Men's mags duel over OH zoo gone wild

GQ and Esquire face off over the exotic predator release in OH. Esquire goes all action adventure. GQ tries to figure out how lion, tigers and bears were unleashed on suburbia.

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The Price of All This Cleaning Up Oiled Wildlife?

BP sign from alvez modified by animaltourism.com

Wildlife rescuers in the gulf are getting so few oiled animals they’re starting to worry that the cost per animal seem ridiculous. After Exxon we had reports of “$80,000 otters.” If you hear anything about a $300,000 sea gull, be skeptical.

Mike Ziccardi, a veterinarian who runs Oiled Wildlife Care Network, has been offering the most candid and complete news on the wildlife situation on their blog. He’s been bracing for both an onslaught of injured animals and a backlash against the cost of saving them. “This response is likely to be very costly when it is all said and done – especially if compared on a “per-bird” or “per-turtle/mammal” basis (or at least I hope it is, as that will imply low animal numbers),” he writes today. Continue reading The Price of All This Cleaning Up Oiled Wildlife?

Where Are All Those Oil-Soaked Birds We Were Expecting?

Gulf-oil-spill-first-oiled-pelican-2010

One peculiar thing about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill so far: hardly any wildlife covered in oil. The lack of  oiled birds has mystified rescuers and exasperated the media. TV networks are clamoring for images, showing clip files and giving the impression that tons of animals are showing up hurt. That’s not so–at least not yet.

Mike Ziccardi, a vet and director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network,  says on the OWCN blog that he got into a spat with “a fairly irate reporter from a major national news outlet” who demanded video access to the necropsy (animal autopsy) of some sea turtles. The network were desperate for dead turtle images even though the turtles didn’t show initial signs of oiling and, as Ziccardi pointed out, were in found in a time and place typical of stranded turtles. (The other big threat to turtles is shrimp boats, Wallace Nichols from Grupo Tortuguero points out.)

Keith Olbmermann started a broadcast this week in ominous tone about “as dead jellyfish begin to wash up on the Mississippi coast.” Dead jellyfish might be the one bright spot of the oil spill, given that the Gulf Dead Zone has caused a plague of jellyfish in the gulf.

A brown pelican is only second bird to be treated. Photo by IBRRC

Apparently California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger so expected oiled wildlife images that he dreamed some up. He just announced that he was withdrawing support for drilling off California’s shores: “I see

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NJ Hunters Suspicious of Any Poll That Shows People Don’t Like Bear Hunting

Bear on logs

The Humane Society released a poll Sunday showing that a plurality (45%) of New Jersey residents oppose the bear hunt the state just approved for this winter. Expect a backlash of hunters who don’t believe it, but the survey isn’t a fluke: it shows the long-term decline of the popularity of hunting.

The survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. that showed 45% of voters oppose the hunt versus 35% supporting it, with 4% margin of error. I would’ve like to see more than 635 people polled, but it’s still random. And it shows the growing discomfort with hunting bears just for fun. Public opinion has shifted–ever so slightly–against hunting since a similar 2004 poll by Fairly Dickinson University. That survey 44%  of NJ residents disapproves a hunt and 41% approved.  They polled 701 voters and had a margin of error of 4%.

As I’ve pointed out before, NJOA tells its members that “there are 650,000 of us, which is approximately 15% of all voters.” They’re counting people who hunt OR fish. And then it seems just for good measure doubling their numbers.

The reality is hunting is in decline. The latest National Survey of Hunting, Fishing and Wildlife-Associated Recreational say of 7 million New Jersey residents, only 1% hunt, about 86,000 people hunt, but 23%, or 1.5 million, like to watch wildlife. But state wildlife agencies, funded only by hunting permits, serve hunters almost exclusively. Hunters spend $137 million in New Jersey, but wildlife watchers spent $631

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