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Come visit SPWC display booth at the

KINGSTON SHEEP DOG TRIALS

AUGUST 8th 9th & 10th

GRASS CREEK PARK

SPWC will be there with wildlife

information & fundraising items:

SPWC T-shirts - Feather Guards - Cooling Collars

"Adopt A Duck" Push Toys - Art Photos by Deb Stagg

& some fabulous vintage jewelry

Detailed information for the Sheep Dog Trials

can be seen at : www.cityofkingston.ca

 

 

E-Newsletter

NEW REPORT DEBUNKS PSEUDO-SCIENCE RATIONALE FOR SLAUGHTERING CORMORANTS IN NATIONAL PARK

A new report entitled A Critical Analysis of Point Pelee Park's Rationale for Killing the Middle Island Cormorants, has just been released by Cormorant Defenders International.

The report is a response to the presentations and material disseminated by Point Pelee National Park during their "public consultation" process. The park claims double-crested cormorant are a new, "hyperabundant" species (dismissing historical accounts of huge numbers of cormorants in the same region) that is damaging the "ecological integrity" of Middle Island and threatening a small number of plant species. They are proposing that thousands of nesting double-crested cormorants be shot as part of a management plan that would halt, at least temporarily, natural succession.

A Critical Analysis of Point Pelee Park's Rationale for Killing the Middle Island Cormorants shows how the park's information is selective, biased and, at times, non-sensical, and it reveals huge gaps in their information and critical deficiencies in their arguments.

The report addresses a wide range of issues and shows that double-crested cormorants are part of the natural ecology of Middle Island and that localized changes to vegetation, caused by the droppings of cormorants and other birds, are part of a process of natural succession, a sign that the island is a vibrant, dynamic, natural ecosystem.

The report notes that none of the plants on Middle Island are in danger of extinction and most are relatively common in other parts of Ontario and south of the border. It also discusses the fact that the park's plan won't stop natural succession in the long-term. If nesting birds are shot, then new birds will just move in to fill the vacated spaces. That's because the habitat and food supply that attracted cormorants to the island in the first place will still be there. To be effective, the killing would have to continue year after year after year.

More information about the Middle Island cormorant issue can be found at Cormorant Defenders International.

Express your opposition to the slaughter of thousands of cormorants in a national park by sending an email or letter to:

The Honourable John Baird
Minister of the Environment
Les Terrasses de la Chaudiere
10 Wellington Street, 28th Floor
Gatineau, Quebec, K1A 0H3
Tel: 819-997-1441
Fax: 819-953-0279

 

CONCERNS ABOUT PROPOSED STINGRAY TOUCH TANK AT TORONTO ZOO

The City of Toronto 2008 Recommended Operating Budget contains a $932,000 item for a temporary stingray touch tank display at the Toronto Zoo. The display, which would run from mid-May until the end of October, will feature debarbed Cownose and Southern Red Stingrays in a 60,500 litre, 50 cm deep pool. Zoo visitors will be able to pay a fee to enter the display to touch a stingray.

Zoocheck has many concerns about the stingray display, especially since the City of Toronto is in a financially challenging time and is considering the withdrawal of services for thousands of Toronto's injured and unwanted animals, both pets and native wildlife, in an effort to save approximately $545,000.

With limited funds available for addressing key animal issues in the City of Toronto, it seems prudent to allocate whatever funds are available to where they are most needed and where they will be most effective. Certainly, taking in animals whose owners can no longer care for them and continuing to respond to calls about sick and injured wild animals are far more pressing concerns than a temporary attraction at the Toronto Zoo. It makes no sense to withdraw funding from critical services, while at the same time, providing funds for an add-on at the zoo.

Zoocheck also has concerns about animal welfare. According to newspaper reports, the zoo intends to mutilate the stingrays by removing their barbs, a modified dorsal spine used as a defense mechanism, so visitors can touch them with no risk whatsoever. Zoocheck finds barb removal objectionable. Physically modifying animals to make them tractable and risk-free for the amusement of visitors is not something any zoo should do.

Zoocheck also has concerns about other aspects of the proposed display. A study conducted by a UK-based wildlife protection organization found numerous lacerations and other kinds of wounds in rays and sharks in open tanks where the public was allowed to touch them. In some cases, regular, repeated contact caused the animals to become excessively stressed and led to the development of abnormal behaviours. In the wild, they would have the opportunity to move to a safe distance from a perceived threat or to defend themselves, but neither option is available to barbless rays in a shallow, confined tank.

The purported educational benefit of these kinds of displays is often overstated and questionable. In fact, these displays may be educationally counter productive. It is not out of the question that children or adults who attend them will leave thinking these animals are harmless and that they tolerate or seek human contact, so when they encounter such species on vacation trips, they believe it is appropriate to approach and pet them. It may also teach people that it is acceptable to modify or mutilate animals for amusement purposes.

If you believe funds should be allocated for the continuation of services for injured and unwanted animals, instead of a touch tank at the zoo, or if you have other concerns about the stingray tank, please let the City of Toronto know.

Send a written submission to:

Budget Committee, City of Toronto

If you live in the City of Toronto, please express your concerns to your own City councillor. If you don't know who that is, click here.

 

REMINDER, PLEASE PARTICIPATE IN ZOOCHECK'S Wildlife in Captivity COMMUNITY CONSULTATION

In 2007 the Government of Ontario convened a working group to explore options for the regulation of zoos and wildlife displays. The group is expected to complete their examination and develop several regulatory options for consideration by the relevant Ontario government ministries next April.

Zoocheck has launched a province-wide community consultation initiative to show the Ontario government that regulation of zoos has strong support. You can help!

Please take a few moments to participate by printing out Zoocheck's wildlife in captivity community consultation questionnaire and returning it to Zoocheck by mail or fax.

An online version of the questionnaire is now available by clicking HERE.

You can help even more by circulating the questionnaire to family, friends and co-workers who are interested in wildlife. Our goal is 1,000 responses and we're more than halfway there.

 

Please Help
Support Zoocheck's 
Campaigns

Online Donations

Go Shopping!

Cheque Donations:

  Zoocheck Canada Inc.
2646 St. Clair Ave E.
Toronto, ON 
M4B 3M1

Phone: 416-285-1744
Fax: 416-285-4670
 Website

 

 

Copied from the Audubon Web site

State of the Birds > Common Birds in Decline

Common Birds In Decline

What's happening to birds we know and love?

                       

Audubon's unprecedented analysis of forty years of citizen-science bird population data from our own Christmas Bird Count plus the Breeding Bird Survey reveals the alarming decline of many of our most common and beloved birds.

Since 1967 the average population of the common birds in steepest decline has fallen by 68 percent; some individual species nose-dived as much as 80 percent. All 20 birds on the national Common Birds in Decline list lost at least half their populations in just four decades.

The findings point to serious problems with both local habitats and national environmental trends. Only citizen action can make a difference for the birds and the state of our future.

Which Species? Why?

The wide variety of birds affected is reason for concern. Populations of meadowlarks and other farmland birds are diving because of suburban sprawl, industrial development, and the intensification of farming over the past 50 years.

Greater Scaup and other tundra-breeding birds are succumbing to dramatic changes to their breeding habitat as the permafrost melts earlier and more temperate predators move north in a likely response to global warming. Boreal forest birds like the Boreal Chickadee face deforestation from increased insect outbreaks and fire, as well as excessive logging, drilling, and mining.

The one distinction these common species share is the potential to become uncommon unless we all take action to protect them and their habitat. Browse the species and learn what you can do to help.

 

 

THE EARTH HAS A FEVER. AND THE FEVER IS RISING . . WE ARE WHAT IS WRONG, AND WE MUST MAKE IT RIGHT

 

THE UNITED NATIONS REPORT ON THE WORLD'S ENVIRONMENT CLEARLY STATES WHAT WE DO IN THE NEXT TWO TO THREE YEARS IN DEVELOPING A WORLDWIDE GLOBAL WARMING PREVENTION AND PROTECTION STRATEGY WILL DETERMINE EARTH'S SURVIVAL FOR PRESENT AND FUTURE GENERATIONS 

 

"2008"

 

 

 RECENT CANADIAN AND WORLDWIDE OPINION POLLS CLEARLY SHOW THAT GLOBAL WARMING PREVENTION AND PROTECTION IS OF SERIOUS CONCERN AND BEYOND QUESTION WILL BECOME AN ELECTION ISSUE IN THE MAJORITY OF WORLD GOVERNMENTS, ESPECIALLY THE UNITED STATES' ELECTION AND ANTICIPATED CANADIAN ELECTION IN 2008.

 

 

 

GLOBAL WARMING PREVENTION AND PROTECTION CIRCLE OF LIFE TECHNOLOGIES MUST BECOME A NUMBER ONE PRIORITY BY WORLD GOVERNMENTS, COMMUNITIES AND TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN FOR PRESENT AND FUTURE GENERATIONS.

         

World communities and all three levels of the Canadian government should support and endorse the United Nation's report and develop a strategy on global warming prevention and protection as soon as possible - time is absolutely critical for earth's present and future generations.

 

Without urgent, aggressive steps to stop greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will cause devastating heat waves, floods, starvation and disease, says a report written by the world's top climate scientists and endorsed by 140 nations on Saturday, November 17, 2007.

 

Global Warming Prevention and Protection Technologies has spent years to develop and patent circle of life technologies that are environmentally friendly and cost- effective that will help to prevent the United Nation's predicted disasters and protect earth's climate, thereby insuring environmental security for present and future generations.

 

World governments and to whom it may concern must support a strategy that will incorporate global warming prevention and protection technologies, while ensuring job security and their economy, in the world action plan to protect the environment. 

 

It is absolutely essential that we move forward aggressively based on the credibility of the United Nations report that we only have two to three years in determining the world's future.

 

Global Warming Prevention and Protection Technologies has developed and patented the most cost-effective, environmentally friendly waste disposal technology (Hood) gasification process which does not exceed 1,400 deg. F.  There are absolutely no global warming emissions, can produce hydro directly to the grid, all residuals are recycled back to industry, with no waste going to landfill and will substantially reduce the cost of waste disposal for the 21st century. 

 

Our technology is extremely beneficial in global warming prevention because methane coming from landfill is 21 times the weight of CO2, a major cause of global warming. 

 

The key to success is to create landfill owner incentive to turn trash into cash while becoming environmental patriots utilizing the (Hood) gasification process.

 

The (Hood) gasification technology is the most environmentally friendly and cost-effective waste management solution in existence.  The process produces hydro and will turn trash into cash while protecting the environment and the health and well-being of present and future generations in regards to global warming prevention. 

 

Our company has also developed a cost-effective, environmentally friendly clean-coal hydro generation technology, Emissions Scrubbing "Ionized" Rain Tunnel (SIRT) that will make coal-fire hydro generation environmentally friendly and substantially assist in preserving the health and well-being of communities surrounding coal-fire hydro generation plants.

 

The current water crisis, as stated in the most recent report from the United Nations and the World Health Organization, that there are more than a billion people in the world without clean water is also of serious concern on behalf of our company.

 

We have developed the most advanced, environmentally friendly and cost-effective water purification and sewage treatment technologies in existence, that can be transported to any country in the world within 24 hours and can be designed for permanent installation producing 2,000 litres to a million litres of fresh drinking water per day.

 

We would like to offer our services and technologies to work together with the United Nations, world communities, organizations that support environmental security, all three levels of the Canadian government and to whom it may concern to discuss a strategy to support environmental protection for present and future generations by developing and manufacturing Global Warming Prevention and Protection Technologies.

 

We are now offering partnership and shares in our company to develop our technologies for global warming prevention and protection. 

 

You can become true environmental patriots while making profit and protecting present and future generations.

 

For further information, please contact the undersigned.

 

Yours truly,

Ian Hood, Chairman

Global Warming Prevention and Protection Technologies

& Public Protection Action Committee

15 Caledonia Rd.

Toronto, ON M6E 4S3

Phone: 416-652-6394

Email: phe1214@sympatico.ca

 

P.S.  The (Hood) gasification process is not plasma gasification (which is very costly on waste tonnage disposal with emissions and at least 30% of the waste sent to landfill).

 

The following link will give you a complete understanding of the effect global warming is having on the earth:

 

http://uk.reuters.com/news/video/videoStory?videoId=72319

 

The following link will give you a complete understanding of the negative environmental effect coal-fire hydro generation is having on the world:

 

http://carma.org

 

 

The following link will give you a complete understanding of the arctic meltdown and the effect it is having on our weather and the future of our earth:

 

http://www.thestar.com/fpLarge/video/276539