Category: Wildlife

Environmental, General News, Uncategorized, Wildlife

(US) North Carolina Dolphin Found With Head Missing (+ Petition)

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/north-carolina-dolphin-found-head-missing

May 12, 2025

NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information.

Stranded bottlenose dolphin in North Carolina marsh. Credit: UNCW

NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement is investigating the death and decapitation of a dead bottlenose dolphin on Lea-Hutaff Island. We are asking the public for any information about who may have been involved. We are offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to a criminal conviction or the assessment of a civil penalty. 

A member of the public originally reported the stranding of a dead dolphin on Lea Island, near marker 105, to the Southeast Marine Mammal Stranding Hotline on April 15. The area is a remote, undeveloped barrier island north of Wilmington, North Carolina, only accessible by boat. When our stranding network partner, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, went to the reported location, the 8-foot dolphin had been intentionally mutilated and its head removed. They determined that someone intentionally removed its head between April 16 and April 18, after they received the initial stranding report. 

Based on their initial health assessment of the dolphin, the University suspects the animal is carrying Brucella, a bacteria that causes the infectious bacterial disease brucellosis. The disease can be transferred to humans through direct contact. Our stranding network partner performed a necropsy (animal autopsy) and complete results and cause of death are pending.

Approximate location of dolphin carcass, Lea-Hutaff Island, North Carolina.

This animal was intentionally decapitated, a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The remote location where the dolphin was found adds to the difficulty of investigating this incident and cause of death. We are calling on your help to find those responsible.

Anyone with information about this incident should call the NOAA Enforcement Hotline at (800) 853-1964. You can leave tips anonymously, but to be eligible for the reward you must include your name and contact information.

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https://www.thepetitionsite.com/966/553/593/

Demand Justice for This Decapitated Dolphin

Birds, General News, Hunting, Uncategorized, Wildlife

(UK) Royal Artillery Hunt: We just want police to protect us like everyone else

Hunt master claims authorities failing to act despite increase in attacks by masked saboteurs

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/17/royal-artillery-hunt-want-police-protect-us-everyone-else/

17 May 2025 3:00pm BST

The Royal Artillery Hunt said it had been the victim of more than 200 incidents since fox hunting was banned in 2004 Credit: John Eccles

The demands of the Royal Artillery Hunt seem simple – they just want law enforcement to treat them like everyone else.

But after years of attacks by masked saboteurs – and an alleged lack of action from authorities despite dozens of police reports detailing harassment, abuse and physical assault – they are beginning to lose hope.

“If what happened to the trail hunting community happened in other walks of life, then people would almost immediately be arrested, but it doesn’t happen with the sabs,” James Harris, a hunt master, told The Telegraph.

For the first time, the hunt has released its record of attacks by saboteurs. It shows that while there have been more than 200 incidents since fox hunting was banned in 2004, the number of cases has increased dramatically in recent years.

Over the course of the two seasons from 2022, a period covering 14 months, there were 103 incidents recorded and 67 police reports. But there was not a single prosecution.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that the start of the spike was the year that Jim McMahon, Labour’s then shadow environment secretary, vowed to ban trail hunting.

Have the political attacks emboldened the activists? “They have upped the ante,” Mr Harris said. “They smell blood.”

He described his hunt as a “prime target”. As a military pack, they hunt a trail on Ministry of Defence (MoD) land, so following them and making complaints to the landowner allows the activists to put pressure on the Government.

“The hunt saboteurs claim to be monitoring trail hunts but that is a misnomer – the clue is in their title,” Mr Harris said. “Their remit is to incite and upset and disrupt our activities.”

He added: “They are continually masked and they claim to the public that that is for their own protection but that is an out-and-out lie.

“We know their names, we know exactly who they are, they are masked because they are constantly breaking the law and with intent to do so. Hiding their identities means that they cannot be prosecuted, that is the true reason why they are masked.”

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A member of the Royal Artillery Hunt is confronted by an activist

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Please also visit ..
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/hunting/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/22/hunting-ban-came-in-20-years-ago-our-culture-poorer-for-it/

20 years on the Hunting Act remains an attack on the rural working class

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/27/downton-abbey-peter-egan-bully-league-against-cruel-sports/

Downton Abbey actor accused of bullying boss of anti-hunting charity

Peter Egan, who played ‘Shrimpie’ in the hit TV series, denies claims by former head of League Against Cruel Sports

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/14/trail-hunting-ban-labour-government/

The Government’s latest attack on the countryside proves Labour hates our way of life

The party’s plan to ban trail hunting is class war pure and simple

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/10/cyber-security-expert-hacked-huntsmen-abi-waddell-uk/

Cyber security expert used award-winning IT skills to hack huntsmen

The confidential details of thousands of hunt workers were hacked

General News, Hunting, Uncategorized, Wildlife

(EU) EU eases hunting restrictions on wolves after Ursula von der Leyen’s pony killed

(and this is clearly all it takes to de-list an endangered/protected species – an attack on a powerful politicians’ pet)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/25/eu-vote-hunting-wolves-conservation/

25 September 2024 5:33pm BST

Predators were once virtually extinct in Europe, but thanks to conservation efforts their numbers have rebounded

Wolves face being hunted in greater numbers after the European Union voted to downgrade their protected status.

The European Commission’s proposal, backed by a qualified majority of EU ambassadors, would allow greater flexibility in organising hunts by downgrading the wolf from “strictly protected” to “protected”.

Ministers will meet to formally vote on the proposal on Thursday, with only Ireland and Spain expected to vote against it, diplomatic sources said. Other member states are expected to abstain.

Wolves were virtually extinct in Europe a century ago but, thanks in part to EU conservation efforts, numbers have rebounded, with more than 1,000 of the predators in some countries.

Amid a backlash against the burden of EU green rules triggered by the cost of living crisis, farmers have complained that rising numbers of the predators are endangering their livestock.

However, conservationists have criticised the “outrageous move” to ease the hunting restrictions.

Hunting of problem wolves is already allowed under exceptions to the EU protections. Limited legal wolf hunting is carried out in Finland, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, but it could now become more widespread.

The vote comes after European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s favourite horse, Dolly, was killed by a wolf in September 2022 at her home in Germany.

Ursula Von Der Leyen with her pony ‘Dolly’ who was killed by a wolf Credit: Instagram

The keen equestrian and mother-of-seven said her family was “horribly distressed” by the loss of the 30-year-old horse at the lower Saxony compound.

The culprit was identified through DNA evidence as a wolf known as GW950m. But a permit to kill it expired before it could be hunted down, meaning it could still be at large.

The keen equestrian and mother-of-seven said her family was “horribly distressed” by the loss of the 30-year-old horse at the lower Saxony compound.

The culprit was identified through DNA evidence as a wolf known as GW950m. But a permit to kill it expired before it could be hunted down, meaning it could still be at large.

Brussels was forced to deny that Mrs von der Leyen had intervened in the permit process to take revenge for the death of Dolly. The permit was applied for before the horse was killed.

The Eurogroup for Animals said wolf populations had increased but had not reached “favourable” conservation status, as it decried a move that “seriously jeopardises the conservation efforts of the past decade and prioritises politics over science”.

‘Long-overdue’

“Wolves are our allies, not our enemies and it is crucial to protect them,” said Léa Badoz, of the Eurogroup for Animals. More than 300,000 EU citizens had signed a petition to stop wolf hunting.

“This is a very outrageous move and shows that member states are ignoring their citizens’ calls and science,” she said. “We urge the other parties to the Bern Convention to reject this proposal.”

Centre-Right MEPs from Mrs von der Leyen’s European People’s Party (EPP), which campaigned to loosen the protections before June’s EU-wide elections, said the decision was the start of a “long-overdue process” to bring wolf populations under control. 

“As these populations grow, their conservation status must evolve too,” said Alexander Bernhuber, an EPP member of the European Parliament’s environment committee.

Italy was among the most vocal countries demanding protections be weakened. The wolf was pushed to the verge of extinction in Italy by the 1970s, when the population dipped to just 100 individuals. Numbers are now estimated to be about 3,300.

“It is a step forward that fills us with satisfaction,” Paolo Borchia, an Italian MEP from the Right-wing League party, said on Wednesday. “It is unacceptable that it took years to come to terms with a situation that is clear for everyone to see.”

Birds, Environmental, Farm Animals, General News, Hunting, Live Transport, pets, Stray Animals, Uncategorized, Wildlife

(UK) Chris Packham is no saint. He’s an environmental extremist to us country folk

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/16/chris-packham-is-an-environmental-extremist/

(It was only a matter of time when the backlash would come …)

The Springwatch host saw no issue being likened to St Francis of Assisi, making his holier-than-thou attitude worse than ever this week

Vanity is a bewitching drug for some of the BBC’s biggest stars. Jostling for most luminous position in the media firmament this week, next to Gary Lineker (who completely by mistake, and in the knowledge that the media watches his every social media move, managed to post to Instagram the suggestion that Jews were rats) was Chris Packham. …..

Please ref. to previous post:

(UK) Chris Packham poses as St Francis of Assisi in new portrait

Asia, Birds, Environmental, Farm Animals, Fish, Fur and Fur Farming, General News, Hunting, Live Transport, pets, Stray Animals, Uncategorized, Vivisection, Wildlife

(UK) Chris Packham poses as St Francis of Assisi in new portrait

Well, novel certainly … not sure we may hope for Chris, CBE, being sainted by the Vatican any time soon … even with the link to S. Francis.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/14/chris-packham-poses-saint-francis-of-assisi-new-portrait/

14 May 2025 7:39pm BST

Chris Packham with his portrait, which it is said depicts him as “a living saint”, in the Fitzrovia Chapel Credit: Richard Ansett/Radio Times

Chris Packham has posed as St Francis of Assisi in a portrait celebrating him as a “living saint”.

The portrait of the presenter and environmental campaigner is now on show on the altar of the Fitzrovia Chapel, central London.

Originally commissioned by Radio Times magazine to mark Earth Day, it is the work of photographic artist Richard Ansett.

Packham is surrounded by images of some of the UK’s most endangered species. Mr Ansett said it also made reference to Packham’s neurodiversity – the presenter was diagnosed with autism in his 40s.

“I hope that every pixel of this portrait offers a safe space for anyone challenged by neurodiversity. Packham’s remarkable connection to the natural world drives him relentlessly to save us from ourselves,” Mr Ansett said.

The portrait of Packham is available to view until May 21 at the former chapel, where it is described as a work “elevating him to the status of living saint”.

Chris Packham is surrounded by some of the UK’s most endangered species in the artwork Credit: Richard Ansett/Radio Times

Packham said: “This photo is about a fundamental level of engagement, an engagement of equals. It conveys the importance of nature to heal us, provide us with a sanctuary in times of terrible trouble.

“But the species featured are also rare or declining so it serves to remind us that our one and only home, our Earth, is on a brink too many are refusing to see and act to protect and repair.

“This is a photograph about love, a love of life, all life.”

The featured species include the red squirrel, the house martin, the woodcock and the hedgehog.

Mr Ansett, an award-winning photographer whose previous works include Sir Grayson Perry in the style of the Madonna and Child, added that the Packham portrait “recognises the difficulties that he has prevailed over to become a success in his career and a positive light for so many people”.

It is “a personal tribute to Packham’s humanity in challenging the worst parts of ours, in our ambivalence to the destruction created in the wake of our own needs”, the photographer said.

General News, Uncategorized, Wildlife

(US – North Carolina) Sign: Three People Set Live Possum on Fire, Laughing As They Record Gruesome Death

https://animalvictory.org/petition/sign-three-people-set-live-possum-on-fire-laughing-as-they-record-gruesome-death/

Published: May 12, 2025 at 06:12 PM Author: PENNY EIMS

Charlotte, North Carolina – On April 24, somebody posted a horrific, heartbreaking video of a possum being burned alive to social media. The heart-wrenching video shows three men dousing the innocent possum in an accelerant and then setting her on fire. The video sparked justifiable outrage, with numerous tips being phoned to wildlife and police officials. And though the identity of the two sadistic individuals appears to be known, only one person has been arrested.

On May 8, police arrested 30-year-old Cameron Bernard Torrence from Mint Hill on multiple charges, including instigating animal cruelty, fleeing and eluding arrest, and violating probation. Torrence is accused of unlawfully instigating or promoting cruelty to animals by participating in the burning of a live opossum and posting a video of the incident on Facebook. According to an affidavit, the video was uploaded to Torrence’s Facebook page on April 24 and depicted the opossum being doused with lighter fluid and then set on fire.#

((Videolink))

Although the video has since been deleted from his page, it has been shared thousands of times by other accounts. The video features at least two individuals, with a third person recording the act. Torrence appeared in court virtually on Friday and was given a secured bond of $10,000. His next hearing regarding the animal cruelty charge is scheduled for August1.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has found several people of interest related to the video. “We are looking into all leads,” said Senior Officer Kristofer Blankenship. There are multiple people of interest in the case.”

Animal Victory needs your signature now to hold them accountable when all suspects have been arrested! Please add your name and help us get justice for this innocent opossum who suffered in the worst way possible.

Target: Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office

WHY THIS PETITION MATTERS: 

We, the undersigned, demand these individuals be held accountable for dousing an opossum in accelerant and setting her on fire. Investigators have stated that they have more persons of interest, and we insist that these people be arrested and charged for this evil and heartless crime!

Research has consistently shown a strong link between animal cruelty and human violence. Individuals who commit such heinous acts against animals often pose a threat to society as a whole, as animal abuse is frequently a precursor to other violent crimes. Failing to hold these individuals accountable not only denies justice for the innocent opossum burned alive but also endangers the community at large. It is imperative that we send a clear message that such cruelty will not be tolerated.

Individuals are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law. Animal Victory relies upon the authorities and the court system to determine guilt or innocence.

Note: Opossums are gentle, shy creatures who play a vital role in the environment by controlling pests like ticks and insects. With a naturally low body temperature that makes them highly resistant to rabies, these misunderstood animals deserve compassion, not cruelty.

PLEASE SIGN ON PAGE

Birds, Environmental, General News, Hunting, Wildlife

UK – Killing Our Countryside – It’s Time To Ban Shooting.

Chris Packham; known to all of us in the UK for his environmental knowledge and especially as a television wildlife campaigner; narrates a video for ‘Animal Aid’, of which he is a Patron, called ‘Killing Our Countryside’.

The film reveals the damage done to the British countryside and wildlife by the shooting industry’s mass release of tens of millions of pheasants and partridges for shooting ever year.

The film, and accompanying campaign, make the argument for a ban on the production and release of birds for shooting.

The film also reveals what many people have not seen; the method of raising these birds which are bred to die – simple as that !

Animal Aid website – https://www.animalaid.org.uk/

About Us – https://www.animalaid.org.uk/about-us/

Birds, Environmental, General News, Uncategorized, Wildlife

(US – New Jersey) Please send 2 letters to save Canada Geese

It’s getting closer to the time when the USDA comes into New Jersey to kill Canada geese. As we’ve mentioned in previous alerts, APLNJ has been reviewing USDA reports to see who contracts with them for geese management. This is the time of year when towns/businesses, etc. contract with the USDA, so writing NOW is critical.

We have reached out to all of them, sent information and visited the site with some. We’ve had success in steering some away from lethal towards nonlethal. But others are still hell-bent on allowing the killing (with a portable CO2 gas chamber).

The individuals you will be sending a letter to either allow the USDA, in partnership with Teterboro Airport in Bergen County, to come on their property, which lies in the flight path of airplanes, and round up and gas the geese OR have their own contract with USDA Wildlife Services to come in and kill.

Instead of allowing the USDA in year after year to kill, they all should be looking into habitat modification which is the clear winner when it comes to options for keeping geese out of a specific area. These methods are highly effective and provide better protection for air traffic areas. In fact, at best it’s irresponsible to not use the most effective methods, at worse, is can be dangerous, providing a false sense of security.

Please urge these entities to DENY THE USDA ACCESS to their property and schedule a site visit with Animal Protection League of New Jersey instead. Click here to send a letter.

And a second letter is going to those who have their own contract with USDA and we are asking them to CANCEL THE CONTRACT. Click here to send that letter.

Thank you.

Photo: David White/Can Geo Photo Club)

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/use-nonlethal-management-for-canada-geese-2

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/stop-gassing-the-geese-8