Wednesday - September 29, 2010
Law of unintended consequences?
“duh, it wasn’t us” says animal rights lunatics.
Liars.
DUBLIN – The roads and rivers of northwest Ireland are suddenly lined with mink.
Managers at Anderson’s Mink Farm said Wednesday that many of their cages and fences were cut and opened over the weekend, freeing an estimated 5,000 animals into the wilds of County Donegal. About 28,000 others declined the invitation to bolt for freedom.
More than 100 already have been recaptured by hunters using cage traps, while several hundred others have been run over and killed. Drivers have reported seeing groups of the farm-reared animals standing, dazzled by headlights, in the middle of busy roads.
One of the farm’s directors, Connie Anderson, blamed animal rights activists for invading the farm in the early hours of Sunday. He declined to explain why it took the farm so long to raise the public alarm.
“These people are animal liberation terrorists and had no thought for the mink or for the damage that will be done to other wildlife in the area,” Anderson said.
Agricultural authorities warned that the surviving minks could decimate local populations of salmon, rabbits and fowl.
Animal rights activists in Ireland have denied responsibility — but are praising whoever did it.
“We have nothing to do with it. However, I commend whoever risked their freedom to do this as these animals have a horrendous life,” said Bernie Wright, spokeswoman for Ireland’s Alliance for Animal Rights.
And this act is right on the heels of a similar one that happened in Greece just a couple of weeks ago ...
Sep 2, 2010
ATHENS, Greece — An international animal rights activist group has claimed responsibility for releasing more than 50,000 minks from two fur farms in northern Greece.
In an online statement, the Animal Liberation Front says it carried out the attacks last week near the towns of Kastoria and Siatista, in the heart of Greece’s fur industry.
Thursday’s statement said the break-ins were meant to hit the industry “and especially the disgusting ‘fur towns’ of Siatista and Kastoria, plagued with hundreds of fur stores.”
Greece’s National Fur Breeders’ Association said most of the animals released into the local ecosystem were likely to die in the heat. It said the cost to the farm owners could exceed euro1 million ($1.28 million).
So the ones that don’t die of heatstroke, get run over, or starve to death (these are farm raised animals with no hunting experience) will probably wipe out all the small game in the area. And then die. It’s happened before ...
These Critters First groups like The Animal Liberation Front don’t give a damn about the animals themselves. No, they are against people using animals to earn a living. We call it farming ... or ranching ... same thing I guess when you’re farming animals. But they think of it as exploitation.
Of course, they don’t stop for a second to consider that the european mink is a highly endangered species in the wild, and almost all the living animals are the ones raised on farms. That’s people’s faults too, of course.
Nutjobs.
Now, there is such a thing as responsible farming. When you raise livestock, you are as God to the animals; you order the timing of their birth and their death, you control their living conditions. So it is not responsible - it’s downright cruelty - to use the lives and health of the animals as a labor bargaining chip. This is criminal:
Minks ‘starved to death’ in wage dispute
Employees at a mink farm in Russia’s European exclave of Kaliningrad are starving their animals to demand unpaid wages, a Russian furrier, who owns the farm, said overnight.
Staff “refused to feed the animals to protest over unpaid salary arrears dating back to December,” Grigory Isayevich, the deputy director of the furrier Russian Furs, which raises some 300,000 minks at five farms, said.
He said several dozen angry employees had blocked access to the animals’ food stores last week in an unusual strike that prompted the struggling company to pay back a part of the wage arrears.
Minks at the farm had already been underfed and suffering from chronic food shortages as the firm teeters on the brink of bankruptcy due to Russians cutting back on purchases of luxury fur coats amid the global economic crisis.
In August, “as many as 500 animals died daily (of starvation) at the farm and the minks began to eat each other,” said Sergei Babasyuk, deputy head of the department of agriculture at the Bagrationovsky region, where the farm is based.
OTOH, the farmer could afford the feed for 300,000 minks but couldn’t afford to pay a couple dozen workers? That smells worse than a soggy bag of new Fishy Bits flavor Purina Mink Chow.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/29/2010 at 10:49 AM
Filed Under: • Animals • Crime • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Stoopid-People •
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Permalink • Tuesday - September 21, 2010
Be Afraid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A Massachusetts company wants to market a genetically engineered version of Atlantic salmon, and regulators are weighing the request. If approval is given, it would be the first time the government allowed such modified animals to join the foods that go onto the nation’s dinner tables.
Ron Stotish, chief executive of AquaBounty, said at Monday’s first of two days of hearings that his company’s fish product is safe and environmentally sustainable.
Food and Drug Administration officials have largely agreed with him, saying that the salmon, which grows twice as fast as its conventional “sisters,” is as safe to eat as the traditional variety. But they have not yet decided whether to approve the request.
Critics call the modified salmon a “frankenfish” that could cause allergies in humans and the eventual decimation of the wild salmon population. An FDA advisory committee is reviewing the science of the genetically engineered fish this week and hearing such criticisms as the agency ponders approval.
Whether the public will have an appetite for it is another matter. Genetic engineering is already widely used for crops, but the government until now has not considered allowing the consumption of modified animals. Although the potential benefits — and profits — are huge, many people have qualms about manipulating the genetic code of other living creatures.
Genetically engineered — or GE — animals are not clones, which the FDA has already said are safe to eat. Clones are copies of an animal. With GE animals, the DNA has been altered to produce a desirable characteristic.
In the case of the salmon, AquaBounty has added a growth hormone from a Chinook salmon that allows the fish to produce their growth hormone all year long. The engineers were able to keep the hormone active by using another gene from an eel-like fish called an ocean pout that acts like an on switch for the hormone, according to the company. Conventional salmon produce the growth hormone only some of the time.
Hey, what the heck. Grow them on farms in the middle of the prairie. No live ungutted fish can leave the premises; no eggs would be released into the wild. But the MSM wants you to be afraid of everything all the time, so this is the big fear story for today. So take note, and immediately look at what Obama is up to! These fear stories are often used as smoke screens.
OTOH, should they meet by accident and a few cocktails, it’s likely that an Atlantic salmon could breed with a Chinook salmon. The Chinook is a fish that likes really cold water, as is the Ocean Pout. Both those fish grow all the time. Chinook salmon, which can reach 100lb, are just as conventional as any other salmon, they’re just a bit rarer. Chinook have been introduced into the Great Lakes, the waters of Patagonia, and lakes in New Zealand. And no tales of evil blood-sucking vampire salmon have come from any of those places. Probably because there were no survivors!!!
Posted by Drew458
on 09/21/2010 at 11:40 AM
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Permalink • Friday - September 03, 2010
800 mile round trip and dead wrong. Adventure of thick headed libtard “activist”
I don’t think about bulls much if at all. Unless they pop up in the news as something unusual.
I like animals generally, I am partial to cats and dogs. Big dogs. Not those damn small barky dogs that our newest neighbor has.
Anyway, like the guy in this story I am opposed to bull fighting and think it’s even more barbaric then I am. And that’s saying something. I can not see the point of making an animal suffer, and I also think ppl who can watch it and get enjoyment from it are the worst of people. So when I read about a fight where the bull gets the better of man I tend to cheer for the bull.
Now then, having said all that, I am not an “activist” of any kind. That seems to be a new sort of professional designation. I think most often ppl who describe themselves as such are also lefties. It just seems to be that way. I might be wrong. You’ll correct me if I am I know. These self styled “activists” almost always have a sort of uniform. The wispy beards and sometimes (but not in this case) wire rimmed glasses. They often go overboard on the subject and make life difficult for others, while pursuing the object of their passion, dismissing any thought that they might , just might, be mistaken.
Like this jerk. Here’s a guy looking for something that didn’t exist. Typically liberal.
In fact, when informed of the error he insisted he’d read things right and remained unconvinced. Once a libtard makes up what passes for a mind, it’s super glued there forever. Or so it seems.
So how can I be sure this guy is a lefty libtard? Well, would a conservative drive over 400 miles to do this? Maybe. But doubtful given this particular example.
The danger of taking poetry too literally
As a fervent animal lover, Paul Hurt has dedicated much of his life to exposing those he sees as glorifying bullfighting.
By Richard AlleyneSo when the Sheffield-based former teacher heard one of his prominent targets was making a public appearance in Suffolk, the 414 mile journey was no object.
Packing his van with leaflets and supplies, he set off on a two-day trip through torrential rain to picket a village literary festival where Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney was holding a reading of his poems.
He even slept in the vehicle overnight.
There was only problem, Heaney is not a supporter of the blood sport.
Paul Hurt, who spent hours protesting before his error was pointed out, was a victim of reading too much into poetry.
Jonathan Reekie, Aldeburgh Music chief executive who organised the event, said: “Mr Hurt obviously has very strong beliefs against bullfighting which I wholeheartedly understand and support.
“But unfortunately he has come to the mistaken belief that Seamus Heaney supports bullfighting and that is simply not the case.
“He is one of the world’s great poets and as everyone who loves poetry knows, he uses images and associations that are in no way meant to be literal.”
Mr Hurt, 62, a retired science teacher , is a veteran of animal protests being a member of Compassion in World Farming and an anti-fur activist.
He is also a lover of poetry and felt that lines from Heaney’s 2006 poem Tate’s Avenue and a 1976 essay on WH Auden were proof that the Irish poet was a lover of bullfighting.
Mr Hurt, 62, a retired science teacher , is a veteran of animal protests being a member of Compassion in World Farming and an anti-fur activist.
Posted by peiper
on 09/03/2010 at 11:00 AM
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Permalink • Tuesday - July 27, 2010
Interesting Emails and bowling stuff
Here are two of my newer BMEWS fans:
That’s Harold on the left, a domesticated “Rouen” Mallard, and Skokie, a “Khaki Campbell” on the right. I hear that they are Conservative, home schooled ducks, who would rather climb than swim. Their owners go to great lengths to protect them from the leftist turkeys in the woods who try to harass them all the time.
What, you were expecting a bowling post, just because it’s Tuesday night? Ok fine. We won 2 games but lost the wood by 12. My team was utterly dead tonight, so I had to bowl my ass off so we’d win anything. I threw a 166, 188, 224 for a 578 series against that family team of spaz bowlers who is still in first place. So we narrowed the gap by 1. Whoopee-do. Sorry, I’m a bit cranky. Even fun-time summer league is hard to stay completely emotionally detached from, and when your #2 team mate throws 7 opens in a row it gets nerve wracking. Like, Dude, could you do any worse if you tried? Actually, yes he could. He threw a gutter ball on a double in game 2. Then recovered and threw 9 with the 2nd ball.
So I said to hell with it all and stopped off at the beer store on the way home. I’ve got to work in the morning so I’m limiting myself to 2. So I bought the Sam Adams Imperial Double Bock, which turns out to be nearly 10% alcohol. So my “just two” is closer to “almost four”. Tastes great; really really heavy beer. Not overly sweet either. Thick enough to cut slices off of and eat them with a fork. Half a pound of malt goes into making every bottle they say. Yikes.
Harold and Skokie, the home schooled fowl that are BMEWS fans. And yeah, that’s a real log cabin. Ain’t that great?
Is it true that right wing ducks fly in counter-clockwise circles? They should, if you think about it.
Posted by Drew458
on 07/27/2010 at 08:49 PM
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Permalink • Saturday - July 17, 2010
Here’s one you don’t see very often
Glasswing Butterfly(Greta Oto) is a brush-footed butterfly where its wings are transparent. The tissue between the veins of its wings looks like glass. They are found in the range which extends throughout Central America into Mexico.
A butterfly with transparent wings is rare and beautiful. As delicate as finely blown glass, the presence of this rare tropical gem is used by rain forest ecologists as an indication of high habitat quality and its demise alerts them of ecological change. Rivaling the refined beauty of a stained glass window, the translucent wings of the Glasswing butterfly shimmer in the sunlight like polished panes of turquoise, orange, green, and red.
Posted by Drew458
on 07/17/2010 at 09:56 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - July 01, 2010
But but animals are our furry little woodlands friends!
After two children were attacked in broad daylight this week in Rye NY, police have been ordered to shoot coyotes on sight. Last month a dog was eaten. Trapping efforts prior to this have captured 9 coyotes, but now the animals are coming into yards in front of groups of people and attacking children. They are not rabid, they are just bold predators.
Rye is just a couple miles north of New York City’s borough of Yonkers, and right on the north shore of Long Island Sound. It is highly developed suburbia, and a rather expensive upscale area.
This is what we said a few years ago ... it will take somebody’s kid getting attacked or killed before the sheeple wake up. Rye’s mayor has had to turn down requests for armed citizen’s posses to hit the parks and nature preserves and wipe out the animals. Instead they are bringing in “professional” trappers and hunters, and have told the cops to shoot first. Locals are warned not to let children or pets out after dark.
These coyotes are acting in packs, very similar to the ones that killed that woman up in Labrador/Newfoundland last year.
http://www.greenwichtime.com/local/article/Rye-girl-attacked-by-coyote-second-attack-this-542305.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/30/coyote-attacks-3-year-old_n_630451.html
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/coyote.coyote.attack.2.1780945.html
And still some kneejerk bambilovers are blaming people and the old “encroaching on the animals habitat” song and dance! I’ve got news for them: Rye has been a fully built up super dense suburban community for far more than 100 years. It is past high time that these tree kissing idiots wise the heck up and realize that animals adapt, and like the bears in NJ, the coyotes are finding suburbia to be sweet easy living. And that children make tasty snacks.
Hey, this may actually be one situation where the cops and their little M4 patrol rifles are properly armed for the situation at hand. Assuming they get hold of some .223 V-max ammo. For 100 yard shots it’s perfect coyote medicine.
RYE — “Mommy, coyote!”
That’s what a 6-year-old girl yelled Tuesday night as a coyote viciously attacked her friend, Erika Attar, while they played in Erika’s backyard at 80 North St., police said.
The attack, which left the girl with non-life threatening bite wounds to her neck and torso, was the second coyote attack on a child in the city in the last four days.
Next door neighbor Stephanie Ellis was playing with Erika in the yard around 7:15 when the coyote latched onto her friend.
...
“The 6-year-old girl screamed, ‘Mommy, coyote! Mommy, coyote!’ alerting her father on the deck,” Connors said.Parents ran over. The coyote ran off. One woman CBS 2 HD spoke with was next door.
“I saw, I actually saw the coyote and called 911,” the neighbor said.
The neighborhood borders the Rye Nature Center, where it’s believed the coyote came from, perhaps through a break in the fence that borders the victim’s yard.
Other neighbors saw the coyote running away.
“It was the size of a German Shepherd, healthy, running fast. I stopped and called police,” Doug MacLaury said.
...
This was attack number two.Last Friday in Rye, a 6-year-old girl was mauled by two coyotes outside her home. She was given rabies shots and is home.
Since last Friday, police in Rye have fired a total of three shots at coyotes. Each time, the coyotes got away.
Rye Police began setting traps in April after coyotes killed a poodle in the area. They’ve captured nine coyotes so far. But now humane trapping has taken a back seat to eliminating the coyotes since they appear less fearful of humans and more willing to attack them.
“If they’re attacking small people, it’s a problem that needs to be dealt with in a serious way,” neighbor Phil Gibbs said.
Rye Mayor Doug French says the 3-year-old was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after the Tuesday night attack. The girl’s house is behind the Rye Nature Center, which is located on a 47-acre wildlife preserve.
The latest attack occurred as Rye Police Commissioner William Connors was addressing a group of residents about the last coyote attack.
Police are now ordered to shoot on sight, and with summer vacation just beginning, parents are being told to keep their children inside at night.
Posted by Drew458
on 07/01/2010 at 10:05 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - June 24, 2010
When Animals Commit B&E
A Hewitt family that has become all too familiar with bear sightings outside their home in the Lakeside community that overlooks Greenwood Lake said they had an unexpected visitor inside their home early Wednesday morning.
Kristine Flynn told the West Milford Police department that she heard loud noises in their mud room after arriving home at around midnight. Kristine and her husband, Patrick, came upon a bear that had entered their home after tearing through the door and breaking five windows, shattering the glass beyond repair. Amid the chaos, their screams scared the bear out of the house.
“He growled at my husband,” said Flynn. “I would not be surprised if the bear was injured by the glass.”
“We have two children, and there are a lot of children in our neighborhood. When a bear crosses the line—such as invading homes—we react in fear for their safety.”
According to the NJDEP website, since the 1980s the Garden State’s black bear population has been increasing and expanding its range from the forested areas of northwestern New Jersey. Within the most densely populated state in the nation, black bears are thriving and there are now confirmed bear sightings throughout all of New Jersey’s counties.
“One of the best ways to discourage nuisance bears is by storing garbage properly,” said Captain Michael Coscia of the West Milford Police department. “Bears have a strong sense of smell, but if you cut off their food source it may deter the animal.”
Right. Keep your yard clean and use those armored garbage cans. But what happens when the bear decides that the smell he likes best is the fried chicken you made for dinner? Locks or no locks, he comes right through the door. So get a metal door? What makes you think that the walls of your house - 1/8” vinyl siding, 1/2” think polyfoam, 2x4 pine walls, and a 1/2” of drywall with 2 coats of paint are going to be a barrier?
Do you think the state is going to pay to retrofit every house in the outer ‘burbs steel reinforced 6” thick concrete walls? Um, not going to happen!
I’d suggest getting a gun. A short one that shoots really big bullets, like a 12 gauge magnum slug gun, or Marlin’s 1895 Guide Gun. I never thought selecting a firearm for home defense in New Jersey would have to be based on large animal control, but there it is.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/24/2010 at 03:29 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - June 23, 2010
Thar She Blows … oops, never mind
Talks on a resumption of commercial whaling broke down today on the third day of an international whaling meeting that’s being held under a cloud of scandal and legal disputes.
Japan had hoped to cut a deal at this year’s International Whaling Commission summit in Morocco that would allow it to resume commercial whaling for the first time since the mid-1980s, in exchange for trimming its controversial “research” catch in Antarctica. But it reportedly refused to promise an eventual halt to such research whaling, scuttling the deal, according to the New York Times.
A quarter-century ban on commercial whaling, one of the world’s most successful preservation agreements, could crumble if conservationists cannot persuade Japan to cut back on the tradition it champions. Here, a Japanese ship hauls a whale up its slipway in the Antarctic in 2009.
The breakdown in talks mean a continuation of the status quo—whereby Japan, Norway and Iceland conduct their controversial, unregulated hunts despite a ban on commercial whaling and heated opposition from environmentalists.
In an interview with Radio Australia, Glenn Inwood, a spokesman for Japan’s delegation to the whaling meeting in Morocco, said Japan was willing to cut a deal whereby it would shrink its research catch in the Antarctic in return for being allowed to resume limited commercial whaling.
“Japan is very willing to compromise,” Inwood said. “It has made a number of significant concessions to the IWC to this process ... now it’s time for anti-whaling countries to bring something to the table instead of digging their heels in, but they’re not.”
In an interview at his Tokyo office earlier this year, Konomu Kubo of the Japan Whaling Association said, “Japan supports the principle of sustainable whaling, but we do not in the least support the idea of harvesting whales whose numbers are depleted.”
“We are groping for some sort of compromise,” said Kubo.
He said then that it might not be “realistic” to expect a lifting of the whaling ban this year since three-quarters of the IWC’s 88 members would need to support such a move. (Japan is believed to have the backing of just 38 members, according to the Times of London.)
Some scientists and researchers who strongly oppose the killing of whales are even arguing for “whale rights,” with one group issuing a declaration in May, according to Al-Jazeera.
Japanese officials and environmentalists traded blame Wednesday as nations failed to reach a deal to curb whale hunts by Japan, Norway and Iceland that kill hundreds of whales every year.
The 88 nations of the International Whaling Commission held two days of intense closed-door talks on a proposal to ease the 25-year-old ban on commercial whaling in exchange for smaller kills by the three countries that claim exemptions to the moratorium on hunting for profit.
About 1,500 animals are killed each year by Japan, Norway and Iceland. Japan, which kills the majority of whales, insists its hunt is for scientific research — but more whale meat and whale products end up in Japanese restaurants than in laboratories.
...
Acting IWC chairman Anthony Liverpool told an open meeting Wednesday that “fundamental positions remained very much apart.”“After nearly three years of discussions, it appears our discussions are at an impasse,” said chief U.S. delegate Monica Medina.
Meanwhile, the scandal drama continues to unfold:
Seventeen mostly pro-whaling nations have had their voting rights suspended at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Morocco, in what could be a blow to Japan’s hopes of resuming commercial whaling.
...
The countries include Palau, the Marshall Islands, Ghana and Gambia and are mostly drawn from the pro-whaling bloc which had been expected to back Japan’s move.They have been suspended for reasons including failing to pay their annual fees.
Solomon Islands, meanwhile, failed to show up at the meeting.
Hmm ... now which countries do you think have been accused of taking bribes from Japan? Yup! It’s the most amazing coincidence ever!
Not that those accused are taking this lying down. No sir! From the bottom of the world in the Caribbean (Basseterre in St. Kitt’s, a poor but unspoiled island not overrun with tourists, it’s main bay the home of the largest pirate fleet ever to set sail. An island ironically shaped like a whale) comes a cry of innocence. From his luxury villa, no doubt
Marine Resources Minister, Dr. Timothy Harris, caught up in a sting operation by a British newspaper, has said that he is a victim of a smear campaign.
The newspaper has alleged that six countries, including Grenada and St. Kitts-Nevis, have been accepting brides to support Japan’s pro-whaling position.
In response Dr Harris said: “What we have here is clearly an effort by those who are opposed to whaling, to use every means including subterfuge, to influence policy positions of small countries that are members of IWC.”
He said the bribe allegations were all part of an “evil and vicious” smear campaign.
The Sunday Times newspaper said it had carried out an undercover investigation that exposed Japan’s bribery.
...
According to the article, the governments of Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Republic of Guinea and Ivory Coast all entered negotiations to sell their votes in return for aid.
The Times said it had filmed government officials making several admissions about getting something in return for taking a pro-whaling stance.
It did not specify the particular aid that Grenada and St Kitts received.
...
Artherton Martin of Dominica said there was “incontrovertible evidence” to support the Sunday Times allegations of payments.
He claimed that Japan had paid the “extraordinarily high” annual membership dues of the IWC on behalf of Eastern Caribbean nations.
A “vile orchestration of lies, innuendos and insinuations” is how Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris describes allegations of his involvement in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) vote selling scandal.
...
Japan is also accused of providing million-dollar aid packages for these countries in exchange for their vote opposing a de facto moratorium on commercial whale hunting.
...
They were each offered £25m in aid over 10 years. Six countries indicated they were willing to consider our offer. They were St. Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Ivory Coast and Guinea.
...
Dr. Harris, who was appointed Minister of Marine Resources in February this year, contends that the discussions centered on the Federation’s whaling position, and at no time was there any negotiation for personal gain.
And Cameron? well, I don’t know if the moratorium ever actually came up for a vote at the conference. The news isn’t actually clear on that point, only that the measure to exchange the moratorium for limited hunting failed. And it failed even though the hunting plan would take about 1/3 as many whales as the old “scientific research” plan had. And there is media coverage (true or not, your call) that says those Whale Wars operations are the parties responsible for Japan’s harvesting of many less whales this last year than it wanted for that “research”. BUT, if the issue did actually come up for a vote, then David Cameron was going to vote for continuing the moratorium, even though the EU had decided it’s voting bloc was going for the limited hunting approach. Between the doubletalk, the doublespeak, and the double negations of the wordings, it’s hard to make out the truth.
David Cameron is ready for his first confrontation with the European Union if he attempts to stop the international ban on whaling being lifted.
The Coalition faces a multi-million-pound fine for voting to maintain the moratorium if, as expected, the rest of the EU refuses to oppose moves to legalise the slaughter of whales.
..
Most leading European nations, including Britain, support the moratorium. But under EU rules, unless all 25 Member States agree the organisation cannot vote, and Denmark is determined to block any EU bid to oppose the Japanese.However, The Mail on Sunday has learned that if the EU does stand aside at the IWC showdown in Morocco, the British Government is considering defying the EU by voting in favour of maintaining the ban.
So, 88 members in the IWC. 17 sent to the corner for a time out. The 25 from the EU internally blocked from voting. That leaves only 46, and at least one country didn’t attend. So 45 at the most went to the conference. And 44 is just half the group. How many do they need for a quorum? If it’s 51%, then ever single attending nation would have had to vote in favor of this measure. So my guess is that it died on the floor and never came to a vote.
Obama recently came out in favor of the measure. When it comes right down to it, which is the better approach? Which way protects more whales? The “scientific research” moratorium with it’s higher quotas that have been kept low due to harassment, or the “leave us alone and we will sign a bit of paper saying we’ll only take fewer” hunting plan? And out on the cold and lonely ocean, with nobody watching, you’d have to take those hunters on faith. Because for the sushi and canned seafood market in Japan, whales are nearly worth their weight in gold. 30 tons at a time. No temptation for over-fishing there at all, no sir.
PS - to either just stir the pot, or to get their “dibs” in ahead of any change in international regulations, Japan sent it’s whaling fleet to see quite early this year, 10 days before this vote was scheduled for. With the plan to catch sperm whales, one of the more seriously endangered whales out there napping vertically in the sea.
Conservation groups have condemned Japan for starting its summer whaling hunt in the north-west Pacific less than 10 days before the annual whaling commission meets.
A Japanese whaling fleet consisting of three harpoon and two research ships left port yesterday to hunt 160 whales before returning in August.
Their quota is to kill 100 sei whales, 50 bryde’s whales and 10 sperm whales before returning in late August.
...
“To be doing it when governments are trying to reach a compromise over the future of whaling it is just adding insult to injury.“It’s just serving to put pressure - undue pressure - on governments to capitulate to their demands.”
Posted by Drew458
on 06/23/2010 at 03:06 PM
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Permalink • Sunday - June 20, 2010
Group Nap
Ya kin larn somethin new every day!
Here’s today’s bit of arcanery, a not-guaranteed sure-fire conversation starter from the I never even thought about asking file. But since this is Father’s Day, I’m sure you dads (and moms) out there have been asked this kind of question many times before, so here’s the answer:
Scientists believe that Physeter macrocephalus [the sperm whale], which can measure up to 60ft in length and which has the biggest brain of any known animal, sleeps in a highly distinctive manner. According to researchers at St Andrews University, who tagged animals with recorders to follow their behaviour underwater, the sperm whale sleeps by taking short naps during slow, rhythmic dives. The animals are unconscious for no more than 10 to 15 minutes at a time over a few hours, however, and sleep, in total, for fewer than two hours a day. Thus sperm whales sleep less than any other wild mammal.
Unlike dolphins, which have been observed in captivity sleeping with only one side of the brain at a time, sperm whales switch off completely during these dives, the researchers added. “Many mammals show species-typical sleeping behaviour, such as dogs circling before lying down, lending support to the idea that sperm whales sleep during these drift dives,” says Dr Patrick Miller, of the university’s sea mammal research unit.
When napping, they tend to float just below the surface, and just bob along, sometimes sinking a little bit. They come up to breath once in a while, without really waking up. When they do come up, just the end of their nose sticks up, because the sperm whale has his blowhole on the front, off to the left, unlike most other whales who have blowholes more towards the middle.
The wind was picking up a little bit and Joao put me in the water very far away from them, up wind. I slowly drifted towards the group. They had stopped moving at all and I drifted into a group of slumbering giants. Most of them standing head up, some head down. The biggest one, maybe 15 meters long, was now just two meters away looking at me. Minutes passed and her head-up position made her a bit more approachable. Then she closed her eye as if going to sleep. While eyes shut she surfaced in head up position and blew her lungs clean right beside me. The sound was just awesome and made all my limbs feel like jellyfish. Water sprinkled over me like rain.
I spent 50 minutes together with the whales. They were acting like they were resting in each other’s company. They were completely silent, most of them hovering, but some swam momentarily under me, up to me, away from me. And I swam around amongst them. They just let me be there. I ended up at some point far down current and quickly lost contact with the group. It was over.
It is thought the research shows that sperm whales sleep much less than any other mammal on land or sea. The whales were recorded consistently performing the dives in each location which the study suggested indicated it was stereotypical for the entire species. Video footage showed six sperm whales eerily floating vertically in a motionless manner, with their heads either at or just below the surface of the sea.
Researchers said three of them were “unusually non-responsive” to the approaching boat, until it accidentally touched one of them.
Whole brain sleep, possibly REM. But only for a few hours a day. Do whales dream? Maybe so. Of what? Beats me.
Want more?
- some meh video of a bunch of whale noses coming up for air while napping.
- A scientific paper. Or parts of it at least.
- A simple version from e-how: How do whales sleep without drowning?.
I suppose a h/t to Theo is in order, as I found something like the first picture there. But I looked up the rest of it.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/20/2010 at 02:55 PM
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries • Animals •
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Permalink • Thursday - June 03, 2010
Woof Woof
Lou Reed will be taking a dog walk on the wild side later this week, as the singer and his composer wife, Laurie Anderson, will be holding a high frequency recital for dogs and their human companions at the Sydney Opera House.
Laurie Anderson has composed a 20 minute work especially for the hearing range of dogs – who can hear frequencies far outside the human audio spectrum. Taking the idea of the apparently inaudible dog whistle to new artistic heights, our canine friends will be treated to a glorious cacophony of sound, while all we will hear is the lapping of the water on the harbor.
The morning will be an inter-species social gathering on a scale never seen before in Australia. Breakfast can be purchased on site including freshly brewed coffee and egg & bacon rolls, while you watch dog demonstrations and be surprised by some very special guests.
This is an event that you’ll be yapping about for years to come, an absolute must for any dog and their two legged friends!
A “glorious cacophony of sound” for creatures that have hearing 100 times better than ours. How about a very very quiet concert of “animal friendly” music? And ... how do they know just what kind of music dogs like anyway? Hip hop, or baroque? New Age-Celtic-Gaiian, or the boom-chicka-boom-chicka-bow-wow porno soundtrack?
Somehow I think this is some kind of con.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/03/2010 at 05:54 PM
Filed Under: • Animals •
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Permalink • Wednesday - June 02, 2010
The Power of the Prophet in your Pocket
Well, maybe some barking islamobat will issue a fatwa against me for this.
(had to check that BMEWS still carried an ‘R’ rating. It does, though I had to scroll down to find it.)
Oh yes, H/T Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Posted by Christopher
on 06/02/2010 at 09:39 PM
Filed Under: • Animals • Health and Safety • Product Safety • RoPMA • Sex • Sharia law •
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Permalink • Friday - May 28, 2010
Bear With Us
A black bear that strayed onto the Pfizer campus in Pearl River [NY] today was safely captured this afternoon after a two-and-a-half-hour encounter, according to Orangetown police.
Police were told around noon today that the bear, a 150-pound male black bear, was wandering around the sprawling Pfizer campus off Middletown Road. Several town police officers went to investigate and they followed the bear until it climbed up a tree, according to Police Chief Kevin Nulty.
Police called state environmental officers for assistance and a biologist went to Pearl River to help with the bear’s capture. Nulty said that while the bear was in the tree the state biologist was able to shoot the animal with a tranquilizer gun.
Volunteers from the Pearl River Fire Department had been called in to assist police and set up a safety net to catch the bear. Nulty said the bear fell from the tree and landed in the net after being tranquilized.
Nulty said no one was injured and that the bear was not hurt during its capture. The bear, estimated to be about 18 months old, did not have a tag that would indicate it had been captured and recorded previously by state scientists. Nulty said the bear was to be tagged and would be set free in the woods of Sterling Forest in Orange County.
Once upon a time this “Pfizer campus” was owned by the American Cyanimid and was called Lederle Labratories. They made sulfa drugs during WWII and employed thousands of people. It’s a big factory and research campus with dozens of buildings and a parking lot the size of a farm. This is the place where all the polio vaccine was made back in the day. Centrum vitamins these days, and lots of other drugs. Some years later American Cyanimid became Amercian Home Products, who became Wyeth, which for a while was Wyeth-Ayerst. Corporate ownership doesn’t really matter here. I’m just mentioning it to highlight that the campus has been in place a very long time. Since 1907 I believe. I’m pretty sure of that date, since I grew up less than a mile away from the place. It’s located in the western heart of NYC suburbia, along the second busiest road in the county, next to a busy rail line, surrounded by fully built up towns. It is not rural. It’s not out in the woods. There aren’t any woods. For miles. And yet ... bears!
Don’t buy into the “encroaching habitat” lie. It’s not true. There wasn’t a bear for 100 miles when I was a kid. Now they are everywhere. They have learned to adapt. They have learned that suburbia is easy living. Heck, even though this little incident took a fire truck, 6 cop cars, the Animal Control guy, and probably the local Game Warden to solve, they made nice-nice with the bear by using a tranquilizer dart and sent him up to Orange County to go bother somebody else, hopefully Paul Sr, Paulie and Mikey from OCC.
Young bears go walkabout in the spring. If this one came down from the Sterling Forest area, or down from Harriman Park, it means he wandered through more than 30 miles of backyards and neighborhoods and busy streets and shopping malls before being spotted and captured. There are two grade schools within 2 miles of the Pfizer campus. One of these days these suburban bears are going to become a real problem.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/28/2010 at 01:27 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - March 31, 2010
Ewww, Mega Bugs!
A submarine exploring the ocean’s depths recently returned with an unexpected visitor: a crablike critter that has left many readers startled and horrified.
In a posting to social bookmarking site Reddit, a deep-sea technician detailed the finding, asking the site’s readers to help identify what exactly the bizarre looking creature was.
The post reads, “I work for a Sub-sea Survey Company, recently this beast came up attached to one of our ROVs. It measures a wee bit over 2.5 feet head to tail, and we expect it latched onto the ROV at roughly 8,500 feet depth. Unfortunately, the e-mail that these pictures were attached to came from a contractor, and the ship he was operating from (and therefore location) is unknown, so I can’t tell you what part of the Earth this beast was living.”
The pictures reveal the creature to be a giant isopod, a large crustacean that dwells in deep Atlantic and Pacific waters. This particular creature is a Bathynomus giganteus, a deep-sea scavenger that feeds on dead whales, fish and squid.
On the other hand, lobsters are quite similar in form and function to this fellow. So maybe lightly boiled, with some warm melted butter, corn on the cob, a couple of blueberry muffins and a cold beer?
Posted by Drew458
on 03/31/2010 at 12:33 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - March 04, 2010
Those wacky Japanese…
Seems the world-wide recession has even hit Japanese pet owners. Instead of sending their pets to the usual pet groomers, they’ve opted for the pet washing machines
Japanese pet owners are trying to save money in today’s recession by having their dogs and cats washed in a specially designed machine instead of using groomers.
More and more people in the suburbs of Tokyo are using the vending machines that wash, rinse and blow dries their pets in about 30 minutes, Ananova reports.
A groomer at Joyful Honda pet market claims the process uses pure ozone water and is completely safe for the pet. One user, however, admitted it took his Yorkshire terrier a while to get used to the dryer.
The vending machine wash costs about $5 compared to approximately $30 for grooming.
Small print: $150 may be needed for pet therapy afterward.
Why yes! Thank you for asking. There is a video:
Posted by Christopher
on 03/04/2010 at 08:38 PM
Filed Under: • Animals • High Tech • Humor •
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
- Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
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- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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