Tag: animal cruelty

Tribal officer who shot, killed a deer is no longer deputized

The Pokagon Band Tribal Police officer who shot and killed a deer in Van Buren County is no longer deputized. 

Officials confirmed that the officer will no longer have any authority working with the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Office, and will now only have the authority to enforce laws on tribal land.

The incident on Friday sparked outrage in the town of Lawrence, as the officer was filmed forcing a deer to the ground and then shooting it in the neck. It happened after tribal police were assisting county law enforcement in serving an unrelated arrest warrant.

Neighbors say they knew the deer as “Annie,” and while they say she was a wild deer, they say she was remarkably friendly to people, and was loved throughout the area.

“It was amazing. It was one of the most coolest things we’d ever seen. She let us pet her. She let my three-year-old pet her, and, you know, she kind of wandered around our yard, but she always came back to see us. She did no harm,” said Amanda Beck, a resident. 

Community members have formed the online group “Justice for Annie,” and have been sharing memories along with voicing concern over how law enforcement handled the incident. A neighbor who witnessed the incident says the officer shot the deer in front of the family who originally found her when she was injured, and provided her aid. 

“You’ve not only traumatized everybody in the family who watched it happen 10 feet from them, but what could have happened with you firing that firearm 10 feet from a house, 10-foot from a busy highway?” questioned neighbor Theresa Braswell.

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Senior Pentagon Official Charged for Involvement in Dogfighting Ring

Senior Pentagon official Frederick Moorefield was arrested Thursday and charged with furthering a dogfighting ring.

Moorefield, who served as the deputy chief information officer for command, control, and communications for the Secretary of Defense’s Chief Information Office (CIO), was arrested for promoting and furthering a dogfighting ring alongside a longtime friend, Mario Flythe, who allegedly admitted participation in the dog fighting.

The Washington Post reported:

Investigators found battery jumper cables, which allegedly were used to execute dogs at Moorefield’s house, along with five pit bull-type dogs at his house and five pit bull-type dogs at Flythe’s house, court records show. The FBI, the Department of Agriculture and other local and federal agencies raided both houses on Sept. 6, according to a federal affidavit, finding weighted collars and heavy metal chains used to increase fighting dogs’ strength. Authorities said they also found “an apparatus that is used for involuntarily inseminating female dogs” and stains “consistent with bloodstains from dogfights.”

Both men were released after being arraigned.

Lt. Commander Tim Gorman, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday that the Department of Defense was “aware of the criminal complaint” against Moorefield.

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Charges filed against Broken Arrow police officer over dog attack caught on camera

Officer William Roy Golden is charged with cruelty to animals and acts resulting in gross injury/outraging public decency. 

An arrest warrant was issued Friday along with the charges.

The charges are related to an incident caught on camera Aug. 28 where an officer is seen following a dog around before using pepper spray on it.

The video was shared thousands of times before an investigation was launched.

The arrest report claims that Golden tazed the dog 8 times, pepper-sprayed the dog, and hit it in its head.

He is also accused of unholstering his gun.

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Outrage after missing Missouri dog shot by police, placed in ditch

Parker, an elderly dog from Dexter, Missouri, ran away from home during the thunderstorms Saturday night. A family who wanted to return him to his owner found him. Within hours, the Stoddard County Sheriff’s Office officers picked up Parker, drove him out to Otter Slough Park, shot him, and left him in a ditch.

“We don’t have any way of taking care of a dog,“ an officer told the dog’s owner, Bryan Pennington.

Pennington posted a video of the interaction on his Facebook page, calling out the Sheriff’s department for finding and shooting his dog. He wrote, “Parker showed no aggression towards him or anyone during this. I saved Parker from being shot nine years ago in Doniphan, Missouri, because the guy couldn’t afford to feed him.”

Pennington continued, portraying Parker not just as a pet but as a friend. He praised Parker’s skill in catching more mice and moles than any other cat.

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New documentary ‘proves’ building offshore wind farms does kill whales

The increase in whale, dolphin, and other cetacean deaths off the East Coast of the United States since 2016 is not due to the construction of large industrial wind turbines, U.S. government officials say.

Their scientists have done the research, they say, to prove that whatever is killing the whales is completely unrelated to the wind industry. 

But now, a new documentary, “Thrown To The Wind,” by director and producer Jonah Markowitz, which I executive produced, proves that the US government officials have been lying.

The film documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones. And it shows that the wind industry’s increased boat traffic is correlated directly with specific whale deaths

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Government kills hundreds of Minnesota wolves to protect ranchers’ profits

It’s not easy being a wolf in northern Minnesota.

Every year dozens of the animals die of starvation, disease, parasites, vehicle traffic and poaching.

But the No. 1 killer of Minnesota wolves may come as a surprise: agents of the federal government, acting with the full force of the law.

In 2022, there were 174 documented wolf deaths in Minnesota, according to the latest state Department of Natural Resources data. Of those, 142 were killed by a relatively obscure arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture called the Wildlife Services division.

Wildlife Services is tasked with mitigating conflicts between humans and wild animals. In Minnesota, the agency’s staffers answer complaints from ranchers who lose cattle and other livestock to wolf predation. The agency documents and verifies those complaints, and looks for non-lethal ways to protect threatened livestock, like wolf-proof fencing.

If those options don’t work, the agency traps and kills wolves deemed responsible for the loss. USDA officers kill more wolves in Minnesota than in all other states combined, according to the program’s annual reports.

That work is effectively a government handout to ranchers, who receive publicly funded protection for their privately held livestock. The ranchers also receive cash compensation from state taxpayers for their lost cattle, which in 2022 totaled $100,000 for 78 wolf predation claims, or an average of about $1,300 per claim.

While individual ranchers can experience significant losses if wolves repeatedly target their cows, the overall impact on the state’s cattle population is negligible. There are about 2.2 million cows in the state, according to USDA data. The five or six dozen documented and verified wolf kills in a given year amount to a few thousandths of 1 percent of the total population.

But the USDA’s actions in response inflict a steep toll upon Minnesota’s wolves. The 142 kills amount to fully 5% of the state’s estimated wolf population.

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Officials bust illegal lab containing 20 infectious agents, hundreds of lab mice

Local and federal authorities have shut down what seems to be an illegal medical lab hidden in a California warehouse that contained nearly 1,000 laboratory mice, hundreds of unknown chemicals, refrigerators and freezers, vials of biohazardous materials, including blood, incubators, and at least 20 infectious agents, including SARS-CoV-2, HIV, and a herpes virus.

According to NBC News affiliate KSEE of Fresno, local authorities were first tipped off to the unlicensed facility when a local code enforcement officer noticed that a garden hose was illegally attached to the back of the building. That led city officials to obtain a search warrant to inspect the warehouse, which was supposed to only be used for storage.

According to court documents obtained by NBC News, city officials inspected the warehouse, located in Reedley, southeast of Fresno, on March 3. County health officials then inspected the facility on March 16. What they found reportedly shocked them.

“This is an unusual situation. I’ve been in government for 25 years. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba told KSEE.

There were rooms with “vessels of liquid and various apparatus,” court documents said. ” “Fresno County Public Health staff also observed blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums; and thousands of vials of unlabeled fluids and suspected biological material.” There was also a room full of mice.

According to the court documents, the mice were kept in inhumane conditions. More than 175 were found dead, and the city took possession of the remaining animals in April and euthanized 773. Substances collected from the lab were given to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing. The agency detected at least 20 potentially infectious agents, the documents read.

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Scientists Inserted Neanderthal And Denisovan Genes Into Mice – Here’s What Happened

A gene that was carried by both Neanderthals and Denisovans causes mice to develop larger heads, twisted ribs, and shortened spines, according to the results of a yet-to-be-published study. Researchers used CRISPR gene editing technology to insert the ancient genetic code into rodents in order to understand how it might have contributed to the body shape of our extinct relatives.

The gene in question is known as GLI3 and plays a vital role in embryonic development in modern humans. Mutations within this gene are associated with physical malformations such as polydactyly – which refers to the growth of extra fingers or toes – and the deformation of the skull.

Neanderthals and Denisovans both carried a slightly altered version of the GLI3 gene, in which an amino acid at one end of the coding region is substituted. However, neither of these ancient species had an abnormal number of digits or life-threatening cranial defects.

As the study authors point out, though, these extinct hominid species displayed several morphological characteristics that differed from those of modern humans, “including elongated and low crania, larger brow ridges, and broader rib cages.”

To determine how the ancient form of the GLI3 gene might have affected the development of our extinct cousins, the researchers first engineered mice to carry a faulty version of the gene. This caused the rodents to develop severe skull and brain deformities as well as polydactyly, illustrating how a functioning version of the gene is essential for healthy embryonic growth.

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Monkeys enslaved by cruel coconut farmers who make them work in chains to meet growing demand for trendy vegan milk

MONKEYS are still being enslaved by cruel coconut farmers who make them work in chains to meet the growing demand for trendy vegan milk.

The primates are forced to harvest hundreds of coconuts each day in Thailand, under the watchful eye of their handlers.

The monkeys are made to spend countless hours picking the fruit when they’re not chained to the floor, The Times reported.

The farmers reportedly pull on ropes that are tied around the animal to control them while they carry out their gruelling shifts in the treetops.

But despite a three-year-long campaign by animal rights charity Peta in 2019 – some farms in Thailand have continued to force the monkeys into labour.

The innocent animals are either bred in captivity or robbed from their mothers in the jungle when they are babies.

Past footage from the charity has revealed the dark secrets behind the monkey labour industry and has also highlighted the tortures they experience while in captivity.

Handlers have been seen using methods of intimidation and brutal punishment to train the macaques including whipping the animals and dangling them by their necks.

But the horrors don’t stop there – according to Peta, the creature’s sharp front teeth are often removed to stop them from biting themselves or the farmers.

And this nightmare continues to unfold for the monkeys as the demand for vegan milk climbs.

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2 decapitated goats found in plastic bags were slaughtered in ‘ritual sacrifice’ on Long Island

Two decapitated goats that were found stuffed inside plastic bags on Long Island were slaughtered in a “ritualistic sacrifice,” authorities said.

The Suffolk County SPCA made the gruesome discovery on Thursday behind a Burger King at 96 Broadhollow Road in Farmingdale.

The headless goats had been put inside black bags “along with other items that would suggest a ritualistic animal sacrifice,” according to Roy Gross, chief of the Suffolk County SPCA.

The organization is offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for mutilating the animals.

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