DAILY QUICK READ - JULY 25, 2016

“Barbaric elephant slaughter creates horror scene”

From Namibia’s Informante site.

Residents at a well-known Namibian tourist lodge on the banks of the Okavango River had to watch helplessly as a horrific slaughter of elephants played out in front of their eyes just across the border in Angola.

At least five men armed with AK-47 automatic assault rifles attacked a group of about 40 elephants grazing peacefully in the long grass along the river.

According to Hennie Burger who saw the horrific attack on the elephants the attack on the animals happened less than 150 metres from where he was standing.

“The men suddenly appeared out of the bushes on the Angolan side of the river. They started firing at the animals with the assault rifles set to full automatic and what ensued could only be described as tragic carnage. At least three elephants were mortally wounded and the noise they made was horrifying.”

Of course is this any worse than the Trump families contempt for wild creatures?

Donald Jr with tail of elephant he destroyed.

…photos quickly resurfaced of Donald Trump's sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, posing with the dead bodies of several exotic animals, including an African elephant and leopard, they had previously hunted for sport.

Speaking of Trump

Here’s a person who has no interest in anything but his own self-interest.

Donald Trump has vowed to continue fighting the windfarm development off the coast from his Aberdeenshire golf course, branding the project an act of “public vandalism”.

The US presidential candidate returned to the fray after Swedish energy company Vattenfall confirmed on Thursday that it is going ahead with its £300m investment, despite last month’s EU referendum vote.

The offshore windfarm has been dogged by years of bitter legal wrangles between Trump and the Scottish government over its impact on his golf course, which the tycoon ultimately lost in the courts last year.

A spokesperson for the Trump Organization insisted that several of planning conditions associated with the project had yet to be fully satisfied. They said that the New York-based billionaire would be lodging formal objections with Marine Scotland, as well as pursuing additional remedies before the European courts if necessary.

On Last Though on Donald Trump

He’s on the Russian payroll and wants to destroy the United States.  Or so it would seem.

Corruption Allows Poaching

Numerous African countries failing to enforce CITES provisions.  Corruption trumps (see what I did there) conservation.

Global wildlife conservationists are demanding parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered species of Wild and Fauna Flora (CITES) comply with wildlife laws.

Authors of a recent released report on the Elephant Wildlife Trade Information System, Traffic, a global network fighting ivory trade, told DW that governments were failing to submit annual reports about ivory stocks.

Tom Milliken, the Elephant and Rhino Program Leader for Traffic, said there had been an expansion of wildlife smuggling networks across Africa in which Chinese and Vietnamese nationals were working with corrupt local officials.

"They are involved in syndicates and moving ivory across Africa and then to Asia." he said.

He said that cooperation in law enforcement between the countries involved in smuggling the ivory and those where it originated could save elephants from extinction.

"If the governments of China and Vietnam were to station wildlife trade investigators who would work with Africans, we would be able to dismantle the transnational syndicates that are driving the trade." Milliken said.

What Good Are Zoos – Part Infinite

Scottish wildcats are probably hybrids, but they still carry the wildcat DNA.

Four astonishingly cute and vitally important kittens have been born at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s Highland Wildlife Park.

These aren’t just any kittens. They’re Scottish wildcats (Felis silvestris grampia), one of the rarest feline subspecies on the planet. These wildcats—also known as Highland tigers—nearly went extinct due to habitat loss, persecution by farmers and game-bird hunters, and hybridization with feral and domestic cats (F. catus). Today just a few hundred of these critically endangered tabbies live in the wild, many of which now carry hybrid genetics.

That’s where the Highland Wildlife Park comes in. As part of the Scottish Wildcat Action initiative, the park has spent the past few years helping to breed these rare animals in captivity. The new kittens—three from one litter, one from a second—represent the latest victory in that effort.

Science – Most of the World is for it

Good stuff when science and technology are turned loose.

The EuroScience Open Forum is a huge event held every two years that brings researchers, policymakers, and regular folks together to promote science and innovation. This year, Manchester will host a broad range of workshops, events, and contests.

And then in the United States.

Bill Nye “the Science Guy” worries kids are being brainwashed at Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter. Nye recently paid a visit to Ken Ham’s life-size version of Noah’s Ark. He was not pleased.

After the visit Nye expressed his frustration with the Christian fundamentalist project based on discredited science and a literal interpretation of Genesis. Noting that the Ark was an eye-catching attraction that was “much more troubling or disturbing than I thought it would be,” Nye told NBC News:

It’s all very troubling. You have hundreds of school kids there who have already been indoctrinated and who have been brainwashed.

DAILY QUICK READ - JULY 7, 2016

What Good Are Zoos – Another Reason

Small victories, but they each make a difference.  Two great zoos working to save species from extinction and plan for their reintroduction into the wild.

A hopeful new study shows the Endangered Species Act has been extremely successful in stabilizing and increasing threatened or endangered bird populations, including two Pacific Island species that have been in the care of Chicago-area institutions since the mid-1980s.

The nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity released its report titled "A Wild Success" in June. Among the findings: 85 percent of birds protected by the Endangered Species Act have recovered in the continental U.S. Populations in the Pacific Islands have also shown recovery, but to a lesser degree at 61 percent.

Roughly three decades ago, the Lincoln Park Zoo and Brookfield Zoo set up critical captive breeding populations of two bird species native to the Pacific Island of Guam – the Guam rail and Guam kingfisher. These birds “would have been lost to extinction if not for dedicated captive-propagation programs,” the report states.

The Lincoln Park Zoo currently has four Guam kingfishers and one Guam rail in captivity. There are 16 Guam kingfishers at the Brookfield Zoo.

Experimental programs to reintroduce these birds in the wild are under way, specifically on the islands of Rota and Cocos near Guam. However, the wild populations aren’t yet well established, which is why the birds are still classified as extinct in the wild by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Bionic Bugs – Tiny Terminators

This is just a bit creepy.  Explosive detecting bugs, OK.  But, what’s next – having your house bugged takes on more literal meaning.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis hope that in the future, cyborg locusts could play an important role in defense in national security.

Baranidharan Raman, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and his team are actually biologically engineering locusts to be able to detect the scent of explosives and let us know.

The project is being done under a 3-year grant funded by the Office of Naval Research.

Because locusts detect smells through their antennae, the researchers will implant electrodes into the locusts’ brains to read the electrical activity passing through their antennae. To transmit this electrical activity data, each insect will be equipped with a tiny backpack that acts as a transmitter.

Couldn’t Happen to a Better Person

Just because Donald Trump doesn’t believe in climate change doesn’t mean his estate isn’t going to be under water.

On a hot and lazy afternoon in Palm Beach, the only sign of movement is the water gently lapping at the grounds of Mar-a-Lago, the private club that is the prize of Donald Trump’s real estate acquisitions in Florida.

Trump currently dismisses climate change as a hoax invented by China, though he has quietly sought to shield real estate investments in Ireland from its effects.

But at the Republican presidential contender’s Palm Beach estate and the other properties that bear his name in south Florida, the water is already creeping up bridges and advancing on access roads, lawns and beaches because of sea-level rise, according to a risk analysis prepared for the Guardian.

In 30 years, the grounds of Mar-a-Lago could be under at least a foot of water for 210 days a year because of tidal flooding along the intracoastal water way, with the water rising past some of the cottages and bungalows, the analysis by Coastal Risk Consulting found.

Starvation Is An Option

Over fishing and climate change will have a tragic impact on nearly a billion people in the near future.

The world has to solve an impossible conundrum: the amount of fish coming out of the ocean peaked in 1996, yet the world’s population will grow to a peak of 10-billion by 2050. About half of that population will live near the Equator and will rely on fish. But, largely as a result of illegal fishing and overfishing, the food source will have plunged.

That means 845-million people will be denied this protein source and critical micronutrients, according to a report, Fall in Fish Catch Threatens Human Health, in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Previous research into the fall in fish stocks has looked at what happens when people lose their primary source of proteins.

Climate change will exacerbate the problem, according to the Harvard research. Floods and droughts are happening more often in this region. This is destroying crops on land, leaving the ocean as the last source of staple food. In these cases, the team said: “Fishing for food has become an act of desperation.”

It’s been suggested that aquaculture can be the solution for declining fish stocks. On an industrial scale, it would allow natural fish stocks to recover. But, said the researchers, developing countries do not have the resources to do this. They also found that farmed seafood ends up being sold in Europe and North America.

EU For Ivory Trade

South Africa is leading the block that wants to allow the “controlled” trade in ivory.  Most African governments are opposed to even limited trade.  Now the EU has sided with the traders.  Bad news for elephants.

Wildlife officials in nearly 30 African states say they are appalled by an EU decision to oppose a comprehensive global ban on the ivory trade.

In a position paper released on 1 July, the European commission said that rather than an all-encompassing ban it would be better to encourage countries with growing elephant numbers to “sustainably manage” their populations.

An existing global embargo on ivory sales is due to end in 2017 and Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa and Botswana are pushing for it to be replaced with a decision-making mechanism for future tusk trading, at the Convention on International Trade in International Species (Cites) conference in Johannesburg this September.

DAILY QUICK READ - JUNE 21, 2016

Leopards Got to Eat, Too

Stony Point is one of the bright spots in the effort to save African penguins from extinction.   It is the largest breeding colony for the penguins and through diligent conservation the number of breeding pairs has doubled in the last 20 years to over 2000.  Success does have a downside and the recent leopard attack has resulted in increased diligence from the CapeNature conservancy.

CapeNature has proactively increased nocturnal patrols and has introduced additional scent deterrents at the Stony Point penguin colony in Betty’s Bay after a leopard regrettably killed 33 endangered African penguins during a single visit.

On Saturday 11 June 2016 the leopard was spotted near the colony where it killed 33 birds and left one injured. A surviving chick and five penguin eggs were also found at empty nest sites in the area.

The injured penguin, chick and eggs, were sent to the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) for rehabilitation, rearing and incubation. SANCCOB confirmed the wounds on the birds were consistent with those caused by a leopard.

Following the incident, CapeNature has been conducting daytime vigilance and nocturnal patrols at the colony by using scent deterrents such as lion scat and pepper spray to discourage the leopard from returning to the site. Dog patrols are conducted randomly to aid in defensive scent marking, while camera traps have been set up in locations to remotely monitor occurrences.

Blackfish is Propaganda

“What Freedom Could Look Like for SeaWorld’s Killer Whales” – is a bogus headline.  The war against Sea World continues even after the last battle has been won.  The forces that decimated Sea World with propaganda now want to set Sea World’s killer whales free.  Well, not really free.  They want them in contained ocean cages.  And, only the few whales actually born in the wild. 

“Welcome to Double Bay,” the marine mammal scientist, who has studied captive and wild killer whales for decades, said with a smile. “This, I think, would be a terrific home for Corky.”

As I survey the serene swath of wilderness, I find it hard not to agree. Corky the killer whale is one of the star performers at faraway SeaWorld in San Diego. In 1969, at around age four, the orca was snatched from her family (which still patrols this area each summer) in a notorious roundup in Pender Harbor, on the British Columbian mainland. Six whales were removed from their pod and sold to theme parks and aquariums, hungry for more of the crowd-pleasing ticket sellers. Now, nearly 47 years later, Corky is the longest-held captive orca.

It takes to page two or three of this article to discover that this massively expensive enterprise is only for one or two whales.  More or less this is a vanity project for the agitators of Blackfish.

Retiring captive animals to a seaside sanctuary for the rest of their lives—while complicated and expensive—is one thing. Rehabilitating them for return to the sea is quite another.

Although many people would like to see that happen, captive-born whales and dolphins are poor candidates for such release. Not only do they have no experience in the wild, but they have no families with which to reunite. They might learn to catch food, but without a social group to join they could become solitary social misfits. Though it’s possible to release captive-bred animals, it would not necessarily be ethical or sound.

“I seriously doubt we could teach them how to be normal in a social setting,” Rose said, even though solitary whales and dolphins have been documented in the wild. “The arrogance of thinking we can teach a captive-bred whale or dolphin how to be a wild, competent adult is pretty outrageous.”

Animals obtained from the ocean are better candidates for release. Hundreds of dolphins and several pilot whales and false killer whales (members of the dolphin family) held in tanks around the world were taken from places such as Russia, Korea, the Solomon Islands, Cuba and Taiji, Japan. There are also scores of wild-caught beluga whales, mostly from Russian waters.

Of the 56 orcas in captivity, only a small number were taken from the ocean; the rest were bred in captivity. But knowing where the animals were captured is not the same as knowing where their families are.

What Good Are Zoos?

Question to Jane Goodall.

What does Jane Goodall think of zoos and animals living in captivity? The world’s foremost primate expert says not all zoos uphold the same standards, but if they allow animals enough room, provide a social community, and have enrichment, she “believes that many species of animals can have a reasonable – even a good – life.”

Additionally, Goodall says “being in the presence of a living, breathing animal, knowing the way it smells, looking into his or her eyes, and above all sensing its ‘being-ness’ can be a life changing experience” for a child or an adult. On top of that, Jane points out that the wild isn’t helping animals in certain regions of the world. She said that “we have to realize that life in the wild, in many parts of the world today, is not providing animals with a good life.”

For instance, gorillas are hunted for bushmeat and chimpanzee infants are stolen from their mothers and sold to the exotic pet or entertainment trade. A significant amount of illegal hunting and wildlife crimes make unsustainable living for these and other wild animals.

Prairie Dogs Are Great Communicators

Researchers have discovered the rich and complex communications of what is basically a big squirrel.

You might not think it to look at them, but prairie dogs and humans actually share an important commonality -- and it's not just their complex social structures, or their habit of standing up on two feet (aww, like people). As it turns out, prairie dogs actually have one of the most sophisticated forms of vocal communication in the natural world, really not so unlike our own.

After more than 25 years of studying the calls of prairie dog in the field, one researcher managed to decode just what these animals are saying. And the results show that prairie dogs aren't only extremely effective communicators, they also pay close attention to detail.

According to Dr. Con Slobodchikoff, who turned his vocalization analysis on the Gunnison's prairie dog of Arizona and New Mexico, the chirps these animals use as 'alert calls' are actually word-like packages of information to share with the rest of the colony. Amazingly, these unique sounds were found to both identify specific threats by species, such as hawks and coyotes, and to point out descriptive information about their appearance.