A river otter attacks a child at a Seattle-area marina

A river otter attacks a child at a Seattle-area marina
A river otter (Myocastor coypus) feeds on fish and other meats packed in blocks of ice at the Legends Park Zoo in Huachipa, eastern Lima on February 23, 2024. (AFP/File)
Short Url
Updated 15 September 2024
Follow

A river otter attacks a child at a Seattle-area marina

A river otter attacks a child at a Seattle-area marina
  • River otters can be territorial and “like any wildlife, are inherently unpredictable,” officials said

BREMERTON, Washington: A river otter attacked a child at a Seattle-area marina, dragging the youngster from a dock and into the water before the mother rescued her child, wildlife officials said.
The child was pulled underwater and resurfaced after a few moments during the encounter Thursday at 9:30 a.m. at the Bremerton Marina in Kitsap County, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officers said in a press release.
The otter continued to bite and scratch as the mother pulled the child out of the water. The animal chased them as they left the dock, wildlife officials said. The child was treated at a hospital.
“We are grateful the victim only sustained minor injuries, due to the mother’s quick actions and child’s resiliency,” said Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Ken Balazs. “We would also like to thank the Port of Bremerton for their quick coordination and communication to their marina tenants.”
Officers trapped the otter and took it to a disease diagnostic lab for testing, including for rabies, the release said. The agency did not respond to questions Saturday about test results.
River otters are common throughout Washington and can be found in fresh and saltwater habitats, officials said. Encounters with humans are rare, with six occurring in the past decade, they said. River otters can be territorial and “like any wildlife, are inherently unpredictable,” officials said.


Sardinia’s sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms

Sardinia’s sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms
Updated 07 October 2024
Follow

Sardinia’s sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms

Sardinia’s sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms
  • Some 20,000 sheep have died so far this year on the island, which is home to nearly half Italy’s flock and plays an important role in the production of famed Italian cheeses such as Pecorino

ARBUS: The sheep huddle together, bleeding from the nose, aborting lambs or suffocating on saliva as they succumb to bluetongue, a virus sweeping through flocks on the Italian island of Sardinia.
Some 20,000 sheep have died so far this year on the island, which is home to nearly half Italy’s flock and plays an important role in the production of famed Italian cheeses such as Pecorino.
It is another blow for farmers in a region already battered by a drought aggravated by man-made climate change — which experts say is also fueling the spread of bluetongue and longer outbreaks.
“The virus hit about two and a half months earlier than usual,” 39-year-old farmer Michela Dessi told AFP as she scanned her flock for panting or limping sheep in her fields in Arbus in western Sardinia.
Bluetongue does not present any risks to humans but in animals it causes swollen heads, high fevers, mouth ulcers, difficulty swallowing and breathing, and can turn an infected animal’s tongue blue.
It is transmitted between animals by biting midges.
While cattle, goats and deer can get it too, sheep are the most severely affected, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH).
Infected and pregnant ewes abort or their lambs are born deformed, and survivors can lose their wool.
Sunken sides are a sign the ewes are carrying dead fetuses. The sick animals struggle to expel them.
The infection rate this year on Dessi’s farm is about 60 percent, and some 30 percent of her sheep have aborted.
Around 50 of her 650 sheep have died — and in a way she said was “horrible to watch.”
With high fevers, “they refuse food and water and some suffocate or drown in their own saliva,” she said, adding that it is illegal to euthanize them.
Nearly 3,000 outbreaks have been recorded so far this year in Sardinia, compared to 371 last year — and the end is not yet in sight.
Bluetongue used to peak in Sardinia in August but has done so as late as November in recent years, according to the region’s veterinary research institute (IZS).
“Climatic conditions heavily influence midge populations,” the animal health division at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome told AFP.
They affect “their biting behavior and the speed of development of the virus, with climate change likely driving the virus’s expansion... and contributing to larger outbreaks.”
Cases have been reported this year in other European countries, from neighboring France to Portugal, Spain, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Bluetongue has been present in Sardinia since 2000 but Italy’s farming lobby Coldiretti says authorities are too slow each year to vaccinate the island’s flocks.
The costs of failing to rein it in are high.
A University of Bologna study last year found the 2017 outbreak, which killed 34,500 sheep, cost an estimated 30 million euros ($33 million).
That included damages suffered by farms — deaths, reduced milk yields, infertility, abortions — costs to animal health authorities and subventions paid by the region to affected farms.
“The first outbreaks occur in the same at-risk areas each year,” meaning highly targeted measures could theoretically prevent outbreaks, said Stefano Cappai from research institute IZS.
There are three variants on the island this year, two of which can be vaccinated against, with mortality rates twice as high among unvaccinated sheep.
Flocks should be vaccinated in March or April, Cappai said, but vaccines were only issued by the region in mid-June this year.
By that point, the virus had begun to spread unchecked.
Even if the vaccines had been made available earlier, some farmers fear to use them.
Others only vaccinate part of their flock, which means they fail to reach herd immunity, Cappai said.
And some farmers — like Dessi — vaccinated her flock, only for the sheep to catch the variant for which there is no vaccine yet.
Battista Cualbu, head of Coldiretti in Sardinia, who also has an outbreak on his farm, said vaccines are not enough and authorities must disinfect areas and provide midge repellents.
“It would certainly save public money because the region has to pay compensation for dead livestock (and) lost income,” he said, including less milk sold and fewer lambs for the slaughterhouse.
Compensation is set at 150 euros per sheep killed by bluetongue — a figure Coldiretti is battling to increase, although the region has failed to pay up over the past three years, Dessi said.
As temperatures fall, the case numbers are expected to decline but Dessi said the end was weeks away.
“I’ve dug three mass graves already and I fear the worst is still to come,” she said.


Survivor of rare rapid-aging disease progeria dies at 28

Sammy Basso. (Twitter @SammyBasso)
Sammy Basso. (Twitter @SammyBasso)
Updated 06 October 2024
Follow

Survivor of rare rapid-aging disease progeria dies at 28

Sammy Basso. (Twitter @SammyBasso)
  • Born in 1995 in Schio, in the northern Italian region of Veneto, Basso was diagnosed with progeria at the age of two. In 2005, he and his parents founded the Italian Progeria Association

MILAN: Sammy Basso, who was the longest living survivor of the rare genetic disease progeria, has died at the age of 28, the Italian Progeria Association said on Sunday.
Progeria, also known as Hutchinson–Gilford syndrome, causes people to age rapidly, leading them to appear older than they are, with a reduced quality of life and a life expectancy of only 13.5 years without treatment, the association’s website said.
It affects one in every 8 million people born, and has a worldwide incidence of one in every 20 million.
Born in 1995 in Schio, in the northern Italian region of Veneto, Basso was diagnosed with progeria at the age of two. In 2005, he and his parents founded the Italian Progeria Association.
He became famous through the National Geographic documentary “Sammy’s Journey,” which recounts his journey along Route 66 in the United States, from Chicago to Los Angeles, with his parents and one of his best friends, Riccardo.
“Today our light, our guide, has gone out. Thank you Sammy for making us part of this wonderful life,” the association wrote on its Instagram page.
There are only 130 recognized cases of classic progeria worldwide, of which four are in Italy.
However, the Italian Progeria Association estimated there could be as many as 350 cases as they can be difficult to trace especially in developing countries.

 


‘Russian spy’ whale likely died of infection: Norway police

‘Russian spy’ whale likely died of infection: Norway police
Updated 04 October 2024
Follow

‘Russian spy’ whale likely died of infection: Norway police

‘Russian spy’ whale likely died of infection: Norway police
  • Animal rights’ organizations NOAH and One Whale claimed the whale had been shot dead and filed a police report

OSLO: A beluga whale found dead in Norway in August, suspected by some of being a Russian spy, probably died of an infection and not gunshot wounds, Norwegian police said Friday.
Nicknamed “Hvaldimir” in a pun on the Norwegian word for whale (“hval“) and its purported ties to Moscow, the white beluga first appeared off the coast in Norway’s far-northern Finnmark region in 2019 and quickly became a celebrity in the country.
He was found dead on August 31 in a bay on Norway’s southwestern coast.
Animal rights’ organizations NOAH and One Whale claimed the whale had been shot dead and filed a police report.
The Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted an autopsy and found a 35-centimeter (14-inch) stick lodged in his mouth.
“The report concluded that the probable cause of death was a bacterial infection, possibly a result of wounds in his mouth caused by a stick that got stuck,” police official Amund Preede Revheim said in a statement on Friday.
“The stick may also have made it difficult for Hvaldimir to eat, thereby increasing the risk of infection,” he added.
Police said they had found no trace of bullets and had decided not to open an investigation.
“There is nothing in the examinations that suggests Hvaldimir was killed illegally,” Preede Revheim said.
When Hvaldimir was found in 2019, Norwegian marine biologists removed a man-made harness with a mount suited for an action camera and the words “Equipment St. Petersburg” printed in English on the plastic clasps.
The whale appeared to be accustomed to humans.
Norwegian officials said the whale might have escaped an enclosure and been trained by the Russian navy.
Moscow has never made any official response to claims the whale could be a “Russian spy.”


Stranded killer whales make their way to sea in Russia

Stranded killer whales make their way to sea in Russia
Updated 04 October 2024
Follow

Stranded killer whales make their way to sea in Russia

Stranded killer whales make their way to sea in Russia

MOSCOW: A family of killer whales who were stranded in a silted estuary in the Russian Far East have made their way to the open sea after researchers directed them into deeper water, Russia’s emergencies ministry said on Friday.
The four animals, two adults and two calves, beached in the estuary on the Kamchatka Peninsula this week and researchers and volunteers had to douse them with water at one point to prevent them from dying.
After one unsuccessful rescue attempt in which they missed the narrow exit during high tide, the orcas managed to leave the estuary on Friday, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app where it also published videos of the rescue operation.
Orcas, or killer whales, belong to the sub-order of toothed whales but are also the largest member of the dolphin family, according to Whale and Dolphin Conservation.


Did this happen to me also? Korean adoptees question their past and ask how to find their families

Did this happen to me also? Korean adoptees question their past and ask how to find their families
Updated 04 October 2024
Follow

Did this happen to me also? Korean adoptees question their past and ask how to find their families

Did this happen to me also? Korean adoptees question their past and ask how to find their families
  • The investigation reported dubious child-gathering practices and fraudulent paperwork involving South Korea’s foreign adoption program

SEOUL: Dozens of South Korean adoptees, many in tears, have responded to an investigation led by The Associated Press and documented by Frontline (PBS) last week on Korean adoptions. The investigation reported dubious child-gathering practices and fraudulent paperwork involving South Korea’s foreign adoption program, which peaked in the 1970s and `80s amid huge Western demands for babies.
Here are some of the problems adoptees who responded say they faced, along with tips for finding histories and birth families.
KYLA POSTREL — Adoption paperwork tells multiple stories
Kyla Postrel’s paperwork tells two different stories, neither of which she’s sure is true.
After a DNA test last year, Postrel found a half-brother who was also adopted to the West. Comparing their paperwork made her even more skeptical of the stories they’d been told. But part of her is reluctant to keep looking “for something that may or may not exist and could be absolutely devastating.”
She has been flooded with messages from other adoptees looking for help, and tells them not to be disappointed if they can’t track down their stories.
“I just don’t want any adoptees feeling like their life is a lie,” she says. “Their life is everything that they’ve built since then.”
If her birth mother is still out there, Postrel would want her to know her daughter has had a good life.
CODY DUET — Not enough information in the file
Cody Duet, adopted to rural Louisiana in 1986, requested his full file a decade ago. He got back less than one page, saying his mother was a young factory worker, his father was unknown and there was nothing more they were required to give him.
“It was probably one of the most angry moments in my life,” Duet says. “Who are you to tell me that I don’t get to know who I am?”
He fell into a depression and couldn’t sleep. He struggled with abandonment, like he was easy to get rid of, easy not to love. But now, he wonders, was that story even true?
The AP investigation found that children were systemically listed as abandoned, even though researchers have found that the vast majority had known relatives.
Now Duet wants to resume his search. He wants to find his mother, to tell her he’s reached a point in his life that he’s proud of.
AMY McFADDEN — Some adoptees don’t know what to believe
Amy McFadden always believed what the adoption agency told her parents — that she was abandoned on a staircase at 5 weeks old.
Adopted to the United States in 1975, she’d heard stories about fraudulent adoptions, but always thought of them as one-off problems that had nothing to do with her. She’s grateful for her American life and close to her adoptive parents, and never felt the longing so many other adoptees do to reconnect with their roots.
But when she found out from the AP stories that mothers in South Korea have searched for their missing children for decades, she says, she was in shock for three days. Waves of nausea radiated over her.
She wants to submit her DNA, in case a family has been looking for her.
CALLIE CHAMBERLAIN — Not everyone has a happy ending
For Callie Chamberlain, waiting for word on whether her birth parents wanted to connect felt like standing on the edge of a cliff.
Her original documents said her mother was young, unmarried and uneducated, she says. Her full files from the South Korean agency contained a different story: Her mother was married and she was born of an affair. DNA testing showed both stories were untrue, and identified her mother and father as married both back then and now.
When they connected, her mother said she’d nearly died giving birth. The family was poor. Disoriented from labor and medications, her mother said she only vaguely remembered hospital staff insisting she was very sick and the child deserved a better home. The baby disappeared the next day. She lived with that shame for years, and the entire family searched for Chamberlain.
They have now invited her — and her adoptive family — with open arms. But Chamberlain has met many without such happy endings, and feels a sort of survivor’s guilt. She also questions the belief that reunions will answer all questions and make you whole.
“There is so much grief and there’s so much sorrow,” she says. “There’s this sense of death. And then there’s also so much that gets to be born. It’s an ancestral sorrow that I can feel sometimes, like this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
She has learned of a Korean cultural concept called “han,” an existential and endless grief, born from colonization, war, poverty and the line that cleaves Korea into North and South, splitting families for generations. “That’s something we experience too,” she said. “We are Koreans.”
___
Here are some steps Korean adoptees could take to learn more about their past:
Do birth family searches
Adoptees can first request information from their adoption agencies. If they don’t get results from agencies, they can contact the South Korean government’s National Center for the Rights of the Child as a second step.
Birth searches can take months and aren’t always successful. Less than a fifth of 15,000 adoptees who have asked the government for help with family searches since 2012 have managed to reunite with relatives, according to data obtained by AP. Failures are often caused by inaccurate records or the practice of describing children as abandoned even when they had known parents.
Many adoptees also criticize the consent process for reunions. Adoption agencies and the NCRC can only use traditional mail, and only up to three times, to contact birth parents for their consent to provide personal details to adoptees and meet them. Privacy laws prevent agency and NCRC workers from accessing birth parents’ phone numbers. Still, the Korean-language adoption documents kept by South Korean agencies often have more background information than translated files sent to Western adoptive parents.
When they fail to locate birth parents, NCRC may recommend that adoptees register their DNA with South Korean police or diplomatic offices, or help them publish their stories in South Korean media.
Take a DNA test
Frustrated with search failures and unreliable records, many Korean adoptees in recent years have attempted to reconnect with their birth families through DNA. Adoptees can register their DNA with a South Korean embassy or consulate in the country where they live. They can also register their DNA with a local police station if they travel to South Korea.
DNA testing isn’t common in South Korea, and the process usually depends on whether the birth family had also been trying to find the adoptee through DNA. Once collected at diplomatic or police offices, adoptees’ genetic information is cross-checked with South Korea’s national DNA database for missing persons. When there is a match, the NCRC takes steps to arrange a reunion.
Some adoptees have also found birth relatives through commercial DNA tests popular in the West. The nonprofit group 325 Kamra helps South Korean adoptees and birth families reunite through DNA, by allowing adoptees to upload their commercial test results to a database or providing test kits.
Join adoptee and volunteer groups
There are various Facebook groups — some open, others closed for adoptees only — where adoptees talk about their lives and interactions with adoption agencies.
One of the most active pages is run by Banet, a volunteer group named after the Korean word for newborn baby clothing. The group helps adoptees search for birth families, connects them with government and police, and provides translation during meetings with Korean relatives.
Some websites are tailored to adoptees sharing the same agency, such as Paperslip, which helps adoptees placed through Korea Social Service with birth family searches and adoption document requests.
The Seoul-based nonprofit Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link assists adoptees with birth family searches as well as language education, social events and obtaining visas for employment in South Korea. KoRoot, another Seoul-based civic group, also helps adoptees searching for their families and backgrounds and runs advocacy programs.