This 13 December 2019 video from India says about itself:
Junior Trump hunts endangered mountain sheep “argali” in Mongolia. Mountain sheep are known for their massive horns.
I saw a mountain sheep. Not in Mongolia, but in a Chinese national park. Not an argali, but a blue sheep. And we did not have guns with us, only cameras.
TRUMP JR.’S HUNTING TRIP COST TAXPAYERS $77,000Donald Trump Jr.’s trip last summer to Mongolia to kill an endangered sheep cost American taxpayers nearly $77,000 in Secret Service costs alone, watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington reported. The Secret Service provided documents in March revealing that the agency’s cost for Trump’s trip to bag a rare argali sheep was more than $17,000. But after additional Freedom of Information Act requests, officials turned over other documents that disclosed an additional $60,000 in spending. [HuffPost]
This Day In History: Dick Cheney shoots his hunting buddy
Dick Cheney accidently shot his buddy while on a hunting trip on Feb. 11, 2006. CBSN’s Vladimir Duthiers and Kristine Johnson have more.
United States President George W Bush’s Vice President Dick Cheney shot a fellow hunter as he did not know the difference between that hunter and a quail.
Italian police have charged a man with culpable homicide after he shot and killed his father during a boar hunt.
Media reports say the pair were moving through thick bushes near the town of Postiglione in the southern province of Salerno when the shooting occurred.
The 34-year-old opened fire when he saw a shadow and rustling foliage. He immediately raised the alarm when he realised what had happened.
Doctors could do nothing to save 55-year-old Martino Gaudioso.
Both men were in a national park area where hunting is prohibited, reports said. Police have seized their rifles.
On Sunday the president of the Italian League for the Defence of Animals and the Environment said Italy had become the “Wild West”.
“It is a real national emergency,” Michela Vittoria Brambilla told reporters.
Last October, Sergio Costa, Italy’s environment minister, called for a national ban on Sunday hunting after an 18-year-old was shot and killed close to the French border.
By the end of that month, two more men – a 56-year-old and a 20-year-old – had also died in similar circumstances.
“Nowhere is safe” in the area of the French Alps where a Welsh chef was killed by a hunter’s stray bullet, a friend of the victim has said. Marc Sutton, 34, was killed while riding his mountain bike in woods near Montriond, close to the Swiss border: here.
Dutch woman Nelleke Polderman almost killed by hunter’s bullet: here.
D66 senator Prast resigns because of the animal welfare standpoint of the party
D66 senator Henriëtte Prast gives up her seat in the Senate immediately. She also resigns her party membership. She disagrees with the policy on animal welfare.
D66 confirms the decision of the 63-year-old senator. …
D66 is one of four parties in the right-wing government coalition. Often, eg on LGBTQ rights, it is the least right-wing of the four parties. However, apparently not so on animal welfare.
When she became a member of the Senate in 2015, the professor of financial planning in Tilburg already made it clear that she wanted to make her own assessment when voting on animal welfare. She had hoped to bring her caucus from the inside to different insights.
COUNTRYSIDE residents have overwhelmingly rejected the idea that hunting with dogs reflects their values and spend more time watching wildlife than killing it, a survey a found.
The League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) revealed that 91 per cent of rural residents think that observing nature reflects countryside values, while only 16 per cent believe hunting with dogs reflects countryside values.
Very few people living in the countryside took part in the hunting of foxes, deer and hares with packs of hounds.
Only 4 per cent said they ever participate in hunting, compared to 63 per cent who observe wildlife at least once a month.
Other popular activities included walking or hiking, running, cycling, horse riding and visiting pubs.
LACS campaigns director Chris Luffingham said: “Hunting is claimed by a minority to be a cornerstone of country life.
“Modern day countryside values are based around respect for nature, not the abuse of nature for entertainment. This polling confirms that we are a nation of animal lovers and that hunting needs to be consigned to history.”
The figures were released on Boxing Day hunt meets, which are under increasing scrutiny by local councils and campaigners concerned about the targeting of wildlife.
Despite hunting with dogs being banned by the Labour government in 2004, the LACS has had over 100 reports of suspected illegal hunting since the beginning of the season in November.
Labour has promised to toughen the ban on hunting with dogs in England and Wales, saying it will consult on jailing those caught breaking the law.
Shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman said jail terms would put penalties on a par with those for other wildlife crimes.
Currently the most severe punishment available is an unlimited fine.
ANTI-BREXIT campaigner Jolyon Maugham QC has baffled the country after announcing on Boxing Day that he beat a fox to death with a baseball bat while wearing his wife’s kimono: here.
Cub hunting is when fox cubs are hunted to train young hounds to hunt. In the Midlands cub hunting usually begins towards the end of August and lasts up until the 1st November when the main hunting season begins.
During this 2 month period up to 10,000 foxes can be killed. Fox hunters usually wear ratcatcher (tweed) rather than traditional red coats.
Cub hunting usually takes place very early in the morning or late in the evening due to the scenting conditions being better as it is usually still too warm during the day.
Unlike traditional hunting, cub hunting is very static. The hunt members will surround a small wood or crop field where they know a family of foxes live. Once surrounded they hit their boots or saddles with their riding crops to scare any foxes trying to escape back into the wood.
The hunts terrier-men will also block any badger setts and fox earths to prevent them running to ground.
During this period hunts will be out hunting more regularly than during the main hunting season 3-4 days a week. Some of the bigger hunts can be out 6 days a week.
You can report any information you have about cub hunting and any of our local hunts to us confidentially here.
Over 70 ‘cub hunts’ reported this year despite 14-year ban
MORE than 70 different “cub hunts” have been reported this year, an animal welfare charity said today.
Cub hunting involves hunters surrounding a small copse and shouting and slapping saddles to scare fox cubs from escaping the woodland, which the huntsman enters with a pack of hounds. Any fox cubs detected by the hounds will be ripped to pieces.
League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) head of campaigns Nick Weston said: “The only way they can do this is to give their young hounds the taste of fox blood – they do this by cub hunting. The brutal reality of this activity is clear in its name – they hunt and kill baby foxes.
“Hunts do this every year up and down the country, because if they didn’t, the hounds wouldn’t naturally chase and kill foxes.
“The existence of cub hunting proves that ‘trail hunting’ is a sham – these hounds aren’t trained to follow a trail, they are trained to kill.”
Mr Weston said it was time that the Hunting Act is strengthened to introduce prison sentences to deter people from organising and taking part in “cruel sports.”
The Meynell and South Staffordshire Hunt was witnessed cub hunting by LACS investigators who filmed a fox bolting from woodland and being chased by the hunt’s hounds.
Other groups recorded cub hunting were Belvoir Hunt, Surrey Union Hunt and the Duke of Beaufort Foxhounds.
Two representatives of the Hunt have been interviewed by Derbyshire Police in relation to allegations of illegal hunting.
Hunter in Slovakia shoots woman dead instead of pheasant
A hunter in Slovakia accidentally shot a 29-year-old woman instead of a pheasant. The victim had been hired as a driver to frighten the birds with her dog.
The hunter shot her in the back. The victim died in a hospital in the Slovak provincial capital Nitra. A police spokesperson says to the Slovakian news agency TASR that several hunters were present. It is still being investigated who exactly fired the deadly shot.
In Slovakia, more people have died during hunting in recent years. Experts say to local media that hunting has become a hobby of “newly rich people without experience”. …
Also, often people are said to be drunk during large hunting parties, while that is illegal.
So we thought we needed to lift the mood and show that hunting can be challenged and lives saved through simple direct action….here is some footage of last season, when we called the hounds in the opposite direction of the hunted fox, giving it time to escape (an often used tactic in basic hunt sabotage).
Even when our press and justice system sits on its arse doing nothing, we will not stand by and let the hunts get away with their cruelty unopposed.
A supervisor of the Forestry Department was wounded last night when he wanted to stop a poacher in the forest near Etten-Leur. He threatened him and hit the forester with a stool. The police managed to arrest the 60-year-old suspect later.
The forester saw the man – who had a hunting gun with him –
when he did his daily round around 18.00 at the outskirts of Etten-Leur. According to regional broadcaster Omroep Brabant, he immediately recognized the man from a previous incident in which he had taken away his hunting licence.
‘I’ll kill you’
When the forester wanted to stop the poacher, things went wrong. The 60-year-old man took his stool off the ground and shouted: “I’ll kill you.” Then he struck with the stool towards the head of the forester.
He could partially avoid the blow, but was injured. During the struggle afterwards, the supervisor managed to swing the stool away.
Eventually the man ran off the cornfield, towards his car. He could still board and drive away, but was stopped a bit further by the alarmed police. The forester could return home after a medical treatment.
A majority of the House of Representatives is against the annual closure, but Minister Schouten has rejected this wish and says that King Willem-Alexander is the administrator there.
Het Loo is called a ‘royal’ domain. But it is government property; the Dutch taxpayers pay its upkeep.
Driving hunt
The Fauna Protection Organisation and the Party for the Animals took action this afternoon to keep the forests open. They called on the king to be present, but he did not show up.
This morning the Fauna Protection Organisation placed a full-page letter in Trouw daily, in which the king was asked to keep the nature reserve open to the public throughout the year. The organization finds the closure unnecessary because the Royal House is said to have stopped their driving hunting for wild boar years ago. That drive hunt is also illegal. “It is a surprise to many citizens that the Royal Domain is nonetheless closed to the public every year for one hundred days”, writes the Fauna Protection Organisation.
The sign on the left of this photo says, translated: Hurry up (or, in a wordplay: Stop shooting) open up (the nature reserve)! The sign on the right says Don’t let them shoot the wild boar! Party for the Animals.
Royal domain Het Loo [in the Veluwe region] will be closed to the public again this year from mid-September to the end of December. The nature reserve closes mostly so that members of the royal family can hunt, reports regional broadcaster Omroep Gelderland.
A majority of parliament is opposed to the closure. In April, the House adopted a proposal stating that the estate should remain open throughout the year. But Minister Schouten said that she was unable to implement that proposal. The king himself is the one who manages the royal domain and he can do so at his own discretion.
The Party for the Animals has been trying to prevent closure in the fall for years. The party thinks that the park should not be closed, because the late Queen Wilhelmina donated the park to the Dutch people in 1959. The fact that hunting at the site will probably be impossible if the crown domain remains open also plays an important role.
So, Het Loo is called a royal domain, but is in fact property of the Dutch government; which pays for its management with taxpayers’ money. “So, public property, but the public is not welcome”, a Wiesel village resident said.
This 11 September 2016 video shows a demonstration by the Apeldoorn branch of the Party for the Animals on bicycles against closing Het Loo to the public to facilitate royal hunting.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 