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Showing posts from September, 2018

Orca 'apocalypse': half of killer whales doomed to die from pollution

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The Guardian Banned PCB chemicals are still severely harming the animals - but the Arctic could be a refuge.  More here. An orca breaches. Photo by  H. Zell.

Busted! A citizens' group exposes an illegal hog operation in southwestern Manitoba. (An illustrated text version.)

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By Larry Powell Hogwatch Manitoba says a large pig barn in the RM of Yellowhead in the southwest, has been operating illegally   since last year. This is the barn in question, 5k east of the village of Strathclair. Photo by Larry Powell. Ruth Pryzer presented Hogwatch’s case to the Yellowhead council  this week. She claimed the barn  owner, Wim Verbruggen, misled  the local government when he applied for a building permit early  last year. She says the barn he built was three thousand square feet bigger than  he said it would be. And it houses many more animals than  the fewer than 300 he claimed it would. The Planning Act which existed at the  time, required that a barn such as the one now up  and running, have  both a “conditional use” hearing and  a technical review.  Neither of  these actually took place.  The lack of a hearing meant there was no chance  for anyone in the area to express concerns or perhaps of even finding out about it, beforehand!

For the First Time, Scientists Prove Human Activity Is the Top Cause of Warming Antarctic Waters...

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Mother Jones ...and not regular temperature variations or responses to natural climate change.   More here. Mt. Herschel, Antarctica, with a penguin colony in the foreground, 2006. Photo by  Andrew Mandemaker.

Busted! Citizens' group exposes Illegal hog operation in Manitoba. Few consequences likely for barn owner.(Video)

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Read an alternative version here.  Also.... "In Hogs We Trust."   A critique of Manitoba’s “runaway” hog industry. Part 1 - Antibiotic Overuse. Part 11 - The price we pay for corporate pig$.   Part 111 - From Malaysia to Manitoba - the global magnitude of livestock diseases. Part 1V - The health and environmental costs of an expanded hog industry. Part V - What’s behind Manitoba’s drive to expand?  

For years, the main culprit in bee decline has been the "neonics," a family of insecticides. Now, another suspect has been added to the list - an herbicide - Roundup!

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More here. Science X A honeybee colony in Manitoba.  A PinP photo.

Florence Flooding Kills 5,500 Pigs, 3.4 Million Chickens in the Carolinas

EcoWatch The North Carolina Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that the historic  flooding  from  Florence  has killed about 3.4 million chickens and turkeys and 5,500 hogs.  More here.

World's Largest River Floods Five Times More Often Than It Used to

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EcoWatch Extreme  floods have become more frequent in the Amazon Basin in just the last two to three decades,  according to a new study.  More here. Amazon River, Western Para Province, Brazil June 1996.  This image shows the flooded condition of a small section of the Amazon River,including the jungle towns of Obidos and Oriximina. The sun’s reflection off of the muddy looking river water, called sun glint or sunglitter, helps to identify land-water boundaries in this section of the Amazon River which is roughly midway between Manaus and the Amazon River Delta. By comparing this image to a detailed map of the area it is obvious that the river is flooding in the low lying areas that are adjacent to the floodplain of the main channel of the river. Large areas south of the main channel of the Amazon River are covered by standing water. Patches of cleared land can be identified within the densely vegetated terrain along the northeast side of the Amazon River. The main c

Million$ more in government help for Manitoba's high-maintenance hog sector.

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by Larry Powell Manitoba's  Premier, Brian Pallister has announced  another assistance package   to Hylife Foods of more than $11 m over the next several year.  (HyLife is now Canada's biggest pork processor.) Some $9.5m will come from the province, the rest from Ottawa. It will help the company pay for a pricey expansion of its killing plant in Neepawa and a new feed mill in the southwest. Last November, I warned in a blog-post here , that Manitoba taxpayers had better be prepared to "dig deeper." Why? Because Pallister's Conservatives had just begun to deregulate this province's corporate hog sector, so it could expand. And, expand, it has! Countless new barns are going up, so that millions more animals can be raised and slaughtered here: And all with fewer regulations than ever to control pollution, disease or catastrophic barn fires.  Given past history, my article reasoned, more "corporate welfare" was surely in the wind. It do

A call to protect much more land and sea from human encroachment

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Science X  Riding Mtn. Nat'l. Park - Manitoba, Canada. A PinP photo. A new paper in the journal Science strongly supports establishment of many more land and sea areas as protected sites. Failure to do so, the editorial warns, chillingly, could spell doom for many species, including our own!  More here.

"You ain't seen nothing yet!" Environmentalists fear Hurricane Florence will again flood Carolinas' many livestock operations, bringing catastrophic pollution.

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by Larry Powell Almost 750 thousand turkeys (shown here) and some 100 thousand hogs, were lost in catastrophic flooding in North Carolina during Hurricane Floyd in 1999.  Dave Gatley FEMA It's an all-too-familiar story. Given past history, chances are good that Florence will once again turn waterways in the Carolinas - home to hundreds of huge swine and poultry barns and waste lagoons, into a toxic mess of feces, urine and animal remains. It happened when Hurricane Floyd struck in 1999 and Mathew stormed in in 2016.  Even tho they were smaller storms than Florence is now, Mathew and Floyd left their marks, too. According to "The New Food Economy," 14 lagoons flooded and millions of animals died during Mathew. Environmental groups such as The Waterkeeper Alliance, documented what they called "fields of filth" left behind, as seen here.  Floyd's toll was also devastating. (See photo, above.) North Carolina's livestock produce more than

New report: over half the world's raptors have declining populations

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BirdLife International A ferruginous? hawk in Manitoba, Canada. A P in P photo. We interview our Chief Scientist, Stuart Butchart, about a newly published paper: State of the World’s Raptors: What threats this iconic group of birds face, and what we can do to help. More here.

Another hurricane is about to batter our coast. Trump is complicit.

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The Washington Post Hurricane Florence. A NASA photo. With depressingly ironic timing, the Trump administration has recently announced a plan to roll back federal rules on methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is the main component in natural gas. When it comes to extreme weather, Mr. Trump is complicit.   More here.

Global hunger continues to rise, new UN report says

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World Food Programme A woman receives food rations at a refugee camp in Kenya. Kate Holt/AusAID Progress made in the past decade has been reversed, with climate extremes such as droughts and floods identified as a main cause . More here.

A Season of Smoke

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Please also read: " Time to Wake up & Smell the Smoke! "

ASF - a deadly hog disease - has now been confirmed on Romania’s largest pig farm: 140,000 pigs culled

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PIG PROGRESS The virus was confirmed on the farm, which consists of 3 adjacent properties in the southern county of Braila, Romania after water samples were sent to the authorities. Story here. -30- In Hogs We Trust - a critique of Manitoba's runaway hog industry. Part 111 - From Malaysia to Manitoba - the global magnitude of livestock diseases.

Wildfires make their own weather, and that matters for fire management

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ScienceNews A wildfire on the Ashcroft reserve in B.C, 2017. Shawn Cahill. New prediction tools zero in on how blazes throw embers and make weather that fans the flames. Story here.

No record yields for potatoes on the Canadian Prairies this year!

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Western Producer A potato harvester at work in southern Manitoba. A PinP photo. The hot, dry weather Western Canada experienced this summer, is blamed. Story here.

One of the biggest tsunamis ever recorded was set off three years ago by a melting glacier

The Washington Post A rare and extreme tsunami ripped across an Alaskan fjord three years ago after 180 million tons of mountain rock fell into the water, driving a devastating wave that stripped shorelines of trees and reached heights greater than 600 feet, a large team of scientists  documented on Thursday . The October 2015 cataclysm in Taan Fiord in southeastern Alaska appears to have been the fourth-highest tsunami recorded in the past century, and its origins — linked to the retreat of a glacier — suggest that it’s the kind of event we may see more often because of a warming climate.The new study even bluntly calls it a “hazard occasioned by climate change.” Story here.

Drug-resistant microbes could threaten future global economy, low income countries in particular

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Journal Club A microbiologist examines the growth of a bacterial culture.  A U.S. Food & Drug Administration photo.  Antimicrobial resistance is not only a major public health threat, but also an economic one, according to researchers at The World Bank. Their new study, published in the journal  World Development , suggests that an increase in drug-resistant microbes could cause millions more people to fall into extreme poverty within the next few decades. “Nobody has estimated the poverty effects before,” says study author Karen Thierfelder, an economics professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and consultant for The World Bank. “We’d like to make more people aware of the problem.” More here. Also Read:  "In Hogs We Trust."   A critique of Manitoba’s “runaway” hog industry. Part 1 - Antibiotic Overuse.

Worries Deepen That Another Deadly Hog Disease May Arrive in Canada

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African Swine Fever in China Prompts Call for Review of Biosecurity on Canadian Farms   Farmscape for September 4, 2018 African Swine Fever has now been reported over a vast area in China.   A PinP photo. In light of this, Manitoba Pork is encouraging pork producers to reevaluate biosecurity.   The virus affects pigs of all ages causing high mortality and, while it doesn't affect humans and isn't considered a food safety risk, it is highly transmissible, it is trade limiting and it is federally reportable.   Jenelle Hamblin, the Manager of Swine Health Programs with Manitoba Pork, says the world is a smaller place than it once was with people and products moving in short amounts of time for many reasons. Clip-Jenelle Hamblin-Manitoba Pork:   As a sector we need to be normally aware of the people that are coming onto our premises and where they've been prior to coming but, in the case such as this, it's important to conside

'It’s not if, it’s when': the deadly pig disease spreading around the world

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The Guardian Swine fever has made its way into China, home to half the world’s pigs. Farmers in Estonia are already counting the cost. Story here. The images below show piglets with "PED," another deadly disease of hogs which has been  rampant in North America (& Manitoba) in recent years. Photos by Manitoba Pork. Related: Officials Worry Yet Another Lethal Pig Disease May be Headed to Canada. In Hogs We Trust  Part 111 - The magnitude of livestock diseases, worldwide.

Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’ is the largest ever measured

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National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration This NASA image shows the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. The dead zone is now approaching an area the size of Manitoba's Lake Winnipeg!  More here.