Free Republic

The Wisconsin DNR reports as of 3:25 p.m. Thursday, 216 wolves have been harvested since the first day of the state’s wolf hunt. That’s 97 more wolves than the limit for non-tribal hunters. Zones 1,3,4 closed at 3 p.m. Wednesday. Zones 2,5,6 closed at 10 a.m. Wednesday morning. The hunt began Monday morning.

The way food is grown around the world threatens 24,000 of the 28,000 species that are at risk of extinction, according to a report published Wednesday that calls on world leaders to urgently reform the global food system. Plants and animals are dying out at a rate that is at least tens — if not hundreds — of times faster than the average over the past 10 million years, according to the report, which was published by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), British think tank Chatham House, and animal welfare organization Compassion in World Farming. The decline has mostly...

A woman who posted a video of herself beheading an owl on social media was reportedly shot and killed Sunday by two assailants outside her home in Colombia. Mileydis Aldana, whom the internet dubbed “Owl Killer” after she posted the gruesome clip, was killed Sunday when a pair of men on motorcycles opened fire outside her home in Corozal. Aldana was leaving her home when the incident occurred, according to the Daily Mail. She was rushed to a local hospital by family members who heard the shots but was pronounced dead on arrival. She was questioned by police in June...

A video posted on Facebook in mid-November shows the outstanding success of the i-80 wildlife overpass in Utah, where you can watch elk, moose, small mammals, black bears, coyotes, and even what appears to be a porcupine safely cross a dangerous stretch of road.Utah Division of Wildlife Resources: For wildlife researchers, it demonstrates that the time it takes for animals to adapt to using wildlife overpasses may be years shorter than first anticipated.“From what we can tell, the number of accidents there is down dramatically. At least initially, it appears the investment in safety is paying off,” Utah DoT spokesman...

MARIETTA, Pa. (AP) — Flocks of black vultures are roosting on roofs and in trees in one Pennsylvania town, causing damage to homes and property and generally harassing residents. The birds, which can have wingspans up to 5 feet (1.5 meters), are protected under federal laws, LNP reported on Thursday. Especially in the fall and winter, they roost together and prefer warm areas like dark roofs. The birds peck at the rubber on the roofs and target plastic things like porch furniture and garbage cans for destruction, the newspaper reported. A homeowner in Marietta, which is located on the Susquehanna...

Police in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic said a hunter out in a wooded area lost his rifle when a deer hooked the gun with its antlers and ran away with the weapon. Photo by Stevebidmead/Pixabay.com ========================================================================== Nov. 25 (UPI) -- A hunter in the Czech Republic was charged by a deer that snagged the man's gun on its antlers and fled into the woods with the weapon, police said. Police in the South Bohemian Region said a hunter contacted authorities to recount the story of how he lost his gun while hunting near the village of...

Two Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers tasered a deer to immobilize him after his antlers became entangled in a soccer net on Thursday, November 12. Colorado Parks and Wildlife said the buck needed assistance after his antlers became entangled in a net at a park in Manitou Springs, Colorado. Officers subdued the deer with a taser before cutting him free from the net in what officers described as a “10-minute ordeal.”

Some recent news from Colorado is a better metaphor for the current unpleasantness than any novelist or screenwriter could invent. On Election Day (or rather, in the late campaign, during the two months or so of voting), the people of Colorado voted, by the narrow margin of 50.84% to 49.16%, to reintroduce gray wolves in the areas of Colorado west of the continental divide. Without digging too deep into the details, the people for the measure, labeled Proposition 114, supported it for environmentalist and conservationist reasons. The opponents, especially those who lived to the west of the continental divide, opposed...

Contrary to what a viral video suggests, it’s unrelated to the pandemic.There was recently a video circulating on Twitter that can only be described as shockingly cute. Made viral by the Austin-based science communicator Joe Hanson, the clip shows two black bear cubs wrestling on the patio of the Chisos Mountains Lodge at Big Bend National Park, teetering like toddlers covered in fur. The camera pans to reveal their mother, staring into the distance with what looks like an apathetic glare. And as if that wasn’t enough, the camera captures a third cub sitting in a bucket. It’s the exact...

To photograph one of rarest creatures on Earth you have to be incredibly skilled and remarkably lucky. But Sergey Gorshkov is clearly both - as demonstrated by his stunning picture of a Siberian, or Amur, tiger deep in the forests of Russia's Far East. The image has just won him the title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year. The female tiger is seen embracing a tree, rubbing herself against the bark to leave her scent and mark territory in Land of the Leopard National Park. "The lighting, the colours, the texture - it's like an oil painting," says WPY chair...

A viral video of a mountain lion has inspired headlines about the cat "stalking" the runner who recorded it. But that's not what the clip shows. By now, you've doubtless seen *that* viral mountain lion video. Shot in Utah, the six-minute clip shows a mountain lion advancing, snarling and batting at the air, as Kyle Burgess, the trail runner holding the camera, slowly backs away down the gravel path. Since first appearing online, the video, titled "Cougar Attack in Utah | Mountain Lion Stalks Me For 6 Minutes!" has appeared in publications from CNN to Newsweek, many of which have...

The attack happened at South Dakota's Custer State Park A bystander captured the moments a bison charged at a woman in South Dakota. In the video, a group of motorcycle riders approach a herd of bison scattered in the middle of a road at Custer State Park, but one woman gets too close to a mother and her calf. The bison charges at her and manages to get its horns into her jeans. The animal then throws the woman around and tosses her out of her pants before she manages to escape. The person who recorded the encounter wants it...

Rewilding is not about restoring the past, but about proactively seeking solutions for a world in environmental crisis. There is something deeply heartening about an extinct native species being reintroduced to its former habitat. In the United Kingdom, there are several of those stories. The last time storks were recorded breeding in the UK was way back in 1416 on top of a cathedral in Edinburgh. This year, nests on the Knepp Estate in West Sussex produced the first wild-born chicks in 600 years. The parent birds were bred in captivity and released into the wild as part of a...

Should political observers write off Senator Cory Gardner’s (R-CO)’s re-election prospects yet? Not so fast. New polling suggests he’s gaining on challenger John Hickenlooper. The junior senator, first elected to office in 2014, is confident he can beat the scandal-prone former presidential candidate and Colorado governor. On a recent episode of my podcast, District of Conservation, Senator Gardner discussed how the campaign is going and how the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) will preserve our nation’s outdoor heritage.He said, “We have been able to take our message of accomplishment for the people of Colorado from corner to corner across our state, and I’m going to continue getting...

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — A local group of activists is outraged after a black bear was recently seen in Asheville with a political sticker on its collar."Help Asheville Bears" (HAB) is offering a $5,000 reward for anyone who can find out who put a 'Trump 2020' sticker on the bear’s collar. Sheila Chapman tells News 13 the black bear wandered onto her front porch in North Asheville on July 31 when she noticed something colorful on its collar. {snip}"We have so many places in this world to put stickers and express our political views," Chapman says. "Using a wild animal...

Harpist Is Accompanied By Adorable Woodland Creature In A Dreamy Scene Straight Out Of A Disney Movie BY MATTHEW RUSSELL “My harp session turned into a Disney movie,” writes Redditor u/Noomie90. The musician was preparing for practice when a white-tailed deer approached slowly from behind. With a smile and a song, she continued to play along. The harpist performed “The Sounds of Silence” with a uniquely designed “portable” model. The deer appears in the background of the meadow. “TIL harps can have slings so you can harp anywhere,” commented Redditor u/nerdwaffles. “It’s actually an altered guitar strap!” replied the musician....

The Andean condor has a wingspan stretching to 10 feet and weighs up to 33 pounds, making it the heaviest soaring bird alive today. For the first time, a team of scientists strapped recording equipment they called “daily diaries” to eight condors in Patagonia to record each wingbeat over more than 250 hours of flight time. ... One bird flew more than five hours, covering more than 100 miles (160 km), without flapping its wings. “Condors are expert pilots — but we just hadn’t expected they would be quite so expert,” “When you see condors circling, they are taking advantage...

Captain Amy Corso woke up last Thursday at 1:30 a.m. to the sound of her crying toddler. Corso didn't need to get up for work until 3 a.m., but she couldn't fall back asleep because she immediately started thinking about the task ahead of her that day - tracking down a lost mountain lion in the city and capturing it. Corso is the field services supervisor for San Francisco's Animal Care & Control and in recent days she and her colleague Officer Stephanie Pone had been consumed with the wild cat prowling city streets at night. The two had been...

An oceanic whitetip shark was found covered in suction-like scars on its side These scars had to have been made by the tentacles of a giant squid species Researchers say its the first evidence of a fight between a shark and giant squid Until now fights between massive cephalopods and giant sharks were only speculative, due to the fact squids live at over 3,000ft under the ocean surface. He said while he couldn't say exactly which species, it had to be large. White dots found on the body of the shark were made by the narrow parts of the tentacle...

I’ve been keeping my nose to the ground looking for lighthearted videos to share lately, and found one yesterday that might put a smile on your face. It’s a video of a bald eagle sitting on what appears to be somebody’s back porch, and the person shooting the video has apparently struck a deal with the bird where he gives it a snack and gets a song in return. First of all, the guy behind the camera in this video kind of cracks me. And I don’t know about you, but this was a nice little break from the rest...