عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

Australian Senator Wields Dead Salmon in Parliament to Protest Farming Laws 

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young speaks on the Government’s salmon farming legislation in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, 25 March 2025. (EPA) 
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young speaks on the Government’s salmon farming legislation in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, 25 March 2025. (EPA) 
TT
20
TT

Australian Senator Wields Dead Salmon in Parliament to Protest Farming Laws 

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young speaks on the Government’s salmon farming legislation in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, 25 March 2025. (EPA) 
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young speaks on the Government’s salmon farming legislation in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, 25 March 2025. (EPA) 

An Australian senator pulled out a large, dead fish in Parliament on Wednesday to protest the government's proposed laws that would safeguard controversial salmon farms in a heritage-listed inlet in the state of Tasmania.

The bill is being debated by the Senate, where it is expected to pass in the final days of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government ahead of a general election due by May.

Criticizing the bill during parliamentary question time on Wednesday, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young accused the government of "gutting" environmental protections to support a "toxic, polluting salmon industry".

She produced a whole dead salmon in a plastic bag while asking Labor senator Jenny McAllister, representing the Environment Minister, "On the eve of the election, have you sold out your environmental credentials for a rotten, stinking extinction salmon?"

After some commotion and Senate president Sue Lines asking Hanson-Young to remove "the prop", McAllister replied: "My view is Australians deserve better from their public representative than stunts".

The proposed laws would guarantee salmon farming in the world-heritage-listed Macquarie Harbor on Tasmania's west coast and reduce the ability of the public to challenge approvals.

Albanese's Labor party has maintained the bill is necessary to protect jobs in Tasmania's salmon farming industry.

But environmental groups and the Green party are concerned about the nutrient and chemical pollution caused by the industry, and its effects on marine wildlife including the rare Maugean skate, only found in the Macquarie and Bathurst Harbors in Tasmania.

Most Viewed

 
Varieties

Killer Whales Found Sharing Food with Humans

FILE - Whales swim past as a fisherman stands in his boat at Boat Harbour north of Sydney, Australia, on June 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mark Baker,File)
FILE - Whales swim past as a fisherman stands in his boat at Boat Harbour north of Sydney, Australia, on June 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mark Baker,File)
TT
20
TT

Killer Whales Found Sharing Food with Humans

FILE - Whales swim past as a fisherman stands in his boat at Boat Harbour north of Sydney, Australia, on June 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mark Baker,File)
FILE - Whales swim past as a fisherman stands in his boat at Boat Harbour north of Sydney, Australia, on June 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mark Baker,File)

Killer whales sometimes offer to share their prey with people, a new study finds, hinting that some intelligent orcas may be attempting to develop relationships with humans.

Pet animals such as cats sometimes leave prey at their owner’s feet or doorstep, often as a display of affection or as a sense of sharing food with “family.”

But such behavior hadn’t been documented among animals in the wild. Until now, that is.

The new study documenting orcas offering food to humans in the wild challenges assumptions about animal social behavior, revealing a poorly understood interplay between marine mammals and humans that’s playful and social.

In the new study, published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, and reported by The Independent newspaper, researchers from Canada, New Zealand, and Mexico document 34 interactions over two decades involving orcas attempting to offer food to humans. These incidents took place across the world, in the oceans off California, New Zealand, Norway, and Patagonia.

“Orcas often share food with each other. It’s a prosocial activity and a way that they build relationships with each other,” study lead author Jared Towers said. “That they also share with humans may show their interest in relating to us as well.”

The researchers analyzed each of the 34 instances of food sharing and found that people were in the water when the orcas approached them on 11 occasions. In 21 instances the humans were on boats and in two instances they were on the shore.

In each of these cases, the killer whales approached the people on their own and dropped their prey in front of them. “This behavior may represent some of the first accounts of a wild predator intentionally using prey, and other items, to directly explore human behavior,” the researchers wrote.

“These features all suggest that killer whales possess the capacity and motivation to share for multiple reasons which could include short– or long-term tangible, intellectual, or emotional benefits, none of which are mutually exclusive.”

The researchers also found that the orcas waited around to see what would happen after they made the offering to humans in all but one instance.

The marine mammals also tried to be persuasive, offering the food more than once in seven cases after the people initially refused it.

Since orcas are intelligent and social animals, the researchers suspect food sharing may be a way to build relationships with kin and unrelated individuals.

As the killer whales often hunt large prey, they have food to spare.

“Offering items to humans could simultaneously include opportunities for killer whales to practice learned cultural behavior, explore or play and, in so doing, learn about, manipulate or develop relationships with us,” the study said.

The study also showed that, “Given the advanced cognitive abilities and social, cooperative nature of this species, we assume that any or all these explanations for, and outcomes of such behavior are possible.”