California Governor To End Use of Driftnets

Mercy For Animals/YouTube

Fish feel pain, which makes news that California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill to end the use of cruel swordfishing driftnets bittersweet. Footage of these driftnets unintentionally catching dolphins, stingrays, and sharks surface a few months ago. Needless to say, it was time for them to go. But in reality, the majority of animal suffering in our oceans comes from the fish we catch intentionally. Most fish killed for food die by asphyxiation, and many are gutted alive. Death times range from 25-250 minutes. [Mercy For Animals]

1. 🤯 I guess $1.5 million and two years in jail is the price you pay for poaching 250,000 pounds of sea cucumbers these days. One processor and 34 divers racked up this hefty penalty by underreporting their catch and then selling to foreign markets like China, where demand for sea cucumbers is growing. [Guardian]
2. 🐳 Half of the world’s orca population is under threat from polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) pollution, a chlorine compound used in copy paper, in the next 100 years. Scientists thought they solved the PCB problem years ago. Guess not. [New York Times]
3. ⚠️ Ravenous goats in Olympic National Park are addicted to human urine (or really, the salt in our sweat and pee). According to park officials, people peeing along trails turns them into “long, linear salt licks,” so um, don’t do that. [SnowBrains]
4. 💕 British Airways refuses to fly animals used for research. Scientists claim that the airline is discriminating against lab animals if it’s willing to fly pets. But anyone with an ounce of empathy for animals can see right through that. [The Week]
5. 🙏 Reduce your meat consumption by 50%. Europe, you can do that, right? [Rise]