For the first time in decades, hunters with deep pockets will not be able to shoot all of the “big five” game animals in South Africa after the government banned leopard hunts for the 2016 season. The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) recommended the temporary ban because it said leopard numbers could not be […]
Tag: hunting
POLL: Should the slaughter of wolves in Finland be stopped?
There’s been a massacre in Finland. The country, which from afar looks to epitomize sustainable living, has slaughtered a third of its wolves this winter. Seventy-five wolves have been killed since the end of August: 43 in a government-sanctioned cull, and most of the rest under a licence system that allows “problem” wolves – those […]
POLL: Should houbara bustard “royal hunting trips” be stopped?
They’re a shy, rare bird breed, the size of a chicken – and hunting them is officially banned in Pakistan. But it is no holds barred when Arab royals begin their Houbara bustard hunting trips. Arab princes and their wealthy friends like to hunt Houbara bustards both as a sport and because the meat is […]
Shooting lobby calls for five-year moratorium on duck hunting rules
The shooting lobby has called for a five-year moratorium on new duck hunting restrictions in Victoria, saying it would allow regulators to study the impact of hunting on duck and other waterfowl populations. The RSPCA has described the suggestion as “unbelievable” given the wealth of data, collected by the University of NSW annual aerial bird […]
Icelanders Don’t Like Whale Meat – So Why the Hunts?
When it comes to commercial whaling, Japan is in the limelight. The country has been widely accused of using a scientific research program as a guise for hunting hundreds of whales a year and selling their meat. Last year, an international court agreed that the program isn’t scientific and ordered Japan to shut it down—to […]
POLL: Should the trapping of bobcats and beavers be banned?
When I think of fur trappers, I imagine a frontiersman in a coonskin cap paddling his canoe full of beaver pelts down the Hudson River. But when reporter Tom Knudson thinks of trapping, it’s a guy trudging into a forest in Nevada, or some other Western state, to set a steel-jaw trap for a bobcat. […]
POLL: Should the National Wildlife Crime Unit be properly funded by the British Government?
There is a crime wave cascading through Britain that the government doesn’t appear much to care about. In Lincolnshire alone, police have arrested or reported for summons 152 people for hare coursing since September 2015, compared with just 65 for the entire “season” last year. Across the country, the Badger Trust logged 441 incidents of badger […]
On the trail of the wolf, Europe’s much maligned and misunderstood predator
Robert Mysłajek stops dead. Between two paw prints on a muddy mountain track, the scientist finds what he is looking for. “Scats!’’ he enthuses. Wolf sightings are so rare that a flash of faeces marks a good day, even for a seasoned tracker. But it is getting easier. There are now an estimated 1,500 wolves […]