Kenya wildlife policy policy committee pushes “cropping,” not “hunting”

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:

NAIROBI–“The National Steering Committee,” drafting
revisions to Kenyan wildlife policy, “has dropped recommendations
for killing animals for fun,” revealed The Nation environment
correspondent John Mbaria on March 16, 2007. Instead, Mbaria
wrote, “it has adopted cropping wildlife.” Mbaria explained that
the draft policy “defines cropping as ‘harvesting free-ranging
animals for a range of products, including meat and wildlife
trophies.’
“In Kenya,” Mbaria continued, “most animals are
free-ranging. Apart from Saiwa Swamp in Western Kenya, and
Aberdares and Lake Nakuru national parks, which have electric
fences, the rest of the parks and reserves are open.”

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RSPCA of Australia offers beer for cane toads

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
SYDNEY–” Hops for hoppers plan likely to croak,” the Sydney
Morning Herald headlined on February 27, 2007.
A year after the Royal SPCA of Australia began offering cane
toad hunters a free beer for every toad delivered to RSPCA shelters
alive, the offer has reportedly had few takers–while hunters
continue to club cane toads, shoot them, spear them, and sometimes
lick them, to get a potentially lethal high from a poison they
secret that has reputed psychadelic effects.
Native to the Amazon rain forest, 101 cane toads were
released in Queensland in 1935 to combat cane beetles, native to
Australia, who were attacking sugar cane crops. Ignoring the cane
beetles, cane toads instead became the most successful predators of
mosquito larvae Down Under.

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Animal Planet pulls White Lions video

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
The December 2006 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE mentioned that the
Animal Planet cable television channel had come under criticism from
canned hunt opponents for airing a documentary called White Lions:
King of Kings.
The documentary, said ANIMAL PEOPLE book reviewer and
Cannedlion.com founder Chris Mercer, “presented Marius Prinsloo, a
notorious canned lion breeder in South Africa, as a paragon of
conservation working to preserve the white lion gene.”

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Wolves, grizzlies lose protection– and Alaska resumes wolf bounty

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:

WASHINGTON D.C.–Wolves and grizzly bears, the iconic
predators of the North American frontier, lost their Endangered
Species Act protection within the continental U.S. within days of
each other in March 2007, opening the possibility that both may soon
be legally hunted.
Demonstrating how wolves and grizzlies became endangered in
the first place–and what has historically always happened when rural
states are allowed jurisdiction over large predators–Alaska Governor
Sarah Palin’s office on March 20 introduced a $150 bounty on wolves.
The bounty is open only to the 180 pilots and aerial gunners who are
registered volunteer participants in the state’s predator control
program.

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Poaching in Afghanistan

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
Poaching, never well-controlled in Afghanistan, appears to
be more blatant than ever, freelance correspondent Jeff Hodson
reported for the Seattle Times in mid-January 2007.
“The skins of wolves and wild cats hang in fur shops in
Kabul,” Hodson wrote, “along with rabbit-skin rugs and full-length
fox coats, despite a nationwide ban on hunting and international
laws prohibiting their trade. Foreign soldiers and aid workers are
the main buyers, according to conservationists.”
Wildlife Conservation Society director of Afghanistan
programs Alex Deghan told Hodson that “he knows of one aid worker who
had a comforter made from two or three snow-leopard skins.”

Kenyan reporter flushes out USAid effort to repeal national ban on hunting

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
NAIROBI–“Killing wildlife for fun may be re-introduced in
Kenya if the government implements a new wildlife policy believed to
have been influenced by the U.S.,” wrote John Mbaria in the February
24 edition of The Nation, the leading Kenyan newspaper.
“The draft policy calls for lifting the 1977 ban on hunting,
and asks the government to allow game ranchers and communities in
wildlife areas to crop, cull, and sell animals and their products,”
Mbaria said.
“These recommendations are a radical deviation from what
communities in 18 of the 21 wildlife regions in the country proposed
during a nationwide views gathering exercise carried out by the
National Wildlife Steering Committee,” Mbaria continued.
Affirmed Akamba Council of Elders representative Benedict
Mwendwa Muli. “We overwhelmingly said no to sport hunting. We
requested the government to restock wildlife so that we can start
receiving tourists.”

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Fire aboard Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru ends Antarctic killing early

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research whaling within
Antarctic waters ended for the winter on February 24, 2007–far
short of meeting a self-assigned quota of 935 minke whales, 50
humpback whales, and 50 fin whales. The latter are both
internationally designated endangered species.
“At around 17:30 today,” posted the crew of the Greenpeace
vessel Esperanza, “the expedition leader of the Japanese
government’s whaling fleet radioed, informing us that the Nisshin
Maru–disabled nine days ago by fire–plans to sail in three hours.
“This is a relief,” the posting continued. “After nine long
days, the whaling fleet is finally leaving the Ross Sea, and the
unsullied environment of the Southern Ocean.”
The Nisshin Maru on February 15 caught fire in a below-deck
processing area. Most of the 148-member crew were evacuated,
leaving 26 to fight the blaze. One crewman, Kazutaka Makita, 27,
was killed by the fire.

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Mercury poisoning may save whales

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
TAIJI–Three days after Christmas 2006, a long-anticipated
confrontation between the two-ship fleet of the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society and the Japanese whaling fleet inside the
International Whaling Commission-designated Southern Oceans Whale
Sanctuary had yet to develop–but Ric O’Barry took the fight against
Japanese whaling right into Japanese supermarkets, and on Boxing Day
2006 scored a second round knockout against the Taiji coastal whalers.
Taiji coastal whaling little resembles high seas whaling.
Instead of shooting great whales with harpoon guns and butchering
them aboard the factory ship Nisshin Maru in the name of scientific
research, the coastal whalers drive small whales into shallow water
where a few are selected for sale to marine mammal parks.

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Hong Kong kills feral pigs

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
“The solution to the increasing havoc caused by marauding
bands of wild pigs in the New Territories is relatively simple: kill
them,” reported the South China Morning Post on December 21, 2006.
Sarah Liao Sau-tung, Hong Kong Secretary for Environment,
Transport and Works, confirmed a day earlier that members of hunting
clubs in Tai Po and Sai Kung had been officially encouraged to hunt
pigs more often. “We believe a lot of people will volunteer because
they enjoy it as a hobby,” Sau-tung said.

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