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RSCPA revokes Huon salmon’s accreditation after video showing live fish being dumped in Tasmania

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Thursday, March 20, 2025

RSPCA Australia has revoked its accreditation of major Tasmanian salmon company Huon after the release of a video that it said showed the inhumane handling of live fish.The withdrawal follows an initial 14-day suspension after the Bob Brown Foundation published drone video that showed writhing live salmon being siphoned into a tub containing dead fish.The fish were killed by a major disease outbreak at south-eastern Tasmanian fish farms earlier this month. In the video, the tub was then sealed.Huon Aquaculture said it was “extremely disappointed” about the RSCPA decision after a “single incident of non-compliance” during an “unprecedented, challenging period”.The RSPCA’s chief executive, Richard Mussell, said no Tasmanian salmon companies were certified as meeting the RSPCA-approved standard after the decision.“While we acknowledge this was a single incident following many years of certification, the decision to withdraw a certification reflects how seriously we take incidents like this that compromise animal welfare,” he said.Footage appears to show workers pumping live salmon into a tub with dead salmon – video“Fish, including those farmed for human consumption, are sentient beings and, like other animals, can experience pain and suffering. When they’re farmed for food, the welfare of fish must be front of mind.”The announcement adds to the pressure on the state’s salmon industry after a month in which more than 1 million salmon died during an outbreak of an endemic bacterium, Piscirickettsia salmonis.More than 5,500 tonnes of fish were dumped at landfill and rendering plants in February. Fatty chunks of fish have washed up on beaches in the Huon Valley and on Bruny Island in February and March, prompting public protests.The industry is also at the centre of a political storm over Anthony Albanese’s plan to rush through legislation next week to protect salmon farming in Macquarie harbour, on the state’s west coast, from a legal challenge over its impact on the Maugean skate, an endangered fish species.Mussell said salmon was one of the most intensively farmed animals and it was “important that we can demonstrate the measures needed to ensure their welfare is considered”.Huon’s general manager of stakeholder and government relations, Hannah Gray, said the company acknowledged the seriousness of the “extremely distressing” incident and that it had put steps in place to ensure contractors upheld “high animal welfare standards”.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionShe said Huon had been farming “to a standard of animal welfare that no other Australian salmon farming company has been able to achieve” for the past seven years. “We will continue to farm to this standard,” she said.Bob Brown Foundation campaigner Alistair Allan said the RSPCA decision was “the correct one” and that the drone video showed the “grim reality of factory-farmed Tasmanian salmon”.Allan said the incident showed Albanese’s support of salmon farming was “out of touch”. “He needs to walk back his support of the industry,” he said.The federal Coalition and the Australian Greens wrote to Albanese on Thursday asking to see the legislation to change national environmental law to protect the industry in Macquarie harbour that will go before parliament on Tuesday.Albanese said “people will see the legislation next week”. “We’ll be introducing it and we expect it to be carried,” he said.It is expected the bill will be designed to abruptly end a long-running legal review by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, into whether an expansion of the salmon industry in the harbour in 2012 was properly approved.

It means no Tasmanian salmon companies are certified as meeting the RSPCA-approved standard, its chief executive saysGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastRSPCA Australia has revoked its accreditation of major Tasmanian salmon company Huon after the release of a video that it said showed the inhumane handling of live fish.The withdrawal follows an initial 14-day suspension after the Bob Brown Foundation published drone video that showed writhing live salmon being siphoned into a tub containing dead fish.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

RSPCA Australia has revoked its accreditation of major Tasmanian salmon company Huon after the release of a video that it said showed the inhumane handling of live fish.

The withdrawal follows an initial 14-day suspension after the Bob Brown Foundation published drone video that showed writhing live salmon being siphoned into a tub containing dead fish.

The fish were killed by a major disease outbreak at south-eastern Tasmanian fish farms earlier this month. In the video, the tub was then sealed.

Huon Aquaculture said it was “extremely disappointed” about the RSCPA decision after a “single incident of non-compliance” during an “unprecedented, challenging period”.

The RSPCA’s chief executive, Richard Mussell, said no Tasmanian salmon companies were certified as meeting the RSPCA-approved standard after the decision.

“While we acknowledge this was a single incident following many years of certification, the decision to withdraw a certification reflects how seriously we take incidents like this that compromise animal welfare,” he said.

Footage appears to show workers pumping live salmon into a tub with dead salmon – video

“Fish, including those farmed for human consumption, are sentient beings and, like other animals, can experience pain and suffering. When they’re farmed for food, the welfare of fish must be front of mind.”

The announcement adds to the pressure on the state’s salmon industry after a month in which more than 1 million salmon died during an outbreak of an endemic bacterium, Piscirickettsia salmonis.

More than 5,500 tonnes of fish were dumped at landfill and rendering plants in February. Fatty chunks of fish have washed up on beaches in the Huon Valley and on Bruny Island in February and March, prompting public protests.

The industry is also at the centre of a political storm over Anthony Albanese’s plan to rush through legislation next week to protect salmon farming in Macquarie harbour, on the state’s west coast, from a legal challenge over its impact on the Maugean skate, an endangered fish species.

Mussell said salmon was one of the most intensively farmed animals and it was “important that we can demonstrate the measures needed to ensure their welfare is considered”.

Huon’s general manager of stakeholder and government relations, Hannah Gray, said the company acknowledged the seriousness of the “extremely distressing” incident and that it had put steps in place to ensure contractors upheld “high animal welfare standards”.

skip past newsletter promotion

after newsletter promotion

She said Huon had been farming “to a standard of animal welfare that no other Australian salmon farming company has been able to achieve” for the past seven years. “We will continue to farm to this standard,” she said.

Bob Brown Foundation campaigner Alistair Allan said the RSPCA decision was “the correct one” and that the drone video showed the “grim reality of factory-farmed Tasmanian salmon”.

Allan said the incident showed Albanese’s support of salmon farming was “out of touch”. “He needs to walk back his support of the industry,” he said.

The federal Coalition and the Australian Greens wrote to Albanese on Thursday asking to see the legislation to change national environmental law to protect the industry in Macquarie harbour that will go before parliament on Tuesday.

Albanese said “people will see the legislation next week”. “We’ll be introducing it and we expect it to be carried,” he said.

It is expected the bill will be designed to abruptly end a long-running legal review by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, into whether an expansion of the salmon industry in the harbour in 2012 was properly approved.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Trump Cuts Threaten Key NOAA Work to Improve Weather Forecasts and Monitor Toxic Algal Blooms

The Trump administration has proposed gutting NOAA’s cooperative institutes, which study everything from improving lifesaving weather forecasts to monitoring fish stocks

CLIMATEWIRE | Researchers in Oklahoma are hard at work on a new lifesaving weather forecasting system. In Michigan, they’re keeping tabs on toxic algae blooms. In Florida, they’re studying tropical cyclones by flying into the hearts of hurricanes.These are just a handful of the hundreds of research projects ongoing at NOAA’s cooperative institutes, a network of 16 science consortiums involving 80 universities and research institutions across 33 states.But many CI scientists are worried their work — and their jobs — may soon be on the chopping block.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.A new proposal from the White House Office of Management and Budget would dramatically reorganize NOAA and gut most of its climate research programs in fiscal 2026. Part of that plan includes terminating funding for NOAA’s cooperative institutes and its 10 laboratories, which are heavily staffed by CI researchers.The plan, presented last week in an OMB document known as a “passback” memorandum, is technically still hypothetical. While passbacks typically outline the priorities eventually included in the White House’s budget proposal each fiscal year, Congress must ultimately approve the president’s request.But even if Congress rejects the cuts that the Trump administration proposes for fiscal 2026, experts worry that funding for the remainder of fiscal 2025 is still in question.“Once a certain amount of damage is done, it's not recoverable.” —Waleed Abdalati, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)Congress last month passed a continuing resolution to avert a shutdown and fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year. But the bill provides little guidance for agencies on how exactly they must use their funds.“The administration can largely move money however it wants within the agency,” said Waleed Abdalati, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) housed at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “That's the authority Congress afforded them by not articulating more detail in its agency budgets.”In theory, some experts say, that means the Trump administration could direct agencies to shuffle their funds in ways that would diminish or eliminate programs previously funded in fiscal 2024.And the OMB passback suggests exactly that: directing NOAA to align its 2025 spending with the plan laid out in the memo — even though that proposal has not yet been approved by Congress.“OMB expects that the Department will exercise all allowable authorities and flexibilities to align the 2025 operating plans with the 2026 Passback,” the document states.There’s no indication that NOAA has yet complied. And it’s unclear whether this direction would legally sidestep Congress’ authority to direct the appropriation of funds.But if the agency began implementing the passback’s plan this year, a broad swath of programs could see their funding suddenly curtailed — including the cooperative institutes.Meanwhile, some CIs across the country have not yet received any of their 2025 funds. Some are still waiting on some of their 2024 money, due to a variety of payment delays. Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — head of the agency that houses NOAA — is personally reviewing all funding commitments above $100,000.“The money is very slow in coming, and a number of institutes are at great risk of not having the funding after a couple months from now,” Abdalati said. “If that's the case, we’re required to either lay off or furlough people until the money comes.”Even if Congress restores funding for 2026, cuts and layoffs in the near term would be devastating, he added. Long-term datasets would be disrupted. Many staffers likely would seek new jobs, taking their knowledge and experience with them.“Once a certain amount of damage is done, it's not recoverable,” Abdalati said.Meanwhile, CI directors say even short-term interruptions in their research could threaten the safety of the communities they serve.CIGLR — the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, housed at the University of Michigan — keeps tabs on toxic algae in lakes Erie and Huron, where nearby communities are well acquainted with the dangers. A harmful algal bloom sparked the Toledo water crisis of 2014, in which 400,000 residents in and around the Ohio city had no safe drinking water for two days.Eden Rogers, 13, uses a stick to try and scoop algae off the shoreline as the shadows of her sisters Brittany Rogers, 27, and Danielle Rogers, 24, with Danielle's toy Australian Shepherd, Barniby, walk the beach at Maumee Bay State Park in Oregon, Ohio on Sunday, August 3, 2014. The sisters, who grew up in the Toledo area, said they came to the beach to look at the Algae bloom, along the shore of Lake Erie, which has rendered the city of Toledo under a State of Emergency after a toxin from the algae polluted the city water supply rendering about 400,000 people in the Toledo area without useable water.Ty Wright for The Washington Post via Getty ImagesBut because of the ongoing funding delays, “we're looking at having to lay off a substantial number of our workers in the next few months,” said CIGLR director Gregory Dick.And it’s possible the institute will have to halt its algal monitoring program. If that’s the case, the region may be less equipped to predict and prepare for events such as the Toledo water crisis.“One of my big fears is that we'll be more vulnerable to such incidents,” Dick said, adding that the program “seems like it's in limbo — it's complete uncertainty.”From the sea to the skyThe cooperative institutes are one part of NOAA’s broader research ecosystem and just one of many proposed cuts across the department.The passback memo calls for the elimination of NOAA’s entire Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), which facilitates a variety of Earth system studies. Alongside the CIs, OAR houses 10 laboratories and a number of other programs including its global ocean observing and monitoring program; its ocean acidification program; and its Sea Grant program, which partners with 34 universities on marine research and education initiatives.But the CIs play a special role in NOAA science — and in its impact on U.S. communities — experts say.“The CIs are 50 percent of everything we do in research,” said Craig McLean, NOAA’s former top scientist. “They are of equal vitality and importance to the NOAA mission as every NOAA scientist — many of whom have come from the CIs.”The CIs exist via a particular type of federal funding award known as a cooperative agreement, which operates much like a grant but involves close collaboration with federal employees. Each agreement is awarded on a five-year basis, with the potential to renew for another five years. After that, universities must compete again for a new award.Still, many cooperative institutes have been around for decades — CIRES, the oldest and largest, was established in 1967. Many involve multiple university partners and employ dozens or hundreds of staff. And many maintain long-standing data collection programs with major impacts on human societies.CIMAR, for instance — the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, housed at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa — monitors “basically the entire ecosystem of the tropical Pacific,” said its director, Douglas Luther. That includes everything from the life histories of marine animals to the ocean’s rising sea levels.And CIMERS at Oregon State University — the Cooperative Institute for Marine Ecosystem and Resources Studies — keeps tabs on everything from salmon stock in the Pacific Northwest to the movement of ships in the remote Arctic Ocean. It’s also active in ocean exploration, mapping parts of the seabed where methane reserves or critical minerals may be abundant.[The cuts represent a] "complete sabotaging of American weather forecasting. It would totally change the game in terms of our prediction.” —Marc Alessi, a science fellow with the Union of Concerned ScientistsThese studies help keep the U.S. competitive with other global science leaders, said CIMERS director Francis Chan.“There's a new science race going on,” he said. “People are thinking about what are the different ways of using the ocean.”Other CIs help improve the forecasting tools used by NOAA’s own National Weather Service.Scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies are key members of NOAA’s famed Hurricane Hunter missions, which fly specialized data-collecting aircraft through tropical cyclones.Meanwhile, scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO), are developing products to help meteorologists spot dangerous weather events with more advance warning. One of these is Warn-on-Forecast, an experimental system designed to rapidly incorporate radar and satellite observations into a high-resolution model, producing updated forecasts about every 15 minutes.And it’s showing promise.As twisters whirled across the central U.S. last month, amid an outbreak that killed dozens in the Southeast and Midwest, Warn-on-Forecast predictions helped accurately predict a storm track in the Missouri Ozarks with about two hours of lead time, according to CIWRO’s director, Greg McFarquhar.The forecast, combined with other data, prompted National Weather Service staff to contact emergency managers on the evening of March 14 and warn them that long-track tornadoes may be forming. NWS followed up shortly afterward with a Special Weather Statement, narrowing down the tornado tracks to nearby Carter and Ripley counties.When a strong tornado touched down shortly afterward, more than 125 people already had checked in at a nearby Carter County shelter. There were no fatalities reported in the aftermath of the event.Traditional forecasting tools typically predict tornadoes with an average of only 13 minutes of advance warning, according to NOAA. The extra time afforded by new tools like Warn-on-Forecast “makes a huge difference in terms of people being able to get out of the way of these tornadoes,” McFarquhar said.‘A big loss to the American people’With funding delays dragging on and existential cuts looming, scientists say these research projects are all in jeopardy.Some CI directors told POLITICO's E&E News that their institutes likely would shut down without NOAA funding. Larger institutes like CIRES said they might continue to exist in a diminished form — but the loss of NOAA resources would take a huge toll.“We wouldn't be as robust,” said Abdalati, the CIRES director. “And honestly it would be, I think, a big loss to the American people — because we do things that matter, that are important.”Much of the Trump administration’s attacks on NOAA research center on climate science. The conservative policy blueprint Project 2025 referred to the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research as the "source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism” and called for much of its work to be dissolved — a plan reflected in the OMB passback memo.But CI scientists note their projects delve far beyond climate change research. And many have implications for the economy, national security and competition with countries such as China — priorities the Trump administration has claimed to support.“I think that's the part that worries me,” said Chan, the CIMERS director. “Are people making decisions because they don't have the full picture of what science is doing? If that's the case, we're open to providing information.”The cuts proposed in the OMB passback memo have sparked widespread backlash among science advocates.The American Meteorological Society warned in a statement that eliminating NOAA’s research arm would have “unknown — yet almost certainly disastrous — consequences for public safety and economic health.”The cuts represent a "complete sabotaging of American weather forecasting,” said Marc Alessi, a science fellow with the nonprofit advocacy organization Union of Concerned Scientists. “It would totally change the game in terms of our prediction.”Some lawmakers in Congress have raised similar concerns.Nine Democratic representatives from New Jersey submitted a letter last week to Lutnick decrying the proposed cuts, which they argued would endanger their state and its nearly 1,800 miles of coastline. They expressed particular concern about the proposed elimination of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey. The lab is a leading developer of the atmosphere and ocean models that inform weather forecasts.“Without their work, Americans will not receive accurate weather or tidal predictions, impacting our safety, economy and national security,” the letter stated.Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado said in a statement to E&E News that worsening droughts and wildfires across the western United States mean that the "work our scientists and civil servants do at NOAA is essential to U.S. national security and the personal safety and daily lives of Americans.”Colorado is the only state to house two cooperative institutes, and it's home to the largest of the CIs.Despite these kinds of concerns, McLean, the former NOAA top scientist, said the response from Congress hasn’t gone far enough. Some CIs — like the extreme weather-focused institute in Oklahoma — are housed in red states, where Republicans in Congress have so far raised few objections to cuts at NOAA.“On the Republican side, they're cowering behind Trump's voice and they're not raising any alarm,” McLean said. “And they're going to watch many assets and attributes in their states go away.”Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

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In Wyoming, the Eastern Shoshone Tribe Decided to Classify Buffalo as Wildlife. Here Is Why

Earlier this month, the Eastern Shoshone voted to classify buffalo as wildlife instead of livestock

Jason Baldes drove down a dusty, sagebrush highway earlier this month, pulling 11 young buffalo in a trailer from Colorado to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. His blue truck has painted on the side a drawing of buffalo and a calf. As the executive director of the Wind River Buffalo Initiative and Eastern Shoshone tribal member, Baldes has helped grow the number of buffalo on the reservation for the last decade. The latest count: the Northern Arapaho tribe have 97 and the Eastern Shoshone have 118. “Tribes have an important role in restoring buffalo for food sovereignty, culture and nutrition, but also for overall bison recovery,” he said. EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and Grist. The Eastern Shoshone this month voted to classify buffalo as wildlife instead of livestock as a way to treat them more like elk or deer rather than like cattle. Because the two tribes share the same land base, the Northern Arapaho are expected to vote on the distinction as well. The vote indicates a growing interest to both restore buffalo on the landscape and challenge the relationship between animal and product. Tribes and locals tend to say buffalo while scientists use bison to describe the animal. While climate change isn’t the main driver behind the push to restore buffalo's wildlife status, the move could bring positive effects to the fight against global warming. Climate change is shrinking Wyoming’s glaciers, contributing to drought, and increasing wildfires. Like cows, buffalo emit methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, by belching, though it’s not clear if buffalo give off the same levels.Those emissions contribute to climate change, but what buffalo bring in increased biodiversity can promote drought resilience and some buffalo herds have been shown to help store carbon.Baldes argues buffalo should be able to roam on the plains to bolster biodiversity and restore ecological health of the landscape — but that has to come with a change in relationship. “Buffalo as wildlife allows the animals to exist on the landscape,” Baldes said. “Rather than livestock based on economic and Western paradigms.” Wildlife is broadly defined as all living organisms, like plants and animals that exist outside the direct control of humans. When it comes to how different states define wildlife, it can vary. But in general, animals that are not domesticated — as in selectively bred for human consumption or companionship — are typically classified as wildlife. “Bison have a complex history since their near extinction over 100 years ago,” said Lisa Shipley, a professor at Washington State University who studies management of wild ungulates, which are large mammals with hooves, including buffalo. During the expansion of settlers, a combination of overhunting, habitat destruction, and government policy aimed at killing Indigenous peoples' food supplies eradicated the animal. Around 8 million buffalo were in the United States in 1870, and then in the span of 20 years there were less than 500. Today, in North America there are roughly 20,000 wild plains bison — like the ones Baldes works to put on the Wind River. But most reside in privately owned operations, where many are raised for the growing bison meat industry. In 2023, around 85,000 bison were processed for meat consumption in the U.S., compared to the 36 million head of cattle. It’s not a lot compared to cattle, but some producers see buffalo as an interesting new addition to the global meat market. The numbers are similar for other kinds of wildlife — there are typically more livestock on the land than wildlife. According to one study, if all the livestock of the world were weighed, the livestock would be 30 times heavier than the weight of all the wildlife.Reducing the world’s collective reliance on cows — a popular variety of livestock — is seen by many as a path forward to combating climate change. Eating less beef and dairy products can be good for the planet; cows account for around 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. And having too many cows on a small patch of pasture can have negative effects on the environment, causing soil erosion and affecting the amount of carbon the land can absorb.Buffalo are good to have on a landscape because they tend to move around if given enough room. One study found that cattle spent half their time grazing, while buffalo only around a quarter of the time — buffalo even moved faster and had an affinity for more varieties of grasses to munch on. Still, even buffalo can damage the landscape if they are managed like cattle. “Too many animals on the landscape can lead to rangeland degradation and health concerns,” said Justin Binfet, wildlife management coordinator for Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The state has classified the buffalo as both livestock and wildlife, which means they can be privately owned or managed in conservation herds. However, different places in the state have different rules regarding the animal. Currently, Wyoming issues around 70 buffalo hunting tags a year. The Montana Stockgrowers Association – a group that advocates for the sale of beef – said the management plan in the National Park for buffalo “did not adequately represent all management options that should be considered” like more population control and increased tribal hunting. Ranchers in Wyoming and Montana, including tribal members who raise cattle, often cite the disease brucellosis as a reason to keep buffalo and cattle strictly away from each other. The management plan for buffalo says that there has not been a recorded case of bison-to-cattle disease. Wyoming has a history of contesting tribal hunting rights. In a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court case, Herrera vs. Wyoming, the court ruled in favor of treaty-protected hunting rights within the state. But how this history will intersect with buffalo’s classification as wildlife remains to be seen. On the Wind River Reservation, the tribes have control of wildlife management and hunting regulations. The choice to designate buffalo as wildlife is a matter of tribal sovereignty. For Baldes, he wants to eventually hunt buffalo like someone would any other wildlife. He’s in the process of buying property to allow buffalo to roam like they did before the arrival of settlers. He doesn’t like when people call the Wind River Buffalo Initiative a "ranch," because it has too much of an association with cows and cattle. He says buffalo should be treated as they were before settler contact. “Bringing the buffalo back is about our relationship with them, not domination over them,” Baldes said.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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Wildlife, not livestock: Why the Eastern Shoshone in Wyoming are reclassifying buffaloes

"Bringing the buffalo back is about our relationship with them, not domination over them."

Jason Baldes drove down a dusty, sagebrush highway earlier this month, pulling 11 young buffalo in a trailer up from Colorado to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. His blue truck has painted on the side a drawing of buffalo and a calf. As the executive director of the Wind River Buffalo Initiative and Eastern Shoshone tribal member, he’s helped grow the number of buffalo on the reservation for the last decade. The latest count: the Northern Arapaho tribe have 97 and the Eastern Shoshone have 118.  “Tribes have an important role in restoring buffalo for food sovereignty, culture and nutrition, but also for overall bison recovery,” he said.  The Eastern Shoshone this month voted to classify buffalo as wildlife instead of livestock as a way to treat them more like elk or deer rather than like cattle. Because the two tribes share the same landbase, the Northern Arapaho are expected to vote on the distinction as well. The vote indicates a growing interest to both restore buffalo on the landscape and challenge the relationship between animal and product.  Three bulls rest in the the Eastern Shoshone Buffalo Enclosure on Friday, April 11, 2025, on the Wind River Reservation near Morton, Wyoming. Amber Baesler / AP Photo While climate change isn’t the main driver behind the push to restore buffalo wildlife status, the move could bring positive effects to the fight against global warming. Climate change is shrinking Wyoming’s glaciers, contributing to drought, and increasing wildfires. While buffalo might give off comparable emissions to cows, increasing biodiversity can promote drought resistance and some herds of buffalo have been shown to help the earth store more carbon.  Like cows, buffalo emit methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, by belching, though it’s not clear if buffalo give off the same levels. While buffalo can contribute to climate change, what they bring in increased biodiversity can promote drought resistance and some buffalo herds have been shown to help store carbon.  The scale of cattle on the landscape and how they are managed contributes to climate change. Baldes argues buffalo should be able to roam on the plains to bolster biodiversity and restore ecological health of the landscape — but that has to come with a change in relationship.  A new bull wanders during the buffalo release at the Eastern Shoshone Buffalo Enclosure on Friday, April 11, 2025, on the Wind River Reservation near Morton, Wyoming. Amber Baesler / AP Photo “Buffalo as wildlife allows the animals to exist on the landscape,” Baldes said. “Rather than livestock based on economic and Western paradigms.”  Wildlife is broadly defined as all living organisms, like plants and animals that exist outside the direct control of humans. When it comes to how different states define wildlife, the definition can vary. But a good rule of thumb is animals that are not domesticated — as in selectively bred for human consumption or companionship — are typically classified as wildlife.  “Bison have a complex history since their near extinction over 100 years ago,” said Lisa Shipley, a professor at Washington State University who studies management of wild ungulates which are large mammals with hooves that include buffalo.  Tribes and locals tend to say buffalo while scientists use bison to describe the animal.  Oakley Boycott, left, embraces Ori Downer, 8, during the buffalo release at the Eastern Shoshone Buffalo Enclosure on Friday, April 11, 2025, on the Wind River Reservation near Morton, Wyoming. Amber Baesler / AP Photo Beadwork dangles from a rearview mirror in a vehicle used by the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative during the buffalo release at the Eastern Shoshone Buffalo Enclosure on Friday, April 11, 2025, on the Wind River Reservation near Morton, Wyoming. Amber Baesler / AP Photo During the western expansion of settlers a combination of overhunting, habitat destruction, and government policy aimed at killing Indigenous peoples food supplies eradicated the animal from the landscape.  Around eight million buffalo were in the United States in 1870 and then in the span of 20 years there were less than 500. Today, in North America there are roughly 20,000 wild plains bison — like the ones Baldes works to put on the Wind River. But most buffalo reside in privately owned operations, where many buffalo are raised for the growing bison meat industry. In 2023, around 85,000 bison were processed for meat consumption in the United States, compared to the 36 million head of cattle. It’s not a lot compared to cattle but some producers see buffalo as an interesting new addition to the global meat market.  The numbers are similar for other kinds of wildlife — there are typically more livestock on the land than wildlife. According to one study, if all the livestock of the world were weighed, the livestock would be 30 times heavier than the weight of all the wildlife on the Earth. Reducing the world’s collective reliance on cows — a popular variety of livestock — has been a way many see as a path forward to combating climate change. Eating less beef and dairy products can be good for the planet; cows account for around 10 percent of green house gas emissions.  And having too many cows on a small patch of pasture can have negative effects on the environment by causing soil erosion and affecting the amount of carbon the land can absorb. Buffalo are good to have on a landscape because they tend to move around if given enough room. One study saw that cattle spent half their time grazing, while buffalo only around a quarter of the time — buffalo even moved faster and had an affinity for more varieties of grasses to munch on. But even buffalo can damage the landscape if they are managed like cattle.  A bull relocated from the Soapstone Prairie in Colorado wanders its new home at the Eastern Shoshone Buffalo Enclosure on Friday, April 11, 2025, on the Wind River Reservation near Morton, Wyoming. Amber Baesler / AP Photo “Too many animals on the landscape can lead to rangeland degradation and health concerns,” said Justin Binfet, wildlife management coordinator for Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The state has classified the buffalo as both livestock and wildlife, which means they can be privately owned or managed in conservation herds. However, different places in the state have different rules regarding the animal. Currently, Wyoming issues around 70 buffalo hunting tags a year.  The National Park Services manages the oldest untouched population of buffalo in Yellowstone National Park, which intersects with both Wyoming and Montana. Montana has sued the National Park over their buffalo management plan citing potential negative effects as the park grows the herd and an interest in letting the buffalo push the boundaries in the park like other wildlife do. The Montana Stockgrowers Association – a group that advocates for the sale of beef – said the management plan in the National Park for buffalo “did not adequately represent all management options that should be considered” like more population control and increased tribal hunting.  Read Next The return of the American bison is an environmental boon — and a logistical mess Lina Tran Ranchers in Wyoming and Montana, including tribal members who raise cattle, often cite the disease brucellosis as a reason to keep buffalo and cattle strictly away from each other. The management plan for buffalo in says that there has not been a recorded case of bison-to-cattle.  Wyoming has a history of contesting tribal hunting rights. In the 2019 United States Supreme Court Case Herrera vs. Wyoming, the court ruled in favor of treaty protected hunting rights within the state. But how this history will intersect with buffalo’s classification as wildlife remains to be seen.  On the Wind River Reservation, the tribes have control of wildlife management and hunting regulations. The choice to designate buffalo as wildlife is a matter of tribal sovereignty, tribes making decisions on their homelands.  Big Wind Singers Lyle Oldman, from left, Wayland Bonatsie and Jake Hill perform a Sun Dance song during the buffalo release at the Eastern Shoshone Buffalo Enclosure on Friday, April 11, 2025, on the Wind River Reservation near Morton, Wyoming. Amber Baesler / AP Photo For Baldes, he wants to eventually hunt buffalo like someone would any other wildlife. He’s in the process of buying property to allow buffalo to roam like they did before Western expansion. He doesn’t like when people call the Wind River Buffalo Initiative a ‘ranch’, because it has too much of an association with cows, and cattle – and he says buffalo should be treated like they were before settler contact.  “Bringing the buffalo back is about our relationship with them, not domination over them,” Baldes said. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Wildlife, not livestock: Why the Eastern Shoshone in Wyoming are reclassifying buffaloes on Apr 21, 2025.

Animals
Climate
Conservation

California wolves are on the comeback and eating cattle. Ranchers say, 'Enough!'

No matter how hard wildlife officials try to direct the wolves toward their natural prey, mostly deer and elk, they seem to find the bigger, slower, domesticated cows wandering through open fields a lot more appealing.

SISKIYOU COUNTY, Calif. — In far Northern California, beneath a towering mountain ridge still covered in April snow, one of the state’s last cowboys stood in the tall green grass of a pasture he tends describing what he sees as the one blight on this otherwise perfect landscape: wolves.“I hate ‘em,” said Joel Torres, 25, his easy smile fading as he explained what the apex predators do to the cattle in his care at Prather Ranch, an organic farm in Siskiyou County dedicated to raising beef in a natural, stress-free environment. “They’ve just been tearing into our baby calves, mostly our yearlings.”Unlike predators that go for the throat and kill prey relatively quickly, wolves often attack from behind and rip victims apart while they’re trying to flee. Once they bring a cow to the ground, the pack will “kind of pick around a little bit, eat the good stuff” — particularly the rectum and udders — “and then just leave them and go on to the next one,” Torres said.That’s how he has found dozens of mortally injured young cows, trembling and in shock, after wolf attacks. “It’s crazy, the endurance of these animals. They’ll just take it,” Torres said. There’s no saving them. Their intestines often spill out through their hindquarters, and Torres shoots the cows to put them out of their misery.He’d like to shoot the wolves, too, at least a few, to teach the pack that there are “consequences to coming around here and tearing into our cattle.” But the predators remain on the state’s endangered species list, and aggressive measures to control their behavior are strictly forbidden.Instead, all Torres can do is grit his teeth and deal with the grisly aftermath. VIDEO | 00:05 A wolf howling in Northern California A February video shows a wolf howling in Northern California. (Courtesy of Patrick Griffin) Torres and many other ranchers in California live where two very lofty and environmentally satisfying ideas collide: all natural, free-range ranching and the government-assisted return of a predator our ancestors hunted to near extinction.No matter how hard officials try to direct the wolves toward their natural prey, mostly deer and elk, they seem to find the bigger, slower, domesticated cows wandering through well-kept, wide-open fields a lot more appealing.Things have gotten so bad so quickly — wolves have been back in California for only a bit more than a decade — that officials in Modoc and Sierra counties have declared emergencies. Leaders in Siskiyou and Lassen counties are calling on the state to do something about the devastating economic toll the wolves are taking on ranchers. And while wolf attacks on people are almost unheard of, many in those counties are worried about potential risks to children and pets as the wild predators wander ever closer to houses and show signs of becoming accustomed to humans.In response, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has approved what it calls increased “hazing,” which includes firing guns toward the sky, driving trucks and ATVs toward wolves to shoo them away and harassing them with noise from drones — but nothing that might injure the wolves.Ranchers are skeptical. Other hazing methods approved by the department in recent years, such as electric fences with red flags attached that flutter in the wind, have done little to keep the wolves from their herds.“The wolves just jump over those fences,” Torres said. “They do no good.” Wolves are preying on cows at Jim and Mary Rickert’s Siskiyou County ranch. They want more options to deal with the predators than banging pots and hanging flags. Mary Rickert, who owns the Prather Ranch with her husband, Jim, said the obvious solution is to let ranchers shoot problem wolves. “We’d just pick off a few of the bad actors, so the others would go, whoa, and back off,” she said.A century ago, wolves in the United States were almost wiped out by ranchers who regarded them as lethal enemies. The last wolf legally shot in California was in 1924, and by 1930 they were gone from almost the entire country, except for a small pack in northern Minnesota.But in 1973, then-President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act, and his administration added wolves to the list the following year. In the decades that followed, wolves began a slow recovery, mostly in the northern U.S.Then, in 2011, a wolf from Oregon known as OR7 — monitored by government biologists via an electronic collar — crossed the border into California and became the first known wild wolf to inhabit the state in almost 90 years. Like other notable transplants to the Golden State, he found pop culture stardom, becoming the heroic subject of a children’s book and a 2014 documentary.Environmental advocates and cheerleaders for biodiversity were overjoyed that the wolves — who in their best moments look a lot like big, cuddly dogs — were making such an astonishing comeback. The hope was that they’d mostly eat other wild animals. VIDEO | 00:08 Wolves feed on a cow in Northern California A video shows a wolf pack feeding on a dead cow in August. (Courtesy of Patrick Griffin) But ask any rancher living in wolf country, and they’ll tell you that’s not what happened — and recent science backs them up.In 2022-23, researchers from UC Davis analyzed more than 100 wolf scat samples collected in northeast California from the so-called Lassen pack. They found that 72% of the samples contained cattle DNA, and every wolf had at least one sample that contained cow, said Kenneth Tate, one of the researchers.What’s more, there were 13 wolves in the pack, nearly twice as many as state wildlife officials believed at the time.“These packs are not in the wilderness. They’re not up on Mt. Shasta or Lassen peak,” Tate said. “They’re establishing themselves down in the valleys, where the summer cattle graze.”And they are thriving. In just 14 years since OR7 crossed the border, seven separate packs have established themselves in the state. They’re mostly in the north, but one pack has been confirmed in the southern Sierra Nevada, 200 miles from Los Angeles.None of those packs has done as much damage to livestock as the “Whaleback” pack (named after a nearby mountain) that stalks the Prather Ranch in the remote Butte Valley. VIDEO | 00:09 A group of wolves in Northern California A January 2022 video of a group of wolves in Northern California. (Courtesy of Patrick Griffin) That’s because Prather’s lush pastures back up against a secluded mountain ridge running from nearby Mt. Shasta north to the Oregon border. That land belongs to the U.S. Forest Service, and it’s covered in mature pine trees that provide nearly perfect cover.From the top of the ridge, where the wolves are believed to make their den, there’s a commanding view of Prather Ranch to the east and of another ranch, Table Rock, to the west. At any given moment in summer, when thousands of free-ranging cattle are scattered across those pastures, the wolves can gaze down from their protected perch and take their pick.“It’s like they’re deciding between McDonald’s and Burger King,” said Patrick Griffin, the “wolf liaison” for Siskiyou County, whose job is to try to mitigate conflict between the predators and ranchers. “Wolves are beautiful animals, they’re just beautiful,” says Patrick Griffin, the wolf liaison in Siskiyou County. “But what they do? That isn’t so beautiful.” There’s a “good-sized” elk herd ranging just north of the ranches, Griffin said, and he keeps hoping that the department’s nonlethal hazing tactics will persuade the wolves to turn their attention to their natural prey. But he doesn’t think the odds are very good.“An elk is a lot more intimidating than a cow,” Griffin said. “Which would you pick?”The bigger problem, Griffin said, is that the Whaleback pack is teaching its young to hunt cows. And when they head off to claim their own territory and start their own packs, they’ll take those lessons with them.While other states, including Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, have allowed wolf hunts to resume, California still forbids ranchers from taking aggressive measures to stop the predators.In addition to the nonlethal hazing, the department encourages ranchers to hire “range riders,” essentially cowboys, to sleep in the pastures with the cows. But that costs money, and the state doesn’t help with the added expense, Griffin said.And even when people are present to harass the wolves, these ranches are so large that it’s impossible for them to be everywhere at once. One night, a “government guy” rode around Prather Ranch in his pickup with a spotlight, and the wolves still “tore into two cows that I had to put down,” Torres said.Each cow the wolves kill represents thousands of dollars in lost revenue, so in 2021 the state set up a pilot program with $3 million to reimburse ranchers. When they found a dead or dying cow with telltale signs of wolf “depredation,” ranchers could alert the state and a representative would come out to investigate. If the investigator concluded wolves were to blame, the rancher would get a check, about $5,000 on average.But that money ran out in a hurry, state records show, with the majority of it, 67%, going to ranchers whose wolves were killed by the Whaleback pack. Fladry — bright colorful flags hung from wire — are among the nonlethal methods the state recommends for warding off wolves. And while the fund covered confirmed wolf kills, it did not compensate for all of the animals — especially newborn calves that are easier to carry — that simply disappeared into the forest.Griffin, who investigates suspected wolf kills in the region for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, acknowledged that the 80 or so kills attributed to the Whaleback pack is an undercount. He cited studies from other states that estimate only about 1 in 8 wolf kills are ever confirmed.“I know we don’t find most of them,” Griffin said.And there’s no money to compensate for the damage that the mere presence of wolves does to cow herds. The cows lose a lot of weight from stress and from trying to stay away from the wolves. Tate, the UC Davis researcher, said GPS data from trackers attached to cows show some of them being chased around the pastures all night long. “Cows don’t usually run 10 miles over four hours in the middle of the night,” Tate said. “That’s just not what they do.”But wolves are persistence hunters. Weighing about 100 pounds each, they might struggle to take down a yearling cow that’s pushing 1,000 pounds. So they spook the cow and get it running, following behind at a comfortable trot until the cow is exhausted. Then they attack.“It’s fun for [the wolves]; it’s like an adrenaline rush,” said Torres. “You can tell it really excites them.”But it’s a nightmare for the herd, and not just the cows that get singled out. Researchers have found elevated levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, in herds exposed to wolves. Not only do the cows lose weight, but they abort pregnancies at increased rates, researchers found. More than 40 cows have been killed on this ranch, hunted down by wolves who scout their prey from lookouts on Goosenest Mountain. “Cattle actually react to wolves very differently, and in a much more extreme way, than they react to other predators,” Rickert said.“We have bears around the ranch, and they’ll go and swim in the water troughs, and the cattle will just watch,” she said with a laugh. And the occasional mountain lion will stop by, maybe kill a calf, and then move on.But the wolves set up shop and torment the cattle.The UC Davis researchers estimated that, over the course of one summer, each wolf in their study cost ranchers between $70,000 and $163,000. All of which has left Griffin, the Siskiyou County wolf liaison, with deeply mixed feelings about the return of the predators.“There are a lot of people in California who love wolves,” he said, “but not very many of them live close to wolves.”Griffin said he enjoys tracking the predators, climbing ridges to see how they use the landscape to their advantage, setting up cameras in the mountains to catch breathtaking images of them playing with their young or howling in the snow on a moonlit night.But on a recent afternoon, walking through a pasture in the shadow of Mt. Shasta with puffy white clouds drifting across a cobalt blue sky, Griffin recalled one of his worst days on the job.He’d seen buzzards on the hillside just ahead, where the terrain turns steeply upward and the forest begins. When he arrived to see what the birds were eating, he found a dead cow, its rectum and udders torn away — classic wolf kill. Mixed with all the blood, he noticed a substantial amount of mucus. His heart sank as he followed the trail of bodily fluids about 60 yards downhill to the half-eaten remains of a newborn calf.He figured the wolves had waited until the cow was in labor, straining so hard with the contractions that she couldn’t run, at least not very far.“Wolves are beautiful animals, they’re just beautiful,” Griffin said, gazing up at the ridge where the predators parade in front of his cameras, sometimes with fresh kill in their mouths. “But what they do? That isn’t so beautiful.”

Animals
Culture
Extinction

Microplastics found in human ovary follicular fluid for the first time

Peer-reviewed study’s findings raises fresh question on the toxic substances’ impact on fertilityMicroplastics have been found for the first time in human ovary follicular fluid, raising a new round of questions about the ubiquitous and toxic substances’ potential impact on women’s fertility.The new peer-reviewed research published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety checked for microplastics in the follicular fluid of 18 women undergoing assisted reproductive treatment at a fertility clinic in Salerno, Italy, and detected them in 14. Continue reading...

Microplastics have been found for the first time in human ovary follicular fluid, raising a new round of questions about the ubiquitous and toxic substances’ potential impact on women’s fertility.The new peer-reviewed research published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety checked for microplastics in the follicular fluid of 18 women undergoing assisted reproductive treatment at a fertility clinic in Salerno, Italy, and detected them in 14.Follicular fluid provides essential nutrients and biochemical signals for developing eggs. Contaminating that process with bits of plastic quite likely has implications for fertility, hormonal balance and overall reproductive health, the authors wrote.The findings represent a major step toward figuring out how and why microplastics impact women’s reproductive health, but are also “very alarming”, Luigi Montano, a researcher at the University of Rome and study lead author, said.“This discovery should serve as an important warning signal about the invasiveness of these emerging contaminants in the female reproductive system,” the study states.From the top of Mt Everest to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, microplastics and smaller nanoplastics have been detected throughout the environment. Food is thought to be a main exposure route: recent studies found them in all meat and produce products tested.Microplastics are particularly dangerous because they can contain any number of 16,000 plastic chemicals. That includes highly toxic compounds like PFAS, bisphenol and phthalates that are linked to cancer, neurotoxicity, hormone disruption or developmental toxicity.Microplastics have been found throughout the human body and can cross the brain and placental barriers.Montano’s latest paper is part of a larger project he’s leading for which he has also detected microplastics in human urine and semen, and examines the impacts on fertility. He said he suspects microplastics are among chemicals driving plummeting sperm counts and a drop in overall sperm quality.“We have proven this decline, especially in areas where pollution is bad,” Montano said.Though men are more susceptible to the substance’s toxic effects, he added, women are also possibly impacted. Animal research has linked the presence of microplastics to ovarian dysfunction and health problems, like reduced oocyte maturation, and a lower capacity for fertilization. Another study on mice showed alterations to ovarian tissue.The paper notes a “possible presence of correlation between the concentration of microplastics” and reproductive health in the women who participated in the new study.Montano added that the bisphenol, phthalates, PFAS and other highly toxic chemicals that use microplastics as a “trojan horse” to get into the body, and into the ovaries, are “very dangerous”. The chemicals are already well-known for disrupting hormones and harming women’s reproductive health.The follicular fluid paper offers a “very important finding”, said Xiaozhong Yu, a University of New Mexico microplastics researcher, but he added that more work is needed to determine the dose and level of exposure at which adverse effects start to happen.“This is the work in the next phase – we need to quantify,” Yu said. His team is also attempting to answer some of those questions with broader epidemiological research.Montano’s team is doing similar work, and he’s spearheading research that is trying to determine how much reducing the use of plastic in the kitchen and eating an organic diet, will reduce the level of microplastics in the body.The substances’ ubiquity makes it difficult to avoid, but reducing the amount of plastic used in the kitchen – from packaging to storage to utensils – can likely reduce exposures. Pesticides can contain microplastics, or in some cases are a form of microplastics, so eating organic may help.Experts also advise that people avoid heating plastic, or putting hot food and liquid in plastic.Single-use paper coffee cups, for example, can shed trillions of bits of plastic when hot liquid is added. Similarly, tea bags can release billions of particles, and microwavable plastic is also a problem. Plastic utensils that briefly come into contact with hot pans can also leach chemicals, and wood and stainless steel alternatives are better.

Animals
Chemicals
Food

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