$6K Reward Offered to Find the Poacher that Killed a Seriously Endangered Family of Loons 🪶

If you’re still with us, that means you’ve made it to the middle of yet another week and hopefully this one melds nicely into the weekend for you as we prepare to celebrate this great land we call home. 🇺🇸

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get another mid-week dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about so far this week:

• Our birds heads are fallin’ off - Washington officials are on the hunt for loon poachers 🪶

• Radioactive rhinos - South Africa is charging up rhino horns in the fight against poachers  🦏

• New boat, who dis? - The boat from infamous walleye tournament scandal now up for auction 🚤

• Ohio joins Kentucky in pig fight- Ohio is one step away from banning pig hunting 🐗

• Bill Shatner says ‘f*ck off’ - Capt. Kirk goes nuclear on salmon farmers, First Nations demand apology 🖕

ONLY 11 BREEDING PAIRS REMAIN
$6K REWARD OFFERED TO FIND THE POACHER THAT KILLED A SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED FAMILY OF LOONS

In an unusual case of poaching in the pacific northwest, Washington officials are puzzled and in search of the person or persons that killed a family of common loons late last month. 

While most poachers are attracted to masses of bone or, in the very least, a freezer full of meat, this peculiar case seems to be as simple as killing off the entire family and leaving the birds to waste. 

What makes the case even more unique is the fact that the senseless killing has resulted in just 11 breeding pairs left in this northeastern region of the state. To say that the act was damaging to the species survival in this portion of the state would be an understatement.

🦏 Radioactive rhinos leading the charge in deterring South African poachers. With rhino poaching reaching a four-year high in 2023, South African researchers at the Rhisotope Project are going nuclear in the fight against the illegal rhino horn trade. By inserting radioactive pellets into the horns of live rhinos, they can now detect when horns leave the country with over 11k radiation detectors installed at entry points globally. By making the horns radioactive, the project is hopeful that the risk of getting flagged at an international border is enough to stifle smuggling syndicates who’d rather not risk being prosecuted and convicted under anti-terrorism laws.

🚤 Fishing boat up for auction: Now you can own a piece of fishing tournament fraud. Back in 2022 a pair of hammerheads thought that stuffing a couple of walleyes full of lead would be their ticket to fame and fortune, at least in the fishing world. Well, that all went to hell when the two were later exposed for fraud after getting caught stuffing five walleyes with a total of eight 12-ounce lead weights and two 8-ounce weights, as well as additional fish filets. Well, in addition to the felony charges, Chase Cominsky gave up his 2022 Ranger Pro FS 622, 22ft. bass boat in the process and it’s now available to the highest bidder. The current high bid is at $82,000 which isn’t too shabby considering that authorities pegged the boat’s value at about $130K. All proceeds go back to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife.

🐗 Ohio is seriously considering a pig hunting ban. It was about a month ago that Kentucky announced that the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources deemed that hunting wild hogs was only making them smarter and banned it all together. Well, neighboring Ohio didn’t think that was too bad of an idea and has followed suit with a new proposal that would see the invasive swine managed through other methods such as trapping.

House Bill 503 is now on its way to the Ohio Senate for consideration.

CONTROVERSY // ^{_{THIS WEEK’S SH*T DISTURBER}}

🖕 Bill Shatner in hot water after he tells salmon farmers to ‘F*ck off’.  While he might have had a point, a few Canadian First Nations members are demanding an apology after Bill Shatner flipped the bird in a YouTube video directed at open-net pen salmon farms. In the video, intended to be comical in nature, Shatner is unrelenting as he goes after the farms and the B.C. government for approving a five-year extension on the farms currently in operation along the coast. Despite being widely supported by research that shows open-net pen salmon farming is harmful to wild salmon, the Coalition of First Nations for Finfish Stewardship demanded an apology from the veteran actor, who they say “attacked their dignity” and disrespected their long-held role as stewards of their native lands and waters.

VIDEO // ^{_{SOME THINGS JUST HAVE TO BE SEEN}}

🐊🍺 A Louisiana bachelor party got creative and used a wild gator to shotgun a beer. Celebrating a bachelor party in the bayou has its perks and one of them is most definitely the utilization of a gators tooth to shotgun an ice-cold domestic beer. Watch as the group uses a curios gator to puncture a beer can before putting it away in style.

🦅 This video of a bald eagle swooping down for its dinner is mesmerizing. Maybe I’m feeling all red, white and blue because of the pending holiday, but this video does a great job of showing the true beauty and power of our national bird.

CAMP TALK // ^{_{BEFORE YOU GO}}

We get a lot of questions and comments on here, and we figure it’s time to repay the favor. As part of our new Camp Talk section, we’re going to ask you, the reader, your opinion on some serious (and not so serious) topics to close out each newsletter.

Look for all of the answers in the next edition of the newsletter.

Here’s today’s question…

Oh, and one more thing…