Vic poaching; Qld hunters in parks; outraged shooters versus city; a dog ate her ticket; poachers shot; tourism ban doesn’t help tigers; how real men hunt bears.
Victorian poaching investigation
Victoria’s Department of Primary Industries is investigating a suspected poaching case after four sets of deer antlers were found in a car intercepted by police near Yarram last weekend. The deer were allegedly killed on Snake Island, where hog deer are located. The small species is heavily managed in Australia, with limited permits provided for hunting, and it is threatened with extinction in its native home of Asia.
Hunting in Queensland national parks
Katter’s Australian Party has renewed its calls for hunters to be allowed into Queensland national parks to help control feral animals. KAP MP Shane Knuth made the call this week, but the government again ruled it out and the state’s National Parks Association aped its NSW branch by saying amateur hunters were ineffective and unsafe. A poll in the Courier Mail was showing two-thirds of people supported recreational hunting in national parks.
Outraged shooters force city’s backdown
Toronto city officials tried to ban two teenage target shooters from speaking at a Summer Games ceremony because of a fatal shooting at a party that had nothing to do with athletes or the games. The ban brought outrage from not only target shooters but the public, and the city was forced to back down. “These teens are very disciplined and have refined their craft over many years, and now some faceless anti-gun bureaucrats are associating them with drug-dealing, gang-member criminals,” the president of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, John Evers, said. After the backdown, the bureaucrats renamed faceless but the city said it regretted its initial decision.
Dog eats Olympian’s ticket
US trap shooter Kim Rhode had a slightly stressful journey to London for the Olympic Games. As well as her husband losing his passport and flights being cancelled, her dog ate her plane ticket! She knew it was such a lame-sounding excuse that she took photos as proof of the act by the toy poodle puppy called Norman. Rhode, who is aiming to become the first American to win medals at five summer Olympics in a row, maintained a sense of humour about it.
Poachers shot
The war against poaching has been literally that in Kenya this past week. Two poachers were shot dead by rangers who caught them in the process of removing tusks from an elephant they had just killed, while another was killed and his accomplice wounded in a shootout. The second incident occurred after rangers had tracked the poachers for most of the day and ambushed them as they were about to open fire on an elephant.
Tourism ban doesn’t help tigers
Banning legal human activity appears have had no effect on tiger poaching in India. All tourism was halted inside core conservation areas for the animals in an effort to curb poaching, but it has been revealed there was no poaching in those areas, only in the buffer zones outside them. Now there is a push to open those core areas to tourism again, which supporters say would have a number of benefits. They argue it would ensure greater observation to deter potential poaching, ensure the security of the jobs of many rangers, and guarantee a healthy income stream for the conservation areas.
How real men hunt bears
Fancy yourself brave enough to go bear hunting? It’s potentially dangerous enough with a modern, high-powered rifle but consider life for a bear hunter in Siberia in the 1800s, when the only way was to get up close and very personal with the hairy monsters. The suit pictured above was designed to let them do that with some degree of safety, though how safe they were isn’t clear! The suit is made from two layers of quilted leather, chock a block with inch-long nails so close together a bear would have a hard time raking a claw between them. The spiked helmet is iron. Vision and movement can’t have been good, but on the up side it would’ve been almost impossible for a bear to give one of their famous hugs…
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