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Strathclair hog barn operator not in compliance with laws - Hogwatch Manitoba

Dear Editor, Politics, not law, are driving Yellowhead Council’s response to  Hog  Watch Manitoba’s revelations about a hog barn expansion  near  Strathclair.     (See B.G. story, here.) Claims that its “investigation” reveals the operator was “found to  be in compliance with laws and regulations” as reported in the  October 24   Brandon Sun   are false. Council’s informal plan to have taxpayers pay someone to count  the Maple Leaf-owned pigs at this so-called family farm is a  diversion designed to give the offender time to fix problems  documented by Hog Watch. Counting pigs helps them evade their  responsibility to regulate on the maximum number and type of pigs  a barn can hold.   Governments’ honour system has led to the approval of a new barn  without making sure there is sufficient capacity to stor e  manure.    Only after the barn was built, over a thousand pigs put in  it this spring, Hog Watch sounded an alarm and municipal 

Living Planet Report 2018 - Bad News for the World’s Wildlife.

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World Wildlife Fund We are pushing our planet to the brink. Human activity—how we feed, fuel, and finance our lives—is taking an unprecedented toll on wildlife, wild places, and the natural resources we need to survive.  On average, we’ve seen an astonishing 60% decline in the size of populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians in just over 40 years, according to WWF’s Living Planet Report 2018. Story here. Carnage on our roads is surely a significant factor as well. Maggots swarm over the carcass of an animal killed on the highway. Roadkill litters a busy highway in Manitoba as the wheels of commerce (and the carnage), keep on rolling. PinP photos.

Cry me a river: Low water levels causing chaos in Germany

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Phys.org A river boat in Cologne. CE photo, Uwe Aranas A new island in Lake Constance. A river in Berlin flowing backward. Dead fish on the banks of lakes and ponds. Barges barely loaded so they don't run aground. More here.

Scientists, environmentalists brace for Brazil's right turn

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Science Slash-and-burn  forest  clearing along the Xingu River in  Brazil . A NASA satellite photo. Beset by economic woes and dissatisfied with the left-wing politicians in power for most of the past 15 years, Brazil appears poised to make a hard turn and elect a far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, as its next president. His rapid ascent has unnerved local researchers, who worry about the future of Brazilian science, the protection of the country's biodiversity, and its role in the global struggle against climate change. Bolsonaro has vowed to withdraw Brazil from the 2015 Paris agreement, which requires nations to reduce greenhouse emissions to combat climate change, and he plans to eliminate the Ministry of the Environment and fold its duties into the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply.  Download the PDF here.

European parliament approves curbs on use of antibiotics on farm animals

TheGuardian Move is aimed at halting the spread of ‘superbugs’ resistant to medical treatment. Details here. RELATED: Starting this December, Canadian farmers will need a prescription to obtain veterinary antibiotics for their livestock. According to a retired University of Guelph professor, John Prescott, the federal regulatory changes mean the agriculture industry will be required to play its part in reducing the use of antibiotics here and around the world. More here.

The owl, the mouse and the murrelet. How manmade climate change could be pushing species to the brink in ways rarely imagined.

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by Larry Powell A Scripp's murrelet chick ( Synthliboramphus scrippsi) . Humans hunted its cousin,  the Great Auk, to extinction in the 18 hundreds.  A U.S. Nat'l. Park Service photo. A new study finds, complex changes in climate are threatening yet another species - this time a little diving seabird known as the Scripp's murralet (above). But this time, it isn't because of direct impacts  from severe weather events, as is often the case. Rather, it is how those events are interfering with traditional interactions between a predator, the barn owl (below) and its two main prey, the deer mouse and the murralet. The three species breed on the channel islands, off the coast of California. The study focused on Santa Barbara, the smallest. Barn owl (Tyto alba). Photo by Peter K. Burian. In-depth research by two American and two Canadian scientists, documents a fascinating but insidious train of events that could  be leading to the little seabird&#