Proving yet again that they are ahead of the curve in terms of a utopian
society, earlier this month the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals  (PETA) targeted a 30-year-old video game character.  In the new Nintendo 3DS game Super Mario 3D Land, the always youthful and  ever happy plumber Mario uses a fur tanuki suit to fly. PETA finds this  disgusting. According to the PETA website “When on a mission to rescue the  princess, Mario has been known to use any means necessary to defeat his  enemy—even wearing the skin of a raccoon dog to give him special powers. Tanooki  may be just a "suit" in Mario games, but in real life, tanuki are raccoon dogs  who are skinned alive for their fur. By wearing Tanooki, Mario is sending the  message that it's OK to wear fur.”

ANGLER Kevin Midmore struggled for 45 minutes to reel in what he hoped was a   world record catfish — only to find it was 1lb too light.  The fisherman, from Kent, needed the help of three pals to land the 16.5st  whopper in Mequinenza, Spain. 
But when they stuck it on the scales it came in at 234lb — just shy  of the  top weight. Unlucky Keving said: "I have come so close, now I want to go and beat it.  "I have been fishing for 35 years and this is by far the biggest fish I have  ever caught. 

NDP Leadership: Despite No Permanent Leader,Party Eyes Next Election With Gun Registry Ad        

The bill to end the long-gun registry is heading back to the House without  changes after Conservatives shot down an NDP amendment that would have kept  sniper rifles registered.  The House public safety committee went clause by clause through the bill and  voted to send it back to the House of Commons without changes. It's one of the
last steps for the bill before it proceeds to the Senate.  The committee's chair, Kevin Sorenson, will present the report Wednesday.

Swan deaths declining after years of struggle    by Marissa   Abruzzini  

Wildlife officials are cutting open thousands of dead trumpeter swans, looking  for lead pellets the size of popcorn kernels. Swans have been dying of lead
poisoning in Whatcom County in record numbers, but the deaths are starting to  decrease this year, according to a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife  report.  

Patrick Gray is a rare beast, a fisherman who trawls the choppy, black waters  along Nova Scotia’s coast for something hunted nowhere else in the world: the  porbeagle shark.  A small but feisty and inky-eyed cousin of the mako and Great White, the  porbeagle is considered an endangered species in the northwest Atlantic by the  International Union for Conservation of Nature.  This puts Gray at odds with environmentalists, who say the Canadian fishery —  small and scientifically managed though it may be — is an international
embarrassment.

DELORAINE, Man. — A gun that was used by a five-year-old   boy to accidentally shoot his four-year-old sister on a Manitoba farm was
stored  in an unlocked closet along with winter coats and wasn't equipped with a  trigger  lock, their father says. 
Dan Lachapelle said the shooting, which happened over the weekend, was a  horrible accident that could have been prevented. "I am prepared to take full responsibility for not having my guns properly
  stored," he said in an interview with The Canadian Press. "This is something   that very well could have been prevented. I know better. I took hunter safety   and I just should have had at least trigger locks on them."

Endangered whooping crane recovery suffers major setback By Randy Boswell

A major bi-national conservation effort linking the endangered whooping  crane's Canadian breeding grounds to a new experimental colony in Louisiana has  suffered a ``profound setback'' after what officials are calling the  ``thoughtless'' killing of two of the 10 reintroduced birds - allegedly by a   pair of teenagers firing gunshots from their truck along a Gulf Coast   backroad.
 

The Pemberton Wildlife Association is offering a $1,000 reward to anyone who  has information about the poaching of a grizzly bear in the Pemberton, B.C.,  area on Nov. 17. The 317-kilogram, male grizzly was shot and mutilated just off a forest   service road. Grizzly bear hunting is illegal in Pemberton because population   numbers are extremely low. A suspect has been identified and interviewed, but   conservation officers are still looking for witnesses.

A dozen environmental groups are threatening the federal government with  legal action unless it overrules two provinces and takes emergency steps to save  sage grouse.  They say the distinctive bird could be gone from Alberta within a year if  nothing is done quickly.
The threat comes in a letter sent Wednesday to federal Environment Minister Peter Kent, in which the groups say Canadian law requires Ottawa to preserve  threatened species if provincial governments aren't doing the job. "It's a legal demand letter and a clear threat of legal action down the  road," said lawyer Sean Nixon.