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A trailer for the new documentary film Rodents of Unusual Size.
There are no medals to be earned for the hunters who are fighting the swamp rat takeover of southern Louisiana. Instead, their reward after waging a successful battle against the 20lb, orange-toothed critters is $5 for each severed 12-18in tail they collect.
Louisiana’s government collects the tails as proof of a kill and gives a cash payout to incentivize citizens to help the state’s efforts to rein in the swamp rats, known as nutria, whose grazing has accelerated coastal erosion of land already vulnerable to hurricanes.
With the loss of that land, so goes a way of life for the people who live in the southern Louisiana swamps, where the documentarian Chris Metzler and his fellow film-makers embedded for the film Rodents of Unusual Size.
Nutria were introduced to the region by fur traders, but when the fur industry crashed in the 1980s, so did the system for population control of swamp rats. The animals, which breed rapidly, took over the coastal wetlands, burrowing in marshes and swamps, and even levees and canals – where their grazing can seriously d...
Though the species is invasive, it’s also admired. One man in the film has a nutria pet and others participate in nutria skinning competitions. A Louisiana minor league baseball team, Baby Cakes, has a nutria mascot and the winner of the local fur festival adorns herself in a coat of the wild animal’s fur. “You would n...
For about four years, Metzler and his fellow documentarians Jeff Springer and Quinn Costello traveled to southern Louisiana, primarily during the November-to-April hunting season. They stomped through the marshes and dined on nutria. “We were able to get over the ick factor because Louisianans know how to cook,” Metzle...
That taste test was inspired by the state wilderness department’s Nutria for Human Consumption Campaign, an initiative formed in response to the overabundance of nutria. It saw celebrated chefs, including the James Beard award winner Susan Spicer, prepare the rat in barbecue, jambalaya and jerky meals.
In the film, Spicer insists the rodent does not have a swampy taste. “With rabbit, there is a stigma they are too cute. That’s not a problem with nutria,” he says.
Gonzales, an affable swamp rat hunter, lives on Delacroix Island, about 30 miles south of New Orleans. The island’s wetlands have been home to a close-knit community for 200 years, but the hurricane threat is rapidly driving residents, including his son, north of the levees.
Metzler said Gonzales declined to attend the documentary’s 15 November world premiere in New York City because he had no interest in visiting the city, but the film-makers hope to get him to a screening in Louisiana.
Gonzales concedes at the end of the film that there’s only so much hunters can do to stop the species, whose females have only a four-month gestation period, allowing for three pregnancies a year with litters of an average of five animals.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Voters are deciding whether to keep Florida under Republican control with a close Trump ally or elect its first Democratic governor since 1994 — and the first African-American ever — after a campaign marked by a deadly hurricane and gun violence.
Gillum’s path to the nomination was a surprise, winning against four better-funded challengers. Hurricane Michael pulled him off the campaign trail in early October when it left nearly all of Florida’s capital without power. He again rushed home Friday, canceling campaign events, after a man shot six people at a yoga s...
DeSantis won the primary against better-known and better-funded Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam based largely on Trump’s endorsement. Trump visited Florida twice in the final six days of the general election to try to boost turnout.
Trump’s endorsement of DeSantis is one of the reasons why Anjenys Gonzalez voted for Gillum. The 43-year-old Democrat from Miami-Dade County said protecting people’s civil rights is her most important issue.
Tarrio said he worries about Gillum’s proposed corporate tax hike.
In Miami Beach, Greg Freeman was among the first in line to cast a ballot for Gillum as the polls opened Tuesday morning. He took a red-eye flight from the West Coast to vote, and cited health care as a major issue because he has a pre-existing condition and has already seen insurance premiums sky-rocket.
“I don’t want to be in a high-risk pool,” he said.
The election — expected to be close — has the potential to shake up the political landscape in the third largest state in the country.
Many Texas gun enthusiasts are still waiting to see if March 2nd, Texas' Independence Day, will be a tax free holiday for gun sales.
House Bill 206 was first read on February 10 and is still being discussed in committee.
There are many representatives in favor of any bill that would reduce a tax burden on Texans, but many are saying this bill still needs to be looked at closely to make sure its fair.
The proposed bill was written by Republican State Representative Jeff Leach of Plano.
In additions to shotguns, handguns, and rifles...item like deer stands, archery equipment, ammunition, and gun cleaning supplies would be tax-free.
Leach has been quoted saying encouraging lawful gun ownership will benefit taxpayers and boost economic growth.
21, of Ocala, Fla.; assigned to 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; died March 10 as a result of a non-hostile incident in Saqlawiyah, Iraq.
Lance Cpl. Patrick A. Malone wanted to be a Marine throughout his childhood. But it was at the age of 11, during a visit to Camp Lejeune, where his big sister was a Marine, that the dream took root.
Malone, 21, of Ocala, Fla., was killed in a non-hostile incident March 10 in Anbar province. He was assigned to Camp Lejeune.
Even in Iraq, he was constantly online and on the phone with friends and family catching up. He sent his friend, Clare Canon, three dozen roses on Valentine’s Day.
Even on the day he died, Patrick made a flurry of calls to family members to say hello and to apologize for missing his grandmother’s birthday party.
Malone’s eclectic interests included reading philosophy and meditating. He loved adventure, too. For his 22nd birthday in May, Hopper planned to take him sky diving near her home when he came to visit during a scheduled break.
Patrick is survived by his parents, Neida and Damian.
A new What’s On in Melton Mowbray guide has been published to promote and showcase the town’s strong and growing events programme.
The booklet is produced annually by the Melton Mowbray Business Improvement District (BID), and around 35,000 copies are set to be given to residents, businesses, tourism providers and group travel operators.
Town centre manager and (BID) manager Shelagh Core said: “Events guides are being distributed to Melton Library, Melton Carnegie Museum, Dickinson and Morris, The Melton Cheeseboard, 54A King Street Coffee Shop, Miss B’s Tearooms, The Samworth Centre, Elms Cafe and Melton Borough Council.
“Key events to look out for will be the Great British Festival of Pies in March, the grand finale of British Pie Week and the Pie Awards; new Teenage Markets and first time events from last year, such as Chilli Fest, Choc Fest and Pie Fest.
The full What’s On in Melton Mowbray guide can be found on the Melton Borough Council website.
Skegness Lifeboat volunteers and the crew on the Coastguard helicopter have been praised for their teamwork in rescuing a fisherman who broke his leg in two places in a incident on board his vessel just off the Norfolk coast.
The six-strong crew of the Shannon all-weather lifeboat Joel and April Grunnill were scrambled by the UK Coastguard to help the fisherman just after midnight on Friday.
Three persons were on board the 40 foot fishing vessel operating in the Wash north of the Norfolk coast, when an incident onboard left the skipper with a leg broken in two places.
Following an assessment of the fishing vessel’s manoeuvrability it was decided that the team on the Joel and April Grunnill should first transfer the skipper to the lifeboat and then transfer to the helicopter.
Both the lifeboat crew and injured man were taken back aboard the lifeboat, and then the stretcher and helicopter crew winched back up to the aircraft and were taken for treatment at Boston’s Pilgrim Hospital.
RNLI Coxswain Richard Watson was very keen to highlight the excellent teamwork. He said: “The shout highlighted the capabilities of the Skegness RNLI lifeboat crew and their training.
“It also showed the excellent co-operation between all the agencies involved, especially the crew of the UK Coastguard rescue helicopter.
UBCCC is committed to providing exceptional child care for student and employee families of University at Buffalo, The State University of New York and families in surrounding communities.
Create a healthy, safe and welcoming center.
Provide indoor and outdoor learning environments that are developmentally appropriate and encourage children's social, emotional, physical and cognitive growth.
Respect cultural differences and similarities and gender equality.
Foster open communication between parents and teachers to maintain consistency between home and the center.
Employ qualified, motivated and diverse staff that puts children first.
Take a leadership role in issues of early learning and child care.
Our logo of a child leaping toward a star represents UBCCC as a joyful and active place where your child can reach his/her full potential. The star also represents the quality of care that UBCCC provides.
Obviously, you can't literally grow a century-old forest in just a decade, but by mimicking nature's forest-building process, it's possible to kickstart your own mini-forest.
Instead of viewing nature as something outside of our cities and neighborhoods, where forests and 'wild' spaces exist only in designated parks and preserves and "out in the country," perhaps it's high time more of us embraced and nurtured our own little section of wilderness, right in our own backyards. All too often, ...
A far better option is to mimic the way that forests grow in nature, with plenty of diversity and an abundance of soil fertility, with multiple layers of plants that serve to nurture and protect each other. That's the approach that Shubhendu Sharma takes with his mini-forests, which allows him to create "ultra-dense, b...
Sami previously wrote about how Sharma, a former industrial engineer, quit his job to pursue his vision of making afforestation a full fledged industry in its own right. Afforestation is akin to the opposite of deforestation, except that instead of focusing on reforesting former wooded areas, this process seeks to esta...
In this TED Talk, Sharma lays out his view of working with nature, not against it, in order to plant and nurture mini-forests that can increase local biodiversity, improve air quality, grow food for humans and wildlife alike, and provide shade and sanctuary in suburbs, office parks, factories, or schoolyards.
Sharma began his afforestation journey with an internship with Japanese forest expert Akira Miyawaki, who developed a methodology that can enable a forest to grow 10 times faster than normal, and has since improved and optimized this approach with his own insights through hands-on forestry projects of his own. The hype...
First, you start with soil. We identify what nutrition the soil lacks. Then we identify what species we should be growing in this soil, depending on climate. We then identify locally abundant biomass available in that region to give the soil whatever nourishment it needs. This is typically an agricultural or industrial...
Sharma's company, Afforestt, is working to "create wild, native, natural and maintenance free forests at the lowest possible cost," and is said to be working on a platform of hardware probes to analyze soil quality, which will help the company offer specific instructions for growing native forests "anywhere in the worl...
THE Department of Agriculture (DA) 7 warned swine producers, importers and feed millers to be on the lookout for the entry of the African Swine Fever (ASF) virus in Central Visayas.
DA 7 technical director Joel Elumba said they are putting into place strict precautionary measures to prevent the entry of the virus in the region.
“Central Visayas is the fifth biggest swine producer in the country,” he said.
Elumba reiterated the call to prevent the entry of any meat products from countries that already had outbreaks of the virus like South Africa, Zambia, China, Russia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Mongolia, Belgium, Hungary, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) Director Ronnie Domingo said importation of meat from those countries is banned since they released an order last August.
“It’s a deadly disease that affects swine by direct or indirect contact, and what’s alarming is that there is no vaccine for it yet. The good thing is that it doesn’t affect humans. Once the virus infiltrates the swine’s body, usually in two to 10 days, the animal will die,” Domingo said.
DA Assistant Secretary Enrico Garzon said the virus’ carrier is human movement, especially in airports.
“If any individual from China or any of the countries affected will bring infected meat and we failed to monitor it, then we will get affected by this virus. Even the baggage that they bring that has the virus on it, there’s a tendency that it could also infect our swine,” he said.
He said that footbaths are already established in ports of entry like international seaports and airports, as well as strict prohibition of all food brought by travelers from the affected countries.
“In its ideal condition, the virus can even stay active up to one year,” he said.
The Philippines is the eighth biggest swine-producing country in the world. As of October 2018, total swine population reached 13.13 million heads, figures from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Symic Biomedical announced today the selection of SBCV-030 as the clinical candidate for the company's first vascular program. In preclinical studies SBCV-030 inhibits the scarring response that occurs when a vessel is injured. Initially, clinical indications where acute inj...
"This trial will be an exciting first step for Symic to demonstrate the safety and performance of SBCV-030, our first clinical candidate coming from our proteoglycan mimetic platform," said Kenneth N. Horne, CEO of Symic Biomedical. "SBCV-030 has potential to benefit patients undergoing any vascular interventional surg...
During vascular procedures the fragile inner lining of the vessel, called the endothelium, is damaged leading to denudation. This exposes collagen in the subendothelium. Platelets bind to and are activated by the collagen, triggering a cascade that results in smooth muscle cell, or SMC, proliferation and eventually the...
Symic Biomedical is developing a new category of therapeutics that offer an exciting and biologically innovative approach to treating disease. Symic's compounds function like proteoglycans, important structural and functional macromolecules native to the ECM (extracellular matrix). The ECM is the non-cellular component...
Symic Biomedical, Inc. is a Delaware corporation and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Symic Holdings, LLC, its parent company with the strategic mandate to invest in and develop technology designed to address significant unmet medical needs critical to improved treatments. Symic Holdings, LLC also structures Symic Biomedic...
Oscar-nominated actor Margot Robbie is doing major things in her career, most recently earning a surprise SAG nod for her work in the historical film Mary Queen of Scots. But unfortunately, she has to devote a decent amount of time to fending off unsolicited questions about the future of her uterus — and Robbie has for...
Chatting with Radio Times on Tuesday, Robbie admitted that questions about whether she plans to have children have been unrelenting since she married British director Tom Ackerley in 2016. And the presumption inherent in that line of questioning has Robbie seeing red.
Robbie recently snagged the title role as Barbie in an upcoming movie about the iconic doll. She closed out 2018 by transforming herself a 16th-century monarch for Mary Queen of Scots. And she has nine other projects in various stages of production at the moment.
In other words, there’s no shortage of subject material to ask her about during interviews. The unfortunate fixation on her reproductive status goes to show that there’s still lots of work to do where women and gender tropes are concerned.
Robbie, by addressing the sexist question, is helping to further a dialogue we honestly shouldn’t even have to have in this day and age — 500 years after Elizabeth I, whom Robbie plays in Mary Queen of Scots, baffled the world by choosing not to produce an heir.
The gist of that conversation is this: Should anyone feel the urge to ask a celebrity (or any woman, really) about their reproductive choices, just don’t. Not only can it be annoying, as Robbie reinforces, but it can also venture into the territory of intrusive and even hurtful.
Mathew Ralm is disappointed he has to sell his Lake Ōkareka home but the market is right.
Ralm is moving to Hamilton for work so he's selling the house and hoping to get about $3 million at auction next month.
Ralm said he had spent a lot renovating the property.
"We probably went over our budget three or four times. But we wanted to do the property to a high standard."
The changes included a new kitchen, tiles, outdoor lighting and a 250sq m deck.
Ralm said the house was "practically new" after 18 months of renovations.
"It's done to an extremely high standard. We're really proud of work we've done on the home and it's a shame we're selling.
Ralm wasn't surprised to hear a lot of the sales over $1m had been around Rotorua lakes.
"We're really lucky to have the lakes. It doesn't feel like you live in Rotorua out here.
"We bought because we wanted a beautiful home on the lake."
The house is being auctioned on September 12 and Ralm said he decided on an auction to draw serious buyers in.
Ray White agent Summah Martin is selling the property and said it spoke for itself.
"The location is just incredible."
Ski champion Marcel Hirscher was quick to credit his team of coaches, trainers and equipment technicians for his staggering success at the Pyeongchang Olympics. After winning his second Alpine ski gold medal in as many races, this time in Sunday’s giant slalom, the 28-year-old Austrian was humble when asked what separa...
That team starts with coach Michael Pircher, who was just as quick to put the credit back on his pupil. “He’s very special,” Pircher told reporters. “He’s very focused on his skiing and very professional about every part of racing,” including, he said, nutrition, equipment and race-day preparations.
“The ski federation gave him the chance to build up his own team and he chose the right people, who he can trust,” he said.
Pircher urged Hirscher to take the most direct line possible down the relatively benign and straight course at the Yongpyong Alpine Centre on Sunday, advice that paid off with a gold. Defending Sochi giant slalom gold medalist Ted Ligety and dozens of the other 110 racers were more cautious in their runs, swinging out ...

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