most blatant case of waste he has ever seen.

Caribou Coffee Claim: An Islamic bank is the majority owner of the Caribou Coffee chain. Status: True Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002] As you will see from the links below, Caribou Coffee is owned 87.8% by the First Islamic Investment Bank which, among other things has the following philosophy: "Above all, ensuring that all activities conform to Islamic Shari'ah" The chairman of their Shari'ah supervisory board is: Dr. Yusuf Abdullah Al-Qaradawi Chairman, Seerah & Sunnah Center, Qatar University; Professor, Faculty of Shari'ah, Qatar University. As you will see from the links below he is also on the supervisory board...

Thirty-five years ago, an Army helicopter pilot flying over an Alaska tundra plateau saw a group of caribou. Thinking something looked weird, he circled for a closer look. The animals, dozens of them, were dead. The pilot reported what he saw to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The caribou, 48 adults and five calves, were lying in a group. The way their carcasses rested showed no signs that the animals had been running from a predator. As word spread of the 53 dead caribou, people speculated what might have killed them: Nerve gas, toxic waste or some other...

GRAND RAPIDS -- Spectrum Health and Saint Mary's Health Care will require all their employees to not use tobacco at any time during their work shift beginning January 1. The staffs of both hospitals will need to arrive without smelling of smoke, and they can't use any tobacco products until they leave hospital property after their shift. Metro Health is also joining in the Smoke-Free Work Day Every Day campaign. In 2003, the Grand Rapids hospitals became the first in the country to jointly declare their hospital campuses smoke-free. Today, more than 30 Michigan hospitals have smoke-free campuses. This...

SEATTLE -- Non-tribal casinos have already lost tens of millions of dollars because of Washington’s new indoor smoking ban. A new financial study, conducted by our own KIRO Team 7 Investigators, discovers taxpayers could loose millions as well. Card-rooms, charity bingo halls, and some bars and restaurants are required to report financial information to the state every year. The state hasn't had a chance to look at the figures since the smoking ban took effect. I have. It looks like "no smoking" means economic devastation for the non-tribal gaming industry. If there was ever any doubt that gamblers are also...