Mexican wolves in Arizona, New Mexico

This video from the USA says about itself:

Mexican Wolf – Canis lupus baileyi

May 12, 2013

After being wiped out in the United States, Mexican wolves were bred in captivity and reintroduced to the wild in Arizona beginning in 1998. They are still very rare in the wild. The Mexican wolf is the most endangered type of wolf in the world.

From Wildlife Extra:

Two pairs of wolves released in Arizona and New Mexico

Wolves released into Gila Wilderness & Apache National Forest

May 2013. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) have released a pair of Mexican wolves into the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area of Arizona.

Second pair

In a separate action, the Service also released a second pair of Mexican wolves into the wolf recovery area in New Mexico. Both pairs, selected to increase genetic diversity of the wild wolf population, were previously held at the Service’s Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility where they had undergone an acclimation process to determine their suitability for release.

“We continue to be committed to strategic releases that improve genetic diversity, increase the number of breeding wolves, and offset illegal mortalities in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area,” said Benjamin Tuggle, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Southwest Regional Director.

“The strategically-planned release of the wolf pair into Arizona is to improve the genetic integrity of the wolf population. The release approaches being used are tailored to encourage these wolves to acclimate and behave as wild wolves. Our experience shows that wild-born, wild-raised wolves have a much better chance at success,” says Director Larry Voyles, AGFD.

Soft release

In Arizona, the Interagency Field Team (IFT) conducted a “soft release” of Mexican wolves F1126 and M1051 (F indicates female and M indicates male) near the Corduroy Creek release site on the Alpine Ranger District in the Apache National Forest.

“We considered several factors in the selection of the release site, including appropriate prey density, distance from occupied residences, seasonal absence of livestock grazing, and occurrence of established wolf packs in the area,” says Chris Bagnoli, the AGFD’s IFT leader. “This particular site was also chosen in close coordination with the public and with approval from the Forest Service.”

The Arizona pair was placed into an enclosure and will be held for a time to acclimate them to their surroundings. They will be released into the primary recovery zone because F1126 does not have previous wild experience. This will be an initial release of F1126 and a translocation of M1051.

Gila wilderness

The Service, in cooperation with the IFT, also conducted a “modified soft release” of Mexican wolves F1108 and M1133 into New Mexico. These wolves will be translocated to an enclosure in the Gila Wilderness. The enclosure is designed so that the wolves can chew through and self-release any time after being placed there. Both F1108 and M1133 have previous wild experience, and so are able to be translocated into the secondary recovery zone in compliance with the existing federal 10(j) rule covering the reintroduction project.

Supplementary feeding

For both the Arizona and New Mexico wolf pairs, the IFT anticipates the wolves will begin utilizing the area around the release sites. The IFT will provide supplemental food while the wolves learn to catch and kill native prey, such as deer and elk, on their own. The supplemental feeding will assist in anchoring the wolves to the area.

75 wolves in the wild

The IFT estimates the population of Mexican wolves in the wild to be a minimum of 75 animals, as determined by their most recent annual survey conducted in January 2013, up from a count of 58 last year.

The Reintroduction Project partners are AGFD, White Mountain Apache Tribe, USDA Forest Service and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service – Wildlife Services, several participating counties in Arizona, the Eastern Arizona Counties Organization, and the Service.

Related articles

• Two Rare Mexican Wolf Pups May Help Save Endangered Species (scienceworldreport.com)
• Mexican Wolf Pups Separated From Parents In An Effort To Save The Species (natureworldnews.com)
• One Mexican Wolf Killed; Two Pairs Transferred for Release into the Wild (publicnewsservice.org)
• 15th Anniversary of Mexican Gray Wolf Reintroduction (publicnewsservice.org)
• Biodiversity: More wolf turmoil in the Southwest (summitcountyvoice.com)
• Jessie: U.S. plans to drop gray wolves from endangered list – latimes.com (latimes.com)
• The 5 Most Endangered Canine Species (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
• When Wolves Lose Endangered Species Act Protection, We Lose Wolves! (sunsetdaily.wordpress.com)
• Wolf Haven celebrates Mexican gray’s survival (seattletimes.com)

US American horses exported for meat

This video from the USA says about itself:

1 Dec 2011

The last equine slaugherhouse in the United States finally shut down, but American horses continue to go to slaughter across our southern and northern borders in record numbers.

From Alternet in the USA:

By Andrew Wasley

The Brutal and Secretive Trade of American Horses Killed For Their Meat

Few Americans are aware that our country’s horses are being exported and slaughtered abroad to supply other nations’ taste for a meat that’s shunned at home.

March 15, 2013

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

Herded down a concrete shute, the horses — black and brown and grey; fat, healthy, thin, lame — have little idea of the fate that awaits them. But one by one, the horses are separated from those behind, a metal trapdoor swinging down to confine each to a metal box. There’s blood and filth on the walls and floor. Flies buzz.

A man leans over the horse — the animal freezes at first, then jerks forward slightly, obviously terrified — and stabs a knife forcefully into the top of the horse’s head. The horse crumples to the ground and the man stabs it again. The side of the box opens, discharging the body onto a stained floor. A metal chain is hooked around a hoof, the horse swings up and onto a moving production line. Men set upon each body as they come through, slicing away skin and tissue and butchering the exposed flesh.

The footage illustrating this grisly scene in a Mexican abattoir offers a rare glimpse into a brutal and secretive trade that few Americans are aware of — the export and slaughter of homegrown US horses to supply a meat that’s shunned at home but popular with diners overseas. Each year, thousands of horses — abandoned pets, ex-racehorses, farm animals — are rounded up and trucked across the country south into Mexico, or north into Canada, for killing and processing and dispatching abroad, many to Europe, a major hub of horsemeat consumption.

It’s a murky and often-informal business, with numerous buyers, sellers and middlemen in on the game. And it’s part of a much bigger, international trade in horses and horsemeat now in the spotlight in the wake of the European horsemeat scandal. This was initially triggered by the discovery of equine meat in “beef” burgers on sale in Ireland and the UK, and has now widened to include numerous meat products.

Seizing their chance, long-time critics of the horsemeat industry have stepped up efforts to close the trade down, citing appalling horse suffering and health risks to humans through controversial drugs entering the food chain.

For welfare campaigners, the cruelty begins well before the slaughterhouse. Most horses destined for the international meat market begin their journey being trucked to auction houses across the US. From there, they are transported on to feedlots, and then exported across the border to slaughter facilities in Mexico or Canada. Activists say that horses are frequently crammed into vehicles — many not suitable for carrying livestock — and forced to endure lengthy journeys without adequate food, water and rest, leading to injuries and exhaustion.

Poor conditions at feedlots have also been highlighted. The pressure group Animals Angels last year investigated a major livestock auction and horse feedlot in New Mexico, and claimed to have found “multiple horses in a bad condition… emaciated, [with] untreated wounds, open cuts, lame, [with] eye injuries.”

Graphic pictures show a number of other horses sprawled on the ground, apparently too sick to get up, and an aborted foal abandoned in the dust. Conditions were so bad that investigators say they pleaded with the auction authorities to euthanise a number of the horses.

Cheryl Jacobson, from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), says such scenes are all too common in the US horse trade — and blames lenient penalties for fostering a culture of poor treatment: “As at [the New Mexico auction] we’ve seen that if they get caught for animal welfare problems the costs incurred are still not [a deterrent], it’s still worthwhile.”

Related articles

• Yummy….Horse meat…..Please Act Now, Horses in Danger! (sunsetdaily.wordpress.com)
• Should America be testing for horse meat? (voicerussia.com)
• Lawmakers, animal welfare groups aim to block horse slaughter plans (examiner.com)
• Slaughter of U.S. Horses Soars as Horse Meat Scandal Explodes (rtfitchauthor.com)
• Oklahoma Lawmakers Pushing Bills To Allow Commercial Slaughter Of Horses (houston.cbslocal.com)
• Save the Horses! Congress Weighs In (abcnews.go.com)
• Horse meat is big business in Alberta (metronews.ca)
• Graphic: Horse meat – from field, to truck, to slaughterhouse, to the plate (news.nationalpost.com)
• Horse slaughtering legal in US, but public won’t bite (usnews.nbcnews.com)

Radioactive cows of Fukushima, Japan

This video is called Radioactive Beef & Seafood headed to USA: Fukushima update 10/14/12.

From Discovery News:

Radioactive Cattle Found Near Fukushima

Jan 30, 2013 08:01 AM ET // by Tim Wall

Thousands of cows were abandoned in the evacuated zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tōhoku region of Japan and released radioactive materials from the plant.

Now, nearly two years after the disaster, those abandoned cattle were found to be contaminated with radioactive elements. Traces of radioactive cesium, silver and tellurium were found in the 79 cattle analyzed by a scientific team led by Tohoku University engineer Tomokazu Fukuda and published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Fetuses and calves had radioactive materials concentrations up to 1.5 times higher than the adults. The calves had been born, and the fetuses conceived, after the disaster.

In the event of a nuclear Armageddon, don’t eat the steak. Radioactive elements collected most heavily in the cattle’s skeletal muscle.

The cattle showed differences in radioactivity depending on what they had been eating. One group of cows had been kept in a pen and fed grass that hadn’t been contaminated in the Fukushima disaster. These cattle were less radioactive than cattle that had been allowed to graze freely in the area within 20 kilometers of the nuclear plant.

None of the cattle showed outward signs of mutation.

The Japanese cattle aren’t the first bovines to be inadvertently irradiated. During some of the very first tests of the atomic bomb at the Trinity site in New Mexico, cattle were accidentally exposed to radioactive fallout. Those cows were also studied to help scientists (and potential nuclear doomsday survivors) understand how the steak and milk suppliers might stand up to radiation.

Related articles

• Fukushima fish extremely radioactive (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Radioactive cesium in calves found higher than mothers after Fukushima Daiichi disaster (enformable.com)
• Japanese Researchers Found Cesium More Concentrated in Calf Than in Mother Cow in the Former Evacuation Zone in #Fukushima Prefecture (ex-skf.blogspot.com)
• Fukushima survivors will speak in England (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Fukushima Fish Named Mike Has 2,500 Times Legal Limit of Radioactivity for Human Consumption (sciencespacerobots.com)
• TEPCO Pushes Plan to Dump Fukushima’s Radioactive Water into Pacific (commondreams.org)
• Distribution of Artificial Radionuclides in Abandoned Cattle in the Evacuation Zone of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (plosone.org)
• Radiation: A Silent but Deadly Danger (smartsign.com)

USA: Bush supporters’ violence against howeowner’s anti Bush sign

From The Raw Story in the USA:

Man’s anti-Bush Christmas light creates furor

Mike Sheehan and David Edwards

Published: Wednesday December 6, 2006

A New Mexico man is drawing the ire of neighbors–and his homeowners association–after putting up a politically-charged, lighted sign on his house to go with his holiday decorations.

Roberto Vasquez of Albuquerque said his sign, showing George Bush‘s name crossed over by a red bar as though banning it, has caused people to shoot at the projector, try to pull out its bulb, and even threaten to “blow up the house,” he tells local TV station KOAT.

Vasquez says he’s “proud” of his message and defends the sign as “tasteful.”