Pete Thomas Outdoors

Girl, 11, raises $10,000 to save elephants, and it all began with a lemonade stand

Téa Megill mans her booth at the Honolulu Zoo

By Pete Thomas

When Téa Megill learned during a trip to the Honolulu Zoo last summer that elephants may be headed toward extinction, the 10-year-old wanted to help.

She opened a neighborhood lemonade stand to raise money for the fight against poaching in Africa, in what at first seemed merely an admirable gesture.

But it has become much more than a gesture. The Honolulu sixth-grader has since been allowed to move her stand inside the zoo, where she also sells homemade bracelets and other items to conservation-minded visitors.

So far Téa has raised nearly $10,000, with all proceeds going to the Elephant Crisis Fund.

“We’re very proud of her,” Sejal Megill, Téa’s mother, told BNQT Outdoors. “We thought this going to be a summer project, but her drive and motivation have carried it so much farther. She would fundraise every day if she could.”

Téa has a website, Elephant.Ade, that operates under the slogan, “Aloha for the Elephants.” She runs the stand at the zoo’s Elephant Habitat each Wednesday afternoon. Products on the website are sold around the world.

"My goal is $1 million for the elephants and that they could be saved," Téa told Hawaii’s KHON 2.

Africa’s elephants, to be sure, need help.

The Elephant Crisis Fund, part of the the Wildlife Conservation Network, states on its website that wild elephants could be wiped out within a generation.

More than 30,000 elephants are killed annually for their ivory tusks, which support a lucrative black-market industry. Meanwhile, an exhaustive effort involving multiple partners is combating poaching and trafficking.

Téa, a budding conservationist, can boast that she’s part of this effort.

At the zoo, she told KHON 2, she helps to raise awareness.

“I'll start walking down that path or this path and I'll start giving them brochures and talking to them about what's going on with the elephants,” she said. “And then if they decide to come up, then we just explain what we're selling and stuff.”

Téa recently told The Eden Edition that someday she’d like to visit Africa and see the wild elephants.

Wrote Shelby Eden, “With the determination of a young Jane Goodall, I have a feeling all of Téa’s dreams will undoubtedly come true.”

–Images are courtesy of Téa Megill

Is a wolf killer on the loose in Oregon? OR-25 is latest to have been found dead

A famous Oregon wolf named OR-25 has been found dead in the Sun Pass Forest in Klamath County. The 4-year-old collared male becomes the third wolf to have been illegally killed in southern Oregon in the past year.

The carcass was discovered Oct. 29 in the Sun Pass Forest in Klamath County. The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service has not revealed the cause of death, but an agency spokesman told the Mail Tribune, "It did not die of natural causes."

OR-25, originally from the Imnaha pack in northeast Oregon, gained notoriety in 2016 when his tracking collar showed him crossing into California.

Wolves are federally protected in the western two-thirds of Oregon, and all three killings have occurred within this zone.

“This is an unfortunate situation and we are concerned about it,” John Hall, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the Idaho Statesman-Journal. “We’re going to work with our partners to try to find out what’s going on here.”

(A fourth wolf was killed in the same region recently, but the shooter was determined to have acted in self defense and was not charged.)

The USFWS is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case of OR-25. Rewards total nearly $50,000 for all three unsolved cases, which are being investigated with the help of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Oregon State Police. 

Killing federally protected wolves can result in fines of up to $100,000 and a year in jail.  

The other cases involved wolves OR-28 and OR-33.

OR-28, a collared female, was found dead on Oct. 6, 2016, near Summer Lake. The cause of death was not released. Besides a $5,000 reward offered by the USFWS, more than $30,000 is being offered by conservation groups.

OR-33, a collared male, was found dead with a gunshot wound 20 miles north of Klamath Falls on April 23, 2017. The USFWS reward is $5,000.

Gray wolves have been expanding their territory from the northeast to the southern and southwestern portion of the state.

Though wolves prey largely on elk, deer and moose, they’re opportunistic and numerous predations involving ranchers’ livestock have been reported.

The Associated Press reports that OR-25 was believed to have killed a calf at a ranch near the town of Prospect earlier this year.

At the end of 2016, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the statewide wolf population was 112 animals.

–OR-25 file photo is Courtesy of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife

Why don't game wardens release all poached animals?

In support of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and its effort to keep hunters and anglers informed, Pete Thomas Outdoors, on Thursday or Friday, posts marine biologist Carrie Wilson's weekly California Outdoors Q&A column:

Question: I support the work of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and want to congratulate and say thank you for all your services. However, I was watching an episode of "Wild Justice" recently and something didn’t seem right about the way the game wardens carried out a couple of operations. On the show, game wardens busted a poacher with 42 abalone. The wardens spied on a group and knew they were fishing illegally, so why didn’t they stop them when they came back to the beach? Why did the game wardens allow the group to pull the abalones away from the beach and wait? By the time you guys busted the group, all 42 abalone were dead. My 4-year-old daughter couldn’t understand why you didn’t catch the poachers as soon as they hit the beach so the abalone wouldn’t have had to die. Can you please give me an answer so that I can explain it to her? (Christopher R.)

Answer:  Wardens are often faced with the dilemma of when to make contact on a poaching case. According to CDFW Lt. Patrick Foy, there are circumstances where a warden can make an excellent poaching case, contact the perpetrator, and return the live animals to the water/or wild. Those cases usually result in a fine. There are other times, such as the one you reference, where an effort needs to be made to prove that the perpetrator’s actions weren’t just a one time occurrence by a person who wasn’t aware of the law. If a warden can document that the perpetrator’s actions were planned, and intended to make a profit poaching wildlife, it is called commercialization. Commercialization cases are difficult to make, but when a warden makes them, they can lead to life-time revocation of fishing privileges, steep fines, and even jail terms. The wardens in the case you watched made the judgment that the loss of 42 abalone was necessary to permanently take the poachers out of business.


Q: Is it legal to hunt and bring a wolf hide from another state into California? (Stephen H.)

Great white shark catches on the rise in Sea of Cortez

The capture last week of a gigantic great white shark in Mexico's Sea of Cortez was major news because of the size of the predator -- nearly 20 feet long and weighing at least 2,000 pounds -- but also because catches of adult white sharks in the gulf are considered rare.

Sadly, however, such catches appear to be increasingly common.

This week I was contacted by Erik Cutter, who supplied the top image showing two Mexican fishermen posing with a massive set of jaws extracted two weeks ago from a very large white shark near Loreto.

Loreto is on the Baja California side of the Sea of Cortez. The other catch reportedly was made off the mainland coast near Guaymas.

Cutter, publisher of Baja Life magazine and co-founder of the green-energy group EnviroIngenuity, has a home in Loreto and is acquainted with many locals and some commercial fishermen. The photograph, he said, was of a print photograph the fishermen had shared. They allowed Cutter to photograph the print if he promised to crop their faces.

Cutter was told that white sharks are being increasingly targeted for their jaws and fins, and that 13 large sharks have been killed during the past few weeks alone. Shark jaws are sold locally for about $1,500 per set, then re-sold by more entrepreneurial types for much steeper prices. A set of jaws like the one shown above might garner $10,000 or more.

This is alarming because white sharks are embattled and highly-protected in Mexico -- as in the U.S. -- and because portions of the Sea of Cortez are now recognized as important nursery areas for the species.

The capture off Guaymas (see photo at right) was by fishermen who claimed to have accidentally caught the behemoth in their nets.

Cutter said that fishermen north of Loreto use baited hooks beneath air-filled barrels, and that hooked white sharks eventually tire and drown before they're taken ashore.

In a news release Cutter stated, "Commercial fishing has become so difficult in the Sea of Cortez that several of the few remaining commercial fisherman are so desperate that they are now targeting the ocean’s greatest predator, the Great White Shark.

"According to a very reliable source, at least thirteen mature Great Whites between 16 and 22 feet long, some estimated to weigh more than 2,200 pounds, [were] slaughtered for their fins and their jaws."

Much of the fishing is said to occur off Isla Ildefonso, an increasingly popular dive spot about 40 miles north of Loreto.

"The economic reasons are obvious, but certainly, they don’t justify the indiscriminate and illegal killing of these amazing sharks," Cutter said. "I am very upset by this because I have worked for many years to educate local fisherman to protect their fishery, one that Jacques Cousteau once called, 'The Aquarium of the World. ’"

The fishermen, obviously, know of no other way to make a living, and because of the remoteness of the area there is little enforcement. But if white sharks truly are being massacred at this alarming rate, at risk to the marine ecosystem, perhaps the Mexican authorities should investigate--and soon.

-- Pete Thomas

Lobster poacher nabbed in marine protected area

California Department of Fish and Game wardens have cited a man for poaching almost four dozen lobsters within a new Marine Protected Area off Orange County. It was the first major bust since the enforcement of a series of MPAs, or marine reserves, went into effect along the Southern California coast on Jan. 1.

Shortly after midnight Sunday, wardens observed Marbel A. Para, 30, of Romoland, Calif., and another person scuba diving in the Laguna Beach State Marine Reserve.

After the divers returned to their vehicle, wardens confronted them and discovered 47 California spiny lobsters in their possession. In addition to illegally taking lobsters from an MPA, the divers were well in excess of the legal possession limit of seven per diver, and all but five of the crustaceans were undersize. A legal-size lobster measures at least 3 1/4 inches along its carapace (see illustration at right).

Para claimed that all the lobsters were his and was charged with several poaching violations, including unlawful take and illegal possession of lobster, and possession of overlimits and undersized animals.

"The vast majority of our fishing and diving constituents are responsible and law-abiding," said DFG Assistant Chief Paul Hamdorff. "It is always our goal to catch those who choose to intentionally abuse the resources of this state for their own benefit."

All the lobsters were confiscated, photographed as evidence and then returned to the ocean.

Images courtesy of California Department of Fish and Game

Reward offered in attempt to apprehend trout thieves

The California Department of Fish and Game's Californians Turn In Poachers and Polluters program is offering up to a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thieves responsible for stealing approximately 1,000 trout from the San Joaquin Hatchery last weekend.

On Aug. 21, between 3 and 4 a.m., someone forced entry into the hatchery and stole up to 1,000 large trout, and also killed and left another 70 large trout in the process. The fish, which weighed three-to-four-pounds each, had been growing in the hatchery for three years.

DFG wardens have collected evidence at the scene and hope to get additional information from anyone who may have seen someone trying to sell the trout. The value of the fish and the cost to repair the damage to the hatchery elevate the crime to a felony.

Citizens are encouraged to be watchful for anyone attempting to sell trout on the street, at outdoors markets, or any place where trout are not normally sold. Physical descriptions, vehicle license plate numbers, time, date and locations would be extremely helpful.

The CalTIP hotline is (888) 334-2258. The toll-free telephone number operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You do not have to give your name.

-- Image of rainbow trout courtesy of Eric Engbretson / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Sea Shepherd set to unleash Godzilla on Japanese whalers

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society will turn Godzilla loose on the Japanese whaling fleet this season in an effort to step up its Southern Ocean harassment campaign.

The swift and ominous-looking interceptor vessel has the moniker Gojira and was named after the ferocious monster in the legendary Japanese film, known in English as Godzilla.

The 115-foot boat launched Monday in Fremantle, Australia, and has joined the Steve Irwin and Bob Barker in Hobart. Later this week the three boats will begin the journey to Antarctic waters, where their crews will await the arrival of the Japanese whaling fleet.

Japan also will reportedly step things up. For the first time in three years the whaling ships will carry armed members of the Japan Coast Guard to help prevent sabotage by the activists, according to the Japan Times.

These seasonal confrontations have become increasingly tense, with high-seas collisions underscoring the danger and controversial nature of some of the methods used by Sea Shepherd, which has been criticized for risking human lives in its effort to save minke whales, which are not an endangered species.

Last season Sea Shepherd scuttled its interceptor vessel, the Ady Gil, after claiming it had been rammed and irreparably damaged by the crew of a Japanese vessel. New Zealand investigators found both crews to have been at fault.

Japan annually targets about 900 whales -- mostly minkes but also a handful of endangered fin whales -- during a three-month Southern Ocean season that generally begins in early December.

Japan gets around an International Whaling Commission ban against commercial whaling by using a "research" loophole and designating the hunts -- long considered an important part of Japanese culture and tradition -- as scientific missions.

However, pressure to persuade Japan to curtail its effort has been mounting. The IWC last spring submitted a proposal calling for Japan to reduce its quota to about 200 over a 10-year period. Australia has been trying to use an international court to halt whaling in the Antarctic, where the slaughter of whales occurs within a designated sanctuary.

Last season the Japanese fleet killed 506 minke whales and one fin whale. Officials with Japan's Fisheries Agency and the Institute of Cetacean Research regard Sea Shepherd as a terrorist organization and have acknowledged its harassment has obstructed the hunting objective.

Though the whaling missions are said to be scientific, whale meat is sold commercially throughout Japan.

California man who shot sea lion draws jail sentence, big fine

As Sgt. Nevis continues to recover from reconstructive surgery after being shot in the face nearly a year ago for stealing fish, the man convicted of shooting him has been given a 30-day jail sentence and ordered to pay a $51,000 fine.

It might seem like a light sentence but Sgt. Nevis is a California sea lion, named after the animal control officer who helped save the mammal.

Larry Allen Legans, 44, is the Northern California man who last Friday was convicted of animal abuse as a result of the incident last November on the Sacramento River near Verona.

The fine will be awarded to the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito. That's where Sgt. Nevis was treated initially. He's currently being kept at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, where he'll go on public display this weekend for the first time.

"He's healing, but as long as he's a little better than he was, we're happy," Six Flags veterinarian Diana Proctor told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Although if he shows even a little discomfort this weekend, we'll put him back in his quiet area."

Is the sentence Legans received too light? Consider that Sgt. Nevis basically had his nose removed by a shotgun blast and doctors had to pull flaps of skin over the pellet holes to seal his nasal cavity, so he could swim and dive.

Now the sea lion is well cared for, but no longer a free creature of the wild.

-- Pete Thomas

Photo of a recovering Sgt. Nevis is courtesy of courtesy of Nancy Chan/Six Flags

Guy Harvey to join cause on behalf of Bahamas' sharks

Renowned marine artist Guy Harvey, according to a WPTV 5 report in Florida, is traveling to the Bahamas to record the beauty of sharks in an effort to help raise awareness about the plight these magnificent predators face, with the strong prospect of a commercial shark-finning operation taking root there. Also involved is marine artist Wyland.

This is fantastic news for the shark conservation movement. Caribbean reef sharks, which are popular among scuba-diving tourists, should not be decimated so people in other parts of the world, notably China, can enjoy their precious shark-fin soup.

The Harvey team will add celebrity to the conservation effort, but it's not the first to use art to capture the  beauty of the region's sharks. Last month Joe Romeiro and dive-master Cristina Zenato created a video that featured captivating footage and stunning imagery during a Grand Bahama Island feeding session.

Can Harvey and Wyland produce something as compelling. Take a look and see what you think:

 

 

Captured dolphins are delivered from Japan to China

Japan's controversial practice of killing dolphins for meat or catching and selling live dolphins to be used as show animals is in the news again.

Japan Today is reporting that six live dolphins have been delivered to the Beijing Aquarium and will spend 30 days in isolation before being put on display.

Two are Pacific white-sided dolphins and four are bottlenose dolphins.

Critics contend the display of captured dolphins in aquariums is cruel because it deprives the mammals of freedom and confines them to small spaces, in which they must behave in a certain way to be rewarded with food.

More cruel is the corralling and killing of dolphins and other marine mammals.

Earlier this week the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society reported, and issued photographic evidence, that dolphin hunters in Taiji, Japan, slaughtered more than a dozen pilot whales in what the group called "the killing cove."

Taiji gained worldwide notoriety last year because of the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove," which graphically exposed an annual slaughter that many hadn't known about.

It's currently open season on dolphins in Japan and relentless opposition by environmental groups appears to have slowed or stalled widespread killing.

Ric O'Barry, an activist featured in "The Cove," has helped organize an international day of protest on Oct. 14. It's called Save Japan Dolphins Day and those who oppose the hunts are encouraged to gather in front of the nearest Japanese embassy or consulate and participate in a peaceful protest.

-- Pete Thomas

Photo of pilot whales killed off Taiji courtesy of Sea Shepherd

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