Free Republic

A man-eating leopard has claimed its fifth victim in just two months after dragging away and devouring a 14-year-old girl in Nepal. ...In the latest attack, the unnamed teenager was cutting grass in the forest near her home in Baitadi district, on the border with India, when she was attacked by the animal, said Bishnu Bahadur Karki, a local deputy superintendent of police. "The locals found the body torn into pieces and eaten below the neck at the forest area yesterday," he told AFP. Karki said three young girls and a 35-year-old pregnant woman had been killed in the weeks...

The device that exploded inside a car in Lafayette on Saturday afternoon, sending a husband and wife to the hospital with serious burns, was inside a paper bag with the victims' names written... Lafayette police this morning issued a news release with fresh details of the crime, which remains under investigation. As of 8 a.m. today, no arrests had been made, although ... investigators were looking at a possible suspect. Allyson Stone, 44, and her husband, Christopher Stone, 59, walked out of their home at 337 Lodgewood Point just before 12:56 p.m. Saturday when they saw a package "described as...

The animal had been preying on domestic goats, residents and authorities said. A mountain lion that took a heavy toll on the animals in an Oak Glen petting zoo was killed on Christmas night when it returned to a sheep carcass to feed. The 7-year-old female lion had been raiding the petting zoo at Riley’s at Los Rios Rancho apple orchards. In all, 13 goats and sheep died, said Devon Riley, who owns the business in the mountains east of Yucaipa. When the goats and sheep started to disappear in late November, California Department of Fish and Game officials investigated...

A Los Alamos family is mourning the loss of their pet dog after a mountain lion attacked and killed it in their backyard on Christmas Eve. Police Capt. Randy Foster said that when Hari Viswanathan heard the family dog, named Gwennie, barking outside and found a mountain lion trying to pull it through wooden slats in the fence, he frantically tried to get the big can to let go and even hit it over the head with a shovel. Even after four officers responded and the dog was dead, the mountain lion wouldn't let her go,

New England lawmakers are asking the U.S. Commerce Secretary for an emergency assessment of the abundance of cod in the Gulf of Maine. ... The six lawmakers also are asking Bryson to freeze the cod catch limit at its current level until the study is complete. Fishermen are facing devastating cuts in cod catch next year

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman criticized the Humane Society of the United States on Monday, saying he would fight any efforts by its lobbyists to push legislation that could hinder Nebraska's agricultural industry. The Humane Society of the United States opened an office in Omaha last year. A group spokesman has said the new office and state issues director in Nebraska were intended to help small farmers gain access to markets traditionally dominated by larger operations. But Heineman, a Republican, said he did not trust the group's intentions.

Animal rights groups suffered a setback as the Appellate Division of the New Jersey state Superior Court....

Maine’s congressional delegation is supporting Gov. Paul LePage’s request seeking a federal fisheries disaster declaration to provide aid to Maine’s groundfishing fleet. ... His request followed a recent report documenting a sharp decline in Maine’s fishing fleet due to changes in federal fishery management plans.

Congress Reverses Domestic Horse Slaughter Ban Federal lawmakers last month quietly found a way to reverse a policy that has devastated the equine industry in recent years and advanced cruel and inhumane treatment of horses nationwide. In 2006 animal rights activists celebrated Congress’s actions to end funding for government inspections at U.S. facilities that slaughtered horses for meat to be exported to Europe and Asian countries. Emotionally driven advertising campaigns funded by national animal welfare groups helped impact public opinion and convince lawmakers that slaughtering and exporting horsemeat was cruel and should be ended. The benevolent move had unintended consequences,...

Next month the Dutch parliament is expected to approve a ban on halal and kosher methods of slaughtering animals for food. Those who proposed the ban say it is simply an issue of animal welfare, but it received strong support from the right-wing Freedom Party. Many see it as a violation of their religious freedom, and among the Jewish community it is a worrying echo of a similar ban brought in by Hitler. Video at link

A trail camera snapped a shot of a young cougar near the town of Pray in eastern Jackson County on Oct. 20...Agency biologists believe it's the same cat another trail camera caught on film on Oct. 16 near Mauston in Juneau County, about 42 miles from the area where the Jackson County photograph was taken.

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown is calling on President Obama to fire the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, saying she’s worsened the fishing industry’s problems. Brown said Saturday in a press conference at the Gloucester waterfront that Obama should replace Jane Lubchenco. In a statement, Brown said Lubchenco was indifferent to the industry’s struggles and wrongly committed to a new management system he says is destroying fishing jobs.

The Obama administration is taking steps to extend new federal protections to a list of imperiled animals and plants that reads like a manifest for Noah's Ark - from the melodic golden-winged warbler and slow-moving gopher tortoise, to the slimy American eel and tiny Texas kangaroo rat. ... With a Friday deadline to act on more than 700 pending cases, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service already has issued decisions advancing more than 500 species toward potential new protections under the Endangered Species Act... Patrick Parenteau, an environmental lawprofessor at the University of Vermont. "They are moving through this large...

Commercial fishermen will no longer have their regulatory cases heard by Coast Guard Administrative Law Judges. Instead, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that as of Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency ALJ’s will preside over all new fishing law enforcement cases. This measure is being taken in response to an inquiry made by the Inspector General into complaints by commercial fishermen that NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service’s regulatory system was being excessive with its penalties and actions. Jerry Slaff, NOAA public affairs officer, said the EPA will provide judges for regulatory cases for the next two years. He said NOAA...

Coyotes lurking in the woods in Massachusetts have been known to attack dogs, chickens, cats, and even, in rare instances, people. But a buffalo ?... A pack of coyotes entered a pen where his 14 buffalos grazed. When they were done, one was missing...“All that was left was skin and bone,” said Kimball, who was keeping watch over the pen today as the herd huddled together and grazed on grass. ... After the coyote attack, he vowed to be vigilant in protecting the animals – armed, if necessary. “I’m going to come out here with my gun, and if I...

An American hunter who abused wounded birds in Western Canada and videotaped his antics is facing a $15,000 fine and a three-year hunting ban in Canada. Jeffery Burdett Foiles, 54, of Pleasant Hill, Illinois, pleaded guilty in an Edmonton court Wednesday to causing unnecessary pain and suffering to a duck, contrary to the Criminal Code.

Like prisoners emerging from a lifetime behind bars, a group of chimpanzees step blinking into the sunlight with what appears for all the world to be a wave and a smile. And they have much to be joyful about. For this is the first time they have felt grass under their feet and breathed fresh air for 30 years. Though a few of the chimps were born in captivity, most were kidnapped from African jungles as babies and flown to Europe, where they were locked in metal laboratory cages to be used in a long series of experiments. Horrifyingly, their...

A mountain lion attack has a Monument neighborhood on edge. Residents of the town, located about 20 miles north of Colorado Springs, are keeping a close watch on children and pets after a mountain lion killed a small dog. The dog was coming back inside when the mountain lion struck.

Wolf sightings in the Blue Mountains are becoming more frequent this summer, but wildlife officials for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have yet to document firm evidence of a pack forming in the southeastern corner of the state. Paul Wik, district biologist for the department at Clarkston, said the canyons and timbered ridges southeast of Dayton have been a hot spot for wolf reports this year. Some hunters have even captured images of wolves with trail cameras, he said. "It's definitely no secret they are here," Wik said. "The only question to us is what their status is."...

An 18-month-old boy attacked by a cougar in Pacific Rim National Park Monday was in serious condition in B.C. Children's Hospital Tuesday. Julien Sylvester's mother, Sarah Hagar, was at the hospital in Vancouver with her injured son. "The patient is in serious condition, which means he is being monitored closely," ... The family had packed up and was leaving the beach. Julien was walking three metres in front of his grandfather and an unidentified adult when the cougar leaped on the boy from a forest at the edge of the beach, Armstrong said. The cougar was momentarily daunted by Julien's...

The Missouri Farm Bureau opposes an initiative petition being circulated to require a three-fourths vote of the Missouri legislature to change an initiative statute. The initiative petition, known as “Your Vote Counts,” is backed by the Humane Society of the United States, the organization that successfully initiated the so-called puppy mill measure in November. “If we adopt the position of HSUS, the initiative petition will have no ability to correct a mistake and we think that would be a mistake,” said Blake Hurst, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau. The HSUS is using vast financial resources to get on the...

Each summer, animal activists travel across the country to meet and discuss the latest topics of the animal rights movement. This year, animal agriculture was once again the focus. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) hosted its annual Taking Action for Animals Conference in Washington, D.C. on July 15-18, and Farm Animal Rights Movement’s Animal Rights 2011 Conference (AR 2011) was held two weeks later on July 21-25 in Los Angeles. Both events claimed to have “record-breaking” attendance, attracting a combined total of more than 1,600 activists from around the world, ranging in age from 20-60 years old....

The 25-year-old was admitted in critical condition, unconscious. His arms were chewed off by his elbow," ... as were "other body parts," ... The shark struck about 50 metres off the coast. It was the first registered shark attack in the Primorye region located on the northwest coast of the Sea of Japan.

A British man has died in a shark attack while on honeymoon in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. ... A 36-year-old French tourist was killed by a shark off the same beach just over two weeks ago. The Seychelles Tourism Board's director Alain St Ange told the BBC the latest attack was caused by a "foreign shark" and

Pack lives about 90 miles east of Seattle . This makes the fourth resident wolf pack in the state, and the second known pack of wolves in the Cascade Mountains ... ... The gray wolf is protected throughout Washington as a state endangered species. In the western two-thirds of Washington, the species is also federally protected under the Endangered Species Act.

LEADVILLE, Colo. -- A black bear went into a tent in a central-Colorado campground and bit or scratched a sleeping teenage boy's arm. State wildlife officials say the boy was camping out with his family in the mountains near Leadville when the bear grabbed him early Friday. Colorado Division of Wildlife spokesman Randy Hampton tells KMGH-TV the boy needed medical care, but his wounds didn't appear to be life-threatening.

The Animal Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for Friday's fire attack at a hamburger restaurant in Gothenburg... In a posting on the animal rights activists website Bite Back Magazine, those allegedly responsible described how they smashed two windows with hammers at the burger restaurant at the Scandinavium Center, poured ten liters of petrol in and set it alight. The posting continued, “We were in a hurry as the sun had risen and it was light outside, so we threw the containers with written ALF-messages on them and some lighted matches into the restaurant and it went up in a big...

It is becoming clearer with each passing day that something is terribly, terribly wrong in California.  Gradually, unnoticed by most, California is slowly deteriorating over time like a grand old mansion with a steadily crumbling foundation.  The California Dream is slowly dying and what seems to be rising from the ashes is a nightmare.  Why?  How did this happen?  The answer is quite simple.  Deliberate and strategic social and political engineering by motivated special interest groups.  These groups seek to force their agendas upon us via carefully crafted and legislated mandates.The most powerful, dangerous, and influential of these groups...

An animal rights activist who burned down a Colorado sheepskin store as well as a leather store and restaurant building in Salt Lake City, pleaded guilty to federal charges Wednesday. Walter Edmund Bond, 35, pleaded guilty to felony counts of arson and violence involving animal enterprises. He has already been sentenced to five years in Colorado and could face between five to 20 years for the Utah fires when sentenced Sept. 19. Prosecutor John Huber said the government will argue to make the Colorado and Utah sentences consecutive to one another. "He is unapologetic. He is an unrepentant serial arsonist,"...

Captains issue S.O.S., claiming new rules meant to save the fish are killing their way of life. With the height of the New England fishing season getting under way this week, small family fishermen say controversial new rules are destroying their livelihood — forcing them to sell their boats and instead search for work as laborers on larger vessels. “It’s a death knell. It’s the beginning of the end for small fishermen,” said Rhode Island fisherman Joel Hovanesian, 54, who recently sold his boat. Plymouth fisherman Stephen Welch, 50, a father of two, said: “We’re in a crisis right now.”...

As a lifelong commercial fisherman from Rhode Island who is involved with the regulatory process, I have one simple question to ask: Just what are we trying to accomplish with fish quotas? Federally, the science that drives the stock assessments and sets the quotas is so bad that industry has taken it upon itself to provide a better snapshot of many stocks of concern. Predictably, the picture is not nearly as dire as our federal scientists would lead us to believe. Recently, a side-by-side comparison was done, using the new multi-gazillion-dollar research vessel paid for with your tax dollars and...

Well, sporties, are you ready for 4,200 to 7,300 wolves in the Northern Rockies? Back in April, you’ll remember that Congress stuffed a “bipartisan” rider (Section 1713) into the 2011 Appropriations omnibus (Public Law 112-10). This rider supposedly de-listed Rocky Mountain gray wolves outside Wyoming, by reinstating the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) so called “2009 Rule,” shot down by federal judge Donald W. Molloy last August. Section 1713 went into effect May 5. The same day, two lawsuits were filed before Molloy by Alliance for the Wild Rockies (AWR)/Wild Earth Guardians (WIGs) and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD)....

MISSOULA- The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation filed a note it plans to appeal any decision that adversely affects a state's right to manage fully recovered wolf populations. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy is expected to decide whether Congress acted within Constitutional bounds when it delisted wolves in parts of the West. "We are protecting our right to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals any decision that results in another setback for conservation and science-based wildlife management," said RMEF President and CEO David Allen. An unfavorable ruling may stop wolf hunts planned for this fall in both Montana...

SACRAMENTO — A national animal rights group is using a recent Sacramento case about a mother allegedly microwaving her child to death as the inspiration for an ad campaign. PETA released a statement to FOX40 explaining the new billboard “that features the image of a person who is about to pop a pork chop into the microwave next to a picture of a loving mother pig and reads, “Everybody's Somebody's Baby. Go Vegan.’” The group says they are in negotiation with outdoor advertisers to put up this billboard “in the wake of Tuesday’s arrest of a Sacramento woman for allegedly...

In the absence of the ability to form logical debate points or to present their position in a straight-forward manner, social activists and special interest groups have instead become attention whores, always on the look-out for prime opportunities by which they can spew their ideology. For animal rights activists, the Calgary Stampede has long been a target for their anger. The world famous rodeo, known as The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth, has seen it's share of protests from those who claim the annual ten-day event promotes animal abuse. Again this year, the Vancouver Humane Society is making waves by...

Conservation Experts: This Size Cat Hasn't Been Seen Here In 100 Years. There has been a wild animal alert issued in the northern suburbs. A mountain lion, yes, a mountain lion, is on the loose. ... We’re not looking for your Aunt Mildred’s kitty here, either. This is a big cat, a 160-pound predator that hunts and eats things. ... Ironically the Eastern mountain lion was officially declared extinct only a few months ago — in March.

In the course of my research for this column, I visit many leftist websites. (If my laptop were ever to fall into the wrong hands, I would probably look like a communist spy.) Often, these sites are very, very dull, like Al Snore on downers. However, there is a lot that can be learned from reading the user comments. After all, the best way to study animals is to observe them in their natural habitat. Let's see Liberalius Schmuckius in action at the Moveon.Dork Preserve for Mentally Ill Moonbats. (As is our custom: All spelling and grammatical errors are left...

BEIJING — The mutts were destined for the dinner table — all 520 of them crammed onto a truck hurtling down a Beijing highway toward awaiting restaurants in northeastern China. Then, fate intervened in the form of a passing driver, an animal lover who spotted the truck and angrily forced it off the road. From there, things began spiraling out of control. News of the confrontation hit the Chinese blogosphere, sending more than 200 animal activists flocking immediately to the highway. Traffic on the road slowed to a standstill. Dozens of police officers were called in. Animal activists, however, kept...

HESPERIA -- Michelle Taylor shudders when she realizes she may have been sharing her garage with a mountain lion for the past three days. "I think it was in there since Sunday night," the Hesperia mother of five said after the animal was removed on Tuesday. Her neighbors reported they had seen a mountain lion roaming the area since Friday.

Oregon and Washington have been given permission to resume removing or killing California sea lions at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, a federal agency said Friday. The decision by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration came about six months after a federal appeals court struck down a similar permit aimed at reducing the number of threatened or endangered salmon eaten by the hungry marine mammals. ... the California sea lion population is healthy, estimated at 238,000, while wild Columbia River spring chinook salmon are listed as endangered. ... NOAA Regional Director William Stelle said new data suggest sea lions...

Out of the mouths of children...

It’s time to change your ways human carers; you are insulting your companion animals and you should be ashamed of yourself. If you use terms like pets, wild- life, critters, beasts, or pests, the Journal of Animal Ethics has a (non-animal) bone to pick with you and your lack of sensitivity. A (wackier than normal) group of leading animal ethicists is calling for a new “animal language” because the common animal terms we use “send out the wrong message.” To whom, exactly? The Rat would call these people “loons,” but that would be an affront to loons. Anyway, check out...

Anyone who reads Chapter 7 of Agenda 21, and then reads their local comprehensive land use plan will immediately recognize that most of the provisions of the local land use plan come directly from Agenda 21. More often than not, the elected officials who adopt these plans have never read Agenda 21, and many have never even heard of the U.N. document, signed by President George H. W. Bush in 1992. The facilitators and professional planners have heard about Agenda 21, but frequently claim that the plan they are working on has nothing to do with the U.N. or Agenda...

Is it possible that PETA, an organization which has equated the eating of animals to the lynching of black Americans, has something in common with the Tea Party? I wondered when I received an email from a fellow Tea Partier which had originated from the radical animal rights group. House File (HF) 1369 and Senate File (SF) 1118, which are currently making their way through the Minnesota State Legislature, could subject whistleblowers to criminal prosecution for their efforts to expose animal abuse on factory farms. If passed, these bills would penalize those who report and expose cruelty to animals and...

(snip) For example, some of the "ingredients" commonly used in animal factory feed include: (think hard about this list the next time you order a hamburger...) 1. Excessive grains -- Abnormally high amounts can make the animals sick, especially natural grass eaters like cattle. Their bodies are not designed to handle a corn-rich diet; as a result, these animals can form liver abscesses and excessively acidic digestive systems. 2. Plastics -- For the many animals whose digestive systems still need roughage to move food through, these factories have turned to the use of plastic pellets instead of plant-based roughage to...

On the fortieth anniversary of the gruesome murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and seven other victims, mass murderer Charles Manson granted an interview. Charlie was convicted and sentenced to death for these murders, though he boasted of many more. But after one of several court decisions ruling the death penalty unconstitutional, Charlie was resentenced to life imprisonment. He continues to reside as a guest of the State of California, as do other members of his “family.” Manson rambled on about global warming, protecting nature, and various topics including theology. Typically, the college-educated are more likely to substitute environmentalism for...

TWIN FALLS, Idaho — A federal judge dealt another setback to the J.R. Simplot Co. and other ranchers by reaffirming his late-February decision to halt grazing on 17 Bureau of Land Management allotments covering some 450,000 acres in southern Idaho. Western Watersheds Project director Jon Marvel said Winmill's decision will protect thousands of acres of critical sage grouse habitat from livestock grazing. Marvel's group aims to shut down grazing on public land in the West

Federal wildlife officials say they will take more than 1,300 gray wolves in the Northern Rockies off the endangered species list within 60 days. It marks the first time Congress has taken a species off the endangered list. Idaho and Montana plan public wolf hunts this fall. Hunts last year were canceled after a judge ruled the predators remained at risk.

the wolf soap opera and U.S. District of Montana Judge Donald W. Molloy’s pending ruling – which is STILL pending – circumstances in the high-stakes Endangered Species Act (ESA) political mix have gotten even nuttier. ... USFWS gave away the store in return: In parts 2 and 3, USFWS agreed to withdraw and resubmit for “public review” within 60 days the so-called “M-opinion” that interprets ESA’s statutory (and fuzzy) “significant portion of range” language. This interpretation is critically used to determine whether a species is to be listed as threatened, endangered – or not at all. Now, aren’t you just...

Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country. The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit" — to the point that the "well-being and existence of many beings" is now threatened. The wording may yet evolve, but the general structure is meant to mirror Bolivia's Law of the Rights of Mother Earth,...