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Scientists: Curb the Endless Slaughter

The Washington Post says the mass killing of wolves has led to a growth in the coyote population and despite a century of killing coyotes, the species “refuses to die.” It’s chilling. And obscene. For nearly a century, federal and state governments have been trying to exterminate coyotes, mostly to protect the profits of sheep-raising ranchers. But we’ve known that it doesn’t work. More importantly, a biologist hired by the federal government over 80 years…

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Conservation Biology: Blaming & Killing Cats is Wrong/Unscientific

Proponents of cat slaughter try to legitimize the mass killing under the false mantel of “environmentalism.” There was a time when the environmental movement sought to protect animals and plants from chainsaws, traps, poisons, and guns. Fueled by biological xenophobia, it now uses those very things against animals and plants. Biologists, ecologists, and ethicists are calling out their own colleagues for launching a cruel, violent, dishonest, and I would argue criminal war on cats. They…

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The Death of P-47

A few weeks ago, National Park Service biologists in the Santa Monica Mountains tracked a mountain lion’s GPS collar after it sent out “a mortality signal.” They found the mountain lion, dubbed P-47, dead. P-47 weighed 150 pounds, the largest and most robust of any in the region. He was only three years old. What killed him? Or more accurately, who killed him? According to a local ranger, A necropsy revealed that he may have…

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Toward a Humane Environmentalism

A new analysis in the journal Biological Conservation calls for reform. To many environmentalists, animals are judged worthy of activism on their behalf in relation to how useful they are to humans or how many members of their species exist. There is no objection to taking the lives of animals such as crows, raccoons, or rats; species that are plentiful or have no material value to humans. Yet if there are limited numbers of a…

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