Media too Quick to Say Wild Birds Spread the Virus
The Tyee
2006 March 29
Grant Sheppard
Photo courtesy The Tyee
While scientists and conservationists are calling for a more careful, science-based approach to avian influenza, some members of the media are covering the story in a sensational and superficial manner. One ABC News story, for example, didn't mince words. "[Bird flu] is being spread much faster than first predicted from one wild flock of birds to another, an airborne delivery system that no government can stop."
Funds are There to Take Active Role in Deer
RECORDNET.COM
2006 Mar 29
Photo courtesy RECORD.NET
In the San Bernardino Mountains, herds of bighorn sheep are making a comeback, thanks to volunteers who capture and treat the elusive animals for diseases, before releasing them into the arid, forbidding, hard-to-access wilderness.
In a remote part of Trinity County, a student in a master's program at Cal is developing and testing a wildlife habitat model to boost populations of Columbian black-tailed deer.
These are examples of hundreds of local conservation projects undertaken and funded each year by hunters who contribute to the Safari Club International Foundation. Hunters who double as environmentalists? You bet.
Animals Won't Be Killed to Contain Spread of CWD
Rocky Mountain News
2006 March 29
Todd Hartman
Photo courtesy Rocky Mountain News
The Colorado Division of Wildlife is giving up on the controversial practice of killing deer and elk to help contain the spread of chronic wasting disease.
The decision is a sharp reversal from policy adopted during the height of fears over the fatal brain- rotting ailment, when it appeared that Colorado's multimillion-dollar hunting economy might be decimated.
The agency's lead scientist on CWD and an early proponent of culling, Mike Miller, said data collected over the years don't show that thinning herds has had any significant effect on the rate of the disease in the wild.
"We're not afraid to acknowledge that some of the things we had tried aren't working as well as we'd hoped," Miller said. "It's never fun. I would be much more comfortable to sit here telling you what does work."
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