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RSN: Mort Rosenblum | Extra! Republicans Murder Elephants
Mort Rosenblum, Reader Supported News
Rosenblum writes:
UCSON – Months after the Sandy Hook gunman killed 20 schoolkids and six adults, Wayne LaPierre went to Botswana, eager to make a National Rifle Association promo video, a brave white hunter in mortal combat with a raging bull elephant. It didn’t happen that way.
The New Yorker unearthed the video eight years after the NRA buried it. It shows LaPierre, ham-handed and nervous, botch an up-close execution of his docile prey. Two guides praise him profusely, then shake their heads in contemptuous disbelief behind his back.
With several off-mark bullets, he wounds his quarry. One guide helps him aim a final coup de grace. As he preens for photos with his kill, the other one directs his wife’s tripod-mounted gun so that she can murder her own elephant, standing still a short distance away.
Lots of pictures show Don Jr. and Eric Trump posed triumphantly over noble African beasts they dispatched in similar fashion. But the LaPierres, giddy with glee as they fondle massive ivory tusks and saw off leathery tails, reach to the depths of human depravity.
During the mid-80s, I spent months in the Okavango Delta, that same part of Botswana, researching a book titled Squandering Eden. Later, I tracked supply chains to ivory and rhino horn markets in Asia.
In 1984, Burundi was down to its last elephant. Yet it exported 100 tons of ivory – tusks from 11,000 elephants illegally trafficked from other African countries. Ten million elephants roamed the continent in the 1930s. Today, estimates number them at near 400,000.
The problem is complex in Africa, where mushrooming human populations look askance at lumbering pachyderms that trample crops and devastate trees with their trunks. Game wardens need to cull old bulls in big herds to maintain a natural balance.
But there is money to be made, legitimately or otherwise, on an unruly continent in a world where rich high-rollers, Chinese chefs, Asian healers, and others spare little thought to the population crash, if not extinction, of creatures great and small.
Safari operators that charge up to $50,000 for an elephant hunt lobby hard for the privilege. Poachers with automatic weapons, hardly concerned with sustainability, massacre at random. They hack out tusks with machetes and leave the rest to rot.
Big-game hunting still had a certain panache in the 1980s. Lionel Palmer, a Botswana legend, made his clients work for their trophies and kept his camp in tune with the wilds. Once he silenced one of his bearer’s loud radio with a .357 rifle blast.
But Lloyd Wilmot saw the future. We toured the Okavango in a stripped-down Land Rover and then crisscrossed above savannahs in his Cessna to follow depleted herds. “It’s shocking,” he said. “Killing is peanuts with modern weapons. Hemingway did enormous damage to African wildlife by making hunting macho.”
Though modest in manner and stature, Lloyd was fearless. He was nearly trampled three times by elephants – and once by hippos while skin diving in a swamp. His father, Bobby, notched up 45,000 crocodiles in the Okavango until a black mamba got him in 1968.
In 1970, he decided that animals should be seen, not shot, and he set up Lloyd’s Camp at Savuti. Tourists loved it. One wrote in his guestbook: “If Lloyd is my shepherd, I Wilmot want.” He is still there, but many of those herds and prides he showed me are not.
The trend is grim for all African wildlife. In 2019, CNN produced a piece on cheetahs, handsome cats that can pace a Ferrari in first gear. Fewer than 7,500 then remained in the wild, experts estimated, and 1,000 were kept as exotic pets in Arab Gulf states.
Hundreds are captured annually in the Horn of Africa, smuggled out of Somaliland to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Cheetahs languish in captivity; many die within the year. Simple math suggests a crash from which they may not recover.
With Asian tigers in short supply, traditional Chinese medicine men instead grind up lion bones for assorted maladies, mostly one more effectively treated with Viagra.
Even tall blond giraffes are targeted, a bellwether that reflects deepening global crises. Food grows scarce as temperatures rise, and locusts ravage crops that survive drought. And as heavy weapons flood into Africa, game wardens are no match for armed gangs.
Traditional poachers are now joined by zealots from the defeated Islamic State, who moved deep into Africa where they link up with local Muslim terrorist groups. In areas they control, no hunting rules apply. For hungry villagers elsewhere, anything is fair game.
Hunters kill giraffes for their meat. They take what they can carry away and, like those slaughtered de-tusked elephant carcasses, the rest is left for the hyenas and vultures.
Overall, well-heeled foreigners account for a small part of the decline in African big game, and the morality of guided safaris with high-tech firepower is a personal call. My own inclination is to lump them together with those vultures and hyenas.
I am still haunted by a photo spread, years ago, in London’s Sunday Times. It showed aging American millionaires with self-satisfied smiles in vast trophy rooms displaying mounted heads and stuffed pelts: lions, leopards, buffalo and the rest, even a few rhinos.
All that needless plunder raises the obvious question: How much good might been done in Africa if the cost of all those safaris went toward helping people? Live animals, protected in natural habitat game parks, generate income for Africans who badly need it.
Watching that New Yorker video (the link is attached) adds another question. Just how much money did the NRA squander for scrapped propaganda meant to portray its spendthrift director as a skilled role-model sportsman?
It is sickening enough to see a hobby hunter gloat over an elephant that in a fair matchup would stomp him into mush. In the case of Wayne LaPierre, a wimp warrior who callously condones so many human gun deaths at home, it is beyond obscene.
Mort Rosenblum has reported from seven continents as Associated Press special correspondent, edited the International Herald Tribune in Paris, and written 14 books on subjects ranging from global geopolitics to chocolate. He now runs MortReport.org.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Demonstrators stand outside of the Georgia Capitol building on March 3, 2021, in Atlanta, Georgia. (photo: Getty)
A Former Georgia Sheriff's Deputy Said He Wanted to Charge Black People With Felonies to Prevent Them From Voting, Court Documents Show
Madison Hall, Business Insider
Hall writes: "A former Georgia deputy said he had plans to charge Black Georgians with felonies to prevent them from voting, according to court filings in the Middle District of Georgia."
Cody Griggers, 28, pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of possession of an unregistered firearm. He was fired from his position in November 2020 after FBI investigators messaged the Wilkinson County sheriff about the investigation into Griggers, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.
The FBI first became aware of Griggers from a separate federal case in California regarding an associate of his, Grey Zamudio. They started investigating Zamudio after receiving a tip about Facebook posts that said "it's up to vigilantie militia to crush the liberal terrorists." Investigators seized Zamudio's cell phone from a search warrant where they discovered that he and Griggers regularly communicated in a group text known as "Shadow Moses."
According to the filing, Griggers wrote extensively in the group about purchasing illegal weapons and explosives and "expressed viewpoints consistent with white racially motivated extremists," including positive references to the Holocaust.
In August 2019, Griggers wrote in the group that he used excessive force on a theft suspect and said the beating was "sweet stress relief."
"I beat the s--- out of a n-----t on Saturday," he wrote. "Sherrif's dept said it look like he fell."
Griggers also said he planned to charge Black Georgians with felonies to prevent them from voting, the court documents show.
"It's a sign of beautiful things to come," Griggers said. "Also I'm going to charge them with whatever felonies I can to take away their ability to vote."
In Georgia, felons are not allowed to vote until completing the terms of parole, incarceration, probation, and all fines are paid.
Two months after detailing his plan to strip Black Georgians from being able to vote, Griggers reiterated his desire to disenfranchise voters in the event of a second Civil War, the filing shows.
"I think it might be best to fight the next generation," Griggers wrote in the group text. "Castrate, kill, remove voting rights, and also educate the population. Basically kill and f--- the enemy out of existence."
After executing a search warrant at Griggers' home in November 2020, investigators said they discovered an unregistered rifle with an illegally shortened barrel. Griggers' work vehicle was searched as well, where officers discovered several additional weapons including a machine gun with an "obliterated serial number" that was not issued to him by the Wilkinson County Sheriffs Office. In total, investigators found 11 illegal firearms.
"This former law enforcement officer knew that he was breaking the law when he chose to possess a cache of unregistered weapons, silencers, and a machinegun, keeping many of them in his duty vehicle, said Acting US Attorney Peter Leary in a DOJ release. "Coupled with his violent racially motivated extreme statements, the defendant has lost the privilege permanently of wearing the blue."
Griggers' sentencing is set for July 6. He faces up to 10 years in prison for the firearm charge followed by three years of supervised release and a maximum fine of $250,000.
Bianca and her daughter can't fathom why authorities raided their home by mistake. (photo: KARE 11)
Minneapolis Police Held an Innocent Family at Gunpoint in No-Knock SWAT Raid
A.J. Lagoe and Steve Eckert, KARE 11
Excerpt: "As Bianca Mathias' home was searched, she says it became clear to the officers that they had made a mistake."
Mother and child terrorized in bungled no-knock warrant raid. A KARE 11 investigation reveals Minneapolis police failed basic checks and hit the wrong address.
was like waaaaa…” Bianca Mathias recalls screaming just after 6 o’clock on Thursday morning, Feb. 11.
She woke up to flashlights, firearms, and strange men in her Coon Rapids townhome.
“Two of them had their guns up,” she said, holding her arms in the air as if holding a rifle.
“I thought we were being robbed at first,” said the hairdresser.
The home invaders smashed through the front door and proceeded to bash in bedroom doors – even breaking in on her young daughter.
“The sound was just so quick,” said 12-year-old Jaiselle Mathias of the moment her door slammed open.
“I got really scared,” she said, remembering how guns were pointed at her as she lay in bed.
“I’ve never felt so helpless as a mom,” Bianca said, “because all I did is sit there and scream initially.”
Down the hall, other armed men used a battering ram on the door of the guestroom where family friend Justin Garbette was just getting up for work.
“All of a sudden, my door burst through and I got zip tied,” he said.
In a matter of seconds, the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office SWAT Team - which does not wear body cameras - had achieved their goal of securing the home.
The problem? Records show authorities raided the wrong address.
What’s more, a KARE 11 investigation has uncovered evidence that the correct address was easily available in public records. But Minneapolis authorities who requested the raid apparently failed to check them.
A mistake
“They were like, ‘Do you know what we’re here for?’ I’m like, ‘No’!” Bianca responded.
“‘Have a seat on the couch,’” she remembers them telling her. They said a Minneapolis police detective would be in soon to explain.
Bianca, her daughter and their friend were escorted downstairs in their pajamas to be interviewed.
No real explanation was given even after MPD Sergeant David Swierzewski came inside.
According to Bianca, they were told Minneapolis police were looking for someone who was armed and dangerous and lived at her address.
Although it was a Minneapolis investigation, the home was in Anoka County. So, the sheriff’s SWAT team was brought in to assist with the raid.
As her home was searched, she says it became clear to the officers that they had made a mistake.
“Oh, you’re not who we’re looking for,” she recalls being told.
“Ya think?” the now angry woman responded – looking at all the damage to her front and bedroom doors.
The only items taken by investigators were some mail addressed to the prior residents.
Bianca and her daughter had moved into the home in May of last year and couldn’t fathom why their house was targeted.
“I just don’t understand how they messed it up that bad,” Jaiselle said, “We’ve been living here for almost an entire year and you raided the wrong house.”
The search warrant left behind provided some clues.
No-knock warrant
The Anoka SWAT team and MPD detective left Bianca with a copy of a search warrant that authorized the raid.
It described what is known as a “no-knock” warrant - where police are not required to announce their presence before forcibly entering a property.
It was signed by judge Thomas Fitzpatrick and authorized a nighttime search of the residence without announcement of authority, looking for firearms, electronic devices capable of recording location history, and a blue and black jacket or sweatshirt, black pants, and black and white shoes.
“Did you even have a gun in the home?” asked KARE 11 investigative reporter A.J. Lagoe.
“No!” responded Bianca. “I wouldn’t have a gun, I’m not a gun person.”
“My mom is like scared of them,” Jaiselle chimed in.
Unable to get answers on her own, Bianca asked KARE 11 for help figuring out why her home was targeted.
KARE 11 obtained SWAT team after action and incident reports from Anoka County that spell out what happened.
Robbery Investigation
According to the Anoka records, Minneapolis police were investigating a robbery that happened in the Lake Street Target parking lot.
The victim was robbed of a handgun at gunpoint.
The records state that the identified suspect was reported to have been living in Coon Rapids with his mother.
KARE 11 is not naming him because he has not been charged in this case.
The address listed on the warrant is the same home where Bianca and Jaiselle now live.
MPD then obtained the no-knock warrant and requested help from Anoka SWAT in executing it.
The SWAT team drew up a tactical plan, which included breaching the front door with a ram in the pre-dawn raid.
Bianca and Jaiselle believe police failed to make basic checks before officers came storming in unannounced, guns drawn.
They’re right.
Easy to find
A KARE 11 investigation found the real address for the robbery suspect MPD was targeting was easy to find.
KARE 11 quickly discovered a current address in St. Paul listed right on the state court’s public website.
What’s more, the man is on probation for a prior conviction and is required to keep his address updated with Anoka Community Corrections.
In an email to KARE 11, an Anoka county spokesperson confirmed the man is in full compliance with the address requirements of his probation - and was when the raid happened back in February.
A simple check with the local probation office would have indicated that the suspect was no longer staying at the Coon Rapids house where Bianca and her daughter now live.
There were other reasons to believe he had moved.
KARE 11 discovered St. Paul police incident reports showing they had multiple interactions with the man at his current address – after the Target parking lot robbery and before the botched Coon Rapids raid.
Some basic checking could have prevented the wrong-address raid.
Controversial tactic
It is not the first time police have raided the wrong home.
Surprise police raids like this have resulted in civilian deaths and attracted criticism since the war on drugs was at its height in 1980s and 90s.
No-knock warrants have come under even harsher criticism nationwide since police in Louisville, Kentucky shot and killed 26-year-old Breonna Taylor in her home in March 2020.
Gunfire erupted between the detectives and Taylor's boyfriend, who said he thought the officers were home invaders.
Taylor was struck and killed by police bullets.
Her name - along with George Floyd's - has been chanted nationwide during protests against police killings of Black people.
Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was among those in attendance at the funeral last week for Daunte Wright, the young man killed during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center.
“They (no-knock raids) result in people being injured, property being destroyed, and people losing their lives,” said Minnesota State Representative Athena Hollins (DFL – St. Paul)
Hollins introduced a bill to regulate when no-knocks can be used in Minnesota. The proposed legislation initially limited them to cases involving first degree murder, hostages, kidnapping, terrorism, and human trafficking. A modified version passed the House but has yet to gain traction in the GOP-controlled state Senate.
Hollins says too often, no-knock warrants have been used disproportionately on communities of color.
“We need to work with law enforcement,” Hollins said, “to make sure we’re doing our due diligence before invading someone’s home. And potentially the wrong person’s home!”
Due diligence?
“What due diligence was done to make sure that the proper individuals were staying in that house?” KARE 11 asked Anoka Sheriff James Stuart about the raid on Bianca’s home.
“That would be a question for MPD,” replied Stuart.
Stuart says he can’t remember a similar “terrible situation” ever happening in Anoka County, and acknowledges his team did none of their normal fact-checking or surveillance before executing the no-knock warrant.
He says they trusted MPD to have done their due diligence since it was their warrant.
Sheriff Stuart says he was “hot under the collar” when learning they’d gone into an innocent family’s home.
“It will certainly cause us to pause and reflect on how we interact with outside investigating agencies,” he said.
What, if any, steps MPD made to fact-check the information is not known.
Promised reform
The botched raid happened despite reforms Minneapolis officials announced months ago.
Following the death of George Floyd, Minneapolis police announced restrictions in November on the use of no-knock warrants as part of promised police reforms.
“This is about proactive policymaking and instilling accountability,” Mayor Jacob Frey said in a press release at the time. “We can’t prevent every tragedy, but we can limit the likelihood of bad outcomes. This new, no-knock warrant policy will set shared expectations for our community and clear and objective standards within the department.”
When KARE 11 filed open records requests under Minnesota’s data practices law to find out if the new policies were followed in the Coon Rapids raid, a city official replied: “MPD would not have any reports related to this incident as it did not occur in Minneapolis.”
State law requires search warrants and lists of what was seized to typically be filed with the court within 10 days.
More than two months after the early morning raid on Bianca’s home, there’s still no record in the state court system of the search warrant – or the evidence provided to Judge Fitzpatrick by MPD Detective Swierzewski when he applied for the warrant.
Except for the copy left with Bianca, there is no public record of the search warrant’s existence.
Spokesman John Elder told KARE 11 MPD acted on the best information they had and defended the use of the search warrant because the robbery suspect still had mail going to the Coon Rapids address.
Even so, Bianca says a little fact checking by MPD could have saved her a damaged home and a lot of mental trauma.
“I actually asked them,” she said, “What would it have taken for you guys to shoot us?”
In May 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on the Osage Avenue neighborhood and burned it to the ground during a battle with the militant group MOVE. (photo: George Widman/AP)
After Protests Over Unauthorized Use of MOVE Child's Bones, University of Pennsylvania and Princeton Apologize
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "Following protests, two Ivy League schools - the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University - have issued apologies for their handling of the remains of an African American child killed by the Philadelphia police in the 1985 MOVE bombing."
ollowing protests, two Ivy League schools — the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University — have issued apologies for their handling of the remains of an African American child killed by the Philadelphia police in the 1985 MOVE bombing. Students at Princeton held a protest on campus to support the demands of the MOVE community, who held another protest at the same time at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, and 70 Princeton professors signed on to a letter published in the campus newspaper that called on the university to act. “This routinely happens where vulnerable people are exploited in the name of research,” says Aisha Tahir, a Princeton senior who helped organize a protest on campus. “Princeton does not have practices in place which center the preciousness of human life.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman. By the way, you can sign up for our daily news digest email by texting the word “democracynow” — one word, no space — to 66866. That’s “democracynow,” texting it to 66866 today.
Yes, this is Democracy Now!, as we continue to look at the MOVE bombing and its aftermath. Two Ivy League schools have issued apologies this week for their handling of the remains of an African American child killed by the Philadelphia police in the 1985 bombing of the home of the radical, Black liberation, anti-police-brutality group MOVE. The apologies came after revelations that the remains of a child who was a victim of the bombing were reportedly given to anthropologist Alan Mann, a now-retired Princeton University professor, and held in the Penn Museum for years — the Penn Museum is the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology — and that the bones were recently used in an online teaching course by Penn Museum curator Janet Monge, a visiting Princeton University professor. The online course was called “Real Bones: Adventures in Forensic Anthropology.” It was used, the bones, without permission from the family of the children.
Students at Princeton have held a protest on campus Wednesday to support the MOVE community, who held another protest at the same time at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. This is one of the speakers.
PROTESTER: They say it’s OK because they think, “Oh, well, this is a part of this cultural moment. This is how the science goes. This is how we do it. We had to do it. This is what excuses us experimenting on human beings.” They’ve been doing this to our Black bodies for hundreds of years! In the name of science, in the name of study. We are not subjects of study. We are human beings, God damn it, and our lives matter!
AMY GOODMAN: Philadelphia City Councilperson Jamie Gauthier, who was responsible for issuing the apology for the MOVE bombing, also spoke at the protest Wednesday outside the University of Pennsylvania.
COUNCILMEMBER JAMIE GAUTHIER: The University of Pennsylvania has apologized for its role in this situation. But an apology is not enough. Saying it won’t happen again is not enough. The damage is already done, and now everyone involved needs to be held accountable for their actions. The Africa family is owed a full explanation of what happened by the university and by the city of Philadelphia, who transferred the remains to Professor Mann without consent. And the family is also owed some form of restitution to compensate for this egregious act.
AMY GOODMAN: This week, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, known as the Penn Museum, apologized via Twitter, saying, quote, “We understand the importance of reuniting the remains with the family, and we are working now to find a respectful, consultative resolution.” Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber issued a statement saying he’s, quote, “concerned” over reports that the remains were used for instruction on campus, and said he would launch a fact-finding effort conducted by outside counsel.
Earlier this week, Democracy Now! spoke with Mike Africa Jr., a second-generation MOVE member who was 6 years old when Philadelphia police bombed the MOVE home.
MIKE AFRICA JR.: I don’t trust the Penn Museum. I don’t trust Princeton. I definitely want to say that there is more to come with this. … There needs to be accountability, because the reaction, the people — Penn’s reaction to this is totally unprofessional, making an apology through a statement through someone else. And, you know, the whole thing just is egregious.
AMY GOODMAN: This week, 70 Princeton professors, including Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Imani Perry and Eddie Glaude, signed on to a letter published in the campus newspaper calling on the university to act. The group writes, quote, “The University should move beyond denial to pursue restitution and repair. … The victims of the MOVE bombing, their families, and those of us at Princeton invested in Black history and communities deserve more,” they said.
To begin our look at what all this means, we go to Princeton University, where we’re joined Aisha Tahir, a senior who is an African American studies major. She helped organize a protest on campus Wednesday to support the MOVE community’s demands.
Aisha, welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about what you are demanding.
AISHA TAHIR: So, what we demanded, we wanted in our demands to kind of show the complexity of the matter and the fact that it wasn’t simple when we came up with the demands, acknowledging that justice and accountability looks very different for the family and how it could look for us and the people at this institution who are calling for accountability here. So, one of our most important kind of factors was that we want Princeton to work with the family and work with them and kind of try to understand how they can repair that part of the harm that has happened, but on the side of the institution, which, you know, this routinely happens, where vulnerable people are exploited in the name of research and lab scientific knowledge.
And so, our demands here really focus on the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Princeton has countless financial resources. We want them to work with the family and with the organizations on the outside to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, knowing that what we are really fighting for, beyond accountability, is also human life, and Mumia is still in prison, and we would like for Mumia to be free.
Our other most important demand is that we make sure that this never happens again. This was able to happen because Princeton has — Princeton does not have practices in place which kind of center the preciousness of human life, and it allows vulnerable people to be used as lab subjects. And so, we asked for the faculty who signed on to the op-ed that you just talked about — we asked that those faculty overlook kind of like an accountability, also do an investigation into the Anthropology Department and to work with people on the outside and people on the inside to see how the department needs to change. The fact that there are only three professors within the department who signed on — as of last night, I checked, there were only three professors within the department who signed on to the letter — that’s horrific. And as students, I mean, we routinely see how the departments on this university ignore these very violations of human life.
And so, I think that those are the two most important demands, which are that this can never happen again, and we need to make sure that there is economic justice involved in this process, but also the fact that Mumia needs to be freed. And we heard that from the Africa family, and we’re going to echo that. And we’re also going to acknowledge that this is a lot more complicated, and we, possibly, and this institution can’t know what justice looks like, so they need to work with the family, with the MOVE organization, to know what will be justice for them.
AMY GOODMAN: And your response, Aisha, to the Princeton University president saying he’s concerned over reports that the remains were used for instruction on campus, and that he’s launching an independent investigation?
AISHA TAHIR: I mean, I’ve been long involved in organizing on campus. And, you know, my first question is: Why did they come almost a week and a half later, after there was a protest, after faculty signed on to an op-ed? Why did he decide to do a statement now? Also, the fact that there’s going to be a fact-finding investigation, that means nothing. He should have reached out to the family. He should have had sat down with the family, virtually, in person, socially distanced, whatever that might be. He should have, to take this with a sense of urgency. I saw no sense of urgency in this, which means that he clearly does not understand the implications of what has happened.
It is incredibly traumatizing to students who learn at this university, knowing that we are being taught and we are being — we are complicit in all of these — right? — because we sat through them, were present through them. And he is able to sleep at night. I don’t know how.
And so, I think that my response to him is that, I mean, I believe nothing he says, and I also believe that this will change nothing, other than — I think that that was kind of what our protest tried to show, is that it will only be students and faculty and staff and community members who will mobilize the university to do better, because I believe that President Eisgruber and — he’s shown, time and time again, and in his response now, that the university is primarily a corporation that responds only to media and kind of a reputational kind of response. So, that’s what he did, I think.
AMY GOODMAN: Aisha Tahir, I want to thank you for being with us, senior at Princeton University, African American studies major, helped organize the protest on the campus Wednesday to support the MOVE community. And congratulations on your upcoming graduation. As we turn now to speak with historian Sam Redman, author of Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums, in a minute.
Protestors in 2019 marching against Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. The federal agency frequently uses false information from gang databases to detain and deport immigrants of color. (photo: Nuccio Dinuzzo/Getty)
How Police "Gang Databases" Are Being Used to Wage War on Immigrants
Maurizio Guerrero, In These Times
Guerrero writes: "Wearing a certain colored hat hardly merits attention from the authorities, but it can be enough to get somebody in the system - and eventually deported."
Demonstrators take part in a protest against the tax reform of President Ivan Duque's government in Bogota, Colombia, April 28, 2021. (photo: Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters)
Thousands of Colombians March to Protest Tax Proposals
Nelson Bocanegra, Reuters
Bocanegra writes: "Thousands of protesters answered calls from Colombia's biggest unions to come out on streets around the country on Wednesday in protest against a controversial tax reform proposal."
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A nesting female returns to the sea after laying her eggs on Jamursba Medi Beach, Indonesia. (photo: Barakhiel Here Nugroho)
Time Is Running Out for Embattled Pacific Leatherback Sea Turtles
Marlowe Starling, Mongabay
Starling writes: "Marine biologists warn that the western Pacific leatherback could go extinct without immediate conservation measures and transnational cooperation."
lear-skied, low-wind summer days are rare off the coast of California. But they’re a blessing if you’re a researcher tracking down critically endangered leatherback sea turtles.
Marine ecologists Scott Benson and Karin Forney, with NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, spent many of those days tag-teaming a decades-long research effort to collect data on one of the world’s oldest and largest marine reptiles. Forney sits in the clear belly of a NOAA surveying plane, scanning the dark waters like a hawk, notifying the team when she spots a leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). Benson, her husband, is among the scientists on the boat below, prepped at the hull with a large net, anticipating the moment they can heave the prehistoric giant on board.
Then comes the sampling: blood tests, tissue samples, attaching transmitters, recording weight. It’s an hour-long ordeal, Benson says, and “an all-consuming task.” In a month and a half, the team gets maybe five good-weather opportunities to collect data on this massive but little-understood species. And it could be their last chance to save this population.
The western Pacific leatherback sea turtle is at high risk of extinction, according to a study published in Global Ecology and Conservation. The researchers, including lead author Benson and co-author Forney, used roughly three decades of data to assess the population’s status. Combining their observations of foraging turtles in California with data on nesting patterns in Indonesia, the researchers estimate the population has declined at a rate of 5.6% annually, suffering an overall 80% decline from 1990 to 2017.
Both on land and at sea, the turtles face a series of existential threats in the Pacific. The situation is so dire that scientists on both sides of the ocean have dedicated their lives to reeling the distinct populations back from a dangerous tipping point.
The leatherback in the Pacific
The world knew little about Pacific leatherbacks prior to the 1980s, when scientists started collecting more data. Without modern-day technology like satellite transmitters to track turtles’ movements, biologists couldn’t have known that the leatherbacks foraging off the Californian coast were the same as those nesting in the western Pacific.
Today we know that leatherback sea turtles span the globe with seven genetically distinct subpopulations: the eastern and western in the Pacific Ocean, as well as three in the Atlantic Ocean and two in the Indian Ocean. While the IUCN lists the species as a whole as vulnerable, both Pacific subpopulations are considered critically endangered.
“We know what a thriving sea turtle population needs, but the expanse over which this drama is playing out in the Pacific is so huge, it’s hard to understand the whole puzzle and which parts need to be leveraged,” said Kyle Van Houtan, chief scientist of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, who was not involved with the study.
All leatherback sea turtle populations are declining, but those in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans are more robust than the plummeting Pacific populations, Benson said.
Pacific leatherbacks feed in seven known areas of the ocean, stretching from New Zealand to Japan to California. While the eastern subpopulation nests in Mexico and parts of Central America, western Pacific leatherbacks nest primarily in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.
The research team recorded an average of 140 individuals in central California’s foraging patch from 1990 to 2003, but that number dropped to an average of 55 by 2017.
Still, the data only account for a fraction of a population that is scattered across the entire Pacific Ocean and migrates at unpredictable time intervals. Benson said the annual decline of nesting females in West Papua, Indonesia, closely mirrors the rate of decline his team calculated in California, providing further evidence that the entire western subpopulation is suffering.
There is no exact count of how many western Pacific leatherback turtles are left. An analysis in 2013 by the IUCN estimated around 1,400 adult turtles survived in the subpopulation. The IUCN also forecasts the population will dip below 1,000 individuals by 2030.
Scientists say a concrete population estimate is difficult given the nature of western Pacific leatherbacks. It is the only subpopulation with a bimodal nesting pattern, meaning some females nest in the summer while others nest in the winter. Compounding the uncertainty, western Pacific leatherbacks only visit foraging and nesting grounds every two to five years.
Western Pacific leatherbacks are attracted to the Monterey ecosystem in California due to the “the immense productivity … because of the upwelling, the deep offshore currents coming up to the surface, causing these cascades of nutrients and life,” Van Houtan said. “That’s why we have these leatherbacks.”
Unlike most reptiles, leatherback turtles can self-regulate their body temperature, allowing them “to go places where no other sea turtles can go,” Van Houtan added. These long-evolved marine reptiles — “living fossils,” as he describes them — date back to the Cretaceous Period, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Today, they are the only living species in the Demochelys genus.
Weighing up to 900 kilograms (2,000 pounds) and growing up to 2 meters (7 feet) long, leatherbacks are the largest turtle species on the planet. They are also the most migratory sea turtle, traveling up to 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) a year between nesting and feeding sites. These giants can dive more than 1,200 m (4,000 ft) deep — deeper than any other sea turtle — thanks to their soft shells, which won’t crack under pressure.
But even evolution’s long helping hand may not be enough to protect them from humanity’s reach.
Threats at sea and on land
Pacific leatherback turtles face a multitude of perils both at sea and on land. Among them are impoverished villagers who poach eggs or adults for meat, and habitat degradation in the Pacific islands, where coastal development and cyclones have eroded nesting beaches. But the biggest threat, according to scientists, are fishing vessels that accidentally kill turtles as bycatch.
Drift gillnet and longline fisheries — large-scale fishing operations on the open ocean that harvest an abundance of seafood, like swordfish — are notorious for killing sea turtles that get caught in nets and other fishing gear. Worse, scientists say existing bycatch data probably underestimate the true numbers.
“It’s the wild west out on the open ocean,” said George Shillinger, a marine biologist who has studied leatherbacks for three decades and is executive director of Upwell, an NGO dedicated to sea turtle conservation. He added that even if nests are protected, ship strikes and bycatch will continue to decimate the population. And then there’s the further obstacle of subsidized fisheries, expanding fishing fleets and more intense artisanal fishing, he said, noting “we are really challenged to stave off the relentless pressures.”
Across the Pacific, marine scientist Deasy Lontoh champions for leatherback protection in West Papua, Indonesia. She is the research coordinator for the Abun Leatherback Project, which seeks to combat threats that are difficult and costly to mitigate at sea by protecting what’s on shore: nesting females and eggs.
Lontoh co-authored a recent paper outlining threats to the largest remaining nesting population on two beaches in West Papua, known as Jamursba-Medi and Wermon. Lontoh’s team says it hopes to protect at least half of leatherback nests with the help of local communities.
Lontoh is trying to avoid what happened in Malaysia when a nesting population of western Pacific leatherbacks vanished entirely. Egg harvesting was a rampant, and legal, way for locals to make money until the Terengganu Turtle Sanctuary Advisory Council outlawed it in 1988. From the 1950s to 1995, Malaysia went from 10,000 nests annually to a mere handful. No nests have been reported in almost a decade.
But even when people don’t harvest turtle eggs, juvenile survival is naturally a gamble. Scientists estimate that only one in every 1,000 eggs survive to maturity, while females lay around 80 eggs in each nest.
“A lot of hatchlings will die, so we just need to produce high enough numbers … and assume that some of them will become adults in 15 or 20 years,” Lontoh said.
Climate change further mars the leatherbacks’ future. More extreme storms can decimate nesting sites, while rising temperatures can bake eggs to death. Lontoh said that, locally, sands can reach a lethal 33° Celsius (91° Fahrenheit), and temperatures are rising in the area alongside global trends.
Under normal circumstances, leatherbacks would be less fragile, Benson notes. For one, they lay eggs in multiple locations and span much of the world’s oceans. They have also survived several natural climate changes over the past 80 million years. But scientists don’t know how the recent, and rapid, changes in water temperature, ocean currents, and upwelling of nutrients will affect leatherbacks.
“Climate change is thrusting all of those things that they depended on up into the air,” Van Houtan said. “We need to listen to these signals that the ocean is telling us, because the ocean is the driver of life on our planet.”
As the Pacific leatherback population size continues to shrink, climate change and human pressures become a daunting threat to their survival.
“Something more needs to be done,” Shillinger said.
Turtle needs: Regulations and tourism
For a species inhabiting millions of square miles, keeping it out of harm’s way is a monumental task. Scientists have spent the past two decades calling for stricter fishing regulations. But the lack of transnational cooperation and enforcement by governments has been an obstacle to protecting the turtles through policy and regulations.
“One government won’t solve it,” Shillinger said. “Everyone’s got to be involved.”
By the mid-1990s, emerging data revealed high bycatch rates for large marine animals like sea turtles. To mitigate bycatch, the U.S. government created the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area in 2001: a seasonal protected area off the U.S. West Coast that covers 650,000 square kilometers (250,000 square miles) of ocean and prohibits drift gillnet fishing during the months leatherbacks feast on jellyfish.
Dubbed a “time-area closure,” the new regulation helped reduce leatherback bycatch from an average of about 15 turtles per year to fewer than two a year after 2001, according to NOAA.
Additional regulations have helped save turtles in U.S. waters. For example, California’s commercial fisheries aren’t allowed to use pelagic longlines that can accidentally bait sea turtles. Meanwhile, Hawaiʻi’s longline fishery comes with 100% observer coverage, meaning there is always someone documenting bycatch. California is also testing newer technology like deep-set buoy gear, which bypasses leatherbacks feeding on jellyfish to hook swordfish at lower depths.
However, none of these rules apply in international waters. For better protections, Benson and Forney say member countries of regional fishery management organizations like the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission need to encourage safer fishery practices.
For the leatherback populations to recover, scientists have suggested a 40% bycatch reduction over the next two decades.
It’s an ambitious goal, Shillinger said, adding “what really has to happen is to elevate political will … and make governments accountable for protecting their resources.”
In the meantime, Benson called on people to ask waiters at restaurants how and from where their fish is sourced.
“Please consume U.S.-caught swordfish or tuna, because it comes with a side dish of Endangered Species Act rather than a side dish of dead turtle or dead dolphin,” he said.
Leatherback conservation also needs to move forward at nesting sites. The Abun Leatherback Project, which works primarily in remote and impoverished villages in West Papua, attempts to protect western Pacific leatherbacks by employing the help of locals. A team of 10 monitors patrols the beaches while others help measure leatherbacks, release hatchlings or create shades made from palm fronds to keep nests cool.
Conservation success is contingent upon local people, Lontoh said: if they don’t care about leatherbacks, they won’t try to save them.
“[Locals] have strategic roles,” Lontoh said. “In the future, they’re probably the ones who will [either] help take care of the leatherbacks or help them go extinct.”
But that requires incentives and income. Lontoh said the local government set forth an agenda in 2019 to develop the nearby area for tourism. In rural areas with limited resources, women have prepared to make souvenirs, such as the traditional noken woven bags, to sell to tourists.
“To get [rural people] to see that the leatherbacks are worth protecting, they need to feel benefits from conservation,” Lontoh said.
Tourism has funded conservation efforts in other areas of the world already, Shillinger said.
“Leatherbacks bring in a lot of ecotourism projects around the world,” he said. “Turtles are really charismatic, benign, attractive animals, and no one wants to see them harmed. So culturally, economically and socially, turtles play an important role.”
An ocean without leatherbacks
The question remains: What if western Pacific leatherbacks do go extinct? Scientists warn it could happen in a matter of decades without immediate action.
“In the West Pacific, there’s a little bit of a window left, but it’s not much,” Benson said. “It’s definitely 11:55 on its way to midnight.”
Losing leatherbacks could throw the entire ecosystem off-balance. Leatherbacks, with their ferocious appetites (eating up 40% of their body weight daily), gobble down huge amounts of jellyfish that in turn devour fish larvae and plankton. By eating these bountiful yet low-nutrition “jellies,” the turtles help keep jellyfish numbers under control. In recent years, however, Benson said he’s noticed an increase of brown sea nettle (Chrysaora fuscescens), one of the leatherbacks’ favorite jellies, in California’s waters.
“Over time, this might be an illustration that the number of leatherbacks is so reduced now that they can’t serve part of their ecological roles,” Lontoh said.
Because jellyfish eat fish larvae, more jellyfish may mean less fish overall, likely impacting small-scale artisanal fisheries and rural Pacific islanders who depend on fish for food or income. Fish provide about 3.3 billion people worldwide with nearly 20% of their animal protein, according to the most recent Fishery and Aquaculture Statistics report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.
A world without leatherbacks “would still function,” Shillinger said, “but there would be some big shifts that we still don’t understand.”
As the forces of climate change are amplified — cyclones that wash away nests, sand temperatures so hot that hatchlings bake to death, a rapidly changing California Current — a conservation biologist’s job becomes no easier.
“This is kind of a higher calling,” Benson said. “This is a species threatened with extinction, a lot of people don’t know about it, so it’s my job to provide some data to increase the opportunities for recovery of the population.”
Ironically, Shillinger said, many Californians are unaware that their state marine reptile is the Pacific leatherback.
“Losing a species is a tragedy, something that humanity should really be concerned about,” Shillinger said. “As the turtles go, so too does everything else — including ourselves.”
This article was originally published on Mongabay.
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