Australia announces it will kill a pigeon that travelled 8,000 miles across the Pacific (because COVID!), reinforcing that animals and humans can no longer be allowed to travel freely in the "New Normal."
Hungary is set to cull 101,000 hens, eliminating a chunk of their egg production, after an outbreak of bird flu, just like Lithuania, Russia, UK, France, Germany, Japan... the mass culls are everywhere, and also throw a wrench into the gears of meat import/export market.
Christian covers the latest developments in the "animals are dirty and dangerous" narrative that is part of the war on animal agriculture and Agenda 2030.
Nazanine Moshiri, George Obulutsa Reuters Tue, 19 Jan 2021 16:39 UTC
Swarms of desert locusts have reappeared in East Africa to the dismay of farmers and villagers who witnessed them wreak havoc on their crops and pasture in previous years.
Locust swarms first soared in number in late 2019, as a result of unusual weather patterns amplified by climate change. They dispersed eastwards from Yemen leaving Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia hardest hit.
"In Kenya, several immature swarms are arriving every day and spreading west throughout northern and central areas," the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a statement.
"Swarms have now been seen in seven counties ... compared to four last week. A few swarms are starting to mature."
Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) worsened in Uttarakhand in 2020, with 63 lives lost to fatal encounters with wild animals, as compared to 58 deaths in 2019. Half of the deaths were caused by leopard attacks, which saw a significant spike in 2020.Leopards killed 31 humans in the hill state in 2020 as compared to 18 in 2019. The data was exclusively accessed by TOI from the Uttarakhand forest department.
Apart from the usual reasons like habitat encroachment that trigger HWC, experts believe deserted roads during the lockdown added to the problem. The lockdown emboldened the big cats, who ventured into human habitats more freely than ever before.
"In the first half of 2020, people stopped going to forests to collect fodder and firewood. The dogs accompanying them, which leopards typically preyed on, also stopped coming. As a result, leopards started entering human habitats more frequently," said chief wildlife warden of Uttarakhand forest department, JS Suhag.
When darkness comes, electric eels emerge from South American river bottoms to attack their prey with up to 860 volts of electricity — enough to kill a person. Now, scientists have revealed the snakelike fish don't always go it alone: They hunt in packs, similar to wolves, orcas, and some species of tuna. The finding, a first among electric fishes, may open the way for new studies to investigate when social predation evolved among fishes.
"I was shocked," says Douglas Bastos, a biologist at the National Institute of Amazonian Research who first saw a group attack in 2012. Usually the eels, which can grow as long as a broomstick and weigh up to 20 kilograms, prey alone at night, targeting single resting fishes, he notes. "This behavior is unprecedented for electrical eels and also rare among freshwater fishes."
Comment: In recent years science has come to discover that there is cross-species hunting cooperation, so, whilst this is an interesting find, some of the comments in the article above also reveal just how limiting the scientific perspective can be sometimes; and particularly that shaped by Darwinian theory:
More than 400 cows have died mysteriously since a wind park was built near a herd in 2012. Local residents also suffering health issues: "permanent fatigue, muscle aches, headaches, insomnia"
Earlier we wrote about the adverse health impacts of wind turbines and on humans and animals, read here and here. Also search NTZ zone using the search word "infrasound".
Cause unknown
Recently French farmer Didier Potiron reported that 400 of his cows had died since a wind park was built close by in 2012. Veterinarians cannot find a cause and remain puzzled. People are also feeling ill.
According to French site actu.fr, "In Puceul, near Nozay (Loire-Atlantique), cow breeders Didier and Murielle Potiron registered in mid-December 2020 their 400th dead cow since the construction of the wind farm." Since the unusual deaths began in 2012, that's a rate of about 1 lost cow a week.
Piles of dead Nile perch have been washing up on the shore of Lake Victoria in Uganda for no obvious reason, threatening the livelihoods of the surrounding communities, locals said.
Teddy Nagadya, a fishmonger in Kigungu, a shoreline village in Entebbe town, told Reuters the dead fish have induced panic. "We do not know why Nile Perch are dying yet all the other fish are not dying," she said.
Uganda's ministry of agriculture and fisheries said on Sunday that hypoxia - "a usual phenomenon" - may have led to the fish deaths, although fishermen in the area told officials the numbers of fish dying was much higher than in the past. Industries, farms and settlements near Lake Victoria have been a source of environmental stress for the lake over the last years, threatening the livelihoods of nearby communities, said Amos Wemanya, Greenpeace's Africa Campaigner.
Three persons have been killed in separate incidents of attack by elephants in Chhattisgarh's Jashpur district, a forest official said on Monday.
The incidents took place late Sunday evening in Pathalgaon forest range of the district, located around 450 km from the state capital Raipur, he said.
As per the official, a 50-year-old native of Saraitola village, identified as one Dilsai Ram Chauhan, was returning on foot after work from nearby Dumarbahar village when he was attacked by an elephant.
Despite being advised by forest personnel not to take that route because of the presence of jumbos, Chauhan took the route, he said.
Jennifer Leighfield Euro Weekly Mon, 11 Jan 2021 11:52 UTC
A 32-year-old resident of Cassa de la Selva in Girona died early in the morning of January 10 from injuries caused by a dog that attacked him.
The attack reportedly took place at around 9pm on Saturday, January 9, when the victim took a friend's dog for a walk.
The dog, an American Staffordshire Terrier, a breed which is considered to be potentially dangerous in Spain, attacked the man, causing serious injuries to his left arm.
A woman has died after she was attacked and reportedly partially eaten by a pack of dogs while she was running.
The body of the victim, identified as Sara Noemi Gaspani, 58, was found being mauled by the pack of dogs in Buenos Aires in Argentina on Boxing Day.
The woman worked as a local teacher and had been jogging in a suburban area of the city where three dogs were found eating part of her body.
An autopsy indicated, however, that around six dogs had taken part in the initial attack.
It also confirmed the suspicion that the dogs had not simply found the corpse and started eating it, but in fact, had attacked her causing a "fast and traumatic" death from multiple bite wounds.
Catrin Owen, Sharnae Hope and Andre Chumko Stuff Thu, 07 Jan 2021 14:40 UTC
Witnesses have described harrowing scenes at a Bowentown beach, near Waihī, in western Bay of Plenty, after a shark attacked a woman while she was swimming.
Despite emergency services performing vigorous CPR on the victim, who was in her early 20s, she died at the scene.
A rāhui has been placed around the area by local iwi as whānau gathered to mourn at a Coastguard building at the Bowentown end of Waihī Beach on Thursday night, where the victim's body was believed to be laying.
As the night came to a close, a group of locals and holidaymakers lit candles and had drinks in memory of the victim on the beach itself.
A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Recent Comments
No shit pzv! And here in our gorgeous Canadian Northern PRISTINE wilderness.... our First Nations boil boil boil, year after year. [Link]
Comment: Plagues of locusts are being reported from all around the world these days. It is likely related to increasingly erratic seasons and extreme weather patterns, which is not a consequence of 'global warming' as parroted relentlessly by the MSM: Global cooling to replace warming trend that started 4,000 years ago - Chinese scientists. See also: