A Pennsylvania woman is facing legal trouble after authorities discovered she had been keeping a white-tailed deer as a pet.

According to WPXI and KDKA, a Pennsylvania Game Warden was alerted to a buck wearing a dog collar and ear tags in Bullskin Township earlier this week.

The woman, identified as 64-year-old Tamara Shiery, was reportedly seen driving next to the deer, attempting to guide it back home.

Officials say Shiery had confined the deer in a fenced-in area on her property. The animal had been castrated, and its antlers were prevented from growing.

When authorities arrived with a valid search warrant, Shiery refused to cooperate, leading to her arrest for interference. The deer, named Baby, was taken into custody.

Pennsylvania law allows wild animals to be kept as pets only if they were born in captivity and properly licensed.

The Game Commission confirmed that Baby did not meet those requirements. However, Shiery insists she had followed the correct procedures with the Department of Agriculture and had even vaccinated the deer.

The case has sparked debate about human interactions with wildlife. While Shiery clearly cared for Baby, wild animals belong in their natural habitats.

Domestication alters their behaviors and often leads to unintended harm. Rather than keeping wildlife as pets, animal advocates encourage supporting local rehabilitation centers that provide proper care for injured or orphaned animals.

For those passionate about animal welfare, the best way to help is by letting wild creatures remain wild. Instead of confining them, Support sanctuaries that protect and rehabilitate them in environments where they truly belong.

This article by Nicholas Vincent was first published by One Green Planet on 6 March 2025. Lead Image: Image Credit :Volodymyr Burdiak/Shutterstock.

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Environmentalists have urged the Trump administration to reverse its decision to cut off funding for key conservation work aimed at saving iconic at-risk species, including anti-poaching patrols for vulnerable rhinos and elephants.

International conservation grants administered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) have been frozen by Trump, throwing conservation non-profits around the world into disarray. These grants, amounting to tens of millions of dollars, help protect imperiled species in countries that lack the US’s financial muscle to combat threats such as poaching.

An environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity, said it would sue the FWS if the funding isn’t restored. It said the money is vital for patrols safeguarding rhinos in Africa, which have suffered a 94% population decline over the past century, as well as efforts to reduce human-elephant conflict and help conserve species such as freshwater turtles and monarch butterflies.

“The Trump administration’s funding freeze for anti-poaching patrols and other international conservation work is maddening, heartbreaking and very illegal,” said Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the center.

“These Fish and Wildlife Service funds help protect elephants, rhinos and other animals across the globe that Americans love. No one voted to sacrifice the world’s most iconic wildlife to satisfy some unelected billionaire’s reckless power trip.”

In a letter to the FWS, the center said that the funding halt violated the US Endangered Species Act, which requires the government to consider at-risk species in its decisions, and flouted proper agency procedure in rescinding funding. “This insanity has to stop or some of the world’s most endangered animals will die,” said Uhlemann.

The freeze on grants is part of a broader crackdown on US foreign aid by Trump and his billionaire backer Elon Musk. A judge has ordered the freeze to be reversed, although the administration has yet to comply with the directive.

In his previous term in office, Trump sought to weaken the Endangered Species Act and has set about trying to bypass the conservation law during his latest term. The president has demanded that a little-known committee, nicknamed “the God squad” due to its ability to decide if a species becomes extinct, help push through fossil fuel and logging projects in the US even if they doom a species.

Experts have said that the use of the committee in this way is likely illegal. A court case may now unfold over the stymying of FWS grants for international conservation, too.

Alongside illegal poaching, legal hunting tours in Africa are popular with some Americans, including Donald Trump Jr, who was pictured holding a severed elephant’s tail more than a decade ago.

The FWS was contacted for comment on the potential lawsuit.

This article by Oliver Milman was first published by The Guardian on 5 March 2025. Lead Image: A northern white rhino in Laikipia county, Kenya, last year. Photograph: Gerald Anderson/Anadolu via Getty Images.

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Farmers and consumers alike have long worried that any trace of bird droppings on lettuce spells disaster for our salads.

New research suggests that fear might be overblown. Tiny spots from small birds, it turns out, aren’t as hazardous as many believed, offering a bit of relief to growers who want to keep wildlife around their fields.

According to Rachel Beyer, researchers at the University of California, Davis found that small bird droppings pose minimal risk to crops.

This challenge to the common assumption that wildlife automatically brings harmful bacteria has big implications for sustainable farming.

Scientists noted that the danger is more tied to the size of the dropping rather than the bird species: bigger droppings from turkeys or geese are far likelier to harbor pathogens than those tiny white flecks left by sparrows or bluebirds.

The study, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, suggests farmers could safely harvest up to 10% more of their crops by skipping no-harvest zones around small droppings.

Lead author Austin Spence explained that “if it’s the size of a quarter, don’t harvest near that. If it’s a tiny white speck, it’s very low risk.”

Meanwhile, UC Davis professor Daniel Karp emphasized there’s no evidence that removing natural habitats improves food safety.

That’s good news for environmentally conscious growers, who often hesitate to clear out wildlife habitats simply to keep droppings away from produce.

It’s time to embrace farming methods that balance nature with food safety. Whether you’re a backyard gardener or a commercial grower, consider letting small birds be part of the landscape instead of trying to drive them away.

By protecting wildlife habitats, we can reduce waste, preserve biodiversity, and still deliver safe, nutritious greens for everyone.

This article by Nicholas Vincent was first published by One Green Planet on 26 February 2025. Lead Image: Image Credit :Erni/Shutterstock.

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We  are delighted to announce the results of our latest photo competition.

Jess Findlay wins First Prize with his outstanding image ‘Female Great Grey Owl (Strix Nebulosa) Comforts One of Her Three Chicks‘ . Steve Wagner wins Second Prize with his inspirational image ‘Leopard Eyes‘ . Third Prize goes to David Taylorr with ‘Torresian Kingfisher Serenity’.

Please give kudos to the photographers by leaving comments at the bottom of this page.

See detailed results below:

(click on thumbnails for slideshow).

 

The next competition starts on 31 March 2025

Winning photos will be featured on our banner

Upload Your Photo Here

 

Conditions of Entry

• You have read and agree to the Terms of Service.
• You confirm that the photo copyright belongs to you.
• The photo title and descriptive fields must be completed.
• Photos in frames or with colored borders are not allowed.
• Photos of pets, captive or domestic animals are not allowed.
• Contestants can vote for their own photos but ONLY ONCE!
• Photos of paintings or drawings of wild animals are not allowed.
• Photos not in accordance with conditions of use may be excluded.
• Winning photos will also be featured on our blog’s rotating banner.
• Use of social media to manipulate or influence voting is not allowed.
• Images should not be duplicated by uploading into more than one gallery.
• Composite photos created by superimposing two or more separate photos not allowed.

 

Does a worm feel pain if it gets trodden on? Does a fly ache when its wings are pulled off? Is an ant happy when it finds a food source? If so, they may be sentient beings, which means they can “feel”, a bit or a lot, like we do.

Invertebrate sentience is becoming an ever livelier topic of debate and with new science we are getting new insights. But Dr Andrew Crump at the Royal Veterinary College, who helped ensure that new UK laws recognising animal sentience were amended to include large cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans – octopuses, lobsters, crabs to you and me – says this is not at all straightforward.

Nervous systems are hugely complex, and identifying consciousness and sentience – and not just automatic pain reflexes – is hard. Are responses or reactions you see from an animal – be it a wolf or a wolf ant – feelings or just automatic reflexes? Crump and his colleagues found that bees, for example, were not simple stimulus-response robots, but reacted to stimuli in sophisticated, context-dependent ways. They were found to learn colour cues for their decisions on feeding – choosing painful overheated sugars they previously avoided when non-heated options had a low sugar concentration. So they made trade-offs by processing in the brain then modifying their behaviour.

In fact, new research has shown that many responses in the larger invertebrates were complex, long-lasting, and pretty consistent with criteria for pain that had been produced initially for vertebrates such as rats. Octopuses, for example, can perform amazing feats of learning to avoid painful environments and choose painkilling environments. All this establishes and quantifies “feelings” in beings that are very different from us.

The work of Crump and other scientists meant that the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 recognised for the first time in UK law (vertebrate sentience was previously covered by EU regulation) that certain invertebrates can “feel”, requiring modifications to their treatment in areas such as farming and research.

But what does this mean for the many trillions of smaller invertebrates? Nothing yet.

We are never going to stop all human impact on invertebrates; it is an impossible task given that we are 8 billion destructive, extractive bulls in the china shop of their ecosystems and have for centuries relied on the protein from eating wild invertebrates around the globe. But new industrial bug farming – rearing creatures such as prawns, bees and black soldier flies to be used as protein for humans and farm animals – needs attention. A huge new industrial livestock system is growing in developed countries. Are they rearing and slaughtering the animals humanely?

We have created laws to protect other beings such as cows and chickens. Why not give the smaller ones some protection too? Clearly it is time for a broader law on the sentience of all invertebrates. No one can really know how a bee feels when it is starving. Or how a butterfly senses heat. But setting criteria or markers to measure “feelings” has worked for octopuses, so hopefully it will for the extraordinarily diverse smaller invertebrates.

Experts are now building up the evidence, taking it far further than our amateur, human experience can guess at. A new paper in the journal Science describes how these markers have been found in insects, indicating that there could be conscious experiences, ie “feelings”. And it is not just about pain – researchers are also attempting to develop such markers for joy. Ideally, new laws would lead to genuine improvements in farmed invertebrate welfare in the UK and abroad and should ensure animal sentience is accounted for throughout policy and decision making.

Yet, however far the science gets us, we could use the precautionary principle: we could assume it is possible that invertebrates have feelings, however differently they may be crafted by the millions of years of evolution they went through before we arrived.

As Tolstoy said: “If you feel pain, you are alive. If you feel other people’s pain, you are a human being.” Just replace the word “people’s” with “beings’” so it is all others’ pain. We should always ensure, at the very least, that we have the highest welfare approaches in rearing and slaughter for these fantastic animals. I suspect, for most of us, it feels like the right thing to do.

This article by Vicki Hird was first published by The Guardian on 25 February 2025. Lead Image: Are responses or reactions from invertebrates such as insects feelings, or just automatic reflexes? Photograph: Amith Nag Photography/Getty Images.

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They have roamed a moorland in southern Scotland for centuries.

Now residents are fighting to save the growing population of wild goats near Langholm in the Scottish Borders after a rewilding organisation revealed it wants to cull some of them as part of its ‘future restoration plans’.

Oxygen Conservation, which owns 11,390 acres on Langholm Moor, has said it plans to reduce the number of wild goats amid concerns the existing 138-strong herd is destroying trees and posing a ‘serious threat to delicate habitats’.

But local campaigners claim the goats’ only crime is ‘living on the land they have occupied for centuries’ and described them as a ‘living testament to our shared history and the earth’s wondrous biodiversity’.

A petition to stop the proposed cull has already gained more than 1,700 signatures.

Organiser Gail Brown said: ‘The wild goats of Langholm Fell have been a treasured part of our daily lives for hundreds of years. These magnificent creatures bring joy to anyone fortunate enough to spot them gracefully traversing across the fell.

With a number of young kids among them, they embody the true nature of life and resilience in our rural setting.’

She added: These harmless beings coexist peaceably with all creatures on the fell, inflicting harm upon no one.

‘It is deeply concerning that such a destructive decision would be proposed without considering the historical and emotional significance these animals carry for our community.’

Campaigners argue that the goats form part of the area’s diverse wildlife and claim the ‘indiscriminate culling of wildlife is not only unreflectively cruel but can have unintended negative impacts on the local ecosystem’.

It is believed the goats are descendants of livestock which had to be abandoned by local farmers during the clearances and ‘act as a living reminder of the region’s turbulent past’.

One local said it was ‘beggar’s belief’ that the firm wants to cull the goats ‘under the conservation banner’.

They added: ‘It’s time to wake up to this green washing disaster before it’s to late.

The goats are a part of our cultural heritage have been here for centuries and definitely long enough to have created a unique ecosystem that relies on the goats to keep it in tune.’

Oxygen Conservation, which owns an area of Langholm Moor known as Blackburn and Hartsgarth, has bought several rural estates across the UK in its bid to ‘deliver positive environment and social impacts’.

On its website it states its ambition is ‘to continue the incredible conservation works across Blackburn and Hartsgarth to deliver a meaningful contribution to both the UK’s climate and biodiversity targets’.

It adds: ‘Working with the local community, we will protect and improve one of the most important breeding areas for the UK’s most threatened bird of prey – the hen harrier. Increasing these bird populations and wider ecological biodiversity.’

The firm said over the past 18 months it has been monitoring the wild goat population and since buying the land at the end of 2023 goat numbers had increased from 20 to 138 at the last count in January.

It added: ‘This is a massive increase in a small amount of time, and we are already seeing the impact of their browsing on the few remaining trees on the Estate.

If we don’t manage numbers now, the growing goat population will have an increasingly negative impact on the environment.’

The firm said rehoming wild animals was ‘not feasible due to their rapid population growth and the risk of causing ecological damage to other habitats’.

It added: ‘Culling is not a decision we take lightly, but it is a necessary measure that landowners across the UK are undertaking in response to environmental policy and ecological best practices.’

This article by Claire Elliot was first published by The Daily Mail on 24 February 2025. Lead Image: Feral goats have roamed the countryside around Langholm Moor for centuries.

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Australia’s rugged reputation has met its match in the cassowary, a flightless bird often described as “the world’s most dangerous.”

Standing as tall as a person and sporting a fierce claw on each foot, it’s no wonder these ancient-looking creatures can startle even the bravest adventurers.

They roam the deep rainforests of northern Queensland, playing a key role in dispersing seeds and rejuvenating tropical habitats with every piece of fruit they eat.

According to CNN Travel, Andrew Mack, who studied cassowaries in Papua New Guinea, views them as living dinosaurs.

Their powerful presence is balanced by a surprising parental twist: male cassowaries incubate eggs and raise chicks, creating a protective bond that can lead to tense encounters when humans get too close.

In a 2001 Journal of Zoology study, researcher Christopher P. Kofron found that humans feeding cassowaries were behind most dangerous interactions, indicating that our own behavior can harm both birds and people.

Peter Rowles, founder of the Community for Coastal & Cassowary Conservation (C4), warns that when a cassowary spots food, it may approach confidently, as seen in a viral video of one eyeing a fast-food burger.

Experts advise staying calm, hiding any treats, and avoiding sudden movements. Despite their imposing stature, more cassowaries die due to human activity than vice versa.

By protecting cassowaries, we preserve a vital part of Australia‘s rainforest ecosystem.

If you’re passionate about safeguarding these remarkable birds, consider supporting Conservation groups, reducing wildlife disturbances, and embracing kinder lifestyle choices like a plant-based diet.

Every step you take to respect animal habitats can help ensure that these rare “living dinosaurs” continue to thrive.

This article by Nicholas Vincent was first published by One Green Planet on 26 February 2025. Lead Image: Image Credit :Martin Pelanek/Shutterstock.

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A remote beach in Tasmania, Australia has become the site of a heartbreaking wildlife crisis. Over the past two days, 157 false killer whales – large dolphins known for their orca-like build and high intelligence – were discovered beached near Arthur River.

Sadly, only 90 remained alive when rescue teams arrived. The inaccessible location and rough waters presented huge obstacles, forcing authorities to confront a difficult choice.

According to Tiffanie Turnbull of BBC News, experts tried relocating two whales but found that strong currents pushed them back to shore every time.

Local residents were stunned by the scene, describing families of whales peering up at them in silent pleas for help.

Wildlife specialists noted that false killer whales haven’t stranded en masse in Tasmania for over half a century, adding to the shock and confusion surrounding this event.

Rescue crews on the ground soon determined that returning any more whales to open waters would be nearly impossible.

The remaining 90 animals are now being euthanized to end their suffering, a decision no one takes lightly.

Authorities also face the difficult task of managing how best to handle the remains, with some calling for a respectful approach that acknowledges Tasmania’s rich Aboriginal heritage.

Tragic incidents like these highlight the urgent need for stronger protections and better understanding of marine ecosystems.

Our oceans are under constant pressure, not only from Pollution and Climate change, but also from the complex ways we use maritime resources.

Now is the time to get involved: consider supporting animal rescue organizations, adopting a plant-based diet, or donating to marine conservation efforts.

By making small, consistent changes in our daily lives, we stand a better chance of safeguarding precious marine species and their habitats.

This article by Nicholas Vincent was first published by One Green Planet on 24 February 2025. Lead Image: Image Credit :Stephen Barnes/Shutterstock.

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During a traffic stop outside Houston earlier this month, Texas game wardens caught two deer breeders trying to move captive whitetails illegally across the state. The men pleaded guilty, and they were convicted of more than 50 deer breeder violations for disobeying the state’s CWD rules and transporting unidentifiable “ghost deer,” which they planned to release “into the wild” on private property. All seven of the deer were euthanized by game wardens, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg, according to a report issued Thursday by TPWD. The report mentions a follow-up investigation that uncovered a much larger ring of 22 suspects, who were allegedly involved in a black-market deer breeding operation spanning 11 counties.

The suspects now face around 1,200 criminal charges, including hundreds of misdemeanors and multiple state jail felonies, for “circumventing requirements, disregarding regulations and falsifying official records,” according to TPWD. Most of those records, requirements, and regulations are related to Chronic Wasting Disease, and the risk of disease transfer from captive deer to wild populations.

“An operation of this size and scope did not develop overnight,” TPWD law enforcement director Col. Ronald VanderRoest said in a statement Thursday. “And the widespread violations may have continued unchecked, posing an even greater risk to Texas’ deer populations and the integrity of the deer breeding industry.”

Authorities say the 22 suspects are associated with three deer breeding facilities, ten release sites, one deer management pen, and three “illegal facilities” that were not registered with the state and were operating well outside of the law. A TPWD spokesperson told Outdoor Life Friday that the agency cannot release any names of the suspects or facilities, as the investigation is ongoing.

The report issued Thursday, however, breaks down some of the charges that have already been filed. These include:

• Transferring deer without valid CWD tests, identifying tattoos, or transfer permits
• Illegally selling and purchasing wild whitetail deer
• Hunting deer in a closed season
• Possessing wild deer in breeder facilities to replace dead breeder deer
• Trapping and moving free-range whitetails for release for hunting
• Trapping previously released wild deer and reselling them
• Taking whitetail deer without landowner consent
• Hunting exotic animals from a public road way
• Tampering with government records
• Falsifying CWD tests by swapping tissue samples from poached wild deer with tissue samples from breeder deer
• Swapping tags between breeder deer, and swapping tags between breeder deer and replacement deer captured in the wild

Deer breeders have always had to follow specific regulations around raising, transporting, and releasing whitetails, since high-fenced deer are still considered a public resource in Texas — even in captivity. As CWD continues to spread, those breeders are facing increasingly strict rules regarding the sale and transportation of deer from high-fence operations, which have proven to be hotbeds for the neurological disease.

This includes preventative measures, like the establishment of CWD containment zones, where breeders are required to test their animals before transporting them. In worst-case scenarios, when captive facilities experience full-on outbreaks of CWD, wildlife managers have killed off entire herds.

The Texas deer breeding industry, valued around $1.6 billion, has complained and fought against these stricter rules, saying they are burdensome and bad for business. At the same time, many Texas deer hunters and wildlife managers say the CWD rules and firewalls in place are necessary to protect the state’s free-range deer.

“These individuals and ranches operated with impunity, repeatedly violating established laws designed to protect Texas’ natural resources and safeguard the state’s wildlife against disease transmission,” VanderRoest said. “Systematic abuse of the regulatory framework governing the deer breeding industry will not be tolerated as we focus on our mission of conservation law enforcement.”

This article by Dac Collins was first published by Outdoor Life on 28 February 2025. Lead Image: Authorities say that by falsifying records, circumventing requirements, and disregarding regulations, the 22 suspects were putting the state’s entire deer population at risk. Photo by Nick de la Torre for the Houston Chronicle / Getty Images.

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Eight feral pigs have been captured and killed in the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland, following a suspected second illegal rewilding attempt in just under a month.

The pigs were spotted in the dense Uath Lochans area on Monday, and located by authorities the next day. After consulting with veterinarians and the police, Forestry and Land Scotland said they ‘humanly culled’ the animals.

The FLS is the Scottish government agency responsible for managing the country’s forests and land. They condemned the apparently illegal release in a statement.

“The feral pigs, classed as a non-native species, were released with an apparent disregard for the illegality of such action and for the potential consequences that this might have on local habitats and wildlife, on other livestock or even on the welfare of the feral pigs themselves,” said a spokesperson.

The Cairngorms is the largest national park in the UK. It’s visited by almost two million people each year, who flock to hike, camp, and, run in the picturesque Scottish wilderness.

A month ago, we reported on the illegal release of four wild lynx in freezing conditions at the Cairngorms National Park. After their subsequent capture, authorities transferred the animals to Edinburgh Zoo, where one died.

Gamekeepers are now urging authorities to take swift action against ‘guerilla rewilders’.

“Rewilding is becoming popularised as a concept, and there’s a lot of organizations pushing the rewilding mantra,” said a spokesperson for the Scottish Gamekeepers Association.

“It would appear that this is more a form of guerrilla rewilding.

“Perhaps people or devotees within that movement are becoming frustrated at the standard stakeholder processes which must happen around any reintroduction of species.”

Several wilderness organizations are in favor of a structured, legal rewilding program. They believe species like lynx should be reintroduced to the British Isles to redress issues with ecosystems and restore biodiversity in areas like the Scottish Highlands.

“It’s the people who have to deal with the consequences of that, they should ultimately have the final sign-off, because they have got to live with it every day,” the SGA spokesperson continued.

“If that process is not followed, then the authorities have to act decisively to ensure that this type of guerrilla rewilding does not take hold in Scotland as the norm.”

Authorities have not said whether they believe the two incidents are linked.

This article by Will Symons was first published by Advnture on 16 February 2025. Lead Image: A feral pig in the wild (Image credit: Getty Images).

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