Alaska bans hunting with drones
Human Interest News — Posted on April 7, 2014
Alaska bans hunting with drones after moose shooting
Hunting animals with drones will be illegal in Alaska from later this year after troopers warned that cheap, camera-equipped aircraft have already been used to help shoot a moose.
The seven members of the Alaska Board of Game unanimously voted to ban hunters from using unmanned aircraft to spot prey. They fear that live camera feeds relayed to the ground will enable hunters to peer over trees and other obstacles and give them an even larger unfair advantage.
Alaska Wildlife Troopers had brought the issue to the attention of the board after hearing about an incident in 2012 where a drone was used to track a moose which hunters later killed.
Captain Bernard Chastain, operations commander for the Wildlife Troopers, told the Anchorage Daily News: “Under hunting regulations, unless it specifically says that it’s illegal, you’re allowed to do it. What happens a lot of times is technology gets way ahead of regulations, and the hunting regulations don’t get a chance to catch up for quite a while.
“I think more than anything, the change in the law represents thoughts that we’ve heard for several years, and based upon how the regulations are written, we had to take an affirmative step to make those illegal.
“Other people don’t have a fair opportunity to take game if somebody else is able to do that. On the biology side, if you make it too easy to take animals, then there’s not opportunity for everybody else out there, because they can only allow so many animals to be taken.”
The vote will likely pass into law on July 1 after being reviewed by the Department of Law.
Vietnamese children cross river in plastic bags to reach school
Footage has emerged of a man helping primary school pupils cross a river in full flood by putting them in a plastic bag.
The bizarre school run was filmed by a teacher in Sam Lang village, Dien Bien Province, near Hanoi in northern Vietnam.
In this incredible clip, a man can be seen carefully wrapping up each child in a plastic bag before launching himself neck deep into the raging torrent.
Once at the other side the perfectly dry child is then unwrapped by the man who returns for more.
Tong Thi Minh, a teacher at a village preschool, filmed the perilous journey last year on her mobile phone when the nearby suspension bridge was out of use because of the floods.
Miss Minh told Vietnamese newspaper tuoi tre news: “It’s normal. That’s the only way to cross the stream because no bridge can stand floodwater.
“I’ve taught here since September last year. At first, I did not know how to ford the stream so I had to follow what local villagers did later.”
According to Miss Minh, many parents in the village also bring their children to school that way to keep their uniforms dry when the area is flooded.
Watch a video below:
Shark takes Florida kayaker for two-hour ride
A hammerhead shark has dragged a US college student in his kayak up the Atlantic coast for a two-hour “South Florida sleigh ride” that the kayaker taped with a head-mounted camera and posted on YouTube.
Mr Fisk said that the ride started out smoothly but turned frightening when the shark twice reversed course Photo: JP Zegarra/Caters
Adam Fisk, 22, posted a five-minute clip of his adventure titled “Lone Man Gets Towed for Miles in Kayak by 11 Foot Hammerhead Shark.”
At one point, Mr Fisk dunked the camera into the water and recorded the shark swimming ahead of the kayak.
A student at Florida Atlantic University, Mr Fisk set out in a kayak on Sunday with several poles to go fishing before the shark took his bait near Boynton Beach, Florida.
“I threw my bait out and went to reel my other one in so I wouldn’t get tangled, and I just had time to pick up the rod before the other one already got picked up by that hammer,” Mr Fisk wrote on the YouTube site.
“It must have been sitting right under me and I had no idea.”
Mr Fisk is a member of Team Rebel Fishing, a group of extreme anglers, according to its website. The group estimated Mr Fisk was dragged by the shark for 12 miles.
Mr Fisk said that the ride started out smoothly but turned frightening when the shark twice reversed course.
“It would do a 180-degree turn and come straight back at me and that really scared me because I couldn’t see it and I didn’t know if it was coming to bite me,” he said.
Mr Fisk said he turned his kayak around until the line got taut and the shark began pulling again. He said the shark took him out to sea and around in circles, ending at Lake Worth, Florida.
“Hooked a hammerhead in 50ft of water and got drug out to 250ft,” Mr Fisk posted in his Facebook account of the ride under the headline, “I took a South Florida sleigh ride today and I aint talkin Santa Claus.”
From London’s Daily Telegraph and The Independent.