From Dark Horse comes Lonesome Hunters: The Wolf Child, a “supernatural fantasy” comic mini-series. “Monster hunters Howard and Lupe are on their way to get rid of a powerful sword, but car trouble leaves them stranded in a small town that is being terrorized by a magical wolf and a mysterious child in a wolf mask. While waiting for car repairs, Lupe befriends the child, and she and Howard are drawn into a war between the townspeople and the deadly beasts.” Written and illustrated by Tyler Crook (Harry County).

image c. 2024 Dark Horse Comics

Well, here's one for dronon's list.

Capcom's Monster Hunter franchise has been around since 2004, and the title is self-explanatory. There are monsters. The player hunts them. These monsters aren't particularly anthropomorphic, but feature nice creature design, which furs appreciate, if the popularity of franchises like Pokémon and How to Train Your Dragon are anything to judge by.

And in Monster Hunter Rise, released in March for the Nintendo Switch, there are anthropomorphic animals in the form of the player's companions and helpers on the hunt, Palicoes and Palamutes. The former are cats who perform a variety of roles; while the latter are dogs, not anthro in form but probably sentient - though they are, well, mute. Together, they fight monsters!

It’s known as Posledny Autobus, which translates as The Last Bus. It was created in the Slovac Republic by Martin Snopek and Ivana Laucikova. It features human actors wearing animal heads, animated in stop motion. And here’s its description: “It’s the start of the hunting season. The animals of the forest board a small bus and flee to safety. When hunters stop the bus in the middle of the night, its passengers reveal their true natures in fear for their lives.” We don’t know what else we can tell you about this, other than to show you this little clip from Vimeo. This short film has already won several film festival awards in Europe.

image c. 2012 Martin Snopek, Ivana Laucikova

Two young German Shepherds, year-and-a-half old Devaki and Makita, were shot and killed on November 12. Co-owners Shannon Hautala, Gary Kuoppala and Alexis Gunderson spoke with the press.

The owners were doing chores on their farm in Clinton Township, Iron Range, Minnesota.

The dogs ducked under a fence and ran into the woods. The owners started calling for the dogs as soon as they went out of sight. Hautala said she heard gunshots shortly afterwards.

The next morning, Hautala found the dogs dead near a hunting stand on the adjoining property. Hautala said the hunters admitted to her they had shot the dogs. Kuoppala said:

All they said is they can shoot anything that comes on their land and if the dogs come on their land, they can shoot them.

Matthew Scully is an unusual proponent of animal rights, coming from the Christian-favoured, U.S. Republican party. Indeed, he speaks about people automatically assuming he is on the side of hunters and pig 'farmers' when, in fact, he has been a vegetarian for over 30 years.

While Scully does support animal rights, he makes that stand from a generally religious perspective, arguing that current treatment of animals is an abuse of god-given dominion, and disagreeing with the secular reasoning of animal rights proponents like Peter Singer.

Scully's ability is shown when coming to the main thrust of his book, where he writes about animals, how they are treated and how they should be treated. He is an excellent writer (a former speechwriter for then-president George W. Bush), and a dutiful investigator, travelling to most of the places about which he writes.

Time blogger Bryan Walsh gives his account and opinions on a recent video released by Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons. The video was taken from Zimbabwe, where Parsons had shot and killed an elephant while handing out GoDaddy swag to local residents.

While Bob Parsons defended his actions, stating that the elephant was a menace to the locals and ruined crops, animal rights groups have called the actions deplorable. PETA responded to the action by handing out their first ever "Scummiest CEO of the year" award, claiming that there are "many humane ways to keep elephants away from crops."

A Michigan man has been sentenced by the St. Ignace District Court to serve a year in jail – with a mandatory 90 days in prison – and pay US$5090 in restitution and fines, after having been found guilty of shooting three wolves. 58-year-old William Hayward of Bay City, MI plead guilty to shooting three wolves in Mackinac County, and destroying tracking collars that two of the wolves wore. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment is investigating separate wolf poachings in Chippewa and Luce counties, also in the eastern portion of the Upper Peninsula. Courtesy: WDIV-TV Local 4 (ClickOnDetroit.com) and the Associated Press

Update: Michigan DNRE is continuing its investigation. [WDIV-TV Local 4 (ClickOnDetroit.com)]

Larry, a four-year-old tabby cat, become the newest Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office this Tuesday. His duty is to suppress the rats that have been sighted in Downing Street in recent weeks.

Previously, Larry lived as a stray and was recruited from Battersea Dogs and Cats' home. Larry was recommended as the mouser as he showed "a high chase-drive and hunting instinct". Although an official spokesman described him as 'easygoing', Larry proceeded to scratch reporters who tried to do a story on him.

The first Chief Mouser was Treasury Bill in 1924. The position has been held by a number of cats over the years, although the position has been vacant since Sybil left it in 2008.

In an ironic twist of fate that seems straight out of fiction, a hunter in the Eastern European country of Belarus was reportedly shot with his own gun by a fox he was hunting.

The "fantastic" fox involved happened to pull the trigger of the hunter's rifle at the right moment, when the hunter tried to finish it off with the butt of the rifle. The hunter is recovering in a hospital from a gunshot wound to the leg, while the fox, though previously injured in the ordeal, has retreated to the woods.

An animal rights activist has been convicted under hunting law after interfering with state wildlife biologists, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports. Susan Kehoe was found guilty after preventing Division of Fish and Wildlife personnel from tranquilizing a black bear to change its radio collar.

Kehoe, who is 60, was also convicted of resisting arrest after refusing to put her hands behind her back. Judges ruled her defense of arm surgery in 1999 unconvincing given her practice of hiking and climbing with recording equipment.

Unlike wolves in the continental US, Alaska wolves are not protected by the Endangered Species Act. Some people hunt Alaska wolves solely to increase the number of prey species that can also be hunted, which helps tourism.

Alaska as a whole has voted twice to ban the mass-killing of wolves via aerial shooting, where hunters divebomb packs of wolves, chase them until they tire, and shoot them from the air. But last June the governor of Alaska signed a bill to allow it anyway. The practice is about to be expanded to cover a larger area, and may soon include bears as well.

You may visit this link to learn more about the degree to which politicians and hunters are playing god with the ecosystem of Alaska, and what can be done about it.

Trickster

Animal-protection advocates filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block Maryland's first bear hunt in 51 years, which they said was the product of flawed science.

State wildlife managers proposed the hunt in February after more than a decade of debate. They have said the two-week hunt, which would be limited to 30 bears and would begin October 25, will help contain an increasingly troublesome resident population of black bears.

[Read Article]

From a national park on the edge of Bombay, India, leopards have killed ten people this month that has prompted forest officials to let loose pigs and rabbits to feed the big cats.

The killings are up from previous years, and six of this month's deaths occurred outside the park as leopards extended their range in search of food.

An Alaska judge has rejected an attempt by an animal rights group to stop a state-sponsored program allowing hunters to shoot wolves from airplanes in Alaska.

Full Article

There may be less than 20,000 lions now, not in a park or country, but the whole African continent. That's a drop from an estimated 200,000 lions in the early 80's. Scientists say they're not going extinct... yet. But the impact of game hunting, especially in the removal of most adult male lions from the gene pool, and pest animal control, is decimating the social structure and species survival of lions in the wild. The research team noted no instance of finding a lion in their four years in a wildlife preserve who had died of natural causes. Instead, they were "poisoned, trapped and shot".