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Action Alert: Gray wolf delisting Bill could make it into a large spending bill before Congress.

Wolves of Douglas County WI Films

It’s unlikely that a senate version of the House H.R. 6784 will make into the senate. It barely passed the House, but could now be added to spending bills as a rider.

During a town hall meeting in Rhinelander Friday, Congressman Sean Duffy was asked about the bill which he authored which would return wolf management to the states.

The bill passed the U.S. House, but Duffy said it is unlikely to make it through the Senate…

“…I can’t get a stand-alone bill out of the (U.S.) Senate. A lot of Senators, Democrats and Republicans who say they support it don’t want to work for it. You can look at who that is yourself. I’m trying to get it into the end of the year Omnibus package to pass with this big spending bill….”

This bill will go in to large ominous spending bills as riders and would return Gray…

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Petition: Congress passed u.s. bill against the capturing of orcas and other cetaceans

change.org

Kylie Anderson started this petition to U.S. Senate and 3 others

On October 24th, 2018, Canada finally passed the S-203 bill which outlaws the capturing of whales and dolphins, and placing them into captivity. Happy to hear this news, I researched the action that the US is taking with this unheeded issue, and it did not come as a surprise to me when I essentially found nothing beyond outdated petitions and articles only discussing the status of the matter.

However, according to Michigan State University’s animal law info base, it was said in 2010 that, “There are currently no laws in the US prohibiting the housing of orca whales in captivity; rather laws that specifically allow for the capture of wild orcas for purposes of entertainment and scientific research. The United States relies instead on maintaining its captive whale population through breeding programs of whales already living in captivity. While there is no law prohibiting the display of orcas, there are laws that govern those facilities that house them.”

We need to guarantee the protection of these animals, rather than valuing the immoral cooperations that house them. The primary laws governing the facilities housing orca whales are the Animal Welfare Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which only serve to ensure a permit and regulations of the animal and its “environment”. Yet there are still no laws in place to ban the cruel capturing and imprisonment of orcas and other cetaceans in the United States.

Since 1961, SeaWorld has taken in over 156 orcas into captivity, and of those 156 whales, 129 of them have died in the span of 58 years. In the wild, however, orcas have a life expectancy of about 50 to 90 years old, while most of these SeaWorld orcas only live to see about 15 or 25 years old, if that. As of right now, SeaWorld continues to hold over 21 orcas in their three parks in the United States, and while each of the parks have said to discontinue the orca performances, these animals are still being held in concrete tanks each day for hours at a time, driving them to the point of insanity.

Though over the last few years, SeaWorld have responded to the backlash of their controversial reputation, they have only made minuscule improvements in a problem that is larger than they know. If the capturing of cetaceans continues, the species will only become more endangered and the orca population, as we know it, will ultimately cease to exist. It is time to finally free these innocent and beautiful animals.

https://www.change.org/p/congress-pass-u-s-bill-against-the-capturing-of-orcas-and-other-cetaceans?utm_source=social_media&utm_medium=twitter_us

Fish bones could help us trace the toxic path of coal ash

grist.org
By Greta Moran on Dec 29, 2018

When Hurricane Florence flooded the Carolinas in September, the rivers turned from blue to a sickly gray. The water ran so thick with soil, dead leaves, and pollution that you could see murky ink blots forming from outer space. Duke Energy admitted that the intense floodwaters had caused a breach in one of its dams, setting loose a gross sludge known as coal ash — a toxic byproduct of burning coal.

Laden with arsenic, lead, mercury, and other toxins, coal ash tends to be stored near low-income communities and communities of color. For this reason, Mother Jones reporter Julia Lurie noted that the sludge has “quietly become one of America’s worst environmental justice problems.”

Scientists have found a new, unlikely tool to help track the spread of coal ash contaminants: fish bones. Researchers at Duke University discovered that the pearlescent, calcified structure in a fish’s inner ear — known as the otolith — can provide a picture of coal ash contamination in rivers and lakes.

Looking at the otolith under a microscope, you can see a new layer laid down for almost every day of the fish’s life, says Jessica Brandt, the lead author of the new Duke study. “They grow like tree rings,” Brandt says. The layers contain a lot of information, from the fish’s age to its migration patterns — as well as if and when it came across coal ash contamination.

This knowledge could help researchers track changes over time with more accuracy and ease. “If you go and collect a water sample at any given point, you’re only getting information for the time of collection,” explains Brandt, who is also a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The scientists from Duke examined fish from two North Carolina lakes with a history of coal contamination, Mayo Lake and Sutton Lake (the lake that was contaminated by coal ash from a Duke Energy plant during Florence). In the wake of the hurricane, Duke Energy claimed that the leaked coal ash posed no environmental or health risks. But experts aren’t convinced.

“The fact that we are finding fish, which is the top of the predator system, with a ‘fingerprint’ suggests that the system is already affected by coal ash,” said Avner Vengosh, one of the authors on the study and a professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke University. Exposure to coal ash can lead to cancer and a number of other long-term health problems.

Vengosh’s previous research on coal ash was used in a lawsuit in 2017, when a judge ordered the Tennessee Valley Authority to clean up coal ash that had been leaking into nearby rivers in eastern Tennessee for decades. The ruling was recently overturned by a higher court. Still, the more we know about coal ash contamination, the better. Perhaps the pearly, inner ear of fish could also prove to be a useful tool for protecting people from the dangers of coal ash.

https://grist.org/science/fish-bones-could-help-us-trace-the-toxic-path-of-coal-ash/

Xhale City Vape Shop employee has epic meltdown over Trump Shirt