Download The Predator 2018 NEW!
Sumiko Fagnoni
In 2004, a Predator mothership arrives in Earth orbit to draw humans to an ancient Predator training ground on Bouvetøya, an island about one thousand miles north of Antarctica. A buried pyramid giving off a "heat bloom" attracts a group of explorers led by billionaire and self-taught engineer Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen), the original founder and CEO of Weyland Industries, who unknowingly activates an Alien egg production line as a hibernating Alien Queen is awakened within the pyramid. Three Predators descend to the planet and enter the structure, killing all humans in their way with the intention of hunting the newly formed Aliens, while the scattered explorers are captured alive by Aliens and implanted with embryos. Two Predators die in the ensuing battle with an Alien, while the third allies itself with the lone surviving human, Alexa "Lex" Woods (Sanaa Lathan), while making their way out of the pyramid as it is destroyed by the Predator's wrist bomb and eventually does battle with the escaped Alien Queen on the surface. The Queen is defeated by being dragged down by a water tower into the dark depths of the frozen sea, but not before she fatally wounds the last Predator. The orbiting Predator mothership uncloaks and the crew retrieves the fallen Predator. A Predator elder gives Lex a spear as a sign of respect, and then departs. Once in orbit it is revealed that an Alien Chestburster was present within the corpse, thus a predator/alien hybrid is born.
The SVP commitment process begins at least 270 days prior to a convicted sex offender's release from incarceration in the South Carolina Department of Corrections, the South Carolina Department of Mental health, or the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. If there is probable cause to believe the offender is a sexually violent predator, a judge may order a psychiatric evaluation of the offender to be completed by a court-appointed evaluator. Offenders committed under the Act are confined to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health's custody and receive treatment in a separate and secure facility for long-term control, care, and treatment.
July 2022 - In this era of endlessly awful headlines, we're pleased to report that the barbaric body within the USDA misnamed "Wildlife Services" is being forced to follow the best available science in many protected areas in Idaho for several more years, and possibly longer! Thanks to a settlement agreement reached last week with conservation groups, restrictions on killing of native predators on protected public lands have been extended to the end of 2024, when Wildlife Services must complete a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). READ MORE
We took out a full-page ad in the Seattle Times, which you can see our executive director, Brooks Fahy, holding at left. The ad was part of a month-long print, web and social media campaign designed to jolt the public into awareness of how their tax money is being spent--on an unjust and counterproductive slaughter of our essential apex predators (whose favored diet, mind you, is not cows!).
Meanwhile, the EPA has ignored the will of the people and reauthorized sodium cyanide use in M-44s, endangering the public good, pets and wildlife in the 13 states where these deadly and indiscriminate devices are still used. Over 99% of the public who commented before the EPA's decision agree with us that M-44s can never be used safely for predator control and must be banned nationwide. Our work continues at the federal, state and local levels. Learn more
June 2018 - This incredibly good news simply must be shared! A federal court has ruled that Wildlife Services' barbaric wildlife-killing program in Idaho ignores science and fails to properly analyze how killing thousands of coyotes and other predators each year could impact the environment.
The USDA Wildlife Services predator control program is the only federal program that kills native predators at the request of ranchers and state wildlife management agencies. They use indiscriminate methods that also endanger humans and pets. This program is a primary focus of our legislative work. About USDA Wildlife Services
The goal of this project is to comprehensively examine factors that could impact deer survival and deer population growth in southern Wisconsin. Those include CWD, predation, habitat suitability and hunter harvest. Simultaneous studies will take place in areas with differing rates of CWD infection, which will help the agency better understand how CWD may or may not be interacting with other factors that ultimately impact the deer herd. Uniquely, this study will directly estimate the abundance and distribution of deer predators (bobcats and coyotes) within the study areas and will examine their impact on deer survival and behavior.
WDFW scientists are collaborating with professors and graduate students from the University of Washington (UW) on this project, focusing their efforts in two study areas with varying levels of wolf presence. Those areas are in Stevens, Pend Oreille, and Okanogan counties. Within these study areas, researchers are outfitting deer, elk, wolves, cougars, coyotes, and bobcats with GPS radio collars to obtain information on the survival, sources of mortality, productivity, movements, distribution, and resource use of both predators and prey. Researchers are also deploying motion-sensing cameras and audio recorders to collect information on the behavior, interactions, and activity of predators and prey across space and time, and to test the utility of these non-invasive techniques to survey predator and prey populations,
Washington has some of the strongest sex offender registration and notification laws in the nation and was the first state to implement involuntary civil commitment for the most dangerous sexual predators.
Every year about 1,000 sex offenders return to the community upon completion of their criminal sentences. Before their release, Level 3 offenders undergo a review to determine whether or not they should be referred for possible civil commitment to the McNeil Island Special Commitment Center (SCC) as a sexually violent predator.
In Fiscal Year 2017, the unit tried eight cases resulting in seven new sexually violent predators being committed. One trial involved an offender who was found by the jury to not meet the criteria to be committed as a sexually violent predator.
Wolves have been the single island apex predator of moose and beaver since the late 1940s. Other large predators are absent from the island, such as bears, coyotes, and mountain lions. Wolves directly impact how many moose and beaver there are at Isle Royale National Park.
Scientists have been asking similar questions about the predator-prey relationships on Isle Royale for over sixty years. The populations of wolves, moose, and beavers have fluctuated over time. One thing is certain- their island existence is interconnected.
Lynx and coyotes have been absent from Isle Royale since the early to mid-1900s. Island presence of bears and mountain lions has not been recorded. Wolves became the single island apex predator upon their late 1940s arrival.
Although considered a relatively simple ecosystem when compared to the mainland, the relationships between moose, beaver, and wolves on Isle Royale are quite complicated. Many internal and external factors influence the populations of island predator and prey.
Internal Factors
Abundance of prey on Isle Royale is undoubtedly influenced by the number of wolves, however, many other factors impact both moose and beaver populations. In one study, wolves were demonstrated to have a larger impact on the moose population prior to a disease outbreak within the wolf population than after. In combination with decreasing populations of both moose and beaver, a likely increased amount of wolf on wolf mortality related to food shortages, and the canine parvovirus (CPV2) disease outbreak which greatly reduced the number of pups surviving into adulthood, the Isle Royale population of wolves, naïve to this strain of the virus, was significantly impacted. Dropping from 50 to 12 in just two years, this change shifted the ecosystem from one where wolves had a greater influence on the prey population, to one where climate, available forage, and other undetermined factors were more influential. The relationships between prey and predator are constantly changing and that dynamic can be influenced by any number of environmental factors.
The island ecosystem may seem simple at first glance, but relationships between island predator and prey are more complex than is readily apparent.
This graph displays how Isle Royale predator and prey populations have varied through time. The National Park Service and Michigan Technological University have collaborated to conduct the longest consecutive predator-prey study that focuses on the relationship between wolves, moose, beaver, and vegetation. Relationships among wolves, their prey, and the environment have been affected by:
Due to the wolf population decline in recent years, Isle Royale National Park decided to relocate wolves to the park in hopes to restore an apex predator in island predator-prey relationships.
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