Free Republic

REGULAR meals of mammoth meat helped some early human tribes to expand more quickly than their largely vegetarian contemporaries, according to a genetic study. Human populations in east Asia about 30,000 years ago developed at dramatically different rates, following a pattern that appears to reflect the availability of mammoths and other large game. In the part of the region covering what is now northern China, Mongolia and southern Siberia, vast plains teemed with mammals such as mammoths, mastodons and woolly rhinoceroses and the number of early human beings grew between 34,000 and 20,000 years ago. Further south, where the terrain...

A federal grand jury in Denver has indicted four people on eight counts of arson for a series of eco-terrorism fires set at the Vail ski area in 1998. Those indicted are: Chelsea Dawn Gerlach, 29, Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff, 28, Josephine Sunshine Overaker, 31, and Rebecca Jeanette Rubin, 33. Gerlach and Meyerhoff are presently in federal custody in Oregon, facing separate arson charges. The whereabouts of Overaker and Rubin are unknown. The Two Elks Lodge and other structures on Vail Mountain were burned to the ground on Oct. 19, 1998. Damage was estimated at $12 million. A group called the...

The Grannys Strike against Peta. Like David and Goliath Linda and Karen threw rocks at Peta in Norfolk Va.

Jacksonville, Fla.--- This morning, PETA sent an urgent letter to Jacksonville City Council President Kevin Hyde and his fellow councilors, urging them to follow the lead of more than 70 other jurisdictions across the country—including Orange County, Hollywood, and Dania Beach, Fla.—and ban or restrict the chaining of dogs. The appeal follows the reported August 3 discovery of two malnourished dogs abandoned in Jacksonville whose chains had become embedded in their flesh. Chained dogs are forced to endure weather extremes and spend their entire lives eating, sleeping, and eliminating in the same few square feet of space. Chained dogs are...

Thousands of commercial hunters armed with clubs, rifles and spears moved on to the ice floes off eastern Canada today to kill more than 300,0000 baby seals for their pelts over the next few weeks. The spring hunt, which began yesterday, is expected to bring the area's coastal communities some £8.5m, but has been condemned by animal rights activists as barbaric. This year's hunt is the third large-scale cull since the Canadian government decided in 2003 to allow almost a million seals to be culled over three years. Article continues The move dismayed the anti-seal hunting movement, which has been...

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) -- Animal rights activists are disgusted by a new candy from Kraft Foods Inc. that's shaped like critters run over by cars -- complete with tire treads.   The fruity-flavored Trolli Road Kill Gummi Candy -- in shapes of partly flattened snakes, chickens and squirrels -- fosters cruelty toward animals, according to the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals."It sends the wrong message to children, that it's OK to harm animals. And that's the wrong message, especially from a so-called wholesome corporation like Kraft," said society spokesman Matthew Stanton.The society is considering...