Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)

SAV Comment

As the article says:  “We invade and destroy the natural habitats of others, and then decide that it’s our right to kill them at will, to ensure that their numbers do not affect our lives in a negative way”.

Sadly; because there are too many people now trying to live on the planet, (has anyone ever suggested a ‘human hunting season’ ?), nature and all the animals that form part of it are now totally at the want of politicians (maybe we should start by hunting them !).  Man, even though he was one of the last to arrive; now decides what does live and what does not; apart from himself of course.

A real sad story, but well written with many true points.  Looks like Florida is off the holiday destination list for the future years.  Europeans want to see live animals in their natural environments; not endless dead ones as appears to be the case more by US ‘politicians’ find them guilty of terrorising the human populations; and thus killing them as the only option; more and more each and every day.  Who was there first we ask ???

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First Black Bear Hunting Season in 20 Years Planned in Florida

http://www.care2.com/causes/first-black-bear-hunting-season-in-20-years-planned-in-florida.html

The state of Florida is going to open bear hunting season in October for the first time since 1994, with a planned “harvest objective” of 275 black bears.

Black bears were placed on Florida’s threatened animals list back in 1974, at a time when the bear population was around 300 to 500. In 1994, a statewide ban on black bear hunting was issued in order to protect the species, and since then, numbers have steadily increased to around 2,500.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission are reviewing the ban on April 14, with plans to have a killing season this fall, claiming that black bear numbers are now becoming problematic to human populations.

Why Bring Back Barbaric Bear Hunting After 21 Years Without It?

Around the globe, humans have endangered and wiped out thousands of native species of animals due to hunting and poaching. The ban on black bear hunting in Florida has given the bears the opportunity to thrive once more in their natural environment, and this ban should be permanent, not something on a limited time scale until their numbers have recovered.

Sadly, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission have the power to decide whether animal populations are worth protecting or not, and in this instance they have deemed it necessary to start murdering animals once more.

The Director of the commission’s Division of Hunting and Game Management, Dianne Eggeman, stated that “the bear population has grown for the last 15 years or 20 years, steadily and pretty rapidly, based upon all the information that we have. So our job, of the agency, is to manage that growing population and the best tool to manage that population growth across the board is to use hunting…The more the (bear) population grows, the more likely bears move out of the wildlife and into neighborhoods.”

The proposals will allow hunters to buy a permit ($100 for Florida residents, $300 for non-residents) and to murder one bear per permit using crossbows, bows, revolvers, pistols, shotguns and muzzle loading guns, until the quota of 275 bears have been killed.

Who Are We to Decide How Many Bears Is Too Many?

As humans we have allowed ourselves to believe that we’re the most important species on the planet, rather than just one of millions, equally as important and deserving of life.

Unlike other animals who kill for survival, we have taken it upon ourselves to do so for convenience, pleasure, and out of a strange idea that nature requires us to in order to maintain the right balance of animals.

We invade and destroy the natural habitats of others, and then decide that it’s our right to kill them at will, to ensure that their numbers do not affect our lives in a negative way.

The black bears of Florida do not deserve to be murdered this year just because the authorities have decided that there are now too many.

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Deadly bacteria escape

A dangerous, often deadly, type of bacteria, Burkholderia pseudomallei,  that lives in soil and water has been released from a high-security laboratory at the Tulane National Primate Research Centre in Louisiana. Officials say there is no risk to the public.

The cause of the release and the extent of the contamination remain unknown. The incident has raised concerns that bacteria from the lab may have contaminated the facility’s grounds and though initial, limited tests didn’t detect it, some officials are pressing behind the scenes for more action.

The safety breach at Tulane’s massive lab complex 35 miles north of New Orleans is the latest in a recent series of significant biosafety accidents at some of the most prestigious laboratories in the country where research is performed on bacteria and viruses that are classified as potential bioterror agents.

Tulane’s research, which has been halted by federal officials, was part of an effort to develop a vaccine against the bacteria. It was conducted mostly with rodents inside a secure biosafety level 3 laboratory with multiple layers of safety equipment that were supposed to ensure the pathogen couldn’t get out.

Yet at least 4 rhesus macaques, that were never used in the experiments and were kept in large outdoor cages in another part of the 500-acre facility, have been exposed to the bacteria, initial tests have found. 2 of the macaques became ill in Nov; both eventually had to be euthanised.

Meanwhile, a federal investigator, who became ill 24 hours after visiting the facility in Jan as part of the ongoing release investigation, has also tested positive for exposure to the bacteria – though it remains unclear whether her exposure may have occurred during international travel and not at the lab. The investigation so far indicates that the 4 macaques were exposed to the bacteria while being cared for in the complex’s veterinary hospital and tests of 39 soil and 13 water samples from the centre’s grounds have not detected the presence of the bacteria.

Yet studies reviewed by USA TODAY indicate too few samples were taken to detect what can be an elusive bacterium.

The Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, which is leading the joint federal-state response, expressed concerns about “whether the organism has escaped the compound and whether livestock and domestic animals are at risk,” in a Feb. 20 letter from the state to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The primate centre is located near wetlands and a river, across the street from a school and close to a neighbourhood. The strain — known as Strain 1026b — was originally recovered from a rice farmer sickened in Thailand in 1993.  Rice farming is a common way people are infected because the bacteria live in contaminated soil and water and can enter the body through cuts or sores on the skin.

The research will remain suspended until the lab breach investigation is completed and any problems are corrected, said the CDC, which jointly runs the Federal Select Agent Program with the USDA.

Burkholderia pseudomallei can cause a potentially serious disease in people and animals called melioidosis, that has a wide range of non-specific symptoms, such as fever, headache, loss of appetite, muscle and joint pain, and infections are often mistaken for other diseases such as pneumonia or tuberculosis. In Thailand, where the bacteria is endemic, the fatality rate for patients with melioidosis is up to 50%; in Australia it can be up to 20%, according to published studies.

Confirmed infections are relatively rare. There were 176 culture-confirmed cases of melioidosis in Australia’s north Queensland during the 10-year period 2000-2009, according to that country’s health department.  By Feb. 25, ongoing tests had identified 2 additional animals from the outdoor breeding colony that had antibodies to Burkholderia pseudomallei, indicating they had been exposed even though they were not showing any signs of illness. Only 2 of the 4 exposed animals shared the same outdoor field cage, Lackner said.

But all 4 had been in the centre’s veterinary hospital around the same time, which has led CDC and Tulane to say the hospital is the leading suspect for where the animals were exposed to the bacteria. The deadly bacteria should never have been in the hospital — or anyplace else where the outdoor macaques could have been exposed to it.

Burkholderia pseudomallei should only have been inside the specific Tulane lab that was doing vaccine development research.  That research was being conducted in a biosafety level 3 laboratory – the second highest containment level – with a wide range of high-tech safeguards, physical barriers and procedures that are supposed to ensure dangerous pathogens can’t escape.

The lab, as Tulane describes it, is essentially a “box-within-a-box within a box.” The research was being done in a completely contained lab under negative air pressure, inside Building 5. Air leaving the chamber passes through multiple HEPA filters before leaving the building. Access to the BSL-3 lab is strictly controlled. Everything that goes in can’t come out without being sterilized.

Research animals that go into the BSL-3 labs do not come out alive and never go to the hospital.

So how did the bacteria get out of the lab?  Sloppy biosafety practices can result in pathogens being tracked out of labs. For now, Tulane is not planning to remove soil or fumigate the area. With no bacteria detected outdoors, the centre sees “growing evidence that makes it increasingly unlikely that Burkholderia pseudomallei has been in our outdoor breeding colony,” said Tulane spokesman Michael Strecker.

Testing of the animals in the outdoor breeding colony, however, will continue.

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