Wonkette

The Department of Agriculture has a really special program in the Wildlife Services division. They conduct “predator control” operations in the West, which basically involves going around killing stuff, especially coyotes. While they do more traditional things like lay traps, snares and poisons (sorta problematic for other wildlife, dickwads), they also let their employees fly around and shoot coyotes from planes. Their justification? Coyotes kill domestic animals (being as they are, like, predators). Last year, your Department of Agriculture killed 87,000 coyotes, but they’re being forced to do an investigation into the shooting-animals-from-airplanes program because one crashed in Utah this year. No one expects anything to change. [Yahoo News]

From rural Mexico to our crumbling ghettos, nothing amuses folks like a vicious fight between chickens or pit bulls. That’s why Washington’s beloved World Wildlife Federation is now holding virtual animal fights! Also, it’s a really odd way to tie wildlife conservation to, uhm, the Super Bowl.

We’ve always wondered if it was an accident that the panda-loving lobbyists shared “WWF” with the World Wrestling Federation. MORE »

Today’s Washington Post has a Q&A with Claudia A. McMurray, head of the State Department’s boring-sounding Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. But don’t fall asleep yet, because the bureau has a plan to stop international wildlife trafficking… a sexy plan:

“Bo Derek was appointed by the secretary as special envoy to combat wildlife trafficking. She’s obviously a well-known figure. We want to take her around not only the U.S., but to some other countries as well, as soon as she’s done filming this summer, and have her speak to different kinds of audiences, anything from children to businesspeople to the press to academic groups to get the word out.”

And after all, Bo has always demonstrated her kindness to animals, whether large and simian like Josh Bolten, or small and simian like Dudley Moore. MORE »