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Orcas in captivity... a comparison with Russia dissident Aleksei Navalny

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  Two mammal-eating "transient" killer whales photographed off the south side of Unimak Island, eastern Aleutian Islands, Alaska.   Photo by Robert Pitman (NOAA). It is easy to become discouraged when you first hear of the impact of whaling on our cetacean neighbors. In 2014, researchers  estimated that, between 1900 and 1999, 2.9 million whales were killed by the whaling industry. This doesn't count the whales killed prior to 1900, before diesel engines and exploding harpoons. In terms of biomass, this may be the largest removal of wildlife in human history, surpassing the removal of American bison from the plains states. And this was a minimum estimate, as wounded animals not recovered were not included in this estimate. Casks of whale oil. Photo courtesy: New Bedford Whaling Museum/ NPS. These complex, intelligent mammals were rendered into a variety of products for industry and vanity. And the estimate demonstrates the number of whales that our oceans could hold. A

Teaching non-hunters, and hunters, about hunting

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  Hunter education student taking shooting test. I may be unique in the world for having taught more non-hunters the basics of hunting than anyone else. Let me explain. For years, I taught a course titled "Living With Wildlife" at Utah State University. Obviously, and especially in Utah, one of the ways people interact with wildlife is by shooting and eating them. It was a large class, averaging about 100 students from a variety of majors. I wanted all students to understand the education requirements for hunters in the state, so I made all students, hunters and non-hunters alike, take this course. Yes, even the hunters, who had already gone through hunter education (HE) and may have had years of hunting experience. The only ways to opt out of this were to demonstrate that you had taken HE within the past year (happened once), a judge said you couldn't be around firearms (once), you were ethically opposed to touching firearms (usually one student per semester), or firearm

A great travel instrument - the ukulele!

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Playing our ukuleles on the intact Renaissance-era city wall surrounding Lucca, Italy.   Ci ty wall surrounding Lucca , Italy. One of the joys in playing the ukulele is that, because of its size, you can take it with you when you travel. So far, airlines have been good about allowing us to bring our ukuleles on board, placing them in the overhead compartments. We use soft cases, so the space used is a bit more flexible than when using a hard case, although we have to be careful that they don't get smashed when a heavy roll-away is thrown in the same compartment. Caroline started playing the ukulele soon after the Covid-19 pandemic shut everything down in 2020.  I started playing the guitar again, to accompany her, but a few months later I picked up her uke and I was hooked. Wesley started soon after, followed by Mignon. Caroline begins to play the uke, March 2020. Initially, I accompanied Caroline on the rhythm guitar. By December, Caroline, Wesley, and I were all playing. In Janua