CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Australian court upholds landmark suit against Johnson & Johnson

AFP

 3/4/2021

An Australian court upheld a landmark class-action lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson for "negligent" marketing of pelvic mesh implants on Friday, paving the way for thousands of women to receive compensation in a costly setback for the US pharma giant.

© Mark RALSTON An Australian court upheld a landmark class-action lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson for "negligent" marketing of pelvic mesh implants

Johnson & Johnson had appealed the 2019 ruling that found the company guilty of "negligent" marketing and "deceptive conduct" while supplying thousands of pelvic meshes in Australia.

Victims said the mesh -- designed to support weakened muscles holding up the pelvic organs -- had caused disastrous side-effects including incontinence, infections and chronic pain.

"The risks were known, not insignificant, and on the respondents' own admission, could cause significant and serious harm," the judge said in the initial ruling.

A three-judge panel at the federal court dismissed the appeal on Friday, a decision that "confirmed that these women are entitled to be compensated for the losses and the life-altering complications that they have suffered as a result of these implants," said Rebecca Jancasukas, a lawyer for the claimants.

Shine Lawyers, which led the class action suit, said it would now vigorously pursue compensation claims possibly amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The three women involved in the 2019 suit were awarded compensation ranging from Aus$556,000 to Aus$1.28 million (US$430,000-US$1 million).

The remaining members of the class action will now bring their own individual claims to court.

Responding to Friday's ruling, Johnson & Johnson said it "empathises with all women who experience medical complications" but would review the court decision and "consider its options".

Worldwide, more than two million women have had the mesh products implanted in their bodies and the Australian ruling is just one in a series globally.

Early last year, a judge in California ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $344 million for false and deceptive marketing of pelvic mesh products used by tens of thousands of women in the state.

The company has settled similar claims with the state of Washington for $9.9 million and a coalition of 42 other states for $117 million.

dm/lb/j

RIP
Underwater archaeology pioneer George Bass dies at 88

Kristin Romey 

3/4/2021

Pioneering archaeologist George Bass, who played a critical role in the creation and evolution of underwater archaeology as a scientific discipline, died on March 2, 2021, in College Station, Texas. He was 88

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© Photograph by Bill Curtsinger, Nat Geo Image Collection 01-george-bass

At the time of his death Bass still served as an advisor to the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), the world’s leading research institute for the study of shipwrecks that he established in 1972. The institute is currently headquartered at Texas A&M University, where Bass, a distinguished professor emeritus, developed one of the first academic underwater archaeology programs.

Photograph by Courtney Platt, Nat Geo Image Collection 03-george-bass

“The world has lost a giant in the field, and I have lost a great friend,” said underwater explorer Robert Ballard, a past INA board member, in a statement provided by the National Geographic Society.
“Just as archaeologists work on land”

Bass was a graduate student studying archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960 when he was asked to investigate an ancient shipwreck discovered by Turkish sponge divers off Cape Gelidonya in southern Turkey. The 3,200-year-old Cape Gelidonya wreck, carrying a primary cargo of copper ingots, became the first shipwreck mapped and scientifically excavated in its entirety on the seafloor. At the time, it was the oldest known shipwreck in the world.

That title was superseded by the discovery and excavation of the Uluburun shipwreck in southern Turkey in the early 1980s. With the support of the National Geographic Society, Bass’s team documented and excavated an extraordinary trove of artifacts dating to the 14th century B.C., including precious objects from across the Near East and Europe that illuminated the complexity of trade in the ancient world.

Before leaving for his first shipwreck excavation in 1960, Bass’s only diving experience involved a few turns in a YMCA pool. Over the course of investigating dozens of shipwrecks dating from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, however, he demonstrated that the scientific rigor of land-based archaeological techniques could be replicated in demanding underwater environments by archaeologists equipped with SCUBA or surface-supplied air.

“We had not come to dive for sport or for treasure,” Bass wrote in his first of many articles for National Geographic in July 1963. “Our aim was to proceed underwater just as archeologists work on land: To dig down layer by layer, carefully recording the position of each object in the cabin or hull before moving it or raising it to the surface.”
Inspiration to generations of archaeologists

Born in Columbia, South Carolina, on December 9, 1932, George Fletcher Bass was the son of an English professor and a writer, whose influence could be seen in the hundreds of articles and books the archaeologist published over the course of his career. Most notably, Bass also wrote for general audiences and non-specialists, beginning with early articles for National Geographic and his 1966 book Archaeology Under Water, which sparked wide interest in the burgeoning discipline.

“He was a public communicator of science at a time when that was particularly frowned upon by the academic community, and that communication of his research inspired the next generation of underwater archeologists,” says underwater archaeologist James Delgado, senior vice-president of SEARCH, Inc. and former INA president.

“George Bass not only opened a new world of wonders to archaeologists and historians, but also to the broader public," adds Fredrik Hiebert, the National Geographic Society's archaeologist in residence.

Under Bass’s guidance, INA expanded its work across geographical regions and historical periods, ranging from Revolutionary War-era vessels in Lake Champlain to an Ottoman frigate in Japan. In the 1990s, INA established a research center in Bodrum, Turkey, staffed by Turkish archaeologists and conservators.

“Wherever we were excavating, [Bass] made a concerted effort to bring local students and archaeologists on to the project; he also helped many students get to Texas A&M so that they could attend classes in the nautical archaeology program,” recalls Deborah Carlson, INA’s current president and a former student of Bass. “I know that was one aspect of his career that he was very proud of.”

Bass was a recipient of 36 research grants from the National Geographic Society over the course of 39 years, and was awarded the Society’s La Gorce Gold Medal in 1979 and Centennial Award in 1988. He received the nation's highest award for lifetime achievement in scientific research, the National Medal of Science, in 2002.

Bass is survived by his wife and longtime expedition partner Ann, and his two sons, Alan and Gordon.

U.S. oil production won't return to pre-pandemic levels, says Occidental CEO

Pippa Stevens CNBC

3/4/2021

Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub said Thursday that she doesn't envision U.S. oil production returning to pre-pandemic highs.

"I do believe that most companies have committed to value growth, rather than production growth," she said during a CNBC Evolve conversation with Brian Sullivan.

West Texas International crude futures, the U.S. oil benchmark, jumped more than 4% on Thursday to trade as high as $64.86 per barrel, a level last seen in January 2020.

© Provided by CNBC The sun is seen behind a crude oil pump jack in the Permian Basin in Loving County, Texas.

Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub said Thursday that she doesn't envision U.S. oil production returning to pre-pandemic highs.

"I do believe that most companies have committed to value growth, rather than production growth," she said during a CNBC Evolve conversation with Brian Sullivan. "And so I do believe that that's going to be part of the reason that oil production in the United States does not get back to 13 million barrels a day."

She believes companies will focus on optimizing current operations and facilities, rather than seeking growth at all costs. But she added that oil demand is recovering faster-than-expected, driven primarily by China, India and the United States.

"The recovery looks more V-shaped than we had originally thought it would be," she said. The company's initial forecast had demand returning to pre-pandemic levels by the middle of 2022. Now, Hollub believes demand will return by the end of this year or the first few months of 2022.

"I do believe we're headed for a much healthier supply and demand environment" she said.

Her comments came after West Texas International crude futures, the U.S. oil benchmark, jumped more than 4% on Thursday to trade as high as $64.86 per barrel, a level last seen in January 2020.

She expects crude prices will be "a little better than where they are today" if her demand forecast for next year is correct, but she does not expect prices to go up "excessively" other than the short spikes that can occur from time to time.

OPEC and its oil-producing allies on Thursday decided to keep production levels largely steady into April, with Saudi Arabia also announcing that it would extend its voluntary one million barrels per day production cut.

The group first implemented unprecedented supply cuts in 2020 in an effort to provide a floor as oil prices tumbled to historic lows.

The energy sector has rebounded this year and is the top-performing S&P group by a long shot, but stock prices continue to hover well below prior highs as the focus on ESG investing, among other things, weighs.

Hollub reiterated Thursday that the company is working toward net zero carbon oil production through its heavy investments into carbon capture.

"We need to change the narrative .. it's not fossil fuels that's really the problem, it's the emissions," she said. "What we have to do is we need to get everybody focused on instead of trying to kill fossil fuels, we need to get everybody's attention on how do we use oil and gas reservoirs to our advantage."

"How do we use that to lower emissions all around the world, and that's exactly our goal. Our goal is to be the company that provides the solution," she said.

Shares of Occidental have surged more than 70% this year. The stock is still negative over the last year, however.

CNBC VIDEO

U.S. oil production won't return to pre-pandemic levels, says Occidental CEO (msn.com)

How Female Frogs Tune Out Useless, Noisy Males

Katherine J. Wu  THE ATLANTIC

3/4/2021

Before frat parties, there were frog ponds.

Literal breeding grounds for some of the world’s noisiest bachelors, these lusty pools are where amphibians gather to woo mates. And as any frog researcher will tell you, they’re “super, super, super loud,” says Valentina Caorsi, a bioacoustician at the University of Trento in Italy.

Some spots host hundreds of males from a dozen species, each belting out serenades that can register at more than 100 decibels apiece—close to what you’d hear at a rock concert or a rowdy nightclub. Sounds this intense can cause hearing loss; the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommends limiting exposure to such cacophony to less than 15 minutes a day. When scientists visit these ponds, they often don earplugs. “It hurts our ears,” says Kim Hoke, a biologist at Colorado State University.

If frogs of the female persuasion can’t identify their own species’ calls in this terrifying soundscape, they may lose out on an opportunity to reproduce. Fortunately, evolution has come up with a clever trick to cut through the chaos: a pair of lungs that can help female frogs home in on the come-hither calls of potential mates, according to a study led by Norman Lee of St. Olaf College in Minnesota, published today in Current Biology. Remarkably, the lungs accomplish this not by amplifying the sounds made by males of the same species, but by muffling the ruckus of other species. Frog lungs, Lee’s team has shown, are basically noise-canceling headphones that also happen to oxygenate the blood.

[Read: City frogs are the sexiest frogs]

The behavior probably isn’t conscious—just something frog lungs are naturally able to do, via some unusual vibratory shenanigans. But biologically speaking, “it seems incredibly smart,” says Amritha Mallikarjun, a cognitive scientist at the University of Pennsylvania’s school of veterinary medicine, who wasn’t involved in the study. “They’re taking sounds that aren’t interesting, and trying to reduce them.”

Humans, to be clear, cannot do this, at least not with our lungs. The tubes that connect our ears to our upper throats are closed off most of the time, so most of the sound waves that reach our brains come in through the holes on either side of our heads. Almost all frog ears, however, are permanently linked to the rest of the body, and thus privy to vibrations from the mouth, the lungs—even the opposite ear. (This interconnectedness means that, unlike humans, frogs don't experience a pressure differential between the outside and the inside of their heads; their ears probably don't pop when they travel on planes.)

Scientists have been studying the open floor plan of frog ears since at least the late 1980s, when they discovered that the lungs were likely sending vibrations up to the animals’ heads. (A smear of Vaseline on the frogs’ torsos, others confirmed, could dampen the effect.) But the purpose of this bizarre connection eluded researchers for decades.

Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard, a biologist at the University of Southern Denmark and an author of the new study, spent much of his career convinced that lung vibrations served as a sort of rudimentary GPS, helping frogs determine the direction that sounds were coming from and thus pinpointing potential mates in space. But it turns out that they’re filtering for quality, not location: When filled with air, the organs enhance the frog’s ability to tune in to only certain sound frequencies and cast others aside.

To tease these possibilities apart, the researchers put female American green tree frogs in an acoustic chamber and played the animals a mélange of sounds from different spots in the room. They then used a specialized laser to measure how much their eardrums vibrated in response.

For the experiments to work, Lee, of St. Olaf College, had to become a pro at deflating and reinflating frog lungs. Squeezing the air out, he told me, is pretty simple—a matter of gently squishing the skin around their lungs. (Frogs don’t have ribs.) Bringing the animals back up to size is trickier. For that, Lee inserts a segment of plastic tubing into the frog’s mouth and blows into the other end, transferring a teeny puff of air from his human lungs into the frog’s much smaller ones.

In the team’s experiments, puffed frogs seemed no better equipped than squished frogs to map out the sounds engulfing them. Inflation status also had little effect on the females’ ability to hear males of their own species (which, for the record, sound a bit like a goose honking in falsetto). But aerated frogs seemed worse at detecting noises in a very specific frequency range—one that happens to overlap with the calls made by several other amorous amphibians.

Frog lungs, Lee and his colleagues discovered, vibrate within a range of about 1400 to 2200 hertz; the American green tree frog calls outside this range, while many of the toads and bullfrogs that share its habitat call within it. When these other species croon, female tree frogs’ lungs quiver, transmitting energy to the inner surface of the eardrums and instructing them to ignore similar sound waves they receive from the outside. It is, in a sense, an anti-eavesdropping device.

Lung-based interference can’t eliminate all the hubbub that females deal with in their environment. The maximum knockdown Lee’s team measured in the study was about 10 decibels. (For comparison, decent noise-canceling headphones can eliminate some 30 or 40 decibels of noise.) Still, “it’s an enormous bump down,” Mark Bee, a biologist at the University of Minnesota and an author on the study, told me. Frogs also might not want to completely deafen themselves to other sounds, which could alert them to the presence of predators or tasty prey.

The frogs’ ruse isn’t just impressive, experts told me. It’s also an elegant solution to a complex problem. In the world of acoustics, there are two ways to make a sound more audible. One is to boost the signal itself, in the hope that it will rise above the din. The other is to pare away the noise around it—a way of emphasizing the message without changing its contents.

Filtering out the nonsense of irrelevant males up front might also reduce the workload on frogs’ teeny brains, says Hoke of Colorado State University. When humans congregate at raucous parties or bars, they must devote a lot of neural resources to focusing on a single speaker at a time. What frogs have cooked up is a sexual sieve: “They don’t need to waste their resources processing it out,” she says.

[Read: How a frog became the first mainstream pregnancy test]

The study also highlights an oft-neglected part of courtship acoustics. For decades, scientists have meticulously documented the ways that male amphibians—ribbity Romeos that they are—change their behavior to make their voices stand out. Some croak, grunt, trill, and even squeak faster or with extra gusto; others will boot rival frogs out of their territory so they can hog the swampy stage for themselves, Bee told me. A few polite souls actually take turns to avoid getting drowned out.

But we don’t know nearly as much about what happens after signals are emitted, says Mariana Rodriguez Santiago, a neuroscientist at Colorado State University who wasn’t involved in the study. “The attention of academia has been very broadly focused on males and how they change what they’re doing,” she told me. Across the tree of life, females are often reduced to inert receptacles, or mere measures of males’ reproductive success.

That couldn’t be further from the truth, especially among tree frogs. Communication is a two-way street, and studies that focus on the female perspective—as this one did—are a powerful reminder that signal interpreters aren’t passive, Rodriguez Santiago said. Desperate messengers can scream and shout all they like, but none of it matters if no one hears them.

Mount Etna volcano eruptions on the rise

David Baratz, USA TODAY 

A general view taken on March 4, 2021 from Giarre, north of Catania, Sicily, shows the Mount Etna volcano spewing smoke.

17 SLIDES © Giovanni Isolino, AFP via Getty Images

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

THE REST ARE HERE

Mount Etna volcano eruptions on the rise (msn.com)

Alert level raised after explosion at remote Alaska volcano

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A small explosion was recorded Thursday at a remote volcano on the Alaska Peninsula, prompting officials to raise the alert level.

Satellite and webcam views indicated low-level ash emissions from Mount Veniaminof volcano. The ash plume did not rise above 10,000 feet (3048 metres), the Alaska Volcano Observatory said. Minor ash deposits are visible at the volcano, located 480 miles (772 kilometres) southwest of Anchorage.

Officials said eruptive activity typically includes minor ash, lava fountaining and lava flows from the small cone in the ice-filled summit caldera. Ashfall is usually confined to the summit crater but larger explosions can send ash to nearby communities, as happened in a 2018 eruption.

Veniaminof is one of the most active volcanos in the Aleutians, erupting at least 14 times in the last 200 years.

The stratovolcano located in the Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge is usually shrouded in fog and clouds, and the entire volcano is usually only visible once or twice a year, the park service said.

Mount Veniaminof, with an elevation of 8,225 feet (2,507 metres), has an ice field of 25 square miles (64.75 square kilometres). The park service says it’s the only known glacier on the North American continent with an active volcanic vent in the centre.

The Associated Press

Saudi Arabia's shadowy power struggles playing out on Canadian soil

Tyler Dawson POSTMEDIA

The disappearance of a Saudi activist after a visit to the Ottawa embassy and the widening of a legal battle between the Kingdom and a former Saudi spymaster from U.S. to Canadian courts, mark a shadowy Saudi power struggle playing out within Canada’s borders, even as the international community looks more closely at Saudi actions

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© Provided by National Post Omar Abdulaziz, one of the Saudi dissidents who has been pressured by the Kingdom since moving to Canada.

Saudi Arabia has long sought out and pressured dissidents abroad, culminating in the assassination and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

Canadians are now learning that Saudi’s power struggles and suppression are also playing out here.

Michael Chong, the Conservative foreign affairs critic, said in a statement they want to see the Liberals create a “robust plan to counter foreign influence operations on Canadian soil.”

“The government’s response to Canadians facing intimidation and harassment by foreign agents is wholly inadequate,” the statement said.

Chong’s office declined an interview request from the National Post . Bill Blair, the public safety minister, has previously said: “We are aware of incidents in which foreign actors have attempted to monitor, intimidate or threaten Canadians and those living in Canada.”

“It is completely unacceptable and we will never tolerate foreign actors threatening Canada’s national security or the safety of our citizens and residents,” Blair said.

Spymaster hiding in Canada alleged to have stolen $4.5B from Kingdom of Saudia Arabia in new lawsuit

Saudis put pressure on another dissident living in Canada as RCMP warns about threats made by regime

Since 2017, Saudi Arabia has been experiencing internal drama, including a palace coup that saw the line of succession reorganized, the mass arrest of senior Saudis, the repression of dissidents, and the disappearance of family and friends linked to dissidents who’ve sheltered abroad.

Last Friday, the United States released its classified report on the death of Khashoggi, linking it to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, next in line for the throne. In the days since, there has been an escalation in the drama playing out between Saudi Arabia and Western nations.

On Monday, the Post reported the Saudi government was launching a new investigation against blogger Raif Badawi and his Canadian wife Ensaf Haidar.

Thomas Juneau, a professor in the faculty of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, said while there has been a notable change in tone — frostier under the Biden administration than the Trump administration — it’s also clear there will not be a major change in the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia.

That constrains Canada’s margin of manoeuvre, said Juneau. “Now that the U.S. has clearly signalled that it will not fundamentally change the relationship with Saudi Arabia, it becomes much more difficult and costly for American allies in the west to change their relationship with Saudi Arabia.”

In early February, a Ahmed Alharby, a Saudi who’d sought asylum in Canada and had been living in Montreal, went dark, blocking fellow activists on social media and vanishing from group messages, the Washington Post reported.

Saudi dissidents in Canada wrote on social media that Alharby told them he had visited the Saudi embassy in Ottawa, and told reporters at the Toronto Star and Washington Post that he’d been interrogated.

By mid-February, a new Twitter account allegedly belonging to Alharby popped up: It featured the face of Mohammed bin Salman, as the banner image. Alharby had returned to the Kingdom, said one of the new account’s tweets.

© Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images Friends of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi attend an event marking the second-year anniversary of his assassination, October 02, 2020.

That’s not the only instance of dissidents being pressured in Canada.

The high-profile YouTuber Omar Abdulaziz, who lives in Montreal, has been pressured to return to the Kingdom, and has been warned of such plots by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

And, former spymaster Saad Aljabri is waging a two-front legal battle, fighting off corruption allegations in an Ontario lawsuit while suing bin Salman and others for allegedly sending a hit squad to Canada to kill him. The alleged Tiger squad was turned back by Canadian border officials.

There have been, in recent days, a number of other international incidents related to Saudi actions abroad.

Australian media reported Monday that Osama al-Hasani, an Australian-Saudi citizen who had flown to Morocco to be with his wife, was detained in Tangier on a Saudi extradition request.

“Four hours after his arrival, the Moroccan police raided … our house and arrested him in front of me and our four-month-old baby,” Hana al-Hasani told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

As well, Reporters without Borders filed legal documents in Germany seeking an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity perpetrated by bin Salman, mainly in the repression of journalists.

“The official opening of a criminal investigation in Germany into the crimes against humanity in Saudi Arabia would be a world first,” Christian Mihr, the Germany director, said, according to media reports.

• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson

Beavers roaming free in England could help fight flooding

By Ed Scott-Clarke, CNN

Among the quiet bends of the River Otter in Devon, England, something remarkable is taking place. After a 400-year absence, beavers are once again roaming wild.

© Mike Symes/Devon Wildlife Trust A female beaver in Devon, with her two kits.

Several hundred years ago, beaver populations suffered because of hunting. Beaver fur hats were the height of men's fashion in Europe and the demand was such that the animal's numbers were decimated, becoming extinct in Britain.

Their return to this part of southwest England is thanks to the Devon Wildlife Trust. It began a trial a decade ago, releasing a pair of captive beavers into a three-hectare enclosed site in west Devon. They radically altered the landscape.

"We wanted to see whether the beavers would help tip the balance back in favor of the open habitats, which is so important for lots of butterflies and wildflowers and a whole range of species," says Mark Elliott, one of the Trust's ecologists.

Beavers build dams to protect themselves. By raising the water level, the amphibious rodent creates a waterlogged area that allows it to escape from predators, originally animals like bears, wolves and lynx. The bark of the trees they fell is their primary source of food.

© Mike Symes/Devon Wildlife Trust

"When we put them in here in 2010 and started to see what they did to the watercourse, it was really, really profound," says Elliott. "We all suddenly became much more conscious of just how powerful this animal was."

The wetted landscape is great for biodiversity and fish stocks, and even drives down pollution by filtering water contaminated by manure and fertilizer.

The dams also regulate water flow, preventing floods downstream in times of heavy rainfall and droughts in dry periods. This could make beavers an unlikely tool to help combat the effects of the climate crisis, which is predicted to bring drier summers and wetter winters in the UK.

Find out more about Call to Earth and the extraordinary people working for a more sustainable future

A recent study on beavers in England showed that their dams can reduce average flood waters by up to 60%.


Back in the wild

In 2014, a breeding pair of wild beavers of unknown origin was discovered on the River Otter. A year later the government granted the Trust a license to run the River Otter Beaver Trial -- the first legally sanctioned reintroduction of an extinct native mammal to England.

The River Otter Beaver Trial came to an end in 2020. It was viewed as such a success that the government allowed the beavers, now up to 15 family groups spread across 15 territories, to remain in the wild.

A University of Exeter study on the trial found 37% more fish in the pools created by beaver dams than in other parts of the river, and concluded that amphibians, wildfowl and water voles benefited from the beavers' presence.

It also noted that dams had reduced the flooding risk for a vulnerable local community, and removed pollutants from rivers and streams.

Some are less positive about the animal's return. Britain's National Farmers Union has expressed concerns that beaver activity could undermine riverbanks and leave farmland waterlogged.

The River Otter study found that beavers created problems for some local farmers and property owners, noting that "the reduction of flood risk in communities downstream may come at a cost of water being stored on farmland upstream." But it added that these issues could be "straightforwardly managed with the right support and intervention."

There are several other beaver trials underway in England and Wales, and the animal was reintroduced to the wild in Scotland in 2009. But England lags behind many other European countries in beaver conservation. At the turn of the 20th century the species numbered just over 1,000 across Europe. That number is well over 1 million today.

"None of us ... quite realize the significance of the animal that we were talking about," Elliott says. "The opportunity to bring them back is an amazing one."

#ENDWOLFHUNTING

Wisconsin hunters kill 216 wolves in less than 60 hours, sparking uproar

“This season trampled over the tribes’ treaty rights, the Wisconsin public, and professional wildlife stewardship,” 

Hunters and trappers in Wisconsin killed 216 gray wolves last week during the state’s 2021 wolf hunting season – more than 82% above the authorities’ stated quota, sparking uproar among animal-lovers and conservationists, according to reports.

The kills all took place in less than 60 hours, quickly exceeding Wisconsin’s statewide stated limit of 119 animals.

As a result, Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources ended the season, which was scheduled to span one week, four days early.

While department officials were reportedly surprised by the number of gray wolves killed, they described the population as “robust, resilient” and expressed confidence in managing the numbers “properly going forward”.

Most of the animals were killed by hunters who used “trailing hounds”, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

The state’s overkill was exacerbated by Wisconsin law that mandates 24-hour notice of season closure, rather than immediate notification.

Natural resources department officials also sold 1,547 permits this season, about 13 hunters or trappers per wolf under the quota’s target number. This equated to twice as many permits as normal – and marked the highest ratio of any season so far.

State authorities had a total culling goal of 200 wolves, in an attempt to stabilize their population. As Native American tribes claimed a quota of 81 wolves, this left 119 for the state-licensed trappers and hunters. Because the tribes consider wolves sacred, they typically use their allotment to protect, not kill, them.

“Should we, would we, could we have (closed the season) sooner? Yes.” Eric Lobner, DNR wildlife director, said, according to the Journal Sentinel.

“Did we go over? We did. Was that something we wanted to have happen? Absolutely not.”

The overshoot, which has never exceeded 10 wolves in prior seasons, spurred criticism.

Megan Nicholson, who directs Wisconsin’s chapter of the Humane Society of the United States, commented in a statement: “This is a deeply sad and shameful week for Wisconsin.”

She added: “This week’s hunt proves that now, more than ever, gray wolves need federal protections restored to protect them from short-sighted and lethal state management,” Nicholson also said.

This hunt comes in the wake of federal policy, and local litigation, that stripped gray wolves of protection.

In the 1950s gray wolves, which are native to Wisconsin, were extirpated from the state due to years of unregulated hunting. Heightened protections, such as the federal 1973 Endangered Species Act, helped the population rebound.

Following the implementation of these protections, gray wolves emerged and spread from a northern Minnesota “stronghold”, the Journal Sentinel said.

The implications of these protections were sweeping: while the gray wolf population had dropped to about 1,000 by the 1970s, the number now totals about 6,000 in the lower 48 states.

The gray wolf was delisted for protection in 2012, however. Wisconsin officials subsequently provided three hunting and trapping seasons. In 2012, 117 wolves were killed; in 2013, 257; and in 2014, 154.

A federal judge, in response to a lawsuit from wildlife advocates, decided in December 2014 that the gray wolf must be put back on the Endangered Species List. In October 2020, the Trump administration removed the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List.

A Kansas-based hunting advocacy group filed suit against Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources in January over its decision not to provide a gray wolf hunting or trapping season this winter. This legal action reportedly “forced” the department to hold a season before February ended.

The season was also the first to take place in February, the gray wolf’s breeding season. Advocates have worried that killing pregnant wolves could impact their population even more, possibly disrupting packs.

Because officials rushed to open the season, there was dramatically limited opportunity for legally-mandated consultation with Native American tribes, the newspaper also notes.

“This season trampled over the tribes’ treaty rights, the Wisconsin public, and professional wildlife stewardship,” a representative for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission reportedly said

A JUST TRANSITION

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm pledges to leave "no worker behind" in push for clean energy

By Matt Egan, CNN Business

3/3/2021

Fossil fuel workers will not be left behind in the Biden administration's push to embrace clean energy. That's the promise from new Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, addressing workers worried their livelihoods will be disrupted

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Nominee for Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm testifies at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Capitol Hill January 27, 2021 in Washington, DC. Granholm was Governor of Michigan from 2003-2011. (Photo by Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images)

"This is our opportunity to build the energy economy back better, in a way that lifts up communities that have felt unseen or abandoned or left behind for too long," Granholm said Wednesday during her first major speech since being sworn in last week.

The comments highlight a central challenge facing the Biden administration: how to wean America off fossil fuels while preventing widespread job losses in regions that rely on coal, oil and natural gas for employment and tax revenue.

Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, said the Energy Department created a jobs office that will work "hand in glove" with the agency's fossil fuels officials to make sure "we leave no worker behind."

"It won't be easy, but it's a battle worth waging and I for one am reporting for duty," Granholm said at the energy conference CERAWeek by IHS Markit.

Echoing comments made by President Joe Biden, Granholm argued the energy transition will create countless new jobs — and she promised to help fossil fuels workers translate their skills to these new positions.

"You need millions of jobs. Union jobs. Good paying jobs. Good jobs with benefits," said Granholm, a former CNN contributor.

For instance, Granholm said there will be a hiring boom in various areas from building zero-emission buses and upgrading the electric grid to manufacturing carbon capture pipelines and reinforcing existing pipelines to minimize emissions.

"What are we here for if not to give people opportunity and to help save our planet?" Granholm said.

Paris vs. Pittsburgh

But that's a tough sell for the Biden administration, especially given the devastation of coal country as the power grid has pivoted from coal to natural gas, solar and wind power.

The oil industry and Republicans quickly condemned Biden's decision in January to rescind the permit for the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. The move, among Biden's first executive actions, resulted in the layoff of "thousands of union workers," according to TC Energy, the Canadian company behind the Keystone pipeline.

Republicans also warned Biden's Day One decision to reenter the Paris climate accord will result in the loss of jobs at home.

"By rejoining the Paris climate agreement, President Biden indicates he's more interested in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh," Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeted on Inauguration Day.


The mining jobs of the future

Last week, Granholm and a team of Biden officials held a meeting focused on how the federal government can invest in local coal, oil and gas communities. The group discussed how to deploy grants, federal loans and other programs to "support and revitalize" these communities, according to the White House.

During an appearance Wednesday on ABC's "The View," Granholm was pressed about workers becoming collateral damage.

"Retraining programs have a poor record," View co-host Meghan McCain, said to Granholm. "What do you say to people worried it'll be hard to put food on the table and people who'll lose jobs?"

Granholm emphasized there will be many jobs created in the clean energy space, including for miners as the United States attempts to extract critical minerals needed for batteries at home instead of importing them.

"We should be able to put people to work doing things that are similar to the skills that they had before," Granholm said.