By Alex Felsinger •
March 5, 2009
While I’ve noticed this phenomenon quite a few times before, yesterday’s sentencing of three Earth First! activists in Maine reminded me of the amazing backwards-notion that forcing activists into community service somehow amounts to a punishment.
Activists who engage in civil disobedience aren’t hoodlums running around the streets or menaces to society — these are people who risk arrest and jail time to make a difference in their communities. A judge need-not assign community service because it’s almost guaranteed that these people already do more than most.
By Alex Felsinger •
January 5, 2009
Over a hundred conservation, wildlife, and animal welfare groups have sent a letter to incoming Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging him to rethink the often cruel practice of “lethal control” of wildlife by the USDA. The coalition contends that animals are killed through such means as shooting from airplanes and helicopters, poisoning, gassing dens, bludgeoning after capture, and strangling in wire snares.
In 2007, the USDA spent $100 million of taxpayer money to kill 2.4 million wild animals, including 90,262 coyotes, 2,277 gray foxes, 2,412 red foxes, 2,090 bobcats, 1,133 cats, 552 dogs, 577 badgers, and 340 gray wolves.
By Alex Felsinger •
December 29, 2008
The traditional breeding ground for African penguins has turned to a rocky moonscape, leaving the rapidly vanishing species confused when it comes time to lay their eggs. Humans caused the problem and now some people are trying to fix it.
Like they have for centuries, the penguins will return to Dyer Island off the southern tip of Africa to breed this year. When humans noticed the patter, they began to shovel and transport the penguin-poo-filled topsoil to the mainland to use as fertilizer, eventually scraping the island bare.
Wilfred Chivell of the Dyer Island Conservation Trust has spent his time the last couple months trying to reverse this problem in a rather unconventional way: he installed 800 fiberglass igloos on the island for the penguins to nest inside. Apparently so far they’re a huge hit and the penguins like to “decorate” the igloos with rocks and foliage before moving in.
