Allan government announces extended 2025 duck hunting season with hunters allowed to bag nine ducks a day
Wetland bird hunters in Victoria will have a longer duck shooting season and can take home more birds under new rules.
The Victorian duck hunting season will begin on 19 March and run for 83 days until 9 June, up from 56 days in 2024.
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Continue reading...Andy Shovel, who worked at McDonald’s and co-founded THIS™, says A Bit Weird aims to ‘disarm people through fun’
Andy Shovel’s career to date has been, you might say, a journey. A little over a decade ago he was working on the chicken station in a branch of McDonald’s. He then set up a burger delivery business in west London, which he and a co-founder would go on to sell for seven figures.
A celebratory holiday in the Maldives and a period of research later, in 2019 they launched THIS™, the range of meat-alternative packaged foods, which boomed from zero to more than £20m of revenue, becoming the UK’s fastest-growing food brand in 2023.
Continue reading...Steve Reed says plans for 1km curved structure to protect bats from high-speed railway are ‘batshit crazy’
A bat shelter costing more than £100m near HS2 has been described by the environment secretary as “batshit crazy”.
HS2 Ltd is spending the sum on the protection structure in Buckinghamshire, it emerged last year. All bats are legally protected in the UK.
The curved structure, which has been described by the HS2 Ltd chair, Sir Jon Thompson, as a “shed”, will run for about 1km alongside Sheephouse Wood to create a barrier allowing the creatures to cross above the high-speed railway without being affected by passing trains.
But Steve Reed has criticised the plans and told the Fabian Society’s new year conference: “I mean, (to spend) that vast amount of money on a tunnel for bats when there were so many other public services crying out for funding – it’s batshit crazy.
“And it happened because the previous government didn’t have a grip on the public finances, didn’t have a grip on infrastructure projects, and didn’t really have a grip on what was happening to nature either.”
Asked about the potential for tension between prioritising wildlife and the environment and pushing through planning projects, as the government has promised to do to boost economic growth, Reed said both could be achieved.
“It’s not either or, it’s not growth or nature or the environment. We can do the two together,” he said.
Reed also suggested any plans to build a third runway at Heathrow airport would be subject to a “proper consultation” to ensure “mitigations” were in place to make it work.
Asked about the prospect of expanding the airport, which reports suggest the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will back, the MP for Streatham and Croydon North in London said: “Of course, it’s speculation that you’re talking about … but if there were any proposal like that, then there would be a proper consultation, hopefully not lasting decades as it has done previously, because you don’t have to take that amount of time to get to good decisions.
“But it would take into account all of those factors, mitigations, what we will need to do to make sure that it could work.
“Since you mentioned my voting record on that one, I voted against expanding Heathrow last time because I was in favour of expanding Gatwick because it would provide economic growth that would benefit south London, where my constituency is. So I see the link.”
Import of pork, lamb and beef as well as live cattle, sheep and pigs suspended amid outbreak near Berlin
Britain has banned imports of German pork, lamb, beef and dairy products to prevent foot-and-mouth disease spreading to the UK after a case of the disease was confirmed last Friday on the outskirts of Berlin.
As well as prohibiting imports of ham, bacon, salami and cheese, the measure bans the import of live cattle, sheep and pigs, along with other animals which are susceptible to foot-and-mouth. No health certificates will be issued by Britain for fresh meat from Germany.
Continue reading...Bill aims to strengthen animal welfare by closing legal loopholes around imports of dogs, cats and ferrets
The government has thrown its weight behind a bill to crack down on puppy smuggling as part of a commitment to strengthening animal welfare.
Ministers announced on Friday that they were supporting a private member’s bill sponsored by Danny Chambers, a Liberal Democrat MP and veterinary surgeon, to crack down on the pet-smuggling trade.
Continue reading...Only 2.5% of more than 300,000 farms were inspected at least once in 2022 and 2023, researchers find
There is just one local authority inspector for every 878 farms in England, Scotland and Wales, according to a report, which says that the current welfare system is continuing to fail animals.
Researchers for the Animal Law Foundation found that only 2.5% of the more than 300,000 UK farms were inspected at least once in 2022 and 2023, a marginal decrease from 2018-21 when Covid-19 might be expected to have affected inspection rates.
Continue reading...Holly LeGresley, 37, and Adriana Orme, 56 uploaded content of monkeys being tortured to online chat groups
Two women have been jailed for their parts in a global monkey torture network described by a judge as “depraved, sickening and wicked”.
Holly LeGresley, 37, and Adriana Orme, 56, were jailed for two years and 15 months respectively for uploading content of monkeys being tortured to online chat groups.
Continue reading...Biggest tiger farms outside Asia are operating freely in South Africa, Four Paws animal charity says
The largest tiger farms outside Asia are operating freely in South Africa, facilitating the illegal smuggling of tiger body parts, according to a report by an animal welfare charity.
Research by Four Paws, which is campaigning to shut down South Africa’s big cat industry, found 103 places in the country where tigers were kept in captivity in 2023 or 2024 or had been kept during the previous three years.
Continue reading...As more cases of dogs being unnecessarily euthanised are revealed, activists want stricter reporting requirements for the racing industry
It was an accidental email that confirmed what many animal activists fear is a widespread issue in Victoria’s greyhound racing industry: young, healthy dogs being euthanised.
In July, clinic notes from a vet intended for a greyhound trainer were mistakenly sent to a rehoming group that had recently been to the same vet for treatment of a rescue dog.
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Continue reading...The H5N1 virus killed 47 tigers, three lions and a panther at the My Quynh safari park and the Vuon Xoai zoo, according to state media
Forty-seven tigers, three lions and a panther have died in zoos in south Vietnam due to the H5N1 bird flu virus, state media reported.
The deaths occurred in August and September at the private My Quynh safari park in Long An province and the Vuon Xoai zoo in Dong Nai, near the capital Ho Chi Minh City, the official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported on Wednesday.
Continue reading...At least 468 shot by government controllers last year out of an estimated population of as few as 2,640 in the state’s east, advocates say
Traditional owners and dingo advocates say a Victorian government decision extending the right to kill dingoes on private and public land until 2028 could threaten local populations with extinction.
A government order, which took effect on Tuesday, declared dingoes were “unprotected wildlife” under the state’s Wildlife Act. The ruling means dingoes can be killed by trapping, poisoning or shooting across large parts of eastern Victoria, despite being listed as threatened under the state’s Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.
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Continue reading...Australia’s lack of transparency and funding leave it on the outer as researchers worldwide explore alternatives for training, study and testing
A global shift in scientific and medical research is under way as countries hope to phase out experimentation on animals – but Australia risks being left behind.
The transition from using animals to alternatives based on human cells, tissue and data is driving multibillion-dollar growth in new technologies and methods. However, industry leaders and insiders warn Australia will miss those opportunities due to a lack of funding, opaque record keeping and national inconsistencies.
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Continue reading...A new bill forcing local authorities to remove homeless animals from city streets has led to a furious backlash
Next to the network of the highways that crisscross Turkey, among the lush forests or mountain peaks that dot the country, large stray dogs are a common sight. Most are pale white Akbaş dogs or Kangal shepherds, with their distinctive dark muzzle, pale golden coat and large bodies designed to herd livestock, although on the streets of Istanbul they are more commonly found lazing outside coffee shops, rotund and docile from a lifetime of treats.
In cities at least, the stray dogs are popular enough to be seen as part of the architecture. One particularly large and sleepy example that dozes outside an ice-cream shop on Istanbul’s main shopping street has become a local celebrity nicknamed “The Boulder”, complete with a string of rave reviews left by delighted tourists. The dog is marked as an Istanbul tourist attraction on Google Maps, which features a recommendation to avoid petting him.
Continue reading...Calls for suppression efforts to be extended after at least five nests discovered at Logan in the Daisy Hill koala bushlands
Fire ants have reached protected koala habitat and a koala priority area in south-eastern Queensland, with experts warning of the danger the highly invasive pest poses to native wildlife.
At least five red imported fire ant (Rifa) nests were discovered in Neville Lawrie reserve at Logan, which is part of the Daisy Hill koala bushlands, at the end of August.
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Continue reading...Hvaldimir rose to fame in Norway after his harness sparked suspicions he was Russian spy
Animal rights groups have said that gunfire killed a beluga whale that rose to fame in Norway after its unusual harness sparked suspicions the creature was trained by Russia as a spy.
The organisations Noah and One Whale said they had filed a complaint with Norwegian police asking them to open a criminal investigation.
Continue reading...Campaigners denounce ‘pure slaughter’, which could threaten survival of entire Scandinavian population
More than 150 brown bears have been killed in the opening days of Sweden’s annual bear hunt, as controversy mounts over what conservationists have called “pure slaughter”.
The Swedish government issued 486 licences to shoot bears in this year’s hunt, equivalent to about 20% of the remaining brown bear population. This follows a record-breaking cull of 722 bears last year. By Thursday afternoon – the second day of the hunt – 152 bears had already been shot, according to Sweden’s Environmental Protection Agency.
Continue reading...Survey found almost a third of UK dog owners spent less than a day researching the breeder
Would-be dog owners are buying puppies with little thought, effort or research, the UK’s leading dog breeding organisation has said, warning that convenience culture is having a “devastating” effect on puppy welfare.
According to research by the Kennel Club, almost a third (29%) of dog owners in the UK spent less than a day researching their decision and the breeder.
Continue reading...England’s controversial eradication scheme may have caused higher rates of disease in surrounding areas, research shows
England’s controversial badger cull may have increased the risk of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) among herds in neighbouring areas, according to new research.
Researchers at the University of Oxford found that although badger culling reduced incidences of tuberculosis in the areas where it took place, in neighbouring areas the risk of the disease in cattle increased by almost a third.
Continue reading...Raising the wind speed at which turbines start spinning could prevent tens of thousands of bat deaths each year, researchers find
Australian windfarm operators are being urged to embrace a simple measure used overseas that scientists say could dramatically reduce the number of bats killed by turbines.
Curtailment – lifting the wind speed at which turbines start spinning – is used in some European countries and parts of the US and Canada, but rarely in Australia. A global study published in the journal BioScience found it was an effective way to limit bat deaths.
Continue reading...Staff at a practice in Wales have accused its private-equity-backed owner of poor pay and overcharging customers
Staff working at a chain of commercial vet surgeries have extended their strike, accusing their private-equity-backed owner of underpaying workers and overcharging pet owners as part of the first industrial action to hit the veterinary sector in the UK.
Unionised vets, nurses and support staff at Valley Vets in south Wales, which is owned by one of the largest veterinary corporations in the country, VetPartners, decided last week to stay out until the end of the month, in the latest move in an increasingly bitter dispute.
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