Mastodawn

Petition Urges NOAA to Sanction China for Shark Finning by Commercial Fleet

https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53576568

Petition Urges NOAA to Sanction China for Shark Finning by Commercial Fleet - SDF Chatter

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53575796 [https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53575796] > Archived [https://web.archive.org/web/20260522083320/https://www.indexbox.io/blog/center-for-biological-diversity-petitions-noaa-to-sanction-china-over-shark-finning/] > > The Center for Biological Diversity has submitted a petition [https://web.archive.org/web/20260512191823/https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/petition-seeks-us-action-on-chinas-inadequate-shark-finning-prevention-2026-05-12/] to NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S.] Fisheries, urging the agency to identify and impose sanctions on China for extensive shark finning conducted by commercial fishing vessels. According to the environmental group, Chinese-flagged ships have caught and finned thousands of sharks in offshore waters, yet China has failed to take sufficient measures to stop the practice. > > […] > > The group notes that in 2024, China and Japan blocked an attempt by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas to adopt a fins-naturally-attached policy, despite support from about 80 percent of member parties. > > An investigation by the Environmental Justice Foundation released earlier this year reported widespread shark finning among China’s distant-water fleet. The nonprofit interviewed 81 fishers from 60 Chinese-flagged vessels and found that 60 percent of those vessels allegedly engaged in finning sharks and disposing of their bodies. The report also noted that China’s regulation on controlling shark finning does not apply to squid vessels operating in the Southeast Pacific. > > […] > > In its petition, the Center for Biological Diversity asserts that China’s distant-water longline fishing fleet regularly targets sharks and also harvests them as bycatch within regional fishery management organization convention areas globally. The group claims that in 2023, Chinese-flagged vessels discarded more than 10,000 blue sharks and nearly 1,700 shortfin mako sharks in the Western and Central Pacific. > > […]

Sepia Jan 19

Outstanding in her field: cow recorded using tool for first time

https://mander.xyz/post/45811590

Outstanding in her field: cow recorded using tool for first time - Mander

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/45810913 [https://mander.xyz/post/45810913] > Cows are not usually credited with thinking on the hoof. They eat, they chew, they stand in fields performing an activity that may look like contemplation but is generally written off as digestion. > > They are not typically thought to plan, let alone solve problems. A new study suggests we may have underestimated them. > > The research describes what experts claim is the first documented case of flexible, multi-purpose tool use in cattle, observed in a cow named Veronika. > > … > > Veronika is a Swiss brown cow kept not for milk or meat but as a pet by Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker in Austria. More than a decade ago he noticed her using a long-handled brush, holding it in her mouth to scratch awkward parts of her body. > > When video footage of this behaviour reached Alice Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, it struck her as unusual, largely because Veronika used the brush in different ways to scratch different parts of her body. > > “It was immediately clear that this was not accidental,” Auersperg said. “This was a meaningful example of tool use in a species that is rarely considered from a cognitive perspective.” > > Auersperg and her colleague Antonio Osuna-Mascaró conducted a series of trials. They placed a long-handled brush on the ground and recorded how Veronika used it. > > … > > When scratching broad, thick-skinned regions such as her back or rump, Veronika tended to use the bristled end, applying it with sweeping, forceful movements. When targeting softer, more sensitive areas of her lower body, she switched to using the handle to scratch herself, moving more slowly. > > Because Veronika directs tools at her own body, researchers describe this as egocentric tool use, which is usually regarded as less complex than tool use aimed at external objects. Even so, flexible, multi-purpose use of a single tool is rare. Outside humans, it has previously been demonstrated convincingly only in chimpanzees, the researchers say in their paper. > > They wrote in a study published in the journal Current Biology that the findings “invite a reassessment of livestock cognition”. > > … > > The researchers suspect that Veronika’s life circumstances have played a role in the emergence of this behaviour. Most cows do not reach her age and they are rarely given the opportunity to interact with a variety of potentially useful objects. > > Her long lifespan, daily contact with humans, and access to a rich physical landscape probably created favorable conditions, they said. If that is true, there may be nothing very exceptional about Veronika, other than the opportunities she has been given to exercise her brain. > > … > > Archive link [https://archive.ph/f8j6U]