By Chad Love

California Game and Fish Commission President Dan Richards, who is being pressured to resign for going on a perfectly legal Idaho mountain lion hunt says he won't step down.

From this story on mercurynews.com:

The embattled president of California's Fish and Game Commission pushed back at his critics Tuesday, telling them he did nothing wrong by killing a mountain lion on a big game hunt in Idaho. And he vowed not to resign."While I respect our Fish and Game rules and regulations, my 100 percent legal activity outside of California, or anyone else's for that matter, is none of your business," Dan Richards wrote in a letter to state lawmakers calling for his ouster. Richards also wrote that "contrary to so many erroneous reports," he didn't use a high-powered rifle and "we did dine on Mountain Lion for dinner" that night.

In recent days, 40 Democratic Assembly members and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom have sent letters asking Richards to resign. They've accused him of thumbing his nose at California voters who have banned mountain lion hunting twice at the ballot box, in 1990 and 1996.

By Chad Love

With the advent of small, sophisticated, easy to use, high-quality video cameras, hunters and anglers are increasingly using the medium to record their outdoor activities; everything from fishing trips and hunting trips to dog training sessions to simple walks in the woods.

And, of course, you want to share these experiences with others, so you post your videos to YouTube, right? But you better be careful with what you post, because that meadowlark or bobwhite quail singing in the background? Yeah, that might be "copyrighted material," at least according to some company called Rumblefish.

From this story on Boingboing:

Rumblefish, a company notorious for sending copyright takedown notices to YouTube alleging copyright violations in videos' soundtracks, demanded removal of a video whose audio consists entirely of ambient birdsong recorded during a walk in the woods. When the video's creator objected, Rumblefish repeated its accusation, and Google added the notation "These content owners have reviewed your video and confirmed their claims to some or all of its content: Entity: rumblefish Content Type: Sound Recording."

By Chad Love

Proving that no one is above the law when it comes to illegally keeping exotic wildlife, Tarzan, King of the Jungle (ret.) was recently arrested and charged with unlawfully owning three big cats.

From this story in the Palm Beach Post:

Former Tarzan movie actor Steve Sipek was released from jail this afternoon after authorities arrested him on misdemeanor charges related to the two tigers and one leopard he kept on his property.

While he was being processed at the jail, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission investigators sedated and removed the cats from Sipek's property in the 3300 block of C Road. Sipek's USDA permit to keep the three large cats at a Loxahatchee facility that he maintains with Melanie Boynes has been revoked, said FWC spokesman Jorge Pino. Sipek now faces misdemeanor charges of possession of a Class 1 animal without a USDA permit and possession of a Class 1 animal as a pet. No one else was on the property.