Monkey Business

Monkeys making tools.  What’s next, using them?  And, then before you know it they are our overlords.

Scientists saw a group of capuchin monkeys making stone flakes, an important type of early tool. It's not clear the monkeys knew what they were making, but nonetheless, it might prompt researchers to be more cautious when they come across ancient sites where similar tools are usually attributed to early humans.

You make a flake by whacking two rocks together. It has to be a kind of rock that breaks in a certain way, and you have to hit one rock on another rock to break flakes off the striking rock. The flake is shaped kind of like a scallop shell. Hold it carefully and you've got a knife.

Source: M. Haslam and the Primate Archaeology Group/University of Oxford/Nature

Save Every Patch of Ground

The battle against invasive insects and plants is being waged at one of the most beautiful botanical gardens in the world – the Cornell Plantations in New York.

John Menard

Cornell University in Ithaca, New York is home to one of the state’s largest and most prominent botanical gardens, the Cornell Plantations. Created in the mid-19th century as a part of the university’s dedication to the natural sciences, the Plantations consists of a 100-acre arboretum, 25 acres of gardens, and over 4,000 acres of nature preserves.

Unfortunately, an influx of invasive species has put many of the Plantations’ over 40 natural areas in jeopardy. Newly introduced non-indigenous species can compete with and consume native plants and animals, dramatically reducing biodiversity in the Plantations. Invasive insects are especially dangerous, as their consumption of native plants could potentially lead to the extinction of trees and flowers that have been housed at the Plantations for over a century.

Conservation vs Slaughter - The US Election

Hillary Clinton has been in awe of elephants since a trip to Africa nearly 20 years ago.  As Secretary of State she pushed an aggressive conservation agenda for the Obama Administration and implemented an $80 million anti-poaching program through the Clinton Global Initiative.  She is committed to wildlife conservation.

“I love the way…the matriarch of the family looks for everybody, I just have such a sense of connection to elephants and it just breaks my heart that they are being poached and murdered and babies being left to fend for themselves,” Clinton said on a portion of the show that only aired on Facebook.

Clinton’s affinity for elephants is not widely known or reported. But during her tenure as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, she helped bring the issue of global wildlife trafficking out of obscurity.

“International criminal syndicates are orchestrating the slaughter of many of the world’s iconic wildlife species and profiteering by marketing ivory, rhinoceros horn, and other wildlife parts in the U.S., Asia, and Europe,” said Jorge Silva, a spokesperson for the Clinton Campaign. “Many of the criminal syndicates have ties with, and are helping to fund, terrorist groups around the world, and also are engaged in human, drug, and arms trafficking.”

When asked for input regarding Donald Trump position on elephant conservation The Guardian got no response.  Of course, you could infer the Trump position on conservation from this photo of his namesake son, taken just after Trump Junior had shot and killed an elephant. 

 The Trump campaign did not respond to repeated requests for its position on elephant conservation or the global wildlife trade, but its website mentions neither. This is not surprising given the website lists very few positions regarding any environmental issues, including making no mention of climate change – although Donald Trump has claimed that climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese.

In 2012, media leaked photos of Donald Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, taken during a big game hunt safari in Zimbabwe. In one image, Donald Trump Jr. stands next to an elephant he shot to death and holds up its severed tail. Cutting off an elephant’s tail is traditional in some African cultures where the hair is made into a bracelet.

Huggin and Freki

The sense of wonder that the wild world provides us makes up for many things that are missing in the modern, technically oriented world.  Below is a bit excerpted from a one-off blog that both discusses the relationship of wolves and ravens in nature and in the symbolic representations of those animals by humans in mythology and religion.   Read the whole post, it is worth the time.

Some zoologists speculate that the raven's relationship with wolves may be because of their psychological make-up. Dr. L. David Mech wrote in "The Wolf: The Ecology and Behaviour of an Endangered Species": "It appears that the wolf and the raven have reached an adjustment in their relationships such that each creature is rewarded in some way by the presence of the other and that each is fully aware of the other's capabilities. Both species are extremely social, so they must possess the psychological mechanisms necessary for forming social attachments. Perhaps in some way individuals of each species have included members of the other in their social group and have formed bonds with them."

Wolves and ravens have long been connected in folklore and fact. The Nordic God Odin is often represented sitting on his throne, flanked by his two wolves Geri and Freki and two ravens Huggin and Munin. Tales of hunting interaction involving wolves, ravens and humans figure prominently in the storytelling of Tlingit and Inuit, Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, with the ravens appearing as form-changing wise guys and tricksters, taking advantage of both humans and wolves.

h/t  Avicultural Society of America San Diego

Send in the Drones

Drones are becoming a “go-to” tool for conservationists.  Cheaper and much more flexible than fixed wing aircraft or helicopters, drones are being used to counter poachers and for field observation.

Thanks to drones, researchers are helping the southern right whale make a comeback while keeping an eye on the effects of climate change.  Researchers from Murdoch University, supported by WWF Australia, are monitoring the whales as they breed in the Great Australian Bight in the country's south.

Fredrik Christiansen, a researcher at Murdoch University, told Mashable southern right whale populations are recovering, albeit slowly. In Australia, they are thought to number only around 3,500.

When the whales visit Australia, they typically breed and aggregate along the south coast of the country from late May to late October. That gives scientists the opportunity to use drones to monitor their health.

Ultimately, the team hope to discover how climate change will affect the whales. For example, how krill production in their Antarctic feeding ground — the abundance of which will likely be impacted by the rise in sea temperature and receding sea ice — will affect their condition once they arrive in Australia.

TripAdvisor Says No

TripAdvisor will no longer book travel to destinations that encourage direct human contact with wild or endangered animals.

The world’s largest travel website has banned destinations which encourage contact with wild or endangered animals. The company is also implementing an educational portal with information on animal welfare practices and advice and opinion from conservation charities. It’s a laudable step, but it’s still not enough to counter the cruel and exploitative practices encouraged by the tourism business.

We see it all the time. Your friends on Facebook riding an elephant in Thailand. That guy swimming and touching dolphins. The tiger petting “sanctuaries.” People love to be in contact with wild animals, and tourism businesses want to capitalize on that. The human-wild animal interaction has never been so readily available – all you have to do is pay up, and you can do it. Whether it’s petting tigers, riding elephants or whatever, you can do it for the right price. Naturally, this isn’t helping anyone.

Conservationists and biologists have long campaigned against this type of interactions, due to the stress and potential damage it has on the animals. This also leads to the creation of many so-called sanctuaries, which in fact are just places where animals are kept in miserable conditions solely for the purpose of making money. Is that what you would want in your vacation? TripAdvisor says no.

Birds Got Rhythm

Where did the harmony and composition skill of birds come from, and did we learn about music from them?

Perching birds are like nature’s choir, raising their voice to the tune of life, along with the clicks of crickets, the howl of wolves, the choirs of fish. But there’s more to a bird’s chirps and whistles than meets the eye. Some species of birds push the envelope and literally act musically. For instance, the pied butcherbird’s tuneful behaviour rivals that of professional human musicians, a new paper concludes.

According to the researchers, the more complex a bird’s repertoire, the better it is at singing in time, rhythmically interacting with other birds more skillfully than those birds who only knew a few songs. The most skillful birds extensively play around with their tunes, balancing repetition and variation. It’s not all that different from a jazz musician, said Constance Scharff, a co-author who directs the animal behavior laboratory at the Freie Universität Berlin.