Green Options

Chris Aultman is the helicopter pilot and Aviation Director of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He served for six years in the United States Marine Corps prior to joining the Sea Shepherd team. During that period Chris spent 13 months at sea and became a veteran of the Gulf War.

Aultman’s first experience with the destruction of the world’s oceans was seeing the disastrous effects of the millions of barrels of oil dumped into the Persian Gulf during that war. This and many other experiences caused Chris to start to see the world for what it really was, and nothing was ever the same again.

Nine monkeys escaped from an Oregon Health & Science University animal testing lab after a cage was left unlocked. Four were shortly re-captured and four others have been spotted on campus — but one has entirely eluded authorities.

“One of our cage cleaners accidentally left a lock off a cage,” said Jim Newman, a university spokesman. “The cage was closed; however, the animals were able to slide the door open and get out.”

The Humane Society of the United States has returned to court in attempt to stop the sea lion cull near the Bonneville Dam in Washington and Oregon.

Hundreds of sea lions may be trapped and killed in a program aiming to increase the salmon population in the river. The animal welfare group argues that the NOAA Fisheries Service has not sufficiently explained why the sea lions are being singled out despite other predators (like humans) having a greater impact on the salmon population.

Weeks before the planned start to the hunting season, Russia’s natural resources minister announced a ban on hunting seals under 1 year old today. The move spares up to 35,000 seals.

“The bloody sight of the hunting of seals, the slaughter of these defenseless animals, which you cannot even call a real hunt, is banned in our country, just as well as in most developed countries, and this is a serious step to protect the biodiversity of the Russian Federation,” said minister Yuri Trutnev.

HBO will premier a new documentary titled “Death on a Factory Farm” tomorrow at 10 pm EST.

The film is a sequel to 2006’s Emmy-nominated “Dealing Dogs,” which exposed the illegal market for dogs sold to research labs through an undercover investigation by a man going by “Pete.” Well, Pete is back again and this time he landed a job at Wiles Hog Farm.

Within a matter of months, activists have succeeded in changing a store from a puppy mill vendor to an animal rescue venture.

A pet store in the small town of Elyria, Ohio was the target of intense protests by animal rights activists for months before deciding to close down. Now, a new owner is opening a pet store in the same location that will only have rescued cats and dogs available for adoption.

The Canadian seal hunt comes around once a year, and along with the hunt comes the international day of action against it: March 15th.

This year is looking more promising than ever. The European Union is considering a complete ban on seal products, a bill to ban the hunt has been introduced in the Canadian senate for the first time since the ’70s, and the general demand for seal products is shrinking worldwide.

An end to the hunt seems inevitable, but it won’t happen without continued pressure. Here are 5 simple ways you can help stop the hunt next Saturday:

A syndicated news story made its way into multiple English papers earlier this week claiming that arsonists with the Animal Liberation Front inadvertently killed dozens of birds in an attack on a zoo in Italy. Now the New York Times has reported that this may not be the case:

“A recent such protest in Italy turned nasty: so-called ecoterrorists attacked a bird sanctuary about 20 miles from Turin this week with Molotov cocktails, burning down structures and setting dozens of birds free.”

This sentence, buried in a somewhat-related story in today’s paper, directly contradicts the other report’s claim that activists burned down an aviary with 40 birds inside. Even more odd, however, is this report from an Italian paper that while claiming that 40 birds died, also includes two dozen photos of the damage — without a single photo of a dead bird.

Apparently sea lions like salmon a little too much. People in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho are threatened — they want all the tasty salmon for themselves.

Okay, perhaps that’s a bit of an oversimplification. But I have to wonder — if salmon didn’t taste good, would people be going to such great lengths to prevent a natural predator-prey relationship between a sea mammal and a fish?

Scientists in Florida have come up with a strange way to stop crocodiles from crawling into cities and towns.

Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is testing a program to strap magnets onto the heads of crocodiles that wander into developed areas, saying the magnet could “break the homing cycle” and prevent them from returning.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected an attempt by trophy hunters to re-allow shipments of polar bear parts from countries where it is legal to kill the embattled species.

The Humane Society of the United States lobbied the agency hard against the proposed reopening of the trade. The animals are listed as a threatened species in the United States, but other countries still allow the bears to be hunted.